As you know, next week’s political primaries include both Ohio and Florida. These winner take all states are Mitt Romney and the Republican Establishment’s last firewall to stop Donald Trump. As things stand now, Romney’s gambit is likely to fail. Rubio will not win Florida and John Kasich will not win Ohio.
If Trump wins Florida and Ohio, what next?
Julius Caesar was warned to “Beware the Ides of March.” Caesar didn’t listen and was assassinated on that day, March 15th 44 B.C. This year, the Ides of March will likely claim two political victims: Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
Marco Rubio will experience his “Jump the Shark” moment when he loses Florida and will be relegated to political obscurity after next Tuesday. Some advisors clearly want to prevent that by having him get out now. CNN even ran a story yesterday where they sighted sources inside Rubio’s campaign claiming he was throwing in the towel. An hour later a conflicting story came out that Mitt Romney was doing robo-calls in four states to support Kasich and Rubio. Later, Rubio’s folks said the CNN story was a dirty trick by Cruz. This is the second time Cruz has been accused of this same tactic—the other time was during the Iowa Caucus.
I look for reality to set in on Rubio after the vote next week. The old saying that “failure is and orphan but success has many fathers” will be in play by this time next week. This brings us to the political death of Ted Cruz.
George Bush (both of them actually) taught us that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The unspoken part of this statement is that once we get what we want, the alliance is over and we again become enemies.
This brings us to Ted Cruz. He will be in real peril by this time next week.
It is now starting to occur to some in the Establishment that their best hope to stop Trump is not Rubio but Cruz.
(Yes, they really are this dense and unresponsive to reality or Trump would not be getting the support that he is with disaffected voters.)
I’m warning you Cruz supporters that this will be the kiss of death if the Establishment backs Cruz. Another lesson of history is “never look a gift horse in the mouth.” If these Washington Geeks bearing gifts do bow before Ted Cruz and pledge their support; be afraid, be very afraid.
Here’s why…
The Establishment hates Trump.
But the Establishment hates Conservatives more.
They will gladly use Cruz to beat Trump at the convention but then what? They will pay lip service to supporting Cruz for the November election but the reality is when Trump was defeated, they got what they want. The status quo was maintained.
Many in the Republican Establishment have already said they would be OK with Hillary in the White House. They are foremost about keeping their power not advancing the Party or serving the people. Power is more important than winning.
The fact is that if they help Cruz win a Convention fight in Cleveland from that moment on, Cruz will be on his own. They will provide no meaningful funding, infrastructure, or support. They will also actively work to undermine him. This is nothing new; it’s how they do things.
Why? Well that’s easy. They will say that Cruz losing proves a Conservative can’t win the White House, only a moderate can win. This advances their narrative that they won’t waste time backing any more Conservatives.
Thus, Cruz will have no political future and the Establishment can advance the meme that Conservatism is a failure and we won’t support it or candidates that believe in its values.
Conclusion: The elites in the Party Establishment maintain the status quo and simultaneously destroy the dual threats of Cruz and Trump.
If the Elites back Cruz, the best thing California voters could do is vote Trump to save Cruz. Now that’s irony.
Today, I’m going to attempt to explain why people are voting for Donald Trump.
I have in mind two groups for this explanation: the people out there that like the Republican Party as it is and the supporters of Ted Cruz.
First what is the phenomenon of Trump’s rise in popularity? Part of Trump’s popularity is that he doesn’t take crap from anyone. He gives as good as he gets. If you attack him he will retaliate in kind. Look at the penis flap this week. Marco Rubio said that Trump had a little one at a speech that he made and Trump mocked him about it on national television. Was it crude? Yes, but it made Rubio look stupid.
Marco Rubio told supporters last week that GOP presidential rival Donald Trump is “always calling me ‘little Marco.’”
“He is taller than me, he’s like 6’ 2”, which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5’ 2”,” Rubio joked. “Have you seen his hands? And you know what they say about men with small hands—”
The crowd erupted.
”—You can’t trust them,” Rubio said.
Rubio’s comment may come across tasteless for a presidential hopeful, but that was not the first time someone has questioned the size of Trump’s hands.
The article continues…
If you thought Rubio’s joke on the campaign trail last week would go un-answered by Trump—you were wrong.
Trump has brought up his hands up at least twice in the past 24 hours.
At a rally outside Detroit this morning, Trump said he would not sit back and be “presidential…when ‘little Marco’” talked about “the size of my hands.”
Trump held his hands up and said, “Those hands can hit a golf ball 285 yards.”
And at the Republican debate in Detroit last night, Trump said, “And I have to say this, I have to say this. [Rubio] hit my hands.”
“Nobody has ever hit my hands. I have never heard of this,” Trump continued, neglecting to reveal his repeated mailings to Carter.
“Look at those hands,” Trump said on the debate stage, holding up his hands to the audience. “Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands—if they are small, something else must be small.”
“I guarantee you there is no problem,” Trump affirmed. “I guarantee you.”
Trump is taking a page out of a familiar playbook. “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.” The Untouchables 1987
Ok, so contrast this with what the Republican Establishment has been giving us since 1989; especially at the presidential level and more recently in Congress.
George W Bush would never defend his policies; especially, going into Iraq. He would not defend himself, his administration, and by extension those of us that voted for him, period. He had some weird notion of turning the other cheek and hoping God would sort it out. When he wanted to do stupid stuff domestically, he ignored his base and gave us junk like the Medicare Part D, the bail-out, and other things that the Democrats wanted.
Neither McCain nor Romney would directly engage Obama when they ran for president. They were afraid; especially of being called racists for attacking Obama’s policies. As a result, they pulled their punches.
An alternate explanation is they knew they were lying when they tried to pass themselves off as conservatives when they were not. At some point each candidate didn’t have the heart to perpetuate the lie.
Was Sara Palin brought in so she could sound conservative so McCain would not have to?
George H. W. Bush gave us the American with Disabilities Act. This is by far the largest unfunded mandate in the history of the world—at least up to that time. It was poorly written and has cost both government and the private section trillions of dollars. It has been used as a club to destroy many small and medium sized businesses. On balance, it has hurt as many or more people than it has helped. This law was like doing open heart surgery with hand grenades; you might unplug the artery but what good is that if the patient doesn’t walkout of the hospital?
Bush also famously broke his pledge of no new taxes.
Republicans have owned the House for many years now and they can’t even pass a budget; which is their Constitutional duty. They said we are only one half of one third of government, we need the Senate if we want to get things done. Well, stupid us, we gave it to them and nothing has changed. They talk and talk but every time they have a chance to stand up to the President, they surrender without a fight. They are gutless, feckless, and spineless.
It took Newt and his boys tried three times to get welfare reform passed under Bill Clinton; but low and behold, Clinton finally signed it and then took credit for the idea. The thought of doing something similar to Obama is anathema to the previous and current Republican Leadership.
In short, it has been many decades since any Republican with vision, spine, and leadership has ventured into the public square to take on the Democrats or their enablers in the Republican Party. Reagan did it. Newt did it for the first hundred days and then a few times after that in the House. Republicans have never in my lifetime had a Senate Leader that was a Conservative.
People hate the direction that this country is going and nobody will stand up for them. Trump has the reputation of looking someone in the face and saying, “F.U., I won’t do it”. Yes he is crude. Yes he gave protection money to Democrats; how else do you do business in New York. You pay off the unions and the politicians and then you get your project built. He knows how the game is played.
Trump is a scrappy guy with a New York attitude. To beat Clinton—and frankly to treat Hillary the way she deserves to be treated (like a piñata)—is not the job for a gentleman like Ted Cruz. Ted is right on more issues than Trump but we don’t want a professor for a leader, we want someone that can move the masses (low information voters) in a meaningful enough way to get them to defect from the Democrats and vote for the Republican. The electoral map is such that Democrats only have to win about three states out of fifty to win the presidency—or block the path for a Republican.
Second, it is not fair to compare Trump with other recent insurgents on the political landscape.
Trump is not Jesse Ventura, Ross Perot, Patrick J Buchanan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or other non-traditional candidates. Comparisons to these men fall short of meaningful analysis. While no comparison is totally accurate, in my mind you need to go back to Teddy Roosevelt to find some comparisons. Teddy was a populist. He loved his country and was willing to confront folks in both parties. A significant difference between the two men is that Teddy formed the Bull Moose Party and tried to get to the presidency thru a third party instead of finding a path thru the Republicans.
Trump found a path thru the Republicans. Trump was not taken seriously by the Republican Establishment until he started winning; first in opinion polls and then at the ballot box. He is not relying on the same apparatus that the Party has set-up: consultants, advertisers, polling firms, etc. Trump has spent a fraction of the money that Jeb Bush spent. (Bush spent over 160 million and couldn’t break out of single digits in the polls)
Not using the failed system set up by the Establishment, they didn’t see Trump coming. Reagan did a variation of this when he ran. Reagan got his marketing people from Madison Avenue instead of the political consulting world. As a result, Reagan’s messaging was more effective.
Third, the reaction to Trump is encouraging more people to support him and solidifying his position as front runner.
Rank and File Republicans Tell Party Elites: We’re Sticking With Donald Trump
From Michigan to Louisiana to California on Friday, rank-and-file Republicans expressed mystification, dismissal and contempt regarding the instructions that their party’s most high-profile leaders were urgently handing down to them: Reject and defeat Donald J. Trump.
Their angry reactions, in the 24 hours since Mitt Romney and John McCain urged millions of voters to cooperate in a grand strategy to undermine Mr. Trump’s candidacy, have captured the seemingly inexorable force of a movement that still puzzles the Republican elite and now threatens to unravel the party they hold dear.
In interviews, even lifelong Republicans who cast a ballot for Mr. Romney four years ago rebelled against his message and plan. “I personally am disgusted by it — I think it’s disgraceful,” said Lola Butler, 71, a retiree from Mandeville, La., who voted for Mr. Romney in 2012. “You’re telling me who to vote for and who not to vote for? Please.”
“There’s nothing short of Trump shooting my daughter in the street and my grandchildren — there is nothing and nobody that’s going to dissuade me from voting for Trump,” Ms. Butler said.
This article from the New York Times captures much of the zeal for Trump but their attempts at analysis fall short. However two paragraphs deserve a closer look.
The furious campaign now underway to stop Mr. Trump and the equally forceful rebellion against it captured the essence of the party’s breakdown over the past several weeks: Its most prominent guardians, misunderstanding their own voters, antagonize them as they try to reason with them, driving them even more energetically to Mr. Trump’s side.
I wish to take issue with the assertion that “the party’s breakdown” occurred “over the past several weeks”. The Party has been broken for many years.
Look at us here in California. Republican registration has fallen to 27 percent. The State Party Chairman said a few weeks ago, that Republicans are the third largest party in the State. Numerically they are second but he looks at it in terms of Democrats being first at 43 percent, all others are 30 percent and then the GOP.
The Republican reaction in California is not to go to voters and see what’s changed and try to reconnect with the masses that have changed registration to Decline to State. No they have become more insular, less responsive to voters, and have adopted a “bunker mentality”. They have firmly affixed blinders and are charging around in the dark.
I think the same thing has happened to the Party on a national level. Demographically, the country is changing—and not in a good way. Both Democrats and Republicans have turned a blind eye to following the Constitution. All three branches of government are perverted, un-moored, and outside of their Constitutional boundaries.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference, a long-running gathering of traditional conservatives, attendees feared that they were witnessing an event that has not occurred in more than a century: the breaking apart of a major American political party.
They spoke ruefully of “fidelity” lost and “values” forgone. They conceded a strange new feeling of powerlessness in the face of Mr. Trump’s ascendance. And they mourned for a 162-year-old party that is starting to seem unrecognizable to them.
The Republican Party has been broken for a long time, but the Establishment has not noticed because they were the only game in town if you wanted an alternative to the Democrats. Trump is an alternative to the status quo. Both Parties have been ready for a re-alignment but perhaps the Trump phenomenon will finally trigger its arrival.
This brings me to Immigration.
Our immigration system is broken and has been for decades. It’s getting worse instead of better.
I’m going to throw a new twist into the discussion of immigration. My assertion is that there are two components of immigration: the governmental system and the societal.
Dr. Michael Savage has made his thesis on this issue: Borders, Language, and Culture. My comments fall within this paradigm.
We need to secure our borders and set-up a guest worker program. I totally agree with Trump and Savage on this. However, this does not go far enough. There is a societal aspect to immigration that is also in need of reform. This reform is one that was once a core value of America, it was the dream of immigrants to be Americans.
People that come here now, no longer desire to be Americans. They don’t make the sacrifice of those before them to leave their old country and adopt America as their own.
I know when my wife’s ancestors came here from Germany, they were required to sign a document renouncing their German citizenship and any claim to property in their old country. This was required not by us but the German government. Once they got here they could not turn back. Once in America, they wanted to learn English and work to make a better life than the one they had left.
Now immigrants can stay here for generations and not be assimilated into an American culture. They get to keep all their cultures, customs, and traditions. Even if they speak English they identify with their group not with their new country.
I remember that many children of Mexican immigrants that I went to school with never knew Spanish. They were here so they were expected to learn our language. Not by our government but by their parents. They spoke English at home so they would be good at it and have a better opportunity to get a good job when they grew up.
Now, public schools are legally required to provide translators and other tools so parents will never have to learn English. Heck when you want to vote in my county—Sacramento—the government is required to provide the ballot in English, Spanish, and some flavor of Chinese.
We passed a ballot measure in 1986 that declared that English is the official language of California but you sure wouldn’t know it by looking at our State.
Savage is right, without a unifying language and culture, what binds us together? Nothing. We are just in an uneasy ceasefire with the strangers living next door to us. Often their allegiance is not to our country but to their old country and old way of life.
For example, I have a friend at work that was born here, her parents are from China. She occasionally goes to Church and calls herself a Christian. She cares only for the welfare of the Chinese Community. Her first language is Chinese. She spends much of her spare time promoting a Chinese language newspaper that serves various enclaves of folks from China that live in the United States. It is run by an arm of the Communist Chinese government. She will only listen to politicians that pander to her ethnic group or have a Chinese heritage. She will always support Democrats. Only once has she flinched on the knee-jerk impulse to support the Dems and that was when the Dems were trying to pass a quota bill to increase Hispanic attendance at California Universities. Nobody cared that it might promote less qualified Hispanic children over Whites but when the Asia folks figured out that they would be the most screwed group in this racially based scheme, they went ballistic. They banded together and stopped the proposed legislation but none of the folks in the Chinese community were bothered by the fact that the people from “their community” had aligned with the Democrat leadership to screw them over. Leland Yee and others got a free pass.
This girl would be considered one of the better out comes from immigration. Most just stay in their ghetto where they happily take whatever scraps the government sees fit to give them. None desire above all else to be Americans.
Somehow people claim to love Dr. King but ignore the cornerstone of his belief that men should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
This Balkanization of the United States is a rather recent phenomenon. I bet that if you looked at the decline of immigrants desiring to be Americans as defined by learning English and enjoying freedom and this rise in immigrants clinging to their old ways and living off the government dole, there is a direct correlation with the increase in the popularity of soccer and decline of interest in baseball. Baseball was once the most popular thing exported by the United States. It was our goodwill ambassador to other nations. It was a welcome symbol of our country. Baseball, blue jeans and Bibles were once our biggest contributions to the world.
But back to Trump.
• Trump stands his ground, the Republican Establishment does not.
• Trump is a different type of political insurgent than anyone in recent memory. The Republican Establishment does not know what to do with him. To appropriate a phrase from Rush Limbaugh, they didn’t make him so they can’t unmake him either.
• Trump’s instinct on immigration is right. We only want people here that want to be like us, not those bringing their banana republic politics and ghetto mentality with them. The Republican Establishment has no plan but total capitulation on the issue.
How the Republican Establishment giving the Democrats a permanent majority for the next hundred years or more can be viewed as a victory on the issue is just baffling to rank-and-file Republican voters. Plans like Bush’s and Rubio’s are a suicide pact for the Republican Party. Furthermore, it’s a suicide pact for our nation.
Members of the military and those that have served in elected office take an oath to protect the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic. The domestic enemies of this country are the Democrat Party and the Republican Establishment. Neither group has any patriots left in them.
Supporters of Trump agree with him when he “calls out” both Democrats and Establishment Republicans. The ruling classes have no clothes. Trump is fearlessly confronting both.
Does he have the answers? Maybe not, but shining the light on the ruling classes and watching them scatter like cockroaches sure is entertaining. Hopefully it will wake-up enough folks to turn the country away from the destructive path it has been on.
Rubio Barack Obama was in the US Senate for three years—half of his six year term—before announcing his candidacy for President.
In contrast, Marco Rubio was in the US Senate for five years before announcing his candidacy.
Barack Obama’s early political career involved voting “Present” as a regular part of his tenure in the Illinois Senate.
Rubio on the other-hand can’t show up for work to even vote.
Romney
Why is Romney fighting so hard against Trump? If Romney had expended this much effort against Obama, he would be President now.
Also, have you noticed that Romney keeps claiming that he a conservative when making these attacks?
These Establishment guys are like Pharisees in Jesus’ day. Pharisees claimed to be the heirs of Moses but Jesus showed that they wouldn’t know the Law if it bit them on the butt. Likewise, the Establishment Republicans claim to be heirs of Reagan and Conservatives but by their actions repudiate the core values of both Reagan and Conservatism.
Romney is also trying to interject himself as the adult alternative that a split and fractured Convention should turn to for their salvation. Or to continue the biblical analogies, Romney is crying, “Follow me back to Egypt. We had it so much better there than following this Moses guy.”
I saw Marco Rubio on television last night. He was a petulant child and an embarrassment to the electoral process. His vitriol towards Trump was the stuff I would expect to see on late night television parody skits. That he really said it speaks volumes to me about his inability to act like an adult in public.
To a national audience, Rubio cried about Trump being a fraud and vowed to stay in the race just so he can deny Trump the nomination. In what universe Marco? Trump has the one thing you are incapable of getting, delegates. Your campaign rhetoric is the exact reverse of your voting record and you take offense when people point that out.
Rubio has gone to his patrons in Washington to get help. As a result, they are rolling out Mitt Romney tomorrow. Romney is a rich establishment guy who they think has the gravitas (oh how I despise that word) to go after rich guy Trump. Somehow this must have something to do with a supposedly brilliant strategy to invigorate Rubio’s lethargic campaign just in time for tomorrow’s debate.
Frankly, I think putting Romney on the board makes Rubio look like a pansy and his patrons look like dull, out of touch Washington Elites ( oh, they are).
Rubio is a dead man walking. Whatever happens, there is no chance in hell he is on the ballot in November.
Dr. Carson has stepped aside. He should have done it sooner but it clears the lane for Cruz.
For the first time in about two years, I went out of my way to listen to Rush today. He said he found some pundit in Washington that said The Establishment is even considering going with Cruz to thwart Trump. Rush thought this was nonsense and I agree.
Cruz is an ideologue and a self-proclaimed Constitutionalist. The elites would be better off with Trump.
Truthfully, the elites want the status quoi. This is the only option that voters find unacceptable.
The Republican Party is changing or going extinct; how that turns out probably depends on their treatment of Trump.
Eight years ago the major political parties put up their worst candidates—John McCain and Barack Obama—for the Presidency. Their worst beat our worst and every day Obama continues to prove it.
Now in 2016, our loudest is going against their loudest.
Hillary Clinton—whose accomplishments are limited to sleeping with the President and killing people in Benghazi—is trying to crush Bernie Sanders tomorrow so she can have a clear shot at the Whitehouse; (FBI indictment notwithstanding.)
Meanwhile, the spineless Republican Establishment and certain conservatives in the Party are faced with the likelihood that Donald Trump will be their nominee. Trump has many flaws but sleeping with the President and killing American Ambassadors are not amongst them. Trump is rough around the edges but he has proven that he can achieve his goals.
Unlike the Clinton’s, Trump earned his money the old fashioned way; not as a result of screwing average America citizens and getting obscene amounts of money for speeches and libraries. The Clinton’s were dead broke when Bill and Hillary left Washington and now they have a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Republicans have owned both houses of Congress for two years now and have absolutely nothing to show for it. It fact, the Democrats still run the place. The Republican leadership earned Trump as their candidate. They are a gutless lot. Republicans (and many Democrats) are tired of the political class being ineffective. The Congressional Leadership behaves like a simple minded dog that knows three tricks:
• How to play dead
• Roll-over
• And beg.
The biggest substantial difference between Trump and Hillary is this:
• Hillary will appoint people on the basis of political payoffs
• Trump will appoint people qualified for the job
The idea of Bloomberg or Romney coming in to save the Republican Establishment at the eleventh hour via a brokered convention is nonsense. Bush has been burned and Rubio is a clueless poser. It looks like the GOP Establishment has found someone they hate more than Ronald Reagan.
Washington is all about Power and Control—Hillary is both and Trump is neither.
Super Tuesday may be more than just the election that cements the field in November, it may be the cement that sinks the Republican Establishment, and that would be a very good thing.
Two very different articles today have appeared about discrimination and Christianity.
First, Glen Beck has launched a full-on attack of Donald Trump as a fraud who has never opened a Bible and is a fake Christian.
“too many people are looking at Trump and believing that man has ever opened a Bible…that’s the biggest crock of bullcrap I’ve ever heard”
– Glen Beck 02-11-2016
Mr. Beck’s personal beliefs on religion are rather out of the mainstream so I find it interesting that this is the area that he has chosen to attack Trump. Beck is a Mormon that likes to borrow ideas from Evangelical Christianity. There is no clear record that Beck could rightly be called a Christian—as defined by the Historical Creeds.
Beck was campaigning for Ted Cruz when he made his comments. Cruz has lifted the banner of Christ as his rallying point. This is curious to me when Cruz is unwilling to model public policy after Biblical Law.
I have reluctantly come to agree with Gary North’s assertion that Christians are not ready to lead. I have been in, under, and around Christians in politics for over thirty years, and this is long enough to follow several movements from start to finish, everything that Christians touch in the political arena, they screw-up. The latter state is worse than the former.
In the 1990’s, Evangelicals took over the Republican Party in California and made a huge mess out of it. Look at the Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, Capital Resource Institute, and a host of similar groups. They all end-up not bringing their faith and applying it to the political landscape but copying the power politic tactics of their enemies—they know no other paradigm—and adopting them as their own. Baptizing Power Religion does not make it Christian.
I don’t know where Trump’s heart is; only God does. I am not aware of any “fruit” to which I could point that says, “There’s your proof” but so what? I think of him as a typical American Roman Catholic. He has some incomplete knowledge of God and likely lacks a personal relationship with him. Trump needs your prayers—whether or not he is elected.
For Beck, Cruz, and Trump, I think of verses like this:
It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
Philippians 1:15-18
The second story which I will only mention briefly is about a BBC news anchor (presenter) Dan Walker. Walker is under fire for believing that Genesis is true and refusing to work on Sundays. (Chariots of Fire anyone?)
The bulk of the article is an attack on Walker by London Telegraph columnist Rupert Myers. Myers’ real problem is with God. Myers appears to be a typical humanist who is openly hostile to Christianity.
The gist of the matter is that because Walker is a Christian, he cannot be trusted when interviewing people on issues of science, education or technology.
If it weren’t for Christianity and the belief that God is knowable and his Creation is orderly and not random, we would have no basis for science but why let history get in the way of prejudice? Education in the West was the product of a Christian worldview.
Clearly Myers sees his chance to become the next Christopher Hitchens.
Cruz 28
Trump 24
Rubio 23
Carson 9
Paul 5
That’s 89 percent of the vote!
Where’s Bush?
Huckabee is out.
Look for Carson to decline further. I expect his support to shift to Cruz.
Paul, like his dad, will stay in as long as he can. The real question is when he does drop out, will he endorse anyone? And when he does will it matter?
Next it’s New Hampshire. Look for more GOP hopefuls to drop off after that.
I expect Trump to win in New Hampshire but who gets second? If Cruz finishes third, it may be a rough March for him. If he gets second, then we may have a more interesting contest.
Update 02-03-2016
Paul did drop-out. Wow.
Ditto for Rick Santorum
Also, is it the “Bush effect”? Not a single governor has a snowball’s chance to make it. This used to be proof that you could handle the Executive duties of the job.
Michael Bloomberg, is threatening to run as an independent for President if he doesn’t like where the race is heading. Supposedly, he will make-up his mind come March. link for article “President Michael Bloomberg”
This is nothing but wishful hoping by a bunch of Democrats that are fearful that Hillary won’t be their nominee. By March, Bloomberg will not only have missed most filing deadlines to run but missed participation in all early primaries and missed-out on being on the ballot during the “Super Tuesday” contests in March. By the time he would jump into the race and actually get his name on a ballot somewhere, the Republicans will likely have their nominee and we will know if Bernie Sanders really has the support of Democrats.
Bloomberg’s entrance into the race would cement a Trump victory and a fractured Liberal ticket. It would be worse that what Ross Perot did to George Bush back in 1992.
While it would be fun to watch, there is no way that it will happen. However, it does raise some interesting questions.
• Are Sanders voters voting for Bernie or against Hillary?
• Suppose Bloomberg managed to get on California’s ballot by the March 25th deadline. What happens in a State like California where only the top two vote getters in the primary appear on the November ballot? Suppose he is a serious candidate going into November but California says he can’t be on the ballot.
• Perhaps Bloomberg and Sanders show-up on the November ballot but a Republican does not.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Capitol Resource Institute (CRI) has concluded its 2015 fund raising campaign. The organization has used several failed attempts to overturn the “bathroom bill” via the initiative process as their latest source of fundraising and mail list building.
This is the least amount of signatures required to qualify a ballot measure in the modern era and CRI doesn’t even have enough signatures to submit them to be counted!
CRI has never qualified any ballot initiative they have attempted. This has been their pattern for about fifteen years now. They either find an issue or try to highjack someone else’s and use it to fund their operations. Furthermore, they never seem to raise enough money on their efforts to file any reports with the Secretary of State’s Office. I have been told by those that have investigated CRI ventures in the past that SOS doesn’t really care about failed attempts because statewide there are too many to follow up on. This has been fortunate for CRI because they have skirted the campaign finance rules and possibly some provisions of the tax code for non-profits.
CRI does not act ethically and follow the law—which most people would assume a Christian family values lobbying group would naturally do.
However, I have criticism that needs to be leveled at CRI different than those mentioned above; this is related to the fact that CRI is acting in the name of Jesus Christ.
First, Jesus told us to “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ “Luke 14:28-30
CRI knows how much a ballot initiative costs to run in California and they never have the money to complete what they set out to accomplish. To qualify a ballot initiative usually costs about three million dollars. As mentioned earlier, they never even get to the threshold of having to file electronically with the Secretary of State—$50,000. Once something is qualified for the ballot, you need additional funds to run the campaign. Depending on the issue and degree of opposition—which in CRI’s case would be significant—a campaign will cost on average 20 to 30 million dollars.
CRI not only looks foolish and makes themselves an object of ridicule but they do something even worse; they embolden the other side to become even more radical. The mockers of biblical authority and of Christ wrongly think that God is impotent because of the bad witness these folks are giving to our Lord.
In short, CRI has found a way of taking the Lord’s name in vain.
“You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. “ Exodus 20:7
The people involved with CRI have a proven record of failure. As much as it pains me to say it, I think we would be better off without CRI. A bad witness is worse than none at all.
Last Saturday, I was hunting for parts for the Facebook car that my wife purchased for my daughter. It took multiple stops to track down a replacement seat for this vehicle. In the course of my journeys, I encountered something that would make my friends at the Board of Equalization tremble. I wasn’t that surprised but still it seemed worth a mention on my blog.
While I was waiting to get my item pulled from inventory, some Hispanic fellows came into the store to get some parts for their week-end project. The sales guy asked what parts that they needed. The salesman then quoted them some prices. They seemed reluctant to pay that much and then the sales guy said, “No sales tax for cash purchases.”
I know I was told my part would be one hundred dollars plus tax. Then these other guys come into the store and are offered a different deal. I began to ponder this. It seems that this moral dilemma has many aspects to it. Oh, I’m not jealous that they got a different deal than me but it does make you wonder.
Let’s look at this situation:
• First, the State of California already got their pound of flesh from these used cars back when they were new. In effect, to tax these very used parts again is double taxation. On the face of it, this seems wrong.
• Second, if some guy like me buys these parts, aren’t we keeping them out of the landfill just a little longer? I thought recycling was supposed to be good public policy so why should I be punished with taxing these parts again? To most folks these items are just junk. The axiom, “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure” comes to mind.
• Third, aren’t we expected to give breaks to folks that might be of dubious citizenship? President Obama and Governor Brown sure think so. Their stated policy is don’t ask, don’t check.
• But fourth, shouldn’t we follow the law however unreasonable as long as it doesn’t violate God’s law? Romans 12 anyone?
• Fifth, tyranny is wrong so must we obey stupid laws that turn otherwise law abiding folks into criminals?
To summarize; is the simple statement about cash purchases not paying sales tax really that simple? It seems to be a microcosm of modern life.
As for me, I was just glad that I didn’t need to pay freight on my parts.
