The way I read the numbers coming out of Super Tuesday, Donald Trump lost the nomination tonight. Perhaps more accurately there’s no way he can lock up the nomination.
The way I read this thing, who drops out, who gives their support to Who, is what’s going to make or break this nomination process.
Rubio Carson and the rest of the wannabes are going to have to drop out. There is no way at all that they can win the nomination. Not even close. What we have now is a two man race. Trump and Ted Cruz.
The positioning of the candidates within the next 48 hours will tell the tale.
Life, unfortunately, has a tendency to get in the way of blogging.
One of the things that has been occupying me lately is the death of a friend. I won’t say much about that except he was a fellow driver, and he will be missed.
Jake Tapper trolled Donald Trump for a sound byte for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and the Donald refused to step into Tapper’s snare, Tapper to Trump, via Red State:
Will you, unequivocally, condemn David Duke and say that you don’t want his vote or that of any white supremacists during this election?
Tapper is trolling for general election sound byte. His question contains to separate element, which taken in isolation, have a different answer. First Tapper asks Trump to denounce David Duke. OK, what politician would not. However second, Tapper asks Trump if he wants Duke to vote for him. Every politician wants every vote. Did Tapper ever ask Barrack Hussein Obama to tell the domestic terrorist, and Obama supporter Bill Ayers not to vote for Obama? Of course not, Obama was running for president and wanted every vote, including those of domestic terrorists like Ayers or religious bigots like Reverend Wright.
Not that I think Trump is a smart man, but a smart politician once did given a smart answer to Trapper’s gotcha type of question, from Red State:
“Those of us in public life can only resent the use of our names by those who seek political recognition for the repugnant doctrines of hate they espouse.
“The politics of racial hatred and religious bigotry practiced by the Klan and others have no place in this country, and are destructive of the values for which America has always stood.”
Alas, the Donald is no Gipper.
Waiting for Tapper to ask Mrs. Clinton about her courting the support of Black Lives Matter in four, three, two ….
Mrs. Clinton, the same woman who failed the DC bar exam, formerly known as the Smartest Woman in the World, and her hand picked media stooge, Steve Harvey, are both too stupid to know the Declaration of Independence from the Constitution of the United States, from Fox News:
The Democratic presidential front-runner mistakenly cited a “constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” during the interview with host Steve Harvey.
“We’ve got to say to the gun lobby, you know what, there is a constitutional right for people to own guns, but there’s also a constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that enables us to have a safe country where we are able to protect our children and others from this senseless gun violence,” she said.
Harvey offered her an approving “absolutely.”
Mrs. Clinton is you want to clamp down on senseless gun violence secure our borders and put an end to sanctuary cities. If you want to curtail violence against children, defund Planned Parenthood.
Playing the race card is amounts to conceding the argument. However I do find it amusing to see the roles reversed. Doctor Ben Carson is the dying gasps of his campaign has played the race card on Dim Won, b/k/a Barrack Obama:
Washington (CNN)Ben Carson suggested that if elected president he might be the first African-American to hold the position noting, President Barack Obama was “raised white” and outside of the United States.
“He’s an ‘African’ American. He was, you know, raised white. Many of his formative years were spent in Indonesia. So, for him to, you know, claim that, you know, he identifies with the experience of black Americans, I think, is a bit of a stretch,” the retired neurosurgeon told Politico’s Glenn Thrush on his “Off Message” podcast aired Tuesday.
Rather playing the race card, Doctor Ben should have played the stupid card. Speaking of the stupid card, MSNBC is arguing the Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are somehow not Hispanic, from Newsbusters:
As if they didn’t learn anything from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, the panel on Monday’s Nightly Show decided to call into question the Hispanic credentials of Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio
Score one for Doctor Ben.
Mrs. Clinton, the one formerly known as the Smartest Woman in the World, is now too stupid to know that she has made her paid speeches to Wall Street relevant,
First Mrs. Clinton makes specific claims to as what she told Wall Street, and wants credit for it, from Hill:
“I was the candidate who went to Wall Street before the crash. I was the candidate who said to them, ‘You are wrecking our economy.’ “
Then, Mrs. Clinton refuses to release speeches which would collaborate what she said:
“I am happy to release anything I have when everyone else does the same, because every other candidate in this race has given speeches to private groups, including Sen. Sanders,” she said during Thursday’s MSNBC Democratic presidential town hall, referring to rival candidate Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders has not campaigned on the basis of what he told, or did not tell, Well Street. As such, Sanders’ Wall Street speeches, if he made any, are simply not relevant.
Pope Francis posits a test for Christianity, and fails it. Francis strikes me as man of much belief, but little learning. Similar to his his fellow traveler, Maddy Albright, Francis claims to be able know another man’s soul.
ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis said Thursday that Donald Trump is “not Christian” if he wants to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. Trump immediately fired back, saying it is disgraceful for a religious leader to question a person’s faith
It has almost be said that a man who lives behind walls should not judge another man’s walls. The Vatican is a walled city, and for good reason. I know of no plan Francis has to take the walls down. Francis is no Gipper.
On to the Donald, Politico has the Donald’s full throat, in character, and thoroughly unconvincing response to Pope Francis, here. Had Trump but said, “I forgive [Pope Francis]”, I would have been impressed. If brevity be the sole of wit, Trump is a witless fool.
From Micaiah Bilger, Life News,
Kansas family Ian and Brittani McIntire were heartbroken when doctors told them that one of their unborn twins probably will die before he is born.
Baby Mason McIntire has a hole in his heart and an abnormal brain. But the family said they are clinging to the knowledge that Mason is not alone in the womb. His unborn twin sister, Madilyn, is there to comfort him.
On Tuesday, the family shared with their local news station a heartbreaking ultrasound image of baby Mason’s tiny hand clinging onto his sister’s fingers.
Life is hard. Love is good.
From the biologically confused CBS:
PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota would be the first state in the U.S. to approve a law requiring transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their sex at birth if the governor signs a bill passed Tuesday by the state Senate.
Why does it take legislative action to require boys to use the boy’s room and girls to use the girl’s room? It is a fact that sex is immutable. If you are born a male, you will die a male.
Preface, video:
The Snark of the Day, Ed Morrissey:
Some candidates only seem barking mad. Others take it to a more literal degree.
Hat tip: Caleb Howe, Red State.
I gotta give Mrs. Clinton some credit. She should know something about dogs. She is married to one, B.J. Clinton, and employs attack dogs like James Carville.
Then where Mrs. Clinton made her mistake was when she veered from her area of expertise, to wit dogs, to one of profound weakness economics. The economic downturn of 2008 was born by the the Clinton’s administration enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act. The Clinton administration forced banks to make bad loans and eventually the loans failed. Not that expect Mrs. Clinton to be able to understand that.
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Tonight finds me outside Rochester. I’ll be headed down into New Jersey in the morning come around 5 o’clock or so. They got some serious weather down there right now, and I’m hearing from people in various places across the mid section of the eastern seaboard, that the weather is terrible flights are being cancelled the driving is horrendous and so on. It’s all part of the game for me of course, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. There are times I’d just as soon not drive and tomorrow is one of them.
As it happens I’m here because of a minor malfunction that popped up in the truck. I’ll have to deal with it for a couple of days because the rest of the system is still scrambling trying to get everything together from that cold snap we had up here yesterday. As you may know, diesel fuel has a tendency to freeze and truly mess things up. Well that’s what happened for the majority of our fleet, & I gather from drivers from other lines that we are not alone. Again, it’s part of the game, particularly this time of year.
Valentine’s Day passed this year almost on March in our family. That is sad because Donna deserves better than that. Given the proximity of Valentine’s Day to her birthday though its always ended up being less of a celebration for us and then it might have been. It’s usually us going out for a weekend to celebrate both days.
I cherish the time that she and I have together, but I must confess that’s this job I have takes a lot out of a body, & I always feel a little guilty that I wasn’t able to spend as much time awake and alert with the family as I might have been otherwise. They understand, and all that, but still. Again, part of the game I suppose.
Sigh.
Onto other matters…
This evening I note the passage of one of the greats of the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia. Ronald Reagan certainly knew what he was doing when he nominated him to the court some time ago.
Beyond that, I will leave the task of praising Scalia and his work to others who will certainly do so… and it is right that they should.
But at this stage, it is my opinion that Scalia’s passing puts an even sharper focus on the upcoming election and its results, and it’s this that I want to concentrate on here tonight.
First of all, the rare occurrence of my agreement with Mitch McConnell is noteworthy. McConnell suggests that it’s a good idea for us to hold off on appointing a new justice until such time as the election goes past us. In other words, to leave the election to decide the type of justice that we shall have to install his place. Personally I wonder if Mitch McConnell and the remainder of the Republican Senate have the testicular mass to stick to that idea. Time will tell, but I’m somewhat skeptical.
Speaking of skepticism, I will admit that there is a certain part of me that considers the timing of Scalia’s passing to be too damned convenient for it not to have been arranged. Occam’s razor cuts two ways on this one. First, it can be easily said that Scalia’s passing certainly benefits the left, because it allows a stone cold left as president to appoint a stone cold leftist jurist, and, given the current balance of the court, completely change that balance. Moreover with the GOPs record of bending over forward to give Obama everything he wants it seems to me that the chances are extremely high that such an appointment would go through.
On the other hand it also seems to me that if the Senate and McConnell and the other leaders in Congress in particular have the guts to stand up to Obama and reject anything he sends down until such time as the election goes past, then we have a decent chance of not only taking the White House but also ending up with another strict constitutionalist in the chair just vacated by Scalia.
Not to put too fine an edge on it, I will say that if we fail to replace Scalia with someone of his like and way of thinking, we will lose the country.
Recognizing this I refuse to believe that others don’t understand what’s at stake here, and therefore it seems to me also that this would be a gigantic get out the vote aid for the GOP. With something on the order of 30% of the country thinking that is too conservative, or put another way the vast majority of Americans appreciating a conservative court and perhaps a majority of them also wanting a more conservative court it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see which way this next election is going to go if the point of Supreme Court justice appointments is made essential point in the campaigns.
Then again, the record of the GOP on this matter hasn’t been all that great lately. We’ve ended up with several appointees to the Supreme Court who turned out to be far more left-leaning then was needed and certainly left leaning enough to catch the president Who nominated them by surprise. Consider Anthony Kennedy, who recently opened that the Constitution is a Floyd documents, as an example… Consider also the chief justice.
It’s my guess that the White House will be exerting all kinds of pressure on each individual senator, trying to get Obama’s sure to be liberal candidate on to the court.
Of course there is President or Congress not wanting to approve any one this far along in a lame duck presidency. Ponder for example the specter of Chuckles the Clown Schumer.
Of course, there was more president than that, even. As David French says…
Does any sentient human being believe that if the Democrats had the Senate majority in the final year of a conservative president’s second term — and Justice Ginsburg’s seat came open — they would approve any nominee from that president? Further, does any sentient human being believe that the Democrats’ behavior in 1987-88 — when they engaged in shameful character assassination against Robert Bork before finally confirming Anthony Kennedy — represented Democratic cooperation with President Reagan?
Indeed. And consider also the character assassination tossed by the Democrats at Justice Thomas.
We will hear much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the left, and from Obama specifically over the supposedly obstructionist Republicans. He will do anything he can to secure whatever is left of his legacy. But he must not succeed, else we have lost the country, game over. What Reagan called the last best hope for freedom this planet has, will be gone.
Say what you will about the idea that the death of Antonin Scalia was arranged, that could go either way. As I say, I think it’s awfully convenient, him passing on just now. And the circumstances along with the lack of an autopsy strike me as suspicious. But what strikes me as interesting and indicative of the level of trust that Obama currently has from the American people is that a large portion of the American people wouldn’t put such an execution past him. Or his fellow travelers.
That, I think, is the measure of the last 8 years.
And down the road I go. I’ll see you tomorrow.
:The Snark of the Day, Victor Davis Hanson
[B.J.] was not, then, the garden-variety beltway philander, but in a special uncouth class that might have won him an indictment without his political immunities. It is bad enough for Hillary to be married to a serial skirt-chaser, but quite worse to have a husband hop on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express jet.
Hat tip: Ed Driscoll, Instapundit.
I confess that could have pulled any paragraph as the snark.
I set the Wayback Machine to January 27, 1998, and Mrs. Clinton on the Today Show:
“Well, I don’t know if I’ve been that dramatic. That would sound like a good line from a movie. But I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this — they have popped up in other settings. This is — the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”
Eighteen years ago Mrs. Clinton adopted the phrase “vast right wing conspiracy” in an vain attempt to convince the public that her husband, B.J. Clinton did not have an affair with his intern Monica Lewinsky. Lucky for Miss Lewinsky she saved her soiled blue dress, and the rest is history.
Flash forward, the Clintonistas are still played the same VRWC card, from Jack Heretik, Washington Free Beacon:
Hillary Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon on Thursday accused the State Department Inspector General’s office of launching baseless fishing expeditions aimed at harming Clinton’s campaign.
CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked Fallon about a Washington Post report that the State Department issued a subpoena to the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton family’s charity, for documents about projects that needed federal government approval while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. This included records from Clinton’s controversial aide, Huma Abedin.
[…]
Fallon didn’t walk back his allegation when pressed by Blitzer, who pointed out that State Department Inspector General Steve Linick was handpicked by President Obama and confirmed by a Democratic-controlled Senate in 2013.
“So you say this fishing expedition or whatever you’re calling it, that there’s sort of a plot inside the inspector general’s office in the State Department, to get Hillary Clinton?” Blitzer asked.
“All I know is they have mounted several different fishing expedition-style investigations since she decided to run for president,” Fallon said. “There’s no basis to any of them and it is intended to create headwinds for her campaign. It is not going to work.”
Maybe Mrs. Clinton can forward a message to Dirty Harry Reid on why and how he allowed Steve Linick to be confirmed an Inspector General for the Obama regime State Department?
In the meantime Mrs. Clinton, find a new excuse!
