Category Archives: RNC
Teflon Trump
During the campaign Donald Trump was called the Teflon Don. Criticism didn’t stick with his base.
But now that he’s president, what really doesn’t stick is advice. He ignored advisors Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon when he hired the “Mooch” as communications director.
Spicer got mad and quit.
Republicans’ Pre-Existing Condition
The Republicans are selling a health care plan with no mandate that you buy it. And they won’t turn you down if you have a pre-existing condition. So why would you pay for health care before you need it?
Here’s Dr. Krauthammer on that:
It’s not just Donald Trump who ran on retaining this new, yes, entitlement. Everyone did. But it’s very problematic. If people know that they can sign up for insurance after they get sick, the very idea of insurance is undermined. People won’t sign up when healthy and the insurance companies will go broke.
Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been, In a Russian Golden Shower?
The right leaning New York Post, Townhall, and left leaning Nation editor and publisher, Katrina vanden Heuvel, writing in the Washington Post, have something in common. They all compare the senate Democrats’ obsession with Russians to McCarthyism of 50 years ago. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
It’s fitting and proper that a comedian got the ball rolling for the Jeff Sessions act in this Russian circus. Senator Al Franken based a question to Senator Sessions on a bogus story in Buzzfeed about a Russian dossier on Donald Trump. It claims Trump hired prostitutes to pee on a bed Barack and Michelle had slept on in a Russian hotel.
Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been?
Franken asked the senator what he would do if there’s any evidence of contact with Russians in the course of the Trump campaign. Sessions replied, “Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have — did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.” You can roll the tape here on Politifact.
Then, as night follows day, two meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak surfaced. One was in Sessions’ senate office. The other was a group introduction at the RNC in Cleveland. Senator Sessions says those meetings were in the course of his role as a senator and didn’t involve the Trump campaign.
Senator Claire McCaskill insisted that sort of thing just isn’t done. But her twitter account says otherwise.
Flag Burning
Trump tweet of the week: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag — if they do, there must be consequences, perhaps loss of citizenship or a year in jail!”
The Huffington Post reported that most people think President-elect The Donald goes too far. They think flag burners should keep their citizenship. However, they’re cool with the jail part.
Flag Burning
Justice Scalia, for his part, wasn’t cool with either jail or loss of citizenship for burning a flag. Here are a few lines from a Pittsburgh Post Gazette editorial on Scalia’s opinion of flag burning:
“If I were king,” the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once said in an interview, “I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged. … Burning the flag is a form of expression. Speech doesn’t just mean written words or oral words. … Burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that flag burning is a protected form of free speech. And Salon said Trump was cool with that when he appeared on The David Letterman Show in 2015.
Of course, the court also ruled that campaign issue advocacy spending by corporations and unions is a protected form of free speech. We know Hillary’s not cool with that. The Citizens United case involved a movie critical of her. Here’s the trailer.
My favorite example of the exercise of free speech by flag burning occurred at the RNC convention in Cleveland last summer. The burner became the burnee. He caught himself on fire.
Ted Cruz’s Convention Speech
Dr. Krauthammer diagnosed Ted Cruz’s convention speech as a suicide note. Larry Kudlow says Cruz gave a “career ending speech”.
But David Harsanyi says, “In a party filled with cowards, Cruz stood apart.”
If 2016 ends up being a disaster for his party—and it’s a good bet it will—Cruz will be the only major Republican to emerge from the Trump fiasco with his principles largely intact. Maybe, as his critics claim, he’s just laying the groundwork for 2020. Maybe it will backfire. Maybe only someone as stubborn and egotistical as Cruz could do it. So what?
