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2016

Memo to the Trumpeters By Roger Kimball

“So one of two things are going to happen. Either people are going to expose Trump now for the reprobate that he is, or the Democrats will do it in the fall when he is the candidate. If you don’t want a Democrat in the White House come January 2017, now is the time to wise up to what a clueless low-life Donald Trump really is.”

So here we are on the eve of Super Tuesday, tha momentous day when a candidate can win more delegates than any any other single day of the primary.

“The Republican candidates can win about half of the 1,237 delegates needed,” Wikipedia tells us. “The two remaining Democrats are after 880 delegates, roughly one-third of those needed to win. The number of delegates from Texas is much greater than the other states: 155 for Republicans and 252 for Democrats.”

The rules for how the delegates are apportioned differ between the Democrats and the Republicans. “For the Democrats,” the Constitution Center explains, “about 22 percent of all convention delegates are selected for the national convention on Super Tuesday, with 11 states, American Samoa and overseas delegates in play. All votes are counted proportionately.”

For the Republicans, there is a more complicated set of rules to select delegates in a “winner-take-most,” and in a proportional fashion, for the 12 states in play. Depending on how well the leading candidate does, he can scoop up most of a state’s delegates, or only about the same number as a third-place finisher:

The “winner-take-most” states account for 438 delegates, or 70 percent, of the delegates picked on Super Tuesday. Of the 12 Super Tuesday GOP states, eight states follow “winner take most” rules that require the leading candidate to have more than 50 percent of the vote among congressional districts and at-large groups to get most of the delegates. Without a majority winner, the delegates are divided among candidates who receive at least 15 percent or 20 percent of votes.

And that model doesn’t favor a candidate greatly who is the voting leader, with less than 50 percent of the vote within a state.

This system provides a potential lifeline to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, both of whom trail Donald Trump in most of the polls (except Texas, where Cruz is ahead). Ben Carson and John Kasich are both likely to get clobbered tomorrow, but Kasich, at least, can hope to do well in the coming weeks when big, “winner-take-all” northern states like Ohio — his home state — are decided:

After March 14, GOP primaries are allowed to use “winner-take-all” rules to settle their elections. In all, 15 states use winner-take-all rules, including Florida, Ohio and Illinois on March 15, and the winner-take-all states account for 36 percent of the national convention delegates. It is the winner-take-most states that account for about 37 percent of the national delegates, with proportional states and caucuses making up the remaining 27 percent.

How Safe Is the Nation’s Food Supply from Terrorists? By Bill Straub

WASHINGTON – A specialist in agricultural economics offered assurances to a House panel that the nation’s farming industry has made significant advances and is well-positioned to endure any potential terrorist attack on the food supply.

Brian Williams, from Mississippi State University, told members of the House Subcommittee for Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications that diversity of production across the broad country offers some protection from any assault.

“Upon examining past incidences of disruptions in production and trade across a variety of commodities, the U.S. agricultural sector has demonstrated a remarkable resilience,” Williams told the panel. “In most cases, it would be difficult for a terrorist to inflict damage on a large enough scale to have a lasting detrimental impact on the U.S. economy.”

If a terrorist were somehow to succeed in inflicting large-scale damage, Williams said, “the agricultural industry has proven that it can recover quickly from most threats. With the cooperation of individual industry groups, state governments and the federal government in devising plans to respond to potential terror attacks or natural disasters, evidence suggests that damage from such disasters can be mitigated.”

Williams told lawmakers there are several things to consider in attempting to predict a terrorist attack on animal agriculture. If the damage is localized to a single county or even multi-county area, the impact will likely be minimal.

“One benefit of agriculture is that production is spread over a wide area,” he said. “As a result, natural disasters and other disruptions to production are quite common but typically have minimal impacts on the economy and markets.”

Williams cited a snowstorm that hit Nebraska and Iowa on Feb. 2 that hit much of Nebraska and Iowa, preventing cattle from being transported from feedlots to packers, all but shutting down the meat-packing industry for two days.

In Moscow, Muslim Nanny Beheads 4-Year-Old Girl By Michael Walsh

The sheer malevolent savagery of Islam on display:

A burka-clad babysitter has been arrested in Moscow after she walked through the streets carrying the severed head of a four-year-old girl, Daily Mail reports. Eyewitnesses say the woman shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ as she appeared near Oktyabrskoye Pole metro station in the northwest of the Russian capital and threatened to blow herself up.

Earlier today there were reports that officers had found the headless body of a child aged about four at a block of flats in the city after they were called to a fire. The victim was a girl identified as Nastya M – and the child’s 39-year-old nanny Gyulchehra Bobokulova, from Uzbekistan, has been arrested. The woman was seen pulling the severed head out of a bag and walking around near the entrance to the metro station as police moved in.

Naturally, the police are stumped as to a possible motive. From the Daily Mail:

According to local media, she shouted: ‘I hate democracy. I am a terrorist. I want you dead. You have become so hardened, you have eliminated so many of us. Look I am a suicide bomber, I will die, doomsday will come in a second.’

Is Trump the Harbinger of the GOP’s Demise? By Walter Hudson

Both Donald Trump’s supporters and detractors seem to agree that the rise of his rogue candidacy was precipitated by years of widening divergence between the Republican base and its established leadership. Trump, himself representing nearly nothing of substance, has become the consummate protest candidate. While many may be attracted to his nationalist rhetoric about rounding up illegals, taking on China, and making America great again, many others see through the facade, know Trump’s candidacy will mortally wound the party, and merely want to watch the world burn.

Regardless of how we came to this point, it seems clear that the rise of Donald Trump signals a transformative moment in American politics. No matter how things sort out, the Republican Party will change. A report from the Associated Press sets the stage:

On the eve of Super Tuesday’s crucial primaries, a sharp new divide erupted between Republicans who pledge to fall in line behind Donald Trump if he wins their party’s nomination and others who insist they can never back the bombastic billionaire.

The fissure could have major implications beyond the primaries, exposing the looming challenges in uniting the party after the election, no matter who wins.

Nebraska’s Ben Sasse, a rising star among conservatives, became the first current senator to publicly raise the prospect of backing a third-party option if Trump clinches the nomination. In a letter posted on Facebook late Sunday, Sasse urged Republicans to consider whether a party led by Trump would still represent their interests.

“If our party is no longer working for the things we believe in — like defending the sanctity of life, stopping Obamacare, protecting the Second Amendment, etc. — then people of good conscience should stop supporting that party until it is reformed,” he wrote.

Friends Don’t let Friends Vote Trump By William Tate

Should he win the Republican nomination, the Clinton machine will pile so much dirt on Donald Trump that it will take an archeologist to find him. Even if there is absolutely nothing dirty in Trump’s past, the Clintons will manipulate the Democrat propaganda arm — i.e. the media — to persuade a majority of voters that there is.

This is, after all, the machine that convinced a certain percentage of the American people during the 1992 campaign that George H.W. Bush, not Clinton, was the philandering womanizer. The crew that persuaded Ross Perot that Bush was somehow scheming to disrupt the wedding of Perot’s daughter, just to control the ’92 presidential race. The posse that manipulated an independent prosecutor’s office into a last-minute indictment of Caspar Weinberger that included Bush’s name, the timing of which even Clinton confidante Lanny Davis later called “bizarre” and which many observers believe sewed up the election for Clinton.

The list of Clinton dirty tricks is longer than my arm. Longer even than the arm of one of Mr. Trump’s padded-shoulder suit coats. Dirty political tricks have been around forever, but the Clintons seem to have perfected them. The Clintons are the politics of personal destruction.

Enter Donald Trump.

His slate might be perfectly clean. Maybe all the lawsuits in his past are the result of others being overly litigious. Maybe all the Page Six articles won’t result in what Betsey Wright, of the Clinton camp, termed “bimbo eruptions” over Bill’s use, and abuse, of women. Maybe Trump’s past bankruptcies didn’t produce wounded vendors and former employees eager to seek revenge on a person they feel left them high and dry. Maybe the Trump University lawsuits will amount to nothing.

Trump, the Inkblot By Amil Imani

Billionaire businessman, Donald Trump, a sudden convert to the Republican Party, is experiencing a meteoric rise in his battle to capture the party’s nomination for presidency of the United States, a truly bewildering accomplishment for him.

People wonder what is going on. How is this possible?

Some say that in this age of substantial anger, anxiety, and fear, the ‘Donald’ has become everybody’s inkblot where each person sees what he wants to see and not what is really there. That’s why, they say, a cross section of American society, including the most unlikely, are pushing the Trump button in the voting booth. They are, really voting for their illusion.

You may disagree with this assessment and you have every right to your opinion. But, take for a moment, your eyes off the inkblot and check the following facts.

When we take off our illusion glasses, we see numerous sobering and even disturbing facts.

Here are some examples:

This man is bereft of any traditional political convictions. He is 100% Trumpist and nothing else. If he claims he is Republican, he says so because being Republican at this time presents him with the best opportunity to advance Trumpism.
This man has spent all his life being a Trumpist: a person whose only and ultimate goal in life is to do whatever it takes to serve himself. It is precisely for this reason that he has hired cheap labor, legal and illegal, to construct his buildings; he has for decades donated funds to politicians of both parties who would facilitate his predatory ventures.
A Trumpist, per force, must be populist appearing in the sense of saying and doing anything that would promote him, without regard to ideology. It is in this spirit that he advocates a vague healthcare system that is both supposedly based on marketplace forces as well as socialized mandated medicine where he promises that he is not going to let anyone die on a sidewalk. He also insists that insurance companies must insure people without respect to preconditions, while everyone knows that type of system can only be mandated. And, he is against the mandate, at the same time. And some believing souls listen to him talk from both sides of his mouth in the same breath; they still go ahead and applaud him.
Is he a conman? Well, let the facts speak for themselves. He says he borrowed one million dollars from his father and parlayed it to ten billion dollars. How? Did he invent a miracle gadget, build an automatic space age manufacturing plant, or did he develop a magic wand? No. He did it all in real estate deals, gambling houses, show business, and the like where he could and did grease the wheels to get his way and exploit tens of thousands of hardworking laborers and artisans, legal immigrants or not, to amass his ill-gotten fortune. His wealth is from the sweat and life effort of tens of thousands who did not get their fair share. How else he could end up with 10 billion dollars?
No matter where he is, he keeps saying, “I love the people…” Be it Arkansas, New Hampshire, Texas, or wherever. “they are great people,” he says that ad infinitum, and ad nauseam. Sure, he loves all those good-hearted simpletons — and there is no shortage of them — people who hitch themselves to his wagon in the hope of some free ride, but will end up with pulling his wagon as have tens of thousands before them.
The man may not be a conman in the strictest sense of the word. But he certainly qualifies as an operator that would do and say anything that would get him what he wants. If an old widow’s home, for example, is in the way of expanding his gambling house, she should be steamrolled out of the way, by hook or crook.

Downstream From a Slippery EPA In the aftermath of the Gold King spill, the agency is holding itself to a lower standard than polluters.By Ryan Flynn

Mr. Flynn is New Mexico’s secretary of environment.
The bright yellow water that gushed from Colorado’s Gold King mine and into the Animas River last summer has dissipated, but the environmental disaster continues downstream. An estimated 880,000 pounds of lead and other metals poured out of the Gold King in August when the Environmental Protection Agency fumbled a construction project and blew out the mine’s plug.

This water raced down the Animas River in mountainous Colorado, and then meandered gradually through my state of New Mexico, the territory of the Navajo Nation and Utah, before dumping into Lake Powell. Geography is important here: The slower the flow, the more that heavy metals drop out of the water and into the riverbed.

From the start, the EPA bungled its response to the spill. The first call alerting New Mexico that contaminated water was on its way didn’t even come from the agency. The water-quality manager of the Southern Ute Tribe, who live in Colorado right on the border with New Mexico, contacted my department with a warning on Aug. 6.

The New Mexico Environment Department quickly dispatched technical staff to take advance water samples, to establish a water-quality baseline. The Animas River is much more than a kayaking spot or a fishing hole for New Mexicans. The drinking water of eight communities—about 90,000 people—is drawn directly from the river, which also sustains crops and livestock, and supports thousands of people’s livelihoods.

After failing to alert New Mexico promptly, the EPA to a large extent left the states and tribes downstream to fend for themselves. No one from the EPA’s regional office in Dallas showed up in New Mexico for nearly a week, by which time the plume had passed. New Mexico’s representative to the EPA’s Incident Command Center in Colorado reported that she was shut out of closed-door meetings where decisions were made.

When EPA staff did finally arrive in New Mexico on Aug. 9, they were rotated out of the state every few days. This led to redundant briefings and inconsistent execution. One EPA communications officer arrived in New Mexico with no capability to text, email or dispatch photos from the field.

As the spill wound its way downstream, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy repeatedly went on camera to say that the agency would hold itself to a “higher standard.” Instead it engaged in a careful campaign of minimization and misdirection. CONTINUE AT SITE

Staring at the Conservative Gutter Donald Trump gives credence to the left’s caricature of bigoted conservatives. By Bret Stephens

In the late 1950s, Bill Buckley decreed that nobody whose name appeared on the masthead of the American Mercury magazine would be published in the pages of National Review. The once-illustrious Mercury of H.L. Mencken had become a gutter of far-right anti-Semites. Buckley would not allow his magazine to be tainted by them.

The word for Buckley’s act is “lustration,” and for two generations it upheld the honor of the mainstream conservative movement. Liberals may have been fond of claiming that Republicans were all closet bigots and that tax cuts were a form of racial prejudice, but the accusation rang hollow because the evidence for it was so tendentious.
Not anymore. The candidacy of Donald Trump is the open sewer of American conservatism. This Super Tuesday, polls show a plurality of GOP voters intend to dive right into it, like the boy in the “Slumdog Millionaire” toilet scene. And they’re not even holding their noses.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has endorsed the Code Pink view of the Iraq War (Bush lied; people died). He has cited and embraced an aphorism of Benito Mussolini. (“It’s a very good quote,” Mr. Trump told NBC’s Chuck Todd.) He has refused to release his “very beautiful” tax returns. And he has taken his time disavowing the endorsement of onetime Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke—offering, by way of a transparently dishonest excuse, that “I know nothing about David Duke.” Mr. Trump left the Reform Party in 2000 after Mr. Duke joined it.

None of this seems to have made the slightest dent in Mr. Trump’s popularity. If anything it has enhanced it. In the species of political pornography in which Mr. Trump trafficks, the naughtier the better. The more respectable opinion is scandalized by whatever pops out of the Donald’s mouth, the more his supporters cheer him for sticking it to the snobs and the scolds. The more Mr. Trump traduces the old established lines of decency, the more he affirms his supporters’ most shameless ideological instincts. CONTINUE AT SITE

U.S. Veteran Accused of Trying to Join ISIS Uses Free-Speech Defense Lawyer says veteran’s interest in terrorist group is protected by First Amendment By Nicole Hong

“Prosecutors on Monday said Mr. Pugh, who served as an Air Force mechanic from 1986 to 1990, became increasingly radical after he watched Islamic State’s beheading and training videos online. He allegedly posted comments on Facebook supporting the terrorist group, connected with other sympathizers online and told his co-workers that Islamic State needed airplane mechanics.”

NEW YORK—The government’s case against a U.S. Air Force veteran accused of trying to join Islamic State could hinge on whether jurors believe his interest in the terrorist group amounts to criminal activity or is instead protected by his free-speech rights.Tairod Pugh, a 48-year-old U.S. citizen, may have watched Islamic State propaganda, expressed offensive views and shown interest in the terrorist group, but “none of this is illegal,” his lawyer said to 12 jurors Monday during opening statements.

“In this country, we don’t punish a person for his thoughts,” Mr. Pugh’s lawyer Eric Creizman said.

Mr. Pugh, who on Monday was wearing a shirt and tie with a black cardigan and khaki pants, faces one charge of attempting to provide material support to terrorists and one charge of obstruction of justice. If convicted, Mr. Pugh faces​up to 35 years in prison. Mr. Pugh has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Mr. Pugh’s trial kicked off Monday to a packed courtroom in Brooklyn federal court. Mr. Pugh is among the first two suspected Islamic State sympathizers in the country to go to trial; another trial has been ongoing in Phoenix for two weeks. In total, more than 80 Americans have been arrested since early 2014 on charges related to Islamic State.

Legal and national security experts are closely watching these cases to see how U.S. counterterrorism efforts have adapted to the threat of Islamic State, which has distinguished itself from terrorist groups like al Qaeda by heavily recruiting members through social media. Mr. Pugh’s trial is expected to last two weeks. CONTINUE AT SITE

Republican Divide About Trump Grows Former party chairman, Nebraska senator among those who say they won’t vote for him if he is nominee By Reid J. Epstein

A divisive battle is brewing in the Republican Party over the potential nomination of Donald Trump, as some party leaders warn they won’t back him and could support third-party or write-in candidates.Most party leaders still say they will back the party’s nominee, and until recent days even Mr. Trump’s loudest critics maintained they would back him in the general election if he wins the nomination.

That is beginning to change—even as Mr. Trump is poised to win a string of Super Tuesday contests, and likely take the lion’s share of the 595 delegates up for grabs.“I would not vote for Trump, clearly” said Mel Martinez, a former Republican National Committee chairman who served one term in the Senate from Florida. “If there is any, any, any other choice, a living, breathing person with a pulse, I would be there.”Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse has said he would seek a third-party or alternate conservative candidate. The party’s 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, said Mr. Trump’s hesitation to disavow support from David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, in a CNN interview was a “disqualifying” response. And former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman has said she would vote for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton if Mr. Trump is the GOP nominee.

In contrast, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have recently endorsed Mr. Trump. And the vast majority of senior Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), have said they’ll back the GOP nominee.

Former RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson, who had backed Jeb Bush’s candidacy, said even with his flaws, Mr. Trump would be superior to Mrs. Clinton and her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders.

“If he is successful in winning the nomination, I think it’s going to be very important that people coalesce around him because many of the things he’s talking about are very important to our country,” Mr. Nicholson said. “I think the country has a much better chance of healing itself under him that it does under the Democrats.”

Mr. Trump, whose path to the nomination could be unstoppable after Tuesday, has made no secret of his disdain for the party’s past leaders, and has broken with GOP orthodoxy on crucial issues such as trade. His campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Many of the party’s core conservatives believe he isn’t one of them, and the conservative Club for Growth has begun an advertising campaign to try to discredit him. CONTINUE AT SITE