GOP leaders trying to find a non-Trump candidate

Ann Althouse noted that on Meet The Press today Chuck Todd observed that

none of the GOP leaders were talking about actually trying to "woo the Trump voter." No, those are the people who are supposed to step back and wait until their betters manipulate things to produce a non-Trump candidate they're told to vote for. There's no plan to deal with the outrage and resentment these people will feel.

The power of the Establishment juggernaut

Ace of Spades is

worried that Trump's and Rubio's constant answer to Cruz's accurate claims about their records -- that Cruz is a "liar," though they never specify in what way he's lying -- might hurt him.

...So that's why I think Cruz could lose: Trump is saying Cruz "lies" when he says Trump previously supported even partial birth abortion (!!!) as he did, and is on tape saying so, and Rubio is saying Cruz "lies' when he accurately quotes his Univision interview, even though that's on tape too.

But the Establishment has an interest in eliminating Cruz so that it's just Trump and Rubio ( a contest they then plan to win, thus getting their establishment amnesty candidate nominated), so it's not worth pointing out that every charge Cruz made was true.

Anyway, I do fear that. I do see the power of the Establishment juggernaut.

It's not just what they report, or what questions they ask. It's more what they won't report, and what questions Chris Wallace deliberately avoids.

We'll see if my fears as usual come to pass.

Ace further points out that

Rubio says one thing for English speaking Republicans, but says something different for Spanish speakers.

Read more here.

Some reasons Trump is doing so well

Tucker Carlson writes in Politico Magazine,

...Conservative voters are being scolded for supporting a candidate they consider conservative because it would be bad for conservatism? And by the way, the people doing the scolding? They’re the ones who’ve been advocating for open borders, and nation-building in countries whose populations hate us, and trade deals that eliminated jobs while enriching their donors, all while implicitly mocking the base for its worries about abortion and gay marriage and the pace of demographic change.

...On immigration policy, party elders were caught completely by surprise. Even canny operators like Ted Cruz didn’t appreciate the depth of voter anger on the subject. And why would they? If you live in an affluent ZIP code, it’s hard to see a downside to mass low-wage immigration. Your kids don’t go to public school. You don’t take the bus or use the emergency room for health care. No immigrant is competing for your job. (The day Hondurans start getting hired as green energy lobbyists is the day my neighbors become nativists.) Plus, you get cheap servants, and get to feel welcoming and virtuous while paying them less per hour than your kids make at a summer job on Nantucket. It’s all good.

Apart from his line about Mexican rapists early in the campaign, Trump hasn’t said anything especially shocking about immigration. Control the border, deport lawbreakers, try not to admit violent criminals — these are the ravings of a Nazi? This is the “ghost of George Wallace” that a Politico piece described last August? A lot of Republican leaders think so. No wonder their voters are rebelling.

...A temporary ban on Muslim immigration? That sounds a little extreme (meaning nobody else has said it recently in public). But is it? Millions of Muslims have moved to Western Europe over the past 50 years, and a sizable number of them still haven’t assimilated. Instead, they remain hostile and sometimes dangerous to the cultures that welcomed them. By any measure, that experiment has failed. What’s our strategy for not repeating it here, especially after San Bernardino—attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere? Invoke American exceptionalism and hope for the best? Before Trump, that was the plan.
Republican primary voters should be forgiven for wondering who exactly is on the reckless side of this debate. At the very least, Trump seems like he wants to protect the country.

...I doubt there are many Christian voters who think Trump could recite the Nicene Creed, or even identify it. Evangelicals have given up trying to elect one of their own. What they’re looking for is a bodyguard, someone to shield them from mounting (and real) threats to their freedom of speech and worship. Trump fits that role nicely, better in fact than many church-going Republicans. For eight years, there was a born-again in the White House. How’d that work out for Christians, here and in Iraq?

...During a speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump said Hillary had been “schlonged” by Obama in the 2008 race. In response, the Clinton campaign called Trump a sexist. It’s a charge Hillary has leveled against virtually every opponent she’s faced, but Trump responded differently. Instead of scrambling to donate to breast cancer research, he pointed out that Hillary spent years attacking the alleged victims of her husband’s sexual assaults. That ended the conversation almost immediately.

It was the most effective possible response, though more obvious than brilliant. Why was Trump the only Republican to use it?

Republican primary voters may be wondering the same thing. Or maybe they already know. They seem to know a lot about Trump, more than the people who run their party. They know that he isn’t a conventional ideological conservative. They seem relieved. They can see that he’s emotionally incontinent. They find it exciting.
Washington Republicans look on at this in horror, their suspicions confirmed. Beneath the thin topsoil of rural conservatism, they see the seeds of proto-fascism beginning to sprout. But that’s not quite right. Republicans in the states aren’t dangerous. They’ve just evaluated the alternatives and decided those are worse.

Read more here.

Who do you hate the most, the guy who was wrong when you were right, or the guy who was right when you were wrong?

David Limbaugh writes at cnsnews.com,

...The establishment's allergy to fighting reached its apex with the advent of Barack Obama. Presumably because of his race, his initial popularity or his projected image as a uniter, their fear of resisting Democrats grew into full-blown paranoia. This was most noticeable in the budget battles the GOP had with Obama.

...They told us not to allow the government to shut down, because the people would blame Republicans — the party perceived to favor smaller government — and we'd lose the next election.

...Even after we won the next elections our guys were no more emboldened. They continued to move the goal posts to the next election after that. And so it went. Many of those elected on promises to stop or try harder to stop this nonsense were co-opted by the establishment or pressured into acquiescence.

Ted Cruz, along with a few others, rejected the conventional GOP wisdom and refused to take their orders to stand down. The establishment uniformly pans his "doomed-to-fail" efforts and says he was only showboating in furtherance of his political ambitions. But what if they'd stood united behind him? What if they'd expressed similar confidence in conservative ideas and joined with him both in resisting Obama's lawless despotism and in taking their case directly to the American people, instead of dooming his efforts by telegraphing their surrender in advance?

These same people blister Obama for such feckless negotiating tactics and preemptive surrender with respect to Iran, but when dealing with Obama they fold like the crease in his pants.

The establishment has always justified their position by claiming that we didn't have the votes to override Obama's vetoes or overcome Democratic filibusters, or that we would be blamed for shutting down the government. Conservatives have argued otherwise — that we might have won some of these battles if we'd stood up for our ideas, and if not, we'd certainly have been in a better position to win the next election having tried and stood for something. That's not futility; that's not "Don Quixote."

From one perspective we can't prove who was right, because Congress didn't often stand up to Obama and our idea was never tested. But from another perspective we conservatives are vindicated.

That the establishment didn't sufficiently oppose Obama, reserving most of its angst for conservatives instead of the president, directly led to Donald Trump, who would not have resonated otherwise. The establishment's habitual weakness gave us Trump, which means their arrogant and unyielding calculations about the next election were wrong. This is the big next election they never anticipated because they underestimated the degree to which they were disappointing and infuriating the base and frustrating their will.

I believe if the establishment had backed Ted Cruz we'd have seen different results, though I can't conclusively prove that. But I am pretty sure I don't need to prove the obvious reality that Trump arose because they wouldn't join Cruz and their constituents in the fight.

I appeal to the rest of you to review recent history in this light and to reconsider the wisdom of Ted Cruz's approach, even though it was rejected by the majority of other Republican politicians, whose very party is on the ropes because of their conceit, arrogance and tone-deafness.

Cruz was right, and grassroots conservatives were right. We should have stood up to Obama then and didn't, so Trump was born and is flourishing. With Ted Cruz we know what we're getting and we know it's the reverse of Obama's infernal effort to fundamentally transform America. Say what you want about Ted Cruz, but about this there is little doubt.

The establishment is now taking a second look at Obama, albeit without much humility. I'm not naive enough to think they'll take a second look at Ted Cruz, but how about you?

Read more here.

Because of Amnesty, he wants Cruz or Trump, not Rubio

Ace of Spades writes,

The GOP is nakedly now a "clientist" party the same as the Democrat Party. They just have different clients.

...So for me, it has to be Cruz, or Trump. I'd prefer Cruz, as I keep saying. I'll take Trump, though, because, while he's kind of stupid and temperamentally unsuited for the job, he would nevertheless also serve as a repudiation of the Establishment's Corporate Client "Conservatism."

...On the other hand -- if this is all just squawking and we all just want to be Managed by the Ruling Class into doing what they've decided is Best for us -- then by all means, vote for Marco Rubio.

Just let them know that at the end of the day, all you want to do is bark a little. Then, having barked your little stupid puppy heart out, you'll roll over and show them your belly, yet again.

Shall we permit them to manage and wrangle us, or will we finally take over the farm and start managing and wrangling them?

Choose wisely. Nothing at all depends on it, except everything.

Who profits from the Iran deal?

Andrew McCarthy wrote this piece at National Review a couple of weeks ago:

‘Why on earth would Republicans do that?” That is a question I’ve been asked at least a dozen times since illustrating that the GOP has played a cynical game in connection with President Obama’s Iran deal.

“Follow the money” is a common answer to questions about political motivation. It may not explain everything in this case, but it is certainly relevant.

This spring, Republican leadership colluded with the White House and congressional Democrats to enact a law — the Corker-Cardin Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act — that guaranteed Obama would be authorized to lift sanctions against Iran (the main objective of the terrorist regime in Tehran). The rigged law authorized Obama to lift sanctions as long as Republicans could not pass a resolution of disapproval. As Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, and other GOP leaders well knew, there was no way they would ever be able to enact a disapproval resolution over Obama’s veto. But the process choreographed by Corker-Cardin meant they would be able to complain about the deal and vote to disapprove it — thereby creating the impression that they were staunchly against the lifting of sanctions that they had already authorized.

Often in Washington, the numbers that matter are measured in dollars, not votes.

Take Boeing, for example.

Based in Chicago, Boeing is the world’s largest aerospace company, with revenues expected to surge past $96 billion this year. It is a major GOP donor. It gives mountains of money to Democrats, too, but the lion’s share of its political contributions go to Republicans.

For the 2014 campaign cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org, the company gave about 60 percent of its whopping $3,250,000 in donations to the GOP. Major recipients included such establishment pillars as the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee ($38,000 each), and the National Republican Senatorial Committee ($33,000). Significant contributions were also made to McConnell ($13,000), Boehner ($25,000), Senator Lindsey Graham ($39,000), and many others. And that’s apart from the nearly $17 million the company spent in 2014 on lobbyists, 80 percent of whom have transitioned to the other end of the trough after careers in government.

It just so happens that Boeing stands to reap huge money from Obama’s lifting of the sanctions.

Iran’s airline industry has been crippled by these severe restrictions, which are aimed against commerce connected to the regime’s illegal uranium enrichment, terror promotion, and weapons trafficking. Once the sanctions are lifted, the mullahs are expected to order up at least 100 new aircraft in just the next year, and 400 over the next decade. That means tens of billions of dollars in sales for manufacturers positioned to satisfy those pressing needs.

No company is better positioned than Boeing. It not only has the models Iran wants and the production capacity to fill huge orders. Boeing also ingratiated itself with the mullahs last year by leaping into action when President Obama, eager to keep Iran at the negotiating table, granted some limited sanctions relief. Reuters reported that the company “sold aircraft manuals, drawings, charts and data to Iran Air.”

Interesting thing about that: Iran Air, the national carrier, is most notorious for providing material support to the barbaric Assad regime in Syria and the Hezbollah terrorist network that props it up.

As detailed earlier this week in an important report by Emanuele Ottolenghi and Ben Weinthal of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (published by Politico’s European edition), the U.S. Treasury Department designated Iran Air as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction in 2011, ordering the freezing of its assets. Serving as an arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (the force principally responsible for killing hundreds of American troops in Iraq and 19 American airmen in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia), Iran Air transported rockets and missiles, as well as military personnel and weapons, to Syria. It also violated a U.N. arms embargo by sending along dual-use materials that can be converted to military applications.

Oh . . . and given that Obama’s Iran deal depends on the terrorist regime’s good-faith cooperation with inspectors and compliance with restrictions on its nuclear work, it is probably worth mentioning how Iran Air managed to carry out its WMD proliferation: as Messrs. Ottolenghi and Weinthal explain, it systematically lied about the content of the cargo on its flights. Nevertheless, in the implementation of the Iran deal approved by Corker-Cardin, Obama will be dropping the designation against Iran Air.

To sum up: Obama cuts a deal with Iran. The implementation of the deal is abetted by legislation pushed by the Republican-controlled Congress despite massive opposition from the GOP base. Under the deal, a major GOP donor stands to make billions selling aircraft to Iran. Iran will use the aircraft to fortify the Assad regime (which Obama and GOP leadership claim to want to topple) and to promote terrorism by networks with a history of murdering Americans.

Read more here.