2016 Republican Presidential Clown Car Begins!

[brucep]

Obama added $10 trillion to the national debt and achieved what? The economy is sputtering. He gave the money to Wall Street, so rich could get richer, the number of poor would increase and so the middle class gained nothing, but higher medical bills due to ObamaCare. Say Obama had not been able to inflate the meager economy with deficit spending, what do you think would have happened?

Republicans aren't against health care but they are against a health care system as corrupt and incompetent as ObamaCare. Why do you think they need to mandate ObamaCare with laws and IRS goons. Because it is a piece of crap that nobody would buy, if given the option to shop elsewhere. The Republican plan will not use a mandate to force people to buy crap.

Only the Republican candidates are talking about overhauling the tax code. The Democrats always talk about rising the tax rates for the wealthy. Obviously they don't understand how the tax system works, Anyone with half a brain knows, deduction and exemptions is where the big tax savings is. Tax rates can be written on one page, so why do we need 75,000 pages. This is for deductions and exemptions, where the richest people can afford the teams of experts who can cancel out tax rates with deductions.

If you simplify the tax code, to 2-4 pages, you remove most of the deductions and exemptions. Then the rich and poor have a level playing field. For example, the Clinton Foundation makes use a loopholes so they don't have to pay any taxes on hundred of millions of dollars. If we reduce the tax code to 4 pages, then these rich people will pay their fair share.

The Republicans believe in immigrants; legal immigrants. They don't believe that anyone who starts their stay in America, by breaking laws, should be given better treatment than citizens. Only the democrats reward criminal behavior, thereby encouraging it. Maybe the next time Nancy Pelosi has a party at her mansion, we can break into her house like illegal aliens do to the country. According to her feigned sympathy for those who don't maintain legal boundaries, she should allow us to eat at the big table. That is a laugh. She would act worse that any republican, if it was her house.

Obama and Hillary, due to their foreign policy, has allowed 100,000's of people be to killed. There are also million refugees who have been displaced, all due to the effectiveness of liberal bias.

Democrat corruption will be on display shortly, when Hillary is charged with misuse of classified information. What is expected to happen is she will be pardoned buy the democrat controlled injustice department. This will trigger a movement against government corruption, and will demonstrate how the ruling class is not accountable. This will create a landslide.

Wow how could your analysis be more clueless. It displays your complete lack of scholarship in coming to such nonsense opinions. Sheesh! Why is that Wellwisher? I say it's because you don't actually care about anything beyond your own dumbshit analysis and this place is the only place on the Internet that will put up with your level of intellectual self serving dishonesty.
*WTF plonk*

 

[joepistole]

Obama added $10 trillion to the national debt and achieved what? The economy is sputtering. He gave the money to Wall Street, so rich could get richer, the number of poor would increase and so the middle class gained nothing, but higher medical bills due to ObamaCare. Say Obama had not been able to inflate the meager economy with deficit spending, what do you think would have happened?

Except he didn’t, you are listening to too much Rush Limbaugh again, and the economy isn’t sputtering, and he didn’t give money to Wall Street so the “rich could get richer”. It’s really funny hearing right wingers like you complain about wealthy folks. And Obamacare has nothing to do with higher healthcare bills. Higher healthcare bills didn’t begin with Obama. The largest increase in middle class healthcare bills came under the Reagan administration. Prior to Reagan, healthcare was fully paid for by the employer. During Reagan’s administration companies began shifting healthcare costs to their employees. Both parties did, but it wasn’t Obama. But hey, you and your beloved Limbaugh are not ones to care about little things like facts.

I hate to tell you this, but hey, facts should matter. The Wall Street “bailouts” occurred under the Baby Bush administration. When Obama was sworn into office, he inherited a trillion dollar plus deficit. Obama didn’t cause the Great Recession he inherited it and he along with the Federal Reserve got us out of it no thanks to Republicans who fought against any measure which would improve the economy, voting unanimously against any bill to improve the economy.

Republicans aren't against health care but they are against a health care system as corrupt and incompetent as ObamaCare. Why do you think they need to mandate ObamaCare with laws and IRS goons. Because it is a piece of crap that nobody would buy, if given the option to shop elsewhere. The Republican plan will not use a mandate to force people to buy crap.

Oh, then where is the Republican healthcare plan and how will it do what you think Obamacare will not? The fact is Republicans after 7 years of decrying Obamacare have no alternative to Obamacare. As Tiassa has pointed out, Obamacare was in fact Romneycare. Obamacare was the Republican healthcare plan until Democrats decided to support it. It was invented in a Republican think tank and it was the Republican healthcare plan for more than a decade until Democrats decided to support it.

Where are all the calamities Republicans screamed would fall upon us if Obamacare was enacted? Where are the death panels? They never happened. Republicans lied.

Only the Republican candidates are talking about overhauling the tax code. The Democrats always talk about rising the tax rates for the wealthy. Obviously they don't understand how the tax system works, Anyone with half a brain knows, deduction and exemptions is where the big tax savings is. Tax rates can be written on one page, so why do we need 75,000 pages. This is for deductions and exemptions, where the richest people can afford the teams of experts who can cancel out tax rates with deductions.

Except that isn’t true either. I don’t know of a single Democrat who has opposed revising the tax code and I guess you and your fellow Republican followers only have half a brain, because if you are representative of the Limbaugh listener, and I think you are, it’s very obvious there is much you do not understand, taxation included.

Exemptions and deductions are small potatoes, the big money is in defining what is and isn’t income. Different kinds of income are taxed differently and in some cases not at all. Earned income is taxed the most. Investment income is taxed the least and in some cases not at all. That’s why some businesses don’t pay income taxes even though they earn significant sums.

If you simplify the tax code, to 2-4 pages, you remove most of the deductions and exemptions. Then the rich and poor have a level playing field. For example, the Clinton Foundation makes use a loopholes so they don't have to pay any taxes on hundred of millions of dollars. If we reduce the tax code to 4 pages, then these rich people will pay their fair share.

Well most tax exempt organization don’t pay income taxes including Republican 503c entities. Here are some facts about The Clinton Foundation. Hundreds of millions flow through those 503c’s for Republican causes. The Koch brothers are planning to spend nearly a billion dollars this year alone, that’s bigger than millions.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfac...imbaugh-says-clinton-foundation-spends-just-/

The Republicans believe in immigrants; legal immigrants. They don't believe that anyone who starts their stay in America, by breaking laws, should be given better treatment than citizens. Only the democrats reward criminal behavior, thereby encouraging it. Maybe the next time Nancy Pelosi has a party at her mansion, we can break into her house like illegal aliens do to the country. According to her feigned sympathy for those who don't maintain legal boundaries, she should allow us to eat at the big table. That is a laugh. She would act worse that any republican, if it was her house.

Then how do you explain Republican opposition to refuges who enter the country legally?

Obama and Hillary, due to their foreign policy, has allowed 100,000's of people be to killed. There are also million refugees who have been displaced, all due to the effectiveness of liberal bias.

Whoa, way too much right wing radio. How does that make any kind of sense? Where is the factual basis for that claim? Don’t tell me, you just know because Limbaugh told you so.

Democrat corruption will be on display shortly, when Hillary is charged with misuse of classified information. What is expected to happen is she will be pardoned buy the democrat controlled injustice department. This will trigger a movement against government corruption, and will demonstrate how the ruling class is not accountable. This will create a landslide.

Well that is what Republicans like you are praying for. But there is absolutely no evidence to support those assertions. But hey, you right wingers never let little things like truth and honesty get in your way. Republicans have investigated Hillary at great public expense for more than a decade and found absolutely no evidence of wrong doing.

There is corruption in the US, but Republicans have consistently fought tooth and nail against measures to make our system less corrupt. And they have done everything possible to make the system more corrupt (e.g. Citizen United).

 

[brucep]

Except he didn’t, you are listening to too much Rush Limbaugh again, and the economy isn’t sputtering, and he didn’t give money to Wall Street so the “rich could get richer”. It’s really funny hearing right wingers like you complain about wealthy folks. And Obamacare has nothing to do with higher healthcare bills. Higher healthcare bills didn’t begin with Obama. The largest increase in middle class healthcare bills came under the Reagan administration. Prior to Reagan, healthcare was fully paid for by the employer. During Reagan’s administration companies began shifting healthcare costs to their employees. Both parties did, but it wasn’t Obama. But hey, you and your beloved Limbaugh are not ones to care about little things like facts.

I hate to tell you this, but hey, facts should matter. The Wall Street “bailouts” occurred under the Baby Bush administration. When Obama was sworn into office, he inherited a trillion dollar plus deficit. Obama didn’t cause the Great Recession he inherited it and he along with the Federal Reserve got us out of it no thanks to Republicans who fought against any measure which would improve the economy, voting unanimously against any bill to improve the economy.



Oh, then where is the Republican healthcare plan and how will it do what you think Obamacare will not? The fact is Republicans after 7 years of decrying Obamacare have no alternative to Obamacare. As Tiassa has pointed out, Obamacare was in fact Romneycare. Obamacare was the Republican healthcare plan until Democrats decided to support it. It was invented in a Republican think tank and it was the Republican healthcare plan for more than a decade until Democrats decided to support it.

Where are all the calamities Republicans screamed would fall upon us if Obamacare was enacted? Where are the death panels? They never happened. Republicans lied.



Except that isn’t true either. I don’t know of a single Democrat who has opposed revising the tax code and I guess you and your fellow Republican followers only have half a brain, because if you are representative of the Limbaugh listener, and I think you are, it’s very obvious there is much you do not understand, taxation included.

Exemptions and deductions are small potatoes, the big money is in defining what is and isn’t income. Different kinds of income are taxed differently and in some cases not at all. Earned income is taxed the most. Investment income is taxed the least and in some cases not at all. That’s why some businesses don’t pay income taxes even though they earn significant sums.



Well most tax exempt organization don’t pay income taxes including Republican 503c entities. Here are some facts about The Clinton Foundation. Hundreds of millions flow through those 503c’s for Republican causes. The Koch brothers are planning to spend nearly a billion dollars this year alone, that’s bigger than millions.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfac...imbaugh-says-clinton-foundation-spends-just-/



Then how do you explain Republican opposition to refuges who enter the country legally?



Whoa, way too much right wing radio. How does that make any kind of sense? Where is the factual basis for that claim? Don’t tell me, you just know because Limbaugh told you so.


Well that is what Republicans like you are praying for. But there is absolutely no evidence to support those assertions. But hey, you right wingers never let little things like truth and honesty get in your way. Republicans have investigated Hillary at great public expense for more than a decade and found absolutely no evidence of wrong doing.

There is corruption in the US, but Republicans have consistently fought tooth and nail against measures to make our system less corrupt. And they have done everything possible to make the system more corrupt (e.g. Citizen United).

So my guess is Wellwisher will ignore your comments in favor of illiterate bullshit. I'm waiting for Limbaugh to blow a fuse during one of his intellectually self serving rants. Did you see the report Rachel Maddow did on Fred Koch? Where he built a coking unit for a nazi refinery which was approved by Hitler. The brothers blew a fuse. Very informative post joepistole.
Limbaugh is the lackey of the oligarchy. So is Wellwisher and every intellectually dishonest crank. Political hacks. Delusional political hacks.

 

[joepistole]

So my guess is Wellwisher will ignore your comments in favor of illiterate bullshit. I'm waiting for Limbaugh to blow a fuse during one of his intellectually self serving rants. Did you see the report Rachel Maddow did on Fred Koch? Where he built a coking unit for a nazi refinery which was approved by Hitler. The brothers blew a fuse. Very informative post joepistole.
Limbaugh is the lackey of the oligarchy. So is Wellwisher and every intellectually dishonest crank. Political hacks. Delusional political hacks.

She usually does. She is heavy into right wing kool-aid and is severely deluded, but as you know, she is not alone. She and those like her are why the Republican Party has become so extreme and vulnerable to folks like Limbaugh and other Republican entertainers. The total disregard for truth and reason is just amazing and at the same time scary as hell....like some zombie horror show.

I didn't know about the Koch linkage with Nazi Germany, but it doesn't surprise me. I know he accumulated a lot of money building oil refineries for Stalin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/u...helped-build-nazi-oil-refinery-book-says.html

 

[brucep]

She usually does. She is heavy into right wing kool-aid and is severely deluded, but as you know, she is not alone. She and those like her are why the Republican Party has become so extreme and vulnerable to folks like Limbaugh and other Republican entertainers. The total disregard for truth and reason is just amazing and at the same time scary as hell....like some zombie horror show.

I didn't know about the Koch linkage with Nazi Germany, but it doesn't surprise me. I know he accumulated a lot of money building oil refineries for Stalin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/u...helped-build-nazi-oil-refinery-book-says.html

I didn't realize that. The Koch servitude to Stalin plus the sex of Wellwisher. I think I'd rather not know that. I'm really old school about the tone I use when addressing a lady.

 

[wellwisher]

The Koch rumor was just that. But it shows how gullible liberals can be. They do not fat check but will accept a propaganda rag as a source of information.

There was an interview with Charles Koch on the Kelley Files at FOX NEWS.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/45611189...t-his-classical-liberal-views/?#sp=show-clips

What was a surprise to me was he considered himself a classic liberal. He is not a modern liberal, but closer to the liberals of the 1960's. For example, he does not believe in corporate welfare. This is where government tries to pick winners and losers, supplementing pet industries. He says that the result is alway higher price for the consumer, when the free market is corrupted so politicians can earn their campaign funding.

John Kennedy, he was an example of a classic liberal. He believed in the needs of the poor and needy, but also believe tax cuts could stimulate the economy. There was nothing wrong with being wealthy if you earn it. America needed to be strong to help protect the free world like it did in WW2.

The liberals have George Soros, who is also a billionaire. He is the liberal version of the Koch brothers.

Soros Broke the Bank of England" because of his short sale of US $10 billion worth of pounds, making him a profit of $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis.

George Soros was an investor and speculator, or one of those evil rich who was in it for the money not to create jobs. If we compare billionaires, the Koch brothers have created more jobs and are better classical liberals.

 

[joepistole]

The Koch rumor was just that. But it shows how gullible liberals can be. They do not fat check but will accept a propaganda rag as a source of information.
There was an interview with Charles Koch on the Kelley Files at FOX NEWS.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/45611189...t-his-classical-liberal-views/?#sp=show-clips

LOL...except it isn't a rumor. It's a fact, and Koch is a lying sack of shit. He claims to be a liberal one moment and in the next lists a classic conservative lists of talking points to which he ascribes and you never notice the contradiction. It just proves how mindlessly so called conservatives blindly accept as gospel anything coming from a so called "conservative" source.

Koch is playing on the ignorance of folks like you. Classical liberalism is just another name for libertarian.

"some conservatives and libertarians use the term classical liberalism to describe their belief in the primacy of individual freedom and minimal government. It is not always clear which meaning is intended"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

The unpleasant fact for you is Koch and his brother have and continue to fund so called conservative organizations and have done so for a very long time. In one organization alone, the American Enterprise Institute, he has given nearly a billion dollars to since 2002. In the Fox interview, Koch admits to spending 3oo million dollars this year alone and that doesn't include all the other conservative organizations like the American Enterprise Institute Koch funds annually. Thanks to Republicans and their Citizens United ruling, Koch doesn't have to report his political donations. But you just believe anything from Fox News, entertainers, and Republican leaders like the Kochs.

Let's remember the genesis of our little discussion. You accused the Clinton's doing something nefarious with the "hundreds of millions of dollars" which flow through their charity over multi-year periods, and unlike Koch's, really is a charity which spends 85% of its money directly enriching the lives of poor people around the globe. Unlike the Kochs and their political organizations, Clinton's charity doesn't exploit any loop holes in the tax code as you have alleged. It isn't a 503c. It's a real charity.

Remember you wrote, "For example, the Clinton Foundation makes use a loopholes so they don't have to pay any taxes on hundred of millions of dollars.". The Clinton Foundation doesn't exploit any tax loophole more than any other legitimate charity (e.g. religious organizations, Goodwill Industries, Red Cross, et al.). Unlike the Koch's organizations which are political action groups and not charities, Clinton's charity isn't a 503c organization. 503's are a tax loophole.

The fact is as demonstrated by the Kochs, hundreds of millions of dollars flow through Republican organizations every year to fund political action groups to advance "conservative" causes.

What was a surprise to me was he considered himself a classic liberal. He is not a modern liberal, but closer to the liberals of the 1960's. For example, he does not believe in corporate welfare. This is where government tries to pick winners and losers, supplementing pet industries. He says that the result is alway higher price for the consumer, when the free market is corrupted so politicians can earn their campaign funding.

LOL...yeah. Koch isn't a liberal period. There is nothing liberal about him and he certainly isn't anything like a 1960's liberal. I lived through the 60's, and Koch is my neighbor. But hey, you just mindlessly accept whatever a conservative source tells you.

If Koch doesn't believe in "corporate welfare" then why does he spend a lot of money and time lobbying state legislators in order to advance his business interests. Thanks to Koch and Koch's lobbying, he pays no state income taxes. Everyone else in the state pays state income tax but a very few people like the Kochs, thanks to their control over the Kansas legislature. The Kochs made their money in the oil industry, not surprisingly, they have and continue to lobby for laws which preference the oil industry at the expense of others.

John Kennedy, he was an example of a classic liberal. He believed in the needs of the poor and needy, but also believe tax cuts could stimulate the economy. There was nothing wrong with being wealthy if you earn it. America needed to be strong to help protect the free world like it did in WW2.

Kennedy came from a very wealthy family and was a charismatic leader. But he wasn't a Libertarian (i.e. classic liberal). Additionally, no one has said there is anything wrong with being wealthy. You are setting up another straw man. You are repeating mindlessly repeating Republican entertainers again. Kennedy supported a tax cut in order to stimulate the economy. Income taxes at the time were between 20% and 91%. That's far from what they are today.

The liberals have George Soros, who is also a billionaire. He is the liberal version of the Koch brothers.

LOL..the Soros boogieman. Liberals had the Soros buggieman for a few years. Soros hasn't been politically active for sometime and he isn't a Charles Koch. He doesn't fund a fast network of liberal think tanks or PACs as do the Kochs nor was he born into vast wealth like the Kochs.

Soros Broke the Bank of England" because of his short sale of US $10 billion worth of pounds, making him a profit of $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis.

He didn't break the Bank of England. The Banks of England survived Soros's short. But he has profited handsomely from his investments.

George Soros was an investor and speculator, or one of those evil rich who was in it for the money not to create jobs. If we compare billionaires, the Koch brothers have created more jobs and are better classical liberals.

That's silly. Koch's are investors too. The difference between the Kochs is they inherited a vast pile of wealth. Soros didn't. That's the difference. The companies Soros owned employed people too.

Here is something else to consider, Soros is supposed to be worth about 24 billion dollars. The Koch brothers have a combined wealth of over 80 billion dollars - big difference. Unlike the Kochs, Soros doesn't fund a vast political network often operating in secret. Unlike the Kochs, Soros doesn't host annual secret meetings with Supreme Court justices, senators, congressmen and presidential wannabes.

 

[joepistole]

I have noticed over the years Republicans or so called "conservatives" are heavily dependent upon deception and the gullibility of their followers, and there are few things I dislike more than deception, and Republicans are buried in it as has been repeatedly demonstrated in Wellwisher's posts.

Additionally, these Republicans or so called "conservatives" are anything but conservative. Not paying the nation's bills, threatening to not pay the nation's bills and earning the US a credit downgrade, isn't in any way conservative. Invading countries on a whim and bungling two wars isn't conservative either. The truth is the American conservative movement is a fraud. It is anything but conservative.

In the interview Wellwisher referenced, Koch said he only recently became involved in politics and like the other lies and deceptions he made during that brief softball interview just isn't true. Koch has long been involved with "conservative" causes. His brother David ran for POTUS back in the 80's as a libertarian. Most of Koch's charities are really political activist organizations which he has supported for many decades. The Koch family has strong roots in the right wing of American politics going back almost a century. Koch's activism has increased in recent years and has earned him some unwanted attention, hence all the PR work.

Below is a chart detailing the Koch political money network complied by Open Secrets. The networks is probably much larger and more intricate since much of it is kept secret.

The Kochs are Kansas's own version of Boss Hogg, and its governor is its Deputy Strate. Koch's "classical liberalism" in Kansas has produced record debt and deficits accompanied by the largest tax increases in state history. But not for the Kochs, their state income taxes have gone to zero and have been and continue to be heavily protected by Deputy Strate (i.e. Governor Brownback) even to the point of adding hundreds of millions of dollars to state debt/deficit each and every year and raising everybody's taxes except for the Kochs and a few folks like them. Protection of Koch's tax privilages has also resulted in a rural hospital closing, huge cuts in educational spending and welfare. Kansas lags the nation in virtually everything, but hey, the Kochs don't have to pay state income taxes on their billions.

Koch's Deputy Brownback has also turned the state's utility rate board which is chartered to protect Kansas consumers, into a industry advocacy group. As a result, Kansans now pay the highest electrical rates in the region. That's their "classical liberalism" at work.

 

[joepistole]

Palin endorsed Trump today. . And the clowns keep clowning.

 

[Bells]

Palin endorsed Trump today. . And the clowns keep clowning.

Was this before or after she bailed her eldest son out of prison for beating up his girlfriend, and running around drunk with a gun, and threatening her when she tried to call the police, the night before? Police found her hiding, terrified and in fear for her life, under the bed in the house, after they had arrested him.

 

[joepistole]

Palin is very popular with Republicans.

 

[Bells]

Of course she is....

 

[joepistole]

The timing of this announcement is perfect for Trump. Trump's increasing attacks on Canadian Ted has caused some significant and a growing cognitive dissonance within the Republican base (i.e. Republican talk show viewers and entertainers). Trump's attacks on Cruz has made life difficult for Republican entertainers and their viewers. Because Canadian Ted has been and remains the darling of the right wing extremists who closely follow right wing entertainers (i.e. the base). In recent days, I've noticed some fracturing of Trump's support within the Republican base because of those attacks on Canadian Ted, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin being examples.

It will be interesting to see if Palin, who is about as right wing as one can get, helps right wing entertainers and their followers resolve those dissonances.

 

[joepistole]

Was this before or after she bailed her eldest son out of prison for beating up his girlfriend, and running around drunk with a gun, and threatening her when she tried to call the police, the night before? Police found her hiding, terrified and in fear for her life, under the bed in the house, after they had arrested him.

She's blaming his miscreant behavior on his military service...another case of PTSD don't ya know? As a veteran, that pisses me off. Unfortunately, PTSD has been over used and misused. And Palin is clearly misusing it and in doing so degrades all servicemen. PTSD isn't or shouldn't be a license to become a miscreant. But unfortunately folks like Palin treat it as such.

 

[joepistole]

Did you hear that ripping sound coming from the American right wing? The National Review, a major right wing journal, has come out against Trump while simultaneously major right wing leaders have come out against Canadian Ted. Wow...

 

[Tiassa]

On Message

​

There are two particular reasons to not feel sorry for Republicans as they wrangle with a protofascist presidential frontrunner and a second-place candidate known for such petulance that even his Party fellows loathe him:

(1) Republicans did this to themselves.

(2) Republicans are doing this to everyone else.​

There is, of course, a third point, that they are Republicans, but the GOP is so determined that at some point reality itself starts to sound like a trope.

As the Party struggles to deal with the mess they've made, some conservatives who held out against Trump are preparing to roll and back the frontrunner for the sake of being faithful Republicans. That is to say, if the hardline bloc the RNC has worked so hard for thirty-five years to empower votes the reality-television host to the top of the ticket, any number of high-profile, influential conservatives who have denounced the celebrity businessman who has run at least four businesses to bankruptcy will support him as if they always had. Watching these squirm and sweat as they try to find a way to posture themselves on Trump's side is not nearly so amusing as we might have otherwised presume; it is, to the other, rather quite grotesque.

There is another route, of course, which runs through Ted Cruz. This, too, involves a certain amount of squirming and sweating for some prominent Republicans. Rosie Gray↱ of BuzzFeed yesterday offered a glimpse inside the transformation of Ted Cruz's reputation in the GOP:

Some of the hawkish figures who Ted Cruz recently dismissed as “crazy neo-con invade-every-country-on-earth and send our kids to die in the Middle East” … say they’d consider supporting Cruz anyway if he’s the last man between Donald Trump and the Republican presidential nomination.

Cruz, it turns out, hasn’t fully burned his bridges with that set of advisers and supporters of George W. Bush — figures like Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and former National Security Council official Elliott Abrams, who aren’t closed off to Cruz, especially in the case of Abrams. Indeed, despite some lingering resentment and suspicion, there are even glimmers of rapprochement as the Republican primary looks like it could become a two-man race.​

‡​

​

Abrams and Kristol said they gave Cruz some leeway considering he’s in the midst of a contested primary.

“I‘ve seen people turn out to be somewhat different as president than they said they were going to be when they were running,” said Kristol. “Not because they misled anyone, just because when you’re president things look a little different from when you’re giving speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire and so forth.”

“I think at the end of the day a Ted Cruz administration would follow a foreign policy that I would be pretty happy with,” Kristol said. “I’m more relaxed about Cruz than some of my neoconservative friends.”

Their words represent a real change for a group that has long felt particular warmth for the campaign of Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

“A couple months ago, establishment Republicans were confidently saying, ‘No way will we ever support Cruz,’” said a foreign policy-focused conservative operative familiar with the establishment Republican donor and activist world. “But now that they’re confronted with reality that Trump could actually be the nominee, suddenly Ted Cruz doesn’t look so bad by comparison.”​

It is hardly a ringing endorsement, but at the same time it's also January. As the GOP eyes next week's Iowa caucuses, they might sweat the vote, but they also have about seven months until the convention, which ought to be enough time to rehearse the maneuver so it doesn't look so awkard if the RNC finds itself hopping on board with one or another extremist hoping to ride outsider anti-establishment (read, "insanely dangerous") sentiment to the nomination.

There is actually quite a bit to Gray's article, but one moment stands out not just for its general stupidity, but the immature petulance of that stupidity:

For [Victoria] Coates, Cruz stands “closer to Reagan’s twin goals of peace through strength” than the other candidates, who, she said, lean much more heavily on the “strength” side of the dictum or on the “peace” side.

Republican politicians often cite Reagan, and Cruz is characteristically on-message on this point. Asked by BuzzFeed News to cite his greatest foreign policy influence apart from Reagan, Cruz cited Reagan anyway.

“If you ask the question, the answer is Ronald Reagan,” Cruz said. “You might not like that answer, but that is the truth.”​

This is what politicos call staying on message.
____________________

Notes:

Gray, Rosie. "Despite Jabs And Attacks, GOP Hawks Take Second Look At Ted Cruz". BuzzFeed. 27 January 2016. BuzzFeed.com. 28 January 2016. http://bzfd.it/23vXlPq

 

[joepistole]

On Message

​

There are two particular reasons to not feel sorry for Republicans as they wrangle with a protofascist presidential frontrunner and a second-place candidate known for such petulance that even his Party fellows loathe him:

(1) Republicans did this to themselves.

(2) Republicans are doing this to everyone else.​

There is, of course, a third point, that they are Republicans, but the GOP is so determined that at some point reality itself starts to sound like a trope.

As the Party struggles to deal with the mess they've made, some conservatives who held out against Trump are preparing to roll and back the frontrunner for the sake of being faithful Republicans. That is to say, if the hardline bloc the RNC has worked so hard for thirty-five years to empower votes the reality-television host to the top of the ticket, any number of high-profile, influential conservatives who have denounced the celebrity businessman who has run at least four businesses to bankruptcy will support him as if they always had. Watching these squirm and sweat as they try to find a way to posture themselves on Trump's side is not nearly so amusing as we might have otherwised presume; it is, to the other, rather quite grotesque.

There is another route, of course, which runs through Ted Cruz. This, too, involves a certain amount of squirming and sweating for some prominent Republicans. Rosie Gray↱ of BuzzFeed yesterday offered a glimpse inside the transformation of Ted Cruz's reputation in the GOP:

Some of the hawkish figures who Ted Cruz recently dismissed as “crazy neo-con invade-every-country-on-earth and send our kids to die in the Middle East” … say they’d consider supporting Cruz anyway if he’s the last man between Donald Trump and the Republican presidential nomination.

Cruz, it turns out, hasn’t fully burned his bridges with that set of advisers and supporters of George W. Bush — figures like Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and former National Security Council official Elliott Abrams, who aren’t closed off to Cruz, especially in the case of Abrams. Indeed, despite some lingering resentment and suspicion, there are even glimmers of rapprochement as the Republican primary looks like it could become a two-man race.​

‡​

Abrams and Kristol said they gave Cruz some leeway considering he’s in the midst of a contested primary.

“I‘ve seen people turn out to be somewhat different as president than they said they were going to be when they were running,” said Kristol. “Not because they misled anyone, just because when you’re president things look a little different from when you’re giving speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire and so forth.”

“I think at the end of the day a Ted Cruz administration would follow a foreign policy that I would be pretty happy with,” Kristol said. “I’m more relaxed about Cruz than some of my neoconservative friends.”

Their words represent a real change for a group that has long felt particular warmth for the campaign of Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

“A couple months ago, establishment Republicans were confidently saying, ‘No way will we ever support Cruz,’” said a foreign policy-focused conservative operative familiar with the establishment Republican donor and activist world. “But now that they’re confronted with reality that Trump could actually be the nominee, suddenly Ted Cruz doesn’t look so bad by comparison.”​

It is hardly a ringing endorsement, but at the same time it's also January. As the GOP eyes next week's Iowa caucuses, they might sweat the vote, but they also have about seven months until the convention, which ought to be enough time to rehearse the maneuver so it doesn't look so awkard if the RNC finds itself hopping on board with one or another extremist hoping to ride outsider anti-establishment (read, "insanely dangerous") sentiment to the nomination.

There is actually quite a bit to Gray's article, but one moment stands out not just for its general stupidity, but the immature petulance of that stupidity:

For [Victoria] Coates, Cruz stands “closer to Reagan’s twin goals of peace through strength” than the other candidates, who, she said, lean much more heavily on the “strength” side of the dictum or on the “peace” side.

Republican politicians often cite Reagan, and Cruz is characteristically on-message on this point. Asked by BuzzFeed News to cite his greatest foreign policy influence apart from Reagan, Cruz cited Reagan anyway.

“If you ask the question, the answer is Ronald Reagan,” Cruz said. “You might not like that answer, but that is the truth.”​

This is what politicos call staying on message.
____________________

Notes:

Gray, Rosie. "Despite Jabs And Attacks, GOP Hawks Take Second Look At Ted Cruz". BuzzFeed. 27 January 2016. BuzzFeed.com. 28 January 2016. http://bzfd.it/23vXlPq

This is reminiscent of what some folks said of Hitler. They were certain Hitler would be manageable too. How did that work out for Germany?

 

[joepistole]

It looks like last night exposed a little more of Canadian Ted to his Republican sycophants. I'm very interested to see if this has an impact on Canadian Ted's polling numbers.

 

[joepistole]

Carson accuses Cruz of dirty tricks in Iowa. Cruz sent out mailers telling Iowa voters that Carson had withdrawn from the race and they should cast their vote for Cruz. A Cruz official later explained it hadn't done anything the Republican Party hadn't done. The irony here is that people like Cruz claim to be God fearing Christians ... bastions of integrity, while committing violations of Christian principals (e.g. bearing false witness).

http://time.com/4203730/ben-carson-ted-cruz-caucus-dirty-tricks/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/mika-brzezinski-confronts-cruz-campaign-over-dirty-tricks-why-do-that/

And Cruz may have committed a criminal violation when his campaign sent out mailers which accused voters of a voting violation based on their Iowa Caucus participation. It will be interesting to see if Cruz is indited. But given, Iowa is a red state, I don't think it likely.

"Accusing citizens of Iowa of a “voting violation” based on Iowa Caucus participation, or lack thereof , is a false representation of an official act. There is no such thing as an election violated related to frequency of voting. Any insinuation or statement to the contrary is wrong and I believe it is not in keeping in the spirit of the Iowa Caucuses."

http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/ted-cruzs-voter-shaming-mailer-may-have-violated-the-law/

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/ted-cruz-mailer-iowa-official-slams-218459

 

[origin]

Carson accuses Cruz of dirty tricks in Iowa. Cruz sent out mailers telling Iowa voters that Carson had withdrawn from the race and they should cast their vote for Cruz. A Cruz official later explained in hadn't done anything the Republican Party hadn't done. The irony here is that people like Cruz claim to be God fearing Christians, bastions of integrity. But then in the very next breath, commit blatant violations of Christian principals (e.g. bearing false witness).

http://time.com/4203730/ben-carson-ted-cruz-caucus-dirty-tricks/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/mika-brzezinski-confronts-cruz-campaign-over-dirty-tricks-why-do-that/

And Cruz may have committed a criminal violation when his campaign sent out mailers which accused voters of a voting violation based on their Iowa Caucus participation. It will be interesting to see if Cruz is indited. But given, Iowa is a red state, I don't think it likely.

"Accusing citizens of Iowa of a “voting violation” based on Iowa Caucus participation, or lack thereof , is a false representation of an official act. There is no such thing as an election violated related to frequency of voting. Any insinuation or statement to the contrary is wrong and I believe it is not in keeping in the spirit of the Iowa Caucuses."

http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/ted-cruzs-voter-shaming-mailer-may-have-violated-the-law/

Geeze, Cruz really is a dick...