Ted Cruz Goes To The Bronx And Those “New York Values” Make A Rude Appearance
[guest post by Dana]
Demonstrating a fear of expanding their own forming political views, students at Bronx Lighthouse College Preparatory Academy threatened a walk-out if Ted Cruz, a vigorous supporter of school choice and charter schools, was allowed to discuss education at their charter school today:
A group of students will be leaving during 4th period, as act of civil disobedience in regards to the arrival of Ted Cruz to BLCPA. We have all considered the consequences of our actions and are willing to accept them. We respect you and all the staff at BLCPA as well as the expected guests. But we want you to understand that as passionate students, we have ideas and principles that should be heard and respected. This walk out isn’t a reflection of our discontent with BLCPA but our opportunity to stand up for our community and future. This walk out is taking place because we as students all share a common idea.
The presence of Ted Cruz and the ideas he stands for are offensive. His views are against ours and are actively working to harm us, our community, and the people we love. He is misogynistic, homophobic, and racist. He has used vulgar language, gestures, and profanity directed at a scholar and staff members, along with harassing and posing threats to staff and scholars according to the Disciplinary Referral slip. This is not to be taken kiddingly or as a joke. We are students who feel the need and right to not be passive to such disrespect.
As misguided as the students revealed themselves to be, it was the response of the principal that so plainly evidenced the narrow-mindedness of many of those in education today:
“Your points are eloquently argued — in fact, so eloquently argued that upon reading your email, Khori Whittaker, the CEO of Lighthouse Academies has agreed to cancel the visit,” Duggins replied.
“I’d like to commend you and the other students for your commitment to your beliefs and values. I believe that I would not have been able to get the visit cancelled without your actions.”
Validation of the absurd! Apparently Principal Duggins did not want Cruz to speak at the school either. Thank God she had students to do the heavy lifting for her. And if Cruz’s intended audience today included students and staff, how sad that such an incredible learning opportunity where young people could challenge, question, and engage with a presidential candidate about his views on education was lost because of something as debilitating as fear. And worse, how sad that two adults, CEO Whittaker and Principal Duggins, gave in to these fears. Where was a real adult to encourage open minds, or at the very least, curious minds? Were none willing to challenge Cruz’s positions, question him, and most importantly, engage with him ? Because if there is anything we have learned about Ted Cruz, it’s that he is willing to engage with any who challenge him. He wants to explain himself and his views. And perhaps that is the real problem here.
These students are fools. But surely the biggest fools of all are CEO Whittaker and Principal Duggins. Unfortunately, the young people in their charge already resemble them in far too many ways. Ways that weaken and ways that limit.
And do you know who really doesn’t like school choice and charter schools? Democrats, that’s who.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (0ee61a) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:00 pmthere’s a reason they call that a bronx cheer,
narciso (732bc0) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:02 pmamerican children are disgusting
happyfeet (831175) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:04 pmNever mind what the kids said, did (or threatened to do). The actions of the principle are nigh incredible. This would be national news if some “hayseed” rural, conservative principal cancelled a planned visit by a Democrat.
Mitch (bfd5cd) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:08 pmI am reminded of Ted Cruz patiently explaining his views on sugar subsidies to the angry farmer that challenged him on the issue. In spite of possibly losing his vote, and that of others, Cruz steadfastly held to his principles while he engaged with the man.
Dana (0ee61a) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:09 pmI’ve always thought the “NY values” frame was a good one. I’m eager for the country and even Upstate to experience the freakshow. These will be a good two weeks.
ThOR (0f8ee1) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:10 pmIt’s alright, it’s okay, they will wash our cars some day.
nk (dbc370) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:13 pmthey remind me of those nasty palestinian children
hateful and ruined trash
fortunately they’re fairly easy to avoid in your daily life
happyfeet (831175) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:16 pmIntellectual cowardice is a New York value, I guess.
gwjd (032bef) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:17 pmThis bit puzzled me:
“He has used vulgar language, gestures, and profanity directed at a scholar and staff members, along with harassing and posing threats to staff and scholars according to the Disciplinary Referral slip.”
What’s that supposed to be about?
gwjd (032bef) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:19 pmit’s par for the course,
http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/state/video-woman-confronts-rick-scott-in-starbucks
narciso (732bc0) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:23 pmgwjd,
My guess is that they believe Cruz’s statements/positions on immigration, etc. fit any number of offenses listed on the school’s Disciplinary Referrals issued by teachers for any necessary disciplinary procedures.
Dana (0ee61a) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:25 pmThis just reinforces my opinion that the majority of the denizens of New York City can F-off, esad.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:30 pmcrimethink, people, it must be stamped out,
narciso (732bc0) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:30 pm“Bronx Lighthouse College Preparatory Academy”… what a misnomer. No beacon of light, only prepares for EPIC Fail.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:33 pmThis school probably welcomed Ahmadinejad for juice and crackers after his whack-a-doodle speech at Columbia several years ago.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:41 pmNY Value: The world’s best come here to compete. The best of these succeed.
NY Reality: Many are disadvantaged and require advantage and condescension. The best are guilty.
Ted is at 15%? Kasich is in the 20s? Kill me now.
Ed from SFV (3400a5) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:44 pmThe people who will vote for Cruz don’t live in NYC. Ok, maybe some on Staten Island. NYC is Hillary territory.
Speaking of which, have you noticed that minus the super-delegates, Bernie is beating Hilllary 999 to 811?
nk (dbc370) — 4/6/2016 @ 6:50 pmit’s not just a new yawk thing,
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/politics/article/Inslee-Cuomo-ban-state-employee-travel-to-North-7216275.php
narciso (732bc0) — 4/6/2016 @ 7:02 pmI believe that the students are trying to say that due to his political views and his beliefs/ideas, are the opposite of what the students at Bronx Lighthouse College Prep Academy believes. They are a charter school from the South Bronx and I assume that most of their students come from immigrant backgrounds. In the aspect of Ted Cruz “building a wall” to stop immigration is in part offensive to the fact that he decided to come to a school in the South Bronx knowing that it’s mostly with the background of immigrant families.
M. (e99a0d) — 4/6/2016 @ 7:05 pmI agree that is certainly a part of it, M. However, they also referred to him as misogynistic and homophobic.
Dana (0ee61a) — 4/6/2016 @ 7:13 pmcan you spot the category error in three notes,
narciso (732bc0) — 4/6/2016 @ 7:13 pmThe indoctrination is proceeding apace for these young Red Guardians. I wonder if they carry a little red book around?
Growing up in NYC, I’m not surprised they acted this way. This type of indoctrination is inculcated in the youth of the city and it takes a strong mind and stronger will to resist.
I went to one of the top schools in the city and only 2 of us were open about our conservative beliefs in a class of 125.
NJRob (a07d2e) — 4/6/2016 @ 7:15 pmIf ghetto rats liked Ted Cruz, we wouldn’t like him.
nk (dbc370) — 4/6/2016 @ 7:18 pmGhetto rats like Obama.
And Hillary.
And Bernie.
And free stuff.
And free means it’s not nailed down when nobody’s looking.
If it was Trump, Cruz would be whining with his concern-eyebrows in deep concern position about how even the kids understand that there is something wrong with Trump.
Jcurtis (76e163) — 4/6/2016 @ 7:20 pmAnd when has Cruz done anything that remotely resembles that? The one who whines consistently is the sugar-daddy of the Slovenian golddigger.
nk (dbc370) — 4/6/2016 @ 7:23 pmAs people smear Trump’s wife as a Slovenian gold digger, I wonder how many guys here who are lawyers and doctors have wives who married them for same.
Fact is I know plenty of Doctors and no doubt 80% of the women who married them married them for $$$$ and prestige. Sadly those same gals have no realize MD don’t really earn that way anymore.
Rodney King's Spirit (db6706) — 4/6/2016 @ 7:27 pmas with W, heretics even properly credentialed ones, must be shunned, that is the infosphere, more delineated then the dmz.
narciso (732bc0) — 4/6/2016 @ 7:30 pmDon’t do that, nk. You often make very good points then you have to go and get in the mud and spout crap about a guys wife. Just because Trump is a low class vulgar a-hole doesn’t mean you should be one. You should be better than that, hell all conservatives should be.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/6/2016 @ 7:50 pmThat’s the Alinsky Rule 4 trap: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” I won’t fall for it.
I will be mindful of Rule 6, though: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” So I do take what you just said to heart, Hoagie.
Now if Trump will apologize to Mrs. Cruz and stop saying “Lyin Ted” ….
nk (dbc370) — 4/6/2016 @ 8:03 pmyou know it’s like when xavier and lensherr teamed up against shaw, it was the right thing to do, if you haven’t figured that out by now, yes it’s gotten very graphic novel ridiculous,
narciso (732bc0) — 4/6/2016 @ 8:07 pmSo: Did y’all see “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2006, when at the end of one episode Trump showed off Trump SoHo, a 46-story luxury condominium-hotel in that trendy Manhattan neighborhood?
I didn’t. I despised Trump long before he was ever a reality TV star because I knew everything I needed to know about him through the business world. And I thought it was a stupid show — unwatchable, really, by anyone who actually knows much about the business world. It bears about as much resemblance to reality as the Captain Marvel comic books — where he’s fighting the Nazis right alongside the 82nd Airborne on D-Day — bore to the real WW2.
But apparently some people watched the show, and they probably still believe that the Trump So-Ho is all that Trump cracked it up to be.
It wasn’t.
For every story like this that the NYT publishes before the GOP convention, just to build long-term antipathy toward Trump, there will be ten more after the convention if Trump gets the nomination.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/6/2016 @ 8:43 pmSorry, I meant Captain America. But I think Captain Marvel also fought the Nazis.
Trump didn’t.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/6/2016 @ 8:45 pmwhat is real 93 million out of work is real, the sepah arming militias in syria and yemen are real, the terrorist network in europe, and across our southern border is real, the guns that keep turning up from fast and furious, the cops slain on our streets, the jobs fleeing across
narciso (732bc0) — 4/6/2016 @ 8:54 pmto mexico, china, and wherever else,
Khori Whittaker, the CEO of Lighthouse Academies has agreed to cancel the visit,” Duggins replied.
I weigh people like Whittaker against, for example, Islamofascists, and then — in light of so much of the left (oddly and ironically enough) being enablers to and apologists for Islamicism — I have to admit I don’t know who to root for, who to root against.
I also admit that’s one reason why, yea, I do snicker when witnessing the ongoing clash and duel between the mindless, idiotic liberalism of modern Western society versus the ruthless fundamentalism of the world of Islam.
(Is it poor sportsmanship if a person cheers passionately against both sides?!!)
Mark (0f444a) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:00 pmMark: I’m sure there’s a long German word for exactly that. Kissinger could surely tell us, since he’s the one who quipped of the Iraq-Iran War, “Pity they can’t both lose.”
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:05 pmCharter schools are private businesses who contract out schooling to school districts. Gotta keep the customer happy.
nk (dbc370) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:08 pmNK, seriously? Cruz seeks out microphones to defend black lives matter creeps and all manner of lowlifes who disrupt Trump campaign events but we’re supposed to be outraged at some innocent kids who walk out on a Cruz event?
jcurtis (76e163) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:23 pmWho’s asking us to be outraged?
nk (dbc370) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:33 pmDid Cruze really get a referral slip for directing profanity at school staff?
johnl (4dd332) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:34 pmLord of the Flies
A frightening tale five decades ago, now celebrated by the best minds in the Bronx. And Cruz didn’t even threaten to chalk “Trump 2016” on the sidewalk.
Coming to your neighborhood soon.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:36 pmI do like how the kids lied about Cruz in a fashion that serves Teh Narrative.
And Trump’s narrative, too.
Even though Trump is much more so.
Sigh.
Simon Jester (833652) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:37 pmNo. The kids were saying that they would if they said the same things Cruz does. Which is quite possible in a New York inner city school, even likely. You know, micro-aggression, invading safe space, making people fearful, diversity, zero tolerance ….
nk (dbc370) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:39 pmMy guess — subject to correction by the better informed — is that this is a fantasy projection by the complainers. In other words, they consider themselves members of groups — “scholars” and school “staff” — who’ve been among the peoples whom the Dread Pirate Cruz has terrorized, even though they’ve only watched him on TV. It wasn’t directed at them directly, in other words (and despite their misleading words to the contrary). The vulgar and profane language probably means “radical Islamic terrorism,” the gestures are a fist pounded on a lectern in a televised debate, the threats are that he’ll eliminate the Department of Education. Yada yada.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:40 pmPretty much everything you need to know about Roger Stone, you can learn from the non-photoshopped photograph of him in this article. His job between now and the convention is “Coordinator of Riots on Cue.”
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:50 pmProbably so, Beldar, but that is how meme warfare works: the creation of a narrative, especially from people who just skim material instead of reading and thinking.
I’m reminded of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” where the World Controller Mustapha Mond quotes Our Ford to a group of children: “History is bunk.”
Simon Jester (833652) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:54 pmSuppose that a fellow student in this Bronx “academy” admitted to admiring Cruz. Can you imagine what would happen to such a deviant? The ringleaders already have the administration running for cover, and no torture, mental, physical, pharmaceutical, would be judged too extreme. Worst of all, they would be applauded by everyone but the deceased’s parents for taking action to make their school a “welcoming place” where everyone, now, can feel “safe”.
When you think about what it must be like to attend such a hell hole, it is terrifying.
Adults should be in charge of these places. But it is clear that being an adult is not just a matter of age. Nor is it a matter of a teacher’s certificate.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 4/6/2016 @ 10:03 pmWho’s asking us to be outraged?
nk (dbc370) — 4/6/2016 @ 9:33 pm
Whoever wrote the headline, for sure. Unless Cruz meant “New York values” as a positive trait.
jcurtis (76e163) — 4/6/2016 @ 10:50 pmI wonder: What Republican, or what conservative, or what potential GOP primary voter in New York would genuinely misunderstand who or what Cruz was talking about when he referenced Donald Trump’s “New York values”?
Are these people — who by definition, disagree with the policies of the Democratic mayor of NYC and the Democratic governor of New York State — supposed to be so dim-witted that they think there is only one set of values in all of New York? And that the universal, exclusive universal archetype thereof is … Donald Trump?
If there is more than one possible set of “New York values,” then the question would naturally then arise in their minds: “Was Ted Cruz talking about my own values, as a New York Republican primary voter? Or could he maybe have been talking about Andrew Cuomo’s and Bill De Blasio’s and Eliot Spitzer’s and Anthony Weiner’s and Huma Abedin’s and Hillary & Bill Clinton’s ‘New York values’?”
I think the answer to that is obvious to anyone thoughtful enough to be a sincere voter in the New York primary, whether they’re open to supporting Cruz or not.
Every bit of outrage about this supposed insult is faux, and it comes from either Democrats or already-committed Trumpkin shills.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/6/2016 @ 11:05 pmWhat I wish is that Cruz would contrast Donald Trump’s New York values with, say, Jack Kemp’s New York values. That might sing.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/6/2016 @ 11:07 pmCan this, buried near the bottom of an interesting WaPo story, possibly be right?
Sununu is clearly going to twist arms from old Bush-41 days, or perhaps just to save face. But it’s hard to read a no-show by Trump as anything but throwing in the towel on the rest of the Colorado delegates.
Oh. Wait. We’re talking about Trump. Apply Occam’s Razor, therefore: He’s not throwing in the towel. The arrogant prick is just too lazy to bother, and he thinks they owe it to him anyway.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/6/2016 @ 11:19 pmBeldar, well it’s interesting because as a Minnesotan living in Michele Bachmann’s congressional district, if you talk about the scourge of Minnesota libtard politics you got us eating out of your hand. If you talk about “Minnesota values”, then it gets complicated. It’s loaded. Everyone thinks of their state’s “values” as their own values. Psychology thing in play there.
But the thing Trump should be worried about is that the “values” mistake is an easy thing to overcome. Especially since Cruz showed up and is still attacking the leftist New York culture. The constitutionally ineligible Canadian has some good instincts and is very intelligent.
jcurtis (76e163) — 4/6/2016 @ 11:35 pmIf the ineligible Canadian attacks the leftist New York culture strongly enough while he is there, will it force Trump to come to its defense or make Trump have to attack the culture that he enabled with financial support in the past?
My advise to Trump right now would be to go after New York leftists hard and fast. Get to Cruz’s right on that. He still owns the immigration issue and no one will take anything Cruz has to say about immigration seriously. That is Trump’s comfort zone and he would be wise to realize it.
jcurtis (76e163) — 4/6/2016 @ 11:57 pmYou forget that there are two separate primaries. Just because NYC Democrats will vote for Clinton doesn’t mean NYC Republicans won’t vote for Cruz. As far as I know nobody has polled us few and proud NYC Rs, so nobody knows how we will vote. (In 2012, the total turnout of R voters in my CD was 3215. So 1616 votes was enough for 3 delegates, wich means my vote counted for 0.186% of a delegate. That’s insane.)
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 12:18 amjcurtis,
Cruz is very smart and I think he’s capable of thinking through political strategy well. But I don’t think he has good instincts. For instance, he attacked Trump for the Soros-funded violence and protests, when he could have won over a lot of voters by attacking the agitators rather than Trump. He was not as forceful and clear in his denials about the alleged affairs until around two weeks after it broke, even letting Carly step in and defend him and dodge the question. On a gut level, he seems to make errors. But he is a very sharp and disciplined person, let there be no doubt.
Old Reader (08f24c) — 4/7/2016 @ 12:18 amPut another way 643 votes would have been enough to get one delegate (provided that nobody got 1616 votes), so my vote could have counted for 0.155% of a delegate. Even insaner.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 12:19 amUm, what language is that? It’s eerily close to English, closer even than Frisian, but just far enough to make it incomprehensible.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 12:22 amI gather that the import of M’s suggestion is that Cruz wanting to close the border to illegal crossers is somehow offensive to immigrants. I wonder how that can be so. Why would immigrants who are here be offended by a proposal to police the border?
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 12:25 amI assume that most of their students come from immigrant backgrounds. In the aspect of Ted Cruz “building a wall” to stop immigration is in part offensive to the fact that he decided to come to a school in the South Bronx knowing that it’s mostly with the background of immigrant families.
You assume ignorantly, of course.
Not only is Cruz himself from an immigrant family, but Cruz does not want to build a wall to stop immigrants. He wants to build a wall to stop illegal entry. VERY few of the South Bronx families are illegal immigrants, and legal immigration is severely impacted by illegal immigration — not only does it make the case for increasing legal immigration harder to make, but the resources that could be used to process legal immigrants are instead diverted to deal with the scofflaws.
But, whatever. The Democrats want to bring in illegals, keep out legal immigrants and make everyone think they are doing the opposite. And fools like you just parrot their lies.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 12:55 amI had a friend who was trying to help his girlfriend turn her student visa into a green card. She qualified, was under her country’s quota and etc, but the bureaucracy was so bogged down in processing appeals and whatnot from illegals that her hearing was 8 moths off. And on the day of her hearing, the didn’t have a hearing officer available due to some reason and they cancelled and told her she’d have to reschedule.
This is what life is like for legal immigrants in a system that is swamped with illegals and policy that favors them. Wanting to stop illegal immigration is HARDLY an attack on immigration for the most part. Anyone who is of that frame of mind is voting for Trump, not a “foreigner” like Cruz.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:04 amFound this on Youtube. Seems like it would make a fine Bernie Sanders commercial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v85NWc0RIKc
Or maybe this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sxTbfeYdO0
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 2:25 amI think the gay lobby and employees of Trump- branded properties in the greater NYC area has the greater pull in this decision to walk out than “children of immigrants”. From my anecdotal experience within the hispanic community the straights/Dinos hate Trump but could live with Cruz while the more wacky lib gay and gay-friendly types are repulsed much more by Cruz.
urbanleftbehind (b2fb45) — 4/7/2016 @ 6:32 amI find that very easy to believe, urbanleftbehind. I consider Trump to be the most gay-friendly of all the candidates including Hillary and Bernie.
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 6:49 amThis New York Republican knows exactly what he meant by “New York values”, and agrees with him 100%. I have only to look around me and talk to my neighbors to see those values, and they are bad ones.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:16 amReally? Do DC conservatives have any illusions about what “DC values” are? Do San Francisco conservatives identify with “SF values”? I don’t think so. Everyone knows what “New York values” means, and it’s an accurate assessment; those really are the values exemplified by NYC, if not the state. And they’re wrong values.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:21 amYou lie. His made clear that the leftists were the villains in that instance, but that Trump created the atmosphere of violence at his rallies, which is 100% true.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:23 amPeople don’t have to reside in New York to radiate New York values:
Mark (0f444a) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:26 am“I assume that most of their students come from immigrant backgrounds.”
– M
“You assume ignorantly, of course.”
– Kevin M
“We told her if he came here, we would schedule a walkout,” said Destiny Domeneck, 16. “Most of us are immigrants or come from immigrant backgrounds. Ted Cruz goes against everything our school stands for.”
– the article
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:31 amI believe you’re thinking of Frank Sinatra’s New York values.
Steve57 (9709f3) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:34 amHer vote counts as much as yours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=613hHzdp6lk Safe for work, just go easy on the facepalm
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:35 amIf there’s any ambiguity about what “New York values” means, it’s because people like Trump and Cruz, etc, for whatever reason (probably related to the concept that if people want to avoid unpleasantness breaking out at family gatherings, it’s best to avoid talking religion and politics), flinch at the plainspeak of saying “liberal” or “leftist” in public. Some of what’s behind that is why political correctness has become so pernicious.
Mark (0f444a) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:35 amI’m going to have to rethink my support for charter schools. Given that these children are poorly educated but well indoctrinated to be close-minded and intolerant of anything differs from their precious thoughts and values.
Steve57 (9709f3) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:36 amLeviticus, the ignorance is in assuming they’re from illegal immigrant backgrounds.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:36 amNonsense, Milhouse, the protesters are responsible for the violence. Without them there would have been no violence. They came to Trump’s rally for the specific purpose of provoking violence, and when efforts to keep them from disrupting the rally were imposed they lashed out violently and were sometimes met with forcible removal. Trump encouraged his security detail to remove disruptive protesters, which was his right, from the arena he rented.
The violent protesters have only themselves to blame. Violent disruptors should be arrested and charged.
ropelight (57715e) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:37 amYou lie, as usual. Trump has repeatedly encouraged his supporters to use violence, and he bears full responsibility for the atmosphere of violence at his rallies. That lefties are better at it shouldn’t surprise anyone — they’ve had more practice. But until this year political violence in America was exclusively a left-wing phenomenon. Thanks to Trump that is no longer the case.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:40 amIt takes two to tangle. Absolutely the leftie loonies went there to provoke violence. And the Trumpaloolas behaved just like them.
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:42 amThe main identifier that most people who love identity politics — whether racial, ethnic, sexual, religious, native or immigrant, etc — cling to is liberal or leftist. Sincerely moderate or conservative immigrants, particularly if they went through legal channels to get here (or even regardless of that), need not apply.
Mark (0f444a) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:44 amThe Blackshirts went to Cable Street to provoke violence. And they got it. The commies showed that they were better at violence, because they had more practice. The fact that the blackshirts deserved what they got doesn’t excuse the commies. Nor does it excuse all the violence that the blackshirts engaged in. A common street thug doesn’t get off by saying “the Crips are worse”.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:56 amThat’s “tango”. It doesn’t take two to tangle, except in the sense that a thug all on his own has nobody to assault.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:57 amMaybe somebody saw the hecklers throw the first punch, or even a punch at all, on the newscasts, but I did not. I saw them chanting and holding up signs making fun of Trump. Then they got sucker-punched while practically in custody being escorted out by security.
There was one guy, in a madras shirt, that Lewandowski grabbed by the collar. He had, just a minute before, pushed a young girl aside, trying to shove his way to somewhere. That collar grab by Lewandowski was justified, and reasonable in the amount of force used.
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 8:11 amAnd I don’t believe that Michelle Fields grabbed Trump’s arm or that her pen contained a miniaturized nuclear device, either.
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 8:12 amI meant “tangle” but I’ll grant you “tango”. The Donald Trump Song and Dance Show. 😉
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 8:15 amjust a *moment* before
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 8:16 amLet’s not be so doctrinaire about it. Tango. Tangle.
Besides, one can lead to another. In a good way.
Steve57 (9709f3) — 4/7/2016 @ 8:23 amOnly her first vote, nk, the rest and the write-in’s are all hers.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/7/2016 @ 8:26 amIf I were ropelight, this is the thread where I would say that Ted Cruz has Canadian values.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 4/7/2016 @ 8:44 amEveryone thinks of their state’s “values” as their own values.
I live in California. The values that Californian’s held in, oh, 1970 are a LOT closer to my values than the ones they hold in 2016. I have now been able to vote against Jerry Brown 4 times.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 8:51 amLeviticus–
#68. Nice cherry-picking to make a stupid point, but it was stupid. The assumption was that Cruz was against legal immigrants, like those at the school (as opposed to illegal immigrants, like those a fence* would keep out), as I stated. Dishonest selective quoting does not endear you to people.
—
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 8:57 am* yes, ropelight, I prefer fence to wall.
at least Mr. Trump is super-qualified to be president Hillary isn’t even qualified and plus she smells like pee!
this is so simple to understand if you just try
happyfeet (831175) — 4/7/2016 @ 9:21 am— Mr. Trump, what do you wear when you’re just lounging around the house.
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 9:34 am— Depends.
— Depends on what?
— On my bottom, where else?
“Nice cherry-picking to make a stupid point, but it was stupid.”
– Kevin M
What’s stupid about it? A person made an assumption, which you called “ignorant.” The person’s assumption was (in fact) accurate. I don’t have a horse in this race, but if you’re going to call an assumption “ignorant” then maybe you should read the article that can validate or invalidate the assumption first.
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/7/2016 @ 9:36 amDonald Trump has recited The Snake twice, once in Iowa and recently in Wisconsin, to warn about the dangers of letting in Syrian and Middle Eastern immigrants. It is an appropriate analogy since some (but not all) of the immigrants pose a danger, but it’s a better analogy/warning about Trump and his campaign since we actually know he’s dangerous.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 9:47 am#75, Milhouse, you accuse me of lying and then immediately state: Trump has repeatedly encouraged his supporters to use violence, and he bears full responsibility for the atmosphere of violence at his rallies.
What insane hypocrisy! Trump doesn’t send his supporters out to disrupt the rallies of his opponents or pay professional political thugs to infiltrate the rallies of his opponents and provoke violence. That’s what they’re doing to him, and you are blaming the victim.
Violent protesters conceal their intentions, deceitfully present themselves as Trump supporters to gain entry and then yell and scream, throw punches, and behave like petty Brownshirts, in blatant violation of the rights of Trump and his supporters to peacefully assemble.
When political thugs disrupt his rallies Trump wants them removed and says so. In no way is that causing or encouraging violence. You’ve got you head up your ass, as usual.
ropelight (57715e) — 4/7/2016 @ 9:51 amThe upcoming state primary Cruz might win is…? Any? None I see with Paul Ryan and Scott Walker carrying his water. Math is hard. Cruz spending any time and money in NY is a ridiculous waste-unless even he knows the bottom of his campaign is about to fall out.
Bugg (db3a97) — 4/7/2016 @ 9:56 amNot really, ropelight:
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 9:59 amAnd thank you for helping to make the point of my comment 92.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:02 amDRJ, you link to HuffPo as a reliable source? Pardon me if I don’t take HuffPo or you seriously.
ropelight (57715e) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:03 amDonald Trump has absolutely zero redeeming value. And none of his idolators, such as the ones here, have any redeeming value, either. It is because of them that the US is going further into the crapper. And they will never receive forgiveness from me. This is personal.
John Hitchcock (d8c52f) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:04 amDRJ, you made your own point about the snake you’ve taken in. Is this your second time – did you vote for Obama too?
ropelight (57715e) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:06 amAnd, John Hitchcock actually thinks he’s a good Christian.
ropelight (57715e) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:08 amAs we stumble through the campaign weeds, we lose sight of the real failure here. There are many, mostly by the school administration.
The principal allowed himself to be bullied by a bunch of junior high kids.
A much better response might have been to advise the students that this was a perfect opportunity to hear from the “horse’s mouth” what they might have heard second or third hand via the media, parents, or competing candidates. They could have even asked questions.
A deeper educational experience would be had by teaching the kids that they need to at least listen to ideas and views that conflict with the ones they hold so they can evaluate both what they hear and what they believe.
The principal denied the kids their opportunity to do their “civil disobedience” stunt by canceling the appearance, and thereby denying the kids of a first hand opportunity to see if such actions have any impact on anything.
As was mentioned up-thread, Cruz is a supporter of the charter school – school voucher concept, something that made the school they are attending exist. And maybe its time they learned that a Department of Education on the Federal level is not key to having a good education; there is actually some evidence that the contrary is true.
It is frightening that this is what is being done to our children and grandchildren.
Gramps (39f97a) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:09 amBronx students: “You are homophobic, racist, sexist, anti-Samoan, and a puppy kicker. You want to pull our arms and legs off and then exterminate us. Our proof of this is to call you names, stick our fingers in our ears while repeating ‘NUM NUM NUM I CAN’T HEAR YOU NUM NUM!” and to walk out like children.”
CrustyB (69f730) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:10 amPrincipal: “Oh my! What a well-argued point!”
“We told her if he came here, we would schedule a walkout,” said Destiny Domeneck, 16. “Most of us are immigrants or come from immigrant backgrounds. Ted Cruz goes against everything our school stands for.”
– the article
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 8:57 am
The assumption was that Cruz was against legal immigrants, like those at the school
Where do you get the idea that everyone in the school is a legal immigrant or born in the United states, and doesn’t have anyone in their family, or someone they know, who isn’t?
Sammy Finkelman (3bf07f) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:14 amIs it because they never say the word “illegal”
Sammy Finkelman (3bf07f) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:14 am90. All of the remaining candidates, both D and R, wear Depends. They all are at an age where the bladder doesnt act right, except for Cruz, who might wear them as part of some fetish.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:16 amI never voted for Obama, and I linked HuffPo because it has links to video of Trump saying those quotes.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:20 amIt is Trump who has twice recited the lyrics of The Snake. It is an effective albeit imperfect analogy, as I noted above, but it’s even more effective analogy to warn people about Trump.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:23 am#93 ropelight,
I love how you reacted to charges of incivility by telling DRJ she has her head up her a**.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:24 amIn other words, you just supported her point.
Of course, speaking of Cruz in the Bronx, Trump has his problems with New York communities, too:
Trump actually sued the DOJ for defamation over it. The case was dismissed by the Judge, who criticized Trump’s attorney for “wasting time and paper from what I consider to be the real issues [discriminating against blacks in apartment rentals]”.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:31 amAnd Ted Cruz also wants to punish the entire city of New York (although some maybe would not consider that a punishment and say the same thing should happen everywhere)
https://www.tedcruz.org/l/stop-sanctuary-cities/
Not that this threatened school walkout was not obviously inspired by Democratic partisans – it had to be – and not that it isn’t part of a – let’s say disturbing – close to fascistic trend that occurs especially in academic settings. And not that his views were not labeled somewhat incorrectly.
Sammy Finkelman (656162) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:33 amTrump isn’t bothering to go to Colorado on Saturday to receive the official notice of his ass kicking for failure to read even the synopsis of Delegates for Dummies. I’ve been puzzled as to the exit of the clown since the beginning of the his hallucination. I’m now leaning towards a medical condition, possibly heart palpitations, as most probable. It’s the cheapest out, with the least damage to what remains of his very tattered public image.
Rick Ballard (312c7c) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:34 amI see that as Cruz trying to protect New York residents, Sammy.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:36 amThere are good reasons to deport illegal immigrants and to build a wall that will help keep them out. Here is one example..
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:39 amA) Would it have been an act of civil disobedience for these kids to stage a walkout of a Ted Cruz speech at their school? Is it “childish” to participate in a walkout?
B) Would we support these kids in engaging in such a walkout? Why/why not?
C) Do we support the right of kids to engage in walkouts and/or civil disobedience as a matter of principle? Why/why not?
D) What is the balance between listening to views you find repulsive (out of respect for free speech) and walking out on them (as an exercise of free speech)?
There are interesting things that this post could lead us to discuss.
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:39 amThe person’s assumption was (in fact) accurate.
No, they assumed that Cruz was against immigration, which is NOT accurate. The first sentence informed the rest of the paragraph.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:39 amIf the end result was the GOPe’s acquiescence and full support of Cruz as the presidential candidate, and it only cost Cruz a sea-change or reversal on 1 major issue, what issue could you forgive him on for the sake of having GOPe full support?
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:42 amBTW, to channel my inner ropelight, Hillary is constitutionally barred from any federal office.
She did this, repeatedly, without the consent of Congress, through the filter of her Foundation. Money she controls absolutely was given to her Foundation by countries seeking to influence her as Secretary of State. Having violated this in the extreme, she is no longer qualified for any office of trust.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:46 amLeviticus,
I think those are reasonable questions for college students but not for K-12. It would be too disruptive in that environment and the studdnts are still minors, and they need to learn to listen to adults. It is the school administrators who should decide who can speak in K-12 classroomd.
If the administrators err, as I think they did here, then they can answer to the parents and school board. Hopefully the parents and whatever oversight there is at this school will address these mistakes with the administrators.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:47 amWhere do you get the idea that everyone in the school is a legal immigrant or born in the United states, and doesn’t have anyone in their family, or someone they know, who isn’t?
Because, Sammy, almost all immigrants to the state of NY are there legally, as opposed to, say, Arizona. No one is suggesting we need a wall across the northern border. NO WHERE DID I SAY “ALL”. And besides, with the “facts” that you routinely pull out of the sky, you should be the last to cast this particular stone.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:49 amIf the end result was the GOPe’s acquiescence and full support of Cruz as the presidential candidate, and it only cost Cruz a sea-change or reversal on 1 major issue, what issue could you forgive him on for the sake of having GOPe full support?
Sending false-flag internet trolls to Guantanamo. It would be nice, but I would not insist it on it to the point of it being a deal-breaker.
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:52 amLeviticus–
Which is more adult: to listen to views that someone else has told you you won’t like — and hear for yourself — or to accept their word as gospel and conform to their “suggestion” to walk out?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:52 amurbanleftbehind,
I am willing to see Cruz fail to eliminate the IRS, although I very much hope he will reform the IRS (as he did at the FTC), have a competent IG investigate what happened with Lois Lerner, and do everything possible to institutionalize consequences if someone tries to do that again.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:53 amPlus what nk said. Hilarious.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:54 amDRJ, you made your own point about the snake you’ve taken in. Is this your second time – did you vote for Obama too?
Trump supported Obama in 2008. Go yell at him.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:54 am“Which is more adult: to listen to views that someone else has told you you won’t like — and hear for yourself — or to accept their word as gospel and conform to their “suggestion” to walk out?”
– Kevin M
I think that assumes that these students haven’t already heard Cruz speak on these subjects – which I doubt is the case, living in the age we live in, where everything these candidates say and do is immediately plastered all over the Internet. But sure, if they haven’t actually heard Cruz express himself on these subjects, then it would be more adult to hear him out for themselves.
I’m grappling with a variation of that issue, though, where they have already heard Cruz speak on these subjects, and found his views repulsive (“What is the balance between listening to views you find repulsive (out of respect for free speech) and walking out on them (as an exercise of free speech)?”).
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:58 amSomebody please explain to me what the hell happened to journalism — you know, the practice of reporting in which the idea was to supply to curious readers the Who, What, Where, Why, and How, as in:
WHO: Are the “scholar and staff members”? Is the author of “the Disciplinary Referral Slip”?
WHAT: Is this “vulgar language, gesture and profanity” the students allege Cruz used?
WHERE: Is this “Referral Slip”? Where did any of this supposedly happen?
WHY: (…if this all isn’t a crock of crap), did Cruz act this way before a campaign appearance at the school, knowing well that he can’t afford missteps in a state where he’s running third?
HOW: Did these students know about “the Disciplinary Referral Slip”? How did they even know how to alert the media? Where they being used as marionettes for the counselors who dislike Cruz?
I wish I could say that I could turn on Fox News to address these questions the MSM is apparently not interested in answering, but I can’t anymore.
It’s a trying time to be a news junkie nowadays with the streets full of bad stuff.
L.N. Smithee (b84cf6) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:59 amIf the end result was the GOPe’s acquiescence and full support of Cruz as the presidential candidate, and it only cost Cruz a sea-change or reversal on 1 major issue, what issue could you forgive him on for the sake of having GOPe full support?
I am willing to see him accept that a simple repeal of Obamacare is no longer possible, and that certain popular portions of it (e.g. the ban on preexisitng condition exclusions) need to be kept while moving as much as possible to a national free market in portable insurance.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 11:01 amI have an aversion to captive audiences even if Cruz is the speaker. But is that the case here? Were any kids who did not want to sit and listen to him being forced to sit and listen to him? Or was it that the walker-outers did not want him speaking to anyone in their school at all?
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 11:03 amLeviticus–
When I was in high school, Governor Reagan came to the school to speak. Even though this was in the heart of late-60’s Orange County, CA, any number of teachers objected to letting kids out of class to hear the Governor. In any event there was controversy and, not coincidentally, there were some few students picketing the auditorium.
In the class I was in, the teacher grudgingly let students out for the event, but it was clear that it was a black mark, just not in so many words.
I doubt the dynamic has improved.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 11:07 amOr was it that the walker-outers did not want him speaking to anyone in their school at all?
They threatened to attend, then walk out, not to do so, but to give cover to those who wanted to cancel the event, which they did. If it had been mandatory, it would not have been Cruz’s call, and it could have been made optional just as easily by the same people who cancelled it.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 11:10 amKevin M at 118. –
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 4/7/2016 @ 11:22 amThe South Bronx is far from being just “Rican” nowadays- Dominicans, who have become the dominant hispanic sub-group in the greater NYC, do not have any special status, and PRs complain about them inundating the beaches of Rico. NY is not a crashed gate per se (Buffalo can be at times), but they do end up with a lot of illegals moreso from the DR, Colombia, Ecuador, parts of Mexico that are more “weird” than the parts that spawn banda music. Add in the occasional Chinese, African, eastern Euro, and other parts, and you have a large number, though it is dwarfed by the sheer population of the 5 bouroughs. NJ and Long Island have more of a traditional illegal problem.
#105, DRJ, thanks for the explanation. Now, I understand the HuffPo link. You had me goin’
ropelight (57715e) — 4/7/2016 @ 11:35 ami smell recession
happyfeet (831175) — 4/7/2016 @ 11:36 amhappyfeet-
that could also reflect fears of civil unrest. Bunker foods.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 4/7/2016 @ 11:49 amLeviticus, it would be nice to discuss such things, as compared to the present shouting match. If this was a private school, and if the school enforced discipline, then it would be appropriate for the kids to walk out, and then face the consequences. In the Catholic school my boys went to, the discipline would likely be participation in a Saturday morning campus cleanup. No exceptions, no excuses. Nor would the kids dare to do anything disruptive or illegal while on their walkout. They’d be thrown out of the school permanently.
In public schools, and charter schools are public schools, I would anticipate that the walkouts would form a gauntlet and harass the other kids as they walked into the auditorium, and then they would do everything they could to disrupt the visit by blocking the visitor. All the while the administrators would be peeking through the curtains in their offices and smiling at the progress their charges have made. Later these same administrators would claim no knowledge of the event, and no discipline would be enforced.
And it’s worse. At West Seattle High School the students were forced to participate in an Equity Day on March 23rd. The following is a partial transcription of the flier given to students prior to the event:
Other luminaries contributing their expertise to this event were King County Councilmember Larry Gossett, who shared his experiences with activism; Dr. Donta Harper of the Department of Corrections shared her views on equity issues in the criminal justice system; and so on. An unidentified “authority” spoke on income inequality.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 4/7/2016 @ 11:53 amI understand what you’re saying there DRJ, but we’re dealing with radical left ideologues. Unfortunately, however typically, they work inside the educational system and any way you look at it are supposed to conform to equal standards. IOW, I don’t care that they won’t let Cruz speak as long as they don’t let any other sitting Senator or Presidential candidate speak. That’s called equality. Therefore I don’t expect it from the left. If I were Cruz I would point out the “racist” nature of that school and it’s administrators. We gotta start calling these pigs on their own crap or we’ll never end PC and Trump will have been proven right. Hoist them on their own petard.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/7/2016 @ 12:03 pmBobStewartatHome, explain to me when it is “appropriate” for minors to make their owns rules regarding schools and education. While you’re at it remind me when it became okay for minors to walk out of school and commit truancy? I don’t care if it’s a pubic, private, charter or Catholic school kids not there during school hours are truant and they should be suspended an their parents fined.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/7/2016 @ 12:10 pmImam, perhaps appropriate wasn’t the correct word. “Possible” might be better. But consider,at every school I’ve ever been in, other than OCS, individuals walked about freely and were responsible for getting to class on time. And about 99% managed to do that, day after day, year after year without a mistake. I think it is appropriate that schools run on that basis, as it teaches the students to be mindful of their commitments. Given that it is appropriate for students to have this responsibility, it is also possible for them to abuse it. That is where the discipline comes in. Our older boy had to learn just such a lesson. The work crew started at 8 am and finished at Noon. When he asked Friday night if he could get a ride to the school Saturday morning, my wife’s answer was “take a bus.” So at 6am off he went, only nine miles and two transfers from his destination. He never made that mistake again. So this was an appropriate learning experience. It is one that has been denied to two generations of kids. Altogether, I think “appropriate” isn’t a bad choice of words, provided there is an appropriate consequence.
That said, there were some who chose otherwise, and abused their responsibility in a big way, and that was not appropriate. In the public school I attended, I recall two upper class females who decided to have a meat cleaver fight in the hall way outside my 5th period class. Both survived, and both were arrested.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 4/7/2016 @ 12:41 pmLegal Misinterpretation Department:
@Kevin M. First, a minor point: For this to be a little bit more clear, we really need to read an extra word into Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the constitution.
But more important, if they do, maybe they could be impeached, or a law could be passed confiscating the money and/or requiring it to be returned, refused, or turned over to the government, which is what happens with gifts given to the President of the United States. Or the provision could enforced in some other way by appropriate legislation.
But they are not otherwise dismissed from office, or prevented from getting another one later. Only impeachment does that. Or at least a special law disqualifying people from holding offices would be needed. But I don’t think any mere law could add qualifications or disqualifications for the office of president of the United States, which is elected. So she’s not de-barred from the office of president of the United States, no matter what she did. And she could be elected from jail, if that’s what people want to do.
Congress could remove her, of course, and even impeach her pro-actively. A majority of those members of the House of Representatives present and voting, and a similar two thirds majority of the Senate, and good cause (limited only by the consciences and political instincts of the members) is required.
This anti-emolument provision is also not self-enforcing. And this really refers to accepting something in public, where it is known. If it is not known, that’s more like bribery.
Sammy Finkelman (656162) — 4/7/2016 @ 12:56 pmhow many tranny hookers has randy ted had sex with in new york
handy teddy (55c350) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:05 pmpervert 12 step program is calling you randy ted crud.
handy teddy (55c350) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:07 pmnational inquirer late issue on tranny randy turd crud.
handy teddy (55c350) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:12 pmTo the Trumpkins:
When your guy loses the nomination and you’re blaming everyone else — like “Establishment Ted Cruz” — for that, remember:
Trump just flat gave up on getting any delegates from Colorado, like a lazy, complete loser. He wasn’t robbed. He just literally didn’t show up at the convention — indeed, canceled his promised appearance.
Colorado is a key state for the general election. If Trump were remotely presidential — if he were capable of thinking strategically, planning for more than a week in advance — he’d have shown up in Colorado even in what he may reasonably expect to be a losing cause. But he’s never bothered to really compete in Colorado at all.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:20 pmIt’s disgusting to watch this blog be used by a Trumpkin shill for foul-mouthed Google-bombing of Ted Cruz. Comments like #139, #140 & #141 are obviously not good-faith efforts to participate in a discussion. They’re just abusing this blog’s search engine credibility.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:23 pmSo much for the guy whose solution to every problem is that he’s going to “hire the best people.”
The guy is a spectacularly bad manager. That’s why he’s dragged his corporate empire through four waves of bankruptcy.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:27 pmThe idiocies that are occurring on college campuses all over the country do not happen in a vacuum. These students are learning this nonsense in public schools all over the country, such as the one in this story. Then when the mushy-headed students get to college, they are goaded by left-leaning professors into these inanities. The left has not only taken over the colleges, they have taken over the public schools as well. This is one of many reasons we home school our kids.
Jimpithecus (2c9c93) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:32 pmUsage note: Even George Will has come around to calling Trump’s supporters “Trumpkins.”
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:33 pmBeldar,
He didn’t drag his corporate empire through bankruptcy four times, Beldar. The Atlantic City properties were a bad investment–just like Warren Buffet or Seth Klarman or any other billionaire (or millionaire) makes from time to time. If his “empire” went bankrupt four times he wouldn’t be worth $4-10 billion, in each bankruptcy he lost a small portion of his total wealth.
His campaign team does have many weaknesses, that is true. He needs to fire Corey and stop being so damn cheap.
Old Reader (08f24c) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:39 pmL.N. Smithee (b84cf6) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:59 am
WHO: Are the “scholar and staff members”?
Almost certainly, nobody at the school. This must be some public allegation aimed at Ted Cruz. The scholar would be somebody at some encounter somewhere. The staff members would be his.
[Who] Is the author of “the Disciplinary Referral Slip”?
That would probably be somebody at the school, well versed in school rules.
WHAT: Is this “vulgar language, gesture and profanity” the students allege Cruz used?
There are footnotes in the letter, but the content of the footnotes is not shown in the New York Daily News, which, of course, omitted it, since this is all political, and the Daily News got back on the bandwagon after running a headline Tuesday citing the fact that Bernie Sanders had ripped Hillary for horning in on the bill signing by Governor Cuomo raising the minimum wage (eventually, in parts of the state but especially New York City) to $15 – something she was not, and is not, for, but she showed up for the signing ceremony, which surprised me, too.
The Tuesday paper also noted that they had gotten a debate. (The Daily News was instrumental in getting the debate)
They showed Hillary what they could be like if they didn’t get the debate. The New York Daily News will not be ignored. You’d think it was owned by William Randolph Hearst, it has gotten so political on the front page, but it’s owned by Mortimer Zuckerman and is for sale and losing money.
WHERE: Where did any of this supposedly happen?
In the past, far away from the Bronx. Maybe months ago. I don’t know. Footnotes 2 and 3 probably explain all of this. I don’t know what happened to Footnote 1.
HOW: Did these students know about “the Disciplinary Referral Slip”?
Somebody told them, of course. Maybe it is also available in the principal’s office, or from some other school official, if you know to ask for it.
How did they even know how to alert the media? Where they being used as marionettes for the counselors who dislike Cruz?
Maybe more than just school counselors. Cruz’s real offense may have been to try to get the endorsement of the Borough President’s father, Ruben Diaz, Sr., a New York State Senator who is an anti-abortion evangelical minister, and voted against gay marriage. His son, Ruben Diaz, Jr, is the borough president, and pro-Hillary. They are both Democrats, but Ruben Diaz, Sr. is one of those who flirted with keeping the Republicans in control of the State Senate. He does not subscribe to the Ted Cruz position on immigration, however.
Sammy Finkelman (656162) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:47 pmHere’s the thing. Whatever the polls say now about Hillary vs Ted head to head: this is how Cruz is going to be portrayed in the media if he gets the nomination.
Of course they will do the same with Trump, but everyone who might be swayed by that has had their opinions set by 15 seasons of the Apprentice.
By all means nominate Cruz, but let’s not make the mistake of thinking he’s a shoe-in against Hillary. Most voters at this point have little idea of who he is.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/7/2016 @ 1:56 pmSince when has the Plaza Hotel in New York been an Atlantic City property?
His empire has been transformed by the bankruptcies and by the repeated failures of so many of its parts — Trump Mortgage, Trump Air, Trump University, etc. Like a shark, a con man has to constantly swim, devouring more suckers. Through the course of his bankruptcies, he’s gotten smarter (and he’s gotten slightly better lawyers) who’ve generally kept him out of personal liability (conspicuous exception: The $40M personal guarantee he defaulted on during construction of the Trump International in Chicago). In terms of equity, comparatively little of his empire is bricks and mortar anymore; most of his cash flow, and indeed most of his claimed net worth, is based on licensing his name and the “Trump Brand.”
He’s famous for being famous, in other words. He’s exactly as good a businessman as Paris Hilton is an actress.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/7/2016 @ 2:08 pmOld Reader, unlike you, Beldar has read the filings.
SPQR (e53149) — 4/7/2016 @ 2:10 pmIt’s very likely that she did violate that clause, and it seems that the FBI is investigating it as we speak, but even if it were absolutely proven that she did so she would still not be barred from holding office unless and until a majority of the house and 2/3 of the senate said so. A president can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue at high noon, and nothing in the constitution would bar her from continuing to hold the office. She could be convicted and imprisoned for it, and she’d still be president until Congress removed him, which (with the current senate) would require 13 D votes, and therefore would never happen to a D president.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 2:17 pmI am aware of no schools public or private which allow the students to “walk about freely” during class/school hours. They’re supposed to be in class and that is not their responsibility that is the requirement of the school and the law. It’s not up for debate least wise by a 16 year old snot nose. We let them get away with this stupid crap then wonder why they need “safe spaces” when they see a chalk drawing. Meanwhile little moslems are taught to fire AK-47’s at ten and slit throats at fifteen. This country is screwed.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/7/2016 @ 2:19 pmUm, where did you get that idea? It certainly doesn’t appear to be so.
That’s because the illegal immigrants to New York aren’t coming across the northern border. Though if the purpose is truly to keep out terrorists and violent criminals, rather than decent poor people, then we should be just as worried about the northern border, and should fence it too, which would be a lot more expensive and difficult. Mark Steyn wrote about this in late 2001 or early 2002, noting the ease with which he was used to crossing the border, and wondering why terrorists wouldn’t do the same.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 2:22 pmIt can’t.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 2:31 pmOr even a shoo-in.
Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 2:36 pmBeldar, yes, he has had ventures fail. He has had also had many succeed. That’s how business works. A bad businessman doesn’t turn a million dollar loan into billions (he inherited a portion of his father’s wealth in the late 1990s). Your knowledge of business is almost as impressive as your knowledge of bankruptcy.
Old Reader (08f24c) — 4/7/2016 @ 2:36 pmi think Mr. Trump has done a very creditable job on stuff
i like the ice cubes in his bar he makes them big round ones and they’re never cloudy
they are never cloudy
it’s that kind of attention to detail what failmerica needs more of
advantage: Mr. The Donald
happyfeet (831175) — 4/7/2016 @ 2:44 pm#138,
Oh, I know that Sammy, but it is at least as valid as other claims about qualifications that have been made. In this case she is CLEARLY guilty of a long train of impeachable offenses, committed with impunity and malice aforethought. Any act that is flatly prohibited of an officeholder is an impeachable offense.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 3:07 pmMatter of fact, an impeachment of Hillary after nomination would be an interesting campaign tactic.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 3:09 pmif you impeach her she’ll just tinkle everywhere
you have to lay down wood shavings first
happyfeet (831175) — 4/7/2016 @ 3:11 pmand don’t grab her round the middle you have to get her by the scruff
happyfeet (831175) — 4/7/2016 @ 3:15 pmIf his “empire” went bankrupt four times he wouldn’t be worth $4-10 billion
Forbes has him at $4.5 billion. He came very close to personal bankruptcy that first time.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 3:18 pmthat’s a very nice number to be at for his age
he’s a high-achiever, that one
happyfeet (831175) — 4/7/2016 @ 3:20 pmI put this comment on the wrong thread. It should have gone here.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/7/2016 @ 3:43 pmOld Reader, Donald’s father appointed him as President of the family business in 1974. So, Donald was making money on his father’s money. He also received gifts and loans from his father well before he received an “official inheritance.”
Please, let’s just admit that The Mr Donald started at third base. He didn’t hit a triple.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 4/7/2016 @ 3:54 pmKevin, that is true about his early 1990s troubles, which makes his current worth more impressive. I suspect his networth is somewhere in between Trump’s figures and the Forbes’ ranking. Forbes gives him zero goodwill for his brand, which is questionable. If his licensing deals produce significant cash flow, it’s worth something as an asset. At the very least you need to do a discounted cash flow analysis of the current branding deals but maybe they include discounted cash flows but exclude anything else as speculation. That would be fair.
Old Reader (08f24c) — 4/7/2016 @ 3:58 pmCruz Supporter, I have for many years thought Trump exaggerated his business acumen. But he still has a very impressive record. Beldar and others stretch some legitimate criticism too far.
Old Reader (08f24c) — 4/7/2016 @ 4:01 pmPlease, let’s just admit that The Mr Donald started at third base. He didn’t hit a triple.
It’s still not too bad for a guy with two hairs on his head and a two-inch penis.
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 4:02 pmhe’s fucking awesome
happyfeet (831175) — 4/7/2016 @ 4:14 pmOutdated info but there might be something to Trump’s accusation that they lowball him. In 2010, they estimated Trump’s branding deals as worth 120 million, even though they produced 60 million in cash flow a year. That’s indefensible. That said, I have trouble believing an objective analysis would place his brand at 4 billion, unless these licensing deals are producing several hundred million a year.
Old Reader (08f24c) — 4/7/2016 @ 4:17 pmThis thread is about New York but the general topic really pertains to any socio-economic-political scene rife with liberalism run amok.
In light of the following city being symbolically associated with the current occupant of the White House — who’s the epitome of a “champagne socialist” — and that the ideology associated with such people often incubates the need for a populace to vote not at the ballot box but with its feet and the moving van, this is a fitting tribute to the pathetic dynamics of liberalism:
Mark (6c93d5) — 4/7/2016 @ 4:28 pmWhat economic basis are they using to qualify one as a millionaire? Because if 2% of Chicago’s “high-end net worth individuals” equals 3,000 people then they have 150,000 millionaires living in the sh!t hole of Chicago? Wait, wait, I got it. They’re including city employees and their retirement benefits. Sorry, never mind.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/7/2016 @ 4:49 pmcarry on,
https://twitter.com/alex_mallin/status/718128097552310272
narciso (732bc0) — 4/7/2016 @ 5:14 pmImam, your reading skills need sharpening:
I never said that the kids were “allowed” to walk about during class periods. But they are expected to walk from one class to another. Given that responsibility, what is to prevent them from turning right when everyone else turns left. Having done so, they are presumably subject to discipline, but it doesn’t happen right away. Teachers aren’t even allowed to touch these fragile little flowers, so what do you do when 30 start harassing the kids who are headed for the auditorium, especially if one of their teachers is encouraging them? The punishment comes well after the fact, if it comes at all. And in many public schools it never comes. In fact, if the students in this protest are of one particular ethnicity, the school will be very reluctant to discipline a large number of them because this will show up in their racial disciplinary statistics, and the school district will come down on them like a hammer for fear of losing federal funds.
My basic point was that this could be a learning experience. But it isn’t in today’s public schools.
You should visit one, if they will let you on campus. Spend some time, enjoy the ambiance. You might be surprised at the number of students who do walk around during class, quite often because they have no class scheduled for that day at that time.
BobStewartatHome (7b7fb2) — 4/7/2016 @ 5:35 pmDid Sammy or Milhouse or any one else comment about the temple of Baal replica being erected in times square?
MD back in Philly!!! (aa9dc9) — 4/7/2016 @ 5:35 pmOR,
As DRJ points out by way of #165, Bloomberg puts Trump at $2.9 billion so, no I don’t think it’s over Forbes’ number, but probably less. Also, that Trump had $1B in 1990 and has 4 times that 25 years later means he got about 5.6% a year on his money. He could have got that return in NY munis in 1988.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/7/2016 @ 5:44 pmMore important, does this mean your father is better and your parents are well-situated, MD?
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 5:44 pmAlso, that Trump had $1B in 1990 and has 4 times that 25 years later means he got about 5.6% a year on his money. He could have got that return in NY munis in 1988.
But then, how could he “interview” “cocktail waitresses” at his casinos or “models” at his “modeling agencies”?
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 5:47 pmNo medical change, but mass migration east to a continuing care elderly community where my mom has a small independent living apartment and down and up elevators and hallways to where my dad has a reasonably nice room in a well staffed and respected skilled nursing area.
All adjusting to the transition by God’s grace.
Thanks for asking.
Maybe, maybe….
MD back in Philly!!! (aa9dc9) — 4/7/2016 @ 6:07 pmWill make migration to WI for 40th (gasp!!!!) hs reunion and will make contact with you.
10 minutes from our house.
MD back in Philly!!! (aa9dc9) — 4/7/2016 @ 6:08 pm“All adjusting to the transition by God’s grace.”
Glad to hear this, MD [in] Philly.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/7/2016 @ 6:12 pmThe Mr Donald is a huge distraction.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 4/7/2016 @ 6:14 pmWe should be discussing stories in the National Review rather than the National Enquirer, but that’s what we get when we order up a The Mr Donald Candidacy.
Can we get a side order of Miley Cyrus with that?
But no more mustard, please, because we’ve already got plenty of that.
MD in Philly,
When you pull into your driveway, maybe you’ll say, “So THAT’S what I forgot to do before I left—I forgot to suspend our newspaper subscription!“
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 4/7/2016 @ 6:23 pmMy reading skills are okay BobStewartatHome, but sometimes I miss things. When I read “walk about freely” I did not understand it to mean “they are expected to walk from one class to another”. I hope you can see why. Walking from one class to another is a school function and it’s where and what they’re supposed to be doing. What the students in NY were doing was cutting class in order to deny a US Senator free speech at a state funded entity.
But maybe I just took what you wrote the wrong way.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/7/2016 @ 6:54 pmGlad to know things are well, MD in Philly.
Ed from SFV (3400a5) — 4/7/2016 @ 6:56 pmHoagie, S#@T happens, that’s a given. What follows is the question. My most enduring lessons were learned the hard way. So my take was that the kids might do this, and short of assigning several hundred police officers, who can use their hands as needed, to march the kiddies to the auditorium the kids will take off if they want. But that doesn’t have to end the learning opportunity. It just won’t happen in today’s schools.
And its even worse than that. This isn’t the tip of the iceberg. It’s a faint echo, returning from the fog horn’s blast, while steaming through a dense fog at 25 knots with no radar.
Public schools will be the undoing of the Republic. Mainly through incompetence, failing to teach the kids anything useful, but also trough design.
BobStewartatHome (7b7fb2) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:11 pmThank you all.
MD back in Philly!!! (f9371b) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:14 pmWife and daughter held down the home front, as I and our boys did years ago when it was her folks,
The bigger issue when pulling into the driveway..
I didn’t really leave that in Ohio, did I??????
Bob, you seem to be assuming that kids would be marched into the auditorium to hear Cruz whether they wanted to or not. We have no reason to believe that was the case and not purely voluntary; and that the walker-outers din’ wan’ nobody, but nobody, to hear that Cruz pendejo.
nk (dbc370) — 4/7/2016 @ 7:18 pmnk, I hadn’t considered the idea that the meeting was voluntary. This would make the actions of the activists much worse. Even closer to my first impression, which was #41 Lord of the Flies.
BobStewartatHome (7b7fb2) — 4/7/2016 @ 8:46 pmAfter the first bankruptcy, I think even Trump admits he was only worth several hundred million, if that, given the leverage he built up. Let’s say it’s 400 million in 1993 and he’s worth 4 billion today, that’s 11% CAGR, which isn’t too shabby all things considered. Top tier people like Seth Klarman or Buffet make around 15% CAGR once you get into investing billions (and these guys are basically one in a million). He’d probably be worth 3-4 times what he is today if he had not gotten reckless in late 80s/early 90s, though.
I haven’t seen much on his earlier career, was the 1 million loan really the extent of his financial backing from family? I’ve heard about the temporary “casino chip” loan his father gave during his 1990s troubles but that was peanuts relatively speaking.
Old Reader (08f24c) — 4/7/2016 @ 9:11 pmThe news today is making a big deal about a woman being on the FBI ten most wanted list.
Brenda Delgado is being sought for allegedly orchestrating the murder-for-hire of dentist Dr. Kendra Hatcher in Dallas, Texas.
On September 2, 2015, the victim was found deceased from a gunshot wound in the parking garage of her apartment complex. Based on investigative efforts by the Dallas Police Department, Delgado is suspected of hiring two alleged co-conspirators to facilitate the murder. Both co-conspirators have been arrested and are currently in custody. Delgado is believed to have fled the country shortly after being interviewed by investigators.
Not highlighted, Delgado is another Mexican national/illegal alien, in our country to do the murders Americans just won’t do. Like the majority of the other top ten most wanted fugitives.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 4/8/2016 @ 4:33 amAll she is is a person with a Hispanic surname. The Mexican national/illegal alien is the big-ass orange caterpillar in your head. Get it out. Go to an exorcist if you have to.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 5:12 amMr. Trump’s policies are better than the other policies
happyfeet (831175) — 4/8/2016 @ 5:44 amThat’s what they said about Obamacare, you know.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 5:56 amoh god i hate obamacare
it’s completely no good
i don’t trust the paul ryan Rs to get rid of it though cause they’re cowards
happyfeet (831175) — 4/8/2016 @ 6:02 amJust as 32yo, Kathryn Steinle, and 64yo Marilyn Pharis (raped then beaten to death with a hammer) were victims of that big-ass orange caterpillar in his head right, nk? There are many states where over 30% of the murders are committed by these “caterpillars”.
Just so you know, nk, Delgado is a Mexican citizen, not a US citizen. She fled back to Mexico to escape the death sentence.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/8/2016 @ 6:16 amJust so you know Hoagie, a person born in the U.S. to a Mexican citizen is a Mexican citizen. Also, that Trump is entitled to British citizenship having been born to a British citizen mother before 1983.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 6:23 amTrump could shoot somebody down on Fifth Avenue and flee to Scotland and avoid extradition because he would face more than 25 years in prison even if New York does not have the death penalty. We are a country of immigrants and the descendants of immigrants?
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 6:27 amIf you are really interested in how much Trump’s father helped him and how little respect Donald had, read this. It helped me understand why Trump is such an insecure braggart. He wanted his father’s respect but, time after time, he had to run to Daddy for financial help. His father loved him enough to support his schemes but I doubt Trump’s father thought much off him, and the rest of his life seems like his attempt to prove he is as good as his father.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/8/2016 @ 6:54 ampapertiger,
This murder happened in Dallas and last Fall the Dallas police knew that Delgado had fled to Mexico. Apparently she got away since the FBI put her on the Most Wanted List. However, news reports at the time said she was in the US legally:
The report could be wrong but it was easy to find, so I assume you repeated something you read elsewhere. In the future, it would be helpful if you would link the basis for assertions like that.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/8/2016 @ 7:06 amWe are a sovereign country with a long history of immigration. So that means we have to allow everyone in? Why is it that North America and Europe are supposed to “diversify” by not Japan, Korea, Mexico, Africa or China. We have allowed either legally or illegally 40-some million South Americans, mostly Mexicans to immigrate to the US since the 80’s, when have we reached the limit? Is it really your goal to erase the ethnic and cultural make-up of the US by overwhelming it with foreigners?
We are a country of Americans and if you don’t want to be one then you should leave. It is not healthy economically, politically or culturally for those “descendants of immigrants” to be displaced by wave after wave of new, unassimilated immigrants that share neither our culture, heritage nor values. And we were fine bringing in immigrants before the democrats decided the best way to get new voters was ot bring in people from semi-socialist countries and give them welfare and other free stuff. Like Friedman said we can have welfare or immigration but not both. We cannot PAY people tax dollars to come and live here. So until that’s stopped we should stop immigration. I don’t think we should determine our immigration policy based on your love of dark-haired women nor my affinity for Asians.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/8/2016 @ 7:16 amTrump: The answer to a question asked by mental patients.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 7:17 amChecking my concern meter for the racial purity of the Aryan race. Reading: 0.00.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 7:23 amOk, that might be unfair. But they said the exact same things about the Irish and Germans for most of the 19th century.
As for assimilation, I could not agree more. Adopt America, become a citizen, or get out. That’s why I disagree with the “no path to citizenship” line. If we don’t want them as citizens, we should not let them in at all.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 7:28 amDRJ, that is what is so tiring about all this: the need by some people to accept anything that fits their Narrative without checking, and our need to check many if not most things such people assert.
It saddens me to see folks on the Right act precisely like those on the Left with such meme-propaganda.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 4/8/2016 @ 7:32 amSince his mother was born in Scotland, Donald Trump should run for a seat in Parliament. Maybe one day he could be elected Prime Minister. Gordon Brown has Scottish parents. So does Tony Blair.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 4/8/2016 @ 7:36 amYou may have been directing your comment at me DRJ, not papertiger. I Did not say Delgado was an illegal, I said Mexican which she is. I went back to try to find the article but I peruse so much crap I can’t find it but it stated she was a Mexican citizen with a permanent US residence card. Not that it matters. My point was there is no “big-assed orange caterpillar” in papertiger’s mind since I could find hundreds of the same type story. To deny the problems caused by mass immigration and illegal immigration specifically helps no one. They estimate about 130 deaths of American citizens each year by illegals in the US. That is avoidable, unnecessary and a blatant dereliction of responsibility on the part of our government. We are Americans, not immigrants. That “country of immigrant” crap was spread by public schools to blind citizens to the need to recognize our own American identity, and they still are doing it. One is only an immigrant till one becomes a citizen then he’s an American. Obey our laws. Speak American. Learn our heritage and culture. Get a job.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/8/2016 @ 7:44 amFurther @L.N. Smithee (b84cf6) — 4/7/2016 @ 10:59 am
[Were] they being used as marionettes for the counselors who dislike Cruz?
Not by counselors, but by the principal, who probably was not acting on her own initiative either.
In a written response to the students, she thanked the students for their efforts, and said she would not have been able to get Ted Cruz’s visit cancelled without them:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cruz-bronx-school-visit-canceled-students-plan-walkout-article-1.2590946
The most likely explanation for this is that one faction in Bronx politics got the visit scheduled, and another faction got it cancelled, using some students as tools.
I am not sure how this charter school might be tied into politics, but there is a cap on the number of charer schools, and Lighthouse Academies had 20 schools in 7 States and D.C. at the end of 2013, and presumably wants to expand. They may need help from Republicans as well as Democrats in Albany.
HOW: Did these students know about “the Disciplinary Referral Slip”? It is cited in the letter, and the footnotes are probably taken from the Disciplinary Referral Slip. The online version of the article does not show as much of the letter as the printed paper (the signatures are missing) and omits the footnote numbers. The footnotes themselves do not appear.
Footnotes 2 and 3 are mentioned twice and footnote 1 is missing.
Here is how the footnote numbers show up in the printed paper. (I have put brackets around the footnote numbers)
I don’t know. Maybe they got the footnote numbers mixed up. Number 2 appears twice, Number 1 is missing, and Number 3 appears first.
The principal shouldn’t have left the drafting to the students, but should have written the whole thing herself.
Sammy Finkelman (656162) — 4/8/2016 @ 7:47 amAgain, nk? You can’t have a grown up conversation about immigration without the race card? Can you talk race without the race card? If one wants to intellectually explore the ramifications of immigration on the US be it in racial make-up, religious, intellect or whatever is that so un-PC you need a “safe place”? If someone were shipping in 40 million Caucasians into Japan don’t you think they would: 1. notice, and 2. scream bloody murder?. And would they be “racist” for doing so?
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/8/2016 @ 7:57 amWell, I don’t know how Brenda could have assimilated more. She did not go and stick her cuchillo in the puta who stole her hombre. She hired the killing done, the good old Murder Incorporated way. Harry “Pittsburgh Phil” Strauss would approve.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 8:05 amHere are some nice illegals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B65pLsah3XE&feature=player_detailpage
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/8/2016 @ 8:07 amI don’t need a safe space. I will tell you straight out that I have no particular love for Northern Europeans who went from barbarity to decadence without achieving civilization. Maybe you want America to be like Germany, Holland, Sweden or France — I don’t. And I don’t mean their “migrant crisis”. I mean what they were before they even knew what a Syrian looked like.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 8:11 amThe idiocy of liberals (and country-club Republicans) in the 21st century when it comes to illegal immigration is not just so much their being pushovers about very porous borders, but being pushovers about huge numbers (ie, not thousands but millions) of people circumventing legal channels to enter the US and — this is most crucial — and an uncomfortably high percentage of such people bringing the socio-political-economic mediocrity of their native lands to this society.
If statistics indicated a high portion of people associated with most of today’s illegal immigration were at least doing well academically (with such data going back more than, say, one generation), my main qualm about the so-called undocumented would recede quite a bit.
Mark (0f444a) — 4/8/2016 @ 8:15 amHoagie,
My comment wasn’t for you. It was for papertiger 191.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/8/2016 @ 8:26 am@nk:Checking my concern meter for the racial purity of the Aryan race. Reading: 0.00.
Know who’s very strict about illegal immigration? Mexico. Wall on their southern border and everything. Mexico does not even allow NATURALIZED CITIZENS to own land near the coasts, or be clergymen, or be an officer in the armed forces. No doubt out of concern for the purity of Aryan race.
Japan used to make ethnic Koreans born in Japan register as aliens. No doubt out of concern for the purity of Aryan race.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 8:29 amAmerica is not like any other place. They do what they do and we do what we do.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 8:38 amTed doesn’t want to be a part of it, New York, New York.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 4/8/2016 @ 8:49 amThere’s a follow-up story today on page 8, (referred to also on page 1) but it’s not the main political news today in the New York Daily News. The news in the Cruz story is that he called it tabloid reporting by left-winng journalists, and that Mayor de Blasio said a lot of people think hat way although he wouldn’t use those words. He said Ted Cruz was guilty oh hypocrisy – I guess that was the referring to “New York” values. Ted Cruz is now saying New York vales aren’t really “New York” values. (you remember actually it was Donald Trump who first brought it up)
The main political news stories in the Daily News seem to be Bernie Sanders being for immunity from law suits for gun manufacturers (the Clinton campaign has decided to make that their signature issue against Bernie Sanders in the New York primary); Bill Clinton’s “Sister Souljah” moment with a Black Lives Matter crowd (where he lied, by the way, since the problem with crack and murders isn’t 13-year olds being used to kill others because they are on crack); Kasich’s visit to the Daily News and interview there; and a report on Hillary – Hillary claimed to be more familiar with the New York subway system than Bernie Sanders, noting that she knew we now use metrocards, but she had to swipe her metrocard five times. (One time she tried it real slow. No, that didn’t work, either.)
There is only a little bit about Donald Trump – just three little stories on the far right column of page 7 that tell how Donald Trump in 1994, when asked who Tiffany resembled more, him or Marla Maples, noted that they have yet to see about the breasts, which he didn’t name, but gestured about; that Giuliani endorses Trump; and that nearly 70% of the people have an unfavorable view of Trump.
The biggest story in the Daily News is not political but is the unfolding police scandal, which isn’t clear but it seems like the FBI was investigating the head of the Corrections Officers union, Norman Seabrook, and as a result of that they had wiretaps going, and on the wiretaps they learned about other things. But the other things seems to be that some people got very, very, close to high ranking police officers. And as result they received personal escorts from the airport while they were carrying diamonds, and got police at some gigantic Hassidic wedding(s) but there’s also something unrelated too where a now closed restaurant in Harlem got police assigned to direct traffic and break up fights. Three businessmen, the first two of them Jewish.
The police official escorting the diamonds got some diamonds for his wife – not free he says but at a discount – and maybe some cash – and the restaurant was used by police and they went easy on noise complaints, like playing music past 4 a.m., and on drinking in public. Also, the office and the gym at a precinct house in Brooklyn was fixed up using private money instead of requesting help from the NYPD’s Building Maintenance unit. The people who arranged for the precinct work got to park in the captain’s private parking space (when they visited him presumably) and there was a mezuzah on his office door. Maybe they thought that since they paid for it, it was theirs. Probably not, but somebody else probably sat in the Captain’s chair on occasion. There doesn’t seem to be any quid pro quo alleged for policing the wedding or weddings. There were also vacation trips and SuperBowl tickets.
The problem seems to be that this violates city conflict of interest rules, NYPD rules and policies, and there may be some federal criminal laws violated also (income tax evasion?)
There is an allegation that somebody who rejected an appointment in 2014 and retired instead, had gotten wind of an investigation. It had been thought he was disappointed that he didn’t get anoter job.
There is also (this is in the New York Post) a lot of signs that Mayor deBlasio is engaging in some form of pay to play – two or three things besides the horses. There is the removal of a deed restriction, after which a for profit nursing home, that had gotten permission to take it over from a non-profit just flipped the whole thing, giving a payment to the city, but it looks like the whole thing was arranged by a lobbyist. And then his attempt to derail Uber, using some false traffic claims, which was really done as a favor to the licensed taxi industry.
Of course the important thing is anything he does with regard to crime, where he does seem to be trying to be careful, but also trying to satisfy the “Black Lives Matter” people – and New York City actually has the best record anywhere both of crime and on polic shootings and killings. Not just with regular crime, but it was the NYPD, and not the FBI, that warned Belgium about a terrorist.
Sammy Finkelman (656162) — 4/8/2016 @ 9:03 am154. Milhouse (87c499) — 4/7/2016 @ 2:22 pm
They tried it once, and got caught *, and seem to have been scared off since. They may also simply be scared of the consequences of doing anything major in either the United States, or Canada. Belgium won’t go to war, and if it did, it wouldn’t matter.
* Bill Clinton and Sandy Burglar spun a tale and claimed that some alert started by President Clinton had prevented it, and Sandy Berger destroyed copies of an internal goernment report that was headed for the 9/11 commission and would have disproven that, but it was simply normal Customs inspections.
Sammy Finkelman (656162) — 4/8/2016 @ 9:12 amSammy,
Perhaps the author couldn’t remember whether 1 came before 2 or vice versa? Rather than risk getting everything wrong, the decision to use one of those symbols twice ensured a grade of 50% on the “footnote element” portion of the assignment. This plus turning it in on time would be good enough for a “B” in today’s schools, even without the spot-on diatribe. And the absence of an actual footnote may not be an accident. More than likely their teacher said that an authoritative screed always contained footnotes, which were described as those number thingies superscripted into the text at random places. This letter was probably the best effort from the second period American History class. I wonder if the author realized that it was going to be published?
Many of the administrators I knew were PE teachers before their advancement. I wouldn’t count on them knowing anything about footnotes. Patty Murray, one of our State’s Senators, is such a creature. And an “elementary school” PE teacher at that.
BobStewartatHome (7b7fb2) — 4/8/2016 @ 9:14 am#220 BobStewart,
That’s funny that you bring up the fact that many administrators were previously P.E. teachers. In the district I grew up in, one of my P.E. teachers later became a Vice Principal at the high school, then became a highly paid administrator as a Deputy Superintendent of the district, or something like that.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 4/8/2016 @ 9:24 amDo you have a theory about that?
I wonder if the teachers who teach, say, math, or literature, or woodshop, or history, all LOVE that subject, are passionate about it, and therefore they actually want to teach it in the classroom for their whole career.
Whereas P.E. teachers may enjoy sports, but supervising the rope climb or timing kids for the mile run is not exactly their “passion,” so they figure, “Heck, I’ll try to become one of the suits who gets paid twice as much as a P.E. teacher.”
@nk:America is not like any other place. They do what they do and we do what we do.
One of those things we did, from 1789 to 1965, was tightly restrict immigration.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 10:01 am@Cruz Supporter:I wonder if the teachers who teach, say, math, or literature, or woodshop, or history, all LOVE that subject, are passionate about it, and therefore they actually want to teach it in the classroom for their whole career.
In my academic experience, administrators are people who want to administrate. They need academic credentials of some kind in order to do so, so they typically acquire the credential that is easiest for them.
It is not unheard of for math or science faculty to go into administration–that’s usually where the deans of math and science colleges came from. But if you want to be a university president an Ed D will do.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 10:04 amSimon Jester,
I’ve been thinking about Trump, Cruz and how their race has affected us here. It upset me until I realized this is how many families or close friends might react.
When a family member or a close friend does or says something that family/friends disagree with and think is important, they don’t ignore it. They try to talk about it, perhaps even heatedly. They can’t let it go the way people would with strangers and casual friends. I wonder if that is happening here on both sides.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/8/2016 @ 10:05 amDRJ, I have spent the last … 6-8 years maybe … trying to get my close friends and family back to reasonable political discourse. With friends, we have some who post political stuff like crazy on Facebook. As I have told them, we’d rather see pictures of your dog. I might be naïve in saying this, but I feel like my parents’ generation could disagree about politics in a much more civil manner.
I personally can disarm many of these conversations with humor, but it isn’t easy. When close friends believe in a conspiracy theory, for example, I gently nudge them with humor, with mixed results.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 4/8/2016 @ 10:18 am#223 Gabriel Hanna,
I think we were talking more about local school districts, rather than universities.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 4/8/2016 @ 10:24 amFrom 1789 to 1965? When all the Scots, Welsh, Irish, Germans, Poles, Jews, Italians, Bohemians, Hungarians, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, and the very best, Greeks, came here? Do tell!
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 10:34 amICYMI BREAKING NEWS: Roger Stone, Mr. “I’m No Longer Working For Donald Trump (on the books)” and the sole named source in National Enquirer‘s so-called Cruz Sex Scandal, has been banned from appearing on both CNN and MSNBC for reasons unrelated to the accusations. More at Legal Insurrection.
L.N. Smithee (b84cf6) — 4/8/2016 @ 10:43 amBut our parents’ generation had shared cultural values, carlitos, so it was easier for them to remain civil about politics. Today we live in a very different society, and I think politics takes on a greater urgency.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/8/2016 @ 10:44 am@nk:From 1789 to 1965? When all the Scots, Welsh, Irish, Germans, Poles, Jews, Italians, Bohemians, Hungarians, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, and the very best, Greeks, came here? Do tell!
Yes. Math is hard. You can’t just give a list of ethnic groups, you have to look at numbers relative to the population. Interestingly, it never even occurs to you.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 11:03 am@nk: My immediate family is Chinese, right? Legal immigrants or born here.
Do I think Chinese should be able to legally immigrate here? Yes.
Do I think one billion Chinese should be able to legally immigrate here? No. At that point, the “we” you invoke of “They do what they do and we do what we do” will be Chinese people, not American people, and our government will operate under Chinese values. Crossing an invisible line will not change the values and culture of one billion people.
Do I think ANY Chinese should be able to illegally immigrate here? No. We have laws, and those laws should be enforced fairly or they should be changed. If people who think like you want to change them, persuade your fellow citizens to do so: if you fail, the laws on the books now must be enforced. It is not racist to demand that government follow the law.
Now tell me how I must be concerned with the purity of the Aryan race or something.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 11:21 amI thought I made myself perfectly clear: I want America to look like and be American. And just because you don’t like Germans, The Dutch, Swedes or French is still no way to determine immigration. First of all those Northern Europeans were among the first settlers here and it was they who brought the ideals of the Reformation and Enlightenment with them. Secondly they are responsible for people like Beethoven, Mozart, Rembrandt, Sibelius, and tens of thousands more so how did they go from “barbarity to decadence” without achieving civilization?
Have to go.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/8/2016 @ 11:26 amYou say all of these things… and yet you are not a Trump supporter. You wanna talk about isolating the “Aryan purity” variable and dropping it in a flaming bag on Trump’s stoop?
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/8/2016 @ 11:28 am(My comment was for Gabriel Hanna, in case that wasn’t clear)
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/8/2016 @ 11:29 am@Leviticus:You say all of these things… and yet you are not a Trump supporter.
Wanting to see reasonable limits on immigration, and fair enforcement of the immigration laws, I thought was something Ted Cruz was in favor of.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 11:31 am@Imam Hoagie:I thought I made myself perfectly clear: I want America to look like and be American.
Third-generation Chinese and fifth-generation Mexicans and twelfth-generation Scotch-Irish look like and are American.
First-generation anything does not like American and is not American. Moderate and enforced limits on immigration will give immigrants time to assimilate to the prevailing culture and become American.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 11:38 amGabriel, you are as deliberately, dishonestly and disingenuously obtuse as Art Deco. It was clear to anyone who wanted to read my comment honestly that “America is not like any other place. They do what they do and we do what we do” was referring to Mexico’s immigration policies, in particular, and to whatever other laws some other foreign place might pass, in general, and that they have nothing to do with what laws we pass. Bye-bye.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 11:44 am@nk:that they have nothing to do with what laws we pass.
If you import enough foreigners, our laws will be laws that are agreeable to foreigners, and “we” will be “they”. Your innumerate comments show that you have not bothered to think this through. Numbers are of the essence. How many Chinese do you think are too many? If the answer is “No amount is too many”, then how does American soil magically turn them into Americans who will “do what we do”?
You have no answer whatever. No thinking, just feels.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 11:48 amLook, buddy, if they’re U.S. citizens and they can make laws, they’re no more foreigners than Kennedy, Reagan, Ryan and McConnell are Irish. They’re Americans. Klaar, Kamerad?
And where the hell did you get that I’m for unrestricted immigration, or for that matter any immigration at all with the messed up state of our industries? I was responding to the “Let’s not turn America brown” arguments. Which said argunents are stupid.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 11:56 am@nk: if they’re U.S. citizens and they can make laws, they’re no more foreigners than Kennedy, Reagan, Ryan and McConnell are Irish.
Four of those things are not like the others. Those four “Irish” men were descended from immigrants, not immigrants themselves.
Are you really saying that 90% of Americans being foreign-born would still have the same values as Americans had before 90% of them were foreign-born? Our dirt must be magic!
If you don’t believe in magic dirt, kindly state the maximum percentage of foreign-born Americans that won’t result in a big change in cultural values and we can decide if we are over it.
If you do believe in magic dirt, kindly explain how it works. We could sprinkle it on foreign countries and give their people American values. Cheaper than invading them. Should have just dropped that magic dirt on Iraq.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:17 pm@nk: Which said argunents are stupid.
They are not nearly as stupid as arguments that make no distinction between “naturalized immigrant” and “American citizen descended from immigrants a century ago”. They are not nearly as stupid as arguments that count ethnicities that once immigrated with no attempt to relate the actual numbers to the situation today.
If tomorrow we naturalized 100 million French immigrants (assuming that number existed), then they would be legal citizens, but their values would be French. Our laws would definitely become more dirigiste. Our bread would improve, but be more expensive. Nothing would be open in August.
If, instead of that, we naturalized 10,000 French immigrants kept it up for 100 years, their descendants (possibly numbering 100 million) would have the same values Americans have today most likely.
I find it hard to believe that you cannot see the difference.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:26 pmDamned Mexicans, importing their gay marriage and abortion and love of free stuff! Where my country gone?!
The idea that you can wall off a fixed set of cultural values is laughable.
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:27 pmWhat is more illegal than murder?
Look at you nk defending a Mexican murderer. That’s what support of Cruz has brought you to.
Ted Cruz, who previously said he wanted to increase legal immigration fivefold, has changed his mind now that he’s running for president.
That’s called pandering. The difference between Cruz pander and Trumps, the President is actually in charge of the border stuff Cruz is pandering about.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:28 pm@Leviticus:The idea that you can wall off a fixed set of cultural values is laughable.
I don’t see anyone here saying that. No one is saying that immigration laws will freeze American values as they are now for all time. American values will change and evolve regardless.
I put the same question to you as to nk: kindly state the maximum percentage of foreign-born Americans that won’t result in a big change in cultural values.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:31 pmThe set of “American values” that a majority of Americans would embrace and a majority of non-Americans would reject is pretty dang small, I’d wager. I know everybody wants to believe that the only reason people want to come to America is “free stuff,” but in reality the draw of “American values” has a lot to do with the appeal of coming to America.
Leviticus (efada1) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:31 pm@Leviticus: Do you think it’s okay to bribe cops? That’s okay in China–yeah they have laws against it, but people do it and cops expect it. How many Chinese immigrants do you think it would take to change that norm here? One billion would definitely do it.
How many Sunni Muslims do you think it would take to change the norms about legal alcohol? 500 million are probably enough votes to establish prohibition, I would imagine.
You’re not stupid. You know this is a fact, that if you bring in enough people with different values, the value will be changed. You know that cultural assimilation is about numbers and time. This is all very obvious.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:34 pm@Leviticus: has a lot to do with the appeal of coming to America.
Different people like different things about America. Most people like the economic opportunities but that does not mean they like the culture and won’t change it.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:36 pm@nk:The set of “American values” that a majority of Americans would embrace and a majority of non-Americans would reject is pretty dang small, I’d wager.
Little things like religious freedom, freedom of speech, rule of law, relative lack of corruption, age of consent laws.
Do you know in China, you “tip” upward? You don’t tip your waiter or your hairdresser. You tip your boss, your doctor, your kid’s teacher, the cop who pulls you over.
Few people all over the world like that norm, I imagine, but bring in enough people who are used to it, and bring them in quickly enough, and that norm will be established here.
Do you know what Eve teasing is? Bring in enough people who are accustomed to that norm too quickly and you will establish that norm here. Yes, yes, there are catcalls and such in America, and subway perverts. But not to the extent that we have to establish women-only buses and subway cars. Import enough people quickly enough and you will have it here.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:42 pm@Leviticus: What do people visit France for? Culture, wine, sophistication, history.
Naturalize 500 million Chinese in France tomorrow. Will it still be France? A little–and pretty comfortable for Chinese too. But it won’t be the France that it was. If you doubt this, please explain how the magic soil of France instantly turns Chinese values into French values.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:47 pmI can’t say that I don’t find Gabriel’s arguments persuasive. I, personally, would not want Germany’s drive-through brothels. Or Denmark’s law which obliges churches (Lutheran) to perform same-sex marriages. Or Holland’s Groengingen Protocol (infant euthanasia, Google it). Give me Muslims, Mexicans, and Chinese with solid family values, work ethic, and respect for authority and one’s elders.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:47 pmAnd don’t get me started on soccer.
nk (dbc370) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:51 pm@nk:Give me Muslims, Mexicans, and Chinese with solid family values, work ethic, and respect for authority and one’s elders.
I’d add a few things to that, like treating women as equals and tolerating other faiths. But the thing is the current system does not attempt to screen any of those things, and the laws as written are not enforced, and they are subverted and defied. So you are not going to get those people. You’re going to get a lot of other people besides.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 12:51 pm@nk:don’t get me started on soccer.
You’ll want to cut immigration from Latin America to zero then.
Honduras and El Salvador met in a 1970 FIFA World Cup qualifier. There was fighting between fans at the first game in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa on 8 June 1969, which Honduras won 1–0. The second game, on 15 June 1969 in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador, which was won 3–0 by El Salvador, was followed by even greater violence. A play-off match took place in Mexico City on 26 June 1969. El Salvador won the decisive third game 3–2 after extra time. That same day, El Salvador dissolved all diplomatic ties with Honduras, stating that “the government of Honduras has not taken any effective measures to punish these crimes which constitute genocide, nor has it given assurances of indemnification or reparations for the damages caused to Salvadorans”….Late in the afternoon of 14 July 1969, concerted military action began. San Salvador City was put on a black out and the Salvadoran Air Force, using passenger airplanes with explosives strapped to their sides as bombers, attacked targets inside Honduras. Salvadoran air-raid targets included Toncontín International Airport, which left the Honduran Air Force unable to react quickly. The larger Salvadoran Army launched major offensives along the two main roads connecting the two nations and invaded Honduras. The invasion phase was perpetrated by three main contingents. The Chalatenago Theater, the North Theater and the East Theater. The Chalatenango Theater was based on the Northwest side of El Salvador, including the departments of Santa Ana and Chalatenango, across the mountain range close the border, and the river known as Sumpul. This was a strategic region due to the its rich soil and climate. The North Theater was composed of a small unit of armored vehicles and a large amount of manpower, The Chalatenango Theater did not see fighting as it was to deploy only in case of Honduran penetration into El Salvador. The East Theater was to deploy in the department of La Union and Morazan. This Theater was composed of a large mechanized division, armored fighters such as the M3 Stuart and a large amount of artillery such as the 105mm M101.
Initially, rapid progress was made by the Salvadoran army. By the evening of 15 July, the Honduran army had been pushed back over eight kilometers. The departmental capital of Nueva Ocotepeque fell shortly after along with eight other cities, placing the Salvadoran army within striking distance of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa. The momentum of the advance did not last, however.
The Honduran air force reacted by striking the Salvadoran Ilopango airbase. Honduran bombers attacked for the first time in the morning of July 16. When the bombs began to fall, Salvadoran anti-air artillery starting firing, repelling some of the bombers. The bombers had orders to attack the Acajutla Port, where the main oil facilities of El Salvador were based. Honduran air-raid targets also included minor oil facilities such as the ones in Cutuco. By the evening of July 16, huge pillars of smoke arose in the Salvadoran coastline from the burning oil depots that had been bombed. The effectiveness of the attack on Ilopango has been called into question but it is generally accepted that the bombing of oil facilities and depots severely disrupted the logistics of the Salvadoran army.
Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle helped Honduras by providing weapons and ammunition.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 4/8/2016 @ 1:08 pmI can totally see that happening on the Bay if the 49ers and Raiders were playing against each other in the Superbowl.
SF invading Oakland or visa versa.
/snark (i hope)
papertiger (c2d6da) — 4/8/2016 @ 1:37 pmToday Cruz continued his Colorado shutout of Trump & Kasich, adding all twelve delegates selected today to the six he’d already won, for a total of 18. Thirteen more will be awarded at the convention tomorrow, which Trump isn’t attending.
To every political campaign, every candidate brings his past record, upon which he is judged in part. But every candidate creates a new record in each campaign, specifically regarding his competency as a winning politician.
Trump has demonstrated great competency in winning TV ratings, less (but still considerable) competency in winning elections and primaries in a multi-candidate field, minimal competency in winning in a two-ish candidate field, and no competency at all in the rest of his campaign organization. It’s his first campaign, and he’s proven that he could transport many of the things that delivered TV ratings directly into a political arena. But you can keep a TV show running for years and years with a thirty-five percent rating; winning the GOP nomination takes a majority vote of the delegates, which — as Trump is belatedly figuring out — requires competency in areas he’s neglected. Is it too late? In some places, clearly yes; in others, maybe not. We’ll see.
Cruz is running another damned fine campaign, one that’s obviously built upon the accomplishments of his ridiculously improbable victory in 2012, when he won the U.S. Senate seat opened by Kay Bailey Hutchison’s retirement. In a seven-candidate field, at least four of whom were serious, well-funded, and well-organized candidates, Cruz placed second behind the prohibitive favorite, self-funding multimillionaire and sitting Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, in the initial primary election. Dewhurst had universal name recognition, having been on the ballot — and won — in every Texas statewide election going back to the 1990s. But once Cruz forced it to a two-man run-off, he ended up beating Dewhurst in a blowout, with a record-setting turnout for a runoff.
Cruz’ come-from-behind victory against Dewhurst — a consummate insider, albeit in Austin rather than Washington — thus became the foundation of Cruz’ entire subsequent U.S. Senate career. Or perhaps, more accurately, Cruz’ insurgency in Washington.
Saving the GOP from Trump, and the nation from Hillary, can build quite a narrative. It can create a mandate presidential election which, if Congress can be held, can result in a transformational presidency like Reagan’s.
The best steel is forged in the hottest forges, and this is a hot, hot campaign. It will end up for the best, I believe.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/8/2016 @ 3:18 pmOh, by the way: David Dewhurst has endorsed Ted Cruz for POTUS.
As Texans have united around Cruz, so too will others — enough others by the convention, and then by November, everyone else who opposes Hillary.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/8/2016 @ 3:51 pmBeldar,
Trump’s new GOPe insider is an example of a great hire of a real pro. The piece needs to be read twice to get the full flavor of what a Top Man is capable of achieving in a very short time.
Rick Ballard (312c7c) — 4/8/2016 @ 4:19 pmWashington, D.C., Washington State — how’s a non-politician expected to know about complicated political stuff like that, anyway, huh?
The GOP is being so unfair to Trump!
Thanks for the great link (#257), Rick! 😀
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/8/2016 @ 4:44 pmI like that linked story at the end, by the way, regarding Manafort opening the first envelope. It’s a corollary to the nunc pro tunc son-of-a-b!tch rule.
Beldar (fa637a) — 4/8/2016 @ 4:48 pmI just realized I’ve used your nunc pro tunc SOB rule for old girlfriends, ex-employees and once for a CO in the 82nd, Beldar.
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/9/2016 @ 8:30 amThey caught Brenda. She’s in a Mexican calaboso waiting extradition to Texas. Texas has already agreed not to ask for the death penalty. Now the story is “ties to Mexico”. My daughter was at Cabo San Lucas for Spring break. She came back with her hair in Bo Derek “10” braids. (I’m shopping for burqinis). I guess she has ties to Mexico now, too.
nk (dbc370) — 4/9/2016 @ 8:37 amI don’t mind if liberals and country-club Republicans in the US are very docile about or, worse of all, supportive of so much illegal immigration. That is, I don’t mind it if they, at the same time, also promise to pack their bags and move to the middle of the ongoing debacle that exists south of this nation. After all, since such people will be forcing more and more Americans to eventually vote with their feet and the moving van, it’s only fair that the left and other clueless folks throughout the US should experience a form of that type of voting right now, in 2016.
^ BTW, the situation in such societies has been bad for generations, yet most of the electorate in nations like Mexico, etc, generally remains as liberal as ever on most election days.
Coming to a theater near you.
Mark (0f444a) — 4/9/2016 @ 9:02 amYou are a delight, nk.
DRJ (15874d) — 4/9/2016 @ 9:20 amLeviticus–
There is no group of immigrants that I would rather have in America than the folks coming from Mexico and Central America. They come to work and make a better life for their kids. And the REALLY sad fact is that the ones that come illegally are a better group than the ones who come legally. Our laws are set up to import older dependents and reject young workers when the country-quota forces choices. Relatives of current residents have priority. We need to change that.
Immigration to the US should be limited to 1) spouses of US citizens and their children; 2) able-bodied workers 18-30; 3) certain political refugees. The quotas from this hemisphere should be higher.
There is no need to bring in extended families in the normal course of things — remittances are easy today, as is travel to visit.
But having said that, a country cannot exist if it cannot control its borders and people cannot be allowed to just enter as they will.
I dislike the idea of a wall, but everything else has failed, and, frankly, the Mexican-American community shares part of that blame. Rubio was right — until the border is sealed and illegal entry is HARD, there will be none of the other fixes that need to happen to fix our terrible immigration system.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/9/2016 @ 9:59 amSaving the GOP from Trump, and the nation from Hillary, can build quite a narrative. It can create a mandate presidential election which, if Congress can be held, can result in a transformational presidency like Reagan’s.
It is inconceivable that Cruz could beat Hillary and the GOP not hold Congress.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/9/2016 @ 10:07 amI expect that in the next decade or two, the US will invade / intervene in Mexico again.
SPQR (e53149) — 4/9/2016 @ 10:19 amSo, Beldar, did you win that case?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/9/2016 @ 10:37 amSounds like the kind of jury tampering, insider trading, stacking the deck for the inside man, that makes most of our useless pols disgustingly rich.
So your argument in favor of Ted Cruz is that he is adroit at manipulating the system to subvert the will of the electorate, ensure the open border e-verify system that caused the public to reject Bush Rubio.
Just like Dianne Feinstein.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 4/9/2016 @ 10:38 amSPQR–
I suppose you are thinking about the drug trade.
But there are outstanding issues regarding the flood of immigrants. As part of the deal for not shipping them all back in boxcars, the Mexican government needs to open up Mexico to Americans more. Legal and property rights. Economic rights. Doing something about the monopolies. Mexico has to open up their economy to allow Mexicans to prosper rather than expecting the US to be their dumping ground.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/9/2016 @ 10:45 amI expect that in the next decade or two, the US will invade / intervene in Mexico again.
SPQR (e53149) — 4/9/2016 @ 10:19 am
Yes, SPQR, it may one day come to that.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/9/2016 @ 10:45 amHoagie,
Two points:
They came to America because the colonies, or the new Republic, espoused a novel form of individual freedom and responsibility that was lacking elsewhere, even in Britain, our nominal home country. The Rule of Law, the right to own property, and the idea of equality under that law were transformative. These were not the products of the Reformation or the Enlightenment. They sprang from the Magna Charta and five hundred years of evolution in Britain. These concepts were instrumental in the success of the American colonies, and over time they distanced our governance from that of Britain. The success of distant colonies was not repeated under Spanish or French rule despite their inheritance of the other aspects of the renaissance. They continued to be administered as though they were regal land grants with little autonomy.
And secondly:
The men and women who came to America were self-selected. Whether genetic or learned, once the qualities possessed by these immigrants were removed from their “home land”, the pressure on the homeland to make similar changes was diminished. France, for example, is still run under archaic legal concepts, and Germany is still run under rules that would facilitate an iron-handed Gestapo-like state should the soft-totalitarianism of Merkel be replaced with a more competent Fascist regime. So American benefitted from those who were more inclined to embrace our form of government and economic opportunity. The two cannot be separated. Europe was left with the dregs. The greatest statesman of recent times, Winston Churchill, was half American, and this isn’t a coincidence if we assume genetics is at play.
So I laugh when people make appeal to what we owe Europe for our “heritage”. Two world wars, Karl Marx, and the Cold War were enough for me to draw the line at the English Channel when feeling warm and cuddly towards European governance. Indeed it took three Americans to subdue and disarm a terrorist intent on a mass slaughter. The others, the Europeans on that train, with their heritage of sheep-like submission, were left to hope that the gunman ran out of ammunition before their peaceful lives were ended prematurely.
BobStewartatHome (7b7fb2) — 4/9/2016 @ 10:50 amSeveral years ago, our company conducted business down in Mexico (Mexico City)… still does… and a few of my Latino colleagues accepted 2 year tour assignments down there, uprooted and moved with their families, whole nine yards. The security measures that were necessary to help prevent assault, kidnappings, incidents, etc., we’re very eye-opening for them… hair-raising stories. Suffice it to say they returned home much wiser and with an even greater appreciation for this country.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/9/2016 @ 10:54 ampapertiger,
Do you remember that scene in Butch Cassidy regarding the knife fight? It’s like that.
This is actually a game of 9-level chess, and the primaries are only the top level. You can complain that “oooooo it’s not democratic!” but political party politics was always done in the back rooms. They just aren’t smoke-filled any more.
Don’t like it? Get involved.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/9/2016 @ 10:54 amBy the way, the people who are flooding the party committees for Cruz are not the “eGOP” types who brought us McCain, but the Tea Party folks who didn’t like what was going on and got involved in 2009 and later. Perhaps the Trump movement will repeat this going forward, but they haven’t done so yet.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/9/2016 @ 11:00 amAnd the REALLY sad fact is that the ones that come illegally are a better group than the ones who come legally.
That strikes me as quite a generalization, and a fairly sappy one at that, too.
When Islamic terrorists have struck places like San Bernardino or, much farther away, Paris or Brussels, the thing I immediately worry about is not that law enforcement isn’t more sophisticated, well-funded and omnipresent, but that our culture has gotten addled by the dynamics of political correctness.
When people in the US military witnessed the blatantly anti-US, pro-Islamic rantings of medical enlistee Nidal Hasan and did nothing, or, worse of all, may have even subscribed to a notion similar to “the illegal immigrants are actually better than the legal ones,” I know where the heart of this nation’s problem really lies.
Mark (0f444a) — 4/9/2016 @ 11:58 amYou can go right ahead and laugh all you want, BobStewartatHome, but the fact remains we do owe Europe for our heritage. Our heritage is not African or Asian and certainly not Middle Eastern now is it? Whatever reason these men and women left Europe all that matters is they came here and established an American ideal and an American government and left Europe behind.
I too could have gone back to the Magna Carta or even the Old Testament if you like but I was making a point not doing a history lesson. The Founders and Builders of this country were not named Mohammed, Hussein and Babajide they were James, John and George. The Pilgrims were not celebrating Ramadan nor did they land at Mecca Rock. Our first President was a Mason not a Saracen. I find it hard to believe I’m talking about this with a person named Bob Stewart. You do realize that’s European? Where the hell do you think you came from, Angola? Or are you a self-hating white person like most liberals?
Imam Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/9/2016 @ 12:46 pmMark, what has Islamic terrorism to do with immigration from Mexico? Have any terrorist immigrated from Mexico?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/9/2016 @ 1:21 pmThe people who come from Mexico legally are almost all aunts and uncles or other distant relatives of earlier immigrants, like the Reagan amnesty folks. There is a pecking order for immigration, and a quota, and by the time one gets through marriages, children of marriages, and relatives there is nothing left of the quota.
And a lot of these are dependents. The system was set up by Teddy Kennedy and the trades unions who did not want a lot of able bodies workers coming in.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/9/2016 @ 1:27 pmKevin M, not the drug trade itself but the cartel/warlords and violence from their failed state.
SPQR (e53149) — 4/9/2016 @ 4:42 pmMark, what has Islamic terrorism to do with immigration from Mexico?
Kevin, pointing out the willful foolishness of political correctness was the thrust of my comment.
I don’t see how anyone can make the claim — unless he or she is beholden to the sappiness of PC emotions — that millions of illegal immigrants from Mexico are somehow better than Mexican immigrants who’ve taken the time and effort to become a part of this society legally. I can at least see a bit of plausibility in the view that when it comes to new citizens truly enhancing the US, the legal arrival is not necessarily any better than the illegal one. But to say the illegal is better than the legal?
That to me is willful naivete, akin to those people in the US military who pretended that Nidal Hasan wasn’t a blatant weak link in the organization he was a part of, until it was too late.
Mark (0f444a) — 4/9/2016 @ 5:02 pmImam, I draw the line at the English Channel. Yes points east of that line have contributed many things, science, mathematics, and music to name a few, but almost nothing when it comes to governance. And our heritage from England was greatly modified by the independence that was deemed necessary in order for our fledgling colonies to prosper. Colonies of France and Spain were marginal, and if it hadn’t been for the jewels, gold, and silver, and perhaps some furs, the colonies of these countries would have been regarded as failures. Mere adornments of the sovereign rather than functioning economic entities. And Germany and points east weren’t even in the game until the mid-nineteenth Century outside of providing countervailing forces to an expansionist France. Most of these countries were still monarchies just one hundred years ago.
I don’t apologize for any of that. Progress isn’t guaranteed, and when it occurs, there are many who reject it. Too many in continental Europe were still attached to medieval institutions and ways of thinking. I’m very grateful that England understood the need for her to prevent the establishment of an overarching power on the continent. The Dutch attempted to play a similar role, but there was no mote around their country to prevent conquest by a European combination. England’s prosperity was due to the English Channel and the extreme exertions she was willing to take to protect her rights on the high seas, including the right to trade with far flung countries and colonies. And these only made sense for a population that had access to the Rights of Englishmen. Our primary heritage is Anglo and not Euro.
And my ancestors didn’t have it easy in Scotland. But Scotsmen valued learning, and in the 18th and 19th century these literate, hard working, well educated immigrants found America a land of opportunity. More so than what Scotland had to offer under British rule.
BobStewartatHome (7b7fb2) — 4/9/2016 @ 6:11 pmWhy is that Kevin M? I ask because we have already absorbed about 45 million of those immigrants. 45 million is not an immigration quota, 45 million is the population of Spain and almost that of England. No sovereign country can absorb that many of one ethnic group without changing the society itself. If you want to live in Mexico that’s okay but if you want to convert the US into Mexico it’s not.
Hoagie ™ (e4fcd6) — 4/10/2016 @ 3:06 pm