This observation is a whack upside the head (emphasis added):
Some U.S. counter-terrorism officials say much of the gap between Washington and Belgium — and some other European countries — is cultural. Europeans’ deeper commitment to personal privacy sometimes prevents or delays sharing of information such as travel data — that is taken for granted in the United States.
The idea that Europe – the contintent of sheep-like government-addled socialized drones who gave us Naziism, Socialism, Communism and Soccer – have more commitment to personal privacy than the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is a jab in the gut.
I saw that, and had the same reaction.
But let’s not forget, 1/2 the country is prepared to vote for either a borderline traitor, or a Socialist. This ain’t Ben Cartwright’s America any more.
I mostly wanted to wish you and yours a joyous Easter.
But given you have this as your Friday post…….Europeans have always given up more of their privacy and freedom than we have, in my experience. I would argue that this claim about personal privacy is bogus as a cause of delays or lack of sharing of information.
More to the point, there is an excellent argument to be made that the terrorists are NOT winning.
ISIS/L/Daesh has lost a considerable amount of territory, as much as 30%, with a new initiative beginning to retake Mosul. The caliphate is going broke as well, courtesy of both bombing and economic pressure with the low price of oil (largely driven by the Saudis who can afford to break even at the lowest possible extraction cost of oil). We have substantially dealt with chemical warfare (not totally or perfectly but to a significant degree), we have the Russians pulling out of the region – they can’t afford to stay, whatever saber rattling language they use. We have a cease fire holding, we have Assad on his way out, and a reduction in the ISIS oil purchased by Syria (in spite of them being the ‘enemy’). We have push back by the Libyans against any incursions by ISIS there.
Yes, we have some incidents of terrorism occurring, but these appear to be desperation measures, increasing because they can’t afford to continue to wage conventional war, given the attacks in Paris were in retaliation for oil hub bombing.
So, yes, we may be looking at a short term surge in attempts at terrorism, but given the gains against terrorism just this week following the attacks in Brussels, in the form of arrests, and of disrupting planned attacks, and of losses to ISIS from Western attacks on leaders, I think we have to consider the west to be winning in the long term regardless of whatever occasional incidence of terrorism gets through our counter-terrorism efforts. The # 2 guy in ISIS was just killed yesterday.
I suppose you could consider Trump and Cruz featuring in ISIS recruiting media on the basis of their failed and faulty foreign and domestic policy plans losing though.
Dog Gone on March 25, 2016 at 8:40 pm said:
I suppose you could consider Trump and Cruz featuring in ISIS recruiting media on the basis of their failed and faulty foreign and domestic policy plans losing though.
This is asinine, DG, and you should know better. If ISIS created a recruiting video using America’s tolerant attitude towards gays, would you think that America should rethink it attitudes towards gays? Of course you wouldn’t.
This is America. We don’t stop people from saying things because foreigners and domestic terrorists might not like hearing them.
You should think of things like this before you waste pixels on a comment.
The fact is 65% of Republicans did not vote for Trump. Republicans make up 20% of the US population. So this means barely 10% of the US population voted for Trump during the primaries. In France right wing parties like Le Pen get close to 30% to 40% of the vote in regional elections. In France Le Pen is the most popular politician. If one looks at Europe as a whole in general European right wing racist parties have about 20-25% support. In America Trump won less than 10% of the entire population’s vote. Republicans after all are only 20% of the population. Which continent has a bigger problem with right wing extremism?
EI mewled: “Which continent has a bigger problem with right wing extremism?”
Neither!. Both continents, however, do have an ongoing problem with extremetotalitarian leftists like yourself and DG.
It’s never pretty when one holds a mirror to authoritarian–nationalism type candidates is it kel. When the general election rolls around and the media starts focusing on the candidates, Trump or Cruz will make Hilary’s many failings seem comfortably safe and familiar. Today’s polls are just because people don’t really know Trump and Cruz yet.
EI puled: “It’s never pretty when one holds a mirror …”
if you’re holding up a mirror and you see something you don’t like — its you!
“The fact is 65% of Republicans did not vote for Trump.”
How many did not vote for Cruz? How many did not vote for Rubio? How many did not vote for Kasich?
If it comes down to a brokered convention, the party will not elect Cruz as an alternative to Cruz. They will try to elect a moderate, possibly Ryan, and he will lose to Hillary badly.
I heard Kudlow’s radio show today for the first time in months. I was surprised to discover he is ambivalent/leaning towards Trump. Kudlow is usually a pro-immigration, pro-free-trade guy. His issue seems to be security, and he has the ability to winnow through Trump’s often vulgar or overly broad speaking style to find serious policy proposals.
I am not a Trump supporter because I do not believe Trump is conservative, but if anyone could change my mind, it would be Kudlow.
Did Emery just copy and paste that babble from dg empty little blerg? It’s a dimwit daisy chain!
You need 1237 delegates to get the nomination. So far, Trump has 739, to 465 for Cruz and 143 for Emery-favorite Kasich (the most Canadian of the candidates).
If trump has 1100+ at the start of the convention, but less than 1237, if the delegates choose an anti-Trump over Trump (say, Kasich), an awful lot of the party’s primary voters will stay home on election day in November.
I think that a loss in November is acceptable to the party establishment, if it means defeating Trump. This is one of the reasons I am not a member of the Republican party. I don’t have the job title or the assets to consider second-best to be preferable to a win.
BG you’re right. What the party establishment either doesn’t recognize, or care about is the down ticket consequences of choosing second place. With enough disaffected voters the Senate would certainly become Harry Reid’s playground again and the margin in the House could become razor thin meaning Pelosi would be brokering every close vote. With the Senate under Reid’s control Clinton’s next 3 appointees to SCOTUS will breeze through.
Don’t assume that because Trump is a catalyst for change you’ll be happy with the results. He hasn’t impressed upon me any actual coherent plans for change. That’s not a good start for an aspiring leader.
He hasn’t impressed upon me any actual coherent plans for change.
Because eTASS is the Hope and ChangeTM kinda libturd.
He hasn’t impressed upon me any actual coherent plans for change. That’s not a good start for an aspiring leader.
Wait; did our resident special needs reader and aspiring cyber stalker just suggest his unfavorable analysis is cause for disqualification of a candidate???
Bwaaaahahahahaaa!
Clinton is a extremely weak candidate. The GOP has (thus far) snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
“Clinton is a extremely weak candidate. The GOP has (thus far) snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”
The opposite argument holds true, of course, that by choosing a candidate as poor as Clinton (or Sanders), the Democrats, faced with a split GOP, are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The people who vote for Trump see little difference between the Democrats and Republicans on the issues they care about. That is what is sad.
Romney got a higher percentage of the white vote (60%) than Reagan got in 1980 (56%), and Reagan won in 10–point landslide. The difference is white voters were 88% of the electorate in 1980 but only 72% in 2012–likely to be 70% this year.
In the 10 elections since 1976 Republicans have averaged 54% of the white vote, but let’s assume Trump gets 60% and the electorate is 70% white, that gives Trump automatically 42%, and obviously he has to get to 50. Where do those 8 points come from?
After whites, the next-largest bloc is African Americans at 13%, and they vote Democratic on average 90%. But 10% of 13% gives Trump a 1% boost to 43%.
Hispanics are third at 10%, and they vote Democratic about 70% of the time (probably much higher this time around after Trump called Mexicans rapists), but let’s assume the historical pattern, so 30% of 10% would move Trump 3 points to 46%.
Asians are next at 3%, and they’re 73% democratic, barely giving him 1%, leaving him at 47%.
Those 3 points don’t sound like much but will be like climbing Mount Everest. Mathematically Trump needs either 65% of the white vote or to increase the size of the white electorate by 5%, which would mean getting 6.5 million whites who aren’t voting to vote, and vote for him.
The electoral college of course makes this more complicated, it’s possible Trump focuses on ‘purple’ states like Colorado, Florida and Ohio, but Democrats are not stupid and will be spending just as much effort in those places.
Clinton 56, Trump 44.
You might as well be writing in Chinese, Emery. You have just explained that it is impossible for any Republican to win, much less Trump. Didn’t you write, a few days ago, that doing the same thing and expecting different results is madness?
And now you suggest nominating another GOP rather than the ‘different thing’ (Trump)?
I don’t have a dog in this fight. I do not want Trump to be president. I support Cruz as much as I can be said to support any candidate. But I do believe in small-d democracy. A country like ours needs to be driven by the desires of the people, not a ruling class. If Trump gets the most delegates, he should be given a seat at the table. The purpose of a brokered convention is not to, essentially, disqualify the votes of all of the people who voted for Trump. Instead it should be for the candidates to shift positions enough to get to the magic number.
WaPo did a long piece on Hillary’s email woes today., in the “Investigations” section, not the Op-Ed section, http://wapo.st/1RySIO3
I was surprised to find that the investigation seems to be heating up. Whatever the results, it won’t do Hillary good. I know a lot of Democrats. Hawaii just had its Dem primaries. They went heavily Sanders. No matter who gets elected in November, there are going to be a lot of unhappy people who think the new president hates them.
My prediction is that in November, whoever the candidates are, the split will be 52-48. I give that a 60% chance of being correct 🙂
I’ve been wrong about Trump in nearly every comment I’ve posted. I also believed this race would be Bush v Clinton. But I did take a number of courses in statistics and probabilities while at university and the arithmetic is just not there for a GOP that is at a disadvantage in registrations and happens to be in the midst of its own civil war. Trump supporters may be committed and energized but that will also energize angry and frightened Democrats to show up at the polls even if they have to support a chronically mendacious and unsavory character like Hillary Clinton. They will hold their nose and take their medicine.
Frankly, the Republicans will have enough on their plates just to keep their majority in the Senate since a robust Democratic turnout in reaction to Trump will endanger many a serving Republican Senator’s seat.
I would say that he is the only candidate that has correctly judged a ‘portion’ of the American electorate that sees itself as both dispossessed and abandoned by contemporary politics but also not having the necessary critical mass. This irate section of the American public is easily mollified with cheap ‘jingoism’, flattery such as American ‘exceptionalism’, finding scapegoats and promises of future tax cuts.
In many ways both Sanders and Trump endorse policies promoting tariffs or anti-dumping duties. Any industry sustained through tariffs and duties is already dead; it’s just waiting for the burial. I get a little tired of politicians who like to give lectures about manufacturing and manufacturing jobs, but haven’t the faintest clue how factories actually run, and the differences between those that thrive and those that are spiraling down the toilet.
I took no college classes in statistics or probabilities, yet I reach the same conclusion as Emery Incognito: this election is Hillary’s to lose. It’s not statistics, it’s armchair psychology, but it’s still true.
Democrats are committed to a vision of a future that completely reverses 1950’s America. Everything you saw on black-and-white television — Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver — all of that is BAD. Intact families. Traditional values. Christianity. Law and order. Chastity. Deference to authority. Restraint in office. Respect for elders. Bad. All bad. All of it must go. And they don’t care what it takes, what lies must be told, what crimes must be whitewashed, what lives ruined so long as the job gets done. And they don’t care who does it.
Hillary has rigged the Democrat system so even as Bernie wins the popular vote, Hillary wins the delegate vote. She won’t be blind-sided by a miracle candidate, she’ll be the nominee. So what will disillusioned Bernie voters do? Vote for Trump? Vote for Cruz? Vote for Kasich? Never.
Republicans are famous for staying home in a huff. After their convention, they’ll splinter and pout. Democrats will hold their noses and vote for Hillary.
It’s pretty darned scary that Democrats will still vote for a felon like HIlliary.
The cognitive dissonance — knowing she is hideous, but having already decided to support her — is a marvel to behold.