* There are no rattlesnake bites up in Nome, Alaska because they don’t have rattlesnakes up there. Stop importing Muslims into the US and you reduce the need for surveillance, after all, it’s not Sven from Minnesota who is conducting jihad.
Every sacred principle must be abandoned in order to keep the Rube Goldberg invention of multiculturalism semi-functional.
* People shape culture. As the Muslim proportion of the US population grows, there will be more Muslim influence on American culture. So far, at least, Muslims immigrating to the US have been of higher SES than those migrating to Europe, and even with this benefit, we already have erosion of civil rights in order to accommodate Muslim interests and the threats arising from Muslim presence, so if the future influence is to be the same, better or worse, I can’t see up tapping future immigrants who are better than present, I don’t think it’s plausible that we can even maintain the same caliber of immigrants because most of what we’ve been seeing of late have been refugees, not Muslim engineering professors, so the composition of the Muslim community is going to be diluted with low human capital immigrants and we’re going to follow the European model of disaffected 2nd generation kids who turn to more radical Islam because they’re not integrating to success in the US.
Who needs that future when it can be aborted right now and thus this leaves us to deal with the more manageable problem of existing Muslim-Americans, and keep in mind that it is because of this population that there are calls for increasing the scope of the Surveillance State.
* I am struck by the fact that Trump has set the terms of the debate. Even when Trump is being attacked, it’s for being too strong on immigration/terrorism/Islam.
* Trump has said that all the interventions and meddling have been wrongheaded, wrong, should’ve invested those trillions in the USA.
* Rence Priebus (RNC Chair) warmed up the crowd with a spiel full of transparent swipes at Trump.
* Trump wants to keep Muslims out of America.
Christie/Fiorina/Kasich/Jeb/Cruz/Rubio wants to provoke WWIII with Russia.
Which one of these two positions is scarier?
* I’m finding Rubio’s hyper energetic speaking style increasingly grating, especially as he keeps interlarding his speech with pre-fab boilerplate. I liked that he got his ass kicked on his Gang of Eight participation.
Carly is also grating. Sounds like the spinster headmistress of a private girls’ academy hectoring an assembly of senior girls on how standards have been slipping.
I’m glad Rand Paul is still in the debates because I agree with a lot of what he says about our foreign policy. The crazy war-talk from most of the others is alarming.
Kasich sounds like a crazy old coot, so it’s funny he acts like he’s the only reasonable person on stage.
Jeb is pathetic. He keeps mentioning that Trump gets his foreign policy views “from the shows.” Why doesn’t Trump remind the audience that Jeb gets his foreign policy views from Paul Wolfowitz.
I think Ben Carson is campaigning for Surgeon General. I’m okay with that. Do we have a Surgeon General at the moment? Don’t recall hearing of one.
* Immigration Grade from NumbersUSA:
Trump: A-
Paul: C-
Bush: C-
Rubio: D
* Several of the middling lights have done their homework. Carson’s compares middle east policy to an emergency on an airplane – “secure your own mask before helping your neighbor. Well, we need to take care of our own people before we solve everyone else’s problems.” Sounds kinda hokey, but it will stick in people’s memory.
Rand Paul sticks it to Marco Rubio on refugees (can’t recall the exact words, but Rubio looks nervous and stammers a bit).
Rand Paul and Donald Trump are both doing well trashing the money and lives we’re wasting in the M.E., all of which have achieved nothing. Both get applause when they talk about the problems in the M.E. being intractable and our country wasting time and money trying to referee it.
Christie sounds like the pig-faced idiot he is when he talks about “punchin’ ole Russia in da nose!” but his willingness to say “no refugees at all” is a worthwhile moment. His NJ governor background has apparently led to a weird combination of sensible response to massive immigration by radicalized foreigners, combined with aggressive, moronic dick-swinging when it comes to international relations. Invade the world without the invite the world (or course, he couldn’t pull that off, even if it were desirable).
* Vanity things not done in 1965:
Hair coloring (this got its start in the 1940′s but looked bad with the early formulations, got much better right around the early 1960′s and has since improved by leaps & bounds). Tanning salons; topical tanning lotions. Botox. Electrolysis, laser hair removal. Collagen injections. Human growth hormone. Cosmetics for men – not including stage makeup. Face lifts (& artifices that induce temporary face lift) and lots of other cosmetic surgical procedures. Vastly improved cosmetic dentistry.
But hair coloring is Number One – it’s why almost all women “of a certain age” no longer look like women “of a certain age” looked in 1965; and today increasing numbers of men also use hair coloring and have hair transplants or wear well-fitted “hair replacement technology.”
Of course there’s also genes: if you think candidates today aren’t picked, at least in some significant part, because their genes gave them telegenic good looks, then perhaps you might think again. There’s an abundance of data showing that good looking people are more popular, more successful, earn more, advance faster to better positions, have greater life-satisfaction, and other advantages and opportunities over other than good-looking people.
* Rubio appears to be a not very bright. He has been coached to memorize a variety of “conservative” republican-pleasing catchphrases. He strings these catchphrases together as circumstances warrant, reciting with a flat monotone. He then pauses with a pleased half smile on his face as if waiting to be praised for being a good boy who’s memorized his lesson well.
After his election in 2010 he was riding high as the tea party fox news favorite and then sold out for a few sheckels to shill for Zuckerberg’s amnesty PAC.
* Wealthy people age better due to less stress, better medical care and better nutrition. By stress I mean not only physical stress caused by hard manual labor and also lack of sleep and rest, but also psychological stress caused by financial worries, living in bad housing conditions in gritty neighborhoods and long commutes to work.
Being poor takes a toll on you. Rich people look different, much healthier and more relaxed.
* A wealthy friend of mine told me that money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you less nervous.
* Trump needs to convert enthusiasm to actual votes in the primary and the general and it’s an open question as to how deeply his supporters are engaged with the political system.
Is Trump interested in mastering the minutia of policy? Open question and the answer will affect his electability.
How committed is he to the policies he espouses? Talking tough in general is different from talking tough in specifics and from implementing the tough talk as tough policy which will be carried out. The principal reason he’s garnering support is for his tough policies but he’s reluctant to be specific and if he backtracks in the specifics, then his support would decline.
What seems to be happening is a battle over direction. Establishment favors set policies and new policies designed to bring in minority voters (at the expense of white voters) and Trump’s policies seem to bring in white voters from (at the expense of immigrants) and rely on a different set of policies. If Trump is true to his statements, then 8 years from now the Republicans could be a reoriented party. There is a lot of inertia working against that type of transformation and this pits a large base of voter interest against a small base of establishment interest. Even if Trump wins he needs to tap into the Republican networks to staff positions all through the Executive and if they all work against his vision, reform dies on the vine.
* Have you noticed the Establishment’s increasing vehemence in denouncing and vilifying Trump, as Trump’s numbers continue to climb? Because the Establishment is scared sh_tless that Donald Trump has an excellent change of being elected by the fed-up-with-the-Establishment American people.
* Trump might be the only one to go on the attack with Hillary and win. Rubio will get hit over the head with “republicans are racist”, he’ll backtrack and lose the republican base. Trump will go for the throat and drive her unlikeability ratings up helping to erode her base. It’s a long shot but she’s susceptible there.
* At some point Trump needs to pull a version of the Rocky switcheroo (Rocky went from boxing southpaw to righthanded) and Trump needs to suddenly come out as a policy dork to show that he gets all myriad minutia of policy at the federal and international level. He didn’t come out looking good on the Nuclear Triad question.
* Trump has the demeanor to destroy Hillary and unlike McCain pulling his punches against Obama because McCain didn’t want to be perceived as a racist, for Trump this would be a do or die opportunity and he’s not going to want to lose.
* The Trump technique, “You know, I like Hillary. She’s a nice person. A very nice person. But let’s face it, as secretary of state she was a disaster. Probably the worst secretary of state in our history. And honestly, that face, that voice–do we want to look at that for the next four years? Do we want to listen to that? I don’t think so.”
* Trump works because he says what ordinary people think they’d say if they were running for president. That’s part of why they like him. Not knowing what the “nuclear triad” is doesn’t degrade him in their eyes—they don’t know what it is either, so who cares?
* I think Trump has a very good chance of getting the Republican nomination, and anyone who represents either of the two parties has a realistic chance of becoming President.
If you look at past elections, even in a blowout like Reagan v. Mondale, Mondale still got 40% of the vote. Just by winning the nomination, Trump will have a built-in 40-45% of the vote. Then we’re just a terrorist attack or economic bubble away from President Trump.
* I think Dubya’s secret is that he is an extremely charismatic, confident alpha male.
I didn’t think this when he was president. I never thought he was much of a speaker. I thought his eyes were too close together to be very good looking or charismatic. In fact, I don’t think this quality was very evident when he was president (or when he was on tv as president).
But I recently saw a picture of him when he was younger (35?). He was extremely charismatic, confident, and dominant. It reminded me of James Caan, or Warren Beatty, guys like them.
In the picture, Bush looked like a smug, rich jerk. But he had the extra quality of being one of those guys who, in spite of your not liking him, you wish he would invite you to his yacht party.
Every social group (from junior high school on up) has that kind of guy. He isn’t necessarily rich (though Bush was). He isn’t necessarily a great athlete. And he isn’t necessarily the best looking. But he’s got some ineffable quality where you hope he likes you.
* I think Trump’s Muslim ban stuff is overkill, but why does Jeb say we need Muslim immigration for us to work with Muslim nations?
Trump never said ban diplomats and heads of state.
And besides, most of communication is done electronically.
China doesn’t allow Muslim immigration, but it does trade and diplomacy with the Middle East.
Israel doesn’t allow Muslim immigration but has close ties with Saudis and Turkey and Egypt.
Besides, it’s the Muslim allies of the US that did most to aid and abet ISIS: Saudis and Turks. And ISIS got so much US weaponry.
Prior to 65 immigration law, US banned most immigration, but it worked with China in the war against Japan in WWII.
Why do we need to allow immigration from a nation to work diplomatically with it?
It makes no sense.
Nixon met with Mao when two nations didn’t trade people.
If anything, relations are worse now even though so many people go back and forth.
* I am listening to ATC on NPR, and they have a segment in which two reporters are analyzing last night’s Republican debate. One reporter referred to Trump’s proposal to build “the most beautiful wall in the world” to keep out Mexican and other illegal migrants from crossing our southern border and dismissed Trump’s proposal as being unnecessary in light of the fact that statistics show that Mexicans have actually been returning to Mexico in recent years. I believe Mitt Romney referred to such behavior as “self deportation” during the 2012 Presidential campaign and was mocked endlessly by the MSM for his “frivolous” proposal.
