Donald Trump

Trump Appealing to Truthers & Birthers

Published by Papa Giorgio
  • “Who needs Michael Moore!? Who needs Bill Maher!? Who Needs Ted Kennedy!? …We got Trump!” ~ Larry Elder

In this first excerpt of some great commentary by Dr. Thies, we see the last minute appealing by Trump to the fringes of both parties:

In saying George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Donald Trump possibly reveals his general election strategy: appeal to truthers as well as to birthers. As discussed in a prior blogpost, about half of Democrats are truthers, and about half of Republicans are birthers. All that is missing from combining the kook segments of the electorate of both the right and the left with economic nationalism and xenophobia, is promising free stuff. Thus, the perfect opponent to the Donald in the general election would be Bernie Sanders. But, did Bush lie about weapons of mass destruction?

To say Bush lied is to say that the Bush administration knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. But, weapons of mass destruction were indicated by intelligence. Even so, as an assessment by the Defense Department said, “Our knowledge of the Iraqi (nuclear) weapons program is based largely—perhaps 90%—on analysis of imprecise intelligence.” In real time, Colin Powell famously accepted the conclusion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and attempted to persuade the UN Security Council of this. But, in his 2014 book, It worked for me, Powell says he should have been more skeptical. He says he failed to smell this out….

In this second post by Professor Thies
adds to the depths Trump will pander:

At Saturday’s debate, Donald Trump said, “You call it whatever you want. I will tell you. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none. And they knew there were none.”….

Trump’s statement was taken as the popular accusation, “Bush lied,” as in “Bush lied, thousands died,” the slogan of Code Pink and other left-wing critics of the administration.

As an aside, I point out in depth the fact that there were WMDs in Iraq, HERE.

One Minute Version:

HotAir asks in their title a question: Did Trump damage his chances by accusing Bush of lying about Iraq? — to which they respond:

Ace says yes. I’m not convinced.

If Donald Trump is right, and George W. Bush deliberately schemed with his neo-con advisers to “lie” us into a phony war with Iraq, what does that say about the average Republican voter who supported Bush from 1999, voted for him, defended him through the recount, cried with him on 9/11, agreed with him on Iraq, defended him from ceaseless liberal attacks on him during the war, defended him from Obama’s never-expiring “Blame Bush” blame-shifting, etc.?

If Trump is right, then we’re not just wrong to have supported him. If Trump’s right, we’re goddamned rubes and fools to have defended this Actual Hitler-Level Monster for going on 17 years now…

This is a long way of saying Trump specifically and completely contradicted a belief that 75-80% of Republicans have about Bush — that he was a fundamentally decent man, perhaps overwhelmed by a very difficult period, who made an erroneous decision based on incomplete information — and instead offered a new belief, that Bush deliberately lied about Iraq’s WMD’s, a position that 75-80% of Republicans have long not only rejected but have been actively hostile towards…

I think Trump, who has been a past-master at getting people to buy-in to a very low-cost premise — “Let’s Make America Great Again” — just made a very high cost premise central to buying into him.

[….]

I think that, at this stage of the game, if you’re still open to Trump then nothing he says about Bush or Iraq is going to sway you. If you’ve sat through 20 Ted Cruz commercials a day in South Carolina attacking him as a phony conservative, a pro-choicer, and a parasite using eminent domain to prey on the working class, “Bush lied” isn’t the straw that’ll break the camel’s back. If anything, it’s all part of Trump’s Republican reboot. Trumpmania is a catharsis, repudiating the establishment and its idols (except Reagan, who’s simply too sanctified). If Bush gets caught up in that, eh. That’s all part of Year Zero. If Trump ends up paying a price for this, I think it’s more likely to come after he’s the nominee and some segment of conservatives decides that they can’t in good conscience support him in the general. “Bush lied!” will be part of a long list of disqualifying Trump positions for those righties once the time comes to make their break. For most Republicans it’ll be absorbed and put aside — but keep an eye on what happens this week as Dubya hits the trail for Jeb. The fact that he’ll be right there in front of South Carolinians, reminding them of how much they like him, makes Ace’s theory stronger than I would otherwise expect.

Trump’s “Conversion” and Bank Account (Updated File)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This first audio is just uploaded and it quite long. The other audio/videos below it are shorter, so you may want to skip this first media file to get the gist of the post:

Trump-Darth-Vader

This seems to be a popular rejoinder when people confront Trump supporters about him being a Democrat:

  • Yeah, but Reagan was a Democrat before being a Republican.

Brent Bozell responds to this non-sequitur in the National Review special edition on Trump:

A real conservative walks with us. Ronald Reagan read National Review and Human Events for intellectual sustenance; spoke annually to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Young Americans for Freedom, and other organizations to rally the troops; supported Barry Goldwater when the GOP mainstream turned its back on him; raised money for countless conservative groups; wrote hundreds of op-eds; and delivered even more speeches, everywhere championing our cause. Until he decided to run for the GOP nomination a few months ago, Trump had done none of these things, perhaps because he was too distracted publicly raising money for liberals such as the Clintons; championing Planned Parenthood, tax increases, and single-payer health coverage; and demonstrating his allegiance to the Democratic party.

Its called a “moral bank account,” Reagan spent years involved in the conservative movement before running. Trump has just “changed”… but wants single-payer health care (more left than Obama-Care), wanting to put his extremely left wing-sister on the Supreme Court, etc.

Prager explains this to the first caller in this two call upload:

The “A Time for Choosing” speech given by Reagan in 1964 could never be made by Trump:

However, I agree with George Will that this delineation with the common man of what a Republican “is” versus “isn’t” is past it’s time of any fruit:

On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” while discussing the National Review’s special edition in opposition to  Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, conservative commentator George Will said  it might be too late.

Will said, “General Douglas MacArthur said that in war, every disaster can be explained in two words ‘too late.’ The question is whether the conservative wing of the Republican Party, AKA the Republican wing of the Republican Party, is beginning too late to rally against Mr. Trump.”

(Breitbart)

Trump Lacks a Conservative Bank Account ~ Dennis Prager

Published by Papa Giorgio

Video Description:

✦ “Today’s big puzzle is how so many otherwise rational people have become enamored of Donald Trump, projecting onto him virtues and principles that he clearly does not have, and ignoring gross defects that are all too blatant.” ~ Thomas Sowell on Trump

The first caller cannot understand Dennis’ dislike of Trump but like for Ann Coulter. Dennis explains why the two are different. The other call is by a strong Republican who gets Prager talking about people who vote based on emotion (yes, we got them as well) and those who vote based on reason.

We are really witnessing infighting between brothers… for instance, here is National Reviews anti-Trump special:

➤ http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430126/donald-trump-conservatives-oppose-nomination

And here is American Spectator’s Jeffrey Lord supporting article:

➤ http://spectator.org/articles/65271/trump-cruz-2016

Pat Condell On Truth and Trump

Published by Papa Giorgio

Republicans Reject Trump’s Religious Test ~ Rightly So

Published by Papa Giorgio

In Starbucks I overheard a conversation mentioning Republicans not saying much against Trump’s position of a religious test for people coming into the U.S. I wanted to post some audio of Lindsey Graham and Carly Fiorina (from the Michael Medved Show) where they very clearly and strongly deny Trumps position. In fact, as of today, ALL the other Republican Presidential candidates have come out against Trump on this issue.

What Trump has right is that we can (and have) stopped immigration at times from countries… but what he has wrong is that we cannot [Constitutionally] ban people entry from the world who are Muslim. You could stop immigration (all immigration) Constitutionally from, say, Syria and Pakistan… but not, as Medved points out, from Saudi Arabi — who are our “allies.” Here is that audio that includes some challenging phone calls. Take note Zuhdi Jasser was the guest during this hour: