The Front Page Cover
2016 The turth is the gold of today
Featuring:
Palin and the GOP’s Uncertain Trumpeters
Peggy Noonan.
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Picking to Pack the Supreme Court
55, 61, 62, 66, 68, 78, 80 and 83.
No, these aren't the latest Powerball numbers. They're the ages of the nine justices of the Supreme Court as of Jan. 20, 2017. Assuming all of them survive this year, it's likely that our next president could select three or more new members to the Court.
Those three highest numbers actually belong to four members of the Supreme Court: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be 83, both Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia turn 80 this year, and right behind them is Stephen Breyer. There are two each from the "conservative" and "liberal" wings of the Court — if Kennedy, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan after Senate Democrats shamefully "borked" Robert Bork, can be deemed something other than an unreliable and incoherent swing vote.
And while it may seem logical for Ginsburg and Breyer to step down now while a Democrat president can still appoint their replacements, the feisty Ginsburg, who is battling pancreatic cancer, has consistently thumbed her nose at those fellow liberals who suggested it. Back then, Democrats still had the Senate; liberals now know that window has closed. Barack nObama can name anyone he wants, but it's not likely the Republican Senate would roll over without a fight for a SCOTUS nominee, even though they mostly have done just that for lower courts of late. Moreover, the Senate has an unwritten rule that they won't act on filling judicial vacancies during the waning months of a president's term.
But the impact of a president can be felt long after he is gone based on the Supreme Court justices he selects. Both Scalia and Kennedy were Reagan appointees, and they are still on the court 27 years after he left office and almost 12 years after his death. Imagine, for example, what sort of impact a President Ted Cruz or President Marco Rubio could have with three or four Supreme Court appointees. -The Patriot Post
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Some Clinton Email Too Classified to Release
"I take classified information very seriously," Hilly Clinton insisted Sunday. "You know, you can't get classified information off the classified system in the State Department to put onto an unclassified system, no matter what that system is." She's not exactly correct, but it would take a herculean effort to strip classification markings — which is apparently what she did. "There is absolutely no evidence that I ever sent or received any email marked classified." Marked is the key word in Clinton parsing, and even former Clintonista George Stephanopoulos cornered her on that one: "You've said many times that the emails were not marked classified. The non-disclosure agreement you signed as secretary of state says that that's really not that relevant. It says classified information is marked or unmarked classified and that all of you are trained to treat all of that sensitively and should know the difference." Bingo, though her comments above were, astoundingly, in reply to his charge.
It's certainly inconvenient that the State Department just announced it would not release 22 of her emails at all because revealing the information contained in them — even if redacted — would be too damaging to national security. The State Department has already released more than 1,300 of Clinton's classified emails, but these 22 are so serious as to merit holding them. (Those and 18 more that are direct communications with Barack nObama, who famously claimed he only found out about Clinton's email practices "through news reports.")
Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy sums up the problem: "The reasoning behind that conclusion is alarming. It is not just that the intelligence community (IC) understandably wishes to keep top secret national-defense information under wraps. Because of how recklessly Clinton and her top aides handled classified information, the IC must operate under the assumption that there are copies of these 22 emails floating around — whether in the possession of current or former government officials but unaccounted for or, worse, in the possession of, say, foreign governments that managed to hack into Clinton's unsecured private system. If the State Department were to release publicly even redacted copies of the emails, those who may have complete copies will be able to figure out the SAP information and use that knowledge both to compromise government sources and programs, and in analyzing other U.S. government information to which they've gained access. In other words, it is potentially catastrophic."
Heck, even Bernie "Sick and Tired of Her Damn Emails" Sanders now thinks Clinton's malfeasance is "a very serious issue," though he swears, "I'm not going to politicize it."
Finally, on a related note, Defense Secretary Ash Carter has decided not to pursue further punishment for Gen. David Petraeus over mishandling of classified information. Perhaps Carter is simply trying to make life easier for Clinton. -The Patriot Post
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Is Cruz a Liar?
"Donald slump-Trump and Hilly Clinton and Bernie Sanders have the identical position on health care, which is they want to put the government in charge of you and your doctor," Ted Cruz said Sunday, attacking his rivals' health care plans. "Fact checking" site PolitiFact rated this statement false — because Clinton is the least leftist of the three, as she wants to preserve nObamaCare.
The next day, slump-Trump called into ABC to defend his position. "Look, Ted Cruz is a total liar," Trump said. "I'm so against nObamaCare. I've been saying it for two years in my speeches. I'm going to repeal and replace nObamaCare."
So the question is this: What will slump-Trump replace nObama's failed policy with? Currently, slump-Trump has not released a detailed health care plan. But if his past comments are any indicator, he will support some sort of single-payer health care system, similar to that of the socialist candidate. In 2000, while slump-Trump was pondering a third-party presidential run, he published a book, "The America We Deserve." In it, he wrote in praise of single-payer health care systems like the one in Canada: "We must have universal health care. I'm a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one."
In this weekend's interview with ABC, slump-Trump insisted he did not support single-payer, but he was downright idealistic regarding providing health care — and he sounded eerily like the liberals that condemn conservatives for their focus on fiscal responsibility: "We'll work something out. That doesn't mean single-payer and maybe [Cruz has] got no heart. And if this means I lose an election, that's fine because frankly, we have to take care of the people in our country. We can't let them die on the sidewalks of New York, or the sidewalks of Iowa, or anywhere else."
The results, we fear, will be that slump-TrumpCare would expand government even further and fulfill the ideological policy goals set by nObama. -The Patriot Post
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America’s Economic Freedom Has Rapidly
Declined Under nObama
Anthony B. Kim.
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After Facing Questions on Abortion, 2 nObama
Judicial Nominees Fail to Advance
Philip Wegmann.
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Michael Reagan to slump-Trump:
You’re No Reagan Republican
Fuzzy Slippers
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Oil Firms Delaying Projects
Tim Maverick
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‘This was all planned’: Former IG says Hilly,
State Dept. are lying
Paul Sperry
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Secretary of State Hilly Clinton in 2010
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Secret Fed Docs Show nObama Misled Congress,
Public During Debt Limit Crises
Richard Pollock.
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slump-Trump's Negative Image
Frank Newport
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FBI “Super Pissed Off” At nObama, Earnest
Over Latest Clinton Cover Up
Rick Wells.
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What nObama Just Did To Help Muslim
Terrorists Will Horrify You
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Is North Korea Ready To Launch An ICBM?
NICEDEB.
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Palin and the GOP’s Uncertain Trumpeters
Peggy Noonan.
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If you’re in the mood for irony, here’s one. The great foes of Sarah Palin now are the people who made her a national figure in 2008, defended her and attacked her critics. It is the GOP establishment that now most furiously disses and denigrates her. Everything has switched around in the GOP the past eight years. It is a world turned upside down.
If you’re in the mood for irony, here’s one. The great foes of Sarah Palin now are the people who made her a national figure in 2008, defended her and attacked her critics. It is the GOP establishment that now most furiously disses and denigrates her. Everything has switched around in the GOP the past eight years. It is a world turned upside down.
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In the short term her endorsement is said to help in Iowa. It would have helped Ted Cruz if she’d chosen him, because for the first time it would have drawn a line, for some people, between real conservatives and Mr. Trump. So it’s good for Mr. Trump she’s off the table and on his side. But in the long run it’s probably a wash. Mrs. Palin brings her own mad excitement, but at this point she sort of helps you with people who already like you and hurts you with people who already don’t.
In the short term her endorsement is said to help in Iowa. It would have helped Ted Cruz if she’d chosen him, because for the first time it would have drawn a line, for some people, between real conservatives and Mr. Trump. So it’s good for Mr. Trump she’s off the table and on his side. But in the long run it’s probably a wash. Mrs. Palin brings her own mad excitement, but at this point she sort of helps you with people who already like you and hurts you with people who already don’t.
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She may become a distraction from Mr. Trump’s daily appearances and statements, which will probably get on his nerves. I wonder if his people are already telling her: Thanks, you’ve done exactly what we wanted and you can go home now. She won’t want to—this is her comeback tour. If she stays on the stump Mr. Trump’s people may ask her to stay on message. She’s heard that before. She was invented by an establishment playing Dr. Frankenstein; the monster could turn on Dr. Trumpenstein too.
She may become a distraction from Mr. Trump’s daily appearances and statements, which will probably get on his nerves. I wonder if his people are already telling her: Thanks, you’ve done exactly what we wanted and you can go home now. She won’t want to—this is her comeback tour. If she stays on the stump Mr. Trump’s people may ask her to stay on message. She’s heard that before. She was invented by an establishment playing Dr. Frankenstein; the monster could turn on Dr. Trumpenstein too.
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The clever thing she did in her remarks was to bring up Phyllis Schlafly, still a generally uncredited force in the making of modern conservatism and a brave woman. Mrs. Schlafly supports Mr. Trump because she believes the conservative thing to do about a rotting edifice—the Washington political establishment—is to tear it down. Mr. Trump will “defeat the king-makers,” Mrs. Schlafly told Breitbart.com. I’d note that for those who admire the conservative philosopher-statesman Edmund Burke, this sounds radically at odds with his frequent counsel of restraint and respect for history.
The clever thing she did in her remarks was to bring up Phyllis Schlafly, still a generally uncredited force in the making of modern conservatism and a brave woman. Mrs. Schlafly supports Mr. Trump because she believes the conservative thing to do about a rotting edifice—the Washington political establishment—is to tear it down. Mr. Trump will “defeat the king-makers,” Mrs. Schlafly told Breitbart.com. I’d note that for those who admire the conservative philosopher-statesman Edmund Burke, this sounds radically at odds with his frequent counsel of restraint and respect for history.
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But Mrs. Schlafly’s view, too, has Burkean antecedents. When he thought something so corrupt as to be destructive of British character and national life, he went at it root and branch, as he did with the East India Company, which existed at the heart of and was a symbol of the British establishment. He challenged imperial practices, which is to say imperial corruptions. The point here, again, is that what is at issue in the party right now is not the end of conservatism but what a conservative approach would consist of at this point in history.
But Mrs. Schlafly’s view, too, has Burkean antecedents. When he thought something so corrupt as to be destructive of British character and national life, he went at it root and branch, as he did with the East India Company, which existed at the heart of and was a symbol of the British establishment. He challenged imperial practices, which is to say imperial corruptions. The point here, again, is that what is at issue in the party right now is not the end of conservatism but what a conservative approach would consist of at this point in history.
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What Mr. Trump really needs is to be endorsed not by Mrs. Palin but by a political figure with stature, some sane member or members or administrations past who could lend him credibility. He needs a gravitas injection. Trumpism suffers among its critics for a reputation for intellectual carelessness—it’s all political joyriding. Mrs. Palin’s presence does nothing to knock that criticism down, and in fact underscores it.
What Mr. Trump really needs is to be endorsed not by Mrs. Palin but by a political figure with stature, some sane member or members or administrations past who could lend him credibility. He needs a gravitas injection. Trumpism suffers among its critics for a reputation for intellectual carelessness—it’s all political joyriding. Mrs. Palin’s presence does nothing to knock that criticism down, and in fact underscores it.
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To a larger point. Eventually in this campaign some candidate is going to have to address Donald Trump and his rise in a thoughtful, serious way. The obvious one is Jeb Bush, by virtue of his name and its association with the way the party used to be—the old, orderly conservatism. Why doesn’t he do it? He insults Mr. Trump—“a jerk,” “unhinged.” He told the Journal’s Mary Kissel this week: “Donald Trump’s not a serious candidate.” Mr. Bush uncorks witless, prefab soundbites: Mr. Trump is a “chaos candidate.” What does that even mean? Mr. Trump’s burly supporters wouldn’t mind a little disruption, an exploding of the elites—that is, chaos.
To a larger point. Eventually in this campaign some candidate is going to have to address Donald Trump and his rise in a thoughtful, serious way. The obvious one is Jeb Bush, by virtue of his name and its association with the way the party used to be—the old, orderly conservatism. Why doesn’t he do it? He insults Mr. Trump—“a jerk,” “unhinged.” He told the Journal’s Mary Kissel this week: “Donald Trump’s not a serious candidate.” Mr. Bush uncorks witless, prefab soundbites: Mr. Trump is a “chaos candidate.” What does that even mean? Mr. Trump’s burly supporters wouldn’t mind a little disruption, an exploding of the elites—that is, chaos.
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Why not make a serious argument? Jeb especially has little to lose—Mr. Trump’s people will never like him—and, potentially, much to gain in terms of his own standing.
Why not make a serious argument? Jeb especially has little to lose—Mr. Trump’s people will never like him—and, potentially, much to gain in terms of his own standing.
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Here’s where he could start:
Here’s where he could start:
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What is Trumpism? Define it.
What is Trumpism? Define it.
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What’s wrong with Trumpism? Tell us. Is it a threat? To what?
What’s wrong with Trumpism? Tell us. Is it a threat? To what?
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Is it an attitude and not a plan? In a country split down the middle between leftish and rightish, why would it be harmful to have a new category?
Is it an attitude and not a plan? In a country split down the middle between leftish and rightish, why would it be harmful to have a new category?
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If Mr. Trump is not a conservative, why is that bad? That is, what’s good about conservatism? Why is it pertinent and necessary? If the GOP base is a big, broad jumble that includes people reliant on entitlements who also see progressive social ambitions as destructive to the nation, how does conservatism speak to them?
If Mr. Trump is not a conservative, why is that bad? That is, what’s good about conservatism? Why is it pertinent and necessary? If the GOP base is a big, broad jumble that includes people reliant on entitlements who also see progressive social ambitions as destructive to the nation, how does conservatism speak to them?
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What do you imagine a Trump presidency would look like? His supporters think he’ll go in there and clean out the stables. Would he? Could he? Can you?
What do you imagine a Trump presidency would look like? His supporters think he’ll go in there and clean out the stables. Would he? Could he? Can you?
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What’s wrong with a little disorder? Does Trumpism enliven our political life with zest and unpredictability, or does it diminish our political life with unthinking emotionalism and shallowness?
What’s wrong with a little disorder? Does Trumpism enliven our political life with zest and unpredictability, or does it diminish our political life with unthinking emotionalism and shallowness?
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Why is it important that a president have previous governmental experience? Here I will add that I have seen longtime officeholders start out with fire and idealism, only in time to learn too well what isn’t possible. “We can’t get that through.” “We lost on that one last time.” They quietly give up; their sense of reality becomes a lethargic pessimism. Mr. Trump, new to political office, would not know what’s impossible. Leaders like that, if they also have talent, wisdom, popularity and organization, can occasionally make the impossible happen. Is it worth the chance?
Why is it important that a president have previous governmental experience? Here I will add that I have seen longtime officeholders start out with fire and idealism, only in time to learn too well what isn’t possible. “We can’t get that through.” “We lost on that one last time.” They quietly give up; their sense of reality becomes a lethargic pessimism. Mr. Trump, new to political office, would not know what’s impossible. Leaders like that, if they also have talent, wisdom, popularity and organization, can occasionally make the impossible happen. Is it worth the chance?
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Most important, did Mr. Trump come from nowhere? Did the GOP establishment make any mistakes the past 15 years? If so, how can the damage be repaired? Was the Republican elite, like the Democratic one, essentially uninterested in the eroding power and position of the American working class? Were GOP leaders insensitive, cynical and selfish regarding public disapproval of and anxieties about illegal immigration?
Most important, did Mr. Trump come from nowhere? Did the GOP establishment make any mistakes the past 15 years? If so, how can the damage be repaired? Was the Republican elite, like the Democratic one, essentially uninterested in the eroding power and position of the American working class? Were GOP leaders insensitive, cynical and selfish regarding public disapproval of and anxieties about illegal immigration?
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What do you see when you look at Trumpism? Aside from what Robert Oppenheimer saw when the bomb exploded: “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.” Is Trumpism in part a hopeful tendency, or just a throwing in of the towel?
What do you see when you look at Trumpism? Aside from what Robert Oppenheimer saw when the bomb exploded: “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.” Is Trumpism in part a hopeful tendency, or just a throwing in of the towel?
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Imagine such a speech—a serious, respectful, historically grounded one.
Imagine such a speech—a serious, respectful, historically grounded one.
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And why not? History is serious. It isn’t just the beeps and bops of daily events in a political year, it has to do with major outcomes in the life of a people. This moment is part of the political history of the United States.
And why not? History is serious. It isn’t just the beeps and bops of daily events in a political year, it has to do with major outcomes in the life of a people. This moment is part of the political history of the United States.
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Have some imagination! Sarah Palin just entered the picture. This will make people hungrier than ever for thoughtful, candid, sober reflection. Someone has to be as big as history.
Have some imagination! Sarah Palin just entered the picture. This will make people hungrier than ever for thoughtful, candid, sober reflection. Someone has to be as big as history.
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