THE MASSACRE THAT NEVER WAS

As for college riots over conservative speakers.

I don't need to listen to conservatives dreaming up excuses for discrimination against Muslims (Trump), making up massacres for Bowling Green (Kellyanne Conway*), letting people pick and chose which parts of a law they don't want to follow because of religious reasons (contraceptives and abortion), and trying to find legal reasons to prevent certain people from voting (voter ID laws).

There are conservatives, however, that I love to hear talk or read such as David Brooks, Arthur Brooks, Robert  Gates, and Condoleezza Rice.  I've read Gate's whole book "Duty."  I also like to listen to Ohio Gov. John Kasich.  At least he says things like we need to help those less fortunate than us.  He is not mean spirited though he is a strong opponent of abortion and contraception,  but you can't be a Republican politician these days without opposing them.

Here is Kasich's view against abortion and even contraception:
The ruse that the anti-choice movement is about "life" has been harder to maintain in recent years, as lawmakers have starting attacking contraception access (which reduces the need for abortion, duh). Gov. John Kasich of Ohio took it a step further Sunday night and signed a bill that merges his party's anti-contraception and anti-abortion agendas into one. The budget bill (of course!) packs a one-two-three punch of making it harder for women to prevent pregnancies, harder for women to terminate pregnancies, and harder for low-income women to keep their babies. ****

* http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/02/trump-travel-ban-kellyanne-conway-made-up-a-fake-terrorist-attack-by-iraqi-refugees-to-justify-presidents-move.html
**http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/07/01/john_kasich_of_ohio_signs_hb59_the_bill_cuts_contraception_funding_restricts.html

TRUMP AND PUTIN

The coziness of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump with Russian dictator Putin really scares me to think about what might happen if Trump becomes president.

I'm confused about Trump being in Putin's pocket as Trump has carefully calculated what stances are promoted by his "base."  I don't recall any of these people that I knew being fond of Putin.  In fact, I seem to remember them accusing Obama and Hillary of being more than cozy with Putin (and still do).  Remember the Russian Reset?*
Making things worse, Podesta never fully disclosed the relationship, as the law requires. But of greater concern than Podesta is what it says about Clinton's strange and mutually beneficial relationship with Russia that led to Clinton lending a hand in helping Vladimir Putin build Skolkovo, a high-tech community meant to be "the Russian equivalent of America's Silicon Valley."
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In a wide-ranging interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Hillary suggested that Donald Trump "has shown a very troubling willingness to back up Putin, to support Putin, whether it's saying that NATO wouldn't come to the rescue of allies if they were invaded, talking about removing sanctions from Russian officials after they were imposed by the United States and Europe together, because of Russia's aggressiveness in Crimea and Ukraine, his praise for Putin which is I think quite remarkable."

That said, Donald Trump is the best Republican candidate you can think of.   Ted Cruz, for example is even more scary. Wait, I'll take that back,  There was a fine candidate in the Ohio governor John Kasich.  He had significant congressional experience and has been a popular governor as witnessed by his reelection victory.  He certainly is qualified to be president.  He has passed the supreme Republican litmus tests in that he is against both abortion and Obamacare.  His only sin, so far as I can see, is that he says things like we need to care for those less fortunate than us, and he accepted Federal Medicaid money.**

As I have said elsewhere, if I had to have a Republican president it would be John Kasich, but I don't know if the country can survive another Republican president so soon after George Bush.

* http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/hillarys-biggest-scandal-russia-and-her-reset-pal-vladimir-putin/
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/08/expand-medicare-to-repeal-obamacare.html

BUILD BRIDGES, NOT WALLS

Pope Francis gave a reprimand to America at the Mexico-U.S. border for giving only attention to building "walls" rather than "bridges" that is not Christian.*  This has broadly been taken as a reprimand to Donald Trump who took offense as the implication he is not a Christian, but think about it for a little.  Donald Trump only made this promise because he knew there were millions of white Republican workers plus the "Sit Down And Shut Up" Republican crew who are for this (and deporting illegal immigrants as well).  And a wall is just a fence that you can't look through.  Every Republican candidate for President (and maybe the Democratic candidates as well) is at least for completing a double fence on our Mexican border.  John Kasich, however, expressed something worth considering:

Kasich is telling viewers of a CNN town hall to "put me down in the pro-Pope column."
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Kasich says: "We have a right to build a wall. But I gotta tell you. There are too many walls between us. We need bridges between us if we're going to fix the problems in Washington 'cause all they do is have walls."

 A men, John.


Kasich's attitude of not speaking ill of his challengers is starting to take hold and he is appearing more and more on TV news programs for interviews of just comments.

And it may bare repeating that by law there is no such thing as a Cuban illegal immigrant.  Any Cuban who can step on American shores is legal (if they are caught at sea, however they are returned to Cuba).


* http://www.northjersey.com/news/at-gop-town-hall-kasich-says-he-s-pro-pope-in-battle-vs-trump-1.1514403 

DEBATE DIFFERENCES

There is a curious difference between the Republican and Democrat debates.  Except for John Kasich who is clearly the best qualified person to be president (and look where he is in the polls), Republicans emphasize their lack of qualifications to be president whereas in the recent Democratic debate, every candidate emphasized their qualifications to be president.  Frankly I found the latter to be a more satisfying debate.

There seems to be a dichotomy in the response to the Democratic debate whereas all the pundits feel that Hillary was the clear winner whereas focus groups right after the debate favored Bernie Sanders.  I think the focus groups much appreciated Bernie Sanders comment that the American people are sick and tired of Hillary's e-mail, and that he wants to discuss the major issues.

Curiously, a number of pundits, including the liberal Mika Brzezinski (who I guess feels she must bend over backwards to be "fair."), said that Bernie flubbed his comment which, they say was actually to be an insult,  that if it wasn't for Hillary's personal e-mail server we could be discussing the real issues.  I've now listened to Bernie's comment three times, and I believe he said it as he meant to as there was no hesitation in his voice in saying it.  And does anyone believe that the Republicans wouldn't find something to assassinate Hillary with if she hadn't done the e-mails on her own server, even if it wasn't true?  I'm sure that Bernie's comment the way he said it led to the large influx of donations as I believe that the public is sick and tired of politicians continuously assassinating their competitors.

The media seems to like Marco Rubio among the Republican candidates for president in spite of his stand of no exception to no abortions and a tax plan that favors the rich the most.*

As the candidates plans on the issues come out, it seems that Donald Trump isthe best of a bad lot of Republican candidates (with the exception of John Kasich) in spite of his crazy immigration plan and a tax plan that favors the rich.

* Mr. Rubio, [who was brought up in a family living "paycheck to paycheck'] in New York for fund-raising at the time of the interview, offers an example. He proposes a significant new tax credit for households with children. But he would also cut the top federal income tax rate to 35 percent, from nearly 40 percent, and eliminate levies on capital gains, dividends and multimillion-dollar estates. (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/us/politics/tax-plans-of-gop-favor-the-rich-despite-populist-talk.html?_r=0)

EXPAND MEDICARE TO REPEAL OBAMACARE?

In the August 1 WSJ, conservative Peggy Noonan (a spech writer for President Reagan) says she thinks Obamacare will gradually be replaced by expanding medicare.  What a surprise!  Is there a liberal out there that wouldn't love that?

A reason that conservatives have such a hard time coming up with an alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare is that Obamacare IS the conservative health care plan.  It is not that liberals like the ACA, it is that it was the best plan that Democrats could get past.  There are DINOs in the Democratic Party (Democrats In Name Only) that had to be catered to.  So an attempt was made to appeal to DINOs and Republicans to vote for the plan.  Republicans voted against it and oppose it only because it was proposed by a Democratic administration.

An unusual feature of the ACA is that an attempt was made to PAY FOR IT.  Republicans don't like to pay for health care.  President Reagan, for example, instituted the plan where hospitals with emergency rooms had to take all comers whether they could pay for it or not.  But he left it up to the hospitals to find a way to pay for this service.  Ditto President Bush (Bush-43) with Medicare D, the prescription drug plan where no attempt was made to pay for it.  And Republicans seem to try to repeal all attempts to pay for Obamacare (e.g. the business mandate and the tax on artificial limbs and replacements).  It is a disappointment that Republicans, supposedly the party of fiscal responsibility are so irresponsible on health care.  It is as if Republicans don't want health care for the poor at all.  This is strange because the Republican Party has been taken over by Evangelicals.  They even criticize John Kasich, an evangelical with a small e, for accepting the Federal Medicaid money.  He believes that Christians need to take care of the less fortunate among us.  After all Poor and Poverty appear 446 times in the bible.*

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/03/poor-and-poverty-appear-446-times-in.html