Tag: Republican Candidates

Ten Paces Turn and Fire

There is a duel being fought in the media between Our Dear Leader and the uber rich Koch Brothers……for now it is a war of words….but things could spiral into a full fledged political war…….

Amid a morning flurry of tweets, President Trump took aim at two powerful figures on the right: brothers David and Charles Koch. “The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade,” the president tweeted. “I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas,” he continued, adding, “Their network is highly overrated.” His comments, however, come after the Kochs lobbed an attack of their own at a weekend forum in Colorado. Coverage:

  • Kochs’ criticism: At a Koch network gathering in Colorado Springs, Charles Koch criticized Trump’s tariffs and protectionist trade policies and suggested he’s open to supporting Democratic candidates who are more in line with the Kochs’ free-trade and libertarian views, reports the National Review. “I don’t care what initials are in front or after somebody’s name,” he told the group.
  • Turning point? A video during the forum showed businesses supposedly shuttered because of retaliatory tariffs, notes Politico, which says “the open hostilities at this weekend’s conference came as something of a surprise.” At Vanity Fair, Tina Nguyen sounds a familiar note: “The Kochs’ hostility toward Trump isn’t new, though their rhetoric seems to mark a turning point.”
  • Another shot: The president of the Charles Koch Foundation was even more cutting over the weekend: “The divisiveness of this White House is causing long-term damage,” said Brian Hooks, per CNN. “When in order to win on an issue someone else has to lose, it makes it very difficult to unite people and solve the problems in this country. You see that on trade: In order to get to a good place on trade, convince the American people that trade is bad.”
  • Telltale race: The Koch network also has defied the White House in the Senate race in North Dakota pitting vulnerable Democratic incumbent Heidi Heitkamp against GOP challenger Kevin Cramer, reports the Washington Post. Trump has personally campaigned for Cramer, but the Kochs say they can’t support him because he’s not fiscally conservative enough, citing, for example, his support of Trump’s trillion-dollar spending package, per the Hill.
  • Familiar face: The Kochs’ criticism of the White House and their reticence to back the entire GOP ballot caused former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to lash out. “What they have to do is shut up and get with the program, OK?” Bannon told Politico. “And here’s the program: Ground game to support Trump’s presidency and program, [and] victory on Nov. 6.” Trump’s tweets, however, suggest he doesn’t want their help now.
  • The choice: In an analysis at the Atlantic, Reihan Salam susses all this out and frames it in general terms with this question: “Will the GOP be the party of Donald Trump or the party of Charles Koch?” The Kochs helped shape the GOP agenda during the Obama years, but the party’s populist turn under Trump has them worried, he writes. However, this new split with the GOP may ultimately backfire for the brothers, he warns.

Under normal circumstances I would be delighted to see the GOP in disarray…..but this president is destroying a once proud political party piece by piece and the elected reps from this party are enabling the party’s demise.

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What The Military Thinks Of The Candidates

The convention circus has begun………

I know some think that I go on a bit at the lack of substance and quality of the two candidates that we have to choose from in this election…..but guess what?  I am not alone!

American military personnel favor Donald Trump for president over Hillary Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin in an exclusive survey conducted by Military Times ahead of the Republican and Democratic national conventions, but a strong majority of respondents say they are wholly unimpressed with both candidates.

More than 61 percent indicated they are “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with Trump as the Republican nominee, including 28 percent of those who intend to vote for him. More than 82 percent said the same about Clinton, the Democratic nominee, with 30 percent of those pledging to vote for her voicing displeasure with the choice.

Source: By and large, the military thinks Trump and Clinton are total losers

I am so excited to witness this election (sarcasm)…..I cannot wait to see just how f*cked up this country can become……the sad part is with these two a/holes the military will have to do the heavy lifting while everyone else sits on their asses criticizing some one some where…

Is It Pence Per Chance?

The media has been in overdrive trying to select the VP for Trump….we have heard so much from so many…..well they can sleep well tonight….there is a winner!

Donald Trump’s Veepstakes is over, and Indiana Governor Mike Pence has won.

The Veepstakes is one of America’s odder political and journalist traditions. Everyone wants to know, as soon as possible, who will occupy a famously not-that-important job and reporters eagerly sniff out leads even though the name will be publicly announced soon enough. Donald Trump, by leading an unusually interesting campaign, managed to also lead an unusually interesting search process.

Source: 2 winners and 3 losers in Donald Trump’s VP selection – Vox

Are they pleased?  Nope!

It seems there is yet another candidate that needs to pick a VP to join the ticket…..

The MSM will now switch gears and start the process all over again…..we will hear so much from so many.

This will be all consuming…that is until next week when the big story will be thew GOP convention……

Hillary will have to take the backseat to the antics at the convention in Cleveland…I am sure that she will find some way to sneak into the news during the week….it is not like her to go silently away for a week.

And then we start this crap all over again….so much from so many.

Donald Trump’s policy problems

I know that there are a few of my readers that support the Donald (I believe there is a pill for that…LOL) and I would like to post something on this candidate to help people understand where he is coming from on the different policies…..

I personally, do not support his in any way but there needs to be more information on his thoughts on the different policies…..most of us know the rhetoric and the applause lines but just where does he stand on the policies that are pressing the country?

Donald Trump rode a tidal wave of populism to the Republican nomination, but a President Trump would face a different reality: major limits on executive power and a stingy Congress that would block him at most every turn.

POLITICO deployed its policy experts to study a week’s worth of Trump commentary and decipher what he’s saying, how his ideas would work and how far he could really go with positions that are unorthodox at best, and often heretical to his party’s ideology.

Source: Donald Trump’s policy problems – POLITICO

It is possible that Trump will have an about face and actually grasp the problems and the policies of this country…..so far his rhetoric does not bode well for the nation.

But he is having a private meeting with the GOP’s Mr. Neocon, Kissinger….will it bring him around to their way of thinking?

Cannot wait to see how Trump “apologists” (how you toads like your fave label being used against you?) have to say about this…that is if they can think that fast.  My guess is that coherence is not one of their strong suits.  Most have no original thoughts they just follow the moron with the biggest mouth…yeah that is always best for the country, huh?

“My First 100 Days”

Now that the GOP has it “presumptive” nominee, Donald trump…..he has started trying to sound like a presidential candidate…..he has even given his adoring public his itinerary for his first 100 days…..

With Donald Trump as the presumptive GOP nominee, there’s now a stronger-than-ever chance that President Trump will be sworn in next January—and his first 100 days in office will have just finished by this time next year. The New York Times interviewed Trump three times and spoke to aides and analysts to find out what those 100 days might be like. Some highlights:

  • Inauguration Day will involve some “beautiful” galas, but also the rescinding of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration, Trump says.
  • Trump says on Day 1, he will also speak to military and Homeland Security officials about sealing the border with Mexico. Talks with wall-builders will soon follow.
  • Trump says his first day in office will also involve phone calls to the CEOs of companies like Ford and Nabisco, warning them that they will face 35% tariffs for moving jobs out of the US. “The markets would be fine,” he says.
  • Trump knows which foreign leader he would call on his first day: none of them. “I wouldn’t be calling them up right away and getting more entangled,” he says.
  • Trump and his advisers say the first 100 days will be all about negotiations, most of which will take place in his new office. “The Oval Office would be an amazing place to negotiate,” he says. “It would command immediate respect from the other side, immediate understanding about the nation’s priorities.”
  • By the end of the 100 days, Trump plans to have a ban on Muslim immigration in place and to have made progress in delivering other major campaign promises, including repealing ObamaCare.
  • It’s still going to be the White House, not the Trump House: He “had no ambitious renovation plans,” the Times notes.
  • Trump says he is going to make big changes fast and not everybody will like them—but there’s nothing to worry about. “I know people aren’t sure right now what a President Trump will be like,” he says. “But things will be fine. I’m not running for president to make things unstable for the country.”

And the peasants danced.

Cute slogans and great applause lines….but that is about as far as any of it will go.

Please do not get too excited….you do recall that there is a Congress that does little to nothing and all his “plans” must go through the Congress.

Do you really see much of his “promises” being law in the first 100 days?

Thanx everyone for your attention this past week….now I begin my weekend of solace and meditation…..hopefully you will enjoy yours also.

Yes, We Have News From The Erection.

Wait!  Should that be “election” not “erection”?  I used the word “erection” in the title because all those rabid Trump supporters are dealing with wood on several levels…..Cruz has tucked his tail and will slither back to the Senate and the media is starting to use the term “presumptive” when talking about Donald…..

Ted Cruz is out. The Texas senator is ending his campaign after being routed in Indiana by Donald Trump in Tuesday’s primary, reports the AP. Cruz had staged a last stand in the state in the hope of preventing Trump from securing the nomination, but he told supporters that he has no “viable path to victory” after the loss. “The voters chose another path,” he said. “We gave it everything we’ve got.” Trump, who was leading by about 15 points, had been declared the winner as soon as polls closed at 7pm EDT. “We’re going after Hillary Clinton,” he told his own supporters after Cruz’s announcement. “And we’re going to win.” In his speech, Trump also praised Cruz as “one hell of a competitor” and said he had an “amazing future.”

Shortly after Cruz’s bombshell, Republican National Committee chief Reince Priebus tweeted that Trump is the “presumptive nominee,” adding that “we all need to unite and focus on defeating” Clinton. In his own speech, Cruz made no mention of the front-runner. Earlier in the day, however, he unleashed a diatribe, calling Trump a “serial philanderer” and a “pathological liar,” notes NBC News. That came after Trump dredged up a bizarre National Enquirer report linking Cruz’s dad to Lee Harvey Oswald. John Kasich was a distant third in Indiana, though he gave no indication he planned to follow Cruz’s lead and drop out.

If you listen closely you will hear the orgasmic howls of the Trunp-ites….now they can turn their venom toward the Clintons…..

Congrats Donald….now use the power well.

What About Trump And Democracy

Today is the day we vote in Indiana….or is it Idaho….or maybe…..the Hell with it……somebody is voting somewhere.

The 2016 election has brought a lot of opinions especially when it comes to one Donald Trump…..it depends where you stand on the political spectrum on which of those opinions you will embrace…..

Never let it be said that I am not fair in my condemnation of ALL candidates……

But I think that some are missing the concept of democracy…..or “the will of the People”….right or wrong……

I read an interesting op-ed about Mr. Trump and democracy…..

The “conservative intelligentsia” is anything but intelligent when it comes to Donald Trump, writes John Feehery at the Hill. Among those he calls out is David Brooks of the New York Times, who last week called Trump’s candidacy a “Joe McCarthy moment” for the party. But Feehery also cites comments of a similar nature from the likes of George Will (see here), Michael Gerson (here), and Ross Douthat (here), all of whom seem to think that Trump is the personification of evil who will do long-term damage to the GOP unless stopped. “To these so-called smart people, I say: Stop being so stupid,” writes Feehery.

This opposition to Trump reveals “their biases against democracy and the will of the people,” he argues. Instead of knocking him down, they should pay more attention to why Trump is so popular, writes Feehery, who provides some theories of his own: Trump is a “real outsider who represents real change,” he has explicitly denounced the Iraq War as a mistake, and his economic message (“the middle class is getting screwed by the political class”) is resonating. Most Trump supporters “are by no means stupid, irrational, racist or anti-democratic,” writes Feehery. They’re just tired of the status quo and see Trump as the only candidate who can destroy it. Click for his full column. (Or for Andrew Sullivan’s opposing view.)

This is by NO means my endorsement of Trump in this election…..I found the article a good one and bit of a thought making piece…..

Plato thought democracies were especially susceptible to “tyranny” the longer they lasted and the more democratic they became, and the US seems to be in exactly the kind of “late-stage democracy” ripe for such a thing.

In conclusion, it should be noted that, in modern times, a democracy is considered one of the more ideal forms of government, considering the value many people tend to place on individual liberty and the freedom to choose one’s own path in life. However, Plato’s criticisms should be kept in mind when determining the merit of a democratic government. Oh, would it not be great to have a democracy of philosophers, who would pursue truth and wisdom! Alas, we are only human, and susceptible to many evils and lies. The trick is to prevent such ignorant people from becoming the majority. At times, it seems nigh impossible to do so; curse our stupidity!

(Matt Brazil)