“Hillary Clinton told the FBI she didn’t “recall” 39 times according to the investigation report about her email server practices released Friday.
According to CNN correspondent Evan Perez, the response generally came to questions about “whether or not she was aware of the propriety of using her unclassified system to discuss some of these issues” and whether she’d gotten security training to use such a system to discuss sensitive programs.”
“For example, when asked about an email chain containing the symbol “(C)” – meaning “confidential,” a designation ubiquitous in classified documents – Clinton claimed not to know what it meant and, according to the notes, “could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order.” This is a response so absurd as to be insulting (the interview notes do not tell us if the FBI asked her to find (A), (B) and (D) notations that would be necessary to have the “alphabetical order” story make sense – assuming, for argument’s sake that one would indulge the possibility that this could be a truthful answer from a classified information consumer as high-level as Clinton).
Mind you, Mrs. Clinton was not just secretary of state for four years. She was a United States senator for eight years, during nearly all of which she was assigned to the Senate Armed Services Committee (and such Armed Services components as the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities). Reviewing classified information, including highly sensitive national defense secrets, is a routine part of that committee’s work.”
“We also learn in the FBI documents not only that Mrs. Clinton frequently lost her Blackberry devices, but that the FBI failed to account for some thirteen of them, most if not all of which she used while transmitting the over 2,000 classified emails the FBI identified.”
“Finally, something else about those lawyers. I nearly fell out of my chair upon reading the very first paragraph of the notes of Clinton’s interview, which identifies the lawyers for Clinton who were permitted to be present for the interview. Among them is Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s longtime confidant and chief-of-staff at the State Department.
Readers may recall that I suggested back in May that “the fix” was in in the investigation of the Clinton emails. The reason was that the Justice Department was allowing Cheryl Mills – a witness, if not a subject, of the investigation – to invoke attorney-client privilege on behalf of Mrs. Clinton in order to thwart the FBI’s attempt to inquire into the procedure used to produce Clinton’s emails to the State Department. Mills was a participant in that procedure – and it is the procedure in which, we now know, well over 30,000 emails were attempted to be destroyed, including several thousand that contained government-related business.”
Ricky — which billion? I’m going to guess East Asians i.e. India, China, etc. The interesting thing about East Asian economic development is they did not follow the advice of the IMF/World Bank/ neoliberal western advisor class (including the AEI) which made a complete mess out of Africa. Instead they used protectionist policies to build secondary manufacturing economy and only when their own manufacturing was strong enough did they embrace free trade. South Korea built up with gov’t assistance a few large corporations — Samsung, Hyundai, etc. Once they achieved a certain level, then and only then did the gov’ t embrace free trade. Historically free trade disproportionately benefits the stronger manufacturing nations over the resource dependent and/or emerging economies. (The UK did the same in the 19th century — protected the industrial revolution especially textiles and then forced free trade on the colonies when its manufacturing was stronger — its how they destroy India’s textile industry in the 19th century)
This, of course, is not an endorsement of protectionist polices for the US. The US has such a large internal economy that it can support itself without protectionist tariffs (which would do nothing more than hide inefficiencies) Instead US gov’t policy needs to maintain its infrastructure, protect its workers, maintain public health, etc. However, the AEI is wrong to suggest free trade and neoliberal economics will lift Africa and others other out of poverty. They would be better to follow the East Asian example.
Here’s an interesting book “23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism” by Ha – Joon Chang, a Cambridge economics professor.
AJ — Here’s the thing, the right and cable news can dig all they want but I don’t think people really care. They know she is corrupt, they really don’t like her as a person but they will still vote for her because she’s not Trump. Now if the Republicans had nominated Kaisch or maybe even Rubio, they may have reconsidered their support. But its not happening. There is very few undecided and all it will take is one more late night tweet.
When my nieces who all voted Republican since they turned 18 have stated unequivocally they will never vote for Trump and will make the trip to the ballot box to vote for Clinton, the Republicans have a problem. Women, especially the young, no matter how conservative, won’t vote for Trump.
Free trade has lifted and is lifting Africans, Latin Americans and Asians out of poverty as we speak. China is playing the role played by Great Britain and other European countries in the 19th century. It’s neo-colonialism in Africa and other parts of the world has been most helpful. The story of the 21st century will be booming Asian economies which import food and raw materials from the rest of the world. If Hillary or Trump move the US in a protectionist direction, the US will simply become more and more irrelevant.
Ricky — you need to get me the background on the AEI claim. African poverty has stagnated (or even become worse) in the last 30 years. Latin America didn’t have a billion in extreme poverty and has been passed in terms of economic development by Asian countries. Several Asian countries were at a similar position as some African nations over 30-50 years ago yet are far ahead now mainly because they ignored “experts” from western think tanks like the AEI.
HRW, I have had similar experiences with young friends and relatives, particularly if they are well-educated and have a good job. They simply hate Trump and will not vote for him. However, here in Texas many of those people are quite conservative and will not vote for Hillary. Many are looking at Johnson.
On the other hand, Trump still has a chance because he is getting the vote of almost every single older, uneducated, lower and lower-middle class white person. This gives him a chance in Ohio, and maybe in Pennsylvania or even Michigan, which are critical states.
China is definitely the new neo-colonial power in Africa, its propaganda claims they will do in a more socialist manner. It remains to see how beneficial this is — they’ve introduced or have maintained the plantation economy in which monoculture agriculture geared to exports leaves domestic food supplies at risk.
When countries export raw materials, they export the opportunity for secondary industry. Instead they become a “sacrifice zone” where their wealth is extracted and they are left with environmental clean up. Some of the most valuable minerals for electronics come from Africa but they receive only a fraction of the value since they don’t process nor refine the minerals for use. (Not much different than the UK who turned India into a giant cotton plantation and destroyed Indian textile manufacturing taking India 100 years to recover) And now we even export the electronic waste back to its source for clean-up.
Down ballot Republicans may be better off if people such as my nieces show up to vote for Clinton. They will then take the time to vote Republican elsewhere on the ballot. Otherwise, those who won’t vote for Clinton or Trump and thus stay home, won’t be voting for the other Republicans.
“Stay home” — Instead, many of us could choose to vote down ticket while simply leave that top spot blank. I can’t fathom anyone voting for Clinton, quite honestly.
Donna, The argument in favor of a Clinton vote is simply the reverse of AJ’s argument for Trump: Failure to vote for Clinton might let Trump win your state and the election. I don’t agree with their position, but there are intelligent conservatives who see Trump as the greater threat. They would argue that they are voting not for Hillary, but against Trump.
In my case, I still believe Clinton would be the worse option for the nation on the heels of 8 years of Democratic rule. Trump is too much of an unknown and I’m not convinced he’d be as bad as some of us think he would (though I’m not entirely sure about that either) — my state is true blue, so we’ll be in the Clinton column either way (leaving me, in this rare instance, with the freedom/luxury to opt out of voting for either Clinton or Trump).
A Trump loss probably would leave the Republican party in a better position to rebuild more quickly. If he wins (and he could), Trump becomes the party’s figurehead and leader, whether they like it or not. Then I’d expect to see a move toward creating a new, hopefully viable conservative party by some of the ‘never trump’ folks.
There could be a real shakeup ahead for both parties, as a matter of fact. Purely from a political science viewpoint, this has been a fascinating time. And since I’m feeling less personally connected to it all, I’m sometimes able to enjoy watching it unfold purely from an observer’s standpoint.
I’ll be eager to read some of the books that are published after it’s all over. No one right now can have the perspective of what’s actually going on, historically, at this stage. But after we know who wins and what happens in that immediate aftermath, there will be more context in which to interpret the weird political events of 2016 (and what all led up to it, as nothing like this happens in a spontaneous vacuum — it only begins to make sense in retrospect as the pieces are seen to fit together in a way that couldn’t be really seen before, at least not in full-picture format).
A Clinton win will be disaster for Republicans.
Not just because of the Presidency and Supreme Court, but because Republicans no longer have a base.
This is not just another Election. Trump had 30% of the vote. The other 12 (?) got the rest between them. Come the general election, Trump has the same 30% and that’s about all.
We didn’t nominate Scott Walker, Ben Carson or someone else who can beat Hillary.
I see a lot of trouble ahead for our country. The young people will never know what America was.
Donna, I agree that the election has been very interesting.
Though I was extremely disappointed that the Republicans picked Trump, there are parts of his campaign that are amazing. Compared to his opponents, he won the nomination with a very small staff and a very low budget. Hillary’s staff is many times the size of his staff and she will outspend him 10 to 1. Win or lose, he has changed how campaigns are run.
My son says he succeeded by appealing to the stupidity of Americans, and there is truth in that analysis, but Trump also used, misused and dominated social media. He also essentially co-opted an entire TV network (Fox News) and used it for his own purposes.
The curious part of me would like to see Trump win just to see what he would do. People do go to car races to see wrecks. The counter-argument is that we may have never elected a person so rude, so ignorant, so childish, so spiteful or so full of himself. Say what you will about Obama, he behaves with dignity. He has not made a fool of himself in public in front of the entire world. Trump does that with regularity. Electing Hillary will certainly lead to bad things. Electing Trump might lead to horrific things.
Partly agree with you, Chas, though I hope you’re wrong. But yes, a Clinton win could put conservatism in a distinct political minority for the foreseeable future.
Social conservatism, for whatever reason, has lost major ground in recent years. The Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage seemed to be a watershed moment, but the culture’s changing mores and views have been ongoing for a while now. So the decision was more of a natural result of the grassroots changes in attitudes that already had been taking place for decades now.
But it was remarkable to hear virtually no debate questions or answers that took on what have, in the past, been the standard social conservative causes. Those days suddenly are just simply gone, politically speaking, for better or worse.
That leaves fiscal conservatism and a strong defense position (the latter countered by the libertarian stream that also now is part of the GOP) as the glue left holding the party together, such as it is.
The Democrats, meanwhile — at least in this moment — appear to be drifting firmly to the left, even toward a formal acceptance of socialism. More bothersome trends include the new resistance to allowing free ideas and speech, even when offensive, to flow. There’s a “lockstep” mentality that seems now to dominate the party. Who will be the next generation of Democratic leaders once Clinton & Bernie are history?
Ricky, This is the first campaign that’s played out on Twitter in such a big degree, that’s for sure.
So many factors have probably come together to explain this campaign, from the Internet and rise of social media (and the coarseness and anger dominating the public square) to a loss of knowledge and vision about the nation’s core principles.
And the weakening, for now, of religious faith and knowledge — and the morals that result — can’t be under-estimated either.
Trump, in so many ways, is a shocking figure. One hardly knows what to make of it all sometimes.
What a dramatic shift since the days of JFK (I use that only because he was the first president I actually remember in any detail) — or even since Reagan.
It’s like the culture just up and exploded. And the results are not pretty.
Ricky — glancing quickly over the links you sent me and I see that most of the gains made in reducing poverty were in three countries – Vietnam, China and Indonesia. Given their population it makes sense they would dominate a statistic. However, the stats also reveal that South Asia and Subsaharan Africa are stagnating and have made no progress. Thus we have one region (East Asia) which drastically reduced poverty and two regions that did not. The question neoliberal economists refuse to ask themselves is simply — Why the difference? What did East Asia do differently? And the answer explains why they don’t ask the question. East Asia did not listen to the neoliberal advisors — they hid behind their protectionist barrier to promote domestic industry, they used state owned enterprises for resource extraction, they maintained an artificially low currency, etc. Now that China is a more dominant economic force, expect them to promote free trade — free trade usually benefits the secondary manufacturing nation and the larger economic powers.
Canada and Australia are becoming heavily reliant on exporting raw materials to China. Its a “hewers of wood and drawers of water” mentality which reveals the laziness of our elite — they lack the ambition, desire etc to process the raw materials near the place of extraction. Instead they are quite content to allow the resource boom towns become “sacrifice zones” of environmental destruction. After all, they will make enough money of the exploitation to live elsewhere.
A leftist analysis of Trump and the Republican party usually ends with a “chickens coming home to roost” type statement. Essentially, they view the Republican elite using code words and “dog whistles” to subtle encourage that Trump demographic to vote for them; without of course offending more moderate sensitive souls who might also vote Republican. Trump played to that base during primary not even bothering with the coded messages. Hence, he gained the most enthusiasm and with a crowded field this worked for him. However, by dispensing with the code words he opened up the real rot in the heart of Republican party thereby scaring the moderate middle independent voter.
a sea change maybe but given the first past post system which enforces a two party rule, it will be hard to see a drastic change ahead. Viewed from afar, Clinton type Democrats and Kaisch type Republicans belong in the same centrist party — pro business, corporatist, steady as you go capitalism with no real concern for social issues. This would leave room on the right for a populist party and on the left fro a social democratic party. However, it will be difficult to break the two party stranglehold.
I think what’s really going on is a lot bigger than that and takes in the entire sweep of our culture — including the Democratic party.
And in many ways Trump transcends party. His support comes more as an independent, drawing more unaffiliated voters than Republicans perhaps.
Moreover, much of the focus on Trump distracted us from the turmoil that is the modern-day Democratic party. Things don’t look so good over that fence, either. 🙂 As I said, interesting political times.
It is not a coincidence that Americans began showing increasing signs of stupidity as parents and teachers stopped teaching children to read using phonics.
A child can be taught the alphabet at 18 months and, with encouragement, will be reading at age three. Did we have to choose between a Hillary and a Trump when children were taught to read using phonics?
As people age, they generally think the new generation is abysmal and look back in nostalgia. Somehow the era of their youth is always better no matter when the era occurred. Looking back in time, the quality of presidents hasn’t deteriorated. There’s a number of mediocre of presidents in the 19th century — Fillmore, Harrison, Buchanan,etc.
In the area of education, people also moan and groan about the decline of standards yet I’m always amazed at the work some of my students produce. I teach in a very mixed school, low to high income, immigrant, tenth generation, etc, and every year somebody impresses me. Their research and presentation skills are amazing. And I don’t know a single primary teacher who neglects phonics.
Once this election is over, I can see Bannon, Trump and Ailes creating a new news/opinion network — it will be scaring you 24/7. Meanwhile at Fox, it either falls apart or rebrands.
I’ve seen that Trump would like to create a branded network should he lose. So that wouldn’t surprise me at all.
I don’t see new generations as “abysmal,” only average like we all were, making the best of the times in which we’re born and raised.
What I don’t see is each new generation being spectacularly, amazingly unique, smarter and better than all the other generations that ever that went before them. 🙂 (Which is usually how each generation of young people is billed.)
What’s funny is to remember how the generation of the 1960s and ’70s were going to save the world — no, really.
Of course, that thinking, maybe to a lesser degree, has been applied to each generation since. Hubris, for the most part, repeated with and by each new crop of youth (but that’s what youth does, it fills us all with over-confidence; then that becomes, with time, tempered with wisdom and the realities of life).
The older generations just mucked it all up and now the youth (of whatever generation is the latest) will save the day.
Each generation has its gifts and challenges. We shouldn’t discourage young people from taking it all on, but in reality, they’re like so many generations that went before them and will come after them.
I’m with you on the first 2 Donna, but Krauthammer is an establishment…. let’s just say mouthpiece because I shouldn’t use the other word I’m thinking of. Has been for years. They’re a large part of the reason Republicans are having such troubles now. They are what makes Trump appealing. Their version of Democrat lite is certainly no better than the suddenly alt-right Hannity. In fact, in my mind they’re worse.
I’d go with Catherine Herridge instead of the Sour Kraut.
No idea who Herridge is — but it’s so interesting to me how the problems of the GOP are seen so differently, depending on perspective.
(A) they became too conservative
(B) they became too moderate
Fact is, parties — to be viable — are coalitions to some degree. Veer too far one way or the other and they lose the support needed to actually win a general election.
Don’t look now, but thinking (especially thinking, social) conservatives are in a very distinct and small minority right now in the U.S.
While working to change that (and the movement is in desperate need, I’d say, of some fresh, smart, appealing leadership), we also should recognize that independent voters (the fastest growing segment) are needed to be elected at this point.
Problem is, nobody thinks about what is good for the country. They think about what is good for re-election. What is good for the country is not good for re-election. Too many people are getting too much. (I’m as guilty as the rest. The problem with me is that I lived longer than they expected. They took 15% of my salary but I got that back long ago.)
Point is: Something needs to be done, or something will be done. Whatever it is won’t be pretty and the longer we wait, the uglier it will be.
I disagree with the popular notion that “the Establishment” is what makes Trump appealing. What makes Trump appealing is that he is an effective con man and demagogue and his supporters are ignorant. He tells them what they want to hear.
I disagree with Krauthammer on several issues including abortion and Middle East policy. However, he is intelligent and honest. That puts him miles ahead on Hannity and O’Reilly. Hannity and O’Reilly made Trump appealing to their ignorant viewers.
Amen, Chas! Some of the intelligent young people have figured out that our current path is unsustainable. They see a future US in which they will be outnumbered by Democrats and Trumpkins, all of whom have their hands out, asking for more.
“In his still-hypothetical bid for the Speakership, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has secured the coveted endorsement of Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), probably the most strident voice for amnesty in Congress. Gutierrez told MSBNC: “He would be good for the country. He would be good for the Republican Party. Paul Ryan is the kind of individual that would work with people on the other side of the aisle and that’s what we need.”
“This is no one-time thing for Gutierrez. In the 2013 AP piece, he called Ryan his “guiding light” on immigration. Referring to Ryan’s co-sponsorship of amnesty legislation in 2005, Gutierrez said, “It wasn’t like it was a long line of Republicans supporting it. He’s always supported immigration reform.” Ryan’s aggressive push in 2013 for a House version of Rubio’s Gang of Eight bill included joint appearances with Gutierrez; as Politico noted, “Ryan’s trip here Monday alongside Gutierrez…showed just how far Ryan’s willing to go to push for reform.” As Reuters noted during the Gang of Eight fight: “Alex Nowrasteh of the libertarian Cato Institute said Ryan could give other Republicans political cover to support immigration reform. ‘Nobody is going to question the conservative credentials of Paul Ryan,’ he said.””
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I do. And it’s not a recent development either. He has a long history of taking a liberal view on immigration, albeit for different reasons than the Dems, but his views are closer to their’s than the conservative position.
“Paul Ryan is still reluctantly mulling a bid for speaker. But his adversaries on the far right want to discredit his campaign before it even begins — and they’re using Ryan’s extensive pro-immigration record as their key weapon.
From his days battling a restrictive California immigration ballot measure in the early 1990s, to his quiet efforts the past two years to help build GOP consensus for immigration reform, Ryan has a lengthy history of pushing for an overhaul that runs counter to the most conservative wings of his own party.
There will be a “major intraparty battle over immigration if Paul comes forward,” predicted Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a well-known immigration hard-liner, in an interview this week. “And a majority of the conference is on my side of this argument.””
“No, this is not a headline from the faux news outlet The Onion. Appearing on CNN’s “The Lead,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) dismissed the charge from GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump that Ryan is weak on immigration. “People who know my record know that I’m for border enforcement, border control, not for amnesty,” the Speaker insisted. If you watch the video of the exchange with host Jake Tapper you will see that Ryan has a straight face while making the immigration claim.
Yet, a review of Ryan’s Capitol Hill career, including time as a staffer, shows how preposterous the Speaker’s assessment of his immigration position is. As the Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan noted in 2012 when Ryan was Mitt Romney’s running mate:
As a staffer in Washington, he worked for Jack Kemp and Sen. Sam Brownback – both of whom were part of the Republicans’ pro-immigration wing, and who fought crackdown efforts from within their own party… As a congressman, he voted for a 2002 legalization bill, praised the 2006 Senate [amnesty] bill back by Mr. Bush and co-sponsored a 2009 Democratic bill that would have legalized [illegal] immigrant farmworkers. Ryan’s more recent legislative history is even worse on immigration.”
“Paul Ryan has a multi-decades long history of consistently supporting amnesty.”
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I told on the current Daily Thread that I used to work with DMA. I worked with TS/SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) for 27 years. I tell you that to say this:
Hillary says she didn’t know if something was classified or not.
The rule is:
, If you don’t know if something is classified, you assume that it is.
Simple as that dumbkoff.
She’s either an idiot or a liar.
We know she’s a liar. We’re the idiots if she becomes president.’
I can’t take it.
It just gets to me.
There is a downside to that rule, BTW. Lots of junk is in vaults where it shouldn’t be.
So since when is immigration — which really is (or should be) a pretty nuanced topic on which there is a spectrum of valid views to the right of completely opening the borders — the only issue on which we determine who is “conservative”?
Ricky — not sure Democratic voters have their hands out. Data put out by Pew indicates the states which rely most heavily on federal transfers for their state budget voted against Obama and are heavily Republican. Both Louisiana and Alabama rely on the feds for 40% of their budget, just slightly behind them are Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri and Kentucky. On the other hand they are probably voting for Trump. I think we know the demographic here
Meanwhile the states least reliant on federal transfers are California, Hawaii, Connecticut and Virginia — all voted for Obama. North Dakota was the least reliant but that may change if oil revenues continue to dip.
Trump may or may not have policies resembling Democratic ideas but the demographic he appeals to has been a consistent Republican base for the last 30 years.
Is amnesty really a liberal position? Reagan was in favour of amnesty. It makes fiscal sense. It makes sense from a law and order perspective. On the other side of the spectrum, “old” labour is not always in favour of amnesty.
“Paul Ryan’s first major legislative achievement is a total and complete sell-out of the American people masquerading as an appropriations bill.
Too harsh, you say? Let the programs, the spending, and the implications speak for themselves.
(1) Ryan’s Omnibus Fully Funds DACA
Though much of the public attention has surrounded the President’s 2014 executive amnesty, the President’s 2012 amnesty quietly continues to churn out work permits and federal benefits for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. Paul Ryan’s bill funds entirely this 2012 executive amnesty for “DREAMers”—or illegal immigrants who came to the country as minors.
Specifically, Division F of Ryan’s omnibus bill contains no language that would prohibit the use of funds to continue the President’s unconstitutional program. Obama’s executive action, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), has granted around 700,000 illegal aliens with work permits, as well as the ability to receive tax credits and federal entitlement programs. A recent GAO report documented how this illegal amnesty program for alien youth is, in large part, responsible for the illegal alien minor surge on our southern border.
In 2013, Paul Ryan said that it is his job as a U.S. lawmaker to put himself in the shoes of “the DREAMer who is waiting” and work to find legislative solutions to his or her problems.
(2) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds Sanctuary Cities”
“(8) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds Tax Credits for Illegal Aliens
Ryan’s bill preserves the expansion of the President’s expiring child tax credits without any accompanying language to prevent illegal aliens from receiving those tax credits. While Sen. Sessions attempted to include language in the bill that would prevent illegal immigrants from receiving tax credits, his recommendation was rejected.
(9) Ryan’s Omnibus Locks-In Huge Spending Increases
The bill funds the Obama-Boehner budget deal, which eliminated spending caps, and will increase both defense and non-defense spending next year by $25 billion more each.”
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Go read the list and tell me where exactly he takes the conservative position if you like, but you’ll be wasting your time, because he didn’t.
“Conservative outlets all over are blasting the Paul Ryan-led omnibus bill for a total sell-out of conservative voters. Breitbart calls it a betrayal of America. Rush Limbaugh concurred, using language even more vulgar.
Reading through their reasonings and rantings, one can gather just how badly we have been sold out. But you would not see the depth of it, actually. The depth of this depravity can be judged merely by analyzing the vote as it was taken in the House.
The record vote reveals that only three (count them—3) Republicans opposed the bill. That means that virtually the entire clan of so-called “Liberty caucus” conservatives supported the sell-out.
But it gets worse. 77 Democrats voted for this bill specifically because Paul Ryan went out of his way to court their vote (with late-night, secret deals reminiscent of the ObamaCare passing). Ryan not only sold out conservatives on Trillions in spending and new deficits, but virtually rubber-stamped Obama’s executive orders, his regionalism program to back-door annex suburbs by major urban centers (the Alinskyite-activists’ dream for years), funds Planned Parenthood, and funds a variety of other miscreant bureaucratic measures (including increased funding for activist bureaucracies in the Department of Education, as well as slipping in an internet spying amendment, among others.
What’s so bad about Democrats supporting this bill? Wouldn’t we expect them to, naturally? Not exactly. Actually, 106 of them opposed the Republican-led bill.
What the numbers reveal is that Paul Ryan (or the Republican establishment in general) actively courted Democrat votes when they didn’t need them. Apparently, Ryan and company wanted so badly to present this bill as “bipartisan” that he caved seriously on a number of leftist issues just to woo a couple handfuls of Democrats.
And that’s the sickest part of this sick bill. 241 Republicans voted “yes.” This means that it would have passed the House on purely Republican lines. That’s troubling enough in itself considering the spending and debts issues, but it’s absolutely sickening when you consider that they could have passed it without funding Planned Parenthood—and yet the chose to do so.
They could have passed it without a huge number of the leftist measures that were added to it. And yet they chose to add them anyway. And for what? A photo-op that looks “bipartisan.”
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Ryan tells the truth on immigration. In the primaries Amnesty Don fooled his moronic followers into believing he would actually deport all the illegal aliens. Limbaugh said he knew all the time that Amnesty Don was lying, but Trumpkins are easily fooled. If being a lying demagogue on immigration is what makes a person a conservative, we are in trouble.
HRW, Please note that I said Democrats AND Trumpkins had their hands out. You correctly identified some of the natural breeding grounds for Trumpkins.
Limbaugh and the writers at Trumpbart are not bright. The intelligent young people I described earlier understand that the financial cliff toward which we are heading is caused by Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the expansion of food stamps, and SSD fraud and the steady contraction in the percentage of Americans who pay income tax. Ryan has tried and will continue to try to deal with these issues. Trump, Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, O”Reilly and the people at Trumpbart don’t understand these issues and never address them.
1. The “Ryan” spending bill you described had been negotiated by Boehner before his resignation’ and
2. Your own article noted that only three Republicans voted against the bill. Do you really think there are only three conservatives in Congress?
3. Trumpbart is largely written by nitwits. That is why it favored Trump. We always knew Limbaugh wasn’t that sharp, and couldn’t be relied upon to understand complex issues. The immigration issue proved Limbaugh to be completely dishonest and biased in favor of the liberal Trump.
Wandering Views 
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Very astute comment, Ricky.
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Funny, there was nothing there, then something, then nothing. Now something.
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Ah yes. “The Reagan defense” strategy.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/cnn-clinton-told-fbi-she-didnt-recall-39-times/
“Hillary Clinton told the FBI she didn’t “recall” 39 times according to the investigation report about her email server practices released Friday.
According to CNN correspondent Evan Perez, the response generally came to questions about “whether or not she was aware of the propriety of using her unclassified system to discuss some of these issues” and whether she’d gotten security training to use such a system to discuss sensitive programs.”
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Letting her favorite “fixer” sit in? Inappropriate.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/439676/clintons-fbi-interview-what-was-cheryl-mills-doing-there
“For example, when asked about an email chain containing the symbol “(C)” – meaning “confidential,” a designation ubiquitous in classified documents – Clinton claimed not to know what it meant and, according to the notes, “could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order.” This is a response so absurd as to be insulting (the interview notes do not tell us if the FBI asked her to find (A), (B) and (D) notations that would be necessary to have the “alphabetical order” story make sense – assuming, for argument’s sake that one would indulge the possibility that this could be a truthful answer from a classified information consumer as high-level as Clinton).
Mind you, Mrs. Clinton was not just secretary of state for four years. She was a United States senator for eight years, during nearly all of which she was assigned to the Senate Armed Services Committee (and such Armed Services components as the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities). Reviewing classified information, including highly sensitive national defense secrets, is a routine part of that committee’s work.”
“We also learn in the FBI documents not only that Mrs. Clinton frequently lost her Blackberry devices, but that the FBI failed to account for some thirteen of them, most if not all of which she used while transmitting the over 2,000 classified emails the FBI identified.”
“Finally, something else about those lawyers. I nearly fell out of my chair upon reading the very first paragraph of the notes of Clinton’s interview, which identifies the lawyers for Clinton who were permitted to be present for the interview. Among them is Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s longtime confidant and chief-of-staff at the State Department.
Readers may recall that I suggested back in May that “the fix” was in in the investigation of the Clinton emails. The reason was that the Justice Department was allowing Cheryl Mills – a witness, if not a subject, of the investigation – to invoke attorney-client privilege on behalf of Mrs. Clinton in order to thwart the FBI’s attempt to inquire into the procedure used to produce Clinton’s emails to the State Department. Mills was a participant in that procedure – and it is the procedure in which, we now know, well over 30,000 emails were attempted to be destroyed, including several thousand that contained government-related business.”
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So do the Greenies not believe in maps?
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/09/jill_stein_flies_to_wrong_city_for_campaign_rally.html
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Ricky — which billion? I’m going to guess East Asians i.e. India, China, etc. The interesting thing about East Asian economic development is they did not follow the advice of the IMF/World Bank/ neoliberal western advisor class (including the AEI) which made a complete mess out of Africa. Instead they used protectionist policies to build secondary manufacturing economy and only when their own manufacturing was strong enough did they embrace free trade. South Korea built up with gov’t assistance a few large corporations — Samsung, Hyundai, etc. Once they achieved a certain level, then and only then did the gov’ t embrace free trade. Historically free trade disproportionately benefits the stronger manufacturing nations over the resource dependent and/or emerging economies. (The UK did the same in the 19th century — protected the industrial revolution especially textiles and then forced free trade on the colonies when its manufacturing was stronger — its how they destroy India’s textile industry in the 19th century)
This, of course, is not an endorsement of protectionist polices for the US. The US has such a large internal economy that it can support itself without protectionist tariffs (which would do nothing more than hide inefficiencies) Instead US gov’t policy needs to maintain its infrastructure, protect its workers, maintain public health, etc. However, the AEI is wrong to suggest free trade and neoliberal economics will lift Africa and others other out of poverty. They would be better to follow the East Asian example.
Here’s an interesting book “23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism” by Ha – Joon Chang, a Cambridge economics professor.
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HRW, You are looking too high. This billion moved out of extreme poverty. They aren’t involved in manufacturing.
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AJ — Here’s the thing, the right and cable news can dig all they want but I don’t think people really care. They know she is corrupt, they really don’t like her as a person but they will still vote for her because she’s not Trump. Now if the Republicans had nominated Kaisch or maybe even Rubio, they may have reconsidered their support. But its not happening. There is very few undecided and all it will take is one more late night tweet.
When my nieces who all voted Republican since they turned 18 have stated unequivocally they will never vote for Trump and will make the trip to the ballot box to vote for Clinton, the Republicans have a problem. Women, especially the young, no matter how conservative, won’t vote for Trump.
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Free trade has lifted and is lifting Africans, Latin Americans and Asians out of poverty as we speak. China is playing the role played by Great Britain and other European countries in the 19th century. It’s neo-colonialism in Africa and other parts of the world has been most helpful. The story of the 21st century will be booming Asian economies which import food and raw materials from the rest of the world. If Hillary or Trump move the US in a protectionist direction, the US will simply become more and more irrelevant.
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Ricky — you need to get me the background on the AEI claim. African poverty has stagnated (or even become worse) in the last 30 years. Latin America didn’t have a billion in extreme poverty and has been passed in terms of economic development by Asian countries. Several Asian countries were at a similar position as some African nations over 30-50 years ago yet are far ahead now mainly because they ignored “experts” from western think tanks like the AEI.
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HRW, I have had similar experiences with young friends and relatives, particularly if they are well-educated and have a good job. They simply hate Trump and will not vote for him. However, here in Texas many of those people are quite conservative and will not vote for Hillary. Many are looking at Johnson.
On the other hand, Trump still has a chance because he is getting the vote of almost every single older, uneducated, lower and lower-middle class white person. This gives him a chance in Ohio, and maybe in Pennsylvania or even Michigan, which are critical states.
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China is definitely the new neo-colonial power in Africa, its propaganda claims they will do in a more socialist manner. It remains to see how beneficial this is — they’ve introduced or have maintained the plantation economy in which monoculture agriculture geared to exports leaves domestic food supplies at risk.
When countries export raw materials, they export the opportunity for secondary industry. Instead they become a “sacrifice zone” where their wealth is extracted and they are left with environmental clean up. Some of the most valuable minerals for electronics come from Africa but they receive only a fraction of the value since they don’t process nor refine the minerals for use. (Not much different than the UK who turned India into a giant cotton plantation and destroyed Indian textile manufacturing taking India 100 years to recover) And now we even export the electronic waste back to its source for clean-up.
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HRW, Here is a UN report cited by AEI. I’ll see what else I can find. This report shows a drop in extreme poverty in all continents.
Click to access chapter2.pdf
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Down ballot Republicans may be better off if people such as my nieces show up to vote for Clinton. They will then take the time to vote Republican elsewhere on the ballot. Otherwise, those who won’t vote for Clinton or Trump and thus stay home, won’t be voting for the other Republicans.
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Countries can do very well exporting raw materials to Asia. That is the future of Australia. It may be the future of Canada.
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The report from the UN is 11 years old. This info from the World Bank is current. This article has helpful links.
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/10/04/world-bank-forecasts-global-poverty-to-fall-below-10-for-first-time-major-hurdles-remain-in-goal-to-end-poverty-by-2030
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A lengthy World Bank report on the decline in global extreme poverty:
Click to access PRN03Oct2015TwinGoals.pdf
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“Stay home” — Instead, many of us could choose to vote down ticket while simply leave that top spot blank. I can’t fathom anyone voting for Clinton, quite honestly.
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Donna, The argument in favor of a Clinton vote is simply the reverse of AJ’s argument for Trump: Failure to vote for Clinton might let Trump win your state and the election. I don’t agree with their position, but there are intelligent conservatives who see Trump as the greater threat. They would argue that they are voting not for Hillary, but against Trump.
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In my case, I still believe Clinton would be the worse option for the nation on the heels of 8 years of Democratic rule. Trump is too much of an unknown and I’m not convinced he’d be as bad as some of us think he would (though I’m not entirely sure about that either) — my state is true blue, so we’ll be in the Clinton column either way (leaving me, in this rare instance, with the freedom/luxury to opt out of voting for either Clinton or Trump).
A Trump loss probably would leave the Republican party in a better position to rebuild more quickly. If he wins (and he could), Trump becomes the party’s figurehead and leader, whether they like it or not. Then I’d expect to see a move toward creating a new, hopefully viable conservative party by some of the ‘never trump’ folks.
There could be a real shakeup ahead for both parties, as a matter of fact. Purely from a political science viewpoint, this has been a fascinating time. And since I’m feeling less personally connected to it all, I’m sometimes able to enjoy watching it unfold purely from an observer’s standpoint.
I’ll be eager to read some of the books that are published after it’s all over. No one right now can have the perspective of what’s actually going on, historically, at this stage. But after we know who wins and what happens in that immediate aftermath, there will be more context in which to interpret the weird political events of 2016 (and what all led up to it, as nothing like this happens in a spontaneous vacuum — it only begins to make sense in retrospect as the pieces are seen to fit together in a way that couldn’t be really seen before, at least not in full-picture format).
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A Clinton win will be disaster for Republicans.
Not just because of the Presidency and Supreme Court, but because Republicans no longer have a base.
This is not just another Election. Trump had 30% of the vote. The other 12 (?) got the rest between them. Come the general election, Trump has the same 30% and that’s about all.
We didn’t nominate Scott Walker, Ben Carson or someone else who can beat Hillary.
I see a lot of trouble ahead for our country. The young people will never know what America was.
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Donna, I agree that the election has been very interesting.
Though I was extremely disappointed that the Republicans picked Trump, there are parts of his campaign that are amazing. Compared to his opponents, he won the nomination with a very small staff and a very low budget. Hillary’s staff is many times the size of his staff and she will outspend him 10 to 1. Win or lose, he has changed how campaigns are run.
My son says he succeeded by appealing to the stupidity of Americans, and there is truth in that analysis, but Trump also used, misused and dominated social media. He also essentially co-opted an entire TV network (Fox News) and used it for his own purposes.
The curious part of me would like to see Trump win just to see what he would do. People do go to car races to see wrecks. The counter-argument is that we may have never elected a person so rude, so ignorant, so childish, so spiteful or so full of himself. Say what you will about Obama, he behaves with dignity. He has not made a fool of himself in public in front of the entire world. Trump does that with regularity. Electing Hillary will certainly lead to bad things. Electing Trump might lead to horrific things.
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Partly agree with you, Chas, though I hope you’re wrong. But yes, a Clinton win could put conservatism in a distinct political minority for the foreseeable future.
Social conservatism, for whatever reason, has lost major ground in recent years. The Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage seemed to be a watershed moment, but the culture’s changing mores and views have been ongoing for a while now. So the decision was more of a natural result of the grassroots changes in attitudes that already had been taking place for decades now.
But it was remarkable to hear virtually no debate questions or answers that took on what have, in the past, been the standard social conservative causes. Those days suddenly are just simply gone, politically speaking, for better or worse.
That leaves fiscal conservatism and a strong defense position (the latter countered by the libertarian stream that also now is part of the GOP) as the glue left holding the party together, such as it is.
The Democrats, meanwhile — at least in this moment — appear to be drifting firmly to the left, even toward a formal acceptance of socialism. More bothersome trends include the new resistance to allowing free ideas and speech, even when offensive, to flow. There’s a “lockstep” mentality that seems now to dominate the party. Who will be the next generation of Democratic leaders once Clinton & Bernie are history?
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Ricky, This is the first campaign that’s played out on Twitter in such a big degree, that’s for sure.
So many factors have probably come together to explain this campaign, from the Internet and rise of social media (and the coarseness and anger dominating the public square) to a loss of knowledge and vision about the nation’s core principles.
And the weakening, for now, of religious faith and knowledge — and the morals that result — can’t be under-estimated either.
Trump, in so many ways, is a shocking figure. One hardly knows what to make of it all sometimes.
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Donna, I agree about the ‘shocking” nature of Trump. The first few times I saw him campaign, I was reminded of the movie “Idiocracy”.
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What a dramatic shift since the days of JFK (I use that only because he was the first president I actually remember in any detail) — or even since Reagan.
It’s like the culture just up and exploded. And the results are not pretty.
And I’m beginning to sound like an old person. 🙂
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Ricky — glancing quickly over the links you sent me and I see that most of the gains made in reducing poverty were in three countries – Vietnam, China and Indonesia. Given their population it makes sense they would dominate a statistic. However, the stats also reveal that South Asia and Subsaharan Africa are stagnating and have made no progress. Thus we have one region (East Asia) which drastically reduced poverty and two regions that did not. The question neoliberal economists refuse to ask themselves is simply — Why the difference? What did East Asia do differently? And the answer explains why they don’t ask the question. East Asia did not listen to the neoliberal advisors — they hid behind their protectionist barrier to promote domestic industry, they used state owned enterprises for resource extraction, they maintained an artificially low currency, etc. Now that China is a more dominant economic force, expect them to promote free trade — free trade usually benefits the secondary manufacturing nation and the larger economic powers.
Canada and Australia are becoming heavily reliant on exporting raw materials to China. Its a “hewers of wood and drawers of water” mentality which reveals the laziness of our elite — they lack the ambition, desire etc to process the raw materials near the place of extraction. Instead they are quite content to allow the resource boom towns become “sacrifice zones” of environmental destruction. After all, they will make enough money of the exploitation to live elsewhere.
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I am convinced that we’re witnessing something of a sea change in our nation right now. To what end, who knows.
It’s a good reminder not to put your trust in kings or chariots or horses, amen?
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A leftist analysis of Trump and the Republican party usually ends with a “chickens coming home to roost” type statement. Essentially, they view the Republican elite using code words and “dog whistles” to subtle encourage that Trump demographic to vote for them; without of course offending more moderate sensitive souls who might also vote Republican. Trump played to that base during primary not even bothering with the coded messages. Hence, he gained the most enthusiasm and with a crowded field this worked for him. However, by dispensing with the code words he opened up the real rot in the heart of Republican party thereby scaring the moderate middle independent voter.
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a sea change maybe but given the first past post system which enforces a two party rule, it will be hard to see a drastic change ahead. Viewed from afar, Clinton type Democrats and Kaisch type Republicans belong in the same centrist party — pro business, corporatist, steady as you go capitalism with no real concern for social issues. This would leave room on the right for a populist party and on the left fro a social democratic party. However, it will be difficult to break the two party stranglehold.
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I think what’s really going on is a lot bigger than that and takes in the entire sweep of our culture — including the Democratic party.
And in many ways Trump transcends party. His support comes more as an independent, drawing more unaffiliated voters than Republicans perhaps.
Moreover, much of the focus on Trump distracted us from the turmoil that is the modern-day Democratic party. Things don’t look so good over that fence, either. 🙂 As I said, interesting political times.
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This is a lengthy article by Jonah Goldberg that gives you an idea what it has been like to be a conservative columnist in 2016:
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It is not a coincidence that Americans began showing increasing signs of stupidity as parents and teachers stopped teaching children to read using phonics.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/08/k12_and_the_other_rino.html
A child can be taught the alphabet at 18 months and, with encouragement, will be reading at age three. Did we have to choose between a Hillary and a Trump when children were taught to read using phonics?
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The sexual predator Roger Ailes was responsible for Fox News’ favorable treatment of his buddy Trump.
http://www.redstate.com/sweetie15/2016/09/03/media-giant-rupert-murdoch-roger-ailes-made-trump/
Now that Ailes is gone, Hannity, O’Reilly and their ilk should also go. Bring in intelligent conservatives to take their place.
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As people age, they generally think the new generation is abysmal and look back in nostalgia. Somehow the era of their youth is always better no matter when the era occurred. Looking back in time, the quality of presidents hasn’t deteriorated. There’s a number of mediocre of presidents in the 19th century — Fillmore, Harrison, Buchanan,etc.
In the area of education, people also moan and groan about the decline of standards yet I’m always amazed at the work some of my students produce. I teach in a very mixed school, low to high income, immigrant, tenth generation, etc, and every year somebody impresses me. Their research and presentation skills are amazing. And I don’t know a single primary teacher who neglects phonics.
Once this election is over, I can see Bannon, Trump and Ailes creating a new news/opinion network — it will be scaring you 24/7. Meanwhile at Fox, it either falls apart or rebrands.
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I’ve seen that Trump would like to create a branded network should he lose. So that wouldn’t surprise me at all.
I don’t see new generations as “abysmal,” only average like we all were, making the best of the times in which we’re born and raised.
What I don’t see is each new generation being spectacularly, amazingly unique, smarter and better than all the other generations that ever that went before them. 🙂 (Which is usually how each generation of young people is billed.)
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“Bring in intelligent conservatives to take their place.”
Yes.
Less of the Hannity/O’Reilly crowd and more of Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, Charles Krauthammer …
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What’s funny is to remember how the generation of the 1960s and ’70s were going to save the world — no, really.
Of course, that thinking, maybe to a lesser degree, has been applied to each generation since. Hubris, for the most part, repeated with and by each new crop of youth (but that’s what youth does, it fills us all with over-confidence; then that becomes, with time, tempered with wisdom and the realities of life).
The older generations just mucked it all up and now the youth (of whatever generation is the latest) will save the day.
Each generation has its gifts and challenges. We shouldn’t discourage young people from taking it all on, but in reality, they’re like so many generations that went before them and will come after them.
Nothing new under the sun. 🙂 ?
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I’m with you on the first 2 Donna, but Krauthammer is an establishment…. let’s just say mouthpiece because I shouldn’t use the other word I’m thinking of. Has been for years. They’re a large part of the reason Republicans are having such troubles now. They are what makes Trump appealing. Their version of Democrat lite is certainly no better than the suddenly alt-right Hannity. In fact, in my mind they’re worse.
I’d go with Catherine Herridge instead of the Sour Kraut.
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No idea who Herridge is — but it’s so interesting to me how the problems of the GOP are seen so differently, depending on perspective.
(A) they became too conservative
(B) they became too moderate
Fact is, parties — to be viable — are coalitions to some degree. Veer too far one way or the other and they lose the support needed to actually win a general election.
Don’t look now, but thinking (especially thinking, social) conservatives are in a very distinct and small minority right now in the U.S.
While working to change that (and the movement is in desperate need, I’d say, of some fresh, smart, appealing leadership), we also should recognize that independent voters (the fastest growing segment) are needed to be elected at this point.
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Problem is, nobody thinks about what is good for the country. They think about what is good for re-election. What is good for the country is not good for re-election. Too many people are getting too much. (I’m as guilty as the rest. The problem with me is that I lived longer than they expected. They took 15% of my salary but I got that back long ago.)
Point is: Something needs to be done, or something will be done. Whatever it is won’t be pretty and the longer we wait, the uglier it will be.
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I disagree with the popular notion that “the Establishment” is what makes Trump appealing. What makes Trump appealing is that he is an effective con man and demagogue and his supporters are ignorant. He tells them what they want to hear.
I disagree with Krauthammer on several issues including abortion and Middle East policy. However, he is intelligent and honest. That puts him miles ahead on Hannity and O’Reilly. Hannity and O’Reilly made Trump appealing to their ignorant viewers.
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Amen, Chas! Some of the intelligent young people have figured out that our current path is unsustainable. They see a future US in which they will be outnumbered by Democrats and Trumpkins, all of whom have their hands out, asking for more.
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Ryan is not Democrat lite. Trump is Democrat rebranded with a dose of insanity tossed in for good measure.
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Bill Kristol may be the only person in America who is more disgusted than I am.
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Yeah Ricky…….,
Sorry, but Ryan is Dem Lite, especially on immigration.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/425445/would-speaker-ryan-push-through-amnesty-mark-krikorian
“In his still-hypothetical bid for the Speakership, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has secured the coveted endorsement of Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), probably the most strident voice for amnesty in Congress. Gutierrez told MSBNC: “He would be good for the country. He would be good for the Republican Party. Paul Ryan is the kind of individual that would work with people on the other side of the aisle and that’s what we need.”
“This is no one-time thing for Gutierrez. In the 2013 AP piece, he called Ryan his “guiding light” on immigration. Referring to Ryan’s co-sponsorship of amnesty legislation in 2005, Gutierrez said, “It wasn’t like it was a long line of Republicans supporting it. He’s always supported immigration reform.” Ryan’s aggressive push in 2013 for a House version of Rubio’s Gang of Eight bill included joint appearances with Gutierrez; as Politico noted, “Ryan’s trip here Monday alongside Gutierrez…showed just how far Ryan’s willing to go to push for reform.” As Reuters noted during the Gang of Eight fight: “Alex Nowrasteh of the libertarian Cato Institute said Ryan could give other Republicans political cover to support immigration reform. ‘Nobody is going to question the conservative credentials of Paul Ryan,’ he said.””
—————————
I do. And it’s not a recent development either. He has a long history of taking a liberal view on immigration, albeit for different reasons than the Dems, but his views are closer to their’s than the conservative position.
—————————
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/paul-ryan-speaker-immigration-214860
“Paul Ryan is still reluctantly mulling a bid for speaker. But his adversaries on the far right want to discredit his campaign before it even begins — and they’re using Ryan’s extensive pro-immigration record as their key weapon.
From his days battling a restrictive California immigration ballot measure in the early 1990s, to his quiet efforts the past two years to help build GOP consensus for immigration reform, Ryan has a lengthy history of pushing for an overhaul that runs counter to the most conservative wings of his own party.
There will be a “major intraparty battle over immigration if Paul comes forward,” predicted Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a well-known immigration hard-liner, in an interview this week. “And a majority of the conference is on my side of this argument.””
————————————.
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And more,
http://immigrationreform.com/2016/01/13/speaker-paul-ryan-claims-he-opposes-amnesty/
“Speaker Paul Ryan Claims He Opposes Amnesty”
“No, this is not a headline from the faux news outlet The Onion. Appearing on CNN’s “The Lead,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) dismissed the charge from GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump that Ryan is weak on immigration. “People who know my record know that I’m for border enforcement, border control, not for amnesty,” the Speaker insisted. If you watch the video of the exchange with host Jake Tapper you will see that Ryan has a straight face while making the immigration claim.
Yet, a review of Ryan’s Capitol Hill career, including time as a staffer, shows how preposterous the Speaker’s assessment of his immigration position is. As the Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan noted in 2012 when Ryan was Mitt Romney’s running mate:
As a staffer in Washington, he worked for Jack Kemp and Sen. Sam Brownback – both of whom were part of the Republicans’ pro-immigration wing, and who fought crackdown efforts from within their own party… As a congressman, he voted for a 2002 legalization bill, praised the 2006 Senate [amnesty] bill back by Mr. Bush and co-sponsored a 2009 Democratic bill that would have legalized [illegal] immigrant farmworkers. Ryan’s more recent legislative history is even worse on immigration.”
“Paul Ryan has a multi-decades long history of consistently supporting amnesty.”
————————–
Is that why you’re such a fan?
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I told on the current Daily Thread that I used to work with DMA. I worked with TS/SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) for 27 years. I tell you that to say this:
Hillary says she didn’t know if something was classified or not.
The rule is:
, If you don’t know if something is classified, you assume that it is.
Simple as that dumbkoff.
She’s either an idiot or a liar.
We know she’s a liar. We’re the idiots if she becomes president.’
I can’t take it.
It just gets to me.
There is a downside to that rule, BTW. Lots of junk is in vaults where it shouldn’t be.
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So since when is immigration — which really is (or should be) a pretty nuanced topic on which there is a spectrum of valid views to the right of completely opening the borders — the only issue on which we determine who is “conservative”?
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Ricky — not sure Democratic voters have their hands out. Data put out by Pew indicates the states which rely most heavily on federal transfers for their state budget voted against Obama and are heavily Republican. Both Louisiana and Alabama rely on the feds for 40% of their budget, just slightly behind them are Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri and Kentucky. On the other hand they are probably voting for Trump. I think we know the demographic here
Meanwhile the states least reliant on federal transfers are California, Hawaii, Connecticut and Virginia — all voted for Obama. North Dakota was the least reliant but that may change if oil revenues continue to dip.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/293706-states-opposed-to-obama-more-dependent-on-federal-government
Trump may or may not have policies resembling Democratic ideas but the demographic he appeals to has been a consistent Republican base for the last 30 years.
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DJ beat me to it sort of ….
Is amnesty really a liberal position? Reagan was in favour of amnesty. It makes fiscal sense. It makes sense from a law and order perspective. On the other side of the spectrum, “old” labour is not always in favour of amnesty.
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Donna,
It’s not the only issue that determines it, but it is one. And Ryan’s position on it leans left, not conservative. He has that problem a lot.
https://www.conservativereview.com/members/paul-ryan/liberty-card/
“Representative
Paul D. Ryan
Party R
State WI
Years in DC 18
Next Election 2016
LIBERTY SCORE®
F
53%”
—————————-
His votes, 53% conservative, 47% liberal
—————————-
This was also not the “conservative” position. Expanding govt and running up the debt rarely are.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/16/paul-ryan-betrays-america-1-1-trillion-2000-plus-page-omnibus-bill-funds-fundamental-transformation-america/
“Paul Ryan’s first major legislative achievement is a total and complete sell-out of the American people masquerading as an appropriations bill.
Too harsh, you say? Let the programs, the spending, and the implications speak for themselves.
(1) Ryan’s Omnibus Fully Funds DACA
Though much of the public attention has surrounded the President’s 2014 executive amnesty, the President’s 2012 amnesty quietly continues to churn out work permits and federal benefits for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. Paul Ryan’s bill funds entirely this 2012 executive amnesty for “DREAMers”—or illegal immigrants who came to the country as minors.
Specifically, Division F of Ryan’s omnibus bill contains no language that would prohibit the use of funds to continue the President’s unconstitutional program. Obama’s executive action, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), has granted around 700,000 illegal aliens with work permits, as well as the ability to receive tax credits and federal entitlement programs. A recent GAO report documented how this illegal amnesty program for alien youth is, in large part, responsible for the illegal alien minor surge on our southern border.
In 2013, Paul Ryan said that it is his job as a U.S. lawmaker to put himself in the shoes of “the DREAMer who is waiting” and work to find legislative solutions to his or her problems.
(2) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds Sanctuary Cities”
“(8) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds Tax Credits for Illegal Aliens
Ryan’s bill preserves the expansion of the President’s expiring child tax credits without any accompanying language to prevent illegal aliens from receiving those tax credits. While Sen. Sessions attempted to include language in the bill that would prevent illegal immigrants from receiving tax credits, his recommendation was rejected.
(9) Ryan’s Omnibus Locks-In Huge Spending Increases
The bill funds the Obama-Boehner budget deal, which eliminated spending caps, and will increase both defense and non-defense spending next year by $25 billion more each.”
——————————-
Go read the list and tell me where exactly he takes the conservative position if you like, but you’ll be wasting your time, because he didn’t.
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More….
http://americanvision.org/12824/understand-just-how-badly-you-got-sold-out-by-the-ryan-spending-bill-and-why/
“Conservative outlets all over are blasting the Paul Ryan-led omnibus bill for a total sell-out of conservative voters. Breitbart calls it a betrayal of America. Rush Limbaugh concurred, using language even more vulgar.
Reading through their reasonings and rantings, one can gather just how badly we have been sold out. But you would not see the depth of it, actually. The depth of this depravity can be judged merely by analyzing the vote as it was taken in the House.
The record vote reveals that only three (count them—3) Republicans opposed the bill. That means that virtually the entire clan of so-called “Liberty caucus” conservatives supported the sell-out.
But it gets worse. 77 Democrats voted for this bill specifically because Paul Ryan went out of his way to court their vote (with late-night, secret deals reminiscent of the ObamaCare passing). Ryan not only sold out conservatives on Trillions in spending and new deficits, but virtually rubber-stamped Obama’s executive orders, his regionalism program to back-door annex suburbs by major urban centers (the Alinskyite-activists’ dream for years), funds Planned Parenthood, and funds a variety of other miscreant bureaucratic measures (including increased funding for activist bureaucracies in the Department of Education, as well as slipping in an internet spying amendment, among others.
What’s so bad about Democrats supporting this bill? Wouldn’t we expect them to, naturally? Not exactly. Actually, 106 of them opposed the Republican-led bill.
What the numbers reveal is that Paul Ryan (or the Republican establishment in general) actively courted Democrat votes when they didn’t need them. Apparently, Ryan and company wanted so badly to present this bill as “bipartisan” that he caved seriously on a number of leftist issues just to woo a couple handfuls of Democrats.
And that’s the sickest part of this sick bill. 241 Republicans voted “yes.” This means that it would have passed the House on purely Republican lines. That’s troubling enough in itself considering the spending and debts issues, but it’s absolutely sickening when you consider that they could have passed it without funding Planned Parenthood—and yet the chose to do so.
They could have passed it without a huge number of the leftist measures that were added to it. And yet they chose to add them anyway. And for what? A photo-op that looks “bipartisan.”
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Ryan tells the truth on immigration. In the primaries Amnesty Don fooled his moronic followers into believing he would actually deport all the illegal aliens. Limbaugh said he knew all the time that Amnesty Don was lying, but Trumpkins are easily fooled. If being a lying demagogue on immigration is what makes a person a conservative, we are in trouble.
HRW, Please note that I said Democrats AND Trumpkins had their hands out. You correctly identified some of the natural breeding grounds for Trumpkins.
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Limbaugh and the writers at Trumpbart are not bright. The intelligent young people I described earlier understand that the financial cliff toward which we are heading is caused by Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the expansion of food stamps, and SSD fraud and the steady contraction in the percentage of Americans who pay income tax. Ryan has tried and will continue to try to deal with these issues. Trump, Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, O”Reilly and the people at Trumpbart don’t understand these issues and never address them.
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AJ, Please note:
1. The “Ryan” spending bill you described had been negotiated by Boehner before his resignation’ and
2. Your own article noted that only three Republicans voted against the bill. Do you really think there are only three conservatives in Congress?
3. Trumpbart is largely written by nitwits. That is why it favored Trump. We always knew Limbaugh wasn’t that sharp, and couldn’t be relied upon to understand complex issues. The immigration issue proved Limbaugh to be completely dishonest and biased in favor of the liberal Trump.
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Here is a summary of Ryan’s rankings by various conservative and liberal groups:
https://votesmart.org/candidate/evaluations/26344/paul-ryan#.V8znZ3g8JCk
This is what the ratings of a conservative congressman look like.
Conversely, Trump is one part Democrat donor, one part demagogue, one part Sanders sympathizer, five parts con man, and two parts lunatic.
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Trump has ten parts?
Hillary has only one part. Corrupt politician.
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