Tag: Donald J. Trump

Thursday Night in Iowa: A Republican “Royal Rumble” Without the Front-Runner There (Physically, Anyway)

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

thWF5BU64KLast Sunday, the WWE staged it’s annual event, known as “The Royal Rumble” in which 30 combatants enter the squared circle, individually, every 3 minutes, and try to toss each other over the top rope, to see who will headline WrestleMania in a World Championship Match.

Last night’s Republican Presidential Candidates Primary Debate, with the notable absence of the Front-Runner, Donald J. Trump, was reminiscent of that wrestling event.

For those of you who did not watch the Trump-less Republican Primary Contenders’ Debate on Fox News Channel last night, MSN.com provides a detailed synopsis (from the Opposition Party’s point-of-view, of course)…

DES MOINES — The first Republican presidential debate without Donald Trump still took on a Trumpian tone at times, with the seven other top candidates here Thursday night voicing anger, talking tough and vowing to do away with political correctness.

But with the defiant GOP front-runner staging his own counter-program by rallying supporters a few miles away, Trump’s absence left a vacuum on the debate stage and fewer fireworks than Republicans had grown accustomed to.

From the opening question, it was mostly filled by Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), who has been locked in an intensifying duel with Trump for dominance in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, only four days away.

Cruz began by mocking Trump’s reputation for insults: “I’m a ‘maniac’ and everyone on this stage is ‘stupid,’ ‘fat’ and ‘ugly.’ And Ben [Carson], you’re a ‘terrible surgeon.’ Now that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way . . .”

From there, however, little more was said about Trump, few direct attacks were leveled at him and the overall atmosphere was notably calmer than in previous debate. That left Cruz as the top target as Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and other opponents sought to puncture the Texas senator’s appeal by trying to depict him as an inauthentic conservative.

“The truth is, Ted, throughout this campaign you’ve been willing to say or do anything in order to get votes,” Rubio said. “You want to trump Trump on immigration.”

Rubio and Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) both attacked Cruz for having once supported an amendment that would have granted legal status, not citizenship, to illegal immigrants — though Cruz maintains that it was a “poison pill” and that he has always opposed amnesty.

“He is the king of saying, ‘Oh, you’re for amnesty. Everybody’s for amnesty except for Ted Cruz,’ ” Paul said. “But it’s a falseness, and that’s an authenticity problem.”

Cruz was not the only candidate on the defensive on immigration, however. Rubio also came under fire for his role as one of the Gang of Eight senators who crafted comprehensive reform legislation in 2013.

After giving Rubio a backhanded compliment for being “charming and smooth,” Cruz hammered him for having aligned with President Obama and Democratic Senate leaders Harry Reid (Nev.) and Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.).

The Fox News Channel moderators tried to challenge both Cruz and Rubio by playing archival video footage of the two senators. After showing the Cruz videos, co-moderator Megyn Kelly asked: “Was that all an act? It was pretty convincing.”

In the absence of Trump, Cruz and Rubio had the most to gain or lose in Thursday night’s debate. The two are the second- and third-polling candidates in Iowa, and their strategies are predicated on being the last non-Trump candidate left standing to face off with the mogul in a long-slog primary season.

Both men emerged with scars.

Rubio appeared to struggle explaining why he advocated a hard-line immigration approach as a Senate candidate, then pursued comprehensive reform that included a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, then reverted.

Rubio said he does not support “blanket amnesty” and focused on the need to seal the border with Mexico and improve security there.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush used the exchange to portray Rubio — his onetime protege when Rubio was a Florida state lawmaker — as weak for having reversed positions on immigration. After noting that he supported Rubio’s work in the Gang of Eight, Bush said, “He cut and run because it wasn’t popular among conservatives, I guess.”

“You shouldn’t cut and run,” Bush said. “You should stick with it. That’s exactly what happened. He cut and run, and that’s a tragedy.”

Rubio countered by saying that Bush had reversed his own position on citizenship and legal status in a book he wrote.

“So did you,” Bush snapped back.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie used the back-and-forth over Senate votes and amendments to show the leadership differences between legislators and executives, and he repeated his call for a governor in the White House.

“I feel like I need a Washingtonese-English dictionary converter,” Christie joked.

Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who once led the polls but has seen his lead falter among heavy scrutiny of his policy knowhow, invoked his medical career as a credential for the White House: “I’ve had more 2 a.m. phone calls than everybody here put together, making life and death decisions.”

The immigration exchange was one of the few moments of direct confrontation onstage between the candidates. The debate lacked a central focus, with Kelly and her co-moderators, Bret Baier and Chris Wallace, asking many one-off questions that focused on the vulnerabilities of individual candidates.

In return, the candidates gave many of the canned lines that have become familiar on the campaign trail, avoiding taking big risks with the Iowa caucuses so close.

The seventh Republican debate of the 2016 campaign cycle was the first not to include Trump, the billionaire mogul whose bombast and showmanship dominated the previous events.

Trump boycotted the debate, escalating his feud with Fox and its star anchor, Kelly, because he believed he would not be treated fairly. He has long harbored disdain for Kelly because of her aggressive line of questioning during the first GOP debate in August, and he has argued that the network was taking advantage of his popularity with viewers to boost its ratings and thus its advertising revenue.

In her opening question, Kelly said, “Let’s address the elephant not in the room tonight.”

Trump staged a competing rally Thursday night on the Des Moines campus of Drake University, where he raised money for and honored veterans.

Much of the debate centered on foreign policy, with the candidates competing to show who would be the toughest commander in chief.

“You claim it is tough talk to discuss ‘carpet bombing,’ ” Cruz said. “It is not tough talk. It is a different fundamental military strategy than what we’ve seen from President Obama.”

Early in the debate, Cruz took fire on multiple fronts. Paul went after him for refusing to show support for a vote to audit the Federal Reserve and for not voicing strong enough opposition to the government’s surveillance efforts.

“I don’t think Ted can have it both ways. They want to say they’re getting some of the liberty vote,” Paul said. “But we don’t see it happening at all. We think we’re going to do very well in Iowa with the liberty vote.”

Rubio, as he has for months, portrayed Cruz as weak on national security.

“As already has been pointed out, the only budget that Ted has ever voted for is a budget that Rand Paul sponsored that brags about cutting defense spending,” Rubio said. “And I think that’s a bad idea.”

The closing days of the race have been nasty here in Iowa. The campaigns and allied super PACs are blanketing television and radio airwaves with attack ads, while the candidates have laced their stump speeches with sharp barbs.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is banking his hopes on the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary, sought to position himself above the fray.

“We cannot fix things in this country — the Social Security, the border, balancing the budget, getting wages to grow faster — unless we lead as conservatives, but we also invite people in from the other party,” Kasich said. “We have to come together as a country. And we have to stop all the divisions.”

Kasich’s call for unity went unheeded, and he was a non-factor through significant stretches of the debate as other candidates sparred.

As in previous debates, the candidates harshly attacked Hillary Clinton and sought to position themselves as best equipped to lead the Republican Party into the general election against Clinton, whom they see as the most likely Democratic nominee.

“She is not qualified to be president of the United States,” Christie said, drawing loud cheers from the audience. “The fact is, what we need is someone on that stage who has been tested, who has been through it, who has made decisions, who has sat in the chair of consequence and can prosecute the case against Hillary Clinton.”

Bush made a similar pitch.

“This is an election about people that are really hurting,” he said. “We need a leader that will fix things and have a proven record to do it. And we need someone who will take on Hillary Clinton in November.”

So, what was the Front-Running Trump up to, while the rest of the candidates duked it out?

Again, MSN.com has the story (and, please remember, they are hardly non-partisan)…

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donald Trump opened a Thursday rally coinciding with the final GOP debate before Monday’s Iowa caucuses by telling supporters he would have preferred to be at the debate, but had no choice but to skip it after promising a boycott.

Angry over an escalating feud with debate host Fox News, Trump bowed out of the debate and held what his team called a “Special Event to Benefit Veterans Organizations” at a packed 775-seat auditorium at nearby Drake University instead.

“You have to stick up for your rights. When you’re treated badly, you have to stick up for your rights,” Trump told the crowd. “We have to stick up for ourselves as people and we have to stick up for our country if we’re being mistreated.”

Speaking from the stage at what felt like a cross between a televised fundraising telethon and a typical Trump campaign rally, Trump said his foundation already had raised between $5 million and $6 million for veterans since announcing the event. He said he’s putting up $1 million of his own money and read off the names of wealthy friends he said had pledged major contributions.

Trump repeated earlier statements that Fox “very much” wanted him to attend the debate and said he’d fielded repeated phone calls from the network during the day. Fox News Channel issued a statement saying Trump had offered to appear at the debate upon the condition that Fox contribute $5 million to his charities, which the network said was not possible.

Fox News says Chairman Roger Ailes, in conversations with Trump, “acknowledged his concerns” about a statement the network had made in the days leading up to the debate.

Trump has said he’s not worried about turning off voters who may be disappointed by his decision to skip Thursday’s contest.

“We’ve had other voters that love what I’m doing because they don’t want to be pushed around by the establishment,” said Trump, who is planning to participate in the next debate in New Hampshire.

It was unclear exactly which groups would receive money raised from the event and new website Trump launched for collecting donations: donaldtrumpforvets.com. Contributions to the site will go to The Donald J. Trump Foundation, Trump’s nonprofit charitable organization. The page says: “100 percent of your donations will go directly to Veterans needs.”

Trump representatives had been reaching out to various groups, in some cases inquiring about their programs and finances. Among those contacted were the Green Beret Foundation, which provides care to veterans, and Fisher House, which provides free or low cost housing to veterans and military families receiving treatment at military medical centers.

K9s for Warriors, which trains rescue dogs to be service animals for veterans, received a call from a Trump campaign representative asking if the group was interested in accepting funds from the event, according to executive director Rory Diamond. Diamond said the group is non-partisan but would be happy to accept any contributions.

Two of Donald Trump’s presidential rivals have taken the stage at a rally Trump is hosting to benefit veterans as he skips the Republican debate.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum attended the rally after participating in the early undercard debate for candidates whose poll numbers were too low to make it on the main stage.

Trump was joined at the event by two of his rivals, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Both took the stage at Trump’s event after participating in the early, undercard debate for candidates whose poll numbers were too low to make it on the main stage.

Santorum joked that he didn’t want his picture taken with the Trump campaign sign. He quipped that he’s “supporting another candidate for president,” but said he was happy to come out to support veterans.

Huckabee had earlier stressed his appearance should not be seen as an endorsement of Trump. He told the audience gathered at Drake University that he, Santorum and Trump may be presidential race competitors but said “tonight we are colleagues” in supporting veterans.

Every since I graduated high school in 1976, I have followed politics. I had to in college, because I was the News Director of the Campus Radio Station, with a staff of 20 students , who received class credit for producing a 5-minute newscast, once a week.

In 1980, I was privileged to cast my very first vote for the greatest American President in my lifetime, Ronald Reagan.

Since then, I have witnessed a lot of political chicanery, resulting in a lot of harm to the country which I love.

The Muslim-sympathizing, Alinsky-ite Marxist, who currently saunters down to the Oval Office every morning at 10:30 a.m. in his shirt sleeves, on his way to play golf, is the latest and most egregious example.

In every decade since the 1970s, the Media in this country has become more and more Liberal…and more and more subjective in their Editorial Policies and actual reporting.

With the advent of cable television and the 24-hour News Cycle, the Media had to step up their behind-the-scenes manipulation of events, in order to be competitive, and to secure the Cash Cow of their business, high viewership ratings.

What happened last night, was a result of an American Businessman, refusing to play the role of Pinocchio to one of these Modern-day Gepettos.

Per gatewaypundit.com,

FOX News and Google invited a radical Muslim activist, a Bernie Sanders supporter, a Black Lives Matter supporter and a Mexican illegal immigrant to the debate to confront Donald Trump.

Trump found out and, instead of stepping into a pile of…well, you know…he stepped around it, right into more FREE PUBLICITY, while raising money for our American Veterans, whom this Administration has treated so badly.

So, will Trump be hurt by last night?

Hardly.

As of this morning’s Drudge Report’s Republican Candidate Poll, Trump is far outdistancing the pack, with 65.59% of the vote. Sen. Ted Cruz has 16.63%, and Marco Rubio has 6.5%.

Not a scientific poll, I know, but, it could very possibly be a portent of things to come.

The best laid plans of mice and men oft’ times go awry. – Robert Burns

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

O’Reilly Begs Trump, Rush: “Fox Jilted at the Altar”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

republican_debate_ben_garrisonUnder the category “Actions Have Consequences”…

Thehill.com reports that

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday night lashed out at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in his first appearance on the network since he announced he’d boycott the next GOP debate.
 
He also refused to reconsider his decision to sit out the network’s Thursday night debate – the last before the Iowa caucuses in five days – and said he’d move forward with his own competing event to raise money for wounded veterans.

Speaking on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Trump continued his long-running feud with Kelly, who he has been criticizing ever since she challenged him on his past derogatory remarks about women at the first GOP debate in August. 

“I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly,” Trump said. “I don’t think she’s good at what she does and I think she’s highly overrated. And frankly, she’s a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous.”
 
Kelly is also set to moderate Thursday night’s debate on Fox News.
 
Trump is instead holding a rally in Des Moines at the same time as the Republican debate that he says will raise money for wounded veterans.

In the contentious interview with O’Reilly, Trump rebuffed the anchor’s attempts to convince him that he’s making a grave error by skipping the debate.
 
“I believe personally that you want to improve the country,” O’Reilly said. “By doing this, you miss the opportunity to convince others … that is true.
 
“You have in this debate format the upper hand — you have sixty seconds off the top to tell the moderator, ‘You’re a pinhead, you’re off the mark and here’s what I want to say’. By walking away from it, you lose the opportunity to persuade people you are a strong leader.”
 
But O’Reilly’s pitch fell flat with Trump. The GOP front-runner dug in his heels, insisting he intended to retaliate against the network by depriving them of ratings.
 
“Fox was going to make a fortune off this debate,” Trump said. “Now they’re going to make much less.”
 
O’Reilly said he was merely trying to convince Trump that his approach “is wrong because it’s better for people to see you in the debate format.”
 
He gave the example from 2012, when former Speaker Newt Gingrich was asked an embarrassing question by a CNN debate moderator at a South Carolina debate about allegations he had an open marriage.
 
Gingrich shut the moderator down and went on to win South Carolina, O’Reilly noted.
 
“That’s the kind of guy you are,” O’Reilly said. “You stick it to them and let them have it.”

 Responded Trump: “Newt is a friend of mine and I thought it was an unfair question. But equally unfair was the question Megyn Kelly asked me.”
 
O’Reilly then sought to appeal to Trump’s capacity to forgive, reminding the billionaire businessman that he’s a Christian, even if he doesn’t attend church all that often, and that the Bible says to “turn the other cheek.”
 
Trump shot back, saying he’s a regular church-goer, and that the Bible also says “an eye for an eye.”
 
“You could look at it that way too,” Trump said.
 
O’Reilly accused Trump of being “petty,” and said he was allowing things that are out of his control to have outsized influence over his decision-making process.
 
“I don’t like being taken advantage of,” Trump said. “In this case I was being taken advantage of by Fox. I don’t like that. Now when I’m representing the country, if I win, I’m not going to let our country be taken advantage of. … It’s a personality trait but I don’t think it’s a bad personality trait.”
 
O’Reilly ended the interview asking Trump to just at least consider showing up Thursday night. Trump said the two had agreed beforehand that O’Reilly not ask that question.
 
“I told you up front don’t ask me that question because it’s an embarrassing question for you and I don’t want to embarrass you,” he said.

Bill-O asked the question because his employers are desperate.

Fox News Host Greta Van Susteren posted a Viewer Poll in which she asked if folks would watch tonight’s Republican Primary Debate, if Donald J. Trump followed through with his promise not to show up.

As of the morning of the debate, 86.91% of those who responded will not be watching a “Trump-less” Debate.

Rush Limbaugh, as I reported yesterday, has been on point during this whole kerfuffle.

Once again, he made a couple of spot-on observations on yesterday’s radio program:

Observation #1 –

Folks, I want to let you in on another observation of mine — and that’s all it is, is an observation.  I have found, when talking to people, including media people in the East Coast, New York — well, all the way up and down the East Coast, but New York — Washington, Boston, down here in south Florida and so forth, virtually everybody thinks of Fox News as a conservative network.  But you go out… As I’ve traveled around and go places… Like for the holidays, I see people in Missouri. For Christmas, I see people all over the place. When I golf, I see people all over the country.

And I’m here to tell you: Fox News is not considered the conservative network that it used to be.  I’m not trying to stir anything up here.  I’m saying that when you hear the media, who are all leftists, talk about Fox News, it may as well be the John Birch Society as far as they’re concerned.  That’s why they hate it.  It may as well be the Birchers. It may as well be whatever evil right-wing organization. That’s what they think it is.  But you go out to the heartland of this country, and it’s not so much.  “I mean, what would a conservative network be doing giving time to Michael Moore? 

“Why would New York Times and Washington Post reporters be on the air to give opinions on a conservative network?” This is what people are saying out there that I hear.  Now, the identity is still pretty obviously heavily tilted to news and analysis that you don’t get anywhere else, and that remains true.  I’m just telling you people’s perceptions as they share them with me. I’ll tell you what I think, ’cause I find it amazing.  It’s just more evidence of the media being out of touch and not really knowing what people say.

Since we’re talking about Iowa, I don’t think they really know what’s important to the people of Iowa.  Because they look at everything through their own prism of being in the Northeast and part of the liberal power structure that determines every social, political structure in that part of the country — and, as such, there’s a divide.  And it’s not just among elected officials.  I speak constantly about the disconnect that exists now between elected officials and the people, Republican and Democrat.

The distances, the disconnect between the people who vote for them and the people that serve in office is bigger than I’ve ever seen it.  And it’s no more obvious than the issue of immigration.  But it’s also obvious on the issue of say, Obamacare, or spending.  And when you start talking about Fox News, people in the media say, “Oh, it’s just embarrassing. Right wing! My God, ugh.”  But it’s not thought of that way in many parts of the country.  

Observation #2 –

You’ve heard the phrase “the game.”  Every business has aspects of it that are considered the game, and that’s the routine.  And the game is characterized by everybody knowing the rules of the game.  People involved in it play by the rules.  Some venture outside now and then, but the rules pretty much of the game are adhered to because it’s a matter of respect for the game in which everybody is in. 

And in this business one of the games is that when the media calls, you answer, and when the media wants you, you go, and when the media is going to host a debate and it’s part of a Republican presidential campaign, you go.  You just do it, no matter what the media’s done to you in the past, no matter what you think of it, whether you want to go or not, you go.  That’s the game. 

Trump is so far outside this game, he’s so far outside the rules, he’s never been a player in this game.  He’s always been an outsider.  I heard people on Fox last night talking about this. “Who does he think he is?  He can’t control the media.”  I got news for you:  He is controlling the media, and it’s his objective.  He is controlling the media.  He controls the media when he’s not on it.  He controls the media when he is on it.  He controls the media when he’s asleep.  Nobody else has been able to do anything like this short of the Kennedys, and they’re pikers compared to the way Trump is doing this. 

Now, it’s very simple, if you read The Art of the Deal or if you know Donald Trump at all, it’s very simple:  He had an unpleasant experience in the first debate, and in his mind, the question that he was asked was rigged.  Don’t forget, before that first debate, remember all of the news stories that were floating around saying that that debate, somebody at Fox had been given orders by the Republican establishment to take Trump out.  Remember that?  There were any number of so-called sources for this.  Some said it was the donors demanding it.  Some said that it was Fox News executives demanding it.  Some said it was the RNC demanding it. 

Well, Trump’s not immune.  He hears it.  And even if he hadn’t heard it he would have to know that they want to take him out; he’s outside the game; he’s breaking all the rules.  He’s exposing so much as fraud that has gone on inside the American political process for so long they can’t allow somebody like this to win and succeed.  It’s quite natural they would want to take him out as well.  It’s Bengals-Steelers time here, folks.  It’s quite natural they’d want to take him out.  Well, he heard it.

Here comes Megyn Kelly’s first question.  He didn’t hear anybody else get a question like that.  He never sees Hillary Clinton get a question like that.  He never hears Bill Clinton or another Democrat get a question like that.  So he answers it and says screw this.  I’m not putting myself in that position again.  Why should I?  I don’t have to. 

But the rules of the game say when there’s a debate, you show up.  Screw the rules, he’s saying.  Why should I willingly give them another shot at me in a circumstance they control, why should I do it?  What’s the sense in it for me?  I’m leading; I’m running the pack here; why in the world should I put myself in that circumstance?  I’ve already seen what’s gonna happen. 

I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.  I mean, there could be some personal things going on here that I don’t know about.  But just from the standpoint of knowing Trump, reading his book, and seeing how he operates elsewhere, in his mind, screw the rules, screw what’s expected, screw “This is just the way you do it.”  I’m not gonna put myself in a position go where I’m gonna be treated unfairly.  I don’t have to.  I’m Donald Trump.  Anybody can do this.  Ted Cruz could choose to do it if he wants to.  They just don’t.  Cruz and the rest of the pack are playing the rules of the game.  Trump is saying I don’t have to do it.  I don’t want to do it.  I don’t have any respect for these people.  What the hell. 

In addition to that, Donald Trump knows that by not showing up, he’s owning the entire event.  Some guy not even present will end up owning the entire event, and the proof of that is Fox News last night.  I have to tell you, folks, this is where this gets tough for me.  I was stunned watching Fox News last night.  Fox News was acting like they had been jilted at the altar.  If it had been me — and this is easy to say — if it had been me and Donald Trump makes a big to-do about not showing up for the debate, report the story and move on.  Talk about Ted Cruz.  Go talk about the other candidates.  Go talk about Hillary and the FBI.  There’s a lot of news out there.  But don’t devote the rest of the night to how a candidate’s not showing up because of you.  I mean, the network, not just Megyn Kelly. 

Look, I understand the warfare that has been established here.  If you look at some of the things that Trump’s campaign spokesman, Corey Lewandowski has said, if you read between the lines, it looks like what really has ticked ’em off over at Trump central is the mocking of Trump in the official PR statements that Fox has released, making fun, they’re gonna call Putin, they’re gonna call in the ayatollah, and the ayatollah and Putin, whatever.  That might have been the nail in the coffin as opposed to any lack of desire to face Megyn Kelly. But folks, one other thing about this.  If I heard it once last night, I’ve heard it a thousand times since, that Trump is afraid of Megyn Kelly or afraid of Fox News.  That is not what this is.  There isn’t any fear.  What is there is here — in my opinion — is a desire to control this and a purposeful decision to not put himself in a circumstance where other people want to make him look bad. 

In his mind, that’s a dumb thing to do.  You don’t put yourself in a circumstance where a whole bunch of other people are gonna be able to make you look bad while you’re there.  If they do it when you’re not around, that’s another thing, you can counterprogram it, you can do whatever, but you don’t have to put yourself in a circumstance where you have to personally deal with it as a sign of disrespect or somebody else trying to notch their belt.  It really isn’t any more complicated than that. 

Exactly.

It was a sound business decision. He was protecting his “brand”. The “Business of Today’s Politics” decrees that you jump when the Elite of your Political Party and their minions in the Media tell you to. That is the game to which Rush was referring.

The problem that the Republican Elite and the Media are having with Trump is the simple fact that he is a Businessman. He is not a Professional Politician. Trump knew that he was walking into a trap. So, he made the decision not to. It was a sound Business Decision. He was protecting his “brand”, while at the same time, once again owning the News Cycle.

Additionally, through appearing on behalf of the Iowa Veterans, he is solidifying his Populist Image.

Another Republican Presidential Hopeful, back in the 1980s, decided to skip the last Primary Debate before the Iowa Caucus. He lost Iowa, but he won the Presidency in a landslide.

He did alright.

Ratings-wise, Fox News, if Trump goes through with his plans, will be hoisted on their own petard.

My degree is in Radio, Television, and Film. And, let me tell you, boys and girls, in television, even now, almost 36 years after I graduated college, high viewership ratings remain the Cash Cow of the Television Industry.

Their business depends on it.

In this situation, those who run Fox News decided to send their Cash Cow to the slaughterhouse and then hold a barbeque.

As a result of their actions, I predict that they will experience a bad case of gas tonight.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Beck Endorses Cruz, Says That He Prefers Socialist Bernie Over Capitalist Donald

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

beck-iowaWell, Professional Showman and Radio Talk Show Host Glenn Beck is at the top of the News Cycle, again.

Why? Because CONTROVERSY MEANS RATINGS.

Thehill.com has reported that

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck on Saturday endorsed Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz for the White House.

Beck compared Cruz to the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, and gave him a compass that belonged to the first one, George Washington.

“I’m taking a very big risk here and gambling on it, but this is how much I believe in Ted Cruz,” Beck said at a Cruz rally in Ankeny, Iowa.“I’d like you to hold onto that,” he said, passing Cruz the compass, “to make sure your compass is square and you stay true” to your values.

Beck said he had never endorsed a presidential candidate in his 40 years of broadcasting, but he made an exception because of the urgency of the moment.

He said Cruz is the only candidate in the field who can defeat GOP front-runner Donald Trump in the Iowa caucuses.

“I like [Sen.] Marco Rubio – I’ve had real problems with his policies, especially on the NSA – but I like him, he’s a decent man,” Beck said. “Ben Carson – really good, decent, honorable, God-fearing man. I just don’t think he’s ready – I wish he was, but I don’t think he’s ready.

“[Sen.] Rand Paul, strong on the Constitution and a good guy,” he continued. “But I will tell you this – those guys aren’t going to win Iowa. They might win down the road, they’re not going to win Iowa.

“And if Donald Trump wins, it’s going to be a snowball to hell.”

The conservative media magnate took several shots at Trump, comparing him to a progressive in the likeness of President Obama.

“The other guy has said he hasn’t done anything in his life that actually makes him feel like he should ask forgiveness from God,” he said of Trump. “The hubris of that is astonishing, as if for the last eight years we have watched a narcissist in the Oval Office and it has meant nothing to us.”

Beck said Trump owed America an apology for supporting the Wall Street bailout during the financial crisis.

“It’s up to him to ask God’s forgiveness, but I would like to suggest to you that the man owes America an apology, and he should ask conservatives for America for forgiveness for supporting billions of dollars of bailouts, for pulling for the nationalization of our banks,” he said.

He said he even prefers Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” running in the Democratic presidential primary, to Trump.

“Honesty, faith and truth are basic requirements. And quite honestly, I have to tell you, this probably isn’t going to go over very well, that’s why I like Bernie Sanders,” he said. “Bernie Sanders is like, ‘Yep, I’m a socialist.’ 

“I can actually sit at a table with a man who says, ‘Yes, I’m a socialist, and yes, I don’t like what we are doing, we should be more like Denmark,’ ” he added.

“What we really need in America is enough of these politicians who are telling us what we want to hear, hiding behind fancy language, and actually have a debate between a constitutionalist like Ted Cruz and a socialist like Bernie Sanders.”

Cruz praised Beck as a “fearless and reliable conservative.”

“Glenn has been a relentless fighter for liberty, for limited government, and for restoring the country we all love so much,” he said in a statement released by his campaign after the endorsement.

“His powerful voice and passion played a critical role in my Senate victory and I am now proud to have him in our corner in 2016.”

I can remember when Glenn Beck first came on in the Memphis Area.

I thought, “Hey. This guy’s pretty refreshing and entertaining. He makes some pretty intelligent points.”

As time went by, Beck became more powerful in the world of Conservative Talk Radio.

He became a part of the Grassroots Movement, known as “The TEA Party”.

He held massive rallies to “Restore Honor” and to reinforce “Traditional American Values”, such as Faith and Family.

And then, something happened.

Like Captain Ahab, who changed from a respected “Man of the Sea” to an obsessed lunatic, willing to sacrifice ship and crew to kill the massive White Whale, Moby Dick, Beck has become obsessed in bringing down the Front-running Potential Republican Presidential Candidate, Donald J. Trump.

Allow me to set something straight, before I go any further,  I do not begrudge him, or any of my friends, for supporting Ted Cruz. I like him, as well.

He is a good candidate and a fine Christian American.

However, the reality is, Trump is way out in front of him in the Primary Race because Americans have had their fill of Professional Politicians.

Heck, I will be fine with either one of these men taking up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTH A D@#N SIGHT BETTER MEN THAN THE MUSLIM-LOVING SOCIALIST DHIMMI, WHO SLEEPS IN UNTIL 10 O’CLCK EVERY MORNING, AND WHO CURRENTLY USES OUR HOUSE FOR HIS “CRIB”.

Beck is as big a Showman as Trump is. Hence, his statement of stated “affinity” for the Far Left Whackjob Socialist, Democrat Primary Candidate Bernie Sanders.

We are already suffering under one Far Left Socialist Whackjob, we sure as heck don’t need to follow up this present Presidential Nightmare with another.

French sociologist and political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) traveled to the America in 1831 to study our prisons and returned to France with a wealth of broader observations that he compiled together in “Democracy in America” (1835), one of the most influential books of the 19th century. With its spot-on observations on equality and individualism, Tocqueville’s work remains a valuable explanation of America to Europeans and of Americans to ourselves.

He once observed that

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

In other words, the failed political ideology of socialism takes away the exhilaration and fulfillment of individual achievement and replaces it with self-sacrifice in servitude to the State, for the good of the Central  Nanny-State Government, which, in turn, promises to “share the wealth”, but, as was the case in the old Soviet Union, and more recently, Venezuela, never does.

…And, Professional Politician Bernie Sanders, like the members of the old Soviet Union’s Politboro before him,  has a net worth that is more than most of us will never see in our lifetimes.

The great Sir Winston Churchill once said that

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

I would rather be blessed than miserable.

Wouldn’t you?

Thehill.com, in the preceding article got something wrong about Glenn Beck. He has never been a “Conservative”

He is a Libertarian.

Per libertarianism.org:

Libertarianism is the belief that each person has the right to live his life as he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others. Libertarians defend each person’s right to life, liberty, and property. In the libertarian view, voluntary agreement is the gold standard of human relationships. If there is no good reason to forbid something (a good reason being that it violates the rights of others), it should be allowed. Force should be reserved for prohibiting or punishing those who themselves use force, such as murderers, robbers, rapists, kidnappers, and defrauders (who practice a kind of theft). Most people live their own lives by that code of ethics. Libertarians believe that that code should be applied consistently, even to the actions of governments, which should be restricted to protecting people from violations of their rights. Governments should not use their powers to censor speech, conscript the young, prohibit voluntary exchanges, steal or “redistribute” property, or interfere in the lives of individuals who are otherwise minding their own business.

Libertarian ideas are becoming increasingly influential. Philosopher Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia helped to revitalize political theory and to focus attention on the proper limits of state power. Classical liberal economists and social scientists have pioneered the understanding of processes of social coordination and change, many of them earning Nobel Prizes in the process. And the broad global trend toward economic deregulation, freer trade, limits on taxes, toleration of minorities, and greater personal freedom shows the influence of libertarian ideas and libertarian thinkers and activists.

For example, Dr. Ron Paul is a Libertarian, and he and his son, Republican Candidate, Dr. Rand Paul, are frequent guests on Beck’s program.

Ronald Reagan defined Conservatism as being a three-legged stool, consisting of Social Conservatism, Fiscal Conservatism, and National Defense.

Today’s Libertarians misidentify themselves as Conservatives.  They discard two out of the three legs of the stool, identifying themselves as “Fiscal Conservatives”.

If you’re having a discussion with someone and they call themselves a “Fiscal Conservative”. Nine times out of ten, you’re talking to a Libertarian.

While Trump is not a Classic Reagan Conservative, either, Ted Cruz has his faults as well.

I, for one, would love to see them running on the same ticket.

As this Campaign Season rolls on, just remember:

There was only ONE PERFECT MAN.

And, he gave his life for us on Calvary.

Until He Comes,

KJ 

 

 

The War Against Christianity: The Only “Angels From Hell” are “Lucifer” and His Demons…and They are Not the “Good Guys”.

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

American Christianity 2This past week, several of my fellow Christian American Conservatives became very concerned over the fact that leading Republican Presidential Primary Candidate Donald J. Trump, revered to a passage of scripture as being from “Two Corinthians”, instead of “Second Corinthians”.

Heck, I was just glad that he was referring to the Bible, instead of the Quran, as the current occupant of the White House does, every chance he gets.

Christian American Conservatives have bigger issues than Trump’s misspeaking to worry about.

Christanpost.com reports that

One Million Moms, a nonprofit family-interest group, has managed to convince the manufacturer Sleep Number to stop funding CBS’ new comedy series, “Angel from Hell,” starring Jane Lynch, which, it says, disrespects Christianity. 

“The previews alone can make believers sick to their stomachs with the blasphemous content including crude humor, foul language and distasteful dialogue,” says an alert posted on the website of One Million Moms, an organization founded by the American Family Association.

The series, which premiered Jan. 7, airs on Thursday evenings. The show is about an angel named Amy, who acts as a guardian for Allison, forming an unlikely friendship. It focuses on “a holier-than-thou character who is anything but that,” the family interest group says.

“The network also cast children in scenes that are extremely inappropriate, such as the angel using foul language in front of them and then joking that she never promised to be G-rated,” the group adds. “The premiere also included the angel hiding liquor in the children’s clothes and saying, ‘My booze!’ followed by a little boy saying, ‘That’s so cool!’ Almost every scene included the angel drinking alcohol from a flask, even on Sunday, and once at a bar. Not to mention the angel rides on a wrecking ball while busting up a concrete angel statue.”

Networks like CBS portray a false image of religion “once again,” the group says, calling the show “another attempt to distort the truth about people’s faith.”

As a result of the alert, Sleep Number is pulling its sponsorship of “Angel From Hell” immediately, the group’s website says. “Thanks for your feedback. We’ve contacted our Marketing team and confirmed we’re not planning on running any additional ads with this program at this time,” Sleep Number wrote on its Facebook page.

The Media Research Center agrees with One Million Moms’ criticism.

“This is just the latest volley in Hollywood’s war against faith,” Dan Gainor, VP of business and culture for MRC, tells Fox411. “Rather than simply deny the divine, ‘Angel From Hell’ seeks to denigrate it. They picked ‘Glee’ veteran Jane Lynch, who hates conservatives, to portray a disgustingly foul and perverted ‘angel.'”

He compared CBS’ show with the FOX television series called “Lucifer.” “With the arrival of the show ‘Lucifer,’ where the devil is portrayed as suave good guy, this is just the Left Coast’s latest attack on religious faith,” Gainor says.

In “Angel from Hell,” Amy is portrayed as a mysterious and eccentric individual who reveals herself to be an angel. She has a crazy persona and can make unbelievable predictions that come true. It is suggested that Amy has been watching Allison since childhood. Allison is a dermatologist who likes to multi-task and is a perfectionist. She thinks that Amy is nuts, until she discovers that Amy knows everything about her and starts believing her crazy predictions.

While we are on the subject of “Angels”, here is an article from CNS News, about the program mentioned earlier, featuring the Fallen Angel, previously known as “The Lightbearer”.

A number of faith-based and conservative watchdog groups are panning Lucifer, a new Fox television series that will premiere on January 25 at 9 pm Eastern Standard Time, saying there’s “nothing redeeming” about a show that  glamorizes Satan.Fox’s website describes the series’ main character, Lucifer Morningstar, who is depicted as a “devilishly handsome” demon: “Bored and unhappy as the Lord of Hell, the original fallen angel, Lucifer Morningstar has abandoned his throne and retired to L.A. where he owns Lux, an upscale nightclub.”

Actor Tom Ellis, the son of a Baptist pastor who plays Lucifer, described his character in a recent interview: “He looks like James Bond- or perhaps a villain out of Jaguar’s ‘it’s good to be bad’ commercial – and has the morals of a debauched investment banker (albeit with a little more heart.)

“The show certainly is not a big theological debate,” Ellis added. “More than anything, I’d say this show is a story of redemption.”

But critics say the graphic murder and blasphemy in the official trailer prove that Lucifer is anything but redeeming.

The pilot was condemned by the American Family Association’s One Million Moms project not only for featuring violence and scantily-clad women, but also for its attempt to “glorify Satan as a caring, likeable person in human flesh.”

“We were not able to preview this show, but we know enough about to be concerned,” Melissa Henson, director of communications and public education at the Parents Television Council, told CNSNews.com.

“Besides the dark theme, we expect there will be high levels of violence and disturbing sexual content. Clearly it is inappropriate for kids and families even though it is airing in prime time,” she said. “From what I can see, there’s nothing redeeming about this show at all.”

“The very fact that it could be on a major network without serious questions being raised with regard to advertisers and the like tells you where the culture has gone, to a certain extent,” Fr. Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, told CNSNews.com.

“I urge believers to be calm, because part of the marketing strategy of these companies is to incorporate the kind of opposition they can get from believers who would find this offensive and thus call more attention to the project.

“The second caution is that this show seems rather superficial with its constant use of one gag about the devil. It doesn’t seem like it’s a serious reflection on evil, on the capacity of human beings to betray their highest values.”

“I’m reminded of what C.S. Lewis puts in the words of his devil in the Screwtape Letters, that the real danger in confrontation with evil and the world is when people don’t believe that there is evil. So I don’t think we’ve hit the bottom quite yet, because at least they’re talking about things spiritual,” Sirico said.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, told CNSNews.com that he’s not too concerned that Lucifer will do any serious damage to Christians’ faith.

“It strikes me as sci-fi. It’s theater of the absurd for me. It doesn’t look like something I’m going to get exorcised about,” he said. “You’d have to be a moron to look at this show and come to the conclusion that the Bible is wrong.

“I’m more worried about docu-dramas like the ones Oliver Stone does that confuse viewers,” Donohue added.

Noting that “believers and non-believers alike have questions about, and interest in, Satan and the demonic,” Dr. Alex McFarland, author of 17 books on Christian apologetics, told CNSNews.com in an email that “the Bible warns that as history moves toward the point of Christ’s return, demonic activity will persist and even increase (I Timothy 4:1, II Timothy 3:1-13).  The Bible also warns that Satan’s intent is for the spiritual detriment of people.

“Satan is called ‘the god of this age’ (II Corinthians 4:4) and a spiritual deceiver of people (II Corinthians 4:4, and 11:14).  Revelation 12:9 says that he ‘led the whole world astray.’

“Jesus calls Satan ‘the enemy,’ and says that hell was made for him and the other demons (Matthew 13:39, Matthew 25:41). We know that Lucifer’s coup attempt in heaven failed, and that earth is caught in the crossfire as fallen angels still try to make war against God.”

But for Christians, the story has a happy ending, he pointed out.

“The panorama of Scripture is clear about Satan’s doom and destiny: God wins, Satan loses.”

Amen, Dr. McFarland.

Christians know this. We’ve read the back of The Book.

And, that’s a good thing, because the President of the United States of America and his Secretary of State, even while our Best and Brightest were held captive, continued to acquiesce to the wishes of the Rogue Islamic Nation of Iran, Giving them not only their billions of dollars back, but throwing in 1.7 billion dollars of American Taxpayer (that’s you and me, kids) Money, while continuing to hone the timeline set for them to have the capability to build the means of the nuclear destruction of the United States of America  in a “Gentleman’s Agreement, which Iran has already broken.

Meanwhile. in Iraq, Christians and innocent Muslims continue to be killed by barbarians who have sworn to hoist their flag above our White House.

Nationally, America’s economy remains in the tank, with more and more Americans choosing to drop out of the work force, in disgust and humiliation. 37.2% of America’s Work Force, to be exact.

A lot of these “drop-outs” are Americans over 50, like myself, who are being intentionally ignored, because of our age, which seems to matter more than our business acumen and wealth of experience.

While, as the articles I presented demonstrate, the very fabric of our society is being torn asunder, through the dissipation of morality and the glorification of evil.

Satan, Vampires, and Zombies…oh, my!

And, of course, legalizing marijuana has no consequences. So what if elementary school kids are being caught selling their parents stash? And, DUI accidents are up?

Yep. No consequences at all.

What we seem to be heading for is not simply an immoral society, but, an amoral one, whose concept of right and wrong is “Whatever Gets You Through the Night (It’s Alright. It’s Alright.)”, and whose ultimate authority is not the God of Abraham, but a Godless Central Government, whose credo is

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. (Karl Marx)

Just as Marxism has failed wherever it has been tried before, so will it fail here.

Just as amorality and licentiousness led to the destruction of the Roman Empire, so, if unchecked, will it lead to America’s.

The galling thing is the fact that, even the, as gallup.com recently reported, American Christians remain 75% of the population, we are propagandized and suppressed in both the Old and New Media, to make it seem as if WE are the Minority, when, in fact, WE are the overwhelming Majority.

It is this New Generation of Amoral Socialists, who are in fact, just a tiny, albeit vocal, Minority of America’s population.

So, what can an average Christian American, like you and me, do about this “Tyranny of the Minority”?

As the Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians, we can STAND.

However, you cannot stand without “the full armor of God”. I have found, as have my family and friends, that the better that you are doing, in terms of your Christian Walk, the harder that you will be attacked.

10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.…- Ephesians 6:10-12

By now. you’re probably asking, “So what’s the point of all this, KJ?”

We are given free will by our Creator…will to make choices and decisions on the direction of our lives. Being human, we often don’t make the right decisions and being human, those decisions have the potential to lead us down a dark path.

Whether is in reality or strictly in the close quarters of our own consciousness, the path we choose to follow is up to us. However, our parents, family, and friends can make a difference in our journey and I thank God that through His Grace I was given a Father who made sure that I received loving instruction in The Way in which I should go.

We still live in the greatest country on the face of the earth and we still have a responsibility to one another.

Now, more than ever, we have to keep THE MAIN THING, THE MAIN THING.

The Light or the Darkness. The choice is up to each and every one of us.

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 1 John 4:14 (ESV)

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Cuda Shoots. She Scores!: Palin Endorses Trump. Conservative Populism Is Reborn

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

untitled (21)pop·u·lism [ˈpäpyəˌlizəm] NOUN – 1. support for the concerns of ordinary people: “it is clear that your populism identifies with the folks on the bottom of the ladder” · [more] “the Finance Minister performed a commendable balancing act, combining populism with prudence” 2. the quality of appealing to or being aimed at ordinary people: “art museums did not gain bigger audiences through a new populism”

Liberals love to brag that they are the most intelligent and the most tolerant people in any room that they walk into.

That is a bunch of self-conceit and downright baloney. When a Conservative (the political ideology of majority of Americans) calls them on their overestimation of their intelligence, and humiliates them in public, if you will (as Legendary Professional Wrestler, the “American Dream”, the late Dusty Rhodes, used to say), they stalk them, like a hyena stalking a wounded gnu, waiting for the opportunity for revenge.

For example, even though they will stand up and tell you that the Arctic Fox is nothing but a has-been, reality show-starring ‘chillbilly”, they still view her as  a thorn in their Collective Side.

And, that is why Governor Palin endorsement of the Republican Primary Front-runner, Donald J. Trump, is a BIG DEAL.

That being said, Liberals are still looking for ways to “get even” with the Former Governor of Alaska…any way they can.

Check out the not unexpected tone of the following article…and consider the source.

The New York Times reports that

AMES, Iowa — Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee who became a Tea Party sensation and a favorite of grass-roots conservatives, endorsed Donald J. Trump in Iowa on Tuesday, providing him with a potentially significant boost just 13 days before the state’s caucuses.

“Are you ready for the leader to make America great again?” Mrs. Palin said with Mr. Trump by her side at a rally at Iowa State University. “Are you ready to stump for Trump? I’m here to support the next president of the United States — Donald Trump.”

Her support is the highest-profile backing for a Republican so far. It came the same day that Iowa’s Republican governor, Terry Branstad, said he hoped that Senator Ted Cruz would be defeated in Iowa. The Feb. 1 caucuses are a must-win for the Texas senator, who is running neck-and-neck with Mr. Trump in state polls.

The endorsement came as Mr. Trump was bearing down in the state, holding multiple campaign events and raising expectations about his performance in the nation’s first nominating contest.

As Mrs. Palin announced her backing, Mr. Trump stood wearing a satisfied smile as she scolded mainstream Republicans as sellouts and praised how Mr. Trump had shaken up the party. “He’s been going rogue left and right,” Mrs. Palin said of Mr. Trump, using one of her signature phrases. “That’s why he’s doing so well. He’s been able to tear the veil off this idea of the system.”

It is not clear that Mrs. Palin’s blessing will have a major impact on Mr. Trump’s long-term prospects. But in Iowa, where Mrs. Palin spent years developing a network of supporters, it could be helpful. Mr. Trump has faced questions about whether his campaign’s organizing muscle can draw the voters to match his poll numbers come caucus night.

“Over the years Palin has actually cultivated a number of relationships in Iowa,” said Craig Robinson, the former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa and publisher of the website The Iowa Republican. “There are the Tea Partyactivists who still think she’s great and a breath of fresh air, but she also did a good job of courting Republican donors in the state,” he added.

Other conservatives said that Mrs. Palin serves as a particularly effective shield against Mr. Cruz, who has assiduously courted Iowa’s evangelical voters.

“Palin’s brand among evangelicals is as gold as the faucets in Trump Tower,” said Ralph Reed, the chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

“Endorsements alone don’t guarantee victory, but Palin’s embrace of Trump may turn the fight over the evangelical vote into a war for the soul of the party,” he said.

Mrs. Palin could amplify the news media-circus aspects of Mr. Trump’s candidacy: She too is a reality television star accustomed to playing to the cameras and often accused of emphasizing flash over substance.

And while Mr. Trump has already shown the ability to garner wall-to-wall cable-news coverage, Mrs. Palin’s involvement in his campaign could help him deprive Mr. Cruz of attention in the homestretch to the caucuses.

As rumors circulated that the endorsement was about to happen, Mr. Cruz offered praise for his former political ally after an aide to the senator mocked the pending endorsement earlier Tuesday. “I love Sarah Palin,” the senator told reporters in New Hampshire. “Sarah Palin is fantastic. Without her friendship and support, I wouldn’t be in the Senate today. So regardless of what Sarah decides to do in 2016, I will always remain a big, big fan of Sarah Palin.”

As word of Mrs. Palin’s endorsement trickled through the Hansen Agriculture Student Learning Center at Iowa State University, the reaction from supporters of Mr. Trump who braved snow and frigid temperatures to see the candidate was mixed. Backers of Mr. Trump filled a warehouse-style building with a dirt floor that is sometimes used for tractor shows, but most said that it was the candidate that they cared about, not his new endorsement.

“I’m not here to see her,” said Rich Hoffmann, 41, of Ankeny. “Some people it will matter to, but it doesn’t to me.”

Mrs. Palin and Mr. Trump are not strangers. The two shared pizza along with Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, in May 2011, when Mrs. Palin was considering a presidential run of her own and was making a bus tour around the country. (Mr. Trump was mocked at the time for using a knife and fork on his slice.)

They also share a trusted operative: Mr. Trump’s national political director, Michael Glassner, was chief of staff to Mrs. Palin’s political action committee.

And like Mr. Trump, Mrs. Palin has maverick tendencies. The mantra of her final weeks of the 2008 campaign was “going rogue,” as she defied instructions from aides to Senator John McCain of Arizona, the party’s presidential nominee.

Little-known before Mr. McCain picked her as his running mate, Mrs. Palin ultimately eclipsed him in popularity and polls show her maintaining strong support among Republicans. She has endured as a coveted endorser with an impressive fund-raising list. After the loss in 2008, she declined to finish her term in Alaska, and went on to become a television star and a Fox News commentator.

The endorsement of Mr. Trump puts Mrs. Palin back in the center of the media maelstrom, and allows her to rehabilitate her political image, which had diminished in the last year as her contract with Fox News ended.

Mrs. Palin endorsed several of Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals in their statewide races, including Mr. Cruz during his Senate bid in Texas and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Mr. Cruz, after his 2012 primary victory over the incumbent lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst, said he would not have made it to the Senate without Mrs. Palin’s backing.

For Mr. Trump, who is trying to accrue other endorsements in the coming weeks, the backing of high-profile Republicans could dent the outsider-to-politics aura that has been elemental to his success in the polls before the voting has begun. But the support of Mrs. Palin, a darling of the Tea Party insurgency, could help inoculate him from such attacks.

The endorsement comes as Mr. Cruz is facing increasing scrutiny in Iowa for his opposition to federal ethanol mandates, highlighted by the criticism from Governor Branstad, whose son works for a group promoting ethanol, the corn-based fuel that is a crucial Iowa industry.

“Ted Cruz is ahead right now. What we’re trying to do is educate the people in the state of Iowa,” Mr. Branstad told reporters at the Renewable Fuels Summit in Altoona. “He is the biggest opponent of renewable fuels. He actually introduced a bill in 2013 to immediately eliminate the Renewable Fuel Standard.”

“He’s heavily financed by Big Oil,” the governor added. “I think it would be a big mistake for Iowa to support him.”

The remark was highly unusual for Mr. Branstad, an establishment Republican who nonetheless has stayed out of his party’s presidential primaries in thepast.

As I continue to write about this endorsement, make no mistake about my political ideology:

I AM STILL A REAGAN CONSERVATIVE.

That being said, I am enjoying the stew out of Trump’s gigging of the Washingtonian Status Quo and his expertise in the art of “Political Jiu-Jitsu”, through the trumpeting of his own horn, in order to achieve free publicity for his campaign.

Over the next month, at least, you will hear self-appointed Liberal and “dejected Conservative” Political Pundits grouse and whine that Palin’s endorsement is an albatross around the neck of Trump, and that she brings nothing to the table.

They’re full of it.

If these “pundits” are anticipating trying to defeat Donald J. Trump and Sarah Palin, in a battle of wits…they are woefully unarmed.

Back in July of 2009, Alaskan Fisherman, Dewey Whetsell, wrote the following list of Sarah Palin’s accomplishments as Governor of Alaska:

1. Democrats forget when Palin was the Darling of the Democrats, because as soon as Palin took the Governor’s office away from a fellow Republican and tough SOB, Frank Murkowski, she tore into the Republican’s “Corrupt Bastards Club” (CBC) and sent them packing. Many of them are now residing in State housing and wearing orange jump suits, The Democrats reacted by skipping around the yard, throwing confetti and singing, “la la la la” (well, you know how they are). Name another governor in this country that has ever done anything similar.

2. Now with the CBC gone, there were fewer Alaskan politicians to protect the huge, giant oil companies here. So she constructed and enacted a new system of splitting the oil profits called “ACES.” Exxon (the biggest corporation in the world) protested and Sarah told them, “don’t let the door hit you in the stern on your way out.” They stayed, and Alaska residents went from being merely wealthy to being filthy rich. Of course, the other huge international oil companies meekly fell in line. Again, give me the name of any other governor in the country that has done anything similar.

3. The other thing she did when she walked into the governor’s office is she got the list of State requests for federal funding for projects, known as “pork.” She went through the list, took 85% of them and placed them in the “when-hell-freezes-over” stack. She let locals know that if we need something built, we’ll pay for it ourselves. Maybe she figured she could use the money she got from selling the previous governor’s jet because it was extravagant.

Maybe she could use the money she saved by dismissing the governor’s cook (remarking that she could cook for her own family), giving back the State vehicle issued to her, maintaining that she already had a car, and dismissing her State provided security force (never mentioning – I imagine – that she’s packing heat herself). I’m still waiting to hear the names of those other governors.

4. Now, even with her much-ridiculed “gosh and golly” mannerism, she also managed to put together a totally new approach to getting a natural gas pipeline built which will be the biggest private construction project in the history of North America. No one else could do it although they tried. If that doesn’t impress you, then you’re trying too hard to be unimpressed while watching her do things like this while baking up a batch of brownies with her other hand.

5. For 30 years, Exxon held a lease to do exploratory drilling at a place called Point Thompson. They made excuses the entire time why they couldn’t start drilling. In truth they were holding it like an investment. No governor for 30 years could make them get started. Then, she told them she was revoking their lease and kicking them out. They protested and threatened court action. She shrugged and reminded them that she knew the way to the court house. Alaska won again.

6. President Obama wants the nation to be on 25% renewable resources for electricity by 2025. Sarah went to the legislature and submitted her plan for Alaska to be at 50% renewable by 2025. We are already at 25%. I can give you more specifics about things done, as opposed to style and persona Everybody wants to be cool, sound cool, look cool. But that’s just a cover-up. I’m still waiting to hear from liberals the names of other governors who can match what mine has done in two and a half years. I won’t be holding my breath.

By the way, she was content to return to AK after the national election and go to work, but the haters wouldn’t let her. Now these adolescent screechers are obviously not scuba divers. And no one ever told them what happens when you continually jab and pester a barracuda. Without warning, it will spin around and tear your face off. Shoulda known better.

Of course, her influence and status as “kingmaker” has become the stuff of legend.

Of the 41 candidates Palin endorsed in 2009,2010, and 2012, 30 of them earned victories.  

In 2012, she endorsed the following winners: Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Pat Toomey, Nikki Haley, Deb Fischer, Jeff Flake and Ted Cruz, himself.

That is the reason that he was so gracious and kind toward her, when her endorsement of Trump was announced.

Not too shabby, huh?

Of course, Liberals will continue to ignore the accomplishments of Conservative Populists like Sarah Palin…it spoils the lies they tell about her, in order to feel better about themselves.

Liberals have to keep targeting America’s Conservative Leaders as we approach the 2016 Elections.

After all, what are they going to do? Run on Obama’s Record of Accomplishments?

Or, perhaps, Hillary and Bernie’s “youthful, dynamic leadership”?

Puhleeze.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

The Iran Hostage Situation and Gov. Nikki Haley’s SOTU Rebuttal: When Did Mistreating Our Own Become Acceptable?

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

conservative1The are two major stories presently in the news.

The first story involves the capture and the release, a day later, of 10 American Navy Personnel by the partner in Barack Hussein Obama’s Legacy-Securing “Gentleman’s Agreement”, which gave Iran a ton of cash and the nuclear capability to make America a footnote in history.

The second story involves the Republican Party Rebuttal to Obama’s last (Amen.) State of the Union Address, delivered by South Carolina’s perky Governor, Nikki Haley, in which she spent much of her allotted time attacking Republican Presidential Primary Front-Runner, Donald J. Trump, instead of President Barack Hussein Obama, who delivered the address, which she was supposed to be rebutting.

The reason that both are National Water Cooler Topics for discussion is that both illicit a response of incredulity from average Americans.

Regarding the seizing of our two Naval Vessels and their crews by the Worldwide Sponsors of Radical Islamic Terrorists, Iran…

Several things make this whole incident smell as rotten as Hillary Clinton’s Bathtub.

  1. Obama and Kerry’s Response – Any actual President of the United States of America would have immediately parked a Navy Gunship off the coast of Iran and told those turban-wearing barbarians that, unless our Brightest and Best were freed immediately, their desert sands would become glass. Instead, the White House’s response was that this was not “a Hostile Act”. In fact, the Dhimmi-in Chief did not even mention it, during his barely-watched SOTU Address.
  2. The Crippling of our Vessels – The GPS Navigation Systems on our boats were busted by the Iranians. What if we did not actually stray into “their Territorial Waters”?
  3. The Treatment of our Sailors – After they returned our nine men and one woman, the Iranians released both videos and photographs, which showed the humiliation which they put these sailors through, including making the woman hide her face and having a Commander apologize, in a video which was disseminated around the world.
  4. Thank you for Humiliating Us – Secretary of State John F. (I served in Vietnam…and threw my fellow soldiers under the bus) Kerry publicly thanked the Iranians for how magnanimous they were for actually returning our Navy Personnel.
  5. The Kissing of Iran’s Hindquarters by “The Leader of the Free World” – In conjunction with my first point, what kind of AMERICAN PRESIDENT bows and scrapes to a nation of barbarian whackadoodles, who would rather behead us than look at us, and whose subjugated population lives in fear and abject poverty?

As Rush Limbaugh observed on his Nationally-Syndicated Radio Program yesterday…

This Iranian business.  Folks, you can think what you want, but I’m gonna tell you something.  This kind of story where we apologized, and, “Boy the Iranians were so nice. Oh, my God, it was so much fun be with them! They were so nice. It was our fault; we shouldn’t have been there. We apologize. they treated us so well,” you might think that’s cool.  I’m telling you, that’s one of the biggest propaganda victories that this Satanic country could get. 

In the Middle East, where this is the kind of stuff that matters, it’s gonna make it look like they totally dominate us.  It’s gonna come across as another huge victory over the Great Satan, the United States of America.  Now, last nightin his State of the Union speech, Obama’s going on and on, “We’re the most powerful country in the world! we got the best fighting force in the world. We got the best military in the world! We spend more on our military than the first eight nations behind us combined. We got the greatest battle machine world!”

Ask yourself a question.  All of that may be true.  We may be the most powerful nation in the world.  What kind of rules of engagement are they saddled with.  But more importantly than that, why…? I’m dead serious about this.  Why, given that fact we have the most powerful military, the greatest fighting force ever — we can project more power than any nation on earth can even dream of — why are all of our enemies growing in power?  Why are they getting bigger?  Why are they stronger?  Why are our enemies more dangerous than ever?  Why are they bigger, more dangerous, and wreaking more havoc than ever before under Obama?

That’s how you measure it.  We can have the best, most powerful fighting force in the world and if it’s led by a wuss or somebody who thinks that it’s the problem in the world, what good is it, under his command?  And make no mistake: Barack Hussein Obama is one of these people that thinks the United States military is one of the greatest problems in the world, historically and at present.  Do not doubt me. It falls right in line with this whole belief system that in the United States is not the solution to the world’s problems.  We are the problem. 

The second hot topic is the SOTU Rebuttal, as delivered By South Carolina’s Republican Governor, Nikki Haley.

Supposedly written by the Governor, herself, this rebuttal, at times, seemed not to be a rebuttal at all, but a personal attack against Donald J. Trump, the Business Entrepreneur and Showman, who is leading the other Republican Primary Candidates for their party’s Presidential Candidate Nomination by a wide margin.

As I pointed out on Twitter, yesterday,

The purpose of a SOTU Rebuttal is to discredit the opposition…not the potential Presidential Candidate of your own Political Party.

So, why would the Republican Party allow, and probably encourage, Governor Haley to attack Trump like that?

As I have written before, I believe that the main reason that Trump is leading among the other Republican Candidates, is that he, while sparse on details on of his platform, is empathetic on what he personally believes.

He is “flying” BOLD COLORS, while the other candidates are “flying” PALE PASTELS.

For example, while others up on the CNN Stage last night, watched, Trump boldly stated that “we speak English in America”, referring to the unprecedented accommodations that Liberal Politicians, on both sides of the aisle, have made for Illegal Aliens, here in a country whose very sovereignty they have violated.

This is what I don’t understand about the Republican Establishment.

They run around telling everybody how Conservative they are, when in reality,they actually hold the same beliefs as Liberal Democrats.

As Ronald Reagan said in his famous speech, given so long ago, today’s Republican Party needs to be “flying” “bold colors, not pale pastels”.

From what I’m seeing out of a lot of the Republicans right now, they’re not even presenting Americans with pale pastels.

The majority of Republican Congressmen and women seem to be quite content with the Washingtonian Status Quo and the self-serving political practice of “reaching across the aisle”, even if making “concessions” screws us “rubes’ back here in “Flyover Country”, America’s Heartland.

And, they don’t want anything, or ANYONE, to stop their “Gravy Train”.

That is why they are attacking Trump and the other Republican Primary  Front-Runner, Senator Ted Cruz.

For the Establishment (Vichy) Republicans, it’s a matter of survival…theirs, not that of us “rubes”.

What both of these topics have in common is a betrayal of the heritage and the principles which made America the Greatest Country on the Face of Good’s Green Earth.

Our Ancestors, Family Members, and Friends did not make the ultimate sacrifice on the Field of Battle for Professional Politicians and Spineless Bureaucrats (but, I repeat myself) to assist a megalomaniac Muslim-sympathizing Marxist in “radically changing” the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave into The Land of the Proletariat and the World’s Doormat.

This November, it’s time to fight back.

Are you with me?

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

 

 

 

 

Political Pundits Panicking…Republican Elites Equivocating: Trump is Still in the Lead

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

Trump-n-CruzThe smoke-filled backrooms adjoining the Halls of Political Power in our nation’s capital have become scenes resembling the Psych Ward in the Jack Nicholson Class, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.

Howard Kurtz, Media Analyst for the Fox News Channel, recently posted the following observations.

The Republican establishment, which has always distrusted and discounted Donald Trump, is getting increasingly nervous.

So nervous, in fact, that some of its media voices are starting to denounce their party’s front-runner in the strongest possible terms.

As in, refusing to vote for the man if he’s the nominee. As in, loudly proclaiming that he will destroy the GOP.

Viewed from one perspective, this has the smell of panic. Viewed from another, it’s a case of party stalwarts speaking out based on principle.

For decades now, there has been primary-season sniping between the establishment wing and the insurgent/hard-line/Tea Party wing. Commentators rough up their least favorite candidate, even declare them unqualified for the White House.

But if that person prevails—think Mitt Romney in 2012—the sharpest Republican critics find a way to walk it back. Well, he wasn’t my first choice, but he would be better than Barack Obama. He’s evolved on immigration/tax cuts/ObamaCare. He would pull this country out of its left-wing tailspin.

These days, the rhetoric is getting so hot that there will be no scrambling back on board. Bill Kristol has been openly musing about a third party if Trump wins the nomination.

Does the conservative media elite hope to throw some tacks under the Trump steamroller with such sharp rhetoric? Or are its members just speaking out to clear their consciences?

If it’s the former, I think it might actually help Trump to have the Beltway types arrayed against him. These are the folks he is running against, and he’s never positioned himself as a doctrinaire conservative.

Michael Gerson, a Bush White House official who writes for the Washington Post, uses sweeping language:

“Trump’s nomination would not be the temporary victory of one of the GOP’s ideological factions. It would involve the replacement of the humane ideal at the center of the party and its history. If Trump were the nominee, the GOP would cease to be.”

Cease to be. That’s pretty historic stuff.

Gerson calls Trump a “demagogue” who “has followed some of America’s worst instincts wherever they have led, and fed ethnic and religious prejudice in the process. All presidential nominees, to some extent, shape their parties into their own image. Trump would deface the GOP beyond recognition.”

In case you missed the point, Gerson says: “Trump is disqualified for the presidency by his erratic temperament, his ignorance about public affairs and his scary sympathy for authoritarianism. But for me, and I suspect for many, the largest problem is that Trump would make the GOP the party of racial and religious exclusion.”

Doug Heye has been communications chief of the RNC, a top deputy to Eric Cantor and a Bush administration official. He makes a personal declaration in the Independent Journal:

“Because of Trump’s perversion of conservatism, along with the devastating impact he would have if nominated, I cannot support Donald Trump were he to win the Republican nomination.”

Heye says Trump would be “dangerous to the United States and the world at a time when the world is at risk.” His nomination, says Heye, “would be catastrophic for Republican hopes to win the White House and maintain control of the Senate and would damage the party and the conservative cause for years to come. His having the legitimacy that comes with the nomination of a major political party would cause greater instability throughout the world at a time when the world looks to America for leadership that is serious and sober.”

This is the New York Times’ latest version of the same story, calling it a “people’s coup”:

At family dinners and New Year’s parties, in conference calls and at privatelunches, longtime Republicans are expressing a growing fear that the coming election could be shattering for the party, or reshape it in ways that leave it unrecognizable.

But a very different tack from Peggy Noonan, who worked for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who turns the question back on the establishment:

“I do not understand the inability or refusal of Republican leaders to take Mr. Trump seriously. They take his numbers seriously—they can read a poll—but they think, as Mr. Bush said, that his support is all about anger, angst and theatrics. That’s part of the story, but the other, more consequential part has to do with real policy issues. The establishment refuses to see that, because to admit it is to implicate themselves and their leadership. Political consultants can’t see it because they don’t think issues matter—not to them and certainly not to the dumb voters.

“But issues do matter, and Mr. Trump has functioned this year not as a great communicator or great compromiser but as the great disruptor. He brags that he has brought up great questions and forced other candidates to face them and sometimes change their stands—and he has.”

There really isn’t much of an establishment left. It consists of some megabuck donors, elected officials, seasoned operatives and media pundits. They don’t have the power to stop Trump, and they know it.

The best they can hope for is to influence the debate. Their problem is that most of them don’t like Ted Cruz, either.

Indeed.

Just as the backlash against President Barack Hussein Obama and the Democr5at Party has reached deafening levels here in America’s Heartland, snobbishly referred to by the Political Elite as “Flyover Country”, so has the refusal of the leaders of both Political Parties to admit their culpability in creating the problems our nation is facing, which can be traced back to their failed domestic and foreign policies and failed leadership.

Why do I believe that Donald J. Trump is still the frontrunner among all the Republican Presidential Candidates?

This brash, unabashedly American, business entrepreneur and quintessential showman has dominated the media for the past several years.

The popularity of his reality program on NBC and the catch phrase that came leaping out from it, “You’re fired!”, spread across America like wildfire.

Now, his Presidential Campaign continues to do the same.

It is not just his flamboyance that has caught the eye of Americans.

The fact is, after almost two terms of an Administration taking the great country in the world on a scenic tour of the Highway to Hell, Donald Trump is the only Republican Candidate shouting, “Hit the brakes, you idiots!”

Trump’s straightforwardness has struck a chord in the hearts of average Americans, tired of the wussification of America, being so relentlessly pushed by both modern political parties.

This is what I don’t understand about the Republican Establishment:

They run around telling everybody how Conservative they are, when in reality, they actually hold the same beliefs as Liberal Democrats.

Ronald Reagan gave a famous stump speech about the fact that the Republican Party at one time, needed “bold colors, not pale pastels”.

From what I’m seeing out of a lot of the Republicans right now, they’re not even presenting Americans with pale pastels.

…Except for Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

The “Republican Elite”, as Kurtz refers to them, are showing their color to be Liberal Blue, while they claim to be Conservative Red.

It is almost as if they believe that the Political Tsunami, which resulted in Republicans holding both Houses of Congress, came about because they made themselves look like Democrats.

They need to come down off of Capitol Hill every now and then.

And, visit Realityville.

Average Americans, like you and me, living from paycheck to paycheck in America’s Heartland, do not need another Democratic Party.

If we wanted to continue to put up with their Liberal Stupidity, we would have left all of them in office.

Instead, in November of 2014, we showed them the door.

If Jeb Bush and the rest of the Vichy Republicans actually believe that they will win over the Mexican vote, or the rest of the Hispanic Vote, if by then those who are now illegal are allowed to vote, in 2016, then I have two bridges over the Mississippi River at Memphis to sell them.

The overwhelming majority of average Americans want Conservatives whose blood runs red, not Liberal squishes, who have more in common with the Democrats in the Northeast Corridor, than they do with average Americans in the Heartland.

If the Republican Establishment does not come to that realization very soon, they will go down to defeat again in 2016.

They will never achieve victory by trying to push a candidate, who represents the Jello of “Liberal Moderation”, up a hill.

In summation, the American people are tired of Political Correctness and anti-American political expediencies being forced down our throats by both political parties and trumpeted by their lackeys in the Main Stream Media.

Donald Trump, for all of his brashness and braggadocio, is a breath of free air and, quite frankly an anomaly. He’s not a professional politician. He is a businessman who wants to become a public servant.

Now, where did I hear that before?

Oh, yeah.

That’s the way the Founding Fathers envisioned our system of government, led by citizens, who served their terms as public servants…AND THEN WENT HOME.

But, I digress…

You know what tickles me the most about “The Donald”?

He reminds me of one of my favorite movie characters.

He actually has a backbone.

Just remember what ol’ Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol’ storm right square in the eye and he says, “Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it.” – Jack Burton, Truck Driver (Kurt Russell) “Big Trouble in Little China”

…and that, boys and girls, is a refreshing change.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

A Saturday Morning Conversation With Bubba: About Hillary, Trump, and “Secret Weapons”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

clintoncartoonWhy, hello, Mr. President.  It’s good to see you.  Please sit down.  Waitress, a glass of sweet tea and a Waffle House All-Star Breakfast with a Pecan Waffle for President Clinton, please.

Bubba, welcome back to the Mid-South.  Don’t worry, I won’t tell Hil about you breaking your diet.  It’s been some kind of Presidential Primary Campaign Season, huh?

You always said that you were a man of the people.   So, as a man of the people, I know you can appreciate what’s going on.

Your party, the Democrats, and their “friends across the aisle” the republicans are both in a tizzy over a “rank outsider”, who has the nerve to run for President of the United States.

You remember your old acquaintance, Donald J. Trump, don’t you?

Well, Bubba, you had better refresh your memory about “The Donald”, because, according to the Political Pundits, you are about to come to your blushing bride’s rescue, in her quest to make you the new “First Dude”.

According to The Wall Street Journal,

A new and more combative phase of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign opens next month when she sends her husband out to stump for her in important early states.

Waiting for him will be businessman Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner.

The former president has been a low-key figure since Mrs. Clinton entered the race for the Democratic nomination in April, offering private advice and helping her raise money at closed-door fundraisers. In January, the campaign intends to showcase him in public forums in Iowa and New Hampshire, two states where the front-runner is locked in a tight race against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Speaking to supporters recently, Mrs. Clinton described her husband as a “secret weapon.”

Throwing Mr. Clinton into the mix could further escalate the rhetoric between the Trump and Clinton campaigns. In the 2008 presidential race, the former president would bristle at criticism directed at his wife and got in hot water when he suggested Barack Obama’s victory in the South Carolina primary was less significant because of the large African-American vote.

This past week saw back-and-forth volleys over whether comments Mr. Trump made about Mrs. Clinton were sexist. He said Mr. Obama “schlonged” her in the 2008 race and said her brief absence from a recent Democratic debate stage, when she was reportedly using the restroom, was “disgusting.”

In an interview with the Des Moines Register, Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Trump has “demonstrated a penchant for sexism.” That drew a response from Mr. Trump on Twitter: “Hillary, when you complain about ‘a penchant for sexism,’ who are you referring to. I have great respect for women.’ ” In capital letters he then wrote, “BE CAREFUL!”

Asked what Mr. Trump meant, his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said: “Mr. Trump speaks for Mr. Trump and his tweets speak for themselves. And he’s very clear about what those tweets say.”

Another Trump spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, suggested in an interview with CNN that the Trump campaign intends to make Mr. Clinton’s behavior an issue should Mrs. Clinton pursue this point. Mr. Clinton, during his presidency, paid $850,000 to settle a sexual harassment case brought by Paula Jones stemming from an encounter when he was governor of Arkansas. His affair with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky led to his impeachment by the U.S. House in 1998. He was acquitted by the Senate the following year.

“Hillary Clinton has some nerve to talk about the war on women and the bigotry toward women when she has a serious problem in her husband,” Ms. Pierson told CNN. Representatives for Mr. Clinton and the Clinton campaign declined to comment.

Mrs. Clinton holds a commanding lead among Democrats nationally, but polling shows the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire are up for grabs. Losses in both states could potentially alter the dynamics of a race she is dominating.In a conference call with supporters this past week, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said that Mrs. Clinton was in a “dog fight” in New Hampshire.

“Her greatest fear is she loses both,” said Douglas Schoen, a pollster and consultant who has advised Mr. Clinton. “Then, even though she is still on a path to win the nomination, there would be complete chaos.”

Mr. Schoen, a Clinton adviser during the Lewinsky scandal, said he wasn’t concerned about Mr. Trump, given how the former president emerged from that period with higher poll ratings than previously.

“It’s not a path of action that I think will necessarily help Donald Trump, nor do I think it will hurt Hillary Clinton,” he said.

Mr. Clinton is a revered figure in Democratic circles and was a key surrogate for Mr. Obama in his 2012 re-election bid. A survey conducted in part by The Wall Street Journal last year said he was by a margin of more than 2 to 1 the most admired president of the past quarter century.

Marc Lasry, a friend of Mr. Clinton’s and head of New York hedge fund firm Avenue Capital Group, said: “President Clinton campaigning for Hillary is a huge asset. People love seeing him and he’s able to explain things to people in a way that’s unique.”

(Friday, authorities in Hope, Ark., said a fire that caused minor damage to Mr. Clinton’s childhood home, now a National Historic Site, was apparently caused by arson, according to the Associated Press.)

Because of the spotlight he attracts, some analysts said the Clinton campaign would be wise to have the two campaign separately so that Mr. Clinton doesn’t overshadow the candidate.

“He’s a luminescent figure. That’s always an issue,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser in both of Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns. He added, “It’s important for people to see her out there on her own.”

As far as Mr. Trump is concerned, one person close to Mr. Clinton said he isn’t troubled by the Republican’s recent comments and isn’t taking them personally. Mr. Clinton doesn’t see Mr. Trump as likely to capture the GOP nomination, this person said.

I’m sure, just like the rest of your party and the Beltway Insiders, it hit you like the ’94 Elections.  The American people are torqued off.  Ever since your party took control of Congress in 2006, things have been going downhill like a skier on Mt. Everest.  What was supposed to be the most ethical Congress evah, turned out to be The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.  By the way, have you talked to Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters lately?

Anyway, as you well know, some unknown yahoo named Barack (don’t say his middle name) Obama came out of the cesspool known as Chicago Politics to grab the Democratic nomination away from your beloved Hil.  So, you and Hill made a deal with the powers-that-be for her to be his Secretary of State.  Man, whatever do you do with yourself while she’s on those long trips out of the country?  Oh….never mind.

So, in comes this guy, riding on the campaign promise of Hope and Change, and he gets himself elected by fooling 52% of the country into believing he’s a moderate, like you pretended to be after the ’94 Election.

Since his ascension to the throne along with his faithful sidekick, Plugs, he’s been in full-speed Alinsky mode, attempting to turn American into something it was never meant to be:  a full-blown Socialist Utopia.

Not that the Republicans have been blameless in this whole deal.  They started spending like there’s no tomorrow under Dubya and got way too comfy sitting on their reserved barstools at the Beltway Elite Country Club.

When the Regime ascended to the Throne and started implementing their plans for radical change, that stubborn ol’ streak that Americans possess, known as patriotism and individualism, started kicking in.  Y’see, Bubba, we really resented Scooter apologizing for us to our enemies.  You probably need to tell your wife that.  We weren’t very thrilled about that Porkulus bill that he had his buddies at the Apollo Foundation draw up for him, either.  Then, while spending our money to create the largest federal deficit in American history, Plugs said that paying more taxes was patriotic.

And now, New Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, and the Beltway Republicans’ Club, just passed a Porkulus Bill of their own, the Omnibus Bill.

Are you kiddin’ me?

Back when the first Porkulus Bill was passed, Americans from all walks of life and every part of the country started getting together and formed something called The Tea Party Movement.  Your buddies in the Main Stream Media and the members of the Beltway Elite Country Club all had a big laugh at that one.

Then, “us peons” started getting into the faces of our elected representatives at Townhall Meetings and the unthinkable happened.  A Tea Party Rally in Washington, D.C. drew what looked to average Americans like a million people, all fed up with the people they elected working for nobody but themselves.

Meanwhile, your buddy Barry was holding hand-picked pep rallies, closed to the public, seemingly oblivious to the wishes of average Americans.  He exhibited an unparalleled tone-deafness that presented itself in a Captain Ahab-like quest to pass a National Healthcare bill that the majority of the American people wanted no part of.  After a 10 minute Christmas Eve Senate vote to approve this unwanted albatross, which followed a House vote of 220-215 on November 7th,  Congress passed Obamacare on March 21st, 2010.

Americans were left with the image of Speaker Pelosi, with a giant gavel, walking with her fellow Democrats through protesting Americans, grinning like a mule with a mouthful of yellowjackets.

While Beltway politicians have been trying to figure out new ways to spend our money, Americans have been struggling  just trying to pay their monthly bills, Bubba.

To this very day, we’re still being laid off, right and left, and some of us are so down, we’ve just given up on trying to find a job.  Folks are doing whatever they can, including clearing out their attics and getting a booth at the flea market.

That is why Donald J. Trump is kicking the Presidential Hopefuls’ elevated derrieres BOTH sides of the Political Aisle, including Hillary’s.

Trump has promised to make America GREAT again.

I’m betting that the Taliban will not ask the next deserter, like they did Bowe Bergdahl about Obama, if Trump is gay.

But, I digress…

Bubba, all the Establishment politicians, pundits, and so-called journalists on either side of the aisle have no right to be surprised by what’s going on.  They’ve severely underestimated the American people.  The pendulum has swung back to the Political Right for a reason:  it works.  Socialism never has.

The American People are not THEIR servants. They are OURS.

All the “smartest people in the room” had better figure this out quickly or they are going to be competing with you for gigs on the Professional Speakers’ Circuit.

By the way, have you heard from Monica lately?

Until He Comes,

KJ

It’s On! Trump Vs. Clinton: Best Two Out of Three Falls. Lumberjack Rules. Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

 

WJ-images-Trump-v-Clinton-poll-913x512-800x449America has been waiting for Republican Presidential Hopeful Donald J. Trump to turn his attention to the Democrat Front Runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Be careful what you ask for.

USA today reports that

Hillary Clinton will not be apologizing to Donald Trump for her comment that he has become the Islamic State’s “best recruiter,” her campaign said Monday.

“Hell no,” said Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon. “Hillary Clinton will not be apologizing to Donald Trump for correctly pointing out how his hateful rhetoric only helps ISIS recruit more terrorists.”

Trump had said he would “demand” an apology from Clinton for her claim about the Islamic State, telling NBC’s TODAY show. “She lies about emails, she lies about Whitewater, she lies about everything. She will be a disaster about everything as president of the United States.”

Trump has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States until the government gets a better handle on the terrorist threat.

During Saturday’s Democratic debate, Clinton said the U.S. needs to make sure that “the really discriminatory messages that Trump is sending around the world don’t fall on receptive ears. He is becoming ISIS’s best recruiter. They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”

While counter-terrorism analysts say the Islamic State could use Trump’s comments to support their claim that the West is waging war on Islam, fact-checkers say there is no evidence of any ISIS videos featuring the Republican front-runner.

In response, as he always does, Trump had a not-so-subtle response for the “Queen of Mean”, per The Washington Post,

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Donald Trump used vulgar language as he attacked Hillary Clinton during a rally on Monday night, saying her use of the restroom at the last Democratic debate was “too disgusting” to talk about and that in 2008 she got “schlonged” by Barack Obama when he defeated her in the Democratic primary.

Standing before a crowd of 7,500, Trump recounted how Clinton was seconds late to the Democratic debate stage on Saturday night following a commercial break. Trump asked the crowd four times where Clinton had gone.

“I know where she went — it’s disgusting, I don’t want to talk about it,” Trump said, screwing up his face, as the crowd laughed and cheered. “No, it’s too disgusting. Don’t say it, it’s disgusting.”

Later in the night, Trump told the crowd that he could not picture Clinton as president because she never wins at anything. He then brought up the 2008 Democratic primary, which Clinton lost to Barack Obama.

“She was favored to win, and she got schlo**ed,” Trump said, turning a vulgar noun for a large penis into a verb.

Trump has repeatedly faced criticism for the language that he uses to describe women, including his female rivals. During the first GOP debate in August, Megyn Kelly of Fox News brought up some of Trump’s more controversial comments and asked him: “Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, and how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who was likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?”

Trump has called that question unfair and launched a vicious attack against Kelly. During a CNN interview after the debate, Trump said of Kelly: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” Trump later said he meant to say “ears,” but many assumed he was saying that Kelly was menstruating.

This isn’t the first time Trump has attacked Clinton using phrases that some of her supporters have labeled as sexist. In recent weeks, he has repeatedly commented on her pantsuits, said she lacks the “stamina” and “strength” needed for the presidency, and accused her of sleeping too much. Clinton is 68, and Trump is 69.

This latest attack seems to be in response to a comment Clinton made about Trump during the Saturday night debate: She said that the Islamic State terrorist group has used video of Trump’s controversial comments on Muslims to recruit new members, a claim that has drawn questions and skepticism from fact-checkers. Trump has demanded an apology, which Clinton has refused to give.

“She’s terrible,” Trump said during the rally. He then impersonated Clinton’s comments at the debate, using a rather snotty voice: “Donald Trump is on video, and ISIS is using him on the video to recruit.”

“And it turned out to be a lie — she’s a liar!” Trump said to roaring cheers. “And the last person she wants to run against is me.”

Clinton was not the only woman mentioned on Monday night. Trump also said that Caroline Kennedy is too “nice” to be the ambassador to Japan and is no match for their “brutal, brilliant” negotiators.  And he questioned why Time picked German Chancellor Angela Merkel as its “Person of the Year” instead of him.

“They gave it to a woman who has not done the right thing for Germany,” Trump said, as the crowd booed Merkel. “Nice woman. I like her, I like her. I better like her — I may have to deal with her. Look, hey, Putin likes me, I want her to like me, too.”

Trump used that reference to Putin as an opportunity to chide the Russian dictator for allegedly killing journalists.

“I hate some of these people, but I would never kill them,” Trump said of the journalists who cover him. “I would never kill them. I would never kill them… I would never kill them, but I do hate them. And some of them are such lying, disgusting people.”

More than a dozen times, Trump was interrupted by protesters, including one who called him a “bigot.” Late in the rally, a woman began screaming at Trump.

“Yes, darling? Yes?” Trump said to the woman, who was quickly escorted out. “Well, she doesn’t sound very tough. That’s a very weak voice. Go a little louder, we can’t hear you, darling. Wow.”

Well, there’s a word that you don’t hear everyday during a Presidential campaign.

Both the Internet and the Main Stream Media will be buzzing , once again today, at what “The Donald” said last night.

…And, that is exactly what he wanted to happen, when he said that little vulgarity.

Their reaction will be predictable.

With sputtering tongue, Liberal Pundits and Politicians alike, today will declare,

Why…why…you can’t talk about the Former Secretary of State that way! Why, she’s a lady!

That’s no lady. That’s Hillary.

The Main Stream Media have become victims of their own sensationalism…used against them.

Why do I believe that Donald J. Trump is still the frontrunner among all the Republican Presidential Candidates?

This brash, unabashedly American, business entrepreneur and quintessential showman has dominated the media for the past several years.

The popularity of his reality program on NBC and the catch phrase that came leaping out from it, “You’re fired!”, spread across America like wildfire.

Now, his Presidential Campaign continues to do the same.

It is not just his flamboyance that has caught the eye of Americans.

The fact is, after almost two terms of an Administration taking the great country in the world on a scenic tour of the Highway to Hell, Donald Trump is the only Republican Candidate shouting, “Hit the brakes, you idiots!”

Trump’s straightforwardness has struck a chord in the hearts of average Americans, tired of the wussification of America, being so relentlessly pushed by both modern political parties.

This is what I don’t understand about the Republican Establishment, especially after the gargage that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and the rest of them just pulled on Republican Voters with the passage of the horrible Omnibus BIll:

They run around telling everybody how Conservative they are, when in reality, they actually hold the same beliefs as Liberal Democrats.

Ronald Reagan gave a famous stump speech about the fact that the Republican Party at one time, needed “bold colors, not pale pastels”.

From what I’m seeing out of a lot of the Republicans right now, they’re not even presenting Americans with pale pastels.

…Except for Donald Trump.

They are showing their color to be Liberal Blue, while they claim to be Conservative Red.

It is almost as if they believe that the Political Tsunami, which resulted in Republicans holding both Houses of Congress, came about because they made themselves look like Democrats.

They need to come down off of Capitol Hill every now and then.

And, visit Realityville.

Average Americans, like you and me, living from paycheck to paycheck in America’s Heartland, do not need another Democratic Party.

If we wanted to continue to put up with their Liberal Stupidity, we would have left all of them in office.

Instead, last November, we showed them the door.

If Jeb Bush and the rest of the Vichy Republicans actually believe that they will win over the Mexican vote, or the rest of the Hispanic Vote, if by then those who are now illegal are allowed to vote, in 2016, then I have two bridges over the Mississippi River at Memphis to sell them.

The overwhelming majority of average Americans want Conservatives whose blood runs red, not Liberal squishes, who have more in common with the Democrats in the Northeast Corridor, than they do with average Americans in the Heartland.

If the Republican establishment does not come to that realization very soon, they will go down to defeat again in 2016.

They will never achieve victory by trying to push the Jello of “Liberal Moderation” up a hill.

In summation, the American people are tired of Political Correctness and anti-American political expediencies being forced down our throats by both political parties and trumpeted by their lackeys in the Main Stream Media.

Donald Trump, for all of his brashness and braggadocio, is a breath of free air and, quite frankly, an anomaly. He’s not a professional politician. He is a businessman who wants to become a public servant.

Now, where did I hear that before?

Oh, yeah.

That’s the way the Founding Fathers envisioned our system of government, led by citizens, who served their term s as public servants…AND THEN WENT HOME.

But, I digress…

You know what tickles me the most about “The Donald”?

He reminds me of one of my favorite movie characters.

He actually has a backbone.

Just remember what ol’ Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol’ storm right square in the eye and he says, “Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it.” – Jack Burton, Truck Driver (Kurt Russell) “Big Trouble in Little China”

…and that, boys and girls, despite his vulgarity last night, is still a refreshing change.

(And, it makes for great blogging material. …I’m just sayin’.)

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

The Trump Backlash: Huma “The Proud Muslim” and Her “Troubling Familial Affiliations”

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

Huma-Abedin-and-Hillary-Clinton-620x436Well, for the last few days, the popular thing among “The Smartest People in the Room” has been to stand up to Republican Presidential Hopeful Donald J. Trump’s suggestion to pause all Muslim Immigration into the United States of America, until our government figures out how to ensure that ISIS will not embed themselves among innocent Muslims.

Hillary’s “Right-Hand Woman” and Gal-Pal Huma Abedin (Mrs. Anthony Weiner) recently decided to join the Peanut Gallery, as Fox News Reports…

Huma Abedin, the longtime confidant to Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, took aim at Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States in an email with the subject line: “I’m a proud Muslim.”

“Donald Trump is leading in every national poll to be the Republican nominee for president. And earlier today, he released his latest policy proposal: to ban all Muslims from entering our country,” wrote Ms. Abedin, in an email Monday evening to Mrs. Clinton’s supporters. “I’m a proud Muslim — but you don’t have to share my faith to share my disgust.”

Of course, that was a strictly political move.

Breitbart.com reports that

Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton is seizing on Donald Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslim entry into the U.S. with a fundraising email featuring long-time aide Huma Abedin, who is Muslim.

The email reads, in part: “I’m a proud Muslim–but you don’t have to share my faith to share my disgust.” The email is noteworthy for two reasons: first, that it acknowledges Abedin’s faith at all; and second, that it features Abedin, who is not only under ethical criticism but also suspected of radical ties.

In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama was terrified of having his campaign associated with Islam, lest it trigger what his aides feared might be a Muslim backlash. In June 2008, Ben Smith (then of Politico) reported: “Two Muslim women at Barack Obama’s rally in Detroit on Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women’s headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.” (The campaign later apologized to them.)

The Clinton campaign, in fact, even sought to capitalize on anti-Muslim sentiment by circulating a photograph of Obama wearing a headscarf on a visit to Kenya. (The candidate herself claimed not to “know anything about it.”)

Democrats have come a long way, from trying to appease anti-Muslim sentiment in their own party to using Muslims to fundraise from their supporters.

However, Huma Abedin is an odd choice. A “proud Muslim” would not marry a Jew–much less scandal-plagued former Rep. Anthony Weiner–given that Islamic law prevents women from marrying non-Muslims. Stranger still, Huma Abedin’s mother Saleha is reported to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is not only “proud” but radical, and violent.

In addition, Huma Abedin was recently investigated for embezzlement, and has been accused of failing to provide complete financial disclosure to the State Department, as well as working for a private contractor on the side.

Not exactly a proud record–except in Clintonland.

Let’s look a little closer at Ms. Abedin’s background, and her “troubling Familial Affiliations”, shall we?

According to discoverthenetworks.org,

Huma Abedin was born in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her father, Syed Abedin (1928-1993), was an Indian-born scholar who had worked as a visiting professor at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz University in the early Seventies. 

[She is]

  • Daughter of Saleha Mahmood Abedin, a pro-Sharia sociologist with ties to numerous Islamist organizations including the Muslim Brotherhood
  • Longtime assistant to Hillary Clinton
    Wife of former congressman Anthony Weiner
  • Longtime former employee of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, which shares the Muslim Brotherhood’s goal of establishing Islamic supremacy and Sharia Law worldwide.

…From 1997 until sometime before early 1999, Abedin, while still interning at the White House, was an executive board member of George Washington University’s (GWU) Muslim Students Association (MSA), heading the organization’s “Social Committee.”

It is noteworthy that in 2001-02, soon after Abedin left that executive board, the chaplain and “spritual guide” of GWU’s MSA was Anwar al-Awlaki, the al Qaeda operative who ministered to some of the men who were among the 9/11 hijackers. Another chaplain at GWU’s MSA (from at least October 1999 through April 2002) was Mohamed Omeish, who headed the International Islamic Relief Organization, which has been tied to the funding of al Qaeda. Omeish’s brother, Esam, headed the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Brotherhood’s quasi-official branch in the United States. Both Omeish brothers were closely associated with Abdurahman Alamoudi, who would later be convicted and incarcerated on terrorism charges.

From 1996-2008, Abedin was employed by the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA) as the assistant editor of its in-house publication, the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA). At least the first seven of those years overlapped with the al Qaeda-affiliated Abdullah Omar Naseef’s active presence at IMMA. Abedin’s last six years at the Institute (2002-2008) were spent as a JMMA editorial board member; for one of those years, 2003, Naseef and Abedin served together on that board.

Abedin went on maternity leave after giving birth to a baby boy in early December 2011. When she returned to work in June 2012, the State Department granted her an arrangement that allowed her to do outside consulting work as a “special government employee,” even as she remained a top advisor in the Department. Abedin did not disclose on her financial report either the arrangement or the$135,000 she earned from it, in violation of a law mandating that public officials disclose significant sources of income. Abedin’s outside clients included the U.S. State Department, Hillary Clinton, the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, and Teneo (a firm co-founded by Doug Band, a former counselor for Bill Clinton). Good-government groups warned of the potential conflict-of-interest inherent in an arangement where a government employee maintains private clients.

In June 2012, five Republican lawmakers (most prominently, Michele Bachmann) sent letters to the inspectors general at the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and State, asking that they investigate whether the Muslim Brotherhood was gaining undue influence over U.S. government officials. One letter, noting that Huma Abedin’s position with Hillary Clinton “affords her routine access to the secretary [of state] and to policymaking,” expressed concern over the fact that Abedin “has three family members—her late father, mother and her brother—connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.” Some other prominent Republicans such as John McCain and John Boehner disavowed the concerns articulated in the letters.

On February 1, 2013—Hillary Clinton’s final day as Secretary of State—Abedinresigned her post as Mrs. Clinton’s deputy chief of staff. Yet she would continue to serve as a close aide to Clinton. 

On March 1, 2013, Abedin was tapped to run Clinton’s post-State Department transition team, comprised of a six-person “transition office” located in Washington.

Huma Abedin’s brother, Hassan Abedin, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and is currently an associate editor with the JMMA. Hassan was once a fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, at a time when the Center’s board included such Brotherhood-affiliated figures as Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Abdullah Omar Naseef.

Huma’s sister, Heba Abedin (formerly known as “Heba A. Khaled”), is an assistant editor with JMMA, where she served alongside Huma prior to the latter’s departure.

Speaking straight from the heart, as an American citizen, I remain offended, that during the time of Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, that someone with direct ties to our sworn enemies, the Muslim Brotherhood, had access to the highest level of Top Secret Information contained in our State Department.

And, the thing is, she not only had access through her job as Assistant to Secretary of State Clinton, she also had access to government information through pillow talk with her husband, then-Congressman and “Professional Sexter” Anthony Weiner.

And, being the “proud Muslim” that she has proclaimed herself to be, it is a certainty that this information found its way to those “troubling Familial Affiliations”.

Which brings up a troubling question:

What if the Obama Administration and their minions are shouting down Donald J., Trump, because they knew “what was going on” all along

…and simply did not care?

Until He Comes,

KJ