Tuesday, July 26, 2016

WIKILEAKS TORPEDOS THE DNC


Here are the latest, most damaging things in the DNC’s leaked emails

Why DNC chairwoman Wasserman Schultz is resigning

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Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee said she will resign this week in the aftermath of the release of thousands of internal email exchanges among Democratic officials. (Thomas Johnson, Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)
This post has been updated.
Thousands of leaked emails have sealed the fate of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's uneven five-plus-year tenure as DNC chair.
Wasserman Schultz's resignation announcement Sunday afternoon comes as a bad situation just keeps getting worse -- and appears as though it might continue to do so. That's because WikiLeaks has so far released nearly 20,000 emails, new details are still being discovered, and there is still the prospect of additional, damaging emails coming to light.
Many of the most damaging emails suggest the committee was actively trying to undermine Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign. Basically all of these examples came late in the primary -- after Hillary Clinton was clearly headed for victory -- but they belie the national party committee's stated neutrality in the race even at that late stage.
Below is a running list of the most troublesome findings for Wasserman Schultz and her party. As new revelations come out, we'll update it.
1) Targeting Sanders's religion?
On May 5, DNC officials appeared to conspire to raise Sanders's faith as an issue and press on whether he was an atheist -- apparently in hopes of steering religious voters in Kentucky and West Virginia to Clinton. Sanders is Jewish but has previously indicated that he's not religious.
One email from DNC chief financial officer Brad Marshall read: “It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist."
Marshall added in a later email: “It’s these Jesus thing.”
In response, CEO Amy Dacey said: "Amen."
2) Wasserman Schultz calls top Sanders aide a "damn liar"...
On May 17, after controversy erupted over the Nevada state Democratic convention and how fair the process was there, Wasserman Schultz herself took exception to Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver's defense of his candidate's supporters.
"Damn liar," she wrote. "Particularly scummy that he barely acknowledges the violent and threatening behavior that occurred."
3) ... and says Sanders has "no understanding" of the party
That wasn't the only time Wasserman Schultz offered an unvarnished opinion about the Sanders operation. And in one late-April email, she even questioned Sanders's connection to the party.
"Spoken like someone who has never been a member of the Democratic Party and has no understanding of what we do," she said in response to a Politico story about Sanders saying the party hadn't been fair to him.
Sanders, for what it's worth, wasn't a Democrat before entering the Democratic primary. He caucused with the party but has long been an independent.
In that way, Wasserman Schultz's comments could be read simply as her defending her party; Sanders was attacking the party, after all. But her comment also suggests a particularly dim view of Sanders that she didn't feel the need to obscure in conversations with other DNC staff.
4) A Clinton lawyer gives DNC strategy advice on Sanders
When the Sanders campaign alleged that the Clinton campaign was improperly using its joint fundraising committee with the DNC to benefit itself, Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias offered the DNC guidance on how to respond.
"My suggestion is that the DNC put out a statement saying that the accusations the Sanders campaign are not true," Elias said May 3 in response to an email about the issue sent by communications director Luis Miranda to other DNC stuff that copied Elias and another lawyer at his firm, Perkins Coie.
Elias continued: "The fact that CNN notes that you aren’t getting between the two campaigns is the problem. Here, Sanders is attacking the DNC and its current practice, its past practice with the POTUS and with Sec Kerry. Just as the RNC pushes back directly on Trump over 'rigged system', the DNC should push back DIRECTLY at Sanders and say that what he is saying is false and harmful the the Democratic party."
Elias's guidance isn't perhaps all that shocking; he's Clinton's lawyer, after all. But the fact that he was talking to the DNC about how to respond would appear to suggest coordination between the DNC and Clinton campaign against Sanders in this particular case.
5) Plotting a narrative about how Sanders's campaign failed
On May 21, DNC national press secretary Mark Pautenbach suggested pushing a narrative that Sanders "never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess."
After detailing several arguments that could be made to push that narrative, Paustenbach concludes: "It's not a DNC conspiracy, it's because they never had their act together."
Paustenbach's suggestion, in that way, could be read as a defense of the committee rather than pushing negative information about Sanders. But this is still the committee pushing negative information about one of its candidates.
6) Mocking Sanders for his California debate push
One of the chief complaints from Sanders and his supporters was a lack of debates. They said the fact that there were so few was intended to help Clinton by reducing her opponents' exposure and their chances to knock her down.
After the Sanders campaign presumptuously declared that an agreement for an additional debate in California had been reached, Miranda responded to the Sanders campaign's release on May 18 simply:
"lol"
As noted, the release from the Sanders campaign was presumptuous in declaring that an agreement had been reached. Miranda could simply have been responding to the somewhat-silly tactic. But the debate never actually happened, as the Clinton campaign later opted not to participate.
7) Wishing Sanders would just end it
Many of these emails came as it was clear Clinton was going to win -- which makes the apparent favoritism perhaps less offensive (though Sanders supporters would certainly disagree).
But it's also clear that there was plenty of cheerleading for the race to simply be over -- for Sanders to throw in the towel so that Clinton could be named the presumptive nominee. The party, of course, was still supposed to be neutral even though the odds and delegate deficit for Sanders looked insurmountable.
On May 1, in response to Sanders again saying he would push for a contested convention, Wasserman Schultz said, "So much for a traditional presumptive nominee."
8) Calling an alleged Sanders sympathizer a "Bernie bro"
The term "Bernie bro" -- or "Berniebro," depending on your style -- over the course of the campaign became a kind of shorthand for the worst kind of Sanders supporter. These were the supporters who couldn't be reasoned with and verbally assaulted opponents, sometimes in very nasty ways.
Some in the DNC apparently used the pejorative to refer to one particular radio host seen as overly sympathetic to Sanders, Sirius XM's Mark Thompson.
"Wait, this is a s––– topic," Miranda wrote on May 4 after Thompson's program director, David Guggenheim, requested an interview on a Clinton fundraising controversy. "Where is Guggenheim? Is he a Bernie Bro?"
"Must be a Bernie Bro," DNC broadcast booker Pablo Manriquez responds. "Per Mark’s sage, I turned him down flat (and politely) and inquired into opportunities next week to talk about something else.
9) Criticizing Obama for lack of fundraising help -- "That's f---ing stupid"
While the Sanders emails have gained the most attention, some of the more interesting emails involve a peek behind to curtain of how party officials talk about fundraising and major donors -- and even President Obama.
In one email on May 9, DNC mid-Atlantic and PAC finance director Alexandra Shapiro noted that Obama wouldn't travel 20 minutes to help the party secure $350,000 in donations.
"He really won’t go up 20 minutes for $350k?" Shapiro wrote. "THAT’S f---ing stupid."
DNC national finance director Jordan Kaplan responded: "or he is the president of the united states with a pretty big day job."
10) Flippant chatter about donors
In a May 16 exchange about where to seat a top Florida donor, Kaplan declared that "he doesn’t sit next to POTUS!" -- referring to Obama.
“Bittel will be sitting in the sh---iest corner I can find,” responded Shapiro. She also referred to other donors as "clowns."
Here are some other things Kaplan and Shapiro said about donors, via Karen Tumulty and Tom Hamburger:
Kaplan directed Shapiro to put New York philanthropist Philip Munger in the prime spot, switching out Maryland ophthalmologist Sreedhar Potarazu. He noted that Munger was one of the largest donors to Organizing for America, a nonprofit that advocates for Obama’s policies. “It would be nice to take care of him from the DNC side,” Kaplan wrote.
Shapiro pushed back, noting that Munger had given only $100,600 to the party, while the Potarazu family had contributed $332,250.
In one email attachment from Erik Stowe, the finance director for Northern California, to Tammy Paster, a fundraising consultant, he lists the benefits given to different tiers of donors to the Democratic National Convention, which starts next week in Philadelphia. The tiers range from a direct donation of $66,800 to one of $467,600 to the DNC. The documents also show party officials discussing how to reward people who bundle between $250,000 to $1.25 million.
Correction: This post initially referred to Guggenheim as the host of a Sirius XM show. He is program director for Sirius XM host Mark Thompson.

Friday, July 22, 2016

AMERICA'S SYSTEM OF SELECTING ITS PRESIDENT IS ESSENTIALLY, FATALLY FLAWED



It has never ceased to amaze me that the geniuses who founded our Nation by publishing that magnificent document of human liberty, The Declaration of Independence, and who then proceeded to craft the world's first authentic and viable Constitution which enabled our Federal Republic to be born failed so miserably in devising a system for selecting the President of the United States.

From the beginning, after the virtually unanimous selection of George Washington to be the first President, the selection of the person to occupy the highest office in the new Republic degenerated into petty partisan politics controlling the process of selecting a President.

One would have thought that the eventual creation in the mid 19th Century of a two-party system of political organization would have facilitated a smooth process.  But what we have witnessed in the primaries of 2016 is proof that we do not have a real primary system, we have organized chaos.

The problem has its origin in the fact that there is not really a national system of primaries, there is a chaotic delegation of the control of presidential primaries to the separate party organization each of the 50 states.  The result of such delegation is true chaos.

Here is what the National Conference of State Legislatures has to say about the chaos:


The laws governing state primaries are complex and nuanced to say the least, and state primary laws have been a cause of confusion among voters and election administrators alike.The manner in which party primary elections are conducted varies widely from state to state. 
Primaries can be categorized as either closed, partially closed, partially open, open to unaffiliated votersopen, or top-two.

Closed Primaries

In general, a voter seeking to vote in a closed primary must first be a registered party member. Typically, the voter affiliates with a party on his or her voter registration application. This system deters “cross-over” voting by members of other parties. Independent or unaffiliated voters, by definition, are excluded from participating in the party nomination contests. This system generally contributes to a strong party organization.
CLOSED PRIMARY STATES
Delaware Nevada Pennsylvania
Florida New Mexico
Kentucky New York
Maryland Oregon

 

Partially Closed

In this system, state law permits political parties to choose whether to allow unaffiliated voters or voters not registered with the party to participate in their nominating contests before each election cycle. In this type of system, parties may let in unaffiliated voters, while still excluding members of opposing parties. This system gives the parties more flexibility from year-to-year about which voters to include. At the same time, it can create uncertainty about whether or not certain voters can participate in party primaries in a given year.
Partially Closed Primary States
Alaska Oklahoma
Connecticut South Dakota
Idaho Utah
North Carolina

Partially Open

This system permits voters to cross party lines, but they must either publicly declare their ballot choice or their ballot selection may be regarded as a form of registration with the corresponding party. Illinois and Ohio have this system. Iowa asks voters to choose a party on the state voter registration form, yet it allows a primary voter to publicly change party affiliation for purposes of voting on primary Election Day. Some state parties keep track of who votes in their primaries as a means to identify their backers. 
Partially Open Primary States
Illinois Tennessee
Indiana Wyoming
Iowa
Ohio

 

Open to Unaffiliated Voters

A number of states allow only unaffiliated voters to participate in any party primary they choose, but do not allow voters who are registered with one party to vote in another party’s primary. This system differs from a true open primary because a Democrat cannot cross over and vote in a Republican party primary, or vice versa. Some of these states, such as Colorado and New Hampshire, require that unafilliated voters declare affiliation with a party at the polls in order to vote in that party’s primary.
Open to Unaffiliated Voters Primary States
Arizona Massachusetts West Virginia
Colorado New Hampshire
Kansas New Jersey
Maine Rhode Island

Open Primaries

In general, but not always, states that do not ask voters to choose parties on the voter registration form are “open primary” states. In an open primary, voters may choose privately in which primary to vote. In other words, voters may choose which party’s ballot to vote, but this decision is private and does not register the voter with that party. This permits a voter to cast a vote across party lines for the primary election. Critics argue that the open primary dilutes the parties’ ability to nominate. Supporters say this system gives voters maximal flexibility—allowing them to cross party lines—and maintains their privacy.
Open Primary States
Alabama
Michigan
Montana
Vermont
Arkansas Minnesota North Dakota Virginia
Georgia Mississippi South Carolina Wisconsin
Hawaii Missouri Texas

Top-Two Primaries

California, Louisiana, Nebraska (for state elections) and Washington currently use a “top two” primary format. The “top two” format uses a common ballot, listing all candidates on the same ballot. In California and Louisiana, each candidate lists his or her party affiliation, whereas in Washington, each candidate is authorized to list a party “preference.” The top two vote getters in each race, regardless of party, advance to the general election. Advocates of the "top-two" format argue that it increases the likelihood of moderate candidates advancing to the general election ballot. Opponents maintain that it reduces voter choice by making it possible that two candidates of the same party face off in the general election. They also contend that it is tilted against minor parties who will face slim odds of earning one of only two spots on the general election ballot.
Top-Two Primary States
California Nebraska (for nonpartisan legislative races only)
Louisiana Washington

Presidential Primary Rules

States may have radically different systems for how they conduct their state and presidential primaries: some states hold their state and presidential primaries on the same day, some hold them weeks or even months apart, and some hold the two primaries on the same day but have different rules for each primary. See NCSL's State Primary Types Table for which state primary rules also apply to presidential elections.

The best example to prove that this is a chaotic system of presidential primaries in the 50 states is that it has produced the present insane situation of the Republican nomination of Donald Trump and imminent nomination of Hillary Clinton.

I will use Texas as an example to show how this came to pass since it is the State in which I reside.

Texas is an open primary State.  That means that anyone who is registered to vote, regardless of their past voting in one or another of the parties, could cast a vote in either the Republican or the Democrat primary.

In the Spring of 2016 when the primaries were held, Donald Trump was leading in the polls for the Republican nomination.  Similarly Hillary Clinton was leading in the polls for the Democrat nomination.  Since it was obvious at that time (before the email scandal really broke) that Hillary was a shoe-in for the Democrat nomination, some of the Democrat party leaders in Texas urged Democrats to cross over and vote for Donald Trump in the Republican Primary since it was their belief that Hillary would easily defeat Donald Trump in the General Election in November; more easily than having to defeat Ted Cruz or one of the other Republican candidates.  So what happened?

In the Texas Republican primary in 2012 there were 1,449,477 votes cast.  In the same Primary in 2016 there were 2,836,488 votes cast - an increase of 95.69% in the total number of votes cast.  There can be no doubt that many if not most of those additional votes were the votes of Democrats wanting to make sure that Donald Trump would do well in the primary.   And he did.  Trump got 26.7% of the vote, not enough to totally defeat Ted Cruz, a popular Senator from Texas, but enough to weaken Cruz's appeal in the other primary states.  Cruz got 43.8% of the votes in Texas.

If this could happen in Texas where Trump was pitted against native-son Cruz, it is easy to imagine how easily Trump won the majority of votes in the other fifteen states that allow open voting which permitted Democrats to pick Hillary's opposition in the General Election in November.

The widespread crossover voting that occurred in so many states in the Spring Primaries of 2016 enabled the Democrats to pick the Republican Nominee who they believe Hillary could most easily defeat.

The mantra heard so often during the days before the Republican Convention that the delegates would not be allowed to vote their consciences but had to vote for the candidate they were pledged to in the primaries was the death knell of the Republican Party in 2016.

Leo Rugiens





IT SOUNDS SO FAMILIAR: IN EITHER LANGUAGE IT MEANS THE SAME THING

Donald Trump:  "I am your voice!"

Adolf Hitler:  "Ich bin deine stimme!"

Thursday, July 21, 2016

HILLARY CLINTON, NOT DONALD TRUMP, FULFILLS THE REQUIREMENTS OF "THE BUCKLEY RULE"

Posted: 20 Jul 2016 01:01 PM PDT
THE INTELLECTUAL CONSERVATIVE 

New York Daily News Eulogy for the Republican Party
Bill Kristol, the editor-in-chief of The Weekly Standard, introduced as his thesis the dire observation that “Hillary Clinton may or may not be the all-around worst presidential nominee in the history of the Democratic party.” But after nearly 188 years of providing the electorate “some pretty unappealing characters” — candidates like James Buchanan and Jimmy Carter, George McClellan and George McGovern, whose policies might have or actually caused “great harm to the nation” — it is not untrue to acknowledge how the GOP has been stained by candidates like Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon and now Donald Trump, for whom no historically conscious Republican would wisely ignore how many times “it was perhaps as well that the Republican nominee did not prevail in the general election.”
Matt Bai yesterday observed that Trump “doesn’t represent the majority of Republican voters,” nor has he “exposed the true nature of the Republican Party as liberals always portrayed it to be.” However, Trump “does represent the party’s most aggrieved and motivated supporters right now.” And because of these indisputable facts, because he has stifled the better judgment of the majority by applying the traditional Alinsky-esque tactic of mobilizing those marginalized along the Alt Right periphery straddling both parties, Bai is correct: “he’s actually taken the party over and made it reflect his own persona.” 
GOP Committing Suicide
My conservative and Christian values are my rock; my principles that guide me which are forever grounded by the best intentions. And because of this, I may well vote now for Hillary Clinton. Not because she is the lesser of two evils, but due to her being the most conservative candidate of the two remaining. I do not need a messiah; I already have Jesus in my life.
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From my angle, Mrs. Clinton has already met the criteria for what traditionally is described by conservatives as “The Buckley Rule” – that is, Republicans should always support the most conservative candidate possible. A general rule I adopted last year which Margaret Thatcher wrote in her last autobiography is the understanding that I am ideologically married to my principles; I vote based on my convictions, never the consensus even in the face of death threats, physical coercion or intimidation. But Mrs. Thatcher was far more succinct in her explanation as I segue into explaining my opposition to a Trump presidency at any cost so long as the republic is conserved.

“For my part, I favour an approach to statecraft that embraces principles, as long as it is not stifled by them; and I prefer such principles to be accompanied by steel along with good intentions.”
— Excerpt from Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World. p. xxii

My principles are my bedrock, my impenetrable fortress in solitude; they are my foundation grounded in steel. But I will not stand by and allow them to erode by permitting them to deter my ability to protect them at any cost. While I am an arch-conservative, I am also a pragmatist in protecting mine and my family’s safety and interests. Donald Trump represents the greatest existential threat to the life of the conservative rubric.
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Hillary Clinton is indisputably the most conservative candidate remaining. Because Trump has openly refused to be my knight as a true conservative repudiating seven devastating years of the Obama presidency, Hillary Clinton will now become my pawn. She can be controlled easily by her donor class handlers on the merits of her possessing absolutely no ethical or moral principle. Show Hillary Clinton the money, and she will do anything: she can engage in just enough or nothing at all to maintain the status quo if nothing else. And while true how Trump also possesses neither ethical or moral standards, he is now a politician who for years funded the elitists in American politics. He cannot be controlled by either party, much less constrained by our own Constitution any more so than Barack Obama. And unlike Hillary Clinton, Trump will force through legal and physical coercion both parties to pass any bill he demands, if not entirely bypass Congress altogether.
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David French today published in National Review the observations that conservatism “is invested in the long game — our own “long march” through American cultural institutions.” We would therefore be loathe to discard “years of influence for the sake of four months of intraparty peace.” And make no mistake that Trump will crash and burn while either campaigning or if we are so unfortunate in trusting our countrymen’s stupidity, in the Oval Office — and the American people will not soon look to his partisans and defenders to “rebuild from the wreckage.” This is why for the sake of the nation, “those other voices” who are conservative and untainted by alliance or association with the “newly minted Republican nominee” must place their egos and thirst for absolute power aside if for no other reason than to salvage what little opposition to the rise of left-wing socialism remains by not supporting its nationalist Alt Right cousin..
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This is why Hillary Clinton is now a marginal threat by all objective, moral assessments. It is therefore Donald Trump who must lose as he is the least conservative of the two candidates. This is why I may break with my first decision to vote for neither candidate if in fact, Trump surpasses Hillary in the polls late in the race. And, as French assessed, it is true that Trump represents the dirth in integrity the American people need in their leaders, not to mention a woman “of low morals” in Mrs. Clinton. But to those too blind to avoid not approaching this election as a choice between the lesser of two evils, I can find a more pragmatic approach to achieving stability by dragging out the cancer represented by Hillary Clinton as opposed to an instant death by way of the massive Trump heart attack.
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Now, more than ever, the #NeverTrump movement must rise to the occasion one last time during our nation’s darkest hour now that Trump is officially the nominee. The Republican Party is now a direct reflection of Donald Trump. If elected, he will become synonymous with Louis XIV — the most consequential monarch in French history — by declaring himself “the state”, and we will be told to simply “eat cake”. Only in Trump’s case, there will be no Cardinal Jules Mazarin to either train him, temper or constrain his ambitions — and a matter of time before the far left-wing extremists finally topple his American Bastille.

Monday, July 18, 2016

GOP = GONE OUT OF POLITICS




Ben Domenech: The GOP Is Going To Cleveland To Die

Ben Domenech: The GOP Is Going To Cleveland To Die

THE FEDERALIST
 
'This is not the party of Abraham Lincoln anymore. It is the party of Donald Trump. . . Now, this party is coming to Cleveland to die.'
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The Republican Party is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln, said Ben Domenech of The Federalist on CBS’s “Face The Nation” Sunday morning from Cleveland — where the Republican National Convention will be held this week.
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“The Pence pick does not change the fact that the Republican Party is now the party of Donald Trump,” Domenech said referring to Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
“A hundred and fifty years ago this party was begun by Abraham Lincoln on the idea that constitutional rights were not bound by race or creed,” he said. “That the American eagle’s wings were broad enough to accept all that would come here. Now, this party is coming to Cleveland to die.”
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“This is not the party of Abraham Lincoln anymore,” he said. “It is the party of Donald Trump.”
“It has traded statesmanship for xenophobia, it has traded free markets for protectionism, it has traded the higher principles of our better angels for the belief in party identity politics,” he said. “That is why they are getting 0 percent of the black vote in Pennsylvania. That is why you’re going to continue to see this kind of race-baiting approach to politics. I think it’s completely true that this is the end of the party of Lincoln.”
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“They are desperate for change,” he continued. “They are desperate for something different than what the elites who have failed them for far too long. But they have turned in their desperation to a man who they don’t fully understand and who’s not going to deliver on his promises.”
Domenech said the Trump campaign’s decision to select Pence as his running mate may not have enough appeal in swing states like Florida.
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“Picking someone like Mike Pence is not going to bring [those who have been resisting Trump] back onto the Republican wagon this time around — particularly swing voters and independents who he needs to appeal to,” he said.

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Wednesday, July 13, 2016

IT IS ABSURD TO CONTEND THAT THE GOP DELEGATES MUST VOTE FOR TRUMP, HERE IS WHY!!!



Trump and the Delegates

A court ruling gives an impetus to unbinding GOP convention-goers.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Editorial Board Member Joe Rago on what happens if the RNC’s Rules Committee votes to free the delegates in Cleveland. Photo credit: Associated Press.
A federal judge on Monday issued a permanent injunction that overturns a Virginia law requiring that delegates to this month’s party conventions vote based on the results of the primaries. The thunderclap ruling is right on the legal and constitutional merits, but the larger political question is whether Republicans should adopt a conscience rule to unbind the delegates in Cleveland next week.
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The case was brought by Beau Correll, a Ted Cruz supporter who doesn’t want to vote for Donald Trump as Virginia law says he must. Federal Judge Robert Payne’s opinion makes a persuasive case that the Virginia law—and by implication any state’s law—that binds delegates violates First Amendment rights of free speech and association.
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Political parties are private institutions that exist to advance their common beliefs and to nominate candidates without state interference, and delegates must be unconstrained in their choices.
“First Amendment rights for parties and their adherents are particularly strong in the context of the nomination and selection of the President and Vice President,” Judge Payne writes in Correll v. Herring.
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The ruling applies only to Virginia’s delegates to both party conventions, but it may give an impetus to Republicans in other states who are pushing for a “conscience clause” that would unbind all delegates. That question will be put this week before the Republican National Convention’s 112-member rules committee. Merely one-quarter of the rules committee, or 28 members, can send a minority report to the floor for a debate that would be followed by an up-or-down vote by the full convention.
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How a vote to unbind would shake out is anyone’s guess, but there is nothing illegitimate about it. Republicans should respect the preferences of primary voters, though not automatically. Political parties exist to win elections—in other words, nominating the candidate with the best chance in November. If the delegates are unbound to exercise their judgment, and a majority concludes that is someone other than Mr. Trump, the GOP has the right to do so.
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Mr. Trump carried 36 states and secured about 1,450 pledged delegates, more than the 1,237 who make a majority under current GOP rules. By the time all the ballots were cast, he received 44% of the popular vote.  {Many of those ballots were cast by Democrats who favored Hillary Clinton in the General Election in November - Leo Rugiens}
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Then again, Mitt Romney won 52% in 2012, John McCain 47% in 2008, and George W. Bush 61% in 2000, so Mr. Trump’s plurality support is the weakest of any modern GOP nominee. Mr. Trump won 13.4 million votes. That’s more than any GOP nominee ever, as he likes to observe—but fewer than Hillary Clinton’s 15.9 million votes this year.
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Since his Indiana victory in May, Mr. Trump has enlarged his campaign but his organization and fundraising continue to lag the Democrat’s. He trails Mrs. Clinton in the Real Clear Politics national polling average by about four and a half points despite her historic unpopularity.
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Mr. Trump has also continued to stoke doubts about his candidacy and to behave in ways that reflect poorly on his political and strategic judgment. He has courted pointless controversies like Trump University. Few candidates are bestowed gifts akin to Mrs. Clinton’s private email scandal, but Mr. Trump changed the subject to Saddam Hussein.
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The case for unbinding the delegates is that Republicans have a great chance to retake the White House and reform the federal government. If they are going to gamble on a high-risk candidate like Mr. Trump, then they should ratify it willingly in a robust floor debate.
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Mr. Trump says he’s confident he’ll prevail even if the delegates are unbound, and if that’s true then he ought to welcome a conscience vote. The convention system is designed to produce consensus nominees, but many reluctant Republicans haven’t rallied around the winner this time. Winning on the floor would add to the legitimacy of his nomination and help unite the party despite his critics. If Mr. Trump can’t obtain the support of a majority of delegates, he’s probably a loser in November.
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Then again, denying Mr. Trump the nomination could also be futile at this stage. Defeating him would inflame party divisions, and no Republican can win without the support of Mr. Trump’s core voters. This is why even a conscience vote is opposed by the Republican National Committee.
The anti-Trump lobby claims the GOP has a moral obligation to drop the businessman, but their demands would be more credible if they fielded an alternative who could win in November. Many of them are merely fronting for Ted Cruz, who doesn’t want his fingerprints on any convention fight but perhaps wouldn’t mind benefiting from it.
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GOP primary voters never coalesced around a non-Trump candidate, and they rejected Mr. Cruz when the field narrowed to a virtual head to head.  {Democrats recognized that Cruz, a world class champion debater represented a real threat to Hillary Clinton and therefore the primary objective was to defeat Cruz in the primary and make Trump Hillary's opponent in the general election - Leo Rugiens} The Texan is no more likely a winner than Mr. Trump.  {Rago has no logical basis for thinking that; on the contrary, Cruz was only 400 delegates behind Trump in the rigged primary system - Leo Rugiens}  Would the delegates—and voters in November—accept a nominee like John Kasich or Marco Rubio who polls better against Mrs. Clinton?
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A conscience vote would be unprecedented, but then this entire year has no precedent. Republicans should nominate the best candidate they think has the best chance of winning in November. If that means a raucous debate on the floor, then Americans might appreciate the exercise in democratic self-government.

TRUMP SAYS THAT IT WOULD BE OK WITH HIM IF THE DEMOCRATS WON THE SENATE NEXT NOVEMBER




Trump Says He 'Doesn't Mind' Losing The Senate To Democrats. That Means His Supporters Are Suckers.

MPI10 / MediaPunch/IPX
July 13, 2016
THE DAILY WIRE
While Republican delegates prepare to nominate Donald Trump in Cleveland in two weeks, Trump provided yet another piece of evidence that he’s not particularly concerned with the success of the party he has hijacked. New York Times Magazine asked Trump about the importance of maintaining a Republican Senate. Here was Trump’s almost incomprehensible answer – an answer that would be utterly incomprehensible if Trump were actually a conservative or a serious Republican: “Well, I’d like them to do that. But I don’t mind being a free agent, either.”
Of course he wouldn’t. He has no intention of making conservative priorities his own.
Imagine the scenario Trump says he wouldn’t mind: a Democratic Senate. You can forget about a conservative on the Supreme Court. That notion would be dead on arrival. You could also forget about Trump’s supposed immigration priorities, including the fabled Trump Wall and more stringent deportations. So the two top priorities for conservatives – replacing Justice Scalia with someone of like mind, and ending the Democratic strategy of importing potential voters – would be an impossibility.
And Trump says he wouldn’t mind.
He likely wouldn’t mind because he wants to cut deals with Democrats. That provides him popularity and a concomitant sense of meaning. Trump would cut “great” trade and tax deals with Democrats. He’d likely sign off on significant elements of the left’s social agenda. He’d compromise on gun rights.
And he wouldn’t mind doing it.
He’s acting like it, too. According to Ryan Williams, strategist with the 2012 Romney presidential campaign, “Traditionally, the nominee has a robust campaign that absorbs the RNC effort and works in tandem with the down-ballot campaigns. We did that with Romney in 2012. This time around, there’s a complete void at the presidential level. Trump’s trying to play a game of baseball and hasn’t put out an infield.”
So far, the polls don’t show Trump doing significant damage down ballot. But the fact that he doesn’t seem to care should tell Republicans everything they need to know about his priorities.

Saturday, July 9, 2016

HERE IS THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CLINTON EMAIL !!!




 German version of what happened to the Clinton Emails....
 
 This is one of those "I can't believe this is happening".
    
http://viewpure.com/Prls6Iz3B3E

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

THEY ARE COMING TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD !!!

 

 

 

I just received this from a friend in San Antonio.  

 

 Bill, I've been in that area a lot lately and you would not believe the large Muslim population in that area.  Between IH 10 and Fredericksburg Rd. along Wurzbach is primarily Arab Muslims.Besides a mosque there are grocery stores and restaurants.I keep telling people what is happening and they either don't believe me or don't care.Better yet scared to not be politically correct.  You should see all the cabs around the mosque on Friday afternoons. I suspect the police are afraid to go in there. If not now, soon. Wake up San Antonio!Got this from a friend in San Antonio I talked with a friend of mine from San Antonio today.  She was telling me about her daughter's encounter with one of our new refugees last week.  The daughter is in her 30's.  Betty went to the HEB at IH 10 in Colonies North.  When she walked in the place was full of the refugees and all the women were in scarves or full burkas. She put her cart away and was leaving. A man in a pajama looking suit backed into her, turned around and started screaming at her in another language.  Kafir, kafir, kafir, and kept screaming.  Betty started yelling back.  A woman came up in full burka with only her eyes showing and a beautiful British accent and told the daughter that he was a holy imam and that Betty was impure and he would become tainted by only being touched by her.So Betty had enough and was going to leave and the imam blocked the doors and started shoving her.  HEB security came and called the police. The police told Betty that they are getting a lot of these calls now.  They come to the shopping center about 4 times a week.  They just moved in a big group of Syrian refugees in January and they are getting into it with the locals. So it seems that the Data point area is the new muslimville in San Antonio. Welcome to America! 
Maybe it's time for us to leave!    

Sunday, July 3, 2016

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY TO YOU AND ALL WHO LOVE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE !!!



The Leave campaign of 1776 reverberates to this day

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
July 3, 2016
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GREAT BRITAIN'S VOTE last month to exit the European Union has been widely described as the country's most consequential decision in decades. But its significance is paltry compared to that of history's original "Leave" resolution, the 240th anniversary of which Americans commemorate this Fourth of July.
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The unanimous vote in the Second Continental Congress, which affirmed that "these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states ... absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown," was the most far-reaching political event of the 18th century {and probably of all western history since the signing of the Magna Carta by King John - Leo Rugiens}. John Adams, writing from Philadelphia to his wife Abigail, called the vote not just "the greatest decision . . . which ever was debated in America," but possibly the greatest that ever "was or will be decided among men."
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And yet, for the longest time, sentiment in the American colonies strongly favored "Remain." Even after the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, even after Parliament had enacted Lord North's detested Intolerable Acts, countless Americans still craved a peaceful compromise with London. It was a sentiment their leaders expressed repeatedly. In a published message to "friends and fellow-subjects" in Ireland, for example, the Continental Congress gave its assurance that "America still remembered her duty to her sovereign" and, "though insulted and abused," continued to "wish for reconciliation." Despite being "charged with rebellion, [we] will cheerfully bleed in defense of our Sovereign in a righteous cause," the statement averred. "What more can we say? What more can we offer?"
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As Pauline Maier showed in American Scripture, her acclaimed 1997 study of the making of the Declaration of Independence, many of the most radical Founders clung to the hope that America might remain in the empire. As late as August 1775, four months after Lexington and Concord, Thomas Jefferson could still write to a correspondent "that he sincerely wished for reunion and 'would rather be in dependence on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any nation on earth, or than on no nation.' " What the Americans objected to was not the authority of the king — many, like Benjamin Franklin, had been devoted royalists — but the authority of a Parliament in which they had no voice or vote {much the same as what we have in our present United States Supreme Court, which has usurped the power of Congress and the 50 state legislatures to legislate - Leo Rugiens}.
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By the start of 1776, however, hope of reconciliation was gone. King George had (falsely) proclaimed the colonies to be in "open and avowed rebellion," and demanded "the most decisive exertions" to crush them. He signed into law a "Prohibitory Act" banning trade with the Americans, and declaring open season on American ports and ships. In a New Year's Day attack, British troops bombarded and burned Norfolk, Va. Soon after came word that thousands of additional troops were crossing the Atlantic to quell colonial resistance. Americans had been raised to think of themselves as Englishmen and to revere the English king. Now it was becoming clear that they'd been clinging to a delusion.
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In January 1776, with superb timing, Thomas Paine published "Common Sense." It was a scorching denunciation of the "royal brute" in London, and it appeared just as Americans were coming to grips with the realization that they could no longer profess loyalty to an empire that had rejected them.
"Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation," Thomas Paine argued in his political manifesto "Common Sense." Americans had evolved into a new nation, and they were entitled to sovereignty and self-rule.
"Common Sense" was a runaway bestseller. It sold more than 150,000 copies — astonishing in a country with a population of just 2.5 million. It was "greedily bought up and read by all ranks of people," marveled Josiah Bartlett, a congressional delegate from New Hampshire. Paine's manifesto was a ferocious attack not just on England's abusive treatment of the colonies, but on the very idea of monarchy itself. He mocked the "farcical" notion that Americans, being largely of English descent, must remain under English rule. William the Conqueror had been a Frenchman, he pointed out, and "half the peers of England" were of French descent. Did it therefore follow that England must be governed by France?
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"Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation," Paine argued. "The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'Tis time to part. Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority of the one over the other was never the design of Heaven."
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He was making more than a political point. Paine was urging Americans to fight for independence not only because George III and Parliament had betrayed them, but because they were no longer Britons. America's people had evolved into a new nation, and that new nation was entitled, by the very "design of Heaven," to sovereignty and self-rule. A few months later, that idea would be enshrined in the opening words of the Declaration of Independence. The colonists had become "one people," and it had become necessary for that people to sever its ties to England and become a wholly independent power — to claim "the separate and equal station" in the world that it deserved. And who had authorized American independence? Not English ministers or foreign diplomats, but "the laws of Nature and of Nature's God."
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In the Declaration, Congress laid out America's case to "a candid world," because Americans wanted to show "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." But respect for world opinion did not imply a willingness to submit to it. The colonies weren't asking for their independence. They were asserting it. They had made up their minds to leave. No longer could anything induce them to remain.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again," Paine had written. "A race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom." Americans were the first nation in history to declare independence, replacing rule by a king with rule by consent of the governed. It was a transformation that permanently altered the course of human events. Long after "Brexit" has been forgotten, the events of 1776 will still be reverberating.
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(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
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