Sarah Palin Praises UK Voters For Leaving European Union

Sarah Palin

[From article]
Sarah Palin has congratulated the UK on voting to leave the European Union and has urged the United States to emulate the spirit of their transatlantic ally and leave the United Nations.
The former Governor of Alaska posted a picture of Margaret Thatcher to Facebook and quoted the former prime minister and conservative hero writing, 'liberty is fundamental'.
Praising the 'smart' British for their leap into the dark with the so-called Brexit, Palin declared voters in the UK had turned away from the 'apocalyptic One World Government'.
Palin then appeared to erroneously compare the European Union - a political and economic union of 28-nation states - to the United Nations - which is diplomatic body of 193-nations set up to promote global peace after World War Two.
She demanded the United States extricate itself from the UN, which 'dissolves a nation's self determination and sovereignty.'

Indeed, it has been a tumultuous week in the UK, to say the least, but Sarah Palin is reassuring those who voted to leave the EU that they made the right choice.
The UK voted to leave the European Union by 51 per cent and will begin the process of separating itself from the politico-economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe.
The decision, the first of its kind in the UK, has caused turmoil in the country and rocked the stock market nationally.
It has also caused rifts in the UK between migrants, who as members of the EU have free movement among the country, and British nationals.
With a picture of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and a quote reading 'liberty is fundamental', Palin offered her thoughts on the UK's decision to leave to EU.
'Congratulations, smart Brits. Good on you for ignoring all the fear mongering from special interest globalists who tend to aim for that apocalyptic One World Government that dissolves a nation’s self-determination and sovereignty… the EU being a One World Government mini-me,' she wrote.
Palin is alluding to the United Nations when she mentions the 'one world government'.
She believes the UN has put 'shackles' on the U.S.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3661016/Sarah-Palin-congratulates-UK-European-Union-Brexit-urges-U-S-follow-suit-abandon-UN.html

Sarah Palin congratulates the UK on Brexit and urges the U.S. to 'follow suit' and abandon the UN
Sarah Palin took to Facebook to praise those who voted for the Brexit
On Friday she posted a picture of Margaret Thatcher and a quote
She said America should follow suit and vote to leave the United Nations
By KALHAN ROSENBLATT FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 13:55 EST, 26 June 2016 | UPDATED: 19:26 EST, 26 June 2016

Effects of UK Vote To Leave European Union

Treatment of those who voted to leave the EU sounds like the way that Cambridge, MA residents and politicians act toward critics and those who disagree with their extremist policies. 

[Comment rom Douglas Mayfield graduate of Harvard University]
The EU is run by appointed bureaucrats who do not have to face the public or be elected. In my view, the people who voted to leave the EU are sick of rule by fiat. If members of Parliament don't get this, let's hope the Brits kick them out, too.

[From article]
For a long time, Britons who wanted their country to leave the European Union were regarded almost as mentally ill by those who wanted it to stay. The leavers didn’t have an opinion; they had a pathology. Since one doesn’t argue with pathology, it wasn’t necessary for the remainers to answer the leavers with more than sneers and derision.
Even after the vote, the attitude persists. Those who voted to leave are described as, ipso facto, small-minded, xenophobic, and fearful of the future. Those who voted to stay are described as, ipso facto, open-minded, cosmopolitan, and forward-looking. The BBC itself suggested as much on its website. In short, the desire to leave was a return to the insularity that resulted in the famous—though apocryphal—newspaper headline: fog in the channel: continent cut off.
If insularity is indeed on the rise, it is affecting increasing numbers of Europeans. According to the latest polls, nearly a half of the Italians and Dutch want their countries to leave. Discontent with the Union is also widespread in other countries. The French have a poorer opinion of the European Union than do the British, but because the French believe it to be reformable, fewer want to leave. Before the vote, the danger of Brexit to the integrity of the European Union was described in the French media in pathological terms, as a possible “contagion,” rather than merely an example to be followed
[. . .]



The vote might also lead to a unification of Ireland, for the Northern Irish also voted to remain in Europe. Sinn Fein has already called for a referendum on unification. Such unification would be a great blessing for England, but not necessarily for Ireland.
One possible reason for the success of the Brexit campaign was President Obama’s ill-conceived intervention, when he threatened that if Britain voted to leave the Union, it would have to go to the “back of the queue” as far as any trade agreements are concerned. This sounded like bullying, and was not well-received by much of the British population, which had already been subjected to quite a lot of such bullying from others. If I were an American, I shouldn’t have been pleased with it either, for Obama spoke not as a president with a few months left in office, but as a president-for-life, or at least one with the right to decide his successor’s policy.
[. . .]



Among the many subjects not properly discussed during the campaign was whether large and fundamental political changes should be made based on 50 percent-plus-one of the votes cast in a single plebiscite. The House of Commons is not constitutionally bound by the results, and most members of Parliament support remaining in the European Union. They could argue, not without plausibility, that a vote representing no more than three-eighths of the total electorate isn’t quite the groundswell of opinion that should be required for fundamental change. If they acted on this argument, however, violence might erupt.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/brexits-complicated-aftermath-14590.html

Brexit’s Complicated Aftermath
What comes next? Nobody really knows.
Theodore Dalrymple
June 24, 2016

Swiss Voters Reject Guaranteed Income In Referendum

[From article]
Swiss voters rejected by a wide margin on Sunday a proposal to introduce a guaranteed basic income for everyone living in the wealthy country after an uneasy debate about the future of work at a time of increasing automation.
Supporters had said introducing a monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,563) per adult and 625 francs per child under 18 no matter how much they work would promote human dignity and public service.
Opponents, including the government, said it would cost too much and weaken the economy.
Provisional final results showed 76.9 percent of voters opposed the bold social experiment launched by Basel cafe owner Daniel Haeni and allies in a vote under the Swiss system of direct democracy.
[. . .]



Conservative Switzerland is the first country to hold a national referendum on an unconditional basic income, but others including Finland are examining similar plans as societies ponder a world where robots replace humans in the workforce.
[. . .]
Employers heaved a sigh of relief that Switzerland, where unemployment is only around 3.5 percent, had not become the first country to embrace the guaranteed income measure.
The Swiss government had urged voters to reject the campaign, saying the scheme would cost too much and undermine social cohesion.
Interior Minister Alain Berset said the vote showed Swiss voters supported the economic and social system in place "and that this system works well."
[. . .]



An advanced social safety net already supports people who cannot pay for their own livelihood. Fewer than seven percent of people lived in poverty in 2014, official data show.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/swiss-voters-decide-guaranteed-monthly-income-plan-103534182--business.html

Swiss reject free income plan after worker vs. robot debate
By Silke Koltrowitz and Marina Depetris
Yahoo News

(Reuters)

June 5, 2016

Are U.S. Voters Useful Idiots?

http://www.teamnetworks.net/photo/7362/beware-the-useful-idiots-that-follow-saul-alinsky/

Beware the Useful Idiots That Follow Saul Alinsky

November 12, 2015

Updated: Smartest Man in The White House, Boasts Of Fooling Voters, Taxpayers About Iran Nuclear Deal

Posted May 18, 2016 10:48 PM ET; Last updated May 25, 2016 5:11 PM ET


Updated May 25, 2016 5:11 PM ET

http://nypost.com/2016/05/05/playing-the-press-and-the-public-for-chumps-to-sell-the-iran-deal/

White House admits it played us for fools to sell Iran deal
By John Podhoretz
New York Post
May 5, 2016 | 8:39pm
* * *

http://nypost.com/2016/05/09/obamas-storyteller-backs-off-boasts-about-selling-iran-deal/

Obama’s storyteller backs off boasts about selling Iran deal
By David K. Li
May 9, 2016 | 1:40pm
New York Post

* * *

http://townhall.com/news/around-the-web/2016/05/10/state-dept-faces-questions-over-missing-tape-amid-scramble-over-wh-aides-iran-boast-n2160987

State Dept. faces questions over missing tape, amid scramble over WH aide's Iran boast
Townhall.com Staff
Posted: May 10, 2016 12:20 PM

* * *

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/10/state-dept-faces-questions-over-missing-tape-amid-scramble-over-wh-aides-iran-boast.html

State Dept. faces questions over missing tape, amid scramble over WH aide's Iran boast
Published May 10, 2016

FoxNews.com

* * *

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ex-obama-staff-laugh-at-you-can-keep-your-plan-pledge/article/2590943

Former Obama speechwriters laugh at 'you can keep your plan' promise
By T. BECKET ADAMS (@BECKETADAMS) 

5/10/16 4:45 PM

* * *

Posted May 18, 2016 10:48 PM ET
[From article]
What a surprise! It was revealed from the highest level that the Obama White House has been downright deceptive and had lied to the American public and media about the nuclear deal with Iran, as well as carrying on secret bilateral negotiations with Iran.
In spite of arguments by the Obama administration to the contrary, it has been clear from the beginning that the nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed on July 14, 2015, will not stop the Iranian effort to develop nuclear weapons.
[. . .]
In spite of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 of July 20, 2015 that calls on Iran not to launch tests of ballistic missiles, this was the third test by Iran. One of the two missiles fired in March 2016 carried the slogan "Israel must be wiped out."
By chance, the ballistic missile testing coincided with the publication of the extraordinary revealing article by David Samuels in the New York Times on May 8, 2016 on Ben Rhodes, the Boy Wonder of the Obama White House, the single most influential voice next to the president shaping American foreign policy.



Rhodes is officially the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications in the Obama administration, but he is really the spin-doctor narrating or fabricating fantasies or half-truths to the mainstream media that he arrogantly seems to despise. The willingness of the media to consume and disseminate the inaccurate information given them has long been known, but the full extent to which the media was spun has now been revealed.
The main revelation was that Rhodes presented the story of negotiations on the nuclear deal with Iran as having started in 2013 due to the fact the moderates in Iran, led by Hassan Rouhani, had won the election and became president. The moderates therefore were influential and were willing to make a deal with the United States. The media believed this, though it was disputed by well-informed individuals such as Leon Panetta, former secretary of defense, who denied any such division between hard and soft Iranians. Rhodes, with evident contempt, regards previous decision makers on Iran and Iraq – the Washington foreign policy establishment, or The Blob, as he calls it, which includes Hillary Clinton – as "morons."


Ben Rhodes, Novelist, White House National Security Deputy

Rhodes's spin was false. The negotiations with Iran had in fact started earlier in 2012, before Rouhani was elected. The White House deliberately spun the view that Iran moderates wanted peace with the U.S. and with Middle East neighbors. What is important is his contempt for the media as well as for the Washington establishment. Rhodes observed that news bureaus today do not have foreign bureaus, as they used to have, and they therefore call the White House to find out what is happening.
The result is that most of the news outlets are reporting on world affairs from Washington. Rhodes said the average reporter he talks to is 27 years old and literally knows nothing. The White House therefore shapes the news and has particular journalists it can use for spreading it and validating what the White House gives them to say. As Samuels writes, "[t]he way in which most Americans have heard the story of the nuclear deal … was largely manufactured for the purpose of selling the deal."
The consensus in the U.S. today is that the Iran deal was a major political blunder. Of the two main adversaries during the discussion, most informed commentators would agree that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposed the deal, was right, and President Obama was wrong.
[. . .]



Two factors are involved in the White House attempt to prevent Netanyahu from speaking. The first expressed by the media was on the wisdom of the invitation, because Netanyahu was going to criticize the Obama policy. Though most of Congress expressed opposition to the negotiations, there was a genuine difference of opinion on them. President Obama believed and still appears to believe that a deal in which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions was the way to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Netanyahu disagreed on the whole idea and believed that Iran was not negotiating in good faith. Iran has a record of secret uranium enrichment facilities, and Israel was in danger. Netanyahu argued that the sanctions on Iran, the removal of which was the real reason for Iran's willingness to negotiate, should not be removed – in fact, should be increased.
The second factor was the White House spin, which the media highlighted, that the invitation was unconstitutional. Either Rhodes or someone else in the White House invented something called the "presidential protocol." The White House spokesperson on January 20, 2015, slightly off the point, informed the media that the typical protocol would suggest that "the leader of a country would contact the leader of another country when he is traveling there." The media, though few of whom if any were constitutional lawyers, claimed that such an invitation had no precedent in American history.
One may disagree on whether the invitation was unwise or inopportune, but it was not unconstitutional. There was no breach of any constitutional provision.
[. . .]
The New York Times incorrectly reported that Netanyahu had accepted the invitation to speak before the White House had been informed. This was not true, and the NYT had to issue a correction. Netanyahu did not formally accept the invitation until after the White House had been informed. It was not true, as Earnest had said, that the White House did not know about the invitation until Boehner announced it publicly. The spin converted the difference of opinion on an important issue into a diplomatic row with constitutional implications. In reality, Boehner had earlier in 2011 invited Netanyahu to speak and had informed the White House, which never responded.
Many in the media bought the White House spin and deception that to oppose the nuclear deal was to support Israel against the Obama administration. That made the State of Israel a partisan issue, while in the past support for Israel has been overwhelmingly bipartisan. The White House and the mainstream media owe Netanyahu an apology for their fallacious and dishonorable presentation of a controversial issue.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/when_obama_lies_to_the_media_and_laughs_doing_it.html

May 11, 2016
When the White House Lies to the Media, and Laughs Doing It
By Michael Curtis

* * *



[From article]
Ben Rhodes is perhaps the weirdest foreign policy adviser in the history of the White House. His path to his current position as deputy national security adviser for strategic communications was, as this New York Times profile informs us, "perhaps not strictly believable, even as fiction."
Forget his title. Ben Rhodes is "the single most influential voice shaping American foreign policy aside from Potus himself," according to the Times. What makes that so bizarre is that Rhodes has no background in foreign policy at all. He was a failed short story writer who wandered into the orbit of Obama aides almost by accident and served as a speechwriter during the campaign.
But he helped the administration identify friendly reporters and nonprofits who could be counted on to carry a completely false and misleading "narrative" about the Iran deal.
And it worked.
[. . .]



What the Samuels piece shows is that the Obama administration chose to attempt to get its way not by winning an argument but by bringing an almost fathomless cynicism to bear in manipulating its own clueless liberal fan club.
It's amazing how Rhodes sees himself and his role. He refers to the foreign policy establishment as "the blob," and at bottom, he believes he and Obama are the only smart ones in the room.
Samuels's profile is an amazing piece of writing about the Holden Caulfield of American foreign policy. He's a sentimental adolescent with literary talent (Rhodes published one short story before his mother's connections won him a job in the world of foreign policy), and high self regard, who thinks that everyone else is a phony. Those readers who found Jeffrey Goldberg's picture of Obama in his March Atlantic profile refreshing for the president's willingness to insult American allies publicly will be similarly cheered here by Rhodes's boast of deceiving American citizens, lawmakers, and allies over the Iran deal. Conversely, those who believe Obama risked American interests to take a cheap shot at allies from the pedestal of the Oval Office will be appalled to see Rhodes dancing in the end zone to celebrate the well-packaged misdirections and even lies—what Rhodes and others call a "narrative"—that won Obama his signature foreign policy initiative.
[. . .]
All you have to do to discover the extent of their flim-flamming is to look at the talking points about the agreement after the preliminary deal was agreed to in April and compare it with the final agreement in July. The dishonesty in selling this deal to Congress was so profound that we still don't know yet how Iran is interpreting parts of it.
Samuels's profile is very long and, at times, strains credulity that such a creature could become a top adviser to the president. But it also unintentionally reveals how easily the Washington press corps can be manipulated into doing the president's bidding. There was very little objective analysis of the Iran deal, nor any attempt to reconcile what was in the deal with what the administration was claiming in public.
If there had been, it's doubtful that the deal would have gone through Congress.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/ben_rhodes_admits_administration_lied_to_sell_iran_deal.html

May 6, 2016
Ben Rhodes admits administration lied to sell Iran deal
By Rick Moran

Can People Govern Themselves? United States Experiment in Self Government Keeps Question Alive

[From article]
It has been said by some, and not entirely without reason, that the American experiment in self-governance is failing. Is it? Are we incapable of the virtues required of sovereign citizens?
The founding principle of American civics is that "we the people" govern ourselves. As self-governing citizens, we ensure that the government does not rule over us, but rather that it act under us. It is neither our parent nor our provider, but our subordinate. We call the shots. The government follows our orders. Our representatives represent us – not themselves, not their donors.
Has all that become a pipe dream?
[. . .]



Socialism is on the rise, and its roots are sinking ever deeper into the social fabric. Education, entertainment, and even religious institutions are indoctrinating our fellow citizens. There is no reasoning with socialists, because when you try to speak, they shout you down, and that in itself is the harbinger of tyranny.
As matters now stand, we are not governing ourselves. We are being ruled by a distant and largely unaccountable officialdom that operates mostly out of our view. This system is supported by a bloc of voters who are appallingly ignorant of basic civics. People who cannot raise their own children are allowed to vote, and the people for whom they vote tax you to pay for their children.
[. . .]
First, it is necessary to restore citizenship to its constitutional roots. Birthright citizenship was never the bedrock of civic entitlement, but only one of several considerations.
[. . .]
I would make at least one critical requirement for anyone to be a voter. That requirement would be that every voter must pass the same test that foreign applicants for citizenship must pass. Presently, most voters would fail that test, many of them miserably.
Citizenship founded upon basic knowledge of the Constitution would be a good start. The rest might then, hopefully, take care of itself.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/04/can_we_really_govern_ourselves.html

April 17, 2016
Can we really govern ourselves?
By Robert Arvay

Can American Voters Recognize Potential Dictators Before Electing Them?

In the article at the below link, Mala argues that Trump is too old to be a dictator. 

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/03/no_trump_wont_be_another_hitler.html

March 21, 2016
No, Trump Won’t Be Another Hitler
By Adam Mala

[From article]
Is it a case of ordained fate we cannot escape or is it that "We the People" are too dense to learn from our mistakes? Paging through humanity's history, time and again we find numerous instances of costly historical errors where people ignore facts and reason by entrusting their lives to a "savior." And time and again, we have ended up paying the price for our folly. If we are not genetically doomed to make these ruinous mistakes --which I am certain we are not -- then do we commit them out of wishful thinking, laziness, desperation, or some combination of the three?
History has warned us of three kinds of people: charlatans, demagogues, and politicians. And more often than not, someone will rise up who is all three of these characters wrapped into one. Our liberty is our most precious possession. Many will aim to rob us of it and, by so doing, add to their own power, while trying to force us to become robots.
[. . .]



Just a few old and recent cases of this tragic misstep should warn us not to be victimized in the future by frauds.
From the primitive land of the Arabian Peninsula of over 14 centuries ago arose Muhammad, an illiterate hired hand of a rich widow Khadija, claiming that he was the bearer of a perfect life prescription from God -- the Quran. He claimed humanity could do no better than to follow its precepts as well as to emulate Muhammad’s own life example for a guarantee of bliss and salvation. In exchange for this, people must embrace Islam -- surrender -- by surrendering their liberty to Muhammad.
To this day, in places where Islam rules, many books are banned, newspapers and magazines are systematically either censored or shut down, and other non-print media are methodically blocked. Liberty, deeply cherished by democracies, is replaced by submission -- unquestioning obedience and adherence to the dictates and precepts of the all-knowing and all-wise Allah.
[. . .]



From the “civilized” land of Germany arose a syphilitic lout who called on the German people to surrender their liberty to him in exchange for a surefire solution to all their economic and social ills. He successfully portrayed the Jews as the main cause of the nation’s suffering. Before long, the masses of gullible easy-solution seekers formed long lines in towns and villages of the land, tripping over each other in their eagerness to surrender their liberty to the savior Führer.
[. . .]
To fool a majority of the people for a considerable period might be fatal. Hitler needed only a few years to ruin Germany.
[. . .]
where a charlatan managed to hoodwink a nation, rob the people of their liberty and cause so much death and destruction.
It is unthinkable that an ancient nation -- Iran -- with a distinguished history, allowed a high order demagogue, Ayatollah Khomeini, to rally the people against the Shah with promises of rule for the people and justice for all. The long-suffering Iranians of all strata readily surrendered their liberty to the turbaned bigot and his gang of murdering sycophants.
[. . .]
Gullibility was not limited to the Iranians who swelled the ranks of the fraud. On the other side of the world, the President of the United States of America -- Jimmy “lust in my heart” Carter -- saw Khomeini as a saint and a savior. Carter provided the crucial support to the man
[. . .]
No sooner had this fraud of Allah ascended to power than the Iranians of all strata began to pay the price -- tens of thousands with their own lives --
[. . .]



For over thirty-eight years, the Iranian people have been paying for the tragedy that has befallen them.

[. . .]
In the land of the free and home of the brave, a Prince Charming rose up in the person of Barrack Hussein Obama, 

[. . .] 

The skill to arouse the public to frenzy does not make one a worthy leader, nor should one automatically assume that his policies will equal prosperity or liberty.
In the year 2007, in a climate of insanity, the people of the land called America, having been deceived by a deceptive Marxisant that would exalt himself as their protector and provider, chose a charismatic, soft speaking “prophet" as their savior, and some people even called him “The Messiah.” He emerged from the fog with a message that had no meaning, yet he was able to spellbind people by telling them he was sent to save us from ourselves with hope and change.
Many Americans forgot that anyone who claims special privileges and status for himself, makes outlandish promises and threats, pits one people against another, fill the bill of three-in-one. The most dangerous person of all is anyone who persuades you to give up your liberty in exchange for your security.
[. . .]
In the year 2016, a billionaire businessman, Donald Trump, a sudden convert to the Republican Party, is undergoing a meteoric rise in his battle to capture the party's nomination for the Presidency of the United States, a truly mystifying accomplishment for him and has promised, he will “Make America Great Again,” if you elect him as an undisputed leader. Many Americans who felt deceived by the “Washington cartel”, lobbyists and establishment Republicans, joined the waves of loyal and dedicated devotees and sang his songs without paying any attention to his dark past.
[. . .]
Now that he has tasted success in getting his way in the financial world, he wants the ultimate prize: the presidency of the greatest country in the world. He is brash enough to see it just as another deal-making venture. Hence, he is using the same old strategy that has made him a financial juggernaut to attain his goal: say and do anything. And it is working.
[. . .]
America is the stronghold of freedom. The peace of our universe hangs on the power of America, and its fragility renders into the success of terrorism and success of rogue nations. America is at a crucial moment in its history.
[. . .]
Let us learn from our past mistakes.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/failing_to_learn_from_history.html

April 23, 2016
Failing to Learn from History
By Amil Imani

Voters Unfamiliar With Election Laws

It would be helpful to teach all voters how the process actually works. There is an electoral college for primaries as well as general elections. This was established to prevent misguided voters from electing "wrong" candidates. It has not worked well as the electoral colleges are not any better than the voters. Disappointment is worse than knowing how the system works.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20160419/NEWS/160416147/?Start=1

Panel to consider: Millennials, why you no vote?
Millennials – that loosely defined generation of Americans aged 18 to 35 – are less likely than their parents to be married, own a home, belong to a religious organization or register with a political party
By Neal Simpson
The Patriot Ledger
Posted Apr 19, 2016 at 6:30 AM
Updated at 9:12 AM
Cambridge Chronicle

Buchanan Does Not Use The Word Oligarchy, But US Sen. Jeff Sessions Does

In ancient Greece, the democracy was overthrown by an oligarchy. But the rule, of the forty was also overturned and the democracy was restored. In The United States the oligarchs who run the US government do not announce its anti democratic control. Just as George Soros pretends he does not pay demonstrators for Black Lives Matter and other leftist groups and causes. It appears that Soros with the support of the White House works to destroy the United States, economically, politically, socially and militarily in order to establish one world government run by wealthy business elitists. The EU was formed for the benefit of the same power hungry few, using money as the unifying glue. It is not working well. A similar effort was proposed by former MA Governor Weld to make the United States, Canada and Mexico into one large political entity. The open southern  border is part of that, trying to make it happen without any notice to the people of the United States. It is what George H.W. Bush was referring to, when he spoke about the New World Order.

[From article]

In the race for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump would seem to be in the catbird seat. He has won the most states, the most delegates and the most votes — by nearly two million.
He has brought out the largest crowds and is poised for huge wins in the largest states of the East, New York and Pennsylvania.
Yet, there is a growing probability that the backroom boys will steal the nomination from him at a brokered convention in Cleveland.
Over the weekend, Colorado awarded all 34 delegates to Ted Cruz. The fix had been in since August, when party officials, alarmed at Trump’s popularity, decided it would be best if Colorado Republicans were not allowed to vote on the party’s nominee.
After all, these poor folks might get it wrong.
[. . .]
In state after state, when Trump wins, and moves on, the apparatchiks arrive — to thieve delegates for Cruz.
“This is a crooked system, folks,” says Trump, “the system is rigged. … I go to Louisiana. I win Louisiana. … Then I find out I get less delegates than Cruz because of some nonsense. … I say this to the RNC. I say it to the Republican Party: You’re going to have a big problem, folks, because the people don’t like what’s going on.”
[. . .]
Sanders seems to be shorted every time he wins a primary or caucus. And the insurmountable hurdle he faces was erected against folks like Sanders some time ago — the 700-plus superdelegates.
These are Democratic congressmen, senators, governors and Party officials. By more than 10-1, close to 500 of these superdelegates have lined up to back Hillary Clinton and stop Sanders.
[. . .]
The Democratic Party believes in democracy, up to a point — that point being that Democratic voters will not be permitted to nominate a candidate to whom the party elites object.
Richard Nixon’s 49-state triumph in 1972 cured the Democrats of their naive belief in democracy. Henceforth, the George McGoverns and Bernie Sanderses can run. But they will not be allowed to win.
Yet, since it is Trump and Sanders who have stirred the greatest passion and brought out the biggest crowds, if both are seen as having been cheated by insiders, then the American political system may suffer a setback similar to that caused by the “corrupt bargain” of 1824.
Andrew Jackson ran first in the popular vote and the Electoral College, but was short of victory. John Quincy Adams, who ran second, got Speaker Henry Clay to deliver the House of Representatives, and thus make Adams president. Clay became Adam’s secretary of state.
In 1828, Jackson got his revenge, winning the presidency. Clay would never make it. On his deathbed, Jackson confided that among the great regrets of his life was that he did not shoot Henry Clay.
[. . .]
Sanders has rallied the young and working class, turned out the biggest crowds and generated the greatest enthusiasm.
But on the Republican side, the Party has had the largest turnout in American history. And the reason is Trump.
[. . .]
If Sanders and his revolution are sent packing in Philadelphia, and Trump is robbed in Cleveland of a nomination Americans believe he won, political disillusionment, and political realignment, may be at hand.

http://buchanan.org/blog/will-trump-swindled-cleveland-125107

Will Trump Be Swindled in Cleveland, Too?
Monday - April 11, 2016 at 10:53 pm
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Trump And The Farmer's Mule

[From article]
Just a few days ago, B.H. Obama, former cocaine snorter, blamed white folks for the crack epidemic in black neighborhoods. Apparently B.H doesn't see the irony of his own in-your-face drug use and damning white folks as being responsible.
It shows how far we have tumbled from the quaint idea of personal responsibility. In the 1970s, Flip Wilson, one of the first major black comics, made it big with the punchline "The Devil made me do it!"
It was a reliable punch line because it was funny. Everybody got it.
Today's Ivy League indoctrinees would never laugh at a Flip Wilson joke. They have been abused so often by the humorless commissars of P.C. that they'd be afraid to laugh. Or maybe they just wouldn't get why "The Devil made me buy this dress!" is funny. Certainly Barack and Michelle would flash their famous rage faces. No genuine laughter for them.
Such is our moral and mental decline from the innocent days of Flip Wilson to our guilt-ridden mass cult today.
Obama comes out with that "white folks made me do it!" line at least once a day and twice on Sunday. Everybody in the Party Media falls for his constant rage and blaming, because the media are afraid of him.
I wonder if Donald Trump is popular because he stands up to the massed ranks of P.C. commissars. Our colleagues at National Review seem to despise Donald Trump, but they haven't really told us why. Instead, we are seeing a kind of undifferentiated rage, like the ed board of the New York Times: full of contempt, fear, and anger for people stupid enough to think that Trump is on to something.
Which is not really "mental," as the estimable Ann Coulter just told us, but rather a rational response by white, male, heterosexual, hard-working, child-raising (etc., etc.) Americans:
who feel sick and tired of being lied to every single day by the Big Media and
who are finally hearing their lives and their values being expressed in public by Trump, who doesn't bother to use legally defensible words.
Those words would never make it through the media firewall. After all, who reports accurately on Ted Cruz?
Trump gets through the barrier precisely because the media are always sure they've finally scored drawn blood. He'll never get away with this! Trump shocks the commissars, so they end up amplifying his words, always expecting to kill him this time.
To people who are used to being media scapegoats, Trump is coming through loud and clear.
Take the latest shock and outrage from the usual suspects — a few seconds of videotaped hassle between "journalist" Michelle Fields and Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. The WaPo has pronounced Lewandoski guilty of battery, which is enough for the libs to believe it.
But here is British journo Piers Morgan writing in the Dail Mail:
Crucially, DailyMail.com has now established from a member of Trump's Secret Service detail that in the process, she (Michelle) touched Trump twice and was warned by agents to stop.
Lewandowski, walking a few steps behind his boss, saw this happening (he may well have heard the warnings too) and raced forward to prevent her asking more questions and put himself between Trump and the reporter. …
Lewandowski can be seen putting his arm up to block the journalist. In doing so, he also appears to grab her arm for less than a second as he moves on.
This is all rather different from what Ms Fields herself claimed had happened when she wrote about it for her then employer, Breitbart.com: 'I was jolted backwards. Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground but was able to maintain my balance. Nevertheless I was shaken. Campaign managers aren't supposed to try to forcefully throw reporters to the ground.'
Oh puh-lease.
I've watched the video multiple times and cannot conceive any sensible interpretation that he is committing any kind of deliberate assault.
I don't know who's right. Piers Morgan is a predictable socialist, but in this case, he may be committing an act of…journalism. I don't trust a few seconds of video when people are interacting very fast. Professional sports referees can't even be sure, based on a few seconds of tape.
But the WaPo thinks it's got him, and so do all the party line media.
But then we've seen outrageous media lies every single day since Bill Clinton. If you're one of the scapegoated Americans, all you bother with is the headline. But you've learned not to believe news headlines. When you hear Trump accuse the reporter the next day, you might rationally think she's lying.



Which is possible, given everything we know about journos.
I'm not saying who is right or wrong. I also get the willies when Trump seems to cross another line, only to take it back the next day. The great majority of people will not remember this incident in a few weeks. They'll have a vague feeling that Trump hates women. I'm waiting for Trump to "pivot" to show he's a warm and cuddly guy. I'll bet he's got this strategy taped out.
A guy who can sign million-dollar contracts that have to be studied down to the last detail doesn't act impulsively — not if he doesn't want to. He can be shooting his mouth off when his lawyers are going over the contract word by word in a back room.
Right now we're seeing Trump blabbing anything that comes to his mind, as long as it's provocative, and dammit, he always gets big headlines. I would have zigged or zagged to build a better impression weeks ago.
It's like the farmer and the mule. (This is not a P.C. story, but keep in mind what mules do to each other). The farmer hits the mule over the head every time he wants the animal to go somewhere. He hits him — okay, let's make it a foam baseball bat — every time, even before the mule can even move.
Some kind soul is watching this horrible behavior and asks the farmer, "Why do you hit that poor animal before it can even move?" And the farmer chews his 'baccy for a few seconds, spits it out, and says, "First you gotta get his attention."
That's Donald Trump and the U.S. media. So far he's better at getting their attention than any Republican in the last half-century. I keep waiting for him to pivot to a more sensible strategy, and still he's doing the same thing. It's like watching a tightrope walker without a net.
Ann Coulter is getting antsy, and so am I. But Trump has done this stunt in most of his TV shows. First he provokes his audience, to get them mad, and twenty minutes later he's got them laughing and liking him.
It's a well practiced trick.
The big question is whether he can get away with it this time, when the stakes are about as high as they can get.
I don't know, but I can't stop watching it.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/donald_trump_and_the_farmers_mule.html

April 3, 2016
Donald Trump and the Farmer's Mule
By James Lewis

Too Late To Stop Trump. Elite Cannot Risk The Alternatives

[From article]
Should the Donald fall short of the delegates needed to win on the first ballot, 1,237, there is growing certitude that he will be stopped. First by Ted Cruz; then, perhaps, by someone acceptable to the establishment, which always likes to have two of its own in the race.
But this city of self-delusion should realize there is no going back for America. For, whatever his stumbles of the last two weeks, Trump has helped to unleash the mightiest force of the 21st century: nationalism.
Transnationalism and globalism are moribund.
[. . .]
Republican candidates who failed to parrot Trump on illegal immigration were among the first casualties.
For that is where America is, and that is where the West is.
Consider Europe. Four months ago, Angela Merkel was Time’s Person of the Year for throwing open the gates to the “huddled masses” of the Middle and Near East.
Merkel’s Germany is now leading the EU in amassing a huge bribe to the Turks to please take them back, and keep them away from the Greek islands that are now Islam’s Ellis Island into Europe.
[. . .]
If immigration is the first issue where Trump connected with the people, the second is trade.
Republicans are at last learning that trade deficits do matter, that free trade is not free. The cost comes in dead factories, lost jobs, dying towns and the rising rage of an abandoned Middle America whose country this is and whose wages have stagnated for decades.
[. . .]
Production comes before consumption. Who owns the orchard is more essential than who eats the apples. We have exported the economic independence that Hamilton taught was indispensable to our political independence. We have forgotten what made us great.
China, Japan, Germany — the second, third and fourth largest economies on earth — all owe their prosperity to trade surpluses run for decades at the expense of the Americans.
A third casualty of Trumpism is the post-Cold War foreign policy consensus among liberal interventionists and neoconservatives.
Trump subjects U.S. commitments to a cost-benefit analysis, as seen from the standpoint of cold national interest.
[. . .]
American hawks talk of facing down Beijing in the South and East China Seas while U.S. companies import so much in Chinese-made goods they are fully subsidizing Beijing’s military budget.
Does this make sense?
[. . .]
If, through rules changes, subterfuge and faithless delegates, party elites swindle him out of the nomination, do they think that the millions who came out to vote for Trump will go home and say: We lost it fair and square?
[. . .]
Whatever happens to Trump, the country has spoken. And if the establishment refuses to heed its voice, and returns to the policies the people have repudiated, it should take heed of John F. Kennedy’s warning:
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.”

http://buchanan.org/blog/what-trump-has-wrought-125088

What Trump Has Wrought
Monday - April 4, 2016 at 10:45 pm
Patrick J. Buchanan

White Votes Matter

[From article]
The only question for Republicans is: Which candidate can win states that Mitt Romney lost?
Start with the fact that, before any vote is cast on Election Day, the Democrats have already won between 90 and 98 percent of the black vote and 60 to 75 percent of the Hispanic and Asian vote. Unless Republicans run the table on the white vote, they lose.
If there’s still hope, it lies with Trump and only Trump. Donald Trump will do better with black and Hispanic voters than any other Republican. But it’s with white voters that he really opens up the electoral map.
A Republican Party that wasn’t intent on committing suicide would know that. But Stuart Stevens, the guy who lost a winnable presidential election in 2012, says it’s impossible for Republicans to get one more white vote — and the media are trying to convince the GOP that he’s right.
tevens says Romney tapped out every last white voter and still lost, so he says Republicans are looking for “the Lost Tribes of the Amazon” hoping to win more white votes: “In 1980, Ronald Reagan won 56 percent of white voters and won a landslide victory of 44 states. In 2012, Mitt Romney won 59 percent of whites and lost with 24 states.”
Apparently, no one’s told Stevens about the 50-state Electoral College. The national white vote is irrelevant. Presidential elections are won by winning states. (Only someone who got his ass kicked running an eminently electable candidate might not know this.)
[. . .]
If Trump wins only the same states as Romney, but adds Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois — where Romney’s white vote was below his national average — Trump wins with 280 electoral votes. (Romney wasn’t an ideal candidate in the industrial Midwest.)
[. . .]
I haven’t even mentioned Florida, where Trump recently trounced Stuart Stevens’ dream candidate, Marco Rubio, a sitting senator — and a Cuban! — in a 20-point rout. Republican primary voters outnumbered Democratic primary voters in that election by more than half a million votes.
If Trump wins Florida, he needs to win only two or three of the 10 states where Romney either lost the white vote outright or won a smaller percentage of it than he did nationally.
Stevens’ analysis assumes that there will be no new voters — and, again, there isn’t a mammal on the North American landmass who knows less about winning presidential elections than Stuart Stevens.
It’s as if we’re only allowed to divvy up the pile of voters from 2012. Unless you voted in 2012, you can’t vote in 2016! Use it or lose it, buddy.
That’s not how it works.
Trump is saying he’ll bring in lots of new people, as he has throughout the primaries. In the Florida GOP primary, for example, Trump got nearly half a million more votes than Romney did in 2012 — about half a million new people voted. Trump may be wrong, but it’s insane to say that it’s impossible for him to bring out new voters.
[. . .]
Maybe 50 years of Third World immigration means it’s too late, and even Trump can’t win. But it’s an absolute certainty that any other Republican will lose.

http://humanevents.com/2016/03/30/its-only-trump/?utm_source=coulterdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

It’s Only Trump

Ann Coulter

Wednesday Mar 30, 2016 4:59 PM

Ann Coulter Explains To GOP Establishment What Voters Are Saying

[From article]
To the extent it’s still standing after yesterday, the Stop Trump movement is comforting itself with the world’s biggest lie: that John Kasich is the embodiment of the Republican Party, while Donald Trump is the bastard stepchild.
It’s exactly the opposite.
[. . .]



In other words, what the party wants is the diametric opposite of what the donor and consultant class wants. One would have to search the history books to find a party establishment so emphatically rejected by the voters as today’s Republican Party has been.
Trump and Cruz don’t agree on everything — Cruz is more interventionist on foreign policy, and Trump is more aggressive on bringing manufacturing home. But there’s not much daylight between them on the crucial issue of whether to dissolve America’s borders. By now, they both say build a wall, reduce immigration and protect American jobs.
[. . .]



After Mitt Romney lost an election he should have won in 2012, the Republican National Committee convened a group of experts to determine what went wrong, producing what it called an “autopsy.” It was an autopsy because, you see, the party was dead. And the people who did the autopsy were the ones who killed it.
Have you ever heard of an autopsy being performed by the murderers?
[. . .]



It looked like our report got mixed up with the Democratic National Committee’s report in the copier room. At least it was printed in English.
They put all this in their computer and out spit the perfect solution: MARCO RUBIO! Like all ideas developed by focus groups (“New Coke”), how could it possibly fail?
“On issues like immigration,” the report instructed, “the RNC needs to carefully craft a tone that takes into consideration the unique perspective of the Hispanic community.” How’d they like the front-runner’s announcement speech about Mexican rapists and drug dealers? Off-message?
But Trump immediately leapt to the top of the polls and never stopped soaring.
Only Ted Cruz was smart enough — or hated the Republican establishment enough — to adopt Trump’s pro-American immigration policies. Now the only question for voters is, which one is more electable: a Holy Roller preacher, or a brash alpha male billionaire?
They’ve crushed the rest of the field — winning large majorities of Hispanics along the way, incidentally. Between them, Trump and Cruz have won 77 percent of the delegates (1,067).
[. . .]



In the darkest days of the nation’s history, Rubio’s bill actually passed the U.S. Senate. (One of the many hints that voters don’t want amnesty was that the bill was blocked in the House, not by any major media opposition — despite media cheerleading, in fact — but by the people, rising up in a blind rage.)
But still, Rubio was the golden boy among GOP consultants, donors and their hired help, elected Republicans. He had unlimited money, resources, establishment support, conservative media cheerleaders and his own cable news channel.
His presidential bid was supported by 14 Republican governors, 22 Republican senators and more than two dozen Republican representatives, Washington think tanks, lobbyists, the Chamber of Commerce, Chipotle and Taco Bell. Time magazine put him on its cover as “Republican Savior.”
And on Tuesday, he lost his own state in a landslide. Rubio lost every single county in Florida to Trump but one. He went 1 for 66 in a state where he is not only a U.S. senator, but also a former house speaker. He outspent Trump by about 500 percent and still lost his home state by 20 points.
Never was there a more perfectly kicked field goal — with Rubio as the pigskin. He was hiked and kicked right through the goalposts.
Gov. John Kasich is as awful on immigration as Rubio, but he’s so boring, no one can ever remember anything he says.
[. . .]



He bleats that illegals are “made in the image of the Lord,” which would require America to admit everyone in the world — provided they can pass the rigorous background check of being human.
On Tuesday night, Kasich barely won his own state, making him 1 for 29 in GOP primaries. The one and only primary he’s won is in the state where he’s the sitting governor. He was endorsed by his opponent, Marco Rubio. He’s campaigned almost nowhere else.
And yet Kasich came in less than 10 points ahead of a New York real estate developer
[. . .]
How many more GOP stars will die for mass immigration? So far, there’s Eric Cantor, Nikki Haley, Trey Gowdy, Ben Sasse, Paul Ryan, Fox News — 14 governors, 22 senators and two dozen representatives.
With increasing desperation, the media claim that 63 percent of voters don’t want Trump based on votes cast for any other candidate in a 12-man race. What the delegate count shows is a resounding rejection of the immigration policies being pushed by the party leadership.
The establishment laughed at us. They wanted our votes, but then ignored us. They lied to us about opposing amnesty while repeatedly conspiring to pass it.
Now we’re going into the presidential election with our 80 percent thunderous will of the people against immigration. I’m not sure someone who is more preacher than president is the most electable expression of that will, but whether Trump or Cruz, make no mistake about what the will is.

https://advox.globalvoices.org/past-projects/guide/

Voters Deliver Subtle Message: Die Donor Scum
Ann Coulter
Wednesday Mar 16, 2016 3:14 PM

Trump Courts Working Class White Citizens, Who Democrats Abandoned

[From article]
An interesting feature of this year’s presidential election is Hillary Clinton’s heavy dependence on blacks and, to a slightly lesser degree, Hispanics voters. Bernie Sanders has also been trolling for their votes.
If the 2016 Democrat candidate for the presidency has to depend on massive support in the black and Hispanic communities to carry the election, this would continue Democrats’ shift away from heavy dependence on white working-class voters. This historic transition was admitted by Obama’s advisor David Axelrod early in 2008, and was a feature of Obama’s quest for re-election in 2012. Only 36% of working-class whites voted for him in 2012.
That is a far smaller percentage than Franklin D. Roosevelt reaped in four presidential elections between 1932 and 1944. Indeed, the white working-class constituted the backbone of the New Deal coalition, which made the Democrat Party the majority party in America from the 1930s to the mid-1960s.Today’s alienation between the Democratic Party and working-class whites is not the first occasion on which large percentages of the group voted for a Republican presidential candidate. In the 1980s, for example, we heard much about the “Reagan Democrats,” who were mostly white blue collar workers outside the South who labored in so-called “rust belt” industries, jobs that would soon be gone with the wind. Those Reagan Democrats contributed to the Gipper’s landslide victories in 1980 and 1984, and enabled George H. W. Bush (#41) to win the presidency in 1988.
[. . .]
To a certain degree in 2000 and 2004, which became much more pronounced under Obama in 2008 and 2012, the Democratic Party visibly aligned itself with blacks and other minorities, in the process leaving working-class whites feeling deserted.
There are two odd, and initially, difficult to fathom, features of today’s political parties. One focuses on the Democrats, the other, on the GOP[. . .]
First, it is puzzling that a political party whose elites have harped on the issue of increased income inequality in America, and repeatedly promised to rein in Wall Street fat cats in particular and the one-percenters in general as well as advocating soak-the-rich tax policies, would be so dismissive of the white working-class that was once a major part of that party’s base. After all, are not white blue-collar workers also part of the ninety-nine percent whom Democrat elites claim to represent?
Yet Democrat elites have deserted working-class whites, and seek votes elsewhere.
The second puzzle surrounding the white working class is the -- so far -- apparent failure of the GOP to court their votes on a systematic basis. Although some demographers claim the white working-class is “a dying breed” -- largely because the kinds of jobs they’ve typically held are disappearing -- they still comprise between 30 and 35 percent of the country’s population. [. . .]
Decades later, even though Democrat elites seem willing -- eager, some would say -- to turn their backs on a sizable segment of the electorate that once had been key to the party’s majority status, the Republican establishment seems to be doing little, if anything, to attract those people’s votes.
[. . .]
The Republican Party has long been known as the party of business. Even at the height of the Great Depression, which had seriously tarnished businessmen’s reputation, the GOP clung to their (financial and ideological) coattails, and lost its majority party standing as one consequence.
By 2016, big business has long since abandoned the GOP. As big business learned how to work with, and even benefit from, big government, business types increasingly aligned with the party of big government, i.e., the Democrats. [. . .] Unlike labor unions, who donate almost entirely to Democrats’ campaigns, large corporations split their donations between the two major parties.
[. . .]
the GOP elites’ panting after the so-called donor class, [. . .] don’t seem to have heard that the Sanders campaign relies mostly on small money donations, or that lavishly-funded campaigns don’t always succeed. (Ask Jeb Bush.)
Harvesting millions of new votes from a previously untapped bloc of citizens will win more elections than soliciting a few big contributions that may be equaled, or even topped, by donations to the other party. In addition, don’t assume that big bucks are always spent wisely in a campaign. (Ask Jeb Bush.)
The Democrats are forfeiting millions of working-class whites’ votes. The Republican Party should appeal to them, reap the votes, and laugh all the way to the inauguration.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/03/the_gop_forgot_working_class_whites_votes_but_trump_didnt_.html

March 3, 2016
The GOP Forgot Working Class Whites’ Votes (But Trump Didn’t)
By Richard Winchester

One More Reason To Vote For Trump

How to make someone smile

[From article]

Rev. Al Sharpton told attendees at a Center for American Progress Action Fund event Thursday he would flee the country if Donald Trump won the election, in order to avoid being deported by Trump.
Sharpton, a Democrat, had positive feedback for many of the Republican presidential candidates until he got to Trump.
"If Donald Trump is the nominee, I'm open to support anyone [else], while I'm also reserving my ticket to get out of here if he wins, only because he'd probably have me deported anyway," Sharpton told attendees, who responded in laughter.
Sharpton, who has participated in various national protests condemning police brutality, did not explain why he thinks Trump would deport him, though both New Yorkers have publicly shared their differences of opinion on various issues.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/al-sharpton-might-get-out-of-here-if-trump-wins/article/2584260

Al Sharpton might 'get out of here' if Trump wins
By ANNA GIARITELLI

@ANNA_GIARITELLI

2/25/16 6:41 PM

Scalia Fought Kritarchy, Trump Fights Stupidity, Anti Americanism

Antonin  Scalia fought against Kritarchy

[From article]
Among this election season’s oddities was the dust-up between Pope Francis and Donald Trump. After departing Mexico, the pontiff appeared to criticize Trump in an interview, suggesting that building walls — not bridges — “is not Christian.”
Calling the comment “disgraceful,” the presidential front-runner and insulter-in-chief compelled the Vatican to Think Again before retreating. Meanwhile, comedians joked that the perceived papal putdown would cause church attendance to fall and Trump’s poll numbers to surge.
Indeed, by crossing swords with the pontiff, Trump burnished his image as a fearless fighter, a trait his voters prize. Unfazed by his incoherence, lack of policy specifics or controversies, Trump supporters, like columnist Jim Nolte, are tired of losing and want “someone who will do whatever it takes to win.”
Buoying Trump is Americans’ sense of powerlessness and insecurity. Consider these controversial policies imposed on disapproving majorities using extra-constitutional means: the Iran deal, the irresponsible and never-debated Omnibus budget, Obamacare, trade promotion, and executive actions and sanctuary-city policies that nullify immigration laws.
[. . .]
That Bork was Scalia’s ideological and intellectual equal but was rejected shortly after Scalia’s unanimous approval speaks to how politicized the theoretically independent judiciary has become. Consider that it was President Franklin Roosevelt’s fellow Democrats who foiled his plan to pack the Supreme Court.
[. . .]
Thomas Jefferson warned that giving “judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not … would make the judiciary a despotic branch.” Now, having morphed from “the least dangerous branch” into an unelected super-legislature of nine philosopher kings with lifetime appointments, it’s not surprising Supreme Court nominations are hotly contested and fraught with hypocrisy.
[. . .]
By short-circuiting the democratic process for resolving emotionally charged issues, Scalia believed the court was violating “a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.”
[. . .]
As Scalia argued while pointing to unfree nations that have charters of rights, “It isn’t the Bill of Rights that produces freedom; it’s the structure of government that prevents anybody from seizing all the power.”
Essentially, the founders used constitutional walls to separate and check power so that diverse people with differing beliefs would be free to build bridges of mutual respect and tolerance, forging an open and decent society. The Supreme Court’s unlikely “best buddies” — rivals Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — built a remarkable bridge, a lesson for Pope Francis, Trump and Trumpkins.
Think Again — Isn’t the best way to “Make America Great Again” to elect a president who’ll adhere to America’s great constitution?

http://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/20807989-113/sturm-scalias-lessons-for-trumpkins

Melanie Sturm
Think Again
February 24, 2016
Sturm: Scalia's Lessons For Trumpkins

If Party Bosses Thwart Will of The People

[From article]
The political establishments have a long tradition of picking their party’s candidates, the only notable exception being Ronald Reagan in 1980. This year is shaping up to be another break with tradition, for both parties.
After South Carolina, the Republican establishment is marshaling support behind Marco Rubio, as the most electable candidate. Just as John McCain and Mitt Romney were the most electable candidates in the last two election cycles.
The Democrat establishment is using superdelegates to secure the nomination for their chosen one, someone they also believe is most electable in the general election.
In our two party system, the political establishments wield tremendous power and money. Jeb Bush started his campaign with $130 million and Hillary Clinton more than $170 million. Although this is small change in the big picture of dollars spent in a presidential election, and exponentially less than what will be delivered to donors and cronies by the eventual winner, 9-figure amounts of money are nothing to sneeze at.
Will the establishments sit back and allow outsiders, such as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, to waltz in and grab the nomination? Will they permit we the people to override we the donors in choosing our next president? That’s not how the post-modern political system works. Rush Limbaugh doesn’t think the Republican establishment will allow this to happen and he wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the party elders are scheming and plotting in their now smoke-free rooms over how to pull the rug out from Trump and hand the nomination to Rubio or Kasich.
The Democrat establishment has superdelegates doing their dirty work. Despite barely winning two contests and getting shellacked in New Hampshire, Clinton now has 502 delegates compared to Sanders’s 70. That’s like giving Hillary a 20-yard head start in a 100-yard dash.
As this campaign cycle is from The Twilight Zone, let me throw out a scenario that, while far fetched, is not implausible.
Suppose both establishments rig the nominating process, pushing Trump and Sanders to the side, deliberately ignoring their respective voter bases. Imagine the outrage, or better yet revolution, among a large swath of voters, fed up with business-as-usual establishment shenanigans.
Grab the pitchforks and torches. Burn the house down. Out of the smoke emerges a Trump/Sanders ticket. Crazy? Probably. Impossible? Hardly.
How different are the two candidates? Policy wise, quite different. But this isn’t an election respecting the usual political boundaries of political philosophy and policy. Instead it’s contest between establishment and anti-establishment. The establishment candidates are, or were, Bush, Rubio, Kasich, and Clinton. The anti-establishment candidates are Trump, Carson, Cruz, and Sanders.
How similar are Donald and Bernie? Consider this exchange with MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski last week.
“I wanted to describe a candidate to you,” she began. “The candidate is considered a political outsider by all the pundits. He’s tapping into the anger of the voters, delivers a populist message. He believes everyone in the country should have healthcare, he advocates for hedge fund managers to pay higher taxes, he’s drawing thousands of people at his rallies and bringing in a lot of new voters to the political process, and he’s not beholden to any super PAC. Who am I describing?” she asked.
Trump took the bait and answered, “You’re describing Donald Trump.” Wrong answer – you’re fired! She was describing Bernie Sanders.
“I’ll tell you, there’s one thing that we’re very similar in,” Trump admitted. “He knows that our country is being ripped off big league, big league on trade. The problem is he can’t do anything about it.”
Twin sons of different mothers? Both pariahs of their establishments. Why not join forces? In broad strokes, they are more alike than different. The policy differences can be negotiated between the two candidates in the ultimate sequel to “The Art of the Deal.”
As Newt Gingrich recently observed, “If you think Washington is so sick you want someone to kick over the kitchen table, then you like Donald Trump and you frankly don't care about the details." Do those ‘Feelin the Bern’ share the same sentiments?
If both party establishments gave their respective voters the big middle finger, the voters just might give both middle fingers back to the establishments, supporting a Trump/Sanders ticket.
Improbable? Absolutely. So was the idea, a year or two ago, of Donald Trump leading the Republican field and an avowed socialist beating the anointed one in almost every key demographic.
If anything, it’s something to ponder. And the fact that I would even put forth such a scenario is a sign of the desperation of the establishments. In their minds, desperate times call for desperate measures. Thwarting the will of their voters in the pursuit of continued power and money would not be a surprise. And neither would be a third party response.
Could such a ticket win? Who knows? If half of each party’s voters are fed up enough to vote for such a ticket, the plurality might be enough to win.
In a normal election cycle, Jeb and Hillary would be on their way to the prom. But this is an election season unlike any other so fasten your seatbelts.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/what_if_both_establishments_give_their_voters_the_finger.html

February 24, 2016
What if both establishments give their voters the finger?
By Brian C. Joondeph

Trump's Directness, Genuineness, Honesty Appeals To Disaffected Voters

Trump's Genuineness Appeals To Dissatisfied Americans

There are other reasons for Trump's popularity. This is accurate as one. New York business rewards direct and honest (even unpleasant) people. Corporations like to get jobs done well. Truth is important in New York City. Unlike Boston where false academic politeness rules, and uncivil speech is censored. BTW Harvard University rules Massachusetts, Cambridge and Boston. The current White House speaks academic fakery.

[From article]
He does not practice the sort of calm demeanor, tone, and professionalism we are accustomed to seeing in political candidates who run for the White house.
[. . .]
in the last fifteen years, America's cultural tone has changed. Donald Trump's mannerisms and antics simply reflect changes in American culture. The change was signaled by the sudden and unexpected popularity of a television program that portrayed people as rude, argumentative, condescending, petty, and engaging in all kinds of treachery and improper behavior in order to become top dog on an island.
[. . .]
The great dancers in 1930s movies like Fred Astaire used to film their routines 20 or 30 times or more until they were perfect. Viewers wanted to see what was perfect, what a great achievement it was.
[. . .]
Into this new zeitgeist comes Donald Trump. He is very accomplished in the private world, very competent in the business arena, but very impatient and insulting. He is intolerant of traditional politicians and calls them incompetent, stupid, political hacks. No major political figure would speak this way in the past.
But just as TV has changed and viewers no longer need to be reassured that all is right in the best of all possible worlds, TV viewers want to see arguing, anger, failure, loss, and destruction. They want reality.
Those who feel it's insightful to call Trump a reality TV star are only half right. He is reflecting reality, but there are two aspects to this portrayal. One is that politicians always screamed and yelled and called each other names; it just wasn't shown on TV. The other issue is that Trump's critics are behind the times. Trump is much smarter: he knows that people want to see reality. He knows that the most successful TV commercials don't show people with perfect hair and makeup; rather, they show the sweat, blood, and mishaps of real life.
[. . .]
But while mired in reality rhetoric, Trump has also triumphed in reality. He built real estate projects when everyone else failed. He files for bankruptcy when his companies are no longer profitable.
Americans have decided they want a realist in government – a realist who can get things done and avoid the quagmire of the failed federal policies of the past. Americans want someone who is not connected to federal failures. They want somebody to kick people out of Washington, fire the incompetents, and not shelter uncaring VA officials in their overpaid jobs.
The move to reality started many years ago. Trump is the first person to understand it.
Most important, since he speaks off the cuff and does not read a lifeless teleprompter as Obama does, reciting the tired rhetoric needed to get elected, voters sense he is the real thing. He intuitively gives the right answers, has the right perspective. And even though he is wealthier than any of the candidates, he didn't have to sell government influence to get high speaking fees like Bill Clinton in order to become a millionaire.
He earned it in the real world, the tough world, the world of arguing, loss, failure, and anger. Voters are tired of phony success. This standard doesn't apply to Trump.
[. . .]
No one can spontaneously answer politically dangerous questions the right way as does Donald Trump. Everyone else is so carefully manicured and his words so carefully controlled he is not spontaneous. Trump is. These qualities cannot be faked, cannot be set up in controlled interview sessions.
Because Trump appeals to how the voters feel, and automatically understands their lives and their need for a real person, many voters are seeing him as the real deal.
Trump is popular not because he is manipulating the voters. He's popular because the culture has changed. The voters changed first.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/trump_reflects_changes_in_american_culture.html

February 22, 2016
Trump Reflects Changes in American Culture
By Michael Bargo, Jr.

Muslim American Political Preferences

[From article]
In general, Muslims have indicated their present personal preferences, though these may change: 52 percent for Hillary Clinton, 22 percent for Bernie Saunders, 7 percent for Donald Trump (because of his business background and his properties in Middle East countries), and 2 percent for Ted Cruz.
This preference for Democrats may relate to the fact that, after Islamist massacres in Paris and elsewhere, Democratic politicians including President Obama, with rare exceptions, do not refer to the events as the actions of "Islamist terrorists," but blandly as "violent extremism." It neglects the reality that, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali has remarked, the U.S. has "to engage with the ideology of Islamist extremism."
Another finding of the survey is the great difference between Muslims and the rest of the U.S. population on what they consider the most important issues. Among Muslims, they rank as follows: Islamophobia 30 percent, the economy 24 percent, health care 14 percent, and foreign policy 6 percent. This priority, so different from the agenda in the presidential primary debates, in which foreign policy has been prominent, is understandable in view of the Muslim disquiet about some political rhetorical excesses that candidates have made about Muslims. Nevertheless, the priority given to "Islamophobia" implies that criticism of Muslim beliefs – say, regarding sharia law and its customs, is to be equated with animosity or discrimination against Muslims.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/what_a_new_poll_says_about_muslims_and_american_politics.html

February 11, 2016
What a New Poll Says about Muslims and American Politics
By Michael Curtis

New Hampshire Voters Expressed Protest For Bigger Government?

[From article]
If NH represents all of America, then she is in big trouble. The state just voted for a big government socialist who robs the future generation of debt-free living. Stealing their future is immoral. The moral choice -- that is, the biblical one -- is limited government and low taxes.
The state also just voted for a foul-mouthed, uncouth, rude and erratic showman who never met a liberal position he didn't like. He's a political professional wrestler, complete with the love of the spotlight and the hot chicks in the ring. It's still my belief that his destiny is not to occupy the White House but to sow dissension and confusion in America, particularly on the conservative side.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/02/nhs_broken_moral_compass.html

February 11, 2016
NH's broken moral compass
By James Arlandson