How about a cease-fire against DJT?
Category: Politics
Political Argumentation and Political Evolution
Top o' the Stack. Written in May 2016 but still relevant. I defend the cogency of the 'Hillary is worse' defense of Donald Trump against Charles Murray.
In the January 2004 post scriptum I concede that the impressive 'Jacques,' an untenured Canadian philosopher whose name I cannot reveal because of vicious leftists such as Brian Leiter, gets the better of me in the comment thread.
Despite the infirmity of reason and the pointlessness of most discussions of controversial questions, some discussion can be profitable, can lead to mutual clarification, and in some rare cases effect a salutary modification of one's position.
Never Nikki
Rand Paul explains.
And if the well-fed Chris Christie, who has wisely 'suspended' his campaign, is to be believed, Nikki Haley is "going to get smoked."
Going to get (Christie), and ought to get (Paul).
I admire Nikki: she's "in the arena, bloodied but unbowed," slugging it out with the big boys, standing her ground, maintaining her cool. She's an inspiration to all of us, women especially. But we don't need another damned neo-con.
Trump's the man. If you don't support him, I pronounce you a fool. Or if not a fool, then evil. If he is defeated or kept off the ballot, and you live in Democrat-run cities, you will get what you deserve, and suffer the wages of your political 'sin.'
And we who have sane political views will have a hard time resisting schadenfreude.
You might enjoy a different view of Governor Christie:
Christie was the last high-profile GOP contender who was fighting for whatever remains of the soul of a Republican Party that, for all intents and purposes, has evolved into an authoritarian cult of personality with Trump as its center—posing what the former governor described as a real and present threat to democracy and national security.
The three claims being made about Trump are exactly the opposite of the truth. And yet there are those who say we should seek common ground with our political opponents. But these opponents, as enemies of truth, are our political enemies. We share no common ground with them. They are an existential threat to us, and we to them. It's a war. Face the fact and get ready.
It Ain’t Beanbag
Nikki is toast and the well-fed Christie as well. The brutality of her take-down by DeSantis, Ramaswamy, and Megyn Kelly makes me feel sorry for her. Politics ain't beanbag, as the saying goes.
But hats off to Nikki Haley for having the civil courage to be in the arena.
Say what you want about politicians, but they are out there, exposed, not sniping from the sidelines, speaking their minds under their own names, not hiding behind pseudonyms. An exception is Joey B who has no mind of his own, or indeed any mind at all, and is therefore a perfect representative of a nation that is losing its collective mind.
Biden Too Old?
Wrong question! despite its being asked repeatedly by lemming journos.
Not too old, unfit for office. Physically decrepit. Non compos mentis. Morally corrupt to the core. A fraud and a phony. Rooted in no principles of his own. A mouthpiece for deleterious leftist doctrines. A disaster for the republic and for the world. Those who support him are beneath contempt.
Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, is 94. Listen to his assessment.
Glenn Reynolds on Barack Hussein Obama
The Instapundit is spot on:
And speaking of Obama, he’s suddenly reappeared. It’s been an open secret in Washington that much of the Biden Administration’s policy – and particularly its mideast foreign policy – has been run on instructions from the Obama crowd. And now suddenly Obama has shown himself to opine on the Hamas massacre in Israel: “What Hamas did was horrific, and there is no justification for it. And what is also true is that the occupation, and what’s happening to Palestinians, is unbearable.”
He added: “You have to admit that all of us are complicit to some degree.” No, I don’t admit that at all. I think that Obama is complicit, by favoring not only negotiations with, but outright subsidies to, terrorists instead of eliminating them. I also think that he’s trying to spread the blame to “all of us,” now that his policy is a disaster.
And what’s this “occupation” stuff? Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, before Obama was elected President. Hamas considers the entire nation of Israel to be an occupation, and wants it to be Jew-free “from the river to the sea.” Is that what Obama means by occupation?
Mike Pence ‘Suspends’ his Campaign
Here:
"I came here to say it’s become clear to me this is not my time. So after much deliberation I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today," he said onstage. "
It'll never be your time, pal. You're a superannuated relic of a time long gone. Good riddance. Your use of the weasel word 'suspend' fits well with the slipperiness of the professional pol. It beggars understanding that anyone would fund your campaign.
Pence called for federal abortion legislation to establish a 15-week minimum national standard . . . .
The fool seems unaware that the abortion question was returned to the states by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. To call for federal abortion legislation after the 2022 Dobbs decision makes no sense at all. Or am I missing something? It is hard to believe that a seasoned and well-connected politician such as Pence could be either that stupid or that ignorant.
Is it not more likely that I am missing some nuance of the law?
Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House
Mike Johnson appears to be a good pick for Speaker of the House. And better than McCarthy. Matt Gaetz vindicatus est.
The Gaetz Gambit, to give it a name, led to a win. A 'win for White' I am tempted to say, pursuing the chess metaphor, except that that way of putting it will be condemned by the benighted as 'racist.' So let me put it this way: The Gaetz Gambit led to a win for the forces of Light over the forces of Darkness.
Here Johnson is grilling that master of Orwellian mendacity, Alejandro Mayorkas. Why 'Orwellian'? Because, as Mayorkas said on a different occasion, 'The border is secure as we define secure." That sort of verbal malfeasance is characteristic of the Orwellian inversion. Other examples: War is peace; freedom is slavery; dependence on welfare is self-reliance. The pattern: X, which is not Y, is Y.
And here Johnson exposes that lying crapweasel Merrick Garland. As Speaker of the House Johnson cannot refer to Garland as a 'crapweasel,' and probably would not in any case given his personable and mild-mannered style of self-presentation. But Johnson on Hannity's 26 October show did say, and I paraphrase from memory, that Garland is the worst Attorney General in the history of the republic. That interview was fabulously good. Is it online yet?
UPDATE 10/31
Johnson is driving the Left crazy:
Ahead of his sudden ascension to House speaker late last week, the media had little time to vet Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., thoroughly. And because he sucks in so many ways, it's been hard for his critics to settle on one of his many evil inclinations to focus on. He's a Christian nationalist. He's an election denier. He wants to destroy Medicare and Social Security. He's a fan of neo-Nazi conspiracy theories. As Brian Beutler of Off Message writes, "typecasting an opposition leader" may be tedious, but it's politically necessary. Democrats have benefited from the fact that the most famous Republican villains have one standout trait that defines their personality: Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio is a pugnacious bully. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is a loudmouthed Karen. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California is a spineless suck-up.
Two Related Political Mistakes
Stack man strikes again.
Hannity Shreds RFK, Jr.
Here:
Kennedy was already stammering when Hannity asked, “Do you still believe the NRA is a terror group?”
Kennedy tried to deflect by saying he supports the Second Amendment and the Constitution.
But Hannity actually drilled down. “I didn’t ask you if you support the Second Amendment. … In 2018, you said Parkland students are right, the NRA is a terror group.”
Kennedy was left feebly denying any recollection of saying that, and if he did, he didn’t mean it.
Fortunately, X had a better memory than RFK Jr.
Hannity also brought up Kennedy’s support for leftist radicals.
When I found out that Kennedy had called the NRA a terror group my opinion of him went to zero. And yet I would fully support RFK Jr. if I could be sure that his third-party candidacy would siphon votes from Biden and help Trump win.
I have some very nice things to say about RFK Jr. and his latest book here.
The Political Burden of Proof
As contemporary 'liberals' become ever more extreme, they increasingly assume what I call the political burden of proof. The onus is now on them to defeat the presumption that they are so morally and intellectually obtuse as to not be worth talking to.
Garland Grilled
How sweet it is to watch the despicably mendacious Atty Gen'l squirm in the hot seat under interrogation by such patriots as Gaetz, Jordan, Roy, and others. In the last bit I caught, the crapweasel was asked whether it was illegal to question an election. He couldn't seem to grasp the question. Finally the superannuated Demento-shill tried to dismiss it as 'hypothetical.' He must think we are stupid.
Nothing hypothetical about it at all: a simple question about the law. Is it illegal to ask questions or to express opinions about the legitimacy of an election? Obviously not. The right to do so is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Hillary did it re: 2016, and so have others about 2016 and other elections.
The panel is now back from recess, but I've had my fill. Linkage later.
UPDATE (9/21)
Soviet-Born Republican's Exchange With AG Garland Will Give You Chills
Representative Victoria Spartz is a woman who grew up in the totalitarian, authoritarian, stifling, single party, communist state of the Soviet Union, and she's now worried that her voters, her constituents, the citizens who live in her district who asked her to represent them are now afraid of their own government.
Politics as Polemics: The Converse Clausewitz Principle
Stack leader.
Political Dhimmitude
Such establishment conservatives as Mike Pence and Chris Christie, who hate Trump more than they hate the obvious election interference perpetrated by the Left, seem willing to accept political dhimmitude as long as they can enjoy the perquisites and pelf of office-holding lap dogs. See here for a trenchant analysis of the GOP 'debate.' A taste:
The Democrats and the media run a constant clown show, but the Republicans play along as useless puppets, willfully participating in a system designed to destroy them. The Republican party is allowing itself to be rigged by playing by the rules of an old system that no longer exists. The Democrats, bureaucracy, and media are vicious apparatchiks. They are a dirty and obvious enemy who clearly need to be fought. The Republicans are worse because they don’t see their own participation in the Big Lie. They would rather step over Trump’s dead political body than save the republic.
Abortion and Last Night’s GOP Debate
The overturning of Roe v. Wade returned the abortion question to the states. That means that each state is empowered to enact its own laws regulating abortion. Some states will permit abortion up to the moment of birth. Others will not. Different states, different laws.
What then are we to make of Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott and their call for a Federal law that bans abortion (apart from the usual exceptions) during the last 15 weeks of pregnancy?
Am I missing something? (When I write about political and legal issues, I write as a concerned citizen and not as an expert in these areas.) It strikes me as obvious that if the abortion issue is for the states to decide, then there cannot be any federal abortion laws.
Nikki Haley and Pence danced around this issue but their heated tango was irrelevant blather. Pence insisted that the abortion question was a moral one. No doubt, but that it is not to the point. Haley irrelevantly asserted that that an anti-abortion majority has not been seen in the Senate in “over 100 years.” and “Don’t make women feel like they have to decide on this issue when you know we don’t have 60 Senate votes.”
The precise question is: How is a federal abortion restriction consistent with the states' right to decide the abortion laws? ND Governor Doug Burgum alone seemed to understand the problem, but his fleeting remark failed to set it forth clearly.
The answer to the precise question is that the federal restriction is not consistent with states' rights. It is unconstitutional.
This is not a very satisfying answer given that abortion is a moral abomination. (See my Abortion category for arguments.) But arguments, no matter how good, cut no ice in the teeth of our concupiscence. This is explained in my Substack article, Abortion and the Wages of Concupiscence Unrestrained.