RUTHFULLY YOURS

Gov. Christie’s Strange Relationship with Radical Islam

http://www.investigativeproject.org/2506/gov-christie-strange-relationship-with-radical#

Four Islamists on Gov. Christie’s Muslim Outreach Committee Despite each of their links to Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood, Christie trusted Islamists to be part of his advisory committee.

http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/four-islamists-gov-christies-muslim-outreach-committee#

Once Embraced by Chris Christie, New Jersey’s Muslims Feel Betrayed

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/nyregion/new-jersey-muslims-feel-sense-of-betrayal-by-christie.html?_r=0

The invitation arrived by email, bearing the seal of the State of New Jersey and the name of its new governor, Chris Christie. It asked a select group of Muslim leaders to break the daily Ramadan fast at Mr. Christie’s home, and began with a traditional Muslim salutation.“Assalamu Alaikum (Peace be with you),” the greeting, from summer 2010, read. “Wishing you a happy and blessed Ramadan.”

With the gathering, at an evening meal known as Iftar, Mr. Christie opened what Muslim leaders recall as a period of exceptional warmth between the state’s sizable Muslim community and a prominent Republican. The governor became a fierce defender of local Muslims, rebuking his party in forceful terms for its hostility to a proposed Islamic center in Manhattan, and denouncing what he called “the crazies” on the right for attacking a Muslim lawyer Mr. Christie had selected for a judgeship.

But as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination half a decade later, Mr. Christie’s ties to Muslim leaders in New Jersey have grown deeply strained. The governor has recast himself as a relentless warrior against terrorism, with little patience for what he calls “politically correct” national security policy. Among some community leaders, who saw Mr. Christie as a rare Republican who rejected alarmist, broad-brush rhetoric about Islam, a sense of betrayal has set in.

Sometimes you outsmart yourself. After re-watching the excruciating Rubio-Christie exchange (embedded in David’s post), I can’t help but think that Marco Rubio outsmarted himself – or at least locked in on the wrong part of Chris Christie’s commentary and, in the heat of the moment, couldn’t let go.

In the post-mortem, it has been noted repeatedly that Christie attacked Rubio as an unaccomplished, programmed candidate. But Rubio’s alleged insufficiencies were only one part of Christie’s argument. The other, the actual premise of Christie’s critique, was the analogy of Rubio to Obama.

Christie contends that the Obama who ran for president in 2008 was an unaccomplished, hyper-programmed, first-term senator who was utterly unprepared to be president. That, according to Christie, has caused seven years of amateur-hour governance. To elect Rubio, he thus concludes, would be to invite another disastrous presidency led by an untested young man who would be in way over his head.

This analogy to Obama, rather than Rubio’s own alleged failings, was the part of Christie’s case that Rubio seized on. To some extent, this is understandable: Rubio is on surer footing talking about Obama than about his own record of accomplishment, the best known aspect of which is pushing through the senate, in collusion with Obama, a bipartisan immigration bill that is anathema to the GOP base (but, by the way, would have been fine with GOP “moderates” like Christie).

Yet Rubio also had an important point: Christie’s premise is dead wrong. Obama has not steered the Titanic into an iceberg because he is an unprepared, untested amateur. He has done it quite deliberately, at times masterfully, because Obama believes in the policies that constitute the iceberg. He is a movement leftist with a transformational agenda and an Alinskyite’s understanding of the extortionate uses of power. Authoritarian rule, government-controlled health care, open borders, runaway spending, Islamist sympathies, crony-capitalist green energy – these are not initiatives Obama stumbled into because he was unprepared. Obama has studiously taken the country where he wants it to go. And he has rolled over the old experienced hands to do it – so much for amateur hour.

Will he, or won’t he? That is, will Michael Bloomberg decide on an independent run for the Presidency, will Democrats tap him, or will he stay home? A decision must be made reasonably soon, if he wants to get on the ballot in all fifty states. A couple of weeks ago the New York Times published a front page article, “Bloomberg, Sensing an Opening, Revisits a Potential White House Run.” They noted he had tasked his advisors with determining the merits of an independent candidacy.

Mr. Bloomberg, a three-term Mayor of the City of New York, is said to be motivated by the possibility (remote as it may seem) of voters having a Hobson’s choice in November: Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. Mrs. Clinton assured him there was no reason for him to harness up. She would be the Democrat nominee. Republicans remained silent. They know that an independent run by Mr. Bloomberg would do more harm to the Democrat contender than the Republican. Mr. Bloomberg ran for Mayor as a Republican and is now an Independent. But he had been a life-long Democrat. It is where his sympathies lie.

History is replete with third parties, from the Anti-Masonics and Free-Soilers during the first half of the 19th Century to the American Independent and Reform Parties in the second half of the 20th Century. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was the first man to run for President as a Republican, effectively making him a third party candidate. He won against three others, garnering 39.6% of the popular vote. But apart from Lincoln, over the past 150 years no third party candidate has ever won 30% of the popular vote. Theodore Roosevelt, as the Bull Moose candidate in 1912, came closest, garnering 27.4 percent. Eighty years later, Ross Perot received 19% when he ran on the Reform Party in 1992, but he received no Electoral College votes. Third party candidates Robert LaFollette got 16% in 1924 and George Wallace, 10% in 1968.

The morning after Marco Rubio’s bad debate, a crowd of perhaps 550 packed into a high school cafeteria to see the candidate in the flesh. Outside, the Democratic PAC American Bridge sent two guys dressed up as robots to capitalize on Rubio’s failure last night.

The crowd seems receptive, but not jubilant. It seems like it’s split about equally between people who are supporting the candidate and people who are shopping. And Rubio opens by referring to his debate misstep. He doesn’t make a joke out of it, though. He tries to make a larger point, doubling-down and unpacking what he was saying. Here’s the passage, in full:

Right now, after last night’s debate—oh you said the same thing three or four times. Well I’m going to say it again: The reason why these things are in trouble is because Barack Obama is the first president, at least in my lifetime, that wants to change the country. Change the country. Not fix it. Not fix its problems. He wants to make it a different kind of country. He wants to make it like other countries around the world. I don’t understand that. People come here to get away from those countries. When is the last time you read about a boatload of American refugees washing up on the shores of another country? If you want to live in another country, move to another country.

These things he’s done to America are not accidents. Obamacare is a disaster, but it’s not an accident. It is an effort to take over your healthcare. The undermining of the Second Amendment is not an accident. It is because if they could—if he could get away with it—he would ban guns. He doesn’t even want there to be a Second Amendment. He’ll never admit it, but that’s how you get a president that when he was running for president, talked about people clinging to their guns and to their religion.