Patterico's Pontifications

3/28/2016

Carly Fiorina To Media: How About We Stop Dancing To Trump’s Tune And Focus On Real Issues

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:49 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Carly Fiorina is at her best when she is passionate and angry about an issue that she cares deeply about. And today that issue was Ted Cruz’s character. When a putz from the Daily Mail brought up the National Enquirer allegations about Ted Cruz and brazenly suggested that the candidate needed to go on the record, right then and there, to say that he had never been unfaithful to his wife, Fiorina wasn’t playing:

Amazingly, the reporter claims that the National Enquirer allegations pose a “very serious question” about Ted Cruz’s character. Really?? How so?? Has anything been proven that speaks to anything other than a solid character? Or is this just another case where the media is playing judge and jury, and assuming that if a Republican is accused of something, they’re obviously guilty? Because seriously, what exactly is it that makes his character questionable? That one anonymous source has accused him of having extra-marital affairs? That a notorious tabloid that trades in scurrilous rumors printed it? Exactly what is it? SPELL IT OUT. Because if you can’t spell it out because you don’t have anything concrete to substantiate your claim, then maybe you should just shut the hell up.

–Dana

Charlie Sykes Interviews Donald Trump

Filed under: General — Dana @ 9:00 pm



[guest post by Dana]

I just listened to Wisconsin’s conservative radio host Charlie Sykes’ telephone interview with Donald Trump. It was a typical Trump interview in that the candidate meandered and the host reined him back in to focus on the issue at hand. Sykes actually challenged and pushed back on Trump, which was refreshing. It would be nice to see other media outlets stop treating him with kid gloves and press him for clear and concise answers. As I am unable to find a complete transcript of the interview, I have grabbed a couple of the more interesting portions from other sites.

Sykes brought up the attacks made on Mrs. Cruz by Trump, and Trump kept insisting that Ted Cruz started the whole brouhaha with the release of that now infamous political ad featuring a nude Mrs. Trump — an ad released by Liz Mair’s anti-Trump PAC Make America Awesome. (Preemptive strike: Both Liz Mair and Ted Cruz have denied Cruz’s involvement or knowledge of the ad.) But hey, why should that stop Trump from pushing an inaccurate story!

“Is this your standard?” Sykes asked. “That if a supporter of another candidate, not the candidate himself, does something despicable that it’s okay for your personally –a candidate for president of the United States– to behave in that same way? I mean, I expect that from a 12-year-old bully on a playground. Not someone who wants the office held by Abraham Lincoln.”

“I did a retweet,” Trump said. “And it was art by someone else.”

“Your wife is a beautiful, classy woman, why can you not say the same about Ted Cruz’s wife?” Sykes asked.

[*I don’t know Ted Cruz’s wife. I’m sure she’s excellent though. I don’t know her, but you know, all this was was a response to what he did.]

In response, Trump explained that his decision to tweet the photo of Cruz’s wife grimacing was a very “mild” response.

“I didn’t even know it was necessarily a very bad picture of her versus [my wife] Melania,” he said.

Oh puleeeeeze…

Then, affirming that he really is a 12-year old, Trump continued to blame Ted Cruz for everything:

Later in the interview, Sykes pressed Trump again about not apologizing for the mocking photo of Heidi Cruz. Trump continued to incorrectly claim that Cruz “started it.” Sykes again pointed out the offending ad about Melania Trump was from an independent group, not Cruz himself or the Cruz campaign (or even a Cruz-supporting group).

“No it wasn’t,” Trump said, incorrectly. “No, he knew about that. Is Ted Cruz going to apologize for starting it and sending out that photograph?”

None of this should be surprising.

Also interesting was Trump’s claim of being a conservative, but not too much of one, and reiterating his confusing view of free trade:

“Why shouldn’t conservatives here in Wisconsin think your claim to be a conservative is just a giant fraud?” Sykes asked.

“As a businessman, I never even thought about all the things you’ve talked about,” Trump said before lauding his past business successes.

“You’re not answering my question,” Sykes responded.

“I am a conservative,” Trump said. “I’m not so conservative when it comes to the pure aspects of trade… I believe in free trade, which is nice and conservative,” he said before repeating his usual talking points about being a tougher negotiator with other countries by threatening to implement costly tariffs on imported goods.

“It’ll never happen,” Trump said of a tariff. “But you have the threat out there.”

“Well you’re a much better negotiator than I am,” Sykes said. “But you just said it’ll never happen, so you’ve basically said your negotiating ploy is a bluff.”

Trump stammered and repeatedly insisted that other countries like China, India, and Mexico are “killing us.”

Interestingly, Trump was unaware that Sykes was a #NeverTrump guy. Upon finding it out, he took it in stride:

SYKES: “Mr. Trump, before you called into my show, did you know that I’m a #NeverTrump guy?”

TRUMP: “That I didn’t know.”

SYKES: “OK. Well, because I thought it was interesting and people were wondering, does Donald Trump know what Charlie Sykes has said about him in the past?”

TRUMP: “No. No, I —“ [crosstalk]

SYKES: “And I would give you credit either way on it, but I was wondering —“

TRUMP: “No, no, I understand. But no, I didn’t know that and — but I assume you’re also an intelligent guy. I know you’re an intelligent guy, and you understand what’s going on. Our country is getting ripped off left and right by every country we do business with, even in NATO.

Listen to the whole thing.

–Dana

Open-Carry At GOP Convention: A Sound Or Misguided Idea?

Filed under: General — Dana @ 2:33 pm



[guest post by Dana]

A few days ago, a blog called Hypernationalist began an online petition to allow the open-carry of firearms at the GOP National Convention in Cleveland this July:

In July of 2016, the GOP will host its convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Though Ohio is an open carry state, which allows for the open carry of guns, the hosting venue—the Quicken Loans Arena—strictly forbids the carry of firearms on their premises.

According to the policy on their website, “firearms and other weapons of any kind are strictly forbidden on the premises of Quicken Loans Arena.”

This is a direct affront to the Second Amendment and puts all attendees at risk.

The petition currently has 45,000+ supporters.

Referencing a 2012 report by Forbes that listed Cleveland as the ninth most dangerous place to live in the U.S., and by not allowing open-carry, sponsors of the petition believe that both the GOP and Quicken Loans Arena will be putting citizens at increased risk, both inside and outside the arena, by not allowing open-carry. They also cite the possibility of an ISIS attack as another reason to allow attendees to be armed. Consider that the arena holds 20,000 people, and the GOP expects 50,000 attendees over 4 days of the convention, thus if there were an attack and the attendees were unarmed and unable to defend themselves, the loss of life could be enormous. Post-Belgium, GOP organizers and law enforcement have stepped up efforts to make sure the convention will be secured.

And today, in response to the petition, the Secret Service announced that convention attendees will not be allowed to carry guns into the arena.

Over at NRO, Charles Cooke, passionate defender of the Second Amendment, explains why he believes the move for open-carry at the convention is misguided. Here is a sampling:

First: There is no Second Amendment violation here. The Second Amendment is a check on government, not on private entities. The Quicken Loans Arena is a private corporation. If the arena’s rule is no firearms, then those who wish to use it must abide by that rule. And if they don’t like it, they can go somewhere else.

Second: As absurd as the idea of “gun free zones” is in a country with this many firearms, there are certain circumstances in which it is prudent to try to limit the presence of guns. It has always been ridiculous to hear progressives predict that widespread concealed carry would lead to frustrated shoppers shooting each other in the supermarket or to irritated customers opening fire at the bank; and it has been hilarious to witness the freakout we see each year when the press learns that NRA members may pack heat at their annual convention. But a political convention strikes me as being less akin to those examples, and more akin to, say, the circumstances that obtain at a polling place. And the argument against carry strikes me as being less “people will shoot each other for no reason” and more “we need to make sure that the results aren’t marred by charges of intimidation.” From the early days of the American Republic, certain “time and place” restrictions have been imposed upon the right to bear arms, especially when the integrity of democracy was perceived to be at stake. Delaware’s 1776 Constitution, for example, made clear that:

“To prevent any violence or force being used at the said elections, no person shall come armed to any of them, and no muster of the militia shall be made on that day; nor shall any battalion or company give in their votes immediately succeeding each other, if any other voter, who offers to vote, objects thereto; nor shall any battalion or company, in the pay of the continent, or of this or any other State, be suffered to remain at the time and place of holding the said elections, nor within one mile of the said places respectively, for twenty-four hours before the opening said elections, nor within twenty-four hours after the same are closed, so as in any manner to impede the freely and conveniently carrying on the said election: Provided always, That every elector may, in a peaceable and orderly manner, give in his vote on the said day of election.”

This does not strike me as an unconscionable “affront” to the right to keep and bear arms, nor as a rule that is likely to “puts all attendees at risk,” especially given that security will already be tight in Cleveland.

And then there is the issue of trust and risk:

Third: Given the brazen manner in which Donald Trump has encouraged physical violence against those who have protested at his rallies — “next time, we might have to kill him,” one Trump fan warned a man he sucker punched — there is pretty much no incentive for the Quicken Loans Arena team to be generous here. Generally speaking, I am of the view that trying to stop shootings by putting up signs is the most abject of human folly. But with this guy? As is the case with most of the pillars of free and civil society, liberalized carry laws presume a certain degree of responsibility and trust — a degree that has, alas, not been on display from Trump and the more excitable among his followers.

As far as I can tell, Donald Trump is the only GOP candidate who has been asked about the petition. Trump, who warned of possible rioting by his supporters if he doesn’t leave the convention as the nominee*, would like to know the details before making a full comment:

“I have not seen the petition. I want to see what it says. I want to read the fine print.”

(*When asked whether he would tell supporters that he doesn’t want to see violence at the convention, Trump said “Of course I would, 100 percent. But I have no control over the people…” Full quote at the link.)

–Dana

Hot Take: Kiveling Snoward Hears the Petition of the Candlemakers

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:51 am



“We’re gonna build a dome,” the candidate said. “It’s going to be a big, beautiful dome.” Later, the candidate confided to me that when his rallies get a little slow, he mentions the dome, and everybody goes crazy.

The candidate, Kiveling Snoward, was once discounted as a joke. But this hot take will show that Snoward appeals to a disaffected group of blue-collar workers: the candlemakers, whose distress over the cheap light offered by the sun has found expression in Mr. Snoward’s promise to build a dome to block out its rays. For years, the GOP had ignored the entreaties of the candlemakers, whose complaints about the sun’s inexpensive light had fallen on deaf ears.

Now they are paying a steep political price.

One of those candlemakers is Freddie Bastiat, the author of a petition that went viral on social media in recent months, and inspired Snoward’s dome:

We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of American industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us.

We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull’s-eyes, deadlights, and blinds — in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses, to the detriment of the fair industries with which, we are proud to say, we have endowed the country, a country that cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal a combat.

Some experts, including every single economist on the planet, expressed opposition to the notion of a dome. “Why would you eliminate cheap light to create artificial demand for inferior light that takes time, energy, and resources to produce?” asked Frilton Meedman, an economist renowned for his free-market thinking. “Let’s pretend a genie came along and told all Americans that they could snap their fingers and have the best possible big-screen TV for free. Not just an inexpensive one. Absolutely for free. And if it breaks, they snap their fingers and the broken one disappears and a new one appears. This would put television manufacturers and repairmen out of work, for a time, of course. That’s the nature of capitalism! When cheaper alternatives emerge, those who provide unwanted or overly expensive products have to improve or find something else to do. The same goes for blocking out the sun, a totally free source of light and energy. It’s insanity! Would anyone really suggest that we should reject free or inexpensive goods, just because some workers would be temporarily displaced?”

“Hell yeah I’d suggest that!” said a worker in a television plant. “This kinda pointy-headed stuff is why I’m voting for Snoward! Make America Great Again!”

Mr. Bastiat was similarly unmoved. “I get so inspired when I hear Mr. Snoward say: “We’re gonna build that dome, and the machines that build it are gonna be solar-powered!”


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