Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

Sanders already endorsed Clinton

 

Sounds like Paterno boosters.

Nationalism's great until it completely blinds you. Gotta support the team.

Also, shouldn't nationalism mean you support your sitting leader? Are you rooting for the enemy if you don't?

 

Borro makes some decent points here:

Ted Cruz did not help his 2020 odds by shivving Trump

Tonight's debacle with the booing of Ted Cruz's non-endorsement speechwas bad for Donald Trump. But that does not necessarily mean it was good for Cruz.

The emerging consensusamong the punditocracy is that Cruz set himself up well for 2020. If Trump loses badly, Cruz will say he had moral and strategic clarity while other Republicans acquiesced to Trump, and that he is the man to lead the party in a non-Trump direction.

I disagree. I believe Cruz hurt himself tonight, and that his action will alienate primary voters in 2020.

The problem with Cruz's apparent strategy is that the rebuttal to the argument he will presumably make when he runs in four years is obvious and devastating.

Here's what Cruz's opponents will say:

1. Before Cruz shivved Trump in front of the whole party, he spent 2015 building Trump up, calling him "terrific" and saying he "speaks the truth."
2. Cruz played footsie with Trump because he wanted to sit back and watch Trump destroy the rest of the field, letting Cruz face Trump one-on-one. This plan didn't work, and it led to the elimination of a lot of candidates who could have beaten Hillary Clinton.
3. Once the monster Cruz helped create got the nomination, he sat on the sidelines. Then he undermined the party in front of a huge national audience, helping to ensure Trump would lose by a wider margin. At the same time, other candidates were being good soldiers, trying to stop the bleeding and reduce the magnitude of losses in Congress.

Cruz's opponents will say he put his own electoral interests ahead of the party's electoral interests, and they will be right. I do not believe that will help him in four years.

So why did Cruz do it? One possibility is that he is miscalculating. Another possibility is that I am miscalculating.

I would also like to float a third possibility: Maybe Cruz is furious with Trump for beating him, for insulting his wife's physical appearance, for accusing his father of having helped to assassinate JFK, and for promoting a National Enquirer report that (baselessly) accused him of having five extramarital affairs.

My first assumption about politicians, and especially about Ted Cruz, is that they act in their own cynical interest. But it is also possible that Cruz simply saw an opportunity to take revenge on Trump, and he took it.

 

The narrative coming out of the Cruz camp is that HE was sabotaged. That the Trump campaign gave the OK on the speech and encouraged the blowback so he would look bad.

 

Trump said as much.

 

What I will find truly ironic and satisfied will be when Chris Christie is indicted for his actions on the George Washington Bridge.

 

It's almost like the whole thing is a reality show.

I still tell ya, theres gonna be a false flag fake assassination attempt before long.

 

They must have figured he'd start goosestepping behind Trump like the rest. Imagine that. Trump's campaign team misfiring.

EDIT: Inky beat me to it.

 

I don't care much for the Godwin stuff, but Jim Wright (Stonekettlestation.com) nailed it on the Baldasaro thing on this Facebook post:

"And there it is...

Yesterday, Al Baldasaro, New Hampshire state representative, delegate to the Republican National Convention for Donald Trump, and adviser to Trump on veterans affairs, said:

“Hillary Clinton should be put in the firing line and shot for treason.”

Given that the "firing line" is the line of riflemen who does the shooting, Baldo must be some military adviser. But I digress.

In the same interview, Baldasaro described his veteran status -- which in addition to not including knowledge of who does the bullet tossing and who does the catching apparently ALSO didn't include even a vague understanding of what we in uniform were supposed to be fighting for. You know, rule of law, the Constitution, elected civil authority over the military, posse comitatus...

Figures he'd be advising Trump on veterans, isn't it?

Shot for treason he says. Shot for treason, despite the fact that HIS OWN PARTY led by Trey Gowdy after two years and more than $7 Million in taxpayer dollars finally had to admit Hillary Clinton had done nothing wrong. In hindsight, she could have made better decisions, but that's hardly "treason."

But the guy advising Trump, the guy who wants you to believe he's a better American than you are, that guy says fuck it, let's hang her ANYWAY. Never mind that the United States was founded in part specifically to prevent mob rule and summary execution by military authority. Fuck it, put her against the wall.

Questioned this morning, Baldassaro doubled down:

“As far as I’m concerned, it is treason and the penalty for treason is the firing squad ― or maybe it’s the electric chair now.”

And there it is. Put her against the wall. And when we're done with her, well there are plenty more "traitors" to deal with the same way. The ones that aren't conservative enough, the ones that aren't Christian enough, the ones that aren't AMERICAN enough.

There it is.

That's how Trump will make American great again. Right there.

The same way the Nazis made Germany great again and for the same EXACT reasons."


Edit: I thought what I wrote at the end was a little too harsh. My bad.

 

Yet, party leaders (what few are attaching themselves to this shitshow) keep waiting for him to be "more presidential." If it wasn't gonna happen this week, it ain't gonna happen; period.

 

After Melania's speech, can we be sure it was thoroughly vetted? Cruz is about what he thinks God tells him.

 

Cruz was right to not endorse Trump last night, politically and personally. Throughout most of the primaries, Cruz didn't go after Trump on a personal level but Trump certainly did. This was simple payback. If you don't win the primaries with any dignity, you can't expect it returned at the convention.

I'm okay with Hillary being president for one term, provided the Republicans hang onto the Senate. Stock market is at an all-time high (mix in some bonds, my friends). A Trump presidency would tank the economy and likely lead to more of a race war than we're seeing even now.

For the last six years, the Republicans had slowly, methodically, rebuilt after 2008. Won the House in 2010. Shitty candidate in 2012. Won the Senate in 2014. Shitty candidate in 2016. They are the political version of the Dungy Buccaneers.