op ed review 8/30
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
Did an ISIS hack of Hillary Clinton’s virtually defenseless
home brew server set up the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens?
CBS News asks: “Are
Democrats turning against Hillary Clinton?” Also: Joe Biden meets with Elizabeth Warren.
46% think Hillary should suspend her campaign.
PRUDEN: Birds circling over Hillary's dying
campaign...
Joe Biden gets Obama’s blessing to run.
For all of the talk of spectacle and sideshow surrounding
the 143 or so Republican candidates running for President — much of it deserved
— there’s even better drama over on the other side. Hidden beneath video
footage of helicopter rides and fried butter at the Iowa State Fair is this
stark reality: The Democratic Party is in deep trouble.
Donald Trump is pulling away from the pack in the race for
the party´s U.S. presidential nomination, widening his lead over his closest
rivals in the past week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Friday. Nearly 32
percent of Republicans surveyed online said they backed Trump, up from 24
percent a week earlier,
‘It WON’T be Donald Trump.”That was the near-unanimous view
of some of the nation’s wealthiest and most influential Republicans Saturday
night as they gathered for a political briefing at billionaire Wilbur Ross’
Southampton estate with national GOP Chairman Reince Priebus.
“Although the Middle East is in chaos, our Southern border
is in chaos, and our inner-cities are in chaos; although we are entering our
seventh year of economic malaise as the national debt tops $18 trillion, the
so-called Smart People in politics and media still can’t quite figure out why a
wildly successful businessman promising change and to stick it to these same
Smart People, is so danged popular.”
Since her stand out debate performance at the first GOP
presidential primary debate, Carly Fiorina has reached the top ten in three
national polls and her name identification and favorability has increased by
double digits. But what is more impressive is that Fiorina is in the top seven
out of the 17 GOP presidential candidates across 12 different state polls.
New Planned Parenthood
Video: Baby Parts Buyer Jokes About Shipping Severed Heads
Three gun rights groups, including the National Rifle Association,
sued the city of Seattle on Monday over its adoption of a so-called "gun
violence tax," a tax on firearms and ammunition.
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN(S)
A furious debate this week over Donald Trump and his
proposal to end birthright citizenship.
The immigration issue could change future party alignments and the face
of American politics. Conservatives will
have to sort all this out, but here is some reading that illustrates the
issues:
Thomas Sowell thinks Trump will ruin the Republican brand.
Bestselling conservative author Ann Coulter introduced Trump
at a rally in Iowa:“This is the first time I’ve thought there was hope for our
country again since Nov. 7, 2012.”
“Ultimately, Trump presents a choice for the Republican
Party about which path to follow: a path toward a coalition that is broad, classically
liberal (in the freedom sense), and consistent with the party’s history, or a
path toward a coalition that is reduced to the narrow interests of identity
politics for white people…….Essentially, a sizable portion of the country is
saying, “We want to stop illegal immigration,” and both parties are telling
them, in essence, “You’re not allowed to want that.” Left to fester long
enough, this frustration has moved beyond the point of an ordinary, partisan
political controversy and is moving toward a crisis of constitutional
democracy…….The two major party establishments are more or less complicit in
this political and cultural invalidation of a large swath of the electorate.
Couple that with the economic disaffection this same group already bears toward
the elites already leaving them behind, and something like the Trump boomlet
was probably inevitable. If a large portion of the country wants existing
bipartisan immigration laws to be enforced, and one party tells them “Yes,” but
means “No,” and the other party tells them, “No” but means “You’re a racist,”
then it’s only a matter of time before some disruptor is going to emerge to
call them out for their game. Elite consensus indifference to public opinion
has created a vacuum, and Trump’s entry into it has revealed the immigration
split within the GOP to be deeper than previously understood.”
“Even a disinterested observer will note how all of a sudden
all things to do with illegal immigration are impossible to change. The border
wall is too costly; illegal alien
employment can’t be stopped; deportations are impossible; birthright
citizenship is settled constitutional law etc. The audacity of Will,
Krauthammer and the (elite) Republicans they carry water for is stunning. All
of a sudden now that we have a candidate in Donald Trump who actually plans
to do what other candidates have only promised…”
“Trump’s
(birthright citizenship) argument runs headlong into the Constitution. His
proposal shows, once again, that while he may be running as a Republican, he is
not running as a conservative. Conservatives believe in following the
Constitution’s text, as understood by those who wrote and ratified it and with
due regard for the course of American history and traditions. They reject the
notion of a living Constitution whose meaning can change to fit the popular
demands of the moment…”
“Birthright
citizenship is not mandated by the Constitution…..Both the Republican
party and the Democratic party want to avoid the issue because, while both
parties advocate some kind of reform, neither party has much interest in
curbing illegal immigration: Republicans want cheap and exploitable labor and
Democrats want future voters. Who will get the best of the bargain I will leave
for others to decide.”
“Media Ignores Constitutional Experts Debunking Birthright
Citizenship”
On the other hand, this distinguished lawyer and former
clerk for Justice Thomas says birthright citizenship is settled law.
Univision anchor Jorge Ramos took on Donald Trump at a press
conference held by the Republican presidential candidate in Dubuque, Iowa on
Tuesday evening. The two went head to head for five minutes over birthright
citizenship, how Trump would build a wall, how he would deport illegal immigrants
and more. Trump fought back against Ramos and attempted to get him to
acknowledge crime committed by illegal immigrants.
There are 53 million U.S. Hispanics and right now they do not
like Donald Trump. 14% view Trump
favorably; 65% unfavorably.
A clinical psychologist analyzes the appeal of Donald
Trump: “In the past 60 years or so,
America has become progressively feminized, and the archetypal warrior male has
virtually disappeared…..We have seen how poorly our current girly-man-in-chief,
Barack Obama, has dealt with the world of violent supermales out there……..In
2006, I published a column suggesting that Ann Coulter was the last of the
“real men” on the intellectual right. I believe that Ann is the closest on the
distaff side to the “in your face warrior hawk” profiled in that article. She
may be the brightest and most courageous conservative intellectual in the
country who can breathe fire when fire is needed – and that is most of the
time. She has wonderfully set the stage for her male warrior counterpart,
Donald Trump, who takes primal maleness to levels unseen for at least half a
century. The everyday people of America long for strong warrior male leadership
of the kind that has sustained the human race from the dawn of time. Donald
Trump is the prototypical, archetypal and testosterone-driven alpha male who
rules by the sheer force of his personality, imposing physique, quick wit,
mastery of repartee and almost hypnotic control over his gathering masses of
adoring followers. He is Attila to the Huns, Henry V to the outnumbered English
army, Winston Churchill to desperate allied forces, and now our fearless leader
against the pagan forces of progressivism and political correctness……Trump is
not a clown, a bloviating buffoon, an intimidating bully, or just a really rich
guy hoping to buy America as a shiny new toy. He is ambitious to a fault,
relentless in his desire to control, own and build, and he has success written
into the DNA of every cell of his body. Yes, he is egotistical, over the top at
times, and less soft and sentimental than some would like, but I think he would
do pretty well in that closed conference room with Putin or Kim. They would
respect him but not necessarily like him. These are the ways of the warrior
males who have ruled the world from the beginning of time.”
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ISLAM
ISIS´ already burgeoning list of appalling acts appears to
have grown even longer: the Islamic extremist group has reportedly blown up a
2,000-year-old temple in the historic ruins of Palmyra in Syria.
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LEFTIST WATCH
Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is running against
some—but not all—billionaires. On Saturday, at a campaign appearance in South
Carolina, he singled out the Koch brothers as “greedy.” But Roger Morgan, the
author of a book on hedge fund operator and billionaire George Soros, wonders
how greedy Soros has been, and whether the media will bother to take a look. He
notes that the hedge fund operator’s net worth rose from about $9 billion
before President Obama took office to over $24 billion today. How did this
happen? Was he just a good investor? Did he have inside information?
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ARTICLES
Ben Carson: “The idea
that disrupting and protesting Bernie Sanders speeches will change what is
wrong in America is lunacy. The "BlackLivesMatter" movement is
focused on the wrong targets, to the detriment of blacks who would like to see
real change and to the benefit of its powerful white liberal funders using the
attacks on Sanders for political purposes that mean nothing for the problems
that face our community.”
Why Johnnie Can’t Read, revisited.
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WISE WORDS
"The true theory of our Constitution is surely the
wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within
themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the
general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be
disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the
merchants will manage the better the more they are left free to manage for
themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very simple
organization, and a very inexpensive one — a few plain duties to be performed
by a few servants."
-Thomas Jefferson
posted by gary at
7:05 PM
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