Cruz Nuz

[Peter]

Michael wrote: . . . I don't even think Cruz realizes when he says Trump supports Obamacare, or that he wants to open a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and things like that, he comes off really weird to all but his staunch supporters. If he is lying, well there you are. If he is not lying, that's even worse. That means he sees things that are not there and ignores what he does see. There's no way to trust a guy like that. Not for someone like me.

end quote

You do it too! It is campaign speech rhetoric, Michael. Can you give ANY example of a Trumpian “campaign speech” exaggeration or untruth? If you are now ANGRY with me then you are on the verge of being a true believer for at least six months of the next four years. If pressed you probably will come up with Trumpian untruths but your impulse will be to SPIN and DEBUNK those untruths to lessen their impact or shift the blame to Ted Cruz’s stump the Trump speeches.

It amazes me how politics can turn people against each other. It’s not exactly North vs. South like during the Civil War but it does get heated and can permanently affect the bottom line.  

Here is another example of rhetoric. Carly said in a similar vein: Donald Trump's nomination would be a disaster for America. If Trump is our nominee, conservatives will be forced to choose between two liberals in November: both corrupt, both big government crony capitalists, and both part of the system that has gotten us in the mess we're in. Worse, if we nominate Donald Trump, we would be guaranteeing four years of Hillary Clinton in the White House.

end quote

I think she is saying Trump “will: . . . no, “must or is destined to” . . . lose to Hillary and if he is elected then he will be as bad as Hillary. That is not true, but it is a standard American stump speech.

One more. From Conservative Headquarters: In many ways Carly Fiorina is an inspired choice for vice president; she brings to the Cruz campaign a strong resume as an outsider and job creator, and she has proven herself to be both eloquent and scrappy as a candidate and surrogate for Cruz – particularly against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

end quote

Peter said: See. More stump speech and spin, not philosophically, or practically relevant. If you look at the written word you will see similarities between Cruz and Trump’s policies and aspirations. Emotional attachments to paper tigers are creepy, so I try not to get lost in admiration.

end quote

Me quoting me. Why do I think that is funny? Just trying to leave somebody smiling and saying, what an idiot. Hmmm. How about we change this place to Objectivist, We The Living?

Peter 

[Peter]

I could place all those folks in the Addam's family portrait except the guy at the bottom and then it finally hit me. Bernie! Why was he so hard to identify?

Peter 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

38 minutes ago, Peter said:

You do it too! It is campaign speech rhetoric, Michael. Can you give ANY example of a Trumpian “campaign speech” exaggeration or untruth?

Peter,

There is a huuuuuuuuge difference between saying someone is a bully, will be bad for America, is a fascist, is a liar, is crooked, is low energy, etc. etc. etc. and attributing them with the exact opposite of their basic policy ideas--and not even be joking when you do that.

I agree, the first is campaign rhetoric and all's fair in love and war. The second is just plain weird.

If I said to everybody (in all seriousness) that you, Peter, supported and always supported the ancap system of thinking, that is what you are all about, so if anyone wants to interact with you, they are interacting with an anarcho-capitalist to the core, you would blink, say WTF? and move on. There is no way you could take me seriously.

But what if you correct the record, and I still keep repeating it? Over and over and over? What then?

You would conclude I am lying or delusional. All anyone has to do is read your posts--tons of them--to see where you stand. 

It's just too much of a misidentification. It's going too far out into la-la land. 

It would be different if I said, Peter is a bad-guy and if he ever gets power, he will ruin us all. He's a hypocrite, he's self-serving, he's a bully, he never produced anything of value, he uses principles as smokescreens for bad-guy stuff, yada yada yada.

(It's a good thing you are none of that, but a wonderful person instead.  )

You could say I am trying to smear you, but it would fit within some kind of motive on my part that can be rationally understood (I want to destroy you, win a contest or whatever).

But not if I kept saying you are an ancap. Ancap, ancap, ancap. Peter is an ancap. That would not make any sense on an elementary identification level, even if I didn't like you and wanted to smear you. It would be like calling a man you don't like a woman. And keep repeating it, not as a metaphor to make a slur, but as a fact. That's just too incorrect to be considered as a rhetorical argument.

(I gotta say, though, I do like you and never want to smear you. And, from all accounts I have come across, I believe you are a man.  )

Anyway, that's what Cruz is doing to himself--discrediting his own character. Maybe not with Cruz supporters, but with lots and lots and lots of people.

What's worse, many people think that fundamentalist Christianity damages the mental perceptions of ignorant yahoos, or at least makes them think in an oddball manner. And Cruz's behavior on elementary lying feeds directly into that stereotype.

I don't believe the source of his error is religion, though. I think it comes from being a lawyer--a very good one. But Cruz is arguing in public, not in a courtroom. He has to sell his own image to get elected, not just attack the image of another with anything and everything that looks like a gotcha (however remotely connected to reality) to see what sticks.

For selling his image, he is misfiring all over the place. Besides, it's hard to sell yourself as a truth-teller when intentional lying on such an easily disproven level is part of your tactics.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, Robert Campbell said:

You took Glenn Beck way too seriously to begin with.

Robert,

Going to Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010 in Washington DC with Kat and being among so many good people in such a peaceful, decent, loving atmosphere is one of my fondest memories of recent years.

Nah... I didn't take Glenn Beck too seriously to begin with.

I can mourn what he has become without denigrating the grandeur of what he was.

Michael

 

[Peter]

Michael said about Ted Cruz, “What's worse, many people think that fundamentalist Christianity damages the mental perceptions of ignorant yahoos, or at least makes them think in an oddball manner.”

Well that sucks. I’m getting off the phone with you. I’m from Texas like Ted and my Mama was a Baptist but we called it Babbtist, and I still turned out all right. Let’s do the show. Hello. This is Shelden Cooper and it’s Fun with Flags Day. But today I want to talk about the campaign first. Amy?

Carly Simon is 71. Carly Fiorina is 61, but she looks younger. Did you notice my new glasses Shelly?

No. In 2010, Amy, Carly won the Republican nomination for the Senate in California but she lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer.  So, she does have experience in this sort of thing. Don’t answer that phone. It’s probably Michael.

Does Senator Boxer look like her namesakes, Shelden?

No Amy. Stop trying to make me crack up. She is not a dog or a broken nosed pugilist.

Tom Cruise is 54. Ted Cruz is 45. Ted Cruz is Risky Business and he is a minority report because he is Hispanic. Get it Shelden?

I do Amy. Old Hickory Clinton will be 69 on October 26^th. Speed bump, Donald Trump will be 70 on June 14^th. That was a good one, Amy Farrahfowler.

Your joke was good too, but Shelden? My name is Amy Farrah Fowler. Stop combining my middle and last names together like that.

OK, Aimless Fairly Fouler.     

[PDS]

53 minutes ago, Peter said:

I could place all those folks in the Addam's family portrait except the guy at the bottom and then it finally hit me. Bernie! Why was he so hard to identify?

Peter 

Because you don't really "see" Bernie.   

Worse yet, there are dozens of Trump supporters in the portrait you're not "seeing" either, Peter. 

[KorbenDallas]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

I could place all those folks in the Addam's family portrait except the guy at the bottom and then it finally hit me. Bernie! Why was he so hard to identify?

Peter 

His youthful appearance...

Which might explain his appeal to so many youth...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

In 2010, Amy, Carly won the Republican nomination for the Senate in California but she lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer.  So, she does have experience in this sort of thing. Don’t answer that phone. It’s probably Michael.

Peter,

(riiiiiiiiiinnngggg...)

Did you just say Carly Fiorina has experience in losing elections she should have won?

 

Michael

[Peter]

I still haven’t seen any new polls showing if the alliance between KC will affect Cruz positively in Indiana, and no one has posted any new polls showing if in California, Carly Fiorina will change the Trump lead there.

But this is as good an endorsement that a Tea Party man can get. “Lucifer in the flesh,” John Boehner said during a talk hosted by Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., according to the Stanford Daily. “I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”

OMG! The former speaker in the midget / moron costume hates Ted Cruz. Cool. But Lucifer? And why now? Oh, oh. I smell a RINO conspiracy. They want Trump over Cruz. Wake up guys!

Peter

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 minute ago, Peter said:

Oh, oh. I smell a RINO conspiracy. They want Trump over Cruz. Wake up guys!

Call Lindsey Graham to the rescue!

He'll save Ted...

   

Michael

[Peter]

Against incumbent B. Boxer she was destined to . . . do less well, but an aspiring politician needs to jump into the surf. California here we come. Carl Cameron on Fox is saying Carly adds to the buzz but Trump is the buzz master, and he mentions her lose in Calif. and her dropping out early in the primary. But Carly neutralizes the lefts, war against women narrative and she broadens the ticket. I agree. The pot is boiling.   

Peter

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

20 minutes ago, Peter said:

... war against women narrative...

Peter,

The more I see polls and commentaries on this, and the more I see election returns with demographic studies on the voters, the more I believe this is just a big pile of baloney to somehow feed a relevance talking point with Hillary. Without mustard, at that. 

When it comes to voting time, Trump has no problem at all with women. I think most of the women who vote for him (which, ultimately, means most of the women) love the way he treats the professional women who work for him, the beauty pageants, and so on.

Trump gets sassy with sassy women, but ginning this up into a full-blown war is one of the left's efforts of making a narrative without the reality to back it up. 

In short, anti-Trump people are buying a Trump war on women, but these folks are a minority. 

Nobody else is buying it. Not at voting time...

Michael

[dldelancey]

Ivanka Trump is the only evidence anyone needs to denounce a Trump war on women.  Men who hate women do not raise daughters like that.  I'm still not sure I like the guy, but even I can see that.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

8 hours ago, dldelancey said:

Ivanka Trump is the only evidence anyone needs to denounce a Trump war on women.  Men who hate women do not raise daughters like that.  I'm still not sure I like the guy, but even I can see that.

Deanna,

Hear hear!

 

Michael

[PDS]

18 hours ago, dldelancey said:

Ivanka Trump is the only evidence anyone needs to denounce a Trump war on women.  Men who hate women do not raise daughters like that.  I'm still not sure I like the guy, but even I can see that.

Hmmm.  

The more I think about this, the more I'm just not sure this is a strong argument, one way or another, on this specific point.

As one example of what I mean:  is the converse true?   In other words, let's say Trump's daughters happened to be far less obviously successful, intelligent, and "with it."    Would that be a knock against Trump?   I don't think so.     We all know wonderful parents who tried their hardest with their kids--including daughters--and things didn't quite work out the way anybody expected.   Nobody can reasonably blame the parents when this happens.   

Human beings are not billiard balls when it comes to cause (parenting) and effect (how kids turn out). 

I really am not saying this as a knock on Trump, or to diminish his role as a parent.   I am the parent of a teenage daughter, and God knows, it is a very humbling experience in many ways, so I applaud Trump's seemingly successful daughters and Trump as well in this context.

Maybe Trump's daughters turned out to be wonderful people because Trump's daughters are beings of self-made souls who are wonderful people.   

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

15 minutes ago, PDS said:

Maybe Trump's daughters turned out to be wonderful people because Trump's daughters are beings of self-made souls who are wonderful people.

David,

I am sure they are, but if child-rearing had nothing to do with it, then Trump has had a magical run of good luck.

Look at his boys, too.

 

Michael

[dldelancey]

47 minutes ago, PDS said:

Hmmm.  

The more I think about this, the more I'm just not sure this is a strong argument, one way or another, on this specific point.

As one example of what I mean:  is the converse true?   In other words, let's say Trump's daughters happened to be far less obviously successful, intelligent, and "with it."    Would that be a knock against Trump?   I don't think so.     We all know wonderful parents who tried their hardest with their kids--including daughters--and things didn't quite work out the way anybody expected.   Nobody can reasonably blame the parents when this happens.   

Human beings are not billiard balls when it comes to cause (parenting) and effect (how kids turn out). 

I really am not saying this as a knock on Trump, or to diminish his role as a parent.   I am the parent of a teenage daughter, and God knows, it is a very humbling experience in many ways, so I applaud Trump's seemingly successful daughters and Trump as well in this context.

Maybe Trump's daughters turned out to be wonderful people because Trump's daughters are beings of self-made souls who are wonderful people.   

All very good points with which I agree.

My phrasing was unclear and possibly grammatically incorrect.  I meant "like that" to modify the verb "raise" not the noun "daughters."  I was referring to the specific actions that a man who hates women would or would not take when raising daughters.  For instance, a man who hates women would not support or encourage education, career ambition, or work/life balance for women.  Indeed, a daughter of such a man could very well achieve those things due to her own strength of character. As you say, in the converse, a daughter of a man who does support and encourage those things, might not achieve them.

In the case of Ivanka Trump, she has achieved a great deal and all the evidence suggests that she has done so with the full support of her father.  That's a testament to them both, and does, I think, prove that Trump couldn't hate women.  Unless, of course, the argument is that he hates all women except those he fathered.  I can't see it, though.  That's not the kind of psychology one can turn off even for their children.

[william.scherk]

1 hour ago, PDS said:

Maybe Drumpf's daughters turned out to be wonderful people because Drumpf's daughters are beings of self-made souls who are wonderful people.   

If only they had had mothers.  

In another case, a man who also does not war with women, alongside two females he single-handedly raised from the blind-kitten stage, just like Drumpf.

[dldelancey]

22 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

If only they had had mothers.

To say that a man raised his daughter in such a way that indicates he isn't a woman-hater does not in any way detract from the role the mother played in the raising.

[dldelancey]

53 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

David,

I am sure they are, but if child-rearing had nothing to do with it, then Trump has had a magical run of good luck.

Look at his boys, too.

 

Michael

More importantly to the question at hand (is Trump a woman-hater?) is to look at the sons' positions relative to the daughter's position.  We do not see Ivanka Trump relegated beneath her brothers based on her gender.  If Trump hated women, we would.

[KorbenDallas]

2 hours ago, dldelancey said:

More importantly to the question at hand (is Trump a woman-hater?) is to look at the sons' positions relative to the daughter's position.  We do not see Ivanka Trump relegated beneath her brothers based on her gender.  If Trump hated women, we would.

What if the son(s) hated the fact that their father hated women and didn't want to be like that?  What if the son(s) are misogynists on their own (regardless of Trump)?  Saying we might see some effects of gender bias from Trump in Ivanka is plausible, but what was quoted here is much too deterministic.

edit: Needing to come back.  Not saying this in an attacking tone, had in mind a dialectical tone when writing it.  Also, the first question was a pure hypothetical for discussion, my personal belief is Trump doesn't hate women, but I'm not fond of his attacks on them (O'Donnell, Kelly, Heidi Cruz)..

 

[william.scherk]

5 hours ago, dldelancey said:

In the case of Ivanka Drumpf, she has achieved a great deal and all the evidence suggests that she has done so with the full support of her father.  That's a testament to them both, and does, I think, prove that Drumpf couldn't hate women.  

 

I give Donald his due.  He has children, each born into enormous wealth and privilege. By his own accounts there is a man's world and a woman's world within his family structure. The hard job of 'raising' kids like Ivanka went to his wives, the finest nannies and the finest pre-schools and the finest education Donald could buy.  

What Ivanka has achieved is of independent merit from that of her employer and father.  But give him his due.  He allowed his children to have outsized ambitions (outsized from the point of view of an already rich and privileged launch point). He allowed them to grow and prosper under his business tutelage, under his roof. 

So, yes, give Donald his achievement and laud it and do the same for lucky Ivanka.

But -- to the point of a child proving something about the character of the parent, that doesn't work as an equation for me.  And the particular character 'defect' of interest has been cartoonized, anyhow.  It is easy to dispose of Woman Hater, but that does not address the underlying  larger issue, the landscape of half the electorate.   The larger Lady Vote,, so to speak. 

I don't believe Donald 'hates women.' I have never believed he hates women.  I do believe he has a penchant for belittling women, denigrating their looks, and using sexist frameworks for critiquing women in politics ("Look at that Face" ... ).

No one here has given the argument that he 'hates all women.'  At the most extreme, some opinion has set like an egg, that the front-runners so-called "negatives" with women will doom him to defeat against a Democratic candidate in November.

One clue that Ivanka is an independent-minded woman -- and a great asset to the Trump campaign -- is the rumours of her offering advice to her father on the Woman Card, the Presidentiality cloak and sceptre, and on his Twitter rants. It looks like strong and stable women in the family who are close enough and loyal enough to be frank with Dad, with common-sense and intelligence keyed to reality. Melania too offers useful cautions to her husband, in her own words and according to his lore.

I am more interested in your global feel on the candidate, Deanna, your gut and reason talking.  if your opinions are mixed, and where your opinions have not yet set are better conversation starters than "I feel you hurting," and "You are a hater" ...

Besides being smart and Objectivish, you kind of represent the informed OL 'Lady Vote' in its entirety on the subject of GOP 2016.  Beyond the Hate for Women, there is a hella festival of Hate  and Blindness here on display, at least from the point of view of our fearless leader and chief stumper on the hustings.

Whether or not the candidate nursed his little peabodies into Maginificence is irrelevant to moving the Unfavourables here, I expect, but it might have legs once the candidate presumptive becomes The Candidate.

Exciting times, lady and gentlemen, exciting times. The hoopla is set to intensify further on a ramp towards fall. You poor poor people.  Your GOP run-up elections seem like convulsions. 

[KorbenDallas]

April 24th:

Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe's statement on the Kasich–Cruz deal:

Quote

"To ensure that we nominate a Republican who can unify the Republican Party and win in November, our campaign will focus its time and resources in Indiana and in turn clear the path for Gov. Kasich to compete in Oregon and New Mexico, and we would hope that allies of both campaigns would follow our lead."

Kasich's chief strategist:

Quote

"We are very comfortable with our delegate position in Indiana already, and given the current dynamics of the primary there, we will shift our campaign’s resources West and give the Cruz campaign a clear path in Indiana."

April 25th:
(note 3rd paragraph about Oregon and New Mexico:)

 

April 28th:

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz tells reporters in Indiana April 28 that rival John Kasich decided on his own not to campaign in the state, saying, "There is no alliance." (Reuters)

And then a few minutes after Cruz said this to the press, Kasich's chief strategist tweets:

I can't stand liars.

— John Weaver (@JWGOP) April 28, 2016

(Me either.)

 

[Peter]

Liars? I can’t stand liars either. There are sites that rate them for truthiness. Cruz is better than the average bear. Is Trump really going to be a force for fiscal good? How about Cruz / Fiorina? Do we need to collapse into a great recession or depression before anything is done?

Peter

Some edited for brevity items from Robert Tracinski: . . . . They can try borrowing their way out of this, but by the time Social Security breaks down for good, 19 years from now, they might find it a bit difficult. Why? Because borrowing endless sums of money is how we're already papering over the fiscal unsustainability of the middle-class welfare state . . . . It's middle-class welfare that drives the budget. That's my answer to people who tell me we can deal with the problem by cutting "corporate welfare" or foreign aid or NASA space missions. Look at the federal budget. Aside from national defense--the only really big federal expenditure that's actually mandated in the Constitution--federal spending is absolutely dominated by Social Security and Medicare. Even welfare to the poor--like food stamps or Social Security Disability, which has become de facto welfare for the long-term unemployed--is secondary. Everything else is loose change.

Except for one other big expenditure: interest on the national debt, which is becoming bigger and bigger. By the time the next president completes two terms--based on the choice we're about to make--interest on the national debt will be the third largest item in the federal budget. Shortly before Social Security uses up all of its nominal reserves in 2035, interest on the debt will be the second largest expenditure. A few years after that, it becomes the single largest expenditure. We will be taking the lion's share of government revenues and using them just to keep up the minimum payments on all the money we've borrowed for decades in the past. So don't think we'll just be able to go back to that well and borrow even more to save another failing government program.

. . . . What we learned in 2016 is that it is also true of a lot of Republicans who claimed they were four-square in favor of small government and free markets and the Constitution and totally against debt and taxes and crony capitalism. And who are now voting for a front-runner who doesn't care about any of those issues. You know how politicians like to tell you a nice story about the principles they stand for, but when it comes time for action, they take the easy way out, kick the can down the road, and vote for the crudest conception of their short-term interests? Well, the lesson of 2016 is that the voters do that, too. 

[Brant Gaede]

The ability to lie is a requirement for being President.

--Brant

that's the truth