WSJ: The Cheap Moralizing of Never Trump

[Smokin Joe]

Term limits and imposition on regulations and/or regulatory agencies.

And WTH. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Plus  it would really point out how Marxist this country is.

My first problem with an Article V Convention of States is that I don't think additional Constitutional Constraints will work with a Government which ignores the present ones.

Note, too, that though the Constitution Party Platform doesn't favor such, the Constitution still  allows that form of relief, regardless. I'm sure neither the Republicans nor Democrats would favor one, either, but that doesn't stop citizens from seeking relief under Article V.

I think there is a lot in the Platform that is good, more than I have seen elsewhere, and no Party Platform can stop an Article V Convention if that is what the People want.

That said, I'm all for Term limits, but I don't think we'll get that through Congress. Can Term Limits be imposed on a Federal office from the State Legislatures? I'd like to see the ability of the People to petition to recall any Congressional office holder in their jurisdiction, too. Vote them out if they aren't doing the job.

IMHO, Federal regulations are commonly unconstitutional. It is a supreme cop-out for the Congress to task an agency with promulgating regulations which have the force of law, when the agency is part of the Executive Branch. It is in effect delegating a Legislative Branch function to an agency which, at most should be tasked with enforcing the regulations. The result is that we not only have more regulations, but they get to the point where without oversight, they become ridiculous. If they cover too many fine points for the Congress to handle, maybe we don't need them, especially at the Federal Level. How many of those agencies should exist at the Federal Level? Where and what is the Constitutional Authority for the Federal Government to regulate Education? for one example.

Part of the problem is that the Federal Government has grown far beyond the scope it should have, had it been kept contained to its original tasks, and the Constitution enumerated those duties--all else was to be the provenance of the State and Local Governments, or simply left alone.

What constraints would we be able to impose with an Article 5 convention of States that would be likely to pass? Where, specifically, would you impose those?

[Smokin Joe]

Yes, but it still has to be passed by 3/4 of the states.  Highly unlikely that 3/4 of the states would go for something LIV.  I really think the risks are minimal and the rewards could be significant.

I would note that while the Party Platform does not favor the idea for the reasons I have stated, that does not preclude proceeding with the drive to have an Article V convention.

After all, that relief is part of the Constitution. No one is proposing its removal, just questioning the wisdom of one given the level of education the average person has about how the Republic is supposed to function and what the Federal Government is supposed to do.

The caution is, and has been, that the results could vary greatly from intent, especially if the convention is hijacked. If 20-25% of voters supported Trump, and roughly 50% are liberal Democrats, the numbers could get ugly quick.

Regardless of that one issue which still remains a possibility despite any Party backing, what do you think of the rest of the Platform?

[jpsb]

As you know, I'm a  bit more cynical about Cruz's motives.  Clutching at Trump-shaped straws on judges probably was among his reasons.

But I suspect he was also protecting his political viability: Basically, "would the party support me if I didn't vote for the party's nominee?"  The answer being no -- and Cruz was almost certainly told as much behind closed doors -- he had to do what he did, grudgingly and with as little commitment or conviction as possible.

Cruz decided to honor his pledge when the head of the RNC, Reince Priebus, said that anyone that did not honor their pledge would receive no help from the RNC in any future election. That would have been a death sentence for Cruz in 2018. He still might get taken out in a primary, it mostly depends on who runs against him.

[jpsb]

I see leadership skills are not among your finer qualities. You basically just said "Accept what you are given or else" which curiously is what destroyed the GOP as a political force.

You also adopted Obama's "I won" mentality. Pretty readily too, come to think of it.

What destroyed the GOP is Bush-ism. HW Bush and W. Bush are responsible for mess the GOP is today. Trump-ism is a repudiation of Bush-ism.  Until Bush-ism is totally and completely repudiated by the republican party the republican party will lose nationally. And it deserves to lose nationally since Bush-ism places the goals of the elites; big government, big business, big banking and globalism ahead of the interests of the American people.

Candidate Trump is a return to a more traditional form of Republicanism. A little more socially liberal than I like but vastly superior to any form of neocon-ism.

I say candidate Trump instead of just Trump, because candidate Trump appears to be a very different person than businessman Trump. Businessman Trump operated in a liberal dominated world. He had to go along to get things done.  I hope we are seeing the real Trump in candidate Trump. I know a lot of you do not trust Trump. Well maybe, but I do trust Hillary to do exactly what she says she'll do.  So I'm with Trump.

[jpsb]

I'm leaning towards he didn't actually "endorse" Trump

Get over it, Cruz endorsed Trump, deal with reality and not some fantasy world that does not exist.

[jpsb]

I don't understand how he could do so after the filth that Trump threw at him and his family.  That was as dirty a personal assault as I've EVER seen from a politician (and Trump IS a politician).

We need him in the Senate, and were I in Texas, I'd vote for him.

I see you are back in your fantasy world again.

For weeks before Trump reTweeted an unflattering picture of Mrs Cruz the Cruz campaign had been smearing Mrs Trump as morally unfit to be the first lady of the USA. Calling her a slut. Circulating old semi-nude pictures from her modeling days. Cruz started the wive wars when he allowed his campaign to attack Trumps wife Melania.  It was despicable of Ted Cruz to do so.  Below is a picture of Melania watching over Cruz's children and he repays her kindness by calling her a slut? FUTC.

[jpsb]

Were I in Texas, I would too.  I'm glad I'm not, though, because I feel betrayed by him on this matter.

Well I do live in Texas and if Cruz has a primary opponent I am very likely to vote for them in 2018. IMHO Cruz only cares about Cruz. He flip flopped on illegals, he flip flopped on TPP, he flip flopped on refugees and he he flip flopped on H1B visas. I do not trust Cruz at all. However if he is on the ballot in the general I will vote for him. As much as I dislike Cruz I won't give a senate seat to the Rats for 6 years. That would be almost as stupid as giving the Rats the presidency for 4 years.

[EC]

For the last bleep time, you imbecile - RUBIO'S PAC did that! NOT CRUZ!

[jpsb]

@r9etb

An ambitious Senator?!   The horror

How many people without ambition or an unhealthy love over power ever seek to become a Senator?

We elected Cruz to represent us in the Senate, not to run for president IN HIS FIRST TERM. With in months of being elected Cruz was visiting Iowa. His entire "act" in the Senate was aimed at improving his chances of being the GOP nominee. He is just a little to ambitious and a little to untrustworthy for this Texan. I hope to be able to vote him out of the Senate in 2018.

[jpsb]

You are making a mistake.  We need Cruz in the Senate and we will need him in the next election.  He did not betray anyone.  And he did not endorse Trump.  He said he was voting for the Republican candidate.

Bull Cruz reverses himself, endorses Trump

"A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment.

Get over it Cruz endorsed Trump.

[jpsb]

I have a really hard time understanding how the man with such a brilliant mind backed himself into a corner that a bunch of us deewbs on the internet knew enough to avoid and discussed at the time. To me it looks like he gambled big and lost.

Choices: Yup. thats why getting the corrupting idea of 'lesser evil' out of the mix is imperative before it results in this fiasco yet again.

LOL, The GOP baited a trap for Trump and Cruz fell into it. Perhaps Cruz is not as smart as everyone thinks he is. He's a good lawyer and that's about all he's good at.

[jpsb]

For the last bleep time, you imbecile - RUBIO'S PAC did that! NOT CRUZ!

That is a lie.

[Norm Lenhart]

Norm, on that we agree. I have a hard time understanding that, too, except that I think Cruz (and the rest of the field) underestimated the ability of Trump to ensnare the angry and underestimated Trump's willingness to go dirty long and hard through the primary campaign.

I honestly don't think any of those on the ticket were prepared for that rancor, but noticed a couple embraced it pretty early on. Not that I would have considered Christie, anyway, but Carson went way down in my estimation as soon as he toadied up to Trump. All history, now.

We need to start voting for the greater good. We won't get 100%, unless we are very, very lucky. Even so, I will vote for the candidate who best represents my beliefs and principles, above a threshold where I do not consider the % of good to be sufficient to merit my ballot. I think we all function that way, to some degree. I also think we have different thresholds. In Trump's case, the bar is just set too low.

Take a second and tell me how you select a candidate to support (or dump the field).

My methodology, simplified: (all in blue so you can skip it and read on if you choose)
I start with issues. If they don't align there, there's no point. I want 100% but will settle for 90% if the deal-breakers aren't areas of conflict.

Deal-breakers:
Abortion (must be pro life, or set to advance that cause),
Defense (Constitutional duty of the fedGov, including border security and controlling immigration, but not including 'nation building').
Gun Control (just say no, better yet, roll it back).
Global Warming/Climate Change: embrace that as any reason to form policy, lose my vote.
Taxes: Enough already, control spending, balance the budget, downsize all but the military.

Take adversarial positions on those issues and we aren't going to get along.
But the Republican Party demands only lip service to their platform, not adherence to the letter. When was the last time they kicked anyone out? So we are left with a useless label, not a matter of principle unless the candidate chooses to embrace principle. Which is why equating "Republican" with "conservative" has been an egregious mistake and either needs to stop, or Conservatives need to find a new label.

Part of the analysis has to include a credibility factor. Obviously if their stances on the issues don't match up, they get dropped from consideration, but the ones which align have to have a track record that supports those positions. Election year epiphanies don't hold water.
That will usually eliminate most of the rest, if they aren't already gone. Some years, they all are by then.

So that means we go back down the list for the last one on top and decide if we can, in good conscience, vote for them. Thus it has ever been, and ...

I have only cast a couple of ballots in wholehearted support of a candidate, ever, as I was locked into the false dichotomy of only two parties.

I have realized we need more choices, especially as the most likely people in terms of having principles which agree with my own, are going to be on another party ticket besides the Republicans and Democrats. I have found that the principles expressed in those third Party Platforms are more likely to be honest, although sometimes not entirely realistic or even a satire. There have not been the corrupting influences of the Uniparty to distort them, and if they didn't mean it, why bother? Credibility takes a jump there.

It doesn't take much more than time to go down the list of parties (some 70+) and eliminate most from consideration: too liberal, too single issue and not thought out, not serious, simple nutcase ideas, and ferret out those alternate parties which are serious and reasonably aligned. Of those I find one stood out for me.

Then opens a new world of parties squabbling for relevance, of hit pieces written by proponents of one of those parties against the candidate of another, and to some degree, the same sort of fish fighting for who will be the biggest in that smaller pond. Surely, if one is looking for a party to build up for the future, nothing to ignore. The basics apply: if you are taking flack, you're over the target, always find out about the writer of the hit piece and see what they are promoting (usually a competing party), and just because they might be more honest about their beliefs doesn't mean they won't pull dirty tricks to win. (Cody Quirk's hit pieces aimed at Castle, for instance {Quirk is a Libertarian}) But the race to 15% is on in third party circles, and the battle is hard fought for votes.

I would have liked to see a debate among the top three or four 'third' party candidates, just to get their take on the issues, and to see those parties get exposure, to provide that principled alternative for voters. But the MSM won't back that, the big two sure won't, and short of a stellar ballot performance it won't happen. Even now, only the Greens and the Libertarians get mention (another republicrat pair off), and the Constitution Party seldom gets mention. I support the Constitution Party Platform, for the most part, and will vote to bring that into the limelight.

Winning depends on the objective, frankly. If the objective is to gain exposure, bring the Party into the debate, and that is accomplished, I consider that a 'win', this time. I don't expect Castle and Bradley to win the election, but would like to see the Party rise from the obscurity the others languish in. Eventually, short of getting a place in the main debates, whichever of the smaller Parties could win enough EV to force the House to decide might have a shot at altering the political landscape, especially if the House vote is so finely split that one Party might be convinced to vote to deny the other the Presidency by voting for the Third Party candidate. Pipe dreams, I know.

I'd settle for Reagan's 80%. Your list of deal breakers is pretty much mine. Contrary to what a lot of people think, I'm far from a purist. The problem is that most GOP idiots arent even close to 80% before you even consider the fringe issues. I don't  go by pure voting record. After the no go issues, I go more by what these people do behind the scenes. John McCain looks generally conservative on paper most years. Especially election years. But he spends his free time torpedoing any conservative within 49 states of Nebraska, AKA, all of them. Rubio willingly got on board with Chuck Schumer but looks good on pure numbers.

But if someone lies to my face I don't care if they are 100% otherwise. From that point forward they are no more trustworthy than Nancy Pelosi. And Ted royally screwed the pooch in the worst possible way at the worst possible time. We cannot honestly say now that Mr. Principled conservative won't sell out again.WE don't know. But we DO know he did it before. And did massive damage when he did. John McCain would be proud. Probably is.

There is no point playing dress up and telling ourselves nice stories. If we can't get someone worth a damn elected, I feel no obligation to slit my own throat just to be at the cool kids table. The entire POINT off America was not one big exercise in go along/get along. It was for every man and woman to be free to act on their beliefs, not return to an Americanized version of the monarchy.

So if we can't get our act together, nature will sort it out for us. We will devolve into Europe more than we have already and the S will HTF.

[HonestJohn]

For the last bleep time, you imbecile - RUBIO'S PAC did that! NOT CRUZ!

It's strange how easy Trump supporters take to lies but refuse the truth.  It's as if they wish to be deluded.

This is the echo chamber in effect, where a person believes only the information that reinforces their beliefs.  It was what the rest of America saw of the GOP in 2012 when we believed Romney was going to win.

After that debacle, I swore to look at reporting from the right, left, and middle and see if they matched.  And if not, find out why.  In this election, I'm finding that the most egregious offenders are on the right, notably Breitbart and the fly-by-night "no reputation" "news" sites.  In fact, Russian government-owned "news" sites are taken as gospel by Trump supporter and by extension, the GOP.

It's as if every claim made by Trump and his suppoters are a projection of what they, themselves, do and believe.

It's beyond sickening.

[EC]

It's strange how easy Trump supporters take to lies but refuse the truth.  It's as if they wish to be deluded.

I wish I could say I've stopped being surprised, but nope. They still manage to surprise me with it.

I think it's fairly simple though:

Trump said it was so (in this case Cruz started it) and they have to believe it because all they have is the sad little hope he'll keep his word. Despite the evidence that he NEVER does.

For the record: Liz Mair. Ran a pro-Rubio PAC. Put out the ad hitting Melania. She admitted it. Google it.

Jack all to do with Cruz.

[Sanguine]

That is a lie.

Now, that's some bizarre thinking there.

[musiclady]

Now, that's some bizarre thinking there.

More like brainwashed.....

It's a straightforward truth that the deluded refuse to accept.

But you're right......... it's bizarre too.

[jpsb]

@EC
@HonestJohn

For the last bleep time, you imbecile - RUBIO'S PAC did that! NOT CRUZ!

It's strange how easy Trump supporters take to lies but refuse the truth. 

Go to 4 minute mark



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALErcfr7jQ0

Texas Lobbyist and Ted Cruz Operative Admits Origin of Campaign To Attack Donald Trump’s Wife

[Sanguine]

Well, hell, why didn't you say so?  If Conservative Treehouse says it's true it's gotta be true!

[jpsb]

Well, hell, why didn't you say so?  If Conservative Treehouse says it's true it's gotta be true!

@Sanguine
There is a video. Is the video of a Cruz campaign staff attacking Mrs Trump a lie too?

[Norm Lenhart]

More like brainwashed.....

It's a straightforward truth that the deluded refuse to accept.

But you're right......... it's bizarre too.

Standard issue liberal.

[Silver Pines]

@jpsb

 

FUTC.

You know, speaking for myself, I'd be really happy to never see another stale, lame Freeperism (moose, cheese, sister, all that crap) brought over here.  That goes double for Jim Robinson's moronic "FUwhomever."  We don't need to be aping him.

[Sanguine]

@jpsb, did you actually listen to the video?  It’s about a CNN story that both campaigns responded to.   The Cruz spokeswoman did mention Melania’s naked pics, which I think is stupid and a bit beside the point.  Now, how you spin that to be “the origin of the attack” is just shameful.  You know where the attack originated and you go and find a video of talking head discussing the attack as “proof” of the origination of the attack.  You’re making my head hurt with all the machinations.  You’re not a “campaign operative” by any chance, are you?

[bigheadfred]

Since I am not one for many words I will refer you to this article.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi47_uLxO7PAhVNz2MKHbJODBwQFghCMAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnsnews.com%2Fnews%2Farticle%2Fmark-levin-states-should-call-convention-propose-amending-constitution&usg=AFQjCNFf4G4KQcMEsKJNJBeqlMkRCqBikw&sig2=OAAQsZJsUmgVn61115x16w

A proposed Amendment for term limits for Congress and SCOTUS at the Fed level for homogeneity across all 57 states.

A proposed Amendment reining in Fed overreach and giving ALL land back to the states with maybe the exception of National Parks/Monuments.

I want to see if there are enough level headed people left in this country to get together and put together a reasonable package to show the fed gov it is really all about WE The People and not the unholy monster Fed Gov.

[musiclady]

@jpsb, did you actually listen to the video?  It’s about a CNN story that both campaigns responded to.   The Cruz spokeswoman did mention Melania’s naked pics, which I think is stupid and a bit beside the point.  Now, how you spin that to be “the origin of the attack” is just shameful.  You know where the attack originated and you go and find a video of talking head discussing the attack as “proof” of the origination of the attack.  You’re making my head hurt with all the machinations.  You’re not a “campaign operative” by any chance, are you?

If he is an "operative" he's sure not earning his pay.

I think the goal of trolls is to get people to vote for their guy, not make everyone repulsed by how boneheaded and dishonest you are, so they run even farther from your guy......