TRUMP PHENOMENON? GOP ABANDONS BASE, TRUMP SWEEPS THEM UP

TRUMP PHENOMENON? GOP AVANDONS BASE, TRUMP SWEEPS THEM UP

Over the last four decades the GOP has systematically abandoned the working classes, and middle America. These are the Republicans that Trump is now sweeping up like flies into his new "Trump Coalition". Over those years the GOP elites, under the control of the mega donor class, continued to feed the nation and middle class workers on whose votes they really depended the Reagan myth of "trickle down" and "voo do" economics. This is the weak gruel--which stated: "a rising tide floats all boats", and "just cut regulation on the fat cats to free up the economy and jobs will appear", or "cut taxes and the social expenditures (you folks really depend on)" so as to give more money to the investor class...so as to stimulate economic growth. The people fell for these fairy tales for a while. But as Lincoln said..."you can fool some of the people some of the time"....but after the Great Recession, the bank and Wall Street bailouts, and in the last years the massive redistribution of wealth to the top one percent----that time is over now.

Since the Great Recession of 2007-2008 and the uneven recovery (with almost all the benefits going to the wealthy) the TRUTH has become all too clear to working men and women. It is now fully apparent to them how money has corrupted the system. It is clear that fat cats now control the Party by means of massive amounts of donor money. Big donors and powerful interests set the agenda of the GOP, consequently the Party supports only the interests of a small minority of the wealthy....some of whom are single issue donors with strong emotional ties to foreign nations. These latter donors distort foreign policy priorites. The GOP has abandoned their real base--American working citizens and American interests for a small minority of super wealthy donors.

Trump has tapped into this disaffected constituency, voters the Party desperately needs for electoral success. Trump's recent nomination election successes, his strong poll numbers, and the massive and wildly supportive crowds he attracts reveal his wide and deep appeal. His appeal is simple. He is going to bring back the old Republican Party. He states his main goals clearly. He is going to bring back the jobs from China and Mexico. The elites keep peddling their weak myth about cutting taxes, regulation and spending...vague promises and talking points that they take from their donors with the thick envelopes of cash. Donald's message, freed from the corrupting control of the mega donors---hits the mark and rings true. The corruption of money and the abandonment of a large swaths of the electorate are the underlying cause for Mr. Trump's appeal.

TRUMP WINS CNN DEBATE

TRUMP REVITALIZES GOP AS HE LEADS IT INTO NEW TERRITORY

Last night's GOP, CNN debate (February 25, 2016) revealed that Cruze and Rubio obediently served their donor-master's requests to act as attack dogs against the obvious leader of the GOP race: Donald Trump. In the melee, one observed what appeared to be two little snapping and snarling terriers take on the big junk-yard dog. It was good theater, but did not change the equation. The desperate combo roughed their leader up a bit, a torn ear and a grazed shoulder perhaps, but they did not dislodge the big dog from his commanding position.

The big question asked by the TV commenters this morning was, "why did Rubio not do this earlier?" That was a key question. The answer is revealing. He was directed to do it---by his donors and handlers. It is clear, Rubio takes orders---along with that donor money. That is the difference between a leader...Trump....and his opponents, who are (almost all) puppets of the shadowy men behind the scene, and as such part of the Republican's problem.

And it remains clear that Trump is And remains the leader. Trump has led the pack through this long campaign. He has set the agenda and radically changed the debate with his own initiatives as he carries a growing army of present and former Republican voter constituents along with him. In the first debates, he introduced the immigration fiasco. He proposed "the wall". He systematically burst many of the hollow myths the Republican Party has perpetuated. He took on its false heroes (arguing that a pilot who disobeyed orders on which targets to bomb, gets his plane shot down and then is imprisoned is not everyone's definition of a hero). He told the truth about the disaster of the Iraq War. He argued that George Bush did not keep us safe. He defended aspects of Obama Care, and even of defunding all of Planned Parenthood. He has set in motion a revitalization of the Party. It is becoming apparent that Trump is the leader of a new and powerful political movement. His movement is dragging a reluctant Republican Party away from the dark isolated corner it has inhabited for too long where it kept company with a tiny cave-dwelling minority of its fragmented constituency.

Last night, standing in the middle between his two attackers in front of an audience of mostly establishment types, Trump courageously defended his--yes-- more moderate positions. While far-right, arch-conservatives Rubio and Cruze attacked Trump's defense of aspects of the Affordable Care Act, Trump held his ground as he argued that "he would not let people die on the streets". The two "purist" conservatives snarling on his flanks seemed to argue loudly and incongruously for that sad outcome to come to pass! More revealingly, Trump the self-funded candidate defended himself on foreign policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, when he asserted he would act even-handedly between the Middle East's most virulent and intractable opponents. Rubio and Cruze (both supported by mega donor Koch brothers and single-issue-mega-donor Sheldon Adelson) sticking to the failed play-book of the Republican ultra-right, argued for the failed-GW Bush policy of siding openly with hard-line, blood soaked, and jack-booted Netanyahu.

The voters are speaking clearly. Trump is the new Republican leader. The establishment like any crusted over hard baked entity can not flex with the moving firmament. Cracks are forming and are widening as its fabric is torn. The old guard dig in their heels..trying to hold on as the fissures widen. But they will and must jump on to the moving ice flow or drown. Many will have to eat their own words..some will will lose their jobs.

Trump is leading a real revolution.

CITIZEN CRUZ-NOT "NATIVE BORN"

As I note in an earlier post. There is a different between a citizen and a native born or natural born citizen. The framers of the Constitution were clear on their intention. The unsettled law concerning this difference should be fully and fairly adjudicated before we vote for a President Cruz.

BUSH BOWS OUT--

JEB bows out. (See my post below of 2-5-16)

It was sad to watch. This Bush is apparently a decent guy. Perhaps, too nice for the job at hand. But, like many younger brothers of large families, he is weak and unable to stand on his own. As the stripling, pliable scion of the Bush brushwood dynasty, he can not step away from the rigid support-posts of family. In 2016 our nation needs a man of thick-barked, hardened timber to head a complex and refractive nation. Young JEB could not resist allegiance with his failed-brother, his one-term president-father, the Bush-family myths about the Iraq War, and the entire Bush family. Expecting for him to do so, was a mistake. JEB wrongly placed their needs before those of of his struggling homeland.

Thankfully the wise voters of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina saw that clearly. They saved us from a another Bush failure.

MR. COOK OF APPLE: RIGHT FBI AND OBAMA WRONG

Mr. Obama disappoints his erstwhile supporters again and again. This time it is with his acquiescence to the demands of his powerful security apparatus over those who would protect USA citizenry from the prying eyes of government spies. The FBI is attempting to force Apple CEO, Timothy Cook to create new technology tools to bypass existing security blocks on their IPhone 5. The phone was once used by the San Bernadino Mass shooting terrorists . The FBI has not been able to unlock the phone so its contents could be assessed. Giving the FBI that ability woould open up all iPhones to the prying eyes of the government, and possibly to those of foreign hackers too. No one would be secur from unfettered governemnt spying.

The heroic stance of Mr. Cook to a federal court order which would force Apple to create new software to facilitate the US governemnt breaking into the gunman's iPhone was wrong. Mr. Cook rightly saw the government's position as "overreach" and that its demand on Apple would "undermine the very freedoms" that the US Constitution and the government of Mr. Obama were meant to protect. shame on Mr. Obama! I applaud Mr. Cook and all of those who stand with him to protect our freedom from a government engorged with the overriding need for spying on its own citizens.

INVALID NBC /WALL STREET POLL ON TRUMP--PURPOSEFUL OUTLIER

The recent national poll (February 17, 2016)from NBC Wall Street Journal showing Trump at 26% and Cruz at 28% has been headlined widely as an indication that Mr. Trump'S support is faltering. Examing that poll more closely you will discover that it is based on only 400 respondents. That is very low number (n) for a national poll. The pollsters also reveal that it was NOT a random sampling, but that they purposely chose respondents who claimed that they were of a "strongly conservative" bent. These facts support the idea that this particular poll is not representative of the nation's opinion and was probably not meant to be. Was it a purposeful attack at the Donald by the establishment news outlets? It seems it may have been.

NATURAL BORN CITIZEN?

CRUZ NOT A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN BY HIS OWN INTERPRETATION OF CONSTITUTION

By the strict interpretation of the the Constitution, of which Senator Cruz (ironically) is a firm advocate, he would seem to be ineligible to hold the office of President. To the Founders, writing in the latter part of the 19th Century, it is pretty clear what their ordinal intent was. A "natural born citizen" meant to them, what it sounds like to us. A person actually born on the land and in the country, to which that person aspires to serve as chief executive officer. They were concerned in those days, that some interloper from a foreign land (perhaps an English speaker from Britain or Canada) might rise in political power, run for the office of President and without being born and raised with the steadying cultural and social forces which make an American distinct from others...take over the government and modify it to conform to a foreign political or cultural system. As we all know now, Cruz was born in Canada, lived there as a child, was a dual USA-Canadian citizen up until very recently, and therefore, based on his own "originalist" interpretation of the Constitution, does not qualify.

Today, the actual legal status of who is or is not qualified as "a natural born citizen" to serve as President is still very much unsettled. Though the term has been adjudicated in more recent times in regard to immigrants and others born of US citizens abroad...the limits indicated in the Constitution for whom shall be eligible for the office of President still remains unsettle law.

Any one of the candidates running for office with Cruz. would have a legal right to bring a suit against his candidacy. They would be within their rights in helping to settle this issue for once and for all time.

TRUMP AND SANDERS POPULISTS BOTH

Trump and Sanders the Obverse and Reverse of A New American Political Coin

As in Europe where populist currents have recently muddied the political waters, now we find that we here in the USA are faced with the rise of a new populism occurring from both and right and left...from Trump and Sanders. The American system is badly flawed....the new populism may give us all hope that the American experiment is still alive and well.

I write this on the day after the 2016 New Hampshire nomination election. The turnout was dramatic and the results reveal cataclysmic change..like the geologic shifting of continental plates in the political firmament. The vaunted Clinton and Bush dynasties have been dethroned....we hope for good. Sanders wiped the floor with Clinton, taking virtually the entire state and every demographic category...except women over 65. Trump followed suit on the Republican side. He capture almost every district and proved that the pollsters were correct...and the talking heads on TV who claimed at every turn his voters were at his rallies for entertainment only and would not turn out to vote. They were dead wrong. .

What does it all mean? Perhaps finally, the American people, after being dragged through a bloody disastrous, three-trillion-dollar phony war, suffered through a Great Recession, were shocked and saddened by the inequitable and costly bail-out of the big banks, and then saddled for the last eight years with an uneven and stuttering economy----have finally caught on. Finally, they seem to understand that the political system on both sides of this duplicitous duopoly we call the American political system, has failed them for the last 40 years. Indeed they now understand how heavily the system is heavily stacked against them. During those decades the Republicans sliced and diced up the electorate with phony "hot button" issues (abortion, immigration, xenophobia, race baiting, "makers and takers", flag waving, etc. etc.) to achieve political dominance, while maintaining their laser-like focus on the needs and desires of the big-donor class for whom they really work. The Democrats, particularly under Clinton and Obama, played the same game, currying favor with Wall, Street, and big industry while lining up at the cash trough with the Republicans to take pay-offs from the same donor class. As for the donor class, they buy both Democrats and Republicans. They simply hedge their bets to insure they have a "winner" to control, whomever is elected. The Democrats play the same game, but perhaps not as effectively. They too, just abandoned their erstwhile working and middle class constituents as they made "triangulation" deals on immigration, trade polices, foreign wars, and labor policy which favored the big donors and the "one percenters". The middle class, working people, and the vast center of America were left to struggle as the economic tide ebbed and they were left mud stranded and "on their own". Over these years, wealth, income and political,power has become more and more concentrated in the hands of a very small minority...some 400 or so individuals and families who wield the bucks and the political power. That is not democracy...or even a faint shadow of what our Founders envisioned...it is something they abhorred....oligarchy. But today the hope of transformation to a government of "fairness" and "greatness" came in the form of the candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. .

Both Trump and Sanders oppose the dominance of big business interests in our political, foreign policy and economic lives. Since the beginning of the Reagan era, we have seen the economic demise of the middle class and the rise of a "big business only" society in which the needs and welfare of the great center of American population are left to stagnate and founder as wealth, income and political power migrated to a few very affluent individuals and families.

I am proud that, like me, both men come from the metropolitan area of New York. Both candidates arose to maturity in the mid to latter part the last century in the heyday of an American pluralism and a period of middle class economic stability and well being. Their ideas and values were formed, fired and quenched to strength on the tough streets of Brooklyn and Queens New York. They know of and appreciate the diversity and dynamism of the greater New York area, and both (yes. trump too) have risen from more humble origins to the pinnacle of American politics.

Trump expresses himself (sometime not so well) but with a passion to defend the American people from the collusion of mega donors, lobbyists, and government, and the GOP establishment. He decries the malfeasance of the big banks and Wall Street, and unfair trade and monetary practices of China and Mexico, from international companies moving jobs (and their corporate offices) offshore, as well as from the floods of illegal immigrants which weaken opportunities and lower wages for legal migrants and native workers.

So let us hope for the well being of our nation....

KUDOS TO CHRIS CHRISTIE

CHRIS CHRISTIE: POLITICAL SACRIFICE AND HERO(?)

Last week during the Republican debate in New Hampshire, Governor Chris Christie, exposed the " robo oratory" of Marco Rubio with a verbal repost as cutting and devastating as the "Senator you are no Jack Kennedy" remark of made by Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle during the vice presidential debate in 1988. Christie's tough remark exposed Senator Marco Rubio as a verbal robot, mouthing canned, non sequitur, shibboleth remarks over and over again. In doing so, he may have significantly changed the course of the campaign. Christie may have saved the Republic from a phony, weak candidate, and a tool of the special interest mega-donors, and GOP establishment and elites who support him. We should all give Christie an award for his efforts.

Rubio, who has a cherubic face, a charming smile, and is an able orator--one of the few in the Republican field--but it seems he has few ideas, positions or policies of his own. He mouths only the prepared script that he has cleared with his powerful and controlling mega donors. Rubio's overriding fear is "going off script". He is well aware that if he veers from his prepared talking points, his funding may be abruptly withdrawn and directed elsewhere. This explains his "deer in the headlights" expression and sweaty face as he sought repeatedly to keep to a few "safe" lines in his responses to Christie and his other speeches. Christie forced him off course last week, and exposed him as a "robo" tool and puppet of the mega donor class. It should have the Dan Quayle effect.

Perhaps Gov Chris Christie did not foresee that his act of bravura, chutspah, Jersey-tough-guy behavior during the Republican 2016 New Hampshire debate would do....but like a brave soldier who sees a smoking hand grenade roll into his squad's foxhole...he didn't think. He just threw himself on it. At lest that's what I like to think. He acted to protect the nation from this unprepared undesirable candidate. That's how I look at his remarks.

It is a sad commentary on our political system to learn that Christie "got the call" from the establishment Republicans--who actually support Rubio--because he is a tool--a puppet, who like the Manchurian candidate is under the control of evil, hidden and powerful forces.

SLIPPERY RUBIO WRONG CHOICE

RUBIO, WRONG CHOICE

Chris Christie is right....Rubio is the Cuban "bubble boy". This candidate's problems are many. He is young. He even brags that it was only three years ago that he was "still paying off his student loan". (He would still be paying for it were it not for the financial support from a wealthy donor.) He looks that young too. Rubio has an even thinner portfolio than Obama did prior to his nomination. Do we want to make thsf sams mistake electing a rank novice to the White House again? He has never held a real job or managed anything. It is well known he has had personal financial problems. His history indicates he was incapable of even managing his own finances. What make one think he is capable of managing that of the nation. He is a first term Senator where his accomplishments are few and slim. And most damaging of all, he is the "puppet on a string" of "one issue" mega donors" (one of whom holds dual citizenship) and have taken control of Rubio and his campaign.

If Americans vote for Rubio they are in effect "nominating" the hidden "wizard" behind the green curtain (like Oz) who gives Rubio his cues and write his script. Wouldn't it be in our nation's best interest if we were able to ascertain the nationality, foreign policies, political proclivities, and motives of the hidden supporters behind Rubio's campaign? But no one asks.

One reason the other candidates shun querying Rubio concerning these questions is that with few exceptions (Trump and Sanders) they are all "bought" candidates too. We know the mega donors are back there pulling the levers and moving The candidate's lips, but little is known about them.

A vote for Rubio should be challenged with the proverbial warning against "purchasing a pig in a poke". Our nation can not afford to buy a mega-donor-controlled, slippery, Cuban piglet in a poke. Our nation's future is at stake.

BUSH IS TOAST---FOR GOOD REASON

WHY BUSH IS TOAST

"JEB" Bush has dragged his 91 year-old mom Barbara Bush to stir up his faltering sleepy campaign shuffling along in the snows of New Hampshire. It will not help him. it seems to underscore the fact that JEB is tied to the past...a failed past.The Donald was right. JEB is really a nice guy who, besides his energy level, he has two major problems.

The first one is his surname. No one wants to support the establishment of an American "Bush" dynasty. Even if the Bush brand had NOT been so awfully sullied by JEB's thoughtless, easily manipulated, low.IQ brother (reason enough to negate another candidate from the same "gens") the people rightly reject the idea of a third president candidate from this family. The idea of a dynastic presidency is understandably and rightly unpalatable to the American electorate. If JEB wasn't a "Bush" he might be doing about as well as John Kasich or Chris Christie. Even with his name recognition and his many millions of dollars in PAC and big donor support, he can't seem to get out of single digits in the polls.

His other problem is JEB's close connection to a failed presidency. He unwisely populated his support-team with old hands from his brother's failed administration. And when challenged early on in the campaign, he was unable to separate himself from the awful legacy of a disastrous "W"presidency. If he had been able to say "I know "W" made some serious mistakes. I'm a different person. I am going in a different direction." Bush was unable to make that leap or was unwilling to do so.

For those reasons....he is toast. Too bad. A minor name change to differentiate himself from his family, a steel-rod up his backside and a shot of B12 might have made him a contender.