Donald Trump

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

38 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said:

I agree. There's so much of this that is parallel to, or reminiscent of, Obama's selective enforcement of federal law, it's hard to see Drumpf as ruling as anything other than yet another statist thug (politician) indulging his own personal preferences as to what goes and what stays, what gets enforced and what gets ignored. Constitutional oath of office? WTF is that? Mere words you utter before being given the keys to the People's Palace.

Roger,

I partially agree, but this is due to a perspective.

The way a businessman sees what is happening, the USA is losing its sovereignty.

It's like the Titanic is approaching the iceberg. And you guys are complaining that the potentially new captain will be fine with the rusty arm rails and the lousy paint job so he is unfit for the job.

It's a matter of priorities right now.

If I were the potential captain looking at the impending iceberg, I would not listen to complaints about rust and paint in that context. I would be thinking about the goddam iceberg and how to avoid the collision, or maybe what to do after the collision.

That's how I see Trump and that's how a hell of a lot of voters see him.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 minutes ago, PDS said:

That last part about Peikoff and Binswanger influencing "tens of thousands of voters" is actually pretty funny.    You're a funny guy, Peter,

If I were Hillary Clinton I would be quaking in my boots at the prospect of Harry Binswanger unleashing these young grad students to the polls.   

There will be a veritable tidal wave of repressed and bespectacled ARI fellows overrunning voting booths, with no small number of court extended deadlines to make sure the young Orthodox Objectivists are not denied their vote!

All 11 of them.  

David,

I can't stop laughing...

Dayaamm!

I don't know if Trump is going to get the Peikoff and Binswanger vote, but with the angry hoards they command at the snap of a finger, he's toast for sure if he doesn't, huh? 

 

Michael

[Selene]

24 minutes ago, PDS said:

That last part about Peikoff and Binswanger influencing "tens of thousands of voters" is actually pretty funny.    You're a funny guy, Peter,

If I were Hillary Clinton I would be quaking in my boots at the prospect of Harry Binswanger unleashing these young grad students to the polls.   

There will be a veritable tidal wave of repressed and bespectacled ARI fellows overrunning voting booths, with no small number of court extended deadlines to make sure the young Orthodox Objectivists are not denied their vote!

All 11 of them.  

Beautiful!

And they are not smart enough to acquire a photo ID from the GOVERNMENT...

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Very interesting reading from Politico:

Trump staffers face threat of blacklist: Some political operatives shy away from the billionaire for fear of being shunned by other Republicans.

Hmmmmmm...

More astuteness and "superior ground game"--this time by the establishment instead of Cruz?

In other words, blackmail and intimidation...

What a shame Trump only has "a bunch of votes," ain't it? (I'm quoting some GOP insider genius from a previous Halperin video. ) 

Michael
 

[Peter]

I think the ARI, our OL, and the AS have some sway with intellectual voters who in turn influence many more. Add in all the fans of Rand who read editorials or listen to people like Yarin when they are on Fox, and you get my supposedly hilarious reckoning of tens of thousands. Even the liberal stations will have some Randites on to balance their propaganda. It’s all about the influence. I just got another call from Ted’s folks in Texas asking for money. I think money is also available from individual Objectivist donors and PAC’s, but I just gave Ted some money about two weeks ago.

So who will be disappointed in New York? Trump? Bernie the electric eel? Bernie is saying Hilarious Hillary is “in for a shock.” If Sanders beats Hillary tonight I may go buy a few oil cans of Foster’s Lager to celebrate. If Cruz and Kasich get over 50 percent combined I may buy 3 cans, (6 times 12 equals 72 ounces of beer, while Foster's 3 times 24 equals 72 ounces so the amounts are approximately equal but the Fosters has a higher percentage of snake bite medicine.)

Douse yourself with holy water you Trump fanatics. After NY, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island are coming up next Tuesday, April 26th and Trump is projected to do very well. Choke.

Peter      

[Peter]

On Townhall, a political cartoon shows Trump holding an elephant in a head lock with a gun pointed at its head. The caption reads, “Hand me your nomination or the elephant gets it!”

Peter

Some snips from, New York Exceptionalism and Donald Trump, by Michael Barone | Apr 19, 2016: Noo Yawk. That's the state with this week's presidential primary, in which candidates who have spent time in New York recently are currently running ahead, according to polls. . . . . Trump's lead in his home state is indeed enormous. He hasn't gotten 50 percent of the vote in any primary or caucus held so far. But he has been getting over 50 percent in every poll of New York Republicans conducted since March 2015, three months before he declared his candidacy. The only state where he has gotten comparable poll numbers is in neighboring Connecticut. . . . . So New York tends to disprove my theory, unless there's something else involved -- which I think there is. Call it New York exceptionalism. It's something that goes back to colonial America. In his 1988 book "Albion's Seed," historian David Hackett Fischer showed how different parts of the British colonies were settled by people from different parts of the British Isles with distinctly different folkways: New England by Calvinists from East Anglia; the Delaware Valley by Quakers and dissenting Protestants from the English Midlands; Virginia by Anglicans from England's West Country; and the Appalachian chain by Scots-Irish from Northern Ireland and Scotland. Their folkways have persisted to this day and still are traceable in political choices. New Englanders felt the allure of Barack Obama to which the Scots-Irish were entirely immune. Virginians have been readier than Pennsylvanians to support military actions.

But as Fischer admits, his four categories don't include all Americans. African-Americans have obviously developed their own folkways. Another exception was New Netherland, now known as New York, which "combined formal toleration, social distance and inequality in high degree. ... The peculiar texture of life in New York City today still preserves qualities which existed in seventeenth-century New Amsterdam -- and Old Amsterdam as well."

. . . . It's a city that, like its son Donald Trump, loves winners -- winners like the New York Yankees, hated in much of America but loved in New York. Longtime Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and on-and-off manager Billy Martin may have been brash and boorish, but they were loved in New York. Hey, they were winners. Trump speaks in the accents and cadences of New York -- not of the ancestral rich in Manhattan but in the upward strivers and figure-out-the-angles rich of the outer boroughs and Long Island suburbs. He talks of people "waiting on line" for his rallies -- a phrase that may have puzzled most listeners who thought he was referring to computers. That's New York talk: Sophisticated New Yorkers of my acquaintance are not aware that the phrase in the rest of America is "waiting in line."

Only 23 percent of New York state voters are registered Republicans, less than half the 49 percent who are registered Democrats. Perhaps this relatively small slice of the total electorate have less social connectedness than the average New Yorkers; there's not enough data to be sure . . . .

[KorbenDallas]

33 minutes ago, Peter said:

Douse yourself with holy water you Trump fanatics. After NY, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island are coming up next Tuesday, April 26th and Trump is projected to do very well.

GOP thinks they can stop the #TrumpTrain?
They will be crushed.
✔VOTE #Trump2016 #NY#NYPrimary#WomenForTrump#MAGA pic.twitter.com/DwzLkTmk43

— Linda Suhler, Ph.D. (@LindaSuhler) April 18, 2016

 

[Robert Campbell]

16 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

From what I understand, Trump isn't pro-union: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-working-class-unions_us_56ead51fe4b03a640a69c58d , and http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-unions-exclusive-idUSMTZSAPEC3BVV3QJO .

Korben,

Thank you for engaging on some actual issues.  This is what I had been hoping for, and seeing so little of.

The two articles you linked both focus on the rust-belt private sector unions (such as those that band together under the AFL-CIO).  They have been a force for the Democrats, and their leaders are worried about members voting for Trump—especially when their leadership has become staunchly protectionist and Trump's line on foreign trade scarcely differs from their own.

Even though the United Auto Workers got a special deal in the auto bailouts, and unions still benefit from the Davis-Bacon Act regarding government construction work, these guys are nearly a spent force, politically.  The private-sector labor force is down to 7% unionized.   Do you realize that Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan have all become right to work states—since Obama was first elected?

My concern is with the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers—those whose members are in the public sector, which is 36% unionized.  They're the ones who hit their members for mandatory dues, then spend a large chunk of the proceeds on electing Democrats, who give their leaders the contract terms they want, and what they don't pay them off with, in current salary and perks, they commit their taxpayers to as delayed payoffs, in the form of totally unsustainable future pensions.  If they're teachers' unions, they also campaign endlessly against any alternative to the public K-12 monopoly, suppressing charter schools wherever they can, tying up any kind of voucher plan in court (they keep losing most of these cases, but they keep filing them), protecting their senior members against being fired, even for gross incompetence or blatant malfeasance.  In some states, like Illinois, no change will ever be allowed to the future pensions of present employees unless the state constitution is amended.

Future state and local pension obligations are threatening to bankrupt jurisdictions in Illinois (the City of Chicago and the entire state), California (countless municipalities and the whole state), Michigan (where Detroit has gone bankrupt)...  Among those not doing a whole lot better are New York and New Jersey, so you might expect Donald Trump (who now counts Chris Christie as one of his humble servants) to be sounding the alarm.  Nope.

There are problems with government employee unions at the Federal level, too, though they have less power because they lack general collective bargaining privileges.  For instance, most employees of the IRS belong to the National Treasury Employees Union, which has 200 officials masquerading as regular Treasury employees: they get full-time Federal pay and benefits, for doing full-time Union work.  Would you be surprised to learn that the NTEU gives to political candidates, and nearly all of its money goes to Democrats?

Neither the Pufflington piece nor the Reuters refers to public-sector unions as such.  The Puffington does quote from a former official of the Service Employees International Union, which straddles the public and private sectors (both public and private hospitals, for example) and has provided the Obami with many a foot soldier.

Quote

 

These days, Republican presidential candidates generally take a hard line against unions, advocating policies that would further diminish organized labor’s role in the U.S. economy. But Trump’s angle isn’t so clear. He’s voiced support for anti-union right-to-work laws while on the campaign trail, but he’s also bragged about having good relationships with unions as a businessman. 

“He can draw on a well. And I just don’t know which well is he going to play in the general,” [Andy] Stern said [former head honcho at SEIU]. “Is he the anti-minimum wage, anti-union, pro-right-to-work [candidate]? Or does he become the I-love-unions [candidate]?”

 

All I can figure is that Donald Trump is completely ignorant of the dangers posed by unions of government employees, or he doesn't care about them.

Robert

[Robert Campbell]

17 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

About the ethanol issue, I can see Trump's point that some of the corn industry's demand is due to the mandates, and abolishing them would put people out of work.  I can also see his point that the ethanol mandates can assist in US energy independence.  Of course subsidies aren't good for the average American, but until there is a better answer to our energy independence, perhaps supporting the mandates for now is the right thing to do.

Korben,

Umm, corn is grown by actual dirt farmers.  You can speak of an ethanol industry, but the people who grow it would be the first to laugh about a "corn industry."

There's plenty of demand for corn under nearly any circumstance.  People eat it, it goes into all kinds of processed food that they also eat, and under normal conditions, the rest is fed to cows and hogs that people eventually end up eating.  Farming in Iowa has become extremely efficient, so hardly any jobs would be at stake.  And the reason unemployment is low in Iowa is that you either know what you're doing there or you move somewhere else.  (I'm an Iowa export, so I should know.)

On top of which, corn is one of a handful of agricultural products that have been heavily subsidized by the Feds since the Depression.  (The exact form of the subsides keeps changing, but Congress keeps passing "farm bills" so they'll keep flowing.)

There is no evidence that mandating the inclusion of ethanol (mostly derived from corn) in all of the gasoline sold at the pump does the slightest thing to either promote energy independence or to protect the environment.  You might want to consider, just for step 1, what goes into producing the fertilizer that gets applied to all the extra acres...  Subsidizing corn growing (well, super-subsidizing it, on top of the subsidies previously provided) encourages cultivation on marginal land (and even Iowa has some marginal land).  The enviros all gave up on corn-based ethanol years ago.

Meanwhile, most of our food gets more expensive.  Maybe Donald Trump doesn't care, but why should we be perpetuating policies that screw American consumers, while leading, in bad years for the worldwide crop, to tortilla riots in Honduras?

Oh, and any auto mechanic will tell you that 10% ethanol corrodes your engine over time.  An increased ethanol mandate would be for 15%, which I don't believe any car engine in the US is presently rated to handle.

If Donald Trump wants to end the current rotten system, here is one of its prize products.  

So what does he want to do about it?  He rips Ted Cruz for wanting to end the boondoggle and sucks up to the (very Establishment) Governor of Iowa, Terry Branstad.

If Trump actually wants to push for energy independence, he could start with intoning "Cuomo" the way he currently intones "China."  Rip politicians who suppress fracking at least once every speech.  He could actually pay attention to Sarah Palin, for a change, by picking up her chant of "Drill, baby, drill."  Talk about how his big plan to shut down most of the Environmental Protection Agency (so it can't constantly expand its powers regardless of what Federal laws actually say).  Maybe point out that suppressing nuclear power plants (two good examples, practically in his back yard, are Shoreham, which got built but was forbidden to ever start running, and Indian Point, which New York's political power structure is now ringing down the curtain on) is not a way to achieve energy independence or to protect the environment.

Corn ethanol ain't about any of that.  It's all about the payoffs.

Either Donald Trump doesn't know any of this, or he's all about the payoffs.

Robert

 

[Robert Campbell]

17 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

Trump has explained many times how he plans to keep SS and Medicare funded.

Korben,

Can you put that explanation right here, in your own words?

It shouldn't take more than a paragraph.

Then we can evaluate it.

Robert

[Robert Campbell]

I take no credit for blaming Trump's insistence on re-stomping Scott Walker for his loss to Ted Cruz in Wisconsin.

Here is Walker's own explanation:

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/04/19/exclusive-walker-sidesteps-open-convention-ultimatum-says-hell-likely-run-for-reelection-n2151080?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=

Quote

Scott Walker: After I made the endorsement of Ted Cruz, the other frontrunner came out and didn't just complain about it, he attacked not just me personally, but he attacked the things that we have done. He said that the state wasn't doing very well.  When the voters -- even some voters who were open to Trump as a candidate -- when they heard that, I think that turned them off because they knew the facts. They'd been in the trenches with the recall. They'd been out getting the message out and they saw that, for example, we just passed three million people employed in our state, which is the greatest [number] we've ever had in our state. They know that we have a balanced budget. They know that the reforms empowered schools to do better than they've ever done before. They've seen the facts -- they've lived them; they haven't just heard about them, they've actually lived it. And so when that candidate attacked not just me, but attacked our reforms, I think a lot of voters in the state took it personally.

Guy Benson: What does it say to you about that candidate, Donald Trump, that he came out and was critical of, for example, your budget policies, which are almost universally lauded among conservatives? He was critical of you for not having raised taxes on the people of Wisconsin.

SW: [Laughing] Yeah.

GB: He repeated talking points that have been debunked over and over again, that were advanced by your Democratic opponent in 2014. If you're sitting there as Scott Walker saying, 'hang on, this is the man leading in a lot of the polls -- almost all the polls -- for the Republican nomination? Whose attack line against me is that I didn't increase the tax burden on Wisconsinites?' Does that set off alarm bells for you, as a conservative?

SW: It does, and again I think that's why Ted Cruz did so well in Wisconsin. The people knew the facts. They knew that what [Trump] was saying were basically the talking points of the Left. They didn't work in '12 or '14, they didn't work not only against me, they didn't work against others. It is concerning, I think, in a larger context. That's why in states where the voters are getting a broader breadth of information, I think Ted Cruz is going to do well in the future. The challenge is nationally, voters just aren't hearing it. They're not hearing it from many of the networks covering these elections...if people aren't getting even and accurate coverage, you can see why people aren't hearing things like this, but I think when voters see it -- and to your point, exactly, someone complained that we didn't raise taxes? That might be an argument you'd hear from Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton...it certainly isn't going to work in a Republican primary, where I think voters, particularly in light of the last few days with tax day, appreciate governors and lawmakers who are willing to stand up and not only not raise taxes, but actually lower them, which is what we've done in Wisconsin.

No doubt he now deserves some re-re-stomping...

Robert

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here come another big gun:

Donald Trump hires top GOP lawyer for delegate fight
By Shane Goldmacher
04/18/16
Politico

From the article:

Goldmacher said:

Donald Trump has made another new significant hire as he prepares for the possibility of a contested convention, bringing William McGinley, a prominent Republican political attorney and a veteran of past delegate battles, into his campaign.

. . .

McGinley knows the legal inner workings of the Republican Party’s rules as well as almost anyone. At the 2012 GOP convention, he pushed the credentials committee, which determines which delegates are seated, to swap out 10 Ron Paul delegates from Maine for 10 aligned with Mitt Romney.

He has previously served as deputy counsel to the RNC, and as counsel to the RNC’s Standing Committee on Rules. He has also worked as general counsel to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and more recently represented numerous members of Congress who have found themselves in ethical hot water.

Sounds good to me. An infighter who knows how to play dirty.

I don't like dirty fighting like this against fair competitors, but against dirty fighters, I don't mind.

Michael

[9thdoctor]

4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I don't know if Trump is going to get the Peikoff and Binswanger vote, but with the angry hoards they command at the snap of a finger, he's toast for sure if he doesn't, huh? 

 

Michael

He just needs to offer a good quid pro quo.  He could pledge to nuke Tehran on day one of his administration, that'll do it.  If not nukes, then use regular bombs while being sure to target the madrassas, and to do it while they're occupied, since that's the whole point!

[Peter]

It sounds odd, but I talked to an insider in the Worcester County School System. This mysterious person said they do have air conditioning. Trump will be in the Cafeteria not the auditorium. Large screen TV’s will be set up the auditorium and people may be in classrooms and outside too watching TVs and listening. Sounds a bit odd. People are really hopped up. Wow. He may be our next President. I think a local channel is going to be broadcasting live and will cover the whole event.

I mentioned this before but I volunteered to be security when Barry Goldwater came to UVA for the local Objectivist club in 1966? And then I was too shy to speak to him. Standing 50 feet away from him he wondered who the heck I was.

And when I was a kid I had to stand at attention on the dock next to my Dad’s ship to hear Vice President Johnson speak from a raised dais. I was so bored and I hated the coat and tie I was wearing.

Oh, and another official (from a local teacher’s union) who shall remain unnamed has said they do not want Trump politicizing a school and besides, “He is a bully.” But he is still going to be at Stephen Decatur High Scroool. (Rush spelling.)  And he is still the biggest thing to happen since Heart and those guys who sing Knights in White Satin were here.  Moody Blues.

Aaaarrr! Those George Soros thugs better not show up.

Peter 

[Robert Campbell]

4 hours ago, Robert Campbell said:

Can you put that explanation right here, in your own words?

Korben,

Did a little looking around, and in fact I don't see how we can hold a discussion of Trump's plans for Social Security and Medicare, unless you can provide his account of how he plans to handle them.

He's been all over the place, in his public utterances, about Social Security and Medicare.   MUST BE PRESERVED didn't use to be his position.

Meanwhile, MUST BE PRESERVED has for some time been the position of every Democrat running for office (except when they add MUST BE EXTENDED).

His campaign website does not treat these programs as priorities and gives no position on either that I could find.

I do gather that for a while he claimed he could keep Social Security afloat by cutting off foreign aid to countries that are actually hostile to us (such as Pakistan).  Seems like a good idea in its own right, but the redirected funds are a thimbleful by Federal entitlement standards.

I also gather that he thinks food stamps can and should be cut way back.  Again, glad he's saying so, but the price tag is puny compared to the two big entitlements.

Robert

[Robert Campbell]

On April 17, 2016 at 4:38 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

If you want to learn some persuasion strategies, I can help with that. Off the top of my head, I can give you at least 20 books or so to look at. But this stuff you are doing doesn't work, it never worked and it will never work. That's just human nature. (I can give a ton of reasons--with sources--if you are ever interested.)

Michael,

I am no expert on persuasion strategies.  Nor have I studied the literature as you have.

I did not renew my participation on OL, and see that most of the action was on the political threads, with any expectation of persuading you to reject Donald Trump in favor of another candidate.   It's been obvious since I made my recent return that you are personally committed to Trump's magnificence and are proud to reject out of hand much of what is normally considered relevant when evaluating the qualities of candidates for public office.

I would actually turn the question around.

You probably figured right away that I was not going to be susceptible to the Trumpian appeals with which you are familiar.  So not persuading me doesn't count.

My question is: given your command of evidence-based persuasion techniques, how many people who previously did not support Trump are now supporting him, on account of the persuasive appeals that you personally made?

Robert

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Tonight is a very good night for Trump supporters.

He killed it in New York.

Cruz came in a long and distant third.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

10 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Roger Stone may be banned from CNN TV, but it looks like he's a welcome celebrity to the rest of CNN.

Michael,

Why exult in the sliminess of Roger Stone?

You know, Donald Trump has still not released his tax returns.  His excuse, that he is audited every year and is being audited this year, has been exposed as bogus.

Besides perhaps revealing that Trump is worth less money than he claims to be, or is in more debt than he admits being in, or gives less to charity than he says he does, would the returns inform us about continuing employment (not by his campaign) for Roger Stone?

I learned a couple of interesting things about Paul Manafort, who seems to have taken over control of Trump's campaign.

One, Manafort helped Jerry Ford get more delegates than Ronald Reagan in 1976, before he changed sides and recruited delegates for Reagan in 1980.  (He also worked later on for Bush Sr., Bob Dole, Dubya, and John McCain, when not cleaning up on K Street.)

Two, Manafort worked, on and off, between 2004 and at lest 2010, for Victor Yanukovych, the kleptocratic Putinian puppet in Ukraine.  Claimed credit for engineering Yanukovych's comeback victory in 2010 (though, as we know, that didn't end well for Yanukovych).  Apparently was taking money from McCain and Yanukovych at the same time in 2008.

Robert

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

13 minutes ago, Robert Campbell said:

... you are personally committed to Trump's magnificence and are proud to reject out of hand much of what is normally considered relevant when evaluating the qualities of candidates for public office...

Robert,

Considered relevant by whom?

All those voters you insist on ignoring?

So long as you ignore them, you will ignore what they "normally consider" about anything.

The problem for a worldview like that is that they all get to vote.

And that produces an incredibly inconvenient reality.

So, once again, considered relevant by whom? The same people who have ruled the USA for the last few decades?

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

4 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

He killed it in New York.

Trump exceeded expectations in his home state.

He deserves credit for that.

He now needs to exceed expectations in a bunch more states, or he will be short of 1237 at the convention.

Robert

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 hours ago, Robert Campbell said:

My question is: given your command of evidence-based persuasion techniques, how many people who previously did not support Trump are now supporting him, on account of the persuasive appeals that you personally made?

Robert,

I make it a point NOT to use the persuasion techniques I am studying here on OL members. On the contrary, I often teach (or present) what I am learning in the kind of posts that have a "lookee what I found" emotional tone. The reason is that I do not want to use this forum for selling or anything like that. OL, in my conception, is to remain a pure place for intellectual discourse.

As to your question, there are several people right here on this thread who have stated publicly that they have been convinced by my arguments (not persuasion techniques) to support Trump when they were hostile to him before.

Here's one person who came out and said I could use his name for this precise purpose should I wish: Jon Letendre. I can find the post if you like, but it's here. And I didn't ask him to post or grant me permission to use his name. He came out of the blue with that.

Jon doesn't post much on OL, but he has posted on this thread.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

If I were the potential captain looking at the impending iceberg, I would not listen to complaints about rust and paint in that context. I would be thinking about the goddam iceberg and how to avoid the collision, or maybe what to do after the collision.

Michael,

What does the impending collision permit (require?) Captain Trump to ignore?

For instance, if the media don't get with his program, does the impending collision permit (require?) him to go full Erdogan?

Robert

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 minutes ago, Robert Campbell said:

Why exult in the sliminess of Roger Stone?

Robert,

Because others (I'm not saying you) exult in the sliminess of Ted Cruz's "superior ground game."

I don't like Stone's techniques against fair competitors, but against others who do sliminess, I like them. And may the best man win.

And if you look deeper, you will see Stone actually believes in the causes he works for. He's not a true mercenary. He would never use his dark arts for Hillary. So there's that...

Michael

[turkeyfoot]

7 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Roger,

I partially agree, but this is due to a perspective.

The way a businessman sees what is happening, the USA is losing its sovereignty.

It's like the Titanic is approaching the iceberg. And you guys are complaining that the potentially new captain will be fine with the rusty arm rails and the lousy paint job so he is unfit for the job.

It's a matter of priorities right now.

If I were the potential captain looking at the impending iceberg, I would not listen to complaints about rust and paint in that context. I would be thinking about the goddam iceberg and how to avoid the collision, or maybe what to do after the collision.

That's how I see Trump and that's how a hell of a lot of voters see him.

Michael

Michael,

Nows the time for all good men to come to the aid of the Libertarian Party. Pardon the plug. )

I recall a sentiment that settled over the political landscape as Ron Paul said he would eliminate 5 departments. The guys clarion call was to demonstrate how it would keep us from the breaking point.  No one was interested, it didnt sell, he wasnt slick enough, the temerity of a Dr giving us our medicine. They told us it wasnt important. Unfortunately for us today that demarcation has long since passed. Now its simply vote for any candidate who would negate a vote for Clinton. Its a dubious proposition to believe Trumps supporters can mount sufficient opposition outside of the GOP. I recall the sharp pants crease comment a journalist made about Obama. Trump is a stuffed shirt. Political colorists see it as a gaffe rather than a fashionable statement. I dont know how you do it Michael. You recognize his unpopularity and that he stands a remarkable possibility of losing but you will not give up. Man, talk about sticking with a losing team. ;)  

[Robert Campbell]

11 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Robert,

In every Trump rally and in almost every Trump interview I have seen, Trump always says he is not blaming the Chinese, the Mexicans and so on. He said he blames the incompetent morons who run our government. They don't know how to make deals and the leaders of China, Mexico, etc., are too smart for us--way smarter than our leaders.

Given the total permeation of this message in everything he does and says, I don't know how you missed it and say he blames it all on the Chinese.

As to taxes, regulations, government mismanagement (even at the state and local level), etc., for you to say what you just did, I have the impression you are not familiar with Trump. It's like me trying to claim you never refer to developmental psychology. I would only be able to make a mistake that size if I knew nothing about you.

Michael

Michael,

Really, where is Donald Trump's critique of the current power structure in New York (city and state)?

He just finished nearly two weeks of campaigning in a primary there.  How much attention did he give any of it in his speeches?

Where is his critique of the public employee unions, who bear considerable responsibility for the present condition of New York?  Does he ever talk about them at all?

The incompetent politicians he was referring to in that speech, invariably in the grip of special interests, are 100% at the Federal level.  Which you'd have to expect, because foreign trade is a Federal responsibility under our constitution.

I have noticed that one of Trump's, umm, unusual patterns is to slam Republican governors for the actual or supposed effects of improper foreign competition in their states.  He did that in Wisconsin with Walker.  Suppose Trump is right and only through wimpy concessions to the Chinese or the Japanese or the Mexicans did it come to pass that this factory closed in Stevens Point, or a whole industry along the Michigan border began to dwindle.  Let's further suppose that the governor (Walker) has the wrong views about foreign trade, and if elected President would most likely oversee more wimpy concessions.

It is nonetheless the case that the governor of Wisconsin has no say about foreign trade—as he has no say in immigration policy.  No governor, in any state, Democrat, Republican, or Independent, has any such say.

"Our government" is not one solid undifferentiated mass.

I hope Donald Trump knows that, and that he is not pursuing political gain by pretending not to know it.

Robert