Today in 1966, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who decided to replace for the evening the tardy drummer Keith Moon and bass player John Entwistle with the bass player and drummer of the band that played before them at the Ricky Tick Club in Windsor, England.
When Moon and Entwistle arrived and found they had been substituted for, a fight broke out. Moon and Entwistle quit … for a week.
The number one single today in 1967:
Facebook Friend Ron Fournier notes yet another similarity between Hillary! and The Donald:
An open government is an honest government, a trusted government, a government directly responsible to people. It says so on the White House website: “Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their government is doing.” But even while the internet made finding and sharing information easier than ever, government transparency in the 21st century has been a bust.
President George W. Bush’s administration changed the Presidential Records Act to make the White House more opaque. After promising to run the most transparent government in history, President Obama has set records for censoring government files or outright denying access to them. On a range of issues, veteran White House reporters say each successive president has brought less openness, honesty, and accountability to the West Wing.
It’s about to get worse. Judging from their actions, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are to transparency what Kryptonite is to Superman.
While Obama severely restricted the public’s access to information under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, his secretary of state effectively gutted the FOIA—at least as it pertained to her. Clinton stored all of her work-related email on a secret server in her home, an unprecedented action that skirted federal policies and put her digital correspondence outside the reach of the general public and congressional overseers.
The FBI is investigating whether the covert email system violated criminal laws involving the protection of U.S. secrets. No investigation is needed to understand that if every government official played by Clinton’s rules, there would be no public access to government email.
A lesser example of her allergy to transparency: The private speeches she gave to Wall Street firms, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars after leaving the State Department. In their Democratic nomination fight, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has pressed Clinton to release transcripts of the speeches to show whether her tough talk against Wall Street today is consistent with the paid remarks.
“I will certainly look into it,” she said in February. More recently, Clinton said she would only release the transcripts if “everybody else” is transparent about their paid speeches. Sanders has complied, which means Clinton won’t do the right thing until every Republican does. No champion of transparency, this one.
Which is what makes Clinton such a lousy advocate against Trump, who among other things has refused to release his tax records.
“So you’ve got to ask yourself, why doesn’t he want to release them?” Clinton asked a Democratic crowd last week. “Yeah, well, we’re going to find out.”
Yeah, well, one might also ask, why did Clinton stash her government email on a homebrewed server? Why won’t she release her speech transcripts?
The shame is that Trump deserves a public shaming. For four decades, presidential candidates have released their tax records. Bill and Hillary Clinton have released annual tax returns since 1977 and she posted eight years of returns on her campaign web site.
Trump refuses. “There’s nothing to learn from them,” he says. That is absolutely untrue. Trump’s tax returns would allow the public to see whether he pays his fair share of taxes, how much he gives to charity, whether his finances are free of conflicts, and whether he’s lying about his wealth.
Before becoming a candidate, Trump repeatedly promised to release his tax returns if he chose to seek the presidency. He now blames a government audit for his reluctance to cough up the documents, but that is a weak excuse.
The only thing stopping Trump from keeping his promise is Trump.
If the metaphor for government transparency is sunshine, Trump is darkness personified. His campaign keeps a “blacklist” of critical reporters. He refuses to say how he would “eradicate” ISIS. He masquerades in telephone calls as his own spokesman. He makes erratic policy shifts while insisting that nothing has changed, such as when his “absolute” ban on Muslim immigrants suddenly became Syria-centric.
What makes Trump the least transparent presidential candidate in modern history is his lack of candor. “There’s never been a presidential candidate like Donald Trump—someone so cavalier about the facts and so unwilling to ever admit error, even in the face of overwhelming evidence,” wrote Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post in a story that aggregated 39 fact-check columns involving Trump, in 69 percent of which he received the worst-possible rating of four Pinocchios.
“Since Trump never takes anything back and often repeats the same false claims,” Kessler wrote, “voters are likely to hear these time and again during the campaign season.”
Lie after lie—read them here and consider how open government would be under President Trump.
I am not drawing an equivalence: When it comes to sleight of hand, there is no equal to Trump. But no matter who wins in November, transparency loses.
So you think the Republican Party has problems with its presidential candidate? (Yes, it does.)
James Taranto reports …
“Thrown chairs. Leaked cellphone numbers. Death threats spewed across the Internet. No, this is not the work of Donald J. Trump supporters . . .” That’s the arresting, not to say biased, lead of a New York Times story on the Democrats—specifically, Saturday’s Nevada Democratic convention, where “angry supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders . . . were directing their ire” at what they see as “a rigged political system”:
Although Hillary Clinton won the Nevada caucuses in February, the Sanders campaign worked hard to win delegates at county conventions and was hopeful that it could emerge from the state with an equal number of delegates or more. But the state convention, held at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel, deteriorated into chaos after nearly 60 of Mr. Sanders’s potential delegates were deemed ineligible amid a dispute over the rules. The convention concluded abruptly after security staff no longer felt it could ensure the safety of the participants, many of whom were yelling and throwing things.
Though the raucous Republican nominating fight was the one that appeared to be careering toward a contested convention, the drawn-out fight on the Democratic side has emerged as an ugly intraparty feud in its own right, threatening hopes for unity ahead of the July convention in Philadelphia. Mr. Sanders faces a virtually insurmountable delegate deficit, but has pledged to carry on his campaign despite the long odds. …
“What Nevada shows is the kindling is there,” Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist, said of the energy within Mr. Sanders’s base of support. “The question is, what is he going to do with it?”
Hasn’t he been answering that question for months with “feel the burn”? Journalists across the country are feeling it now, as the Los Angeles Times demonstrates: “Will the fire that Sanders has lighted among millions of supporters with his critiques of Wall Street greed and political corruption burn the party this summer?”
Democrats are now forcing Sanders to disavow violence, as The Wall Street Journal reports:
After the convention, the Nevada Democratic Party took the unusual step of filing a complaint about Mr. Sanders and his supporters with the Democratic National Committee, the national arm of the party. In the letter sent Monday, Nevada Democrats said Mr. Sanders’s supporters had a “penchant” for violence and disruption, warning that the party’s national convention in Philadelphia this summer could see similar actions.
Mr. Sanders responded in his Tuesday statement that claims of a penchant for violence were “nonsense.” He added: “Our campaign of course believes in nonviolent change and it goes without saying that I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals.”
“It goes without saying” is a curious phrase, because it inevitably means its opposite. You never see a sentence that ends “it goes without saying.”
Talking Points Memo reports that the DNC’s chairman, the unwieldily named Debbie Wasserman Schultz, isn’t ready to make up with Sanders: “Unfortunately, the senator’s response was anything but acceptable,” she said on CNN. “It certainly did not condemn his supporters for acting violently or engaging in intimidation tactics and instead added more fuel to the fire.” Bern, baby, burn.
This is all a bit surprising given Hillary Clinton’s inevitability. As the Times notes, “the raucous Republican nominating fight was the one that appeared to be careering toward a contested convention.” Instead the last of Donald Trump’s rivals left the race two weeks ago, while Sanders soldiers on.
[Tuesday] the Democrats held primaries in Oregon and Kentucky; Sanders easily won the Beaver State, while Mrs. Clinton edged him by fewer than 2,000 votes in the Bluegrass State. “Wounded Hillary Limps to Kentucky Win,” reads a Daily Beast headline. A CNN.com section header: “[Mrs.] Clinton finally wins a state.”
Another CNN story reports on Sanders’s election-night rally:
Speaking in Southern California Tuesday night, Sanders fired up the crowd by calling out the Democratic leadership.
“The Democratic Party is going to have to make a very, very, profound and important decision. It can do the right thing and open its doors and welcome into the party people who are prepared to fight for real economic and social change. That is the Democratic Party I want to see,” Sanders said.
“I say to the leadership of the Democratic Party: Open the doors, let the people in! Or the other option for the Democratic Party, which I see as a very sad and tragic option is to choose and maintain its status quo structure, remain dependent on big money campaign contributions and be a party with limited participation and limited energy,” he said.
The crowd responded by chanting, “Bernie or Bust!” the equivalent of the Republican #NeverTrump slogan for the Democratic race.
That seems to us a dubious equivalence. The Bernie-or-busters are enthusiastically (if sometimes violently) for a candidate, whereas the Nevertrumpkins are against one. If anything, the more persuasive parallel is between Sanders and Trump (and their supporters): Not only are both challenging their parties’ establishments, but neither has a history of identifying with the party whose nomination he now seeks.
For that reason, if Comrade Sanders were honest in running for president, he should bolt the Democratic Party (to which he does not belong; he was an independent in the House of Representatives and is an independent in the Senate) and run a third-party campaign. (Trump should have done that from the beginning.) The fix has been in from the beginning, and it’s obvious to everyone except perhaps Sanders.
About which, The Blaze reports:
MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski called for the Democratic National Committee’s chairwoman, Florida Rep. Debbie Wassserman Schultz, to resign Wednesday, citing unfair treatment of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Democratic presidential campaign.
Brzezinski’s criticism of Wassserman Schultz began after the morning show played a clip of the chairwoman slamming Sanders’ handling of recent violence in Nevada during a Tuesday MSNBC interview.
Wasserman Schultz took issue with a statement Sanders issued after his supporters were accused of resorting to violence at the chaotic Nevada Democratic convention over the weekend, during which property was vandalized and certain members of the local party received death threats.
“Our campaign of course believes in non-violent change and it goes without saying that I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals,” Sanders said in a lengthy statement Tuesday.
In his statement, Sanders also decried Democratic leadership for using “its power to prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place” at the Nevada convention.
However, Wasserman Schultz argued that, because Sanders’ statement addressed more than just what occurred in Nevada over the weekend, the senator in a way actually “excused” his supporters’ violent acts.
But a visibly frustrated Brzezinski wasn’t having it: “This has been very poorly handled from the start. It has been unfair, and they haven’t taken him seriously, and it starts, quite frankly, with the person we just heard speaking.”
Co-host Joe Scarborough also defended Sanders, saying the Vermonter “very clearly said” violence is not acceptable.
“Can I ask, why would Bernie Sanders politely get in line for the Democratic Party?” Scarborough said of the demands being placed on the Sanders campaign.
Brzezinski replied, “Because Hillary Clinton’s people said so.”
Scarborough responded, “I sure as hell wouldn’t if the party I was a member of treated me like this, rigged the debate process, rigged Iowa, rigged the entire thing going forward. I’d say go straight to hell; I’m running as an independent.”
The question on which the presidential election might hang is how many Sanders voters will vote for Hillary, and how many non-Trump Republican voters will vote for Trump, who did not get a majority of votes (as opposed to delegates) in the primaries to this point. I will be voting for neither Trump nor Hillary; I think a lot of Sanders voters, many of whom claim to be new to politics, won’t be voting for Hillary.
The number-one album today in 1958, and for the next 31 weeks, was the soundtrack to the musical “South Pacific” went to number one and stayed there for 31 weeks. The film version starred Mitzi Gaynor, who looked very much like my mother a few years later.
Today in 1979, Eric Clapton married Patti Boyd, the former wife of George Harrison and the muse for the song “Layla.” The song lasted much longer than the marriage.
One wonders if anyone played selections from that day’s number one British album:
How can you compare Republican In Name Only Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan? You can’t, says Reagan expert Paul Kengor:
“Recently, in discussions with Trump supporters, I have had many say to me that one of the reasons they support Trump is because he is the modern-day equivalent to Ronald Reagan,” writes Connor, a former student of mine in his final year of law school. “Trump supporters keep perpetuating this comparison. Considering your expertise on everything Reagan, I wanted to mention this to you, in hopes you would write an article on it.”
Connor’s email was far from the only such entreaty. I have been receiving these requests for months. Further back still, one writer about a year ago wrote a piece asserting 15 similarities between Reagan and Trump. That thing has been sent to me more often than I could count. It practically went viral. Enough is enough. Yes, it’s time.
I can hear Trump supporters protesting me writing this now, insisting that it’s time to unite against Hillary and support their Donald. But Trump’s status as the presumptive nominee is a separate issue from the comparisons to Reagan, which seem to be picking up steam. The constant claims of Trump being “another Reagan” must be addressed and must be stopped, if merely in service of truth, but also in service of what Ronald Reagan really represented and what we need to remember. The indisputable reality is that there is no meaningful, legitimate set of similarities between Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan.
Before proceeding further, I’ll begin with a general statement on my Reagan bona fides — that is, for Trump supporters new to the conservative movement who have no idea who I am.
I have published six major books on Reagan, several of them bestsellers, ranging from (the first) God and Ronald Reagan (HarperCollins, 2004) to Reagan’s Legacy in a World Transformed (Harvard University Press, 2015). Some of those in between include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (2006) and 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative (2014). Two of these books are the basis for the Reagan/film bio-pic, Reagan: The Movie. That film, like my books, are positive affirmations of Reagan. I am and have long been a Reagan conservative. I am hardly an “establishment RINO.” In fact, I literally wrote the book on Reagan conservatism. And my next book, scheduled for release next spring, is a 1,000-page-plus Cold War work on Reagan.
I have done thousands of articles, speeches, and radio and TV and print interviews on Ronald Reagan. I have personally interviewed hundreds of people who lived with or knew or worked with the man and I’ve spent endless days in the Reagan Library, at the Reagan Ranch, at Reagan’s Eureka College, in his hometown, at the river where he lifeguarded, in nursing homes talking to elderly women who were baptized with Reagan in the summer of 1922, etc., etc., etc. I have read countless letters written by Reagan, and still far more pages of words scribbled by others. It’s quite possible that I’ve read more by or about Ronald Reagan than any living person on the planet. I assure you I’m in the top 10. …
So, with that said, let me state unequivocally and undeniably that not only is Donald Trump not the “next Reagan,” but he is the anti-Reagan. Really, I find not only that the two men have preciously little in common, from their policies to their person, but I think there may be no two men more glaringly different. Donald Trump is a polar opposite of Ronald Reagan.
Generally, in terms of policy/ideological preferences, there is not much that Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan have in common, from domestic to foreign policy, which is quite odd given two Republican nominees for the presidency not too many years apart. Sure, policywise, I suppose there are some things, like favoring a strong military and — maybe, at one point — perhaps possibly cutting income-tax rates. But even then, as I write, Trump’s favoring of lower taxes is something on which he is already reneging. Indeed, between my first draft of this article last week and my final version this week, he has flip-flopped on taxes. In a matter of minutes on Sunday, from NBC to ABC, he soared all over on taxes, and on the minimum wage.
Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, is legendary for his refusal to reverse himself on income-tax cuts throughout his entire presidency. Trump is reversing himself even before the Republican convention. Reagan’s refusal was because Reagan was principled. Trump’s reversal is because Trump is not principled. Reagan was a complete conservative. Trump is momentarily pretending to be a conservative, and is getting away with it because of followers who back him no matter he says or does — just as he boasted they would. (Click here for Trump’s woefully embarrassing attempt to define conservatism, a problem Reagan never had. Trump’s definition is that of someone attempting to hijack conservatism merely in order to get elected.)
Reagan opposed high taxes because federal income taxes were (among other things) the mother’s milk that sustained and grew big government. I see no evidence that Donald Trump believes in small, limited government the way Reagan did. The way Trump speaks of what he would do as chief executive is not small-government at all, and is actually quite stunning in its remarkable lack of Constitutional comprehension. He talks as if the president can just magically cancel trade agreements and enact massive changes unilaterally. The Founders carefully never devised such a system. I’m reminded of Harry Truman’s warning to his Oval Office successor, Dwight Eisenhower (I’m paraphrasing): “Poor Ike. He’ll come here and say ‘do this, do that, do this, do that,’ and nothing will happen. It won’t be anything like the military.”
Precisely. Our system was designed so the chief executive cannot stomp in and do whatever he pleases. That’s how banana republics operate. If Trump’s advocates are frustrated with the inaction of the federal government now (by the way, federal-government inaction is not a bad thing to a conservative), just wait until they see Trump’s inability to kick and scream and get what he wants from behind the Oval Office desk. The federal government is not a business, and the president is not a CEO. The Founders did not want the president to be a CEO. Conservatism and genuine conservatives grasp this. Reagan did. Trump doesn’t, or at least he speaks on the campaign trail like he doesn’t.
But easily the starkest difference between Trump and Reagan relates to temperament and personality. Ronald Reagan was always universally liked, even by nasty critics on the left. You would have never seen Ronald Reagan hampered by 60-70% unlikability ratings like those earned by Donald Trump. It was precisely Reagan’s likability that made him so electable. It is precisely Trump’s unlikability that makes him so unelectable.
When Reagan left office in 1989, Gallup rated him with the highest favorability/likability of any president since Eisenhower. Ironically, his likability, typically in the 60-70% range, is nearly identically matched by Trump’s unlikability.
Reagan was liked by people because he liked them and treated them kindly. I never encountered one episode, ever, from Dixon, Illinois to Hollywood to Sacramento to Washington all the way to his tomb in Simi Valley, California, of Ronald Reagan speaking to anyone even once with the crudeness, rudeness, bombast, vitriol, vulgarity, and insults as Donald Trump does daily. Trump does not just lash out when someone criticizes him, or when he loses — he explodes, he ascribes sinister motives, he threatens lawsuits, he maligns. (As I write, his newest victim is Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention, a kind Christian leader whose sin was that he dared to criticize Trump. Moore is suddenly a “nasty guy with no heart.”) Trump does this without restraint toward fellow Republicans. Reagan had an “11th Commandment” — thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican. Trump effectively seems to have one, too — thou shalt always speak ill of fellow Republicans. Or, that is, of fellow Republicans who do not praise him.
Think about it. Consider the leading Republicans that Trump has lit up: Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush, George Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Carly Fiorina, and on and on. They are “liars,” “losers,” “morons,” “chokers,” and (for the women) “ugly.” Donald Trump has spent the last six months torching the best and brightest of the future of the conservative movement and Republican Party that dared to stand in his way. He is only happy when he is winning. Anytime that Trump lost a state in the primary to Ted Cruz, all hell was guaranteed to break loose the next morning.
Reagan did not do this. In fact, Ronald Reagan was the most humble person of his power and position that I have observed in my study of the presidency. His charitable nature was extraordinary. Bill Clark, one of his closest aides and friends, used to tell me often of Reagan (I was Clark’s biographer): “There was no pride there, Paul. No pride at all.” Donald Trump, to the contrary, is one of the most prideful human beings we’ve witnessed in American politics. He is a narcissist without question.
Bill Clark would further add of Reagan: “The man had no ego, Paul. No ego at all.” Donald Trump is all-ego. His ability to brag about himself is alarming, and I fear potentially dangerous. Psychologists will study Donald Trump for years to come.
Reagan was a man of great grace. Trump is tremendously lacking in grace.
Reagan was exceptionally kind to people. He went out of his way to give people the benefit of the doubt. Trump goes out of his way to insult people. Trump is a bully who openly encourages his supporters to “knock the hell” and “knock the crap out” of dissenters at his rallies. It is plainly unimaginable to picture Ronald Reagan speaking that way.
Reagan spoke eloquently of the dignity and sanctity of each human being, saying that “every person is a ressacra” (Latin for “sacred reality”). This was intrinsic to Reagan’s conservatism (and his faith).
Reagan was the consummate gentleman, especially toward women, to whom he was shy and gentle. Women have told me with tears in their eyes about his deference toward them. Trump’s boorish sexual references toward women and his high-schoolish rips at their physical appearance would have horrified Ronald Reagan. I can honestly say that Donald Trump’s digs at the face of Carly Fiorina and Heidi Cruz alone would have caused Ronald Reagan to reject the man because of an obvious character deficiency.
In all, these traits reflect on each man’s temperament, stability, and suitability for the office of the presidency. Few men in the history of the presidency were as emotionally well-suited as Ronald Reagan, whereas few are as emotionally ill-suited as Donald Trump.
Again, there is so much more that could be said here in this comparison, but I’m already approaching 2,000 words. I’ll conclude with just a couple of comments on the most frequent Reagan comparisons being generated by Trump supporters.
The very worst of them is ridiculously inane in its simplicity. It’s the assertion that Trump, just like Reagan, trails the Democrat in the presidential race right now, and thus — wow, whizzbang, shazam! — will overcome the deficit in November and win. I can’t believe that I need to say this, but the mere fact that Trump, like Reagan, is trailing the Democrat does not thereby mean — ipso facto — that he surges like Reagan and wins in November. I know our education system is lousy, but do we really lack in critical thinking this abysmally? Such a certain surge from behind by Trump is especially less likely given the astronomical (record-breaking) unlikability numbers of Trump, which stand in complete contrast to Reagan’s likability. Reagan did not repulse huge segments of voting blocs like Trump does. This particular comparison is absolutely apples vs. oranges.
And still more, Ronald Reagan did not consistently trail Jimmy Carter like Trump has trailed Hillary and even Bernie Sanders. For an extended factual analysis of the data, click this superb piece by Louis Jacobson for PolitiFact. Jacobson’s information is thoroughly researched.
Here’s another comparison that has currency among Trump boosters: It is stated that both Reagan and Trump were dismissed by elites as policy/intellectual lightweights. They were underestimated. That is true. But the analogy ends there. The truth is that Trump clearly is a policy/intellectual lightweight, and Reagan was not. Scholars of Reagan, left and right, will today tell you that Reagan was impressively well-read and grounded in policy details. For a snapshot of the pre-presidential Reagan in the latter 1970s, and his prodigious digging into (and writing about) the nuances of policy, check out any of the books by Kiron Skinner and Martin and Annelise Anderson, by Craig Shirley, by Steve Hayward, and others. And when Ronald Reagan spoke of being a conservative, and anchored his policy preferences in conservative roots, it stemmed from years of devouring conservative books and publications and attending and speaking at conservative conferences.
Trump has done none of that intellectual heavy-lifting, nor does it seem to interest him. Recall the spectacle of watching Donald Trump in the Republican debates, especially against Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. The man was a veritable policy midget. How anyone might walk away from the TV set after watching those debates and assert that Trump won and earned their support is something I will never be able to comprehend.
And alas, one more comparison often made by Trump defenders: Trump, like Reagan, has been framed by opponents as unstable and dangerous, a man who cannot be trusted with his finger near the button. Sorry, Trump fans, but Donald Trump’s explosive personality, frequent outbursts, shocking tantrums, abrasive impulsiveness and seeming lack of control (even the fawning Ann Coulter called him “mental”) have understandably invited these concerns in a way that Reagan’s behavior never merited. In Reagan’s case, this was totally unfounded. In Trump’s case, he cannot act as he does and then expect people to feel instantly reassured with him. The man cannot be trusted with his finger at the button of his Twitter account. The feeling of unease is completely his fault.
Again, much more could be said. Donald Trump’s followers can point to other things they like or see in the man — his business experience, his confidence. Good enough. But please, in the name of Ronald Reagan, cease the nonsense about Trump having any meaningful semblance of similarity with Ronald Reagan. This is an emotional statement of wishful thinking and profound ignorance that should be stopped immediately.
Trump blamed the 1987 income tax reform, which only generated more than a decade of low-inflation economic growth, with one of his business bankruptcies. Not very Reaganesque.
{Last] week I wrote at The Federalist that “Hillary Clinton wants to take your guns.” I will stand by that statement: She does want to take them, and she is barely interested in pretending otherwise, as a recent campaign statement demonstrates.
Last week Trump pointed out – correctly — that Hillary Clinton wants to “abolish the Second Amendment.” Never willing to let an accurate statement about a liberal politician go to waste, the folks over at FactCheck.org got right on it: “Trump Distorts Clinton’s Gun Stance,” they declared.
He did not; he accurately summarized Hillary Clinton’s opinions on guns, and FactCheck.org itself demonstrated this. But before we get to that, it’s worth pointing out that the fact checker in question, Eugene Kiely, wastes a great deal of time over the course of his “fact check”: He lists various points from Clinton’s “gun violence prevention proposal,” such as universal background checks and banning “assault weapons,” and he claims that these proposals prove that Clinton has no intention of “taking any guns away.”
But these proposals are ultimately irrelevant to the singular question every politician must answer when it comes to gun rights, namely: Does he or she wish to repeal the Second Amendment, upon which all American gun rights rest? If the answer is no, then we can safely assume that the politician in question does not ultimately want to take away your guns. If the answer is yes, however implicitly, then plainly the politician wishes to take away your guns, and a “gun violence prevention proposal” such as Hillary Clinton’s is simply a smokescreen over the ultimate aim of gun confiscation.
Hillary Clinton does want to confiscate your guns; her campaign inadvertently admits it, and FactCheck.org repeats her campaign’s admission. Last fall, Clinton declared that “the Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment,” an obvious reference to D.C. v. Heller, which affirmed that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own firearms. In response to this gaffe, Kiely quotes Clinton campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin, who wrote to FactCheck.org:
Along with the vast majority of Americans, Clinton believes there are common sense steps we can take at the federal level to keep guns out of the hands of criminals while respecting the 2nd Amendment.She also believes Heller was wrongly decided in that cities and states should have the power to craft common sense laws to keep their residents safe.
Here is the problem with Clinton’s belief that Heller was “wrongly decided” because it prohibited states from making “common sense laws to keep their residents safe”: It is a lie. Heller prohibited no such thing: In fact, in the court’s majority opinion on Heller, the late Antonin Scalia explicitly allows that the Second Amendment is perfectly compatible with laws meant to keep residents safe from harm. “Like most rights,” Scalia wrote, “the Second Amendment right is not unlimited.” Among the regulations permissible under Heller, according to Scalia, were “laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms,” such as laws meant to protect public safety by keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals.
The crux of it, then, is this: Clinton purportedly believes that Heller was wrongly decided because it did not permit cities and states “to craft common sense laws to keep their residents safe.” But Heller allows for that, unequivocally and without doubt. In other words, Clinton objects to Heller on the grounds that it does not contain a provision it explicitly contains.
It would be tempting to write this off as simple political and constitutional ignorance. But it is almost certainly much more than that. Hillary Clinton assuredly knows that Heller allows for “common sense laws to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.” And because it is perfectly reasonable to assume that she knows this, there is only one reasonable explanation left: She objects to Heller on some other grounds.
What grounds would those be? The same grounds on which most other liberals object to Heller and wish to see it overturned, of course: that it affirms that the Second Amendment protects an individual American right to firearms and thereby prevents the government from enacting an all-out ban on commonly used weapons. Because she is not stupid, Hillary Clinton understands that there is no meaningful distinction between Heller and the Second Amendment itself; to get rid of one is, effectively, to get rid of the other. It is silly, insulting, and alarming that she still insists upon pretending otherwise.
The number one single today in 1963:
Another one-hit wonder had the number one single today in 1968:
The number one single today in 1974 might be the very definition of the term “novelty song”:
The number one British single today in 1975:
(Which more appropriately should have been called “Stand by Your Men,” since Tammy Wynette had had three husbands up to then, and two more thereafter.)
Libertarian Nick Gillespie:
I’m happy to acknowledge that P.J. O’Rourke is one of the (many) reasons I consider myself libertarian—and why I wanted to write for a living. My first intro to him was in the pages of National Lampoon way, way back in the day. His stuff there wasn’t political in the typical sense of the word but looking back, I can see an antinomian streak in his work that generally didn’t appear in the his colleagues’ work (as he and others tell it, they tended to come from more-privileged backgrounds and so were perhaps less invested in really destroying things than him).
His post-Lampoon work, especially his 1980s reportage for Rolling Stone may be the last time that mag had a great prose stylist who was also regularly churning out fantastic pieces of New Journalism worth a damn. In the late ’80s, I was writing for a variety of music, movie, and teen mags and his example motivated me to work harder and try to get better at writing, reporting, and analysis.
So it was with some sadness that I learned (at Reason, earlier this week) that O’Rourke is backing Hillary Clinton in 2016. WTF! This, from a guy who released a book in 2010 called Don’t Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards. Sure, he’s not proud of it or happy, either, writing in The Daily Beast:
“Hillary is wrong about everything,” he averred. “She is to politics and statecraft what Pope Urban VIII and the Inquisition were to Galileo. She thinks the sun revolves around herself.”
Just a few years ago, Thiel was singing the libertarian tune of better-living-beyond-politics and it sure sounded pretty goddman sweet to my ears.
“Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent,” wrote Thiel in 2009. “Thus, I advocate focusing energy elsewhere, onto peaceful projects that some consider utopian.”
Thiel wasn’t just talking the talk, either. He was (and is still, I assume) backing seasteading, life extension, and all sorts of “utopian” plans. Good on him.
I don’t begrudge these guys (or anyone else) the desire to vote for somebody who might, you know, actually become president. But as I write in a new Daily Beast column, there’s got to be a better way to influence both presidential politics than shoveling whatever gruel is slopped on our plates every four years. To that end, I write:
At the very least, I’d urge either [O’Rourke or Thiel]—not to mention the rest of the country—to think about going outside of the major parties and voting Libertarian as a way to potentially drag politics into the 21st century.
Voting for the lesser of two evils is still evil and it’s not at all clear to me that the road to better candidates—not to mention smaller government—runs through either Cleveland or Philadelphia this summer.
David Deeble http://twitter.com/daviddeebleI’ve already announced my interntion of voting for the Libertarian Party candidate in the fall, just like i’ve voted Libertarian since 1988. I have no loyalty to the LP (and to the best of my recollection, I’ve never been a registered member), it’s just I find its platform in keeping with my views.
In case Trump and Clinton, or party honchos, are reading, I do want to underscore that my vote is probably the easiest goddamn vote in the country to get. I’d love to vote for a winner at some level of government (which I haven’t done since high-school class elections).
If a major-party candidate actually articulated one or more of the following, I’d almost certainly vote for him or her: state a non-interventionist foreign policy built around trade and engagement, rather than leading with military concerns; pledge to cut year-over-year spending or even just promise to freeze spending for a year; tackle entitlement spending; declare an end to culture-war bullshit and embrace abortion rights, marriage equality, and at least pot legalization (if not full-on drug legalization); promise to make it easier for immigrants and everybody else to legally enter and work in the United States; support robust speech rights in all contexts and not say (as both The Donald and Clinton have done this campaign) that parts of the internet have to be shut down or policed because of terrorism.
That list is non-exhaustive, of course, but what are the odds that the presumptive nominee of either the Democratic or Republican Party will embrace any of that this time around? Or even 2020?
This election, I’m voting Libertarian with some real enthusiasm. In 2012, Gary Johnson had the best showing in decades, pulling over 1 million votes and getting around 1 percent of the vote. If the LP really seizes the moment, it could realistically crack double digits in terms of the percentage of votes cast. Indeed, an early (read: meaningless) Monmouth University Poll even had Johnson getting 11 percent of the vote in a three-way race with Clinton and Trump. If the LP candidate (who will be chosen at the end of May) either does that or covers the spread between Trump and Clinton, the Republicans and Democrats will have to pay attention. As I never tire of pointing, these are two old and tired brands that are in various stages of breakdown, implosion, and dissolution. They need to retool and reboot and a strong showing by the LP in the presidential race may force either or both parties to adapt libertarian policies and positions going forward.
We are never going to get better (read: more libertarian) candidates until the major parties realize they need to cater to our interests. We’ve won the culture wars and many important ideological and policy battles. According to Gallup’s taxonomy, voters who are “libertarian” (meaning socially liberal and fiscally conservative) are the single-largest bloc out there, bigger even than conservatives. The “libertarian moment” was left for dead when Rand Paul suspended his campaign in late 2015. I understand why conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats want to believe that, but it’s wrong. Regardless of Rand Paul or any other politician, the plain fact is the United States is not just moving toward a more-libertarian mind-set but actually adopting libertarian policies and priorities when it comes to criminal justice reform, public-sector pensions, K-12 education, infrastructure spending, and more.
As Matt Welch and I wrote in The Declaration of Independents, politics is a lagging indicator of where America has already headed. For all sorts of reasons—including a state-enforced duopoly and guaranteed revenue streams—change will come last to politics. There’s a good prima facie case that that is exactly what we are seeing. For god’s sake, how else are we supposed to make sense of Donald Trump (!) taking over the GOP? And Bernie Sanders, effectively a joke candidate (and like all joke candidates, not very funny), forcing Hillary Clinton to break a sweat to win a nomination she should have sewn up in 2008?
The Wall Street Journal:
John Boehner isn’t popular with conservatives these days, but the former House Speaker deserves an apology from those who derided his lawsuit challenging President Obama’s usurpation of legislative power. Mr. Boehner went ahead despite skeptics from the left and right, and on Thursday the House won a landmark victory on behalf of Congress’s power of the purse.
Federal Judge Rosemary Collyer handed down summary judgment for the House, ruling that the executive branch had unlawfully spent money on ObamaCare without congressional assent. Judge Collyer noted that Congress had expressly not appropriated money to reimburse health insurers under Section 1402 of the Affordable Care Act. The Administration spent money on those reimbursements anyway.
“Paying out Section 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution,” Judge Collyer wrote. “Congress authorized reduced cost sharing but did not appropriate monies for it, in the FY 2014 budget or since. Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one”
Judge Collyer takes 38 pages to eviscerate the Administration’s claim that it can infer an appropriation if Congress has merely authorized a program. Congress authorizes all sorts of programs without spending money on them in one year or another. Presidents before Mr. Obama have understood that no money can be spent without an express appropriation.
The ruling is a vindication of the separation of powers under the Constitution, which in Article I gives Congress sole power over spending. This is a crucial check on tyranny. If a President can combine the legislative power to spend with the power to execute the laws, he can ignore Congress and govern by whim.
This is what Mr. Obama has attempted to do in his second term, famously claiming “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone.” He taunted Congress by saying, “so sue me,” and then he called the suit a “stunt.”Oddly, he was joined in his contempt for Congress by conservatives like radio talker Mark Levin, the self-styled constitutionalist who called the House lawsuit a “very risky and foolish move” that would somehow empower Mr. Obama. Some smarter conservatives warned that a spending fight is political, and not something for the judiciary to settle. In most cases we’d agree. But Mr. Obama’s spending usurpation is so blatant that the House had an obligation to pursue every possible avenue to protect its rights.
The executive branch and state governments routinely sue to vindicate their constitutional powers. Why shouldn’t the House be able to sue to defend its powers against a lawless President? Judge Collyer’s ruling is the third this year to rebuke Mr. Obama’s abuses of power, following the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on immigration and the Supreme Court’s stay on his Clean Power Plan.
The Administration will no doubt appeal Judge Collyer’s ruling to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which Harry Reid and Mr. Obama have packed with liberals precisely to defend his power grabs. The case is ultimately headed for the Supreme Court, where Antonin Scalia’s replacement may be important to the outcome. The stakes of this presidential election keep rising—for the powers of Congress as much as for who will run the executive branch.
First, for those who believe the British are the height of sophistication and are so much more couth than us Americans: This was the number one song in the U.K. today in 1986:
The chicken is not having a birthday. Pervis Jackson of the Spinners is:
So is drummer Bill Bruford, who played for Yes, King Crimson and Genesis:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 