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Home » Want proof that Trump’s a tyrant? You got it.

Want proof that Trump’s a tyrant? You got it.

The New Neo Posted on by

[BUMPED UP for emphasis.]

I mean that literally.

I’ve written before that Trump’s history with power and government, and much of what he actually advocates with his own mouth, point to the fact that he has tyrannical impulses that are unchecked by any knowledge of and/or respect for much of the Constitution. I’ve written before about his lack of respect for free speech, and his interest in undermining it.

Now we have candidate Trump (soon to be Republican nominee Trump, if his supporters have anything to say about it, which they do) stating that if he’s president he intends to do this [emphasis mine]:

And one of the things I’m going to do, and this is only going to make it tougher for me, and I’ve never said this before, but one of the things I’m going to do if I win — and I hope I do and we’re certainly leading — is I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We’re going to open up those libel laws. So that when The New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when the Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected. You see, with me, they’re not protected because I’m not like other people but I’m not taking money. I’m not taking their money. So we’re going to open up those libel laws folks and we’re going to have people sue you like you never got sued before. We have many things to do. We have many, many things to do.

Readers of this blog know how very bitterly and often I’ve criticized the MSM, including the two outlets Trump mentioned. But this is very dangerous stuff from Trump—although many of his supporters probably will love it because they hate the MSM and they appear to believe that ends justify means. Or perhaps they’ll justify it in the usual way, that Trump will somehow magically do stuff about immigration that no one else will do and that he’ll fix it and that makes everything else he says okay and we must ignore his embrace of tyranny.

Well, I submit that there are other candidates who will do virtually the same stuff about immigration, or so close to it that their policies will stop the bleeding, and they’ll do it without destroying (or even wanting to destroy) the republic and its liberties in order to accomplish it.

This statement of Trump’s is many things, but one of them is a window into his mind. It’s not a pretty sight, and in fact it’s a dangerous place.

I wonder, also, how one “opens up” laws. I’d be awfully curious to hear Trump explain (extemporaneously, without consulting others)—other than to say he’ll do it, and it will be great.

I would like to know whether Trump knows what our current liberal laws are based on, and how they might be changed.

And I’d like him to tell us what those “many things” are that he’s planning to do if elected, and that he’s “never said before.” I bet they’re really huge, and really great.

[NOTE: Ace has an excellent piece on this, and more. Ace has until now, as he writes in the post, “weakly” supported Trump. But at this point he’s turning in his Trump card because he is convinced that Trump knows nothing and cares less, and that everything out of Trump’s mouth is pandering to what he thinks conservatives like so that they’ll nominate him right before he then turns sharly leftward. Read it.]

[NOTE II: On this Powerline thread, I found some fascinating and telling quotes from Trump supporters about this issue. Here’s one:

Mr. Trump has a good idea. Let the people decide these libel issues, insteads of these smug justices.

Another:

[Powerline] drama queens. We all have been disappointed by the media’s lack of fairness! You are over thinking what he is saying… He is raising an issue and creating attention. LOL!

And this

It doesn’t matter, [Powerline] Boys……..it doesn’t matter.

Let me clue you in to what matters (for the millionth time).

A) Cutting immigration.
B) Re-negotiating trade deals to re-kindle US manufacturing and to de-tangling us out of TPP Globalist deals.

And there’s this “free speech is only for those I agree with” guy:

I must say I agree with Trump. There must be a people’s remedy for willful misrepresenting, omitting (relevant) facts or including irrelevant ones. or editorially omitting stories altogether. Every liberal news outlet these days is presenting suppostion, speculation, and wishful-thinking editorial bias to every story they print. They CANNOT be objective, even though they are losing millions annually. They do NOT pursue truth. Profit is NOT their motive. Liberal political power is. This has been going on unchallenged for 3-4 generations. It has caused millions of Americans to be misled. It it one of the PRIMARY reasons this nation is in the sorry shape it’s in.

Scott, are you saying WE THE PEOPLE must just sit back and taccept this? I could NOT disagree more. I do not believe the first amendment enables vicious slander or some other deliberate malevolent unlawful behavior. That is NOT free speech. It is slander and defamation. A few lawsuits against these miscreants would have a palliative affect on this.

Trump is right. You are wrong.

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.]

[NOTE III: I’d also like every single conservative (excuse me: “conservative”) who has endorsed Trump to explain how he or she can square away that endorsement with these statements of Trump’s.]

Comments

Want proof that Trump’s a tyrant? You got it. — 176 Comments

  1. My favorite Trump First Amendment case involves the Street analyst who expressed his *opinion* that Trump Taj Mahal would go bankrupt.

    In typical Trump fashion, Trump threatens the guy. His employer fires him. Guy was right. The Wharton Wiz goes bankrupt. Little guy sues Trump. Little guy ends up with at least $700k and more like $2.7m.

    Bully. Tyrant. Idiot. Con artist. Take your pick.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/11/business/analyst-settles-trump-lawsuit.html

  2. Yep, that was an excellent article by Ace. I second your recommendation.
    I thought it was bad enough when half the country could be taken in by Obama. And now this from the other side. Interesting times, indeed.
    Heard Rush asking a Trump supporter yesterday if he was bothered by DJT’s various positions/inconsistencies – the caller said, “it doesn’t matter what he says” (referring to Trump).

  3. Anyone may believe, if it will make them sleep soundly, that Trump is, radically, a blowhard, a hypocrite, a fascist wolf, or whatever. His foibles — a great deal of his personal and public side — are enough to make one distrust him, not like him, not vote for him. That’s all fine and good — it’s the way representative democracy works at it’s best — unfortunately. But don’t think for a moment that Trump — alone – has not put his finger on the pulse of Middle America (both the fly over middle of America and the generally white middle class) and taken measure of it. If the establishment believes they have only to stop Trump to restore the status quo ante, to, in essence, deprive the agitated and fearful middle a voice, so that they would relent and return gently into the fold and see the wonderfulness of a Bush, or the exoticness of a Rubio, they reveal not hubris but a rare and monumental stupidity. But make no mistake it is hubris also. The next man up in the revolution may well make Trump seem like a damned fine idea — if only he had not been thwarted and the way paved for life imitating art, i.e., a real D. B. Norton*, or Big Jim Taylor*, or John Ceder*.

    Back the man who frightens the establishment. Support the man who is unequivocal. Promote the man who has not contributors to knead. Champion the man who will not kowtow to pecksniffs, SJWs, and PoCo Mutaween. Endorse the man who will defend America’s borders, its middle class producers, its citizens, its backbone. Vote Trump.

    As to Trump’s this and that statements — certainly people have heard of hyperbole. It is the currency of American discourse. For example, from what I have heard, I believe there must be more NAZIs (conservatives) in America now than ever there were in NSDAP Germany.

    Here you have one Milo Yianoppoulos of Breitbart Saying: “Burn feminists at the stake!! BURN THEM ALL..!!”

    That was said to make a point. The hyperbole makes that point obvious. Feminists are beyond the pale and have nothing to offer Western civilization. Well done Milo.

    If you run against the democrats know this — you run against the MSM. A shot or two across the bow reminds voters that those opposed to the LibProg/Left also oppose, ipso facto, the MSM. And well done Mr Trump.

    I would urge everyone they stop peeking into their closets and under the bed looking for straw men to frighten the heretofore disillusioned. You won’t find them. Those are not straw men; they’re dust bunnies.

    *see Frank Capra’s ‘us against them’ trilogy, John Doe, Mr. Smith, and Mr Deeds (best of the three)**.
    **NB: the indispensable man, i.e., the sanest man in the courtroom, turned out to be the cynic not the idealist, unlike Mr Smith.

  4. KLSmith:

    I believe that this phenomenon is worse.

    When the left and the Democrats supported Obama and his tyrannical moves, at least we had the right in opposition, supporting a stricter interpretation of the Constitution and more devoted to liberty.

    This is coming from the right. Who protects us now?

  5. You neo, do not understand that djt is YUGE! and will make his inauguration address while sitting on a unicorn that is trampling an illegal alien. He will repay the national debt from all the money that comes rolling in from his libel suits and will team up with Putin to wipe Islam from the map of the world. And that is just in his first 10 days as he sits in the Oval Office with his feet on the desk smoking a cigar attended on by all the gorgeous young interns that will flock to serve our new king.

    Trumpsters have taken the mob down a rabbit hole. Time to gird our loins for the first female POTUS or good old Uncle Joe Biden.

  6. JurassiCon Rex:

    How does it feel to be an apologist for a tyrant?

    Does it feel a bit like this?:

    National Socialism was a repulsion of my friends against parliamentary politics, parliamentary debate, parliamentary government–against all the higgling and the haggling of the parties and the splinter parties, their coalitions, their confusions, and their conniving. It was the final fruit of the common man’s repudiation of “the rascals.” Its motif was “throw them all out.” My friends, in the 1920’s, were like spectators at a wrestling match who suspect that beneath all the grunts and groans, the struggle and the sweat, the match is “fixed,” that the performers are only pretending to put on a fight. The scandals that rocked the country, as one party or cabal “exposed” another, dismayed and then disgusted my friends…

    My friends wanted Germany purified. They wanted it purified of the politicians, of all the politicians. They wanted a representative leader in place of unrepresentative representatives. And Hitler, the pure man, the antipolitician, was the man, untainted by “politics,” which was only a cloak for corruption…Against “the whole pack,” “the whole kaboodle,” “the whole business,” against all the parliamentary parties, my friends evoked Hitlerism, and Hitlerism overthrew them all…

    This was the Bewegung, the movement, that restored my friends and bewitched them. Those Germans who saw it all at the beginning–there were not very many; there never are, I suppose, anywhere–called Hitler the Rattenfé¤nger, the “ratcatcher.” Every American child has read The Pied-Piper of Hamlin. Every German child has read it, too. In German its title is Der Rattenfé¤nger von Hameln.

    And yes, Godwin’s Law. Trump is not Hitler, but as I said in that post, the same feeling animates his followers, and it is very dangerous.

    As a conservative, you should be well aware of the grave danger. And if you’re any sort of student of history, you ought to be aware that this is an indication of Trump’s desires, and is in line with his actions and rhetoric during most of his life, not just some idle campaign promise. You know, of course, that tyrants are usually excused by their followers as not really meaning it, just saying if for hyperbole, don’t you?

  7. This post, with its specter of Trump as presidential tyrant, made me think I would actually vote for Hillary in the general. Until now, I had been thinking I would vote for neither but wondering if I could be persuaded to vote for Trump. If Trump were to win the general election, he would have a forceful constituency backing his shredding of the constitution. And Chris Christie could be his AG defending the shredding.

  9. I read Ace’s piece and he lays out the con that Trump is working on the GOP. And it is a complete con.

    Example. Conservatives are pro-life. Until recently, Trump wasn’t. So to work his scam he creates a private conversion story that can’t be proved or disproved. Anita Hill pulled a form of this con on Clarence Thomas. (He’s married to my Creighton classmate.)

    You conservatives like babies? I’ll give you babies.

    Jan Brewer, Chris Christie and the Governor from Maine are pure opportunists or dolts.

  10. Neo-neocon,

    I have heard not a scintilla of evidence that Trump is a tyrant. That he may have dealt tyrannically with others on occasion, no more makes him a tyrant than my kindnesses to strangers makes me a saint. And what the hell are we talking about? The man is running for president — not Caesar. The entirety of the bloated government and the inflated MSM will still be on hand to thwart him if he goes rogue to say nothing of members of his own party. If it was difficult to impeach BHO because black, imagine how easy it would be to impeach a rich white republican.

    To support Trump, to vote for Trump, is not to buy the hundreds of things he’s said and done, some of which would rightly be viewed as outrageous. So what? Here is a man who sees, feels, understands, what the ordinary man in the street does. The ordinary man knows not about Wall Street shenanigans, contrived immigration tides, Federal Reserve schemes, the effect of tax rates, etc. The ordinary man is busy living — and contributing. He knows only that he and those like him garner no respect, are ridiculed, accosted, assaulted, and indicted (in the court of PoCo public opinion) as fly over American rubes and bigots; bible thumping, gun toting, morally backward, culturally awkward, socially inept, beyond the pale, ignoramuses. These are people who have absolutely no representation in the government, no voice in political public square and who warrant no mention by the media, excepting villification. What Trump has, in effect, said to that contingent of woebegone citizens, without the oil slick unctuousness, is “I feel your pain”. And pain it is, for it is not cheap aspiration to victimhood, but the certainty that they have little value in the eyes of those whom they have voted to office to represent them. Lot good it has done them. Trump offers hope — no matter he doesn’t do it with dulcet tones and well-bred manners.
    It’s a shame, is it not that
    “Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture
    will never be understood, let alone believed by the masses.”
    – Plato
    Dear Plato,
    Never is a long time.

    On the campaigning still ahead:
    “It’s tough, it’s mean, it’s nasty, it’s vicious, it’s beautiful.”
    – D Trump
    Dear RNC (cc B Dole, J McCain, M Romney):
    Now that’s campaigning.

  13. Many of us are wondering what we should do if faced with Trump vs Clinton. Some will vote for Trump on the grounds that he won’t be as bad as she is. I hope they are right. But, for me that is becoming a very difficult case to make.

    Trump has not gotten the nomination yet, and he is talking like a tyrant about how he will punish those who opposed him when he takes office. A few days ago, it was the owners of the Cubs because they may have donated to someone else. Now, it is Jeff Bezos because of something in the Washington Post.

    He is starting to frighten me in a way that Hilĺary doesn’t. Trump’s megalomania is such that does not seem to think there are any limits as to what he can get away with.

    Those that you mentioned who are cheering him on should consider a couple of things. The first amendment is not there to protect things we like. It is there to protect things we do not like. If you can take away someone else’s rights, they can do the same to you. Also, tyrant’s have a way of turning on their supporters

    Some seem to think this is just rhetoric, and that he won’t really do what he is threatening. Remember Trump’s history of suing and bullying those who get in his way.

    I will not vote for Hillary. At this point I can not vote for Trump either. I hope we are not faced with that choice.

  14. Rex:

    You are being conned. You are also rationalizing.

    Trump is a high flying real estate guy and has nothing in common with average people other than his direct language. He’s trying to trick you into purchasing a Trump University seminar.

    A tyrant tries to crush dissent and opposing opinions. Read my first comment here and the link for evidence of a tyrant.

    A know a little about bankruptcy law but not enough of the facts on his four BKs. I’m confident Trump screwed everyone he could for the benefit of Trump. Management and insider equity come out okay but public equity and unsecured creditors get screwed.

    The guy is a low life.

  15. Here is a man who sees, feels, understands, what the ordinary man in the street does.

    Yeah, so unlike Rubio, who grew up as the son of a bartender and a maid, right?

  16. JurassiCon Rex : I don’t need anyone to pretend to feel my pain. We need someone to protect what is left of our liberty.
    You like Trump. Good for you, vote for him.

  17. Dear Dinosaur Con,

    Only one candidate frightens the DC establishment, dem or rino, and his name is spelled C-R-U-Z. the Donald frightens no one, except perhaps Christie. The left is happy to run against djt, it will be a walk in the park.

  18. David Y

    Trump threatened the elderly *mother* of the owners of the Cubs. An old – but very rich – lady who has a contrary political preference.

    The Ricketts family are from Omaha. Joe and Marlene Ricketts’ children own the Cubs.

  19. I’m tempted to vote for Trump. Al Sharpton said he would leave the country if Trump is elected.

  21. Neo-Con,

    I don’t get it really. I used to read you all the time, but now less so. I do not get the Trump fear and belittling of folks that support him.

    The country is down the worm-hole. The stuff that worries you and others has happened and worse under this current administration. I mean, IRS corruption, EPA, ICE, DOJ, Homeland Security, etc. The Govt machine has been weaponized by this administration… there is no going back… just deciding what type of revolution will come about.

    Folks are pissed off and they’ll take a populist now… because the system has played them for fools for years and it just doesn’t matter anymore. Trump only exists because of our corrupt politics.

    This has happened before in other countries. We have not had a populist revolt in the US like we’re on the verge of now. We’re living in interesting times.

  22. Rob

    Try populism run by a guy who has good character and is tethered to the Constitution. Marco or Ted fits that bill.

  23. Cornhead, Ann, KLSmith, Parker:

    Cornhead,
    I am being conned? It wouldn’t be the first time. I was conned by the Bushes, most especially Bush Deaux. If I am conned by Trump I will feel that all still remains rotten in America.

    Ann,
    Yes, very much unlike Rubio. Marco had, to my knowledge never championed the middle class, only illegal immigrants. Trump’s defense of the middle class was refreshing for it was a voice unheard in the wilderness that is the GOP.

    KL Smith,
    We have no liberty. Name the last SCOTUS significant ruling that consulted the Founders’ original intent. Everything now is subject to speculation and interpretation and the Constitution may as well be in a reliquary. And you don’t like Trump. Fine. Don’t vote for him.

    Parker,
    Great! No one fears Trump. The GOP panting after a brokered convention or running an anti-Trump third wheel is merely background chatter. The Grand Ole Party that fears no-one. They hadn’t been afraid of BHO; they won’t be afraid of the Clinton Foundation’s HRC.

  25. Rex

    Read Scalia’s majority opinion in Heller. Masterful. Maybe not the most recent but the first one that comes to mind.

  26. Marco had, to my knowledge never championed the middle class, only illegal immigrants. Trump’s defense of the middle class was refreshing for it was a voice unheard in the wilderness that is the GOP.

    I guess you’re not familiar with Rubio’s policy paper “Reclaiming the American Dream”. It’s all about the problems besetting middle-class Americans and suggestions to solve them. If you’re interested, the document is here.

  27. Cornhead,

    What basis is there for asserting that anyone “tethered to the Constitution” can make any real ‘progress’ at all? When faced with the unity of opposition from those who would vote for Hillary or Sanders, plus the 44% of Republican voters who do not feel betrayed by the GOPe, plus the MSM, plus the entire ‘educational’ system, plus a Congress that unites behind Reid, Pelosi, McConnell and Ryan… Plus an activist judiciery? Plus the financial backing of an elite, both left and right, adamantly opposed to any governance “tethered to the Constitution”?

    If the election of Obama (twice!) and now Trump’s numbers isn’t definitive proof that the country is lost, then perhaps 70% of those 18-39 supporting socialism will suffice.

    Face it, we’re f**ked. Turns out that faced with western civilization’s inability to resist communism’s definition of man as soulless, we couldn’t keep the republic.

  28. What we need with respect to the Media is for them to quit posing as being even-handed or unbiased. Most of the MSM is in the progressive camp and they should openly proclaim such on their editorial pages.

    I can remember before WWII when newspapers proudly proclaimed their political leanings. During WWII all news outlets supported the war effort and tried to be evenhanded in reporting national news. (A lot of the war coverage was censored – for obvious reasons.) After WWII ended and TV arose, the journalists decided they should be objective and unbiased in their reporting. However, it seems that progressive liberal type personalities are attracted to journalism. As Vietnam wore on more and more reporting, both on TV and in newsprint, began slanting left. By 1975 nearly the entire MSM was leftist, but still proclaiming their objectivity. As they do to this day.

    Public figures have it rough because they are news figures and sometimes news stories are wrong, but unintentionally so. I’ve been involved in a couple of events that got news coverage. I found it hard to recognize the event as it was reported. The reporting was just not that accurate. If libel of a public figure was an easy thing to prove, the tabloids would be out of business in short order. I read the tabloid headlines as I stand in the grocery line. Unbelievable. Yet they sell. And don’t get sued.

    The Donald should treasure the 1st Amendment. He defames people almost on a daily basis. When called on it, he doubles down. And doesn’t get sued. Maybe he should be careful of what he wishes for.

    I placed this link on an earlier post, but it seems relevant here as well:
    http://neveryetmelted.com/2016/02/25/what-if/

  29. GB

    Way too negative. As Churchill said, we eventually get it right.

    You basically have to trust the American people. Risky but we have no other choice.

    I was really encouraged by my Iowa caucus project I reported at Power Line. Trump has screwed things up and I only hope it is not too late to stop him. Will enough people recognize a con artist?

    Marco and Ted are really smart guys, I think they mean well and would do a really good job. It is down to them and Trump.

  30. Rob:

    You either understand the danger of that quote from Trump or you don’t. You either care about what he represents, and how Cruz and Rubio differ, or you don’t.

    This might highlight the situation further, in terms of a great divide between those who love liberty and those who don’t. There are both types in the Democratic AND Republican parties..

  31. Rob Says:
    “I do not get the Trump fear and belittling of folks that support him.”

    Have you ever been to Breitbart.com? A solid conservative site. I used to be a regular there and enjoyed the civil exchanges.

    About 5-6 months ago, the comment section was literally taken over by hundreds, now probably thousands of the rudest, most belligerent and obnoxious newcomers from out of nowhere. Since then, you cannot say anything negative about Trump, or positive about Cruz or Rubio or conservatism in general without being lumped in with RINOs, Boehner, McConnell, when we were in the lead of the fight against them. Their comments generally consist of slogans and derogatives – “cuckservatives!”, “Canadian anchor baby!”, “Trump2016!”, “He’s for the little guy!”, “his evil wife is NWO!, “Goldman Sachs!” and other mindless drivel. Then they upvote each other like crazy to make themselves look bigger, like a pufferfish. It’s all right out of Rules for Radicals.

    Most of us there liked a lot about Trump or at least were ambivalent about him until these little tyrants alienated us.

    So please, no more of this baloney about us “belittling the folks who support” Trump. I don’t sit and take it anymore. I fire Rule #5 right back at them now. They aren’t used to anyone shooting back and don’t like it a bit. Screw ’em.

  32. Cornhead,

    Scalia was a genius. He’s dead. His replacement will be – short odds on this — a knucklehead… or an illegal paraplegic lesbian migrant from Guatemala.

  33. Ann,

    “This new era requires new ideas — still rooted in the principles of free enterprise, limited government and individual responsibility — but adjusted to meet the new challenges of a new day.” — Marco Rubio (Reclaiming the American Dream)

    That climax – but adjusted to meet the new challenges of a new day — scares the bejeezus out of me. Scares me worst than anything Trump has ever said. I wouldn’t trust Rubio to adjust anything.

  34. Some observations:

    1. A candidate can say something, but it’s a mistake to assume that if that person is elected, then what he has said will inevitably happen.

    2. For example, changing current libel laws would mean debate in a committee, then getting voted out of the committee, then debates in both House and Congress, then reconciliation if need be, then it gets to the President’s desk, for signature or veto. And when any bill is passed, it is still subject to judicial review by the Courts, later on. See this video for details:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otbml6WIQPo

    3. For example, Obama would like more gun control. He has talked a lot, and has made some executive orders. The net effect is that gun sales have gone up, and the issue has hurt Democrats in other elections.

    4. We know what people like Obama and Hillary are like, and we already know that they have abused their power while in office, for real, not in hypothetical future situations.

    5. Focus on the source of the problem: there were signs of this in the Clinton years, but today the system has been effectively hacked by a lawless and very ideological President (Obama) backed by a partisan and very unified minority party (the Democrats).

    6. There are existing, Constitutional ways to deal with this problem, but they have not been used. Congress is the source of legislation; controls the spending; can hold hearings, investigate officials, issue citations for contempt, and impeach when need be. So far, Congress has really not used its existing powers, and when it has, it has been hindered by the minority party, and by the Executive Branch.

    7. With this in mind, I am puzzled when I read statements, here and elsewhere, along the lines of “I normally vote Republican, but I have these concerns about Trump, so I’m going to vote for Hillary.” This is in a time when we know, without any doubt, that she had a private e-mail server, which by its very existence compromised national security, and which, knowing her character, she would only have used to further her own personal interests and to protect herself from legitimate political scrutiny.

    8. If you are concerned about foreign policy issues, or if you don’t like how the government has been run during the Obama administration, then what do you think you will get if you end up voting for Hillary?

  35. Yankee:

    Voting for Trump is no longer an option for someone who has been following this campaign and Sir Donald’s weather vane of positions and statements. I’m not scarred enough of Hillary to vote for someone with equivalent principles. If that is the choice I won’t vote for either.

  36. Yankee

    If you are talking about Trump and libel laws, you need to focus on his sentiment. No constitutional conservative would *ever* make such a statement.

    A fascist would. So would a thin-skinned tyrant. A bully. A baby.

    He reveals his con artist nature to those paying attention. Set the hook by trashing the MSM. Then threaten to get even with them by bankrupting them through lawsuits and judgments. Trump was correct about one thing. The financials of the NYT and WaPo are very poor. But he would first attack little websites like Ace of Spades. And the insurance for media companies would go through the roof. That’s how you work a strong-arm con game.

    Minor aside. Med mal insurance in NE is way cheaper than in IA. NE has a cap on damages and IA doesn’t. More lawsuits and higher prices in IA. Changing the libel laws would change everything about political discourse in America.

  37. Jay Nordlinger has a post up in The Corner at NRO, which reports some Trump reactions to Gorbachey (not tough enough) and Tiannamen Square (right to put down the protesters). Read it to see how Trump objects to tyranny.

    OMT: i read somewhere that Trump is now talking with Newt Gingrich about the chief of staff position. Newt may have been firm with Bill Clinton, but he also has the tendency to jump on bandwagons.

  39. To my mind, the best way to understand how Trump is a con artist is to look at Trump University. No legit business person would ever get involved in such a scam.

    And then listen how he explains it away.

  40. For a guy who proclaims himself a “winner” and constantly pushes a narrative of his superior talents and abilities Mr. Trump appears to be amazingly sensitive to anything remotely resembling criticism.

    Reminds me of another politician currently living at 1600 Pennsylvania.

  41. Cornhead said: “To my mind, the best way to understand how Trump is a con artist is to look at Trump University. No legit business person would ever get involved in such a scam.

    And then listen how he explains it away.”

    This. And he lies so easily, so shamelessly and feigns outrage when he accuses others of doing things he has himself done (Vicente Fox). The whole thing about Cruz and Carson in Iowa is a classic example. I nearly threw something at the TV during Thursday’s debate when he went on about what a great guy Carson is and how disgusting Cruz was for “lying” about Carson getting out, when he has called Carson a liar and worse. The man has no character.

  43. Neo:
    I am a sympathetic reader and agree with your analysts of Trump’s tyrannical impulses but strongly disagree with you about the effort to change libel laws.
    In my opinion, New York Times vs. Sullivan, which is the root of this tree, was wrongly decided and has led not only to an impoverished libel law (although not lawyers) but an impoverished press as well.
    The press do great harm to public figures with impunity. They should be accountable.
    Keep up the good work. Your posts on ballet are pure reverie.

  44. Ben

    NYT v Sullivan is the law and it has never been overruled. Not a word from Scalia and he was NOT shy. It has served us well.

  45. ‘I mean that literally.’

    Sure but we both know it won’t do any good. Trump’s supporters want a tyrant. They are bullies just like him. They are not good people.

  46. The pro-Trumps are not conservatives.
    They are the anti-Obamas.
    The Obama fans and the Trump fans have one thing in common: Ignorance.
    Conservatism is not for dolts.
    The Gramscians have done a great job of dumbing America down. It is increasingly clear the Obamaphiles and Trumpsters are both opposed to free speech.
    Not many out there that give Cruz the respect he deserves. No, man, he tried to shut down the government!
    We shall have to see whether the Congress is better than the Reichstag was at being the last bulwark.

  47. When the establishment lines up behind Trump, because they really hate Cruz, will a vote for Trump still be a vote against the Republican party?

  48. There was a post way, way back at the beginning of the Obama administration at NRO, I think. The author said that he greatly feared the media’s wholesale sellout to Obama because it would engender a backlash against the 1st amendment as a whole.

    It looks like that time has arrived.

  49. “Jan Brewer, Chris Christie and the Governor from Maine are pure opportunists or dolts.”

    He is gathering all the evil to him. Soon, he will have assembled an army great enough to launch an assault on Middle Earth! — Saruman

  50. GB,
    “What basis is there for asserting that anyone “tethered to the Constitution” can make any real ‘progress’ at all?”

    That same logic applies to any reformer. In fact, I assume two things in 2016:
    1) We will elect a reformer (kinda iffy)
    2) They will be stonewalled.

    You can bank on that.
    The establishment didn’t invest this much energy to roll over for the first good cop to come along. The only remaining question is, what does the president do in that circumstance?

    I doubt Trump has the character to take it in stride. I think Cruz will patiently go about dismantling the corrupt conspiracy.

  51. “People believe what they want to believe.” The NYC con man in the movie “America Hustle.”

    Watch Christian Bale’s character and think Trump.

    “I’m in and I’m out. I was there the whole time. You don’t know it, all right? That’s the f&$@ing art of becoming somebody who people can pin their beliefs and their dreams on?” Bale.

    Another quote, “from the feet up.”

    It explains plenty.

  52. Let me say this up front, because I know what I am about to say will be twisted into an endorsement of Trump. (The anti-Trumps at Instapundit have become damn near as rabid and incoherent as the pro-Trumps.)

    I am not pro-Trump. I am pro-Cruz. In fact I am very anti-Trump. He scares the crap out me, in the same way that the thought of four to eight more years of Obama scares the crap out of me.

    That being said, all of the anti-Trump rhetoric is going nowhere. It is not helping. In fact, it is doing just the opposite. It is helping to feed the populist nightmare looming over our electorate as we speak. It’s curtailed my reading of many blogs, both the pro-Trump sites and the anti-Trump sites. It saddens me to no end that whenever I stop by here lately (less and less now) it’s anti-Trump post after anti-Trump post (sprinkled with some dance, etc.). Many who would side against Trump, but understand his followers anger, like myself, are tired of hearing it. Many of his followers feed off it because they see themselves as rebels against the “Establishment” and they see any anti-Trump criticism as one more facet of the establishment.

    It’s trying to fight fire with gasoline.

    Donald Trump is a petty, small man with a lot of money (or so they say). He’s a demogogue in the classical sense of the word.

    Enough anti-Trump. The solution is in the GOP’s hands (and any that can influence them…). Because Donald Trump isn’t the disease. He is the damn symptom. And until our ruling class (the “establishment” or whatever you want to call it) get off their feet and do what they were sent to Washington DC to do, Trump, or the next demogogue/tyrant/con-man (or whoever) will step into the void left by their treasonous and selfish behavior. It terrifies me that it may be too late to do anything about this.

    Trump is the symptom of a cancerous disease, one that will, in all likelihood, break our republic. But trying to shout down Trump or his supporters is wasted breath, because that tidal wave is forming, and it may well be too late to stop it. Because people are shouting at the wave instead of the shifting of earth that caused the wave.

    Trump is the symptom. Repeat it. Trump is the symptom. Trump is the symptom. And it may be too late. Because when anyone with any real influence and power had the chance to stop Trump, they didn’t. Instead, they doubled down on stupid and dishonest. They tried to force the likes of Jeb Bush down people’s throats. And frankly, Marco Rubio is just as bad.

    And here we are.

  53. You can’t fight fire with nothing.
    If you speak against Trump, it just encourages his followers. But we just saw the establishment spend the last 6 months ignoring him…how did that go?

    No, the “normals” may not like it and the Trumpkins may get off on it, but we are fighting for the swing voters. Trump CANNOT win without them. They must be made aware of what he is, and the only way to do that is through speech.

    If Trump’s followers act like rabid Nazis in the process, it just makes our job easier.

  54. I am a Cruz supporter. Up to now, I have not been interested in becoming a Trumpster. However, as I see the discussion here developing, I am moving toward becoming one. Wait! Have I not read your comments? Can I not understand what you are saying? Are you not clearly standing up for what is good and wonderful? Do I think that your statements are not true?

    It isn’t that. It’s just that I remember an election years ago (1964) when I was a Goldwater supporter. More to the point, I remember how the Democrats’ (we didn’t know then that term included the MSM) propaganda made the Republican candidate Senator Goldwater into a crazy man who would blow up the world if we allowed such a person to become President. I am now reading the same kind of OMG! stuff about Trump here.

    It didn’t “click” for me until I was watching Bill Maher (recorded HBO “Real Time”) this morning. Usually there are one or two “conservatives” on the show, but, for what became obvious as the show progressed, this show was all/liberal. Guess what? They sounded just like the commenters on this blog regarding Trump. The show is repeated, so you may want to watch it for yourself.

    Republican candidate Goldwater’s defeat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater) allowed the Democrats in Congress to pass the Great Society programs that have led up to our current National Debt crisis.

    Rather than try to explain to you how tearing at your hair and saying the same things that far left liberals are saying right now might not be the best idea for the future of America, just go read the wikipedia article. How could such a “maniac” be re-elected to the John McCain Senate seat for so many years with you having never heard of him? According to the MSM at the time, he was insane and totally incapable of being President or anything else.

    Having survived one such MSM and Democrat created “maniac”, I am skeptical of the hysteria currently being promoted by them regarding Mr. Trump. We certainly don’t need to climb on their bandwagon without careful thought. The last time they successfully used these scare tactics we got The Great Society; what we will get this time is Greece.

    Caution. That’s all I am saying. Political junkies should read up on the 1964 Presidential campaign. You will be shocked by the similarities.

  55. Matt_SE,

    “If you speak against Trump, it just encourages his followers. But we just saw the establishment spend the last 6 months ignoring him…how did that go?”

    Pretty crappy ’cause here we are! Thanks for making my point for me. Although, to be precise, they didn’t ignore him. They ignored the people who support him. They marginalized them. Those people are angry. And they were treated like children (which may even be appropriate in some cases) but it sure as hell wasn’t the way to stop him.

    “If Trump’s followers act like rabid Nazis in the process, it just makes our job easier.”

    Wrong. So very, very wrong. Because those swing voters are likely very angry too. Nearly everyone has been ignored (see Bernie Sanders on the left.) And it’s not to hard for a demogogue like Donald Trump to out-shout you, out-YUGE you, out-run you when he is already acting like a runaway train.

    Trump is feeding on rage. And their is plenty of it to go around. You have to take the fuel away. But there aren’t nearly enough people even talking about that.

  56. James Sullivan sez, “Trump is feeding on rage. And their [sic] is plenty of it to go around. You have to take the fuel away.”

    What fuel would that be, and how might it be taken away? By whom? Clearly that ain’t gonna happen.

    The Trumpsters have become mob-like, charging heedlessly toward what they discern as a solution.

    And Cruz and Rubio persist in bloodying each other in their attempts to be the 2nd one standing, when they both should be attacking Trump with all getout.

  58. James Sullivan:

    Agree. We can use the facts, history and Trump’s character to expose him TO THE WORLD as the con artist, Establishment liberal and danger that he is. He is no friend of the common man.

    We can get swing, moderates and angry voters if we expose Trump.

    He has very poor character. Erratic. Tyrant.

  59. Cornhead,

    You can try all of that. And I wish you all the luck in the world. But both my head and my heart say it’s too little, too late for that to work. And angry people on the fence are just going to go with the con-man.

    Frog,

    If you don’t get why they are angry, and what is fueling their rage, there’s no help for you at this point.

  60. “We got to get over on all these people.”

    That’s what Trump and Christie are thinking right now.

    Right from “American Hustle.”

  61. I used to think that I’d hold my nose and vote for Trump in preference to one of the socialists nominated by the Dems. After I read that stuff about libel law earlier today, I decided I can’t do that. Trump is now beyond the Pale.

    I favored first Jindal then Cruz in this election. I can live with Rubio. Trump, no. You are exactly correct to label him a wannabe tyrant.

  62. Trump is a personality cult. He hooks people in with one idea or the next that flatters their vanity and self-conceit, just as every tinpot dictator has- race, foreigners, foreign competition, the elites out to get you, whatever policy makes you feel good, and then once in, he makes them feel as though they are part of something and galvanizes them with this rhetoric. A cult.

    He wrote about this in Art of the Deal. He said the key was to get the other side swept up in this idea that they were particpating in this larger than life thing. Now he’s the thing.

  63. Short form of all this? We live in a fallen world. And the good guys won’t win until Judgement Day.

    And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead:
    Whose kingdom shall have no end.

    In the meantime, our mission, should we choose to accept it, is the fight the good fight, to keep the faith. “Put not your trust in princes;” they’re only men like ourselves.

  64. geokstr Says:
    February 27th, 2016 at 6:17 pm

    Rob Says:
    “I do not get the Trump fear and belittling of folks that support him.”

    Have you ever been to Breitbart.com? A solid conservative site. I used to be a regular there and enjoyed the civil exchanges.

    About 5-6 months ago, the comment section was literally taken over by hundreds, now probably thousands of the rudest, most belligerent and obnoxious newcomers from out of nowhere.

    &&&&&&&&

    Smells like Active Measures straight out of Moscow.

    I’m not kidding.

    Putin is a HUGE believer in Active Measures.

    They were his stock and trade as a young KGB Colonel.

    There is even video of Putin and wife and kids conning President Reagan during a man-in-the-street interview — in Moscow.

    President Reagan accidentally happened upon the KGB family.

    Imagine that!

    Putin has THOUSANDS of keyboard warriors gang tackling Western blogs.

    And they do SWARM.

    The technique is effective because Westerners can’t believe that it’s happening — nor that they are being ‘taken.’

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

    Anna Chapman was working the Active Measures beat in New England.

    NONE of the Americans in her circle suspected a THING.

    She looked and sounded Irish American.

    Once ejected, she went back to glory and fortune in Russia… as a national heroine for warping American politics and culture.

    THAT’S Active Measures.

    In this election cycle, Putin has put his hand on the scale of voting.

    NOT Cruz is Putin’s vote.

  65. Not quite getting why someone comes to a blog to bitch and moan about what they are reading at said blog. I imagine if you put your mind to it, you can come up with a solution to your consternation.

  66. I will add that Rubio is a slick, Madison Avenue candidate, a man with no core. His eager collusion with our enemies on the amnesty issue, which is, Remember??? “Game Over” for America, is so central, that believing he’d serve our purpose is like believing a man can stand up without a spinal column, because “after all, he has the rest of the skeleton!”

    And please, friends, don’t kid yourselves about this, either: Hillary is Trump in drag. At least as ill-informed, and arguably guilty of the worst treason — opening our kimono to our enemies via her naked emails whilst taking $$$$ from them — in the history of the United States. No, I’m not kidding.

    Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.

  67. Trump is the symptom. Repeat it. Trump is the symptom. Trump is the symptom. And it may be too late. Because when anyone with any real influence and power had the chance to stop Trump, they didn’t. Instead, they doubled down on stupid and dishonest. They tried to force the likes of Jeb Bush down people’s throats. And frankly, Marco Rubio is just as bad.

    And here we are.

    Word.

  69. James pats me on the head. Nice little fella I am not.
    Straight question was put to James by me: how does one deplete the fuel that fuels the Trumpsters’ rage? What is the nature of the fuel? An easy proposition from you, James, so let’s have some straight answers. If they make sense, let’s put them to work.
    I’ll wait to hear.

  70. Not voting for the Republican nominee = enthroning the evil queen.

    It really is that simple.

    &&&&&

    We ALREADY live under a tyrant.

    Remember “I have a pen and a phone” ?

    &&&&&&&

    If HRC gets into the big chair, the current tyranny will compound away.

    IRS
    EPA
    DOJ
    DOL

    Sheesh.

    Our national secrets will be common knowledge in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran.

    Perfect.

    &&&&&&&

    I recognize that Salesman Trump is an alien critter in neo’s ethical circles.

    Most attorneys I’ve known HATE businessmen — salesmen most of all.

    The feelings are entirely reciprocated.

    What you have to understand is that MOST of Trumps verbiage is CHAFF.

    This is a technique TOTALLY ALIEN to attorneys, and indeed, most professionals.

    The purpose of chaff is to get the audience’s reaction.

    Such a concept is the absolute inverse of legal argument and professional thinking.

    Donald’s ‘chaff machine’ spits out more noise than signal — which in this blog is taken for more signal than noise.

    &&&&&&&

    The ability of Trump to change the nation’s libel laws and case law is — of course — absolutely ZERO.

    The reason for his utterance is to cause the WaPo and NY Times to back peddle.

    To think twice.

    And that’s about as far as it can go.

    Fear of Trump is paranoia.

    He’s got the inverse personal profile versus EVERY tyrant in history.

    Whereas Barry Soetoro scores BELOW Adolf, Stalin, Mao, Napoleon, Julius and Alexander.

    Trump is a poor nominee because he’s got TOO MUCH BAGGAGE — much of which consists of previous chaff emissions.

    He breaks wind all over the microphone.

    A man-whore for attention.

    In contrast, Rodham-Clinton has the powerlust — obsessions — of the worst tyrants in history — and a loathsome track record to boot.

    At the top of the list:

    Self-entitlement.

    Whereas Trump has sued and been sued — HRC has been ABOVE the fray.

    The laws never applied to her.

    THINK on that.

    Whereas motor-mouth has had PLENTY of legal defeats.

    He can take his lumps and move on.

    NOT HILLARY.

    She carries vendetta.

    This is PLAIN from the prior bimbos in the Clinton trail of tears.

    With Hillary leading the vindictive charge — NOT Bill.

    THINK on that.

    Trump has had a life where he needed to get along with everybody… pretty much.

    NOT HRC.

    She expects you to kiss her @ss — OR ELSE !

    She’ll be a blast-furnace of tyranny.

    For she’ll have to beat Barry at his own game.

    Her foreign ‘projects’ ought to scare you STIFF.

    Libya
    Russia
    Iran
    Red China

    Good grief.

  71. James Sullivan says:
    “Wrong. So very, very wrong. Because those swing voters are likely very angry too”

    I think it’s an opinion as to what motivates what percent of Trump supporters.
    My opinion is that he has an enraged core of supporters and any gains after that are swing voters who want on the bandwagon.
    I’m pretty sure Trump cannot win without a bandwagon effect, and the only way that happens to someone with negatives as high as his is to drive out the competition.

  72. Sorry, blert.
    All dictators announce what they’re going to do, and their words are swept under the rug with assurances that “he doesn’t really mean it.”
    I too was ready to (maybe) vote Trump as a last resort. Not anymore.

    I’m gonna burn this mutherf***er down instead.

  73. I always find it funny that hand wringers moan the constitution when we have abotion “rights” when they are not mentioned in the constitution, and gay “marriage” because one justice voted one way and not another. Oh, and forcing Americans to buy a private product or pay a “tax” is “constitutional”.

    The Constituion is dead. The hoards of illegal Mexians and Muslims we import don’t care about it, and their children won’t care about it. The majority of college students can’t name anything about their government. It’s over. You can accept it or keep whining about it.

    So oppose Trump in something else, but not the Constitution.

    As for free speech, we have a majority of “Americans” who support suppression of “hate speech” and so called conservatives like Glen Reynolds who still use business platforms like Twitter after they actively shut down conservatives (using a business that suppresses speech shows indifference to the matter since it means you will trade off free speech if there are other benefits – Glen and others lack of boycott shows that free speech is not absolute to them ). So use something else to bash Trump.

  74. Probably a little off here, but Trumps threats of suing reminds me of this famous quote:

    “Gentlemen: You have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for the law is too slow. I’ll ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt.”

  75. Neo: Want proof that Trump’s a tyrant

    25 years US went after an ugly B* tyrant in ME (Iraq) which they get him after 2003, looks US near to have its own grown Tyrant?

    What coincident….

  76. blert Says:
    Not voting for the Republican nominee = enthroning the evil queen.

    That what’s happen when Hussian Obama elected as president when 2 millions seated at their home not went for voting

  80. On super Tuesday my vote will be for Cruz. My Cruz vote is already in the machine. I think Neo’s criticisms are all valid and I dread a Trump presidency. That said, if Trump is the nominee I will support him and fervently hope that he will win.

    I’m sure Trump will do some things I will hate and will make many serious mistakes. However, almost every criticism Neo and commentators here make against Trump apply equally to Hillary only magnified by the power of ten.

    In my opinion any comparisons of Trump to Nazi Germany are misguided and inflame emotions but add little enlightenment. In many ways Trump is the exact opposite of Hitler since Hitler was an ideologue who had openly developed his ideology over decades. If Trump has any ideology at all I certainly haven’t discovered it. Perhaps someone else who comments here will help me out there.

    Perhaps we would be better served to look back into our own history to find a fitting comparison for Trump. What about Andrew Jackson? Jackson was a populist who had already killed a man in a duel before he became president. He did a great deal of damage especially to law abiding American Indians but the country survived with it’s constitution intact. I think we will probably survive a Trump presidency intact. A blowhard like Trump will get a great deal of blow back from the powerful establishment figures which he has attacked and that will limit the damage that he can do.

    However, I’m quite certain that our country will not survive another Clinton presidency. Like Stalin, Hillary is an ideologue. who is much more devious and is smoother than Trump in hiding her true intentions. She has a much stronger support team that Trump and equally rabid followers who are even less capable of critical thinking than the Trump voters. They will enable Hillary to accomplish maximum damage to our country from which it will never fully recover.

  81. Stipulating the obvious risks of a Trump presidency, we contemplate the abysmal choice likely facing us in November. The left looks forward to that contest with confident knowledge of the ample ammo they will use to take him down.

    My vote will go not so much to a candidate as to a set of supporters viewed en masse. Will it be Trump’s wrestlemania knuckleheads or the politically correct, race-obsessed Obamite hordes? The choice is thereby made easier.

    Very well. Wrestlemania it is.

    If I was still uncertain, I would remember the Iran nuke deal.

    Game over.

  82. Next time you visit your doctor, be careful how you respond to his questions, or you may just be branded “mentally ill” and subjected to “treatment.” That is because a panel advising the Obama administration, in partnership with Big Psychiatry, wants to make doctors subject all American adults and children over age 12 to screening for alleged “mental health” disorders – particularly depression, at least to start with. Then, anyone found to harbor any alleged mental disorder, including children as young as eight, should undergo “therapy,” often including powerful psychotropic medications that experts say have dubious value..

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  84. Trump may be a”tyrant” in some sense of that word, but he’s no Hitler, no Idi Amin, no Saddam Hussein, etc. Applying the label “tyrant” to Trump strikes me as similar to calling waterboarding torture.

    Most of what Trump says is just silly. What he said about opening up libel laws is nonsense and couldn’t be achieved legislatively even if Trump had the support of Congress to do it. But it’s another example of his displaying an ATTITUDE that resonates with the large segment of the public who feel powerless and ignored after too many years of institutionalized political correctness.

  86. With Google around, insect overlords never had a chance.

    “We published a detailed report about our first five experiments on SEME in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in August 2015. We had indeed found something important, especially given Google’s dominance over search. Google has a near-monopoly on internet searches in the US, with 83 per cent of Americans specifying Google as the search engine they use most often, according to the Pew Research Center. So if Google favours one candidate in an election, its impact on undecided voters could easily decide the election’s outcome.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-27/hidden-persuaders-how-internet-flips-election-alters-our-thoughts

    But this is EXACTLY what happened in 2008 and 2012.

    “Other types of influence during an election campaign are balanced by competing sources of influence — a wide variety of newspapers, radio shows and television networks, for example — but Google, for all intents and purposes, has no competition, and people trust its search results implicitly, assuming that the company’s mysterious search algorithm is entirely objective and unbiased.

    This high level of trust, combined with the lack of competition, puts Google in a unique position to impact elections. Even more disturbing, the search-ranking business is entirely unregulated, so Google could favour any candidate it likes without violating any laws. Some courts have even ruled that Google’s right to rank-order search results as it pleases is protected as a form of free speech.

    Does the company ever favour particular candidates? In the 2012 US presidential election, Google and its top executives donated more than $800,000 to President Barack Obama and just $37,000 to his opponent, Mitt Romney.

    And in 2015, a team of researchers from the University of Maryland and elsewhere showed that Google’s search results routinely favoured Democratic candidates.

    Are Google’s search rankings really biased? An internal report issued by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2012 concluded that Google’s search rankings routinely put Google’s financial interests ahead of those of their competitors, and anti-trust actions currently under way against Google in both the European Union and India are based on similar findings.”

    Read the whole link.

    It’s eye opening.

  87. This is the third time I’ve seen him deploy this tactic.

    First instance: After the Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump tweeted:

    “Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.”

    By ordinary standards, those were insane requests. That never happens in United States politics, and there was a 0.0 percent chance that a new election would be held or the Cruz results nullified. And, of course, Trump never brought it up again. But getting what he was demanding wasn’t the purpose.

    A certain amount of cynicism has taken hold in America with regards to election results. People have come to believe that election fraud is inevitable, nothing can be done about it, and that the rational response is to simply ignore it and accept it as part of the system.

    He demanded something he was never going to get, but got something that helped him. A small change in attitude. And I can’t help but notice that after that, Donald Trump’s election results are virtually dead-on with the polls. The other candidates’ results have been a little wonky, but he’s kept quiet about that. He got what he wanted.

    Second instance: His threat to sue Ted Cruz on the eligibility issue. That would have been a crazy, high-stakes disruptive gambit, but it was a threat I don’t think he ever intended to follow through on.

    Once again, he was addressing public cynicism towards the eligibility requirements of the Constitution. Without diving into the weeds of the specific merits of the arguments, he was addressing those people who believe in their hearts that Ted Cruz is Constitutionally ineligible to the office, but feel that no one cares about that part of the Constitution anymore, that nothing can be done about it, and that the rational action is to just forget about it and accept Ted Cruz as a legitimate choice, even if you feel that he’s not a Natural Born Citizen.

    Once again, The seed that Trump was planting in the minds of those people was the idea that they are RIGHT in being angry about an ineligible candidate running for office, that it isn’t OK, and that it’s an injustice that nothing can or will be done about it.

    It worked. Trump pulled away from Cruz.

    Now we are seeing another example of exactly the same strategy. These days, the concept of libel has simply become inoperable. I think that it came about with the rise of the internet. Back when reporters had a monopoly on the public media, there was a certain care taken when it came to potentially libelous statements. It was something reporters tried to avoid, both because of legal exposure and a sense of personal integrity. Not anymore. Once millions of people started blogging with no editorial restraint or fear of libel, the mainstream media followed suit. The concept of, “You can’t say that, that’s libel” is completely lost, and once again, the conventional wisdom is that nothing can be done about it, it’s the way things are done now, and you might as well ignore it because no one cares.

    So Donald Trump says, “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”

    In reality, there’s about as much of a chance of that happening as re-holding the Iowa caucuses, or Ted Cruz being thrown off the Primary ballot. But that’s not what he wants. What he wants is for people to get mad when they hear the press lie about him. He wants people to push back, to say to themselves, “That’s libelous,” and to think to themselves that the libel is an actual offensive injustice, not just something that everyone does now. And to get mad about it, and speak up about it.

    That’s the purpose of this. Not to actually suppress the media, but to get them to feel ashamed and uncertain enough to start once again operating within bounds. Libel is NOT protected first amendment speech, and he wants the press to start thinking about that.

    We’ll see how that works out.

  88. Obama tried to become a Hugo Chavez tyrant and has failed. The institutions of the country still work. They are battered but still functioning.

    Trump is NOT a tyrant. He has no governmental power, none. If elected President there will be the Senate, House, courts, states and the people available to resist any of his tyrannical impulses.

    As for crude and tyrannical Presidents how about Jackson, Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Obama. Most of the damage to the country has come through the courts and academia. There are real limits to what the executive can do.

    If elected, Trump very well may end illegal immigration. Ann Coulter is right on this. Unless illegal immigration is stopped Republicans simply won’t win elections in the future.

    Voting for Hillary or not voting (effectively the same thing) is suicidal. So take a deep breathe.

  89. There’s one thing about Trump that I haven’t seen mentioned: As a businessman, he isn’t used to paying people to not work. So maybe he will go after entitlement reform. That desperately needs to be done.

    Without welfare, there are a whole lot of “jobs that Americans won’t do” that will suddenly become attractive to Americans, if the alternative is starvation.

  90. I cringe when people toss around the word “conservative” without having any idea what it means. Two examples in these comments: equating conservatives with Nazis and stating that conservatives are pro-life. The first needs no response. The second is false. Conservatives are pro-tenth-amendment which does not rule out being either for or against abortion as long as any law relating to abortion (or any other issue) is reached in a Constitutional manner. And that means the U.S. Constitution before so many of its provisions were nullified by the Left. Cruz is a conservative. Trump obviously is not. Rubio’s refusal to support immigration laws as currently enacted, until and unless he is able to effect lawful changes in them, makes him no friend of conservatism either.

  91. “Conservatives are pro-tenth-amendment which does not rule out being either for or against abortion as long as any law relating to abortion (or any other issue) is reached in a Constitutional manner.”

    I’ll dispute this. Conservatives regard the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence as the mission statement for the United States of America. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

    Although this sentence is not part of the Constitution, conservatism holds that the Declaration of Independence is the statement of philosophy of the United States, and the Constitution is the implementation of that philosophy.

    To break this down:

    1) All persons are the creations of God, not products of biological chance.

    2) God has not created a hierarchy in the value of human life. There is no divine right of kings, and no one is born with inferior rights to another.

    3) We all are endowed by the same rights from God. Any government that tries to abridge those rights literally puts itself above God and is illegitimate.

    4) Among those rights are the right to life — the right not to be summarily killed without trial and conviction for a crime.

    In my mind, abortion is in direct and fundamental conflict with the core founding principles of our nation and I consider that a conservative principle.

  92. Sevenwheel, you make my point. Your views — that some provisions of the Constitution should take precedence over others — might have prevailed had laws relating to abortion been made Constitutionally.

  94. Neo,

    Very interesting comments here.
    Dennis’ comment at 2/28, 5:34am strikes me as one of the most reasonable I’ve read.

    I support none of these candidates.
    Though I have voted in every election since 1972, I think that
    I might sit this one out.

    I am not a Trump supporter, but I fail to see how he is any worse than Hillary. Let’s take a look at it.

    Hillary has a proven disregard for the rule of law going back decades. Whether it’s her phony ‘score’ of making hundred’s of thousands of dollars off of an initial $1000.00 investment.

    Or her accidentally discovering the Rose Law Firm papers that were missing for two years, in her closet.

    Let’s not forget her long standing attempts to intimidate women who accused her husband of various misdeeds.

    Or the appropriation of FBI files on political opponents.

    How about her being fired while working with House Judiciary Committee staff for unethical behavior as she helped prepare articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon.

    Let’s look at her disastrous foreign policy blunders, most notably Libya. How many lives is Trump responsible for?

    And I haven’t even mentioned her ‘real’ political ideology.

    I am not glossing over any of Trump’s shortcomings, but if you want an enemy of the Constitution, look no further than Hillary. Trump pales in comparison.

    Just what was he saying with respect to libel laws?
    From, the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan case. “Any American public figure bringing an action now has to prove that what was written was not only untrue but published maliciously and recklessly.” I think perhaps what Trump, as many others before him is referring to is the impossibility of proving recklessness and maliciousness. For the record, I do not agree with Trump’s (an others) desire to curb press freedoms. But I understand his irritation. So he mouthed off about it. Why do you and others take that statement any more seriously than the stupid lines he utters, which you dismiss?

    I agree with what Dennis above says, “In my opinion any comparisons of Trump to Nazi Germany are misguided and inflame emotions but add little enlightenment.” I get you don’t like him but you do not help your case comparing him to Nazis.

    Additionally, with a relentlessly hostile MSM, democrat apparatus (which includes the civil service cadres working within government already), and a hostile mainstream republican establishment, Trump will have an uphill battle on anything he tries that is other than business as usual.

    The crux of Dennis’ comment which is so very true is this, “I think we will probably survive a Trump presidency intact. A blowhard like Trump will get a great deal of blow back from the powerful establishment figures which he has attacked and that will limit the damage that he can do.
    However, I’m quite certain that our country will not survive another Clinton presidency. Like Stalin, Hillary is an ideologue. who is much more devious and is smoother than Trump in hiding her true intentions. She has a much stronger support team that Trump and equally rabid followers who are even
    less capable of critical thinking than the Trump voters.
    They will enable Hillary to accomplish maximum damage to our country from which it will never fully recover.”

    Either way, the fix is in. 2012 and 2008 were not fair or honest elections. Our government, and the political classes has gone ‘Post-constitutional’. Eight years of Obama should have convinced any reasonable person of that. No candidate, regardless of who he is, has a snowball’s chance in hell without the blessing of the political/financial/corporate establishment. Welcome to gangster government.

  96. ‘Trump is not Hitler’

    No but he’s a step toward Mussolini. Like I said, his supporters know that. They know about how terrible he is but they support him anyway. So educating them won’t work.

  97. The race is rigged.

    I heard that from Robert Shaw.

    He ruefully admitted, though, that he once failed to notice the difference between a “show horse” and a “winner.”

    Trump is a stallion that is destined to be a pacing horse — and — flagging at the end — merely “Show.”

    Hence: Show Horse.

    &&&&&&

    That Donald is a pacing horse is obvious to all and every.

    That HRC has rigged the Democrat nomination — is just as obvious.

    She’s also engaged in a swarm attack on Trump — via HER media and at Google.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-27/hidden-persuaders-how-internet-flips-election-alters-our-thoughts

    The media talking heads are OFTEN on HRC’s immense staff of retainers.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-27/why-so-many-political-pundits-seem-love-hillary-clinton

    Needless to say, they will all expect to be appointed into the “Purple Book.”

  98. I don’t fear a Trump presidency.

    A show boating president I can live with.

    I fear a Trump nomination — as I can’t imagine that HRC is not pulling EVERY string in the book to keep Ted Cruz OFF center stage.

    He’s the cure.

    She’s NOT prepared to debate Ted Cruz.

    The Washington Cartel is the malady.

    It’s been suggested that Hillary amend her name:

    Hillary Rodham-Clinton-Goldman-Sachs

    &&&&

    Trump has so much baggage that he has to be deemed a poor nominee.

    Regardless of what Scott Adams emotes.

  100. blert, you’ve written some very interesting comments on this thread. This effort to swarm, bombard and even silence voices on social media seems to be more of the old leftist media manipulation progression. You can add in ever-changing Wikipedia, which supplants other reference sources on Google, Yahoo and many other popular search engines.

    How much foreign intelligence effort from the Russians and Chinese do you suppose goes toward molding public opinion and influencing Americans via social media and internet venues? I’ve long suspected that a great deal of the TV advertising for all that “As Seen On TV” type merchandise is operated by Chinese front companies – especially that PC Matic company with all that American flag t-shirts and waving in the commercials. Then again, I’ve often wondered if this entire relentless partisan agitation is mostly foreign agitprop to destroy American cohesion. It would be pretty amazing if they operate partisan think tanks and venues, to raise money from Americans, to fund their efforts to take down America. A wild conspiracy theory or worth thinking about?

    The Saudis began pouring money into black colleges and black college students in hte late 70s, to spread Wahhabism and of course Qaddafi openly funded Farrakhan, but it seems that in the past 30 years America turned away from really paying close attention to Russian and Chinese intelligence ops inside America.

  102. Here is an excellent column by the Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick on the Trump phenomenon:

    Trump-the-EU-crack-up-and-Israel

    While much of the article is Israel-centric Glick displays keen insight into both the origins of “Trumpism” and the likely direction (or directions) of a Trump presidency, tying it to growing anti-EU sentiment in Europe. Particularly sobering are her remarks about “the West’s growing identity crisis”.

  103. Nobody is Hitler even among petty tyrants, and there are dozens of them ruling about half the globe. Mussolini, Peron, Nasser, Assad, Putin, Mugabe – they all are not Hitler. Hitler was a huge historical anomaly, we hardly encounter it again in our lifetime. But proclivity of desperate mobs to elect tyrants is almost universal, and in this relation USA is a huge historical anomaly – or was, until recently. Let us see, if this anomaly will survive these elections.

  104. rickl, thanks for the Dana West links.

    I’ll say this. The vitriol and attacks on folks that are sick and tired and are supporting Trump is contemptible. Just keep it up. This election determines if large swaths of folks see a chance for change, or pitchforks. The anger is palpable.

    I support Trump. You will not find a comment from me on any sight smearing another candidate and especially someone who supports that candidate. I just DO NOT GET alienating people.

    Without Trump, there would be no talk about immigration policy and certainly not about a wall. Laugh if you want but his point rings true. No border, no country. Either there is a rule of law or there isn’t. I wish you all the best. I cannot fear Trump worse than what we’ve actually lived through for the last 7 years.

    And shout out about the Barry Goldwater and the election of ’64. I thought of the SAME thing.

  105. libertybelle:
    “How much foreign intelligence effort from the Russians and Chinese do you suppose goes toward molding public opinion and influencing Americans via social media and internet venues?”

    I’ve noticed that the worldview espoused by strident commenters who label as Left or (and?) alt-Right often runs suspiciously similar to the Russian worldview.

  106. Rob:

    As has been noted many times Trump is a late comer to the immigration problem. Cruz was ahead of him on that by years I think. But Trump deemed Cruz a liar and nasty and then put out a bogus plan (I’ll make Mexico build the wall). You don’t seem to fear a tyrant in the making. The founders of this country greatly feared the “mob” for good reason. Trump plays to the “mob.” Trump’s pronouncements of the “great, wonderful, fantastic” things he will do makes me question his truthfulness and understanding of the constitution and other branches of government, I don’t want another 8 years of “pen and phone,” executive order,” legislation by regulation (AKA EPA, DOJ fiats). I don’t trust the man to run the executive branch or have control of the nuclear triad. He didn’t seem to know what that is by the way.

  107. For the Rubio supporters who claim that he never flip-flopped on Amnesty, here is a news article telling how the conservatives were sold down the river, admitted to by Rush Limbaugh.

  108. I prefer Cruz to Trump, but will take Trump over Rubio any day, any time, any where. No to Amnesty.

  109. For the Rubio supporters who claim that he never flip-flopped on Amnesty, here is a news article telling how the conservatives were sold down the river, admitted to by Rush Limbaugh.

  110. OM, I appreciate you defense of (my) Senator, Cruz… but Cruz has argued for enforcement, not deportation. He has argued for following the law, not saying enough, let’s build that wall … that wall we were told was going to built back in 07. ( I paid to send bricks to Senator Hutchinson back then… then voted for Cruz to replace her.)

    Cruz seemed to buy into the Bush idea of being compassionate. He went to the border with Beck and gave out stuffed animals… to engender the GOP to the illegals. He accepts the learned reality that we should have more immigration from impoverished Mexico and Latin America. No. No more.

    Trump is running a populist/nationalist campaign and that means the mob, but the other mob gave us Obama and fundamental change. I’ll take my chances with a man that has a name, a brand , and a reason to want to have a great legacy for his family. He can only do that by making the greatest turnaround of all time work.

    I trust him will more than I trust the establishment in DC to do jack squat at this point. They’ve lied to us and done what they wanted for too long. They’ve lost my confidence. And in the end, if Trump blows up the Government, even better. The left preaches that the Government can fix all and is good. We all know better. A populist President will help clarify just how shallow and power-hungry the DC establishment is.

    I appreciate he comes across as a total prick and BS artist. I get it. I just do not care. Either the status quo in DC gets a major headache for 8 years, or it’s over. I do not see the GOP winning with anyone other than the populist Trump… and if Hillary or DNC other gets in… it’s over anyway. Die cast.. fundamental change x 11.

  111. Rob

    You prefer to be a part of the mob, sad. Mobs aren’t known for wisdom or justice or good outcomes, or respecting the rights of minorities. Obama has his legacy too. You are good with Trump controlling the “button?” That nuclear triad thing? His temperament doesn’t engender confidence. The Dems could cut an awesome “Daisy” ad on Trump in moment. If they haven’t already. BTW fallout doesn’t respect walls no matter how tall or who builds them. Trump is a con man, and I don’t support Rubio.

  113. At this point OM, I am not scared of nukes. We’re past that. Freaking President Obama and Kerry just gave Iran the bomb…. and this 15 years after President Clinton gave North Korea the bomb.

    It’s game over. Of course I trust Trump with the bomb. I trusted R.R. when I was told over and over that he was senile and a warmonger and dangerous. How many music videos did they make about him? Movies? It was a cottage industry back in the 80’s.

    Wisdom and justice have not served me well against my betters in DC. But my wisdom, based on reading history teaches me, worse has happened in the past, and what is going on with the Trump candidacy was completely predictable. The US has not had a populist revolt. I’m thinking we are living the beginning of one now. The window has shifted and cannot be put back easily. Thanks for being civil. Thanks Neo for the site as always.

  114. I despise Trump as much or more than any Trump-despiser on this list, but ever since 40 years ago in law school, I have strongly disagreed with Gertz v. Welch and New York Times v. Sullivan. I think the Supreme Court was wrong that a public figure needed to prove “actual malice” to sue for a factually-wrong libelous statement. The First Amendment protects any kind of opinion, but not any kind of facts. I don’t see why negligent fact-checking should be protected in the case of a public figure — do they not have as much or more right to protection from injury than does a private person?

    I am unbiased on this issue — I also disagree with a case going the other way, Time v. Firestone (IIRC), in which the Court held that a publication could be sued for libel for saying someone had committed a crime, because although
    he had factually done the deed, he had not been convicted.

    So, if that’s what the Donald means, I agree.

  115. Startling is Sen. Sessions’ endorsement of Trump.
    I take it to mean that things are happening in the rarified upper atmosphere of which we have no knowledge and likely will never have knowledge.
    Why am I frightened? Let me count the reasons….

  116. Rob:
    Glad to hear you don’t worry about a 70 year old real estate developer who fancies himself equal to deal with Vlad Putin in terms of ruthlessness and deception. Maybe to Trump Vlad is just another mobster to cut a “deal” with. Or that we should have just “taken” the oil in Iraq? Or that 9-11 was GWB’s fault? Or that he knows nothing about the KKK or David Duke. Yeah, you may belong in that mob after all.

  117. OM — building the wall is easy – expensive, but doable. Getting Mexico to pay for easy-peasy. Trump could probably get a tariff on Mexican goods passed; he certainly could get a 15% tax on remittances to Mexico passed, probably nearly unanimously. Or highway fees on Mexican trucks, or a lot of other ways, if one thought about it for five minutes.

    Steve, CatoRenasci — could you at least define “Amnesty” so we know what you find so awful about Rubio? Is it a free pass to citizenship? Is it payment of a fine, payment of back taxes, and going to the end of the line for a green card or bracero permit? Something in between? Anything at all other than immediate mass deportation? What? You got 60 votes in the Senate for whatever you’re proposing?

    Anti-Trump voters in the general election –politics is almost never a choice between the good and the bad — it’s usually between the bad and the worse. I certainly won’t support Trump in the primaries, but if he gets the nomination, I’ll certainly vote for him. As between Hillary (or Joe) and the Donald, no question I’d vote for Mr. Spraytan.

  118. Eric,
    I’ve noticed that the worldview espoused by strident commenters who ARE Left or (and?) alt-Right often runs suspiciously similar to the Russian worldview.

  119. Richard Saunders Says:
    “So, if that’s what the Donald means, I agree.”

    Call me skeptical, but I doubt Trump has put any serious thought into the legal ramifications. If you expect some nuanced position from him on the law, I’d say you’re going to be disappointed.

  120. Richard Saunders Says:

    “Trump could probably get a tariff on Mexican goods passed; he certainly could get a 15% tax on remittances to Mexico passed, probably nearly unanimously. Or highway fees on Mexican trucks, or a lot of other ways, if one thought about it for five minutes.”

    Hell, he could just TAKE their money. That’s not the problem.
    The problem comes when they RETALIATE. When they take the U.S. to trade court, upon what basis will the U.S. make its case? When they impose counter-tariffs, what will Trump do about it?

    At that point, either you back down or it turns into a trade war. We’ll all get to see mafia-like bullying of our southern neighbor.

  121. Frog:
    “An easy proposition from you, James, so let’s have some straight answers. If they make sense, let’s put them to work.”

    Activism. Start here, then compete, (likely) fail, learn and adjust, grow, compete, cycle.

  122. I apologize, in advance, for going on so long here. Perhaps because I started out serving in the Army when I was young and then the next 20 years married to a career soldier, but I am very detail-oriented with planning, logistics and looking for gaps in strategy and tactical operations. Trump’s mass deportation is total nonsense – and all the pulling out the Eisenhower Operation Wetback plan and magical “self-deportation” theory still don’t address the scope of rounding up 11-12 million people, many of them of children and deporting them in 2 years. It’s a con job he offered, as are most of his bold plans that really are just wild ideas, not actual plans. And yes, I know he borrowed Senator Sessions plan, but I’ll list my major misgivings.

    First, every illegal immigrant is entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge and currently the backlog is 18 months, so taxpayers pay for housing, policing, food, clothing, sanitation needs and medical care during that time. One can only guess what that backlog would be with millions of people to process in two years. It can’t happen.

    Then there’s the basic humanitarian concerns with confining large numbers of people (see Germany and other European countries refugee disaster) and also the very high likelihood of creating the conditions for epidemics of numerous contagious diseases. 11 million people is roughly comparable to the population of the state of GA.

    Then there’s the law – both US and international, so even if they come up with some expedited immigration hearing process, other countries can refuse to accept these people or they can deliberately stall the process for years with administrative delays. So, these people would be in legal limbo (which does happen with deportation proceedings). Many illegals come from failed states that they can not be deported back to – there’s no legal process to deport people to areas without a functioning government, so they also would be in limbo.

    With that said, why not focus the resources in a proritized fashion – secure the border, then make rounding up the drug dealers and violent criminals the first tier concern, ramp up e-verify and track down visa overstays?

    Then the part of Trump’s plan that is a total fraud is why deport all these people if he is going to have some “expedited return of the good ones”. All he ever says is they are going to come back “legally”, but why deport them if they’re coming right back? Wouldn’t it make more sense to sort out the “good ones” at the beginning when you take them into custody and then process them, register them or fine them and then release them to their homes here, rather than deport them and then expedite their return? It makes no sense and his repeating “legally” doesn’t alter the fact that he’s doing an “amnesty” program. Doing this whole charade mass deportation seems like political theater to appease his followers, who bought his con, that he will be “tough” on illegals. The plan is a fraud imo.

    I am a pragmatist and I want the problem solved in the most cost-effective, humane and reasonable manner – secure the border, then work out a process sort out which can stay and which must go, but put the priority on the drug traffickers and violent criminals. I do live in GA and worked a number of years managing a lawn and garden shop at a local store. In the summertime, I (in my 50s) and a few other elderly workers were the only ones who would work in the 100+ degree heat in the summertime and the young people would start whining and go inside. We have a lot of farms in the area, who rely on migrant workers (many illegal) and I know that if we couldn’t get young people to work in the lawn and garden shop to do light labor, there’s no way American young people will go work in the GA fields in the summertime – they won’t do it.

    Sure, there are likely many jobs, I am sure that illegals hold in other areas that Americans would do, but I can assure you field work in GA in the summertime isn’t one such area.

  123. libertybelle…

    Well laid out, but I think human nature is such that a large number will self deport if they sense the jig is up. Enforcement on employers is right up Trump’s alley and a cut-off of Federal assistance. Telling ICE and the BP to round up folks and send ’em home, would have a remarkable effect. The last 12 years has been if anything, encouraging for border-hoppers.

    We’ll see. The left will sue and there would be a great debate, but I my thinking is, with a dramatic shift in policy that a Trump administration could rightly say they had a mandate for…. would have great effect. We’ll see. It’s a tough cookie for sure. But a hill I’m wiling to fight for.

  124. Rob:

    Regarding libertybelle’s post you seem to have missed her point that Trump’s plan is a fraud. Trump is selling a phony plan. If the plan being offered is fraudulent why dance around the main problem. You have no case to argue Donald’s main selling point. I may be fooled by others, but not by Donald.

  125. The Other Chuck Says at 2:01 pm:
    “You want proof that he a tyrant in the making?
    He admits it and quotes Mussolini.
    Unbelievable.”
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-28/trump-retweets-mussolini-mexico-fears-hitler-presidency

    I’m not sure what Other Chuck wants his readers to glean from this information. After reading the link it appears to be much ado about nothing.

    The article provides no information whatsoever to indicate that Trump has any personal knowledge of the contents of Mussolini’s writings or that he knowingly quoted Mussolini.

    What the article does describe is a highly unethical publication which has created multiple posts which contain quotes from Mussolini which were falsely attributing to Trump. In my opinion that reprehensible behavior by his enemies damages their credibility not his.

  126. Libertybelle, I wrote a similar detailed expose of Trump’s fraud in regard to deportation. What I’ve come to realize after writing it several day ago is that he is so deranged that he might actually try to do it. By force. Think for a minute – if you want to create conditions that require a police or military response, try rounding up millions of people, with legal citizen children in tow, and putting them in holding facilities, otherwise known as detention or internment camps.

    Rob, and others like Richard Saunders who are willing to give the man a chance, you are deluding yourselves I’m afraid. As much as I despise Obama, his trashing of the Constitution, his executive orders, and his radical leftist ideology, he is a pussy cat compared to Trump. Obama has always walked a fine line between underhanded double-dealing and the overt use of force. Trump will not hesitate to use force to get his way and silence his critics and opponents.

    Rob says:
    This election determines if large swaths of folks see a chance for change, or pitchforks. The anger is palpable.

    Is that a threat?

  127. OM, I re-read libertybell’s comment and you are right I missed her point. It is not a slam-dunk easy issue.

    You and I are of different minds though OM, and … well… to quote a sitting Senator’s character on SNL…

    that’s ok. I don’t see Trump as a fraud. I do not fear him. I do not question those that don’t trust him. I get it. Lots of folks don’t have the view I do. Fine. All I can do is say where I’m at and how I got here. Mob guy.

  128. The Other Chuck. The pitchforks … Seriously not a threat. A mindset. I do not anticipate violence… probably a lot of folks will just drop out of participating. The rancor is getting where folks can’t agree to disagree it seems.

    I appreciate your viewpoint. I’m not going to persuade you differently. Trump’s candidacy is making waves. All the right people hate him. I guess it depends where you sit on if you are frustrated or not and how much time you see is left before the country has a breakdown.

    It is arguable, but Trumps populist/nationalist and vulgar campaign have struck a chord and we’ll see where it goes. I do not get where you are just so sure that Trump would be worse than Obama, but you don’t trust him. He can’t be controlled. He can’t be reasoned with. I see those attributes with clear eyes and fondness. I’m ready for Jackson II.

    I will admit, after Obama, I’m totally fine with non-stop EO’s from President Trump undoing what the progressives have unleashed on the country. To play by the normal rules is to lose now. Let Trumps’ successor reset to normalcy.

    All the leading Dems will be too old to do anything in 8 years, so that’s 8 years for a nation to reset and find it’s footing again, appreciate the rule of law and the constituion as written. Also A Trump going nuts might get us our Art. V convention and get the power shifted back to the states.

  129. Rob

    “There is a lot of ruin in a nation.” That ruin is the destruction individuals, and destruction of institutions, tradition, polity, and comity.

    Why would you think Trump would limit himself to undoing Obama’s EOs? The country has had quitter enough of that behavior.

    An Article V convention of states is needed without Trump, or anyone else in the Oval Office, or SCOTUS “going nuts,” it is needed no matter who wins in November 2016.

  130. OM, I have no idea if Trump will limit his use of EO’s. And you are correct absolutely that the need for a Art. V convention and return of States rights does not rest on whether Trump is elected or not. So many people are rightly freaked out by him though, I was only proposing I guess that the process would be accelerated greatly.

    We’ll see. There is still the threat of a brokered convention and surely backroom deals to be cut. Trump is not an ideologue, so he’s likely to do anything to win and then he’ll likely be a middle of the road NY guy who puts the US first, but otherwise his success or failure or his effectiveness will completely depend on who he appoints in his cabinet, etc.

  131. I tried to get a feel for Trump in the beginning, because I don’t watch any reality TV and for me he was pretty much a blank slate. I knew he had several wives, was wealthy, but no had feel for him at all. The way he repeats words and his poll numbers is a sophisticated propaganda technique developed by leftists to manufacture an opinion cascade – it’s a slick propaganda technique to artificially drive polling data. Trump used it brilliantly with his media saturation and repeating he was winning in all the polls. I have my own suspicions of how he learned that, but that aside, as a man putting forth ideas – he can’t articulate them in any sort of coherent details, preferring to rely on bragging and jingoistic applause lines.

    I bought a Trump book last summer – his “Trump: How To Get Rich” and read that, still trying to figure out who he is and what he believes. Two chapters in that book convinced me is what I consider a toxic leader and I believe he’s as much a sociopath as Hillary. He wrote a chapter on screwing people over. He said (pg 138):

    “When somebody hurts you, just go after then as viciously and as violently as you can. Like it says in the Bible, an eye for an eye.”

    He followed that with a chapter on how you need to hold a grudge and how he never forgives a slight. So, with the Megyn Kelly continued pettiness – he will forever be looking for ways to do her in – that is who he really is. For this reason, even if he was as “great” as he says he is – he is a sociopath and should not given the most powerful position in America. Sadly, looks like America might be getting a twofer – the two most overblown egos in America competing for the same job and both are truly sociopaths, although the way Hillary will do anything to get what she wants might push her into the psychopath range. I have no doubts she will win, by fair means or foul.

  132. Here’s what Pres. Reagan said when the KKK endorsed him in 1984:

    Those of us in public life can only resent the use of our names by those who seek political recognition for the repugnant doctrines of hate they espouse.

    The politics of racial hatred and religious bigotry practiced by the Klan and others have no place in this country, and are destructive of the values for which America has always stood.

    Compare Trump’s evasions today in his interview with Jake Tapper about David Duke’s endorsement. This man cannot become president.

  133. Dennis, Trump could have flew through this weekend before Super Tuesday just riding the wave of his leading poll numbers, so it’s incredible that he got himself mired in the Mussolini retweet and even worse all he had to do is say I denounce what the KKK stands for and it would have been over. He dug in, refusing to condemn the KKK and claiming he didn’t know who David Duke is, when within minutes the media had video of him denouncing David Duke a few years back.

    With the Mussolini quote, Trump could have just said he wasn’t aware of that, he liked the quote, but he does not like fascism or fascist dictators, but he dug himself into a hole and sounded like an idiot:

    “Chuck, it’s OK to know it’s Mussolini. Look, Mussolini was Mussolini. It’s OK to – it’s a very good quote, it’s a very interesting quote, and I know it,” he said Sunday morning. “I saw it. I saw what – and I know who said it. But what difference does it make whether it’s Mussolini or somebody else? It’s certainly a very interesting quote.”
    Story Continued Below

    Trump posted the tweet early Sunday morning from @ilduce2016: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”
    When asked if he wanted to be associated with a fascist, Trump said: “No, I want to be associated with interesting quotes. And people, you know, I have almost 14 million people between Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and all of that. And we do interesting things. And I sent it out. And certainly, hey, it got your attention, didn’t it?”

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/trump-tweets-interesting-mussolini-quote-219932#ixzz41Ww5tS00

  134. libertybelle Says at 12:05 am:

    “…it’s incredible that he got himself mired in the Mussolini retweet and even worse all he had to do is say I denounce what the KKK stands for and it would have been over.”

    I didn’t hear the exchange but one thing I know is that the question itself was dishonest. The lefty who asked it was not really interested in the answer. They know good and well that Trump has nothing to do with the KKK but ask the question to leave the impression with the listeners that there is a real possibility that Trump is interested in the KKK. To renounce them is to acknowledge that there is a reason he needs to renounce them. To the left an apology only makes things worse since it means that you acknowledge that you are a bad person and a weak one at that.

    No one ever asks lefty politicians like Obama, or Sanders or Clinton to renounce Pol Pot or Mao or Stalin even though they do in fact share the same lefty ideology.

    I am upset that Rubio has joined the chorus on the left and has started to play the race card against Trump. In my opinion, there is no difference between someone who plays the race card against other people and a racist. Racists play the race card.

  136. All this focus on Trump is delighting the Auld Enemy — the Reds and the Pinkos. They’re just stropping their razors, ready to slit our throats with Hildabeast’s blessing and connivance.

  137. Some people think the press is an enemy. Sure, they lie and make stuff up and facilitate our domestic enemies….but we shouldn’t call them to account. I buy that, but the frustration doesn’t go away. What with the internet and all, they’re losing anyway, and it’s fun to watch.
    Ditto the immigration issue. The Rep/Dem establishment is wedded to open immigration. If the only one who’s talking about that is Trump…it’s the fault of all the reasonable people who could be talking about it but aren’t because the dem/rep establishment has kept them out of sight.
    Sure, he’s a loose cannon, a liar and a jerk. But…excuse the caps….HE’S THE ONLY ONE TALKING ABOUT WHAT BOTHERS HALF OR MORE OF THE CITIZENS.
    Cruz is trying, but the establishment and the media know how to deal with guys like him.
    Trump breaks through.
    Ancient poli sci truism: If nobody in politics will deal with what bothers the citizenry, somebody will come along who will, and you might not like him. But that’s the fault of the political establishment.

  138. France’s hate speech is basically another libel law, and they use it quite effectively to promote certain things over others. Once again, the lawyers and judges pull the strings.

  139. Obama tried to become a Hugo Chavez tyrant and has failed. The institutions of the country still work. They are battered but still functioning.

    Did it function for the corpses in Waco 2 and under Fast and Furious and in Benghazi?

    People like this, what they don’t want to understand is that the Leftist alliance is a lot bigger than two bit wannabe dictators like Hussein or Trump.

  140. Oh, the question was utterly dishonest. It was the political equivalent of “Have you stopped beating your wife?” You can tell from the video that Jake Tapper was prepared for a certain *range* of replies, and Trump’s reply was so far outside of that range that Tapper is left visibly uncomfortable, almost shaken by the answer. Of course, a half an hour later Trump retweets his clear disavowal from two DAYS previous (not weeks or months.)

    As far as I’m concerned though, I’ve had enough.

    Donald Trump has an amazing power of persuasion, and one of the tactics he uses to fight these sorts of kill shots is to move the Overton window so that the kill shots aren’t kill shots anymore. His enemies accuse him of wanting to deport 12 million people, and within days public opinion has shifted so that deporting 12 million people is suddenly an acceptable part of the political discourse. Yesterday morning Jake Tapper tried to pin David Duke and white supremacy on Donald Trump, and Trump responded by suggesting that it would be unfair to disavow them without researching them and considering their opinions. A few hours later I scan the usual pro-Trump sites, and not only are there people talking about how David Duke is misunderstood and unfairly maligned, but there is no pushback from other commenters. None at all.

    Yes, Donald Trump is the only candidate who is talking about what bothers half or more of the citizens, but he is also extraordinarily effective at using his persuasive power to set the national agenda, and the decisions he has made in the last few days — the issues he has chosen to advance — have proven to me, at least, that he is far too reckless. I’m done.

  141. Seven. I pretty much agree. My point is, it should have been somebody else. Trump’s all there is.
    For example: Kate Steinle.
    The government did exactly what it said it would do: Deport criminals once in a while, but not often. Not worry about them coming back. That’s the feds.
    Hire for diversity, not for guys who could avoid losing their GOVERNMENT ISSUED WEAPON.
    The locals said they would turn loose any illegal immigrant who was so unlucky as to be arrested.
    So kate Steinle was killed because the government did exactly what they said they’d do.
    And none of them said, “Oops. My bad.”
    IOW, they don’t intend to do anything different.
    Hence Trump.

  142. Dennis, what the article shows is Trump re-tweeting the Mussolini quote with approval. Later when cornered he said he likes the sentiment and the quote and didn’t care where it came from, and that OF COURSE he’s not a Fascist. No, not at all, I just likes me strong men and I intend to govern as one, and here is a quote that I like from one of them. So what? Choke on it. That’s his attitude.

  143. I hope he does open up the libel laws..
    for a couple of years now reading the daily news i have been inundated with clown faces over who they dont like, false claims, and all manner of bs.. like kkk hoods for trump, and then kkk stuff for cristy cause he endorses trump

    of course you cant sue the papers
    so your of course defening the papers rights to do smears
    you thnk the lefts painting clown faces, going after cosby, going after christy by conflating a individuals choice made public as something the candidate controls…

    if you think that not allowing suits in these cases is ok
    then i guess your FOR This stuff getting worse
    of course, without the lawsuits, nothing can change that outcome..

    so quote bubbles that say nothing the actual person said is ok.. cartoon overlays… guilt by others desire to be associated and so on.

    right now neo is in the public eye, and if the left wanted to paint her as a nazi lover, she is ok with that, and her lack of ability to actually sue them since she is now a public figure.

    right?

    personally i am getting tired of 40 years of such over the top propaganda and the fact that no victim can sue

    the duke kids coudlnts sue… despiet being innocent, the libel laws trump is talking about would not let them

    the rolling stones author is not being sued, they wont reveal her name, and she is protected against such suits.

    so in reality… if the left lies its legal as the victims are not allowed to sue..and you conflat that the only candidate that says he wants to do something about that bs, is a tyrant?

    a tyrant would not say let the court decide given the victims ability to bring suit… a tyrant would say, shut down the newspaper, a la chavez, castro, etc

    right now there are stuff linking trump to stalin.
    yeah, stalin was a great capitalist
    where is the stuff linking bernie the stalinist to stalin?

    and how about the left huffington post article that lies about the history of the dems and the south? you realize you cant take them to court on that either under libel laws?

    so there is no way for the rpublicans to do anyting abou the news given its inthe lefts hands and you cant sue…

    even when you work against the totalitarians
    you end up, helping them as you cant drop your programming a la 50 years of pavlovianism.

  144. Keep helping the opposition and see where that will lead against a totalitarian ideology that wants to exterminate jews as the inventor and vector of capitalism… not like they dont favor islam over jews… but then again, how many jews are there and how many islamic votes are there? exterminate jews either by force or by things like abortion, propaganda you cant sue libel for, and so on… shaping the minds of the kids to anti semititism as normal, and you cant sue them, can you?

  145. So how many of the people that Trump has “threatened” turned up dead in Fort Marcy Park?

  146. how about this.
    trump says to open libel laws let courts decide.
    liberals (Without cruz saying anything against) decide to do this

    The FEC came under fire last year when Democratic commissioners even whispered talk of regulating news sites. They were driven back by public outrage and Commissioner Lee E. Goodman who first raised the issue and who sought to protect digital news sites from regulations, no matter what their political bent was.

    By citing Drudge as one of the examples of the media exemption they want, a likely positive outcome to the Ethiq request could help to finally end talk of regulating sites like Drudge, which some Democrats believe is too critical of liberals.

    soon neo better like writing leftist news or else..

    yeah… he is a tyrant for wanting to be able to sue the news for painting clown faces on him, saying he is with the KKK, baking cristy as being for the KKK because he endorses trump..

    thats all ok… its fair..

    and the people who are fair and equal and not tyranical, want to control the news using fcc and organs of the state.

    when people change sides they dont cahnge sides
    that would require not siding with the anti tyranical anti totalitarian leftist progressives in terms of who to behave, what you can say or cant, and how muhc punishment you will get from extra judicial bodies in control of what you think

    but its not censorship…
    and even local censorship does not lead to acclimation
    nor does a camels nose in the tent mean anything.

    the lefts has been fightint a socail war
    and the victims wont fight back, even if it means loosening libal laws so that victims can sue when such crap masquerates as news.

    good job…

  147. The long-ago Louisiana gubernatorial election was David Duke (ex-KKK) (note the ex) versus the serial governor Edwin Edwards. Edwards had a well-deserved, well-earned reputation for cronyism and corruption. While out of office he made many trips to Vegas, always winning at the casinos, $250K to $500 K per weekend. Had income tax witheld as is customary.

    When Edwards returned to the governorship, LO! casinos became legal though needing state licenses. Harrah’s (of Las Vegas) got the only casino in New Orleans.

    The Democratic bumper stickers for Edwards read, “Vote for the crook. It’s important.”

    I voted for Duke.
    Today’s Edwards is Hillary.

  148. …a US citizen on US soil [may] now lawfully be killed by the US military if the military believes that citizen to be a terrorist affiliated with Al Qaeda or its allies.” Today the absolute right of the federal government to kill American citizens depends upon nothing more than President Obama’s unsubstantiated claim of their involvement in potentially dangerous, anti-government activities.

    study “…funded in part by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) …declared that citizens who are concerned about individual liberty and are suspicious of centralized government authority are “extreme right wing terrorists.”

    yeah. and your worried about trump after such people have set the rules for tyrany way beyond letting judges determine libel, rather than protecting libel as a news source… good thing the FCC doesnt want to let judges decide, and will just lock neo down using rules she cant object to, or make her pay a high fee…

    so much better than changing law to let judges make determinations, dont you think?

  149. “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” Benito Mussolini

    Is the truth of a proposition now dependent upon who utters it?

    Trump Derangement Syndrome or TDS… is increasing as the prospect grows of Trump becoming the republican nominee.

    The RCP poll as of 2/27 shows Trump @ 35.6%, Cruz @ 19.8% and Rubio @ 17.4%. It doesn’t take a Las Vegas prognosticator to read the writing on the wall, it just takes a willingness to accept reality.

    Regardless of how disastrous, the choice will almost certainly be one of Trump or Hillary. It’s Hillary as the democrat nominee because Obama letting her get to Super Tuesday is a decisive indication that he does not plan to indict her. Her recent strong support for Obama’s ‘legacy’ is an indication that she and Obama have come to an ‘accommodation’.

    So, the reality we now face is to elect either a Marxist criminal who will seek to exceed Obama depredations upon the Constitution or… an American Caesar. Either way, the death knell of the republic sounds, off the horizon.

    Finally, make no mistake, should Trump win the nomination, a vote for anyone but Trump is effectively, a vote for Hillary.

    Truly, a case of damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

    “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” ― Abraham Lincoln

  150. Matt_SE Says:
    February 28th, 2016 at 12:42 am

    Sorry, blert.
    All dictators announce what they’re going to do, and their words are swept under the rug with assurances that “he doesn’t really mean it.”

    &&&&&&&

    Stalin never played it that way.

    And HRC is MUCH more into Stalin’s political style — as both would be considered “policy wonks.”

    The ONLY infamous tyrant to blabber long before hand has been Adolf Hitler.

    The rest of the pack either never published — or did so after they were sitting on top.

    As for Trump’s positions — he’s hopscotched all over the map.

    HRC is ALL about self-entitlement and personal aggrandizement… by way of hidden baksheesh.

    Trump does not want to conquer the world — just burnish his name in the history books.

    Hillary is already in the history book.

    It was not enough.

    As the foremost champion of Feminism, she’d be a disaster for the West, Merkel with a shrill voice.

    This perfectly expresses her world-view:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kv_VmSizrA

    Hillary is anti-patriarchy — pro-matriarchy.

    That will be how she’ll differentiate herself from Barry, the Black–Islamic Supremacist.

    BOTH are anti-Constitutionalists.

    A vote against the GOP nominee is — flat out — a vote for Hillary.

    She’s ALREADY corrupted the Democrat’s nominee process.

    And, she’s just getting started.

    Barry’s war on Christians will be replaced by Hillary’s war on MEN.

    At which point all of her rage against Bill — the Clenis — will seethe forth.

    We already know that she has a hot temper.

    Keep your perspective.

    And stump for Ted.

  152. Ymarsakar:
    “Once again, the lawyers and judges pull the strings.”

    The law is society’s operating system. Lawyers are agents, not principals (though a principal can be a lawyer).

    Lawyers compete in the arena, but they don’t make the rules. Nor judges as such, though their influence is a different level than lawyers.

    Look at the lawmakers and, more importantly, what pulls their strings, which shows that the activist game is the only social cultural/political game there is.

    Comments throughout this thread essentially describe the activist game being played by Democrat-front Left activists and Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right activists, notwithstanding their marked similarities indicating the possible overlap of the two activist teams as blert and libertybelle have speculated.

    Yet in place of the logical follow-up of prescriptive calls for conservatives to adjust to the evident circumstance by collectively adapting activism, I see a lot of fatalism, impotent complaint, and pass the buck to the GOP, instead.

    In fact, the only viable solution is available only to conservatives, the people of the besieged Right, not the GOP. The same solution is available to any people and, in fact, it’s the same method used effectively against the Right by the Left and now the Trump-front alt-Right: Marxist-method activism.

    Start here to lay the foundation. Then compete in the arena, grow from your defeats, and relentlessly build your social cultural/political movement. The GOP can’t save itself, let alone the formation of American society as you prefer it. Only conservatives – the people – organized as a Marxist-method activist social movement have a chance to compete for (not a guarantee to win) your vision of America.

    Beverly:
    “Short form of all this? We live in a fallen world. And the good guys won’t win until Judgement Day.
    …
    In the meantime, our mission, should we choose to accept it, is the fight the good fight, to keep the faith. “Put not your trust in princes;” they’re only men like ourselves.”

    God helps those who help themselves.

    On the first part, the good guys can win. But they guarantee they won’t win as long as they refuse to compete for real.

    The second part is the point. The only available way to “fight the good fight” – and win it – is for the people of the Right to go all in collectively, zealously, and permanently with a Marxist-method activist social movement.

    The activist method is not preferred, it is unpleasant and cynical, but it’s the only realistic way to compete. You should couple activism with other ways, but any other way minus activism is tantamount to surrender to the other competitive factions that are deploying activism.

  153. I agree with eric. Long term, he is correct. What should we do right now?

    I am on record [now that comments on blogs can be included in that august category] as stating that the biggest danger to our Constitutional Republic [do serious people still talk like that?] is that the Democrats [which term includes the MSM] are making every effort to repeat their incredible success of the 1964 Presidentail election by bamboozling voters into believing that our time-honored process for selecting Republican Presidential candidates is capable of ending up offering America a deranged maniac as a Republican candidate for President, and that therefore the only sensible thing to do in November will be to either stay home or vote for the Democratic candidate.

    What has alerted me to this very real danger? Articles in and comments by readers on usually perspicacious right-leaning blogs and now articles in “The New Yorker” magazine.[1]

    How has this dangerous situation come about? Well, we have come to think of straight party-line voting [2] as a bad thing. The State of Michigan recently removed the option to hit one button for all candidates of a given party from their ballot. This is an implicit admission that a maniac could end up on the ballot. Left unsaid is a discussion of the possibility that all of the candidates of a given party could be maniacs. We have yet to go that far [however, see discussions of the Libertarian party in left-wing publications and/or similar discussions of the Green Party in rightist sources]. I digress.

    I continue to see that some 35+% of Democrats intend to vote for Hillary. My bias is that these poll results reflect the presence of Yellow Dog Democrats. [3] I can conceive of no other rational explanation for anyone who can read voting for Hillary.

    So what is my point?

    I believe that, like Theodore Hallam of long ago, [4] all people who love America should hold their nose [if necessary] and vote straight Republican ticket this time. Hillary, to any sane, informed citizen, stands already convicted of being lower than a yellow dog. By offering her, the Liberal Machine proves to me that they also are lower than yellow dogs and that they don’t care about America. Of course, neither do the establishment Republicans, but they are, in this case, only yellow dogs.

    But, you say, what about the possibility of being able to vote for a Libery-loving candidate who will support The Constitution? Examine the road-kill left after what the Democrats/MSM did to Senator Goldwater in the Presidential election of 1964. Look about you. They have dusted off the old playbook, updated it and you may observe it in action in this current campaign.

    [1]http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-dilemma-of-conservatives-who-say-theyll-never-vote-for-donald-trump

    [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight-ticket_voting

    Straight-ticket-voting … is the practice of voting for every candidate that a political party has on a general election ballot. … straight-ticket voting was a very common occurrence up until around the 1960s and 1970s. Since that time, straight-ticket voting has declined in the United States among the general voting population; however, strong partisans (that is strong party identifiers) have remained straight-ticket voters.

    [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_dog_Democrat

    Yellow Dog Democrats was a political term applied to voters in the Southern United States who voted solely for candidates who represented the Democratic Party. … These voters would allegedly “vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for any Republican”…. The term is now more generally applied to refer to any Democrat who will vote a straight party ticket under any circumstances.

    The phrase “yellow dog” may be a reference to a breed of dog known as the Carolina Dog indigenous to the Americas, specifically the Southern United States, and not descended from Eurasian breeds.

    The phrase “Yellow Dog Democrat” is thought … to have achieved popularity during the 1928 presidential race between Democratic candidate Al Smith and Republican candidate Herbert Hoover, when Senator J. Thomas Heflin (D-Alabama) crossed party lines and formally supported Hoover. Many Southern voters disliked several items on Smith’s platform but still voted for him.
    …
    In the run-up to the 1892 presidential election, the African-American journalist C.H.J. Taylor of Kansas City, Kansas, in his paper The American Citizen, used the term to refer to Republicans in the West who, he wrote, “would vote for a yellow dog out there if he was named Republican.”…[including this is my attempt to avoid being called “racist” and/or “partiest” for not including contributions from or about those of another…er…well, you know what I mean.]

    [4]… in the 1900 Kentucky gubernatorial contest involving Kentucky Governor William Goebel. Theodore Hallam was criticized at a Democratic Party meeting for first supporting Goebel, then campaigning against him. The critic pointed out that Hallam earlier had said “if the Democrats of Kentucky… nominated a yaller dog for governor you would vote for him” … Hallam responded:

    “I admit,” he stated blandly, “that I said then what I now repeat, namely, that when the Democratic Party of Kentucky, in convention assembled, sees fit in its wisdom to nominate a yaller dog for the governorship of this great state, I will support him – but lower than that ye shall not drag me!” [In other words, he thinks that Goebel is lower than a yellow dog.]

  155. Repeating for emphasis:

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

    Anna Chapman was working the Active Measures beat in New England.

    NONE of the Americans in her circle suspected a THING.

    She looked and sounded Irish American.

    Once ejected, she went back to glory and fortune in Russia… as a national heroine for warping American politics and culture.

    THAT’S Active Measures.

    &&&&&&

    It’s important — ESSENTIAL — to understand that Anna was no-way near ANY military secrets.

    She wasn’t even in Washinton DC.

    New England was her beat — largely the academic nexus of Boston.

    Active Measures are so FAR away from what Westerners think a KGB agent does — that they are always taken in.

    Anna’s KGB mission was to inject memes at the highest level of American academic culture.

    Multiculturalism

    Feminism

    Micro-aggressions

    The latter figures to have come straight from Moscow. It’s that tortured.

    Her role was to get legitimate Americans to swallow Moscow’s ‘logic.’ … Emotional logic…

    It’s well to remember that CRA Policy started as a White Paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of BOSTON. (1992)

    { Timed to have an effect during the election of the Clenis.

    Yep.

    You can practically take it to the bank that Moscow was behind that position paper.

    It was pernicious in the extreme.

    It argued that all prior lending standards were RACIST — and that “The System” was holding the Black man down.

    { Wording suitably modified to read very elegant, of course.

    { The YOUNG authors were on the FAR LEFT of the political spectrum — and their White Paper was PURE activism — of the kind Eric has oft commented.

    &&&&

    Likewise, G H.W. Bush signed on to Agenda 21.

    This scheme is also a product of Moscow. For, even if Moscow didn’t originate its ideas ( hard to believe ) Moscow would’ve poured every imaginable KGB resource to advance it.

    For Agenda 21 is pernicious in the extreme.

    You might note that Agenda 21 is TOTALLY ignored // or contrary to policy // in Russia.

    One might note that the KGB was re-inventing itself in 1992.

    So you can take both of these programs as parting shots from the Active Measures team.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21

    Both Agenda 21 and the Boston Fed White Paper led to Clintonian policy directives and EPIC changes in the flow of the American economy.

    As intended.

    Common Core is ANOTHER scheme that would certainly obtain subtle Moscow backing.

    There’s NO doubt that Common Core is what joined Bill Ayers and Barry Soetoro — and his launch onto the political stage.

    Need I say ? … Common Core is Federalized indoctrination of our children.

    It essentially negates every school board in our land.

    Yet, they are swallowing it.

    Diversity is terrific — but not when indoctrination is at issue.

    Millions of True Believers is the goal.

    cf Hitlerjugend… and…

    The Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization (Russian: Всесою́зная пионе́рская организа́ция и́мени Ð’. И. Ле́нина ) was a mass youth organization of the Soviet Union for children of age 10—15 that existed between 1922 and 1991.

    Similar to [ the Hitlerjugend, the kids were indoctrinated to rat on their parents and to be good little Soviet cogs. Ed.]

    Wiki can screw up all history.

  156. At Twitter:

    Ted Cruz ‏@tedcruz: Really sad. @realDonaldTrump you’re better than this. We should all agree, racism is wrong, KKK is abhorrent.

    Mitt Romney @MittRomney: A disqualifying & disgusting response by @realDonaldTrump to the KKK. His coddling of repugnant bigotry is not in the character of America.

    Marco Rubio ‏@marcorubio: Donald Trump will never be the nominee of the party of Lincoln and Reagan.

    Sure hope Marco’s correct.

  157. Ann –

    Re Trump accusation – see this – http://davidduke.com/dr-david-duke-the-zio-media-lies-i-have-not-endorsed-donald-trump/

    I am astonished at the poor arguments being made against Trump on this, normally, very interesting blog. Also, why the distaste directed at Sen Jeff Sessions?

    The shenanigans of the GOP towards candidates such as Chris Daniels in Mississippi, the duplicity from Rubio over the Dreamers and the gang of 8 , etc etc have had a cumulative effect since 2009. Even now the GOP talk of supporting Clinton rather than Trump. The GOP are reaping what they have sown.

    Tell me, what would you do if you were one of these IT guys from Disney who lost their jobs due to the H1B visa situation? What would you do if you were an ICE officer having to deal with the lack of enforcement on your southern border? What would you do if your loved one was killed in a sanctuary city by one of the harboured illegals?

    Don’t bother responding because I won’t be back to read your comment.

  158. Active Measures is solely conducted by the First Directorate of the KGB. (SVR)

    Putin was just such an agent.

    The minimum IQ to be such an agent > 133

    All MUST speak at least one foreign language — usually more than one.

    They out rank ALL other agents — inside or outside the Soviet// Russian system.

    It’s highly significant that the SVR has carried on the bad work of the KGB — even as the Cold War is supposed to be over.

    Unless you, yourself, is a near genius, your chances of out thinking a First Directorate agent are nil.

    And since most folks don’t spend their professional time trying to screw over culture — even geniuses are disadvantaged when tackling the First Directorate.

    The F.D. NEVER wastes its time spying for military secrets. That’s the task of the GRU — a wholly separate monster spy network as big as the KGB — and its peer rival.

    GRU and KGB HATED each other. For Stalin, time and again, used the GRU to bleed the KGB white… and vice versa.

    Because this is our election season, the First Directorate is in FULL COMBAT MODE.

    Thousands of keyboard warriors are DOS attacking our blogs.

    ( Denial of Sanity attacks )

    Spoofing
    Trolling
    Concern Trolling
    Smearing
    Meme Injection

    Many of their pseudonym ‘legends’ have been built up over time — so that when they key in — they can point to their aged posts alleging that they are “long time posters” — or “long time viewer, first time commenter.”

    The thing is, ordinary American posters never feel the need to buttress their posts with tales of ‘comradeship.’

    That’s a ‘tell’ that the exact opposite is the case — and, indeed, is a a tell that the poster is a Russian.

    As Bezmenov related, all KGB agents are schooled to become chummy comrades — right out of the gate.

    Indeed, they will go so far as to craft fake legends for their agents so that implicit comradeship exists from the first second.

    The classic gambit would be to hail from the same college. That was always easy to fake. They were only targeting the elites from the same tiny population of elite universities. So, it was easy for the KGB to compile a dossier on said school… bam… instant old school buddy.

    Hence INSTANT comradeship is PURE KGB.

    It’s been carried over to the keyboard warrior crowd.

  159. The phrase “yellow dog” may be a reference to a breed of dog known as the Carolina Dog indigenous to the Americas, specifically the Southern United States, and not descended from Eurasian breeds.

    &&&&

    Wholly incorrect.

    The term “Yellow Dog” was a DIRECT reference to cowardice in battle during the American Civil War — and the only ones that could carry that stigma were Southern boys.

    The other crowd that was stigmatized was “Blue Bellies” for Union troops.

    That a man was “Yellow” was a direct reference to losing bladder control.

    In Britain’s public schools the epithet was “Wets.”

    &&&&

    The political expression// connection referred to southern voters preferring a known coward and defeatist on their ticket as against a damn Yankee — a carpet bagger.

    For this purpose, ANY fellow that was running for office — after the Civil War that had NOT fought in it — would’ve qualified as a coward — hence — a Yellow Dog.

    Needless to say, it was very hard for a Southern man to even be elected to office if he’d missed serving in the Confederate army.

    Similarly, you’ll find that the VAST majority of Republican politicians were Civil War veterans. They simply took over every office in sight.

    President McKinley is an exemplar.

  160. The Other Chuck Says:
    February 28th, 2016 at 9:57 pm

    Libertybelle, I wrote a similar detailed expose of Trump’s fraud in regard to deportation. What I’ve come to realize after writing it several day ago is that he is so deranged that he might actually try to do it. By force. Think for a minute — if you want to create conditions that require a police or military response, try rounding up millions of people, with legal citizen children in tow, and putting them in holding facilities, otherwise known as detention or internment camps.

    &&&&

    Good grief.

    Trump is not Adolf Hitler circa 1942.

    He’s ALREADY got his position paper out. ( Sessions) (R)

    The way it’s going to work out:

    Stuff like E-verify.

    End of sanctuary cities.

    Deportation upon criminal arrest — they happen a LOT… the crime, that is.

    He’ll be so busy un-Obamanating the land that chasing teenagers will never enter the equation.

    The VAST bulk of illegal aliens are ADULTS.

    AND.

    They will take their kids with them as they leave.

    That’s not such a hardship. When I was a child, I moved around about every two-years — forever.

    The children of illegals are RARELY not bi-lingual. It just does not happen.

    And their homeland sure could use their American skills — pretty much up and down the line.

    The PRIMARY reason why Latin America can’t ‘take off’ is because we are BRAIN DRAINING their societies.

    Get it?

    If you REALLY want Africa and Latin America to leap out of poverty — you MUST stop their talented fraction from having America to escape too.

    America is LOOTING the world of its medical talent — producing no more than 2/3s of its talent need.

    So, when you look at Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, their ratio of doctors to population — is bizarre.

    That practice has to STOP.

    Or the rest of the world will NEVER escape poverty.

    http://lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft2.htm

    ^^^ Why the smart fraction of a population has such an astounding impact.

    http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/imm.htm

    ^^^Why unlimited immigration is trashing our nations economy.

    Yes, they are linked.

  161. Just for the record: If the choice comes down to Hillary and the Democrats or a coward – vote for Hillary. We may end up with a yellow dog [“Here, Spot!] on the Republican ticket, but never a coward. And Hillary may be many things, but the Democrats would nover run a coward either.

  162. First, every illegal immigrant is entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge and currently the backlog is 18 months, so taxpayers pay for housing, policing, food, clothing, sanitation needs and medical care during that time. One can only guess what that backlog would be with millions of people to process in two years. It can’t happen.

    &&&&&&

    Not so quick.

    1) E-verify and the end of welfare create the economic incentive to leave — just as the economic incentive caused them to enter.

    Yes, they’ll largely not hang around for their court date.

    2) Criminals don’t get a hearing WRT their alien status.

    That’s LONG settled law.

    And there are SO MANY criminal aliens in our land.

    California — alone — has well over 4,000 warrants for First Degree Homicide — all aimed at illegal aliens.

    As you might imagine, most of these will never be served.

    The victims were — usually — other illegal aliens — and in the drug trade.

    We have a cross-border crime problem of epic proportions – which — from your post — seems to be of secondary or tertiary significance.

    &&&&&&

    The children we speak of are BI-LINGUAL.

    They are bi-cultural as well.

    I’ve moved around a LOT in my life.

    Believe me, it’s not the end of the world, especially as a child.

    Mexico, Latin America is NOT starving.

    Heck, even the weather is better.

    They are inside America because we’re handing them LOTTO tickets.

    Everyone that breaks the border receives about $1,000,000 in life time benefits. ( age depending )

    This LOTTO payout comes straight out of your pocket — and mine.

    It’s the reason why Social Security Disability is plunging into insolvency.

    &&&&&&

    When legalized — 99% of the aliens go on permanent welfare.

    That’s a FACT.

    We found that out back in 1986 with Reagan’s amnesty.

    Once they were legal… welfare paid them FAR more than they could command in our economy.

    America has no need for stoop labor at even the minimum wage.

    It can only tolerate stoop labor at WELL BELOW the poverty level.

    Semi-slavery… peonage…

    So, the 1986 crew retired — in months — to welfare.

    They were ENTIRELY replaced by a new surge of illegal aliens.

    That dynamic will NEVER CHANGE.

    BTW, a lot of the illegal aliens around here are criminal Russians. We’re getting criminals from ALL OVER.

    They escape the cops — who’re on to them in their homeland — and re-invent themselves –with fake IDs — and then set up store — dealing in drugs, prostitution, black hacking, — the works.

    The Russians are largely excluded from the construction trades… so, for most, it’s criminal enterprise… straight out of the Untouchables TV series… to boot.

  163. notherbob2,

    Trump is many things but a coward?

    Vote for Hillary? Aiming for an early claim to membership in America’s coming nomenklatura?

  164. To re-emphasize my point: If the Democrat think tanks who prepare the Narrative for the Democratic Party were to take my comments seriously [very unlikey, but nevermind] they would be saying in an internal meeting:

    “Trump got a deferment from the draft – Henry, get on it. I want 1,200 words on why Trump is a coward. Get it ready to go out to the usual places: NYT, WAPO, PBS, etc.

    “Oh, and include Chris Wallace at Fox. He’s been coming around lately. On his, include anything on Cruz being a coward, he will surely use it. One last thing, check out Rubio on this just in case we have to put out stuff on him one way or the other on this issue.”

  165. blert, Thank you for the information on Soviet/Russian intel ops. I spent the 80s and 90s doing extensive reading about intel operations around the world, just out of my own interest. I was a homemaker during that time, after serving just a short time in the Army as a journalist, while my husband continued his Army career. It fit in with my interest in in military history and military strategy. We were living in Germany when the wall came down and during Desert Storm. After the US invested so much effort in the Cold War, during the 90s we stopped facing the world as it is and let down our guard completely, imo

  166. Geoffry:

    Well Brave Brave Sir Donald couldn’t stand up to Megyn Kelly and resorted to some vile slurs about her. So maybe he is a coward when facing women with some power. /S He seems to spend a lot of time insulting everyone and threating law suits, doesn’t strike me as brave. And then there is his draft dodging…. How do you define Sir Donald’s “courage?”

  167. Is the truth of a proposition now dependent upon who utters it?

    THANK you, Mr Britain!

    As the Noble Winnie once remarked, a thing may be true, even if Lord Beaverbrook has said it.

  168. To amplify my previous comment, just as many of the votes that helped Jimmy Carter win in ’76 were motivated by the pardon that Gerald Ford gave Richard Nixon, so should anyone connected in any way with Obama’s Iran agreement be harshly penalized. The offense in this case is so egregious as to warrant punishment beyond more than one election.
    If this deal is not treason, there is no such thing as treason. We will be lucky if it does not turn out to be the grand ultimate treason of all treasons.

  169. For all those anti-Trumpians who promise not to vote or vote for Rodham this November, just realize that you are helping to set up a radically left wing Supreme Court (and lower courts) for the next THIRTY years, an entire generation of decisions. The country is robust but a Supreme Court that eliminates the second amendment, largely eliminates the first amendment etc. will be unrecognizable.

    Attack Trump, he needs the practice for the general election. The more the better. But don’t abandon the Republic this November because Trump isn’t all that you want. There are bigger issues at stake.

    And there is still a possibility of an open convention in Cleveland.

  171. Notes on the Megan McArdle article:

    First I am a Cruz guy and will support him in the primary all the way to the convention. However in past cycles anyone in Trumps position would be considered the likely nominee. So reconciling to that likelihood is required. Voting for him in the general will be required.

    Presidential elections are not trivial. Voting or effectively voting for the left is supporting the continued destruction of the Constitution.

    The people in the article who reject the Supreme Court as a tactical issue are delusional. It is a country defining issue. The courts shouldn’t be that but they are.

    Trump is not a racist, there just isn’t anything in his life to indicate that. Objecting to mass illegal immigration and citing crime statistics about them is not racist. He isn’t a misogynist either. He treats men and women with the same kinds of insults. I simply don’t care about his sex life, or love life. The country survived with an accused rapist in the White House. Nothing that egregious has been charged against Trump.

    The underlying assumption of a lot of the people in the article is to buy Rodham’s argument that she has the experience and judgment to run the country well and wisely. She doesn’t and her Presidency would be appalling.

    Most of the arguments in the article are highly emotional. It is clear that Trump arouses deep emotional reactions in people. But there is no proof that Trump is a budding Hitler.

    Maybe I am not so worried about Trumps unique personality because I’ve lived in the New York area for decades and thus have followed him, watched the Apprentice. I am not shocked by him., more amused.

    A lot of the “arguments” in the article against him remind me of how the left attacks conservatives. A lot of emotion and demonizing.

  172. Harold:

    One does not have to prove that someone is definitely a tyrant in order to suspect that, based on their words and actions as a private citizen, they would be very likely to be a tyrant if given power.

    I’m glad that things like Trump’s reality-show persona on his own TV show reassure you. I am not the least bit reassured by the unreal “reality” nor do I think it extrapolates to his behavior in a potential presidency.

    There is nothing about Trump’s candidacy that I find amusing, and I am surprised that you do. This does not square with the lead sentence of your comment, “Presidential elections are not trivial.” No, they are not, and being amused at Trump the candidate is a very trivial reaction that treats people’s strongly-argued objections as trivial.

    You also write, “Voting or effectively voting for the left is supporting the continued destruction of the Constitution.” Do you not understand that, for excellent reasons, people fear that voting for Trump is (a) voting for the left, and (b) supporting the continued destruction of the Constitution, because his own words have indicated both things?

  173. I just don’t see anything that Trump has done that would support a real belief that he will become a Hugo Chavez or Hitler in office. Trump has a big, unique and aggressive personality, no doubt about that. I get that for some people that is disturbing. Lyndon Johnson had a big, aggressive personality in Congress and the Presidency. That didn’t make him a tyrant. And again there are still functioning institutions to resist any “tyrannical” actions of a President Trump.

    His TV show doesn’t reassure me, it’s just that having seen him as a public figure for a long time in various circumstances I am not shocked or disturbed by his personality.

    I don’t find Trumps candidacy amusing, it’s quite serious, just parts of his personality.

    The best argument the anti-Trumpians have is what will he really do if he becomes President. His recent conversions and not ever having held public office are reasonable concerns. I was convinced that George W. Bush was a true blue conservative when I voted for him. Didn’t quite work out that way though.

  174. Harold:

    If you thought George W. Bush was a conservative when you voted for him, I don’t think you were paying attention.

    See this.

    I of course didn’t vote for him. But I don’t recall thinking of him as a conservative except on a couple of issues (stem cells, I guess). He was a mainstream Republican to me.

  175. Well in 2000 after having read loads of articles and books I was convinced that unlike his father W. was a conservative. His performance in office was disappointing though.

  176. Pingback:Open Thread and Link Farm, Scratching Through The Skull Edition | Alas, a Blog

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