It’s Friday, February 26th, 2016…but before we begin, a couple points to ponder regarding the stench of dysfunction currently permeating the atmosphere on both sides of the aisle.  First, Jonah Goldberg opines on the odor increasingly emanating from The Right…

“…The morals of this story so far should be familiar. First, you can’t count on politicians to look beyond their immediate tactical self-interest. Second, rumors of the so-called establishment’s power — or even existence — are greatly exaggerated. Waiting for “the establishment” to save the party from Trump’s hostile takeover is like waiting for Godot to bring the beer to the party.

Marco Rubio is now the only plausible alternative to Trump. But it’s unclear whether he’s taken either of these lessons to heart. According to his campaign’s post–South Carolina strategy memo, he thinks he can wait until after Super Tuesday to post a win in any state. Rubio assumes 1st-place finishes will ultimately come his way because the field will be clear. Will it? Bush is finally out, but Ben Carson seems to be running one of the most ingeniously disguised book tours in modern memory. Kasich is hunting windmills in OH and MI, in the apparent hope that he can parlay such victories into being Trump’s running mate. And Cruz is unlikely to stop running for president because that’s all he knows how to do.

…as with every primary victory The Donald drags the GOP closer and closer to…

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…electoral oblivion.

Meanwhile, on The Left, John Kerry’s response to legitimate concerns over this Administration’s terrorist-release program not only reeks like a whorehouse at low tide…

…it tells you all you need to know about B. Hussein’s commitment to the War on Terror.  No, Lurch; a right-of-return for known Islamic terrorists isn’t how America operates; it’s not how LIBERAL Americans operate!

Now, here’s The Gouge!

Leading off the Friday line-up, courtesy of NRO, John Fonte details…

Marco Rubio’s Immigration Dilemma

Can he persuade conservatives that his immigration bill is really a reform?

 

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Marco needs to repudiate both his friends and their policies…STAT!!!

“…As the controversy over “sanctuary cities” demonstrates, immigration politics is fluid. It is entirely reasonable for a presidential candidate to alter his or her position in the light of recent events. Let us pose two scenarios.

Scenario A: During the primary campaign Rubio embraces an “Americans first” approach that explicitly examines the effects of mass immigration on American citizens. The candidate adds some immigration hawks to his staff. He stops promoting I-Squared and clearly repudiates the substance of the 2013 bill.

In the spring of 2017, President Rubio, as promised in his campaign, vigorously undertakes border-security and interior enforcement. Later, with the support of a Republican Congress, he makes changes in legal-immigration categories, shifting from extended-family to skills-based policies, and starts reducing overall immigration. Finally, after the first two steps have been accomplished, some former illegal immigrants with long-time residence are granted legalization. The liberal-left is outraged, big business is annoyed, but the overwhelming majority of Americans support President Rubio’s policy.

Scenario B: During the campaign, Rubio emphasizes his unique leadership qualities for solving the immigration quandary. In the spring of 2017, President Rubio unveils his policy in a series of sequential pieces of legislation. Launching a charm offensive, he lobbies conservatives to give him some time to explain exactly how his proposals would work. Conservatives heavily invested in a successful Rubio administration agree and mute their criticisms. After a period of time, however, it appears that Cato’s Alex Nowrasteh was right: Rubio’s new immigration stance is “a stylistic rather than a substantive change.” The core elements of Kennedy–McCain and Schumer–Rubio remain in the 2017 plan. It becomes clear that “modernizing our legal-immigration system” — as the Gang of Eight promised to do — means greatly increasing permanent low-skilled immigration and increasing the number of low-wage IT guest workers, who will ultimately replace American tech workers through an expanded H-1B program.

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The majority of House Republicans reluctantly oppose the White House plan. But at that point Speaker Paul Ryan solicits and receives Democratic support. (Sound familiar?!?) Gradually, the various steps of the plan pass Congress. A youthful Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III (D., Mass.) declares: “I only wish my great-uncle [Senator Ted Kennedy] could have lived to see this day.” A delighted New York Times editorial board praises the political skill of President Rubio. The Times editors note that if the exact same legislation had been proposed by a Democrat or by a President Jeb Bush, conservative and Republican opposition would have been immediate, unstinting, and probably successful. “Fortunately,” the Times opined, “President Rubio was able to gain a honeymoon period, build momentum, and neutralize conservative opposition. He should be proud of this monumental achievement.”

All the available evidence (legislative history, donors, staff, media appearances, campaign statements) suggests that Scenario B is much more likely to come to pass than Scenario A.

In a related item featured on FOX News, though we did not watch it, Megyn Kelly evidently held a town hall meeting Wednesday evening featuring four-fifths of the remaining Republican field, Donald Trump having opted out.  Yet amazingly, despite his position on illegal immigration hanging from his neck like an enormous millstone, not ONE question was directed to Rubio on THE issue which has single-handedly derailed his campaign.

Nor did Marco take the opportunity to walk-back his support for the millions of illegal aliens who continue to assault our southern border.  Shades of Mitt defending Romneycare to his last political breath.

Since we’re on the subject of Republicans’ unerring attraction to the unelectable, also writing at NRO, David French reports on…

Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, and the End of the ‘Electability’ Argument in GOP Politics

 

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“I can see the end of my electability from my boat!”

“…This could have been the election in which the GOP circled its wagons around a combination of character and conviction. In other words, rather than engaging in futile guesses about electability, (As with Mitt Romney in his inept, ill-fated 2012 campaign.) choose the person with the core political and personal values you most respect and then fight like hell against the inevitable Democratic onslaught. This is the Ted Cruz argument — this time, don’t compromise one inch on conservatism. Instead, fight for your principles and win through inspiration and motivation. Rubio makes a version of this argument as well (for example, when he states that he’d rather lose an election that compromise on his pro-life principles), though he also is making the classic GOP electability play — the argument that a combination of biography, manner, and message will expand the GOP tent.

Yet increasing numbers of GOP voters are rejecting character and conviction for sheer aggression. No one doubts that aggression can be satisfying, but aggression isn’t a governing principle. It’s a tactic. While Trump’s aggression serves some policies that conservatives support (like border security), it also serves Planned Parenthood, the individual mandate, and Vladimir Putin. Ultimately, Trump’s aggression serves Trump. Self-aggrandizement may be the spirit of our age, but it should never be the spirit of our movement. It is time to fight, but for the sake of conviction, not for the sake of the fight itself.

As we discussed earlier today with The Boss, Dan Henninger recently offered this 411 for any Trumpeteer operating under the misconception The Donald has even a scintilla of sympathy for those he’s hornswoggling:

Nothing remotely resembling a political party is associated with Mr. Trump. If he loses the nomination or the general election, he will walk away from his Republican supporters by dawn. The GOP will look like a forest shredded by a tornado.

Though what continues to concern us is the unmitigated mayhem he’ll wreak if his wins!

Consider Kimberly Strassel’s thoughts, also from the Journal:

“...We don’t know if Mr. Trump is unstoppable, because nobody has actually gone after him. To the extent his Republican rivals have nipped at his heels, they’ve done it in obvious, conventional ways. They’ve argued he’s not a real conservative. They’ve pointed to his lack of policies. They’ve worried about his temperament and electability. Those arguments probably do resonate with the 50% or 60% of the primary electorate who—obviously and conventionally—care about principles, and winning.

But those arguments don’t speak to Trump supporters. The Nevada entrance polls show the billionaire won voters who are angry with the federal government, who want an “outsider” in the office and who want “change.” They don’t care about policies. They want someone to “stick it to the man.”

You know…

And therein lies Mr. Trump’s vulnerability. Because, you see, Donald Trump is the man. An outsider to the elite society that Washington inhabits? An avenging angel of a faltering working class? Laugh. Out. Loud. This is the man who was born to a silver spoon, who self-selected a life strictly in the company of the rich and powerful, and who built a fortune by using his connections and sticking it to the little guy.

Of all the Republicans on the stage, he is the only insider. Ted Cruz is not to be seen regularly in the company of hotel and casino magnates, movie producers, celebrity athletes and others with privileged access to Washington brokers. Marco Rubio did not have Bill and Hillary Clinton at his wedding. John Kasich would have to beg for an audience with people who jump to return Mr. Trump’s calls.

It was amusing in the CBS debate on Feb. 13 to hear the titan complain that the audience was stacked with “special interest” donors. He’d know. He likely recognized them from lunches at his golf clubs…”

The Donald’s as much a man of the people as Hillary is representative of your average female.

No wonder we feel like we’re living in…

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The Twilight Zone!

Next up, courtesy of Balls Cotton, a rather intriguing method to thwart Hillary’s threat to the Republic from Stephan Richter writing at The Globalist:

Goldman Sachs: Hillary Clinton’s Upcoming “Nixon Moment”

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“For nearly 25 years, Bill and Hillary Clinton have portrayed themselves as nearly innocent victims of the dozens of scandals that have plagued them. Indeed, one of the former first lady’s selling points these days is that the Clintons are now impervious to Republican attacks because they have weathered so many and there are no new stones to turn over.

The Democratic Party establishment could only wish that were true. Unfortunately for them, the Clintons remain far from experts at fending off brewing scandals, real or exaggerated. It is as if the Clintons, despite 25 years in a harsh national spotlight, never learned the key lesson from the fall of Richard Nixon, the 37th U.S. President: the cover-up is always worse than the crime.

Remember the steady drum beat that the very crafty, very wily, very shifty Richard Nixon faced when he denied for a long time that they were any secret Oval Office tapes? He also steadfastly denied that there had been any involvement by his administration in a break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters. Eventually, Nixon got caught and was forced to resign. But not before dragging it out interminably with ever more intense stonewalling.

It is this ill-conceived and politically inept strategy that the presidential campaign team surrounding Hillary Clinton is now running in 2016. The “crime” in question? Her lucrative speeches to Goldman SachsIn contrast to “Tricky Dick,” her campaign is not denying that the speech happened or even that there are tapes and transcripts of her paid speeches to the investment bank. Nor is Hillary Clinton prevented from releasing them, since her contracts for those events explicitly state that she is in full control of the rights for those texts.

She is just arguing that she won’t release the text until “everybody who’s ever given a speech to any private group under any circumstances release[s] them.” Whatever the curious logic of that statement may be, it isn’t going to wash. Already, there are enough comments from Goldman Sachs bankers who attended those events pointing to the likelihood that the speeches were such a love song to Wall Street that Mrs. Clinton cannot possibly release those texts in the current political context…”

EDITOR’S NOTE: We must express our objection, in the strongest terms, to Mr. Richter’s complete mischaracterization of the Benghazi debacle, in which a sitting President and serving Secretary of State sacrificed FOUR INNOCENT AMERICANS

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…on the altar of a demonstrably false political narrative.  Talk about…

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…heartless chutzpah!

But back to the issue at hand.  More importantly, if what Mika Brzesinski recently stated is true…

…it begs the question why said written transcripts haven’t been made public?  To borrow a favorite phrase from our dear, departed Dad (though his utterance was usually followed by “you kids!!!” 😉 ), Hells bells!!!  The WaPo published the Pentagon Papers, all of which, like so many of Hillary’s emails, were highly classified; yet America’s to believe Hillary’s Wall Street speech transcripts, like Barry’s scholastic records, are somehow impossible to obtain and disseminate?!?

Yeah…

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MSM bias…WHAT bias?!?

Next up, courtesy again of NRO, as the great Victor Davis Hanson observes, when it comes to executing that most difficult of military maneuvers, retreat under fire, the cure is often worse than the disease:

The Costs of Abandoning Messy Wars

 

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“The United States has targeted a lot of rogues and their regimes in recent decades: Moammar Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, Manuel Noriega, and the Taliban. As a general rule over the last 100 years, any time the U.S. has bombed or intervened and then abruptly left the targeted country, chaos has followed. But when America has followed up its use of force with unpopular peacekeeping, sometimes American interventions have led to something better.

…The current presidential candidates are refighting the Iraq war of 2003. Yet the critical question 13 years later is not so much whether the United States should or should not have removed the genocidal Saddam Hussein, but whether our costly efforts at reconstruction ever offered any hope of a stable Iraq.

By 2011, Iraq certainly seemed viable. Only a few dozen American peacekeepers were killed in Iraq in 2011 — a total comparable to the number of U.S. soldiers who die in accidents in an average month. The complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops in December 2011 abruptly turned what President Obama had dubbed a “sovereign, stable, and self-reliant” Iraqand what Vice President Joe Biden had called one of the administration’s “greatest achievements” — into a nightmarish wasteland.

In contrast, when the United States did not pack up and go home after its messy wars, our unpopular interventions often helped make life far better for all involved — and the U.S. and its allies more secure…”

Do we think it was wise for Dubya to entangle us in either Iraq or Afghanistan?  No; as we professed at the time, there were other, far less invasive options we could have employed prior to putting significant numbers of troops on the ground.

But the President having requested, and Congress having duly authorized, the involvement of U.S. Forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we were duty-bound as a country to see both conflicts through to as successful a completion as possible…without the interference of Monday-morning quarterbacks/armchair political generals.  Particularly when neither effort, like our support of Vietnam, need have ended in utter ignominy.

And in the Environmental Moment, as Marita Noon notes at The American Spectator, with all due respect to The Obamao…which is very little if not none whatsoever…

We DID Drill Our Way to $2 Gas

Mr. President, you owe America an apology

 

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““We can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,” President Obama told an audience four years ago today at the University of Miami. Like this year, it was an election year and Obama was running for re-election. Later in his speech, he added: “anybody who tells you that we can drill our way out of this problem doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or just isn’t telling you the truth.”…”

Yo, BO, the only party lying or utterly unfamiliar with the subject at hand was YOU

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…you prevaricating piece of Progressive sh…er,…human excrement!

On The Lighter Side

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Finally, in the Just Desserts segment…

Missouri professor Melissa Click fired after protest scuffles caught on video

 

 

Good riddance to bad rubbish; and don’t let the door hit you on your skanky ass on the way out!  Though it’s not like she won’t have 150 job offers from rankly-Liberal Institutions of Limited Learning inside of a week! 

Magoo



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