Donald Trump - Some Perspective

Granted, Donald Trump has his flaws.  He's certainly not my choice.  At this point, a rehashing of Trump's strengths and weaknesses is useless.  It is becoming increasingly clear that he can win the GOP nomination.  So, it's time to put Donald Trump in perspective.  

By that I mean, who will he likely be up against?  It looks like Hillary Clinton will not be indicted by Barack Obama's DOJ (big surprise!), and will likely be the Democrat nominee.  So how does Trump stack up?  

Donald Trump has never:

• Been an accessory to rape
• Smeared women abused by his spouse
• Jailed a filmmaker to cover-up his own incompetence
• Attacked a country for no good reason and caused chaos on two continents
• Made billions selling U.S. Govt. favors
• Lied under oath
• Violated several U.S. laws regarding classified information
• Jeopardized U.S. national security by using an unsecured email server
• Stonewalled Freedom of Information requests
• Lied to the American people about official U.S. business
• Turned the IRS into a "gestapo"
• Looted the White House
• Sold secrets to the Chinese
• Lied about fake sniper fire in Bosnia
• Been pals with Saul Alinsky, Sidney Blumenthal, and Karl Marx (OK, I made the last one up...sort of.)
• Been fired for lying on a Watergate committee 

Sure, The Donald has his flaws, which I have touched-on here and here, but he's no Hillary on the evil scale.  Not even close.

The thing about our government that is truly sad in 2016 is that we have abandoned the founders design.  The thing that made us exceptional among nations, the thing we call "American Exceptionalism" was the founders design of a strictly limited government designed to do a few basic things and then focus on securing the natural individual rights of the people.  We long ago abandoned that model.  Like it or not we have a totalitarian democracy at this point.  Combine a totalitarian government with a jackass charismatic leader, like Barack Obama or Donald Trump, who you don't like, and it's a recipe for large scale discontent.  Presidents were never supposed to be this important or this powerful in the U.S.  

   

GOP: Is this really your guy?

Donald Trump reminds me a lot of the Al Czervik character played by Rodney Dangerfield in the classic comedy, "Caddyshack".   Both are real estate developers, golfers, over-the-top obnoxious people, and both are entertaining and oddly... lovable.  (Of course, the standards for comedic celluloid love and oval office love are... somewhat different.)

Also of note:  In Caddyshack, the brash real-estate developer disrupts the status quo at the "establishment" country club, which has the prophetic name, "BUSHwood".  They say that art imitates life.  Sometimes it's the other way around, with about 36 years in between.

So, watch my short Trump overdub of this famous scene from "Caddyshack", and tell me, seriously GOP, if this is your guy...          

Barack Obama, Constitutional Scholar

I love hearing Barack Obama spout off on the U.S. Constitution.  His latest invocation was on the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.  "The constitution is clear...", he lectured.  Then went on to righteously proclaim that anything less than senate confirmation of a radical liberal justice like Elena Kagan or Sonya Sotomayor would be tantamount to an unprecedented breach of his constitutional rights.  This from the man who as a U.S. Senator joined a Democrat filibuster of Samuel Alito.  Neither of his two nominations were filibustered by Republicans.  You can cut Obama's hypocrisy with a knife.  His own party once passed a resolution barring Supreme Court appointments in a presidential election year!  Now they are all suffering amnesia.  Ever hear the verb "Borking"?  

But, let's forget about all that nonsense.  Barack Obama did once serve as a college lecturer on the subject of the U.S. Constitution.  Yet, he has publicly aired his disdain for that document on numerous occasions.  So why study it?  Why teach it?  Same reason a thief studies security.  You need to know the weaknesses, the defenses, the loopholes, the strengths if you want to crack a safe or rob a bank.

So yes, Barack Obama became a constitutional scholar the same way bank robbers become bank security scholars.  They are all just casing the joint.

Ted Cruz is Awesome! XII

What no one seems to know about Ted Cruz's time at the FTC:         (From: PJ Media)  

At the FTC, Cruz’s agenda could have been written by Milton Friedman. 

Cruz promoted economic liberty and fought government efforts to rig the marketplace in favor of special interests. Most notably, Cruz launched an initiative to study the government’s role in conspiring with established businesses to suppress e-commerce. This initiative ultimately led the U.S. Supreme Court to open up an entire industry to small e-tailers. Based on his early support of disruptive online companies, Cruz has some grounds to call himself the “Uber of American politics.” 

Moreover, and perhaps surprising to some, Cruz sought and secured a broad, bipartisan consensus for his agenda. Almost all of Cruz’s initiatives received unanimous support among both Republicans and Democrats. 

Ted Cruz a consensus-builder? He was, at the FTC.

RIP Antonin Scalia, and the U.S. Constitution

RIP Antonin Scalia, who died today.  So did the U.S. Constitution.  The Constitution, however, has been sick for many years.  Here's what I wrote back in 2010:      

In 2008, the Supreme Court barely upheld the second amendment by a narrow 5-4 decision in DC v. Heller. The second amendment is all of ONE SENTENCE LONG and we’ve been debating its meaning for 220 years. It couldn’t be simpler. Yet it barely squeaked by with nary a vote to spare. A similar case, McDonald v. Chicago, is in the court right now and as usual, all bets are off despite that one, single, simple, clear, sentence. 

Now we have a new “right to healthcare”.  This week the president rewired 17% of the US economy with the stroke of a pen and a new 3000 page law.  Remember, the second amendment is one sentence long! How are we going to interpret our new 3000 page right to healthcare? Of course, unlike the right to bear arms, which hangs from a thread, the right to healthcare is not in the constitution. 

Nor is the “right” to Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare, but the court has never done anything about them either. These programs are like “deem and pass” amendments, unofficial changes to the constitution that we have selfishly agreed to allow because, hey, we like free stuff. All the while, we shamelessly stick our kids and grandkids with the bill, but we’re worth it, right? 

Roe v. Wade is based on another non-existent right, the so-called “right to privacy”. This right was based on a “penumbra” or weak shadow, cast by the bill of rights. Seriously, that’s how they justified it. The imaginary right to privacy was conjured-up by lawyers looking to find exactly what they needed in the constitution.  It is made-up. Yet that hasn’t stopped this law from surviving for some 26 years. 

We just watched the spectacle of the President berating the Supreme Court in his State of the Union Speech because they had the temerity to uphold the first amendment in Citizens United v. FEC.  Again, that was a narrow 5-4 decision on the really complicated first amendment, which is another behemoth at one sentence long! 

In short, rights that really are there, in clear language, must fight to within an inch of their lives, while imaginary rights, like the latest one, are cheered through with parades and marching bands. 

So I ask: If the constitution can mean anything, is it not really meaningless? Picture an orchestra warming up. There is no rhythm, no melody, no key, no limits, and no beauty. Just avant-garde progressive noise. That is the music of our modern US constitution.

Trump does Caddyshack!

Ready for Hillary!

There is zero chance Barack Obama will allow his DOJ to indict Hillary Clinton.  No, punishments for jeopardizing national security are for opponents only.  The rule of law under Barack Obama is that there is no rule or law that applies to his political allies.  But we can pretend...