What It Comes To (Unconventional Meltdown Mix)

This is very nearly hilarious:

It’s something to keep in mind as the GOP establishment continues to rally behind Ted Cruz, a candidate party leaders have actively and fiercely hated for several years. Some see the Texas senator as a less-ridiculous option to the current Republican frontrunner, but many also see him as a means to an end: if they can boost Cruz and he does well enough to keep Trump below 1,237, it may open the door to keeping the nomination out of Trump’s and Cruz’s hands.

(Benen)

This is your Republican Party.

____________________

Image note: Donald Trump speaks at the John Wayne Museum, in Winterset, Iowa, 19 January 2016. (Detail of photo by Tannen Maury/epa/Corbis.

Benen, Steve. “The Republican convention fight already getting underway”. msnbc. 25 March 2016.

Adam’s Fault (New Jack)

Some days, the best you can do is a heap of clichés:

• I got nothin’.

• Do you really want to know?

• Blame Adam.

See what I mean? There are other jokes, of course, but this is a family blog.

Oh, wait. Not really. I mean, I wouldn’t preclude it outright, but neither is it difficult to imagine the complaints.

An Important Question

My fellow Americans …

At age 3, most toddlers know how to play make-believe, turn the pages of a book, and spontaneously show affection for their friends. But can 3-year-olds possibly grasp the fundamentals of the American justice system and defend themselves in court?

Judge Jack Weil believes so. The Virginia-based judge is a key witness supporting the US government’s position that unaccompanied migrant youths don’t need attorneys in immigration court, while immigration advocates argue otherwise.

“I’ve taught immigration law literally to 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of patience,” Judge Weil said. “They get it. It’s not the most efficient, but it can be done.”

(Chen)

… what the hell have we done?

____________________

Chen, Cathaleen. “Can toddlers defend themselves in immigration court? One judge says so.” The Christian Science Monitor. 6 March 2016.

The Ted Cruz Show (Coward)

Via Associated Press:

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz says he waited until January to begin criticizing Republican rival Donald Trump because he didn’t want to become “roadkill” like other candidates who had challenged the front-runner.

Cruz made the comment Wednesday during a forum hosted by a conservative talk radio host near Milwaukee. It marked Cruz’s first campaign stop in Wisconsin, which holds its primary April 5.

Cruz was asked about a previous statement he made calling Trump “terrific.” Cruz responded by noting that his campaign has had a plan since launching a year ago, and said he needed to build his base of support first and get his record out before drawing contrasts with Trump.

Coward.

You know, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s not cowardice. Maybe it’s what we call, “Texas courage”.

This is the guy who wants us to “trusTed”.

Which, in turn, begs a simple question: Why not?

____________________

Image note: Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, in detail of photo by Getty Images, 2016.

Associated Press. “The Latest: Cruz says he didn’t want to be Trump ‘roadkill'”. 23 March 2016.

Savage, Dan. “Ted Cruz’s Secret Longings”. Slog. 5 February 2016.

A Reflection on History, Standards, and the Establishment

“Hillary Clinton is indeed, as her critics claim, part of the “the establishment.” Like all women of lofty ambition, she is keenly and woefully aware that in 2016, less than a century out from women’s suffrage, pioneering into a space formerly only occupied by men requires an acceptance that gender constrains one to work within the system, rather than from outside of it.”

―Katie Massa Kennedy

Two generally grim thoughts arise and insist:

• The nagging feeling that my fellow liberals are about to blow our best opportunity in generations, and seemingly because the GOP has decided to run dangerously out on a limb, and we want a little bit of that spectacle for ourselves.

• The nagging feeling that it isn’t blindness toward history driving the liberal need to endanger this chance, but, rather, the proposition that some will do anything to keep a woman out of the White House.

The Pervert from Ward Four

At some point the question arises why it is that the outburst of perversity we’ve seen in recent years, resulting as such from the advancement of gay rights, actually comes in the form of the conservative, family-values crowd (ahem!) letting it all hang out?

Fayetteville Councilman John La Tour, a tea party member and recipient of Josh Duggars campaign funding, is being accused of threatening to expose himself to a female employee of a city restaurant. People who witnessed the incident say he approached the woman assuming she was transgender and told her that he was man and that could prove it by dropping his pants

(Busey)

Naturally, it’s everyone else’s fault; the Planet Transgender report notes he was in a restaurant where, “The music was overly loud despite his request to lower the volume, so he responded by dancing along with it, he said”. And why does it always start with some version of, “There I was, minding my own business, being oppressed for no reason, so I decided to just go along with it, and hey …”?

No, really.

La Tour said the incident began during his regular Friday morning stop at Arsaga’s to meet a group of acquaintances. The music was overly loud despite his request to lower the volume, so he responded by dancing along with it, he said. He intended to ask the employee to dance with him but wanted to confirm she was a woman first, La Tour said, citing the ordinance.

“You can declare you’re a man or you’re a woman, whatever you want to,” La Tour said. “I’m not going to ask a man to dance with me.”

The Importance of Being Stylish

HuffPo associate style editor Jamie Feldman zeroes in on what’s really important:

If you’re supposed to dress for the job you want and not the job you have, perhaps Michelle Obama dreams of being … a garden?

The first lady wowed in yet another floral look — it’s her third this month and second in two days! — for a state dinner in Havana, Cuba Monday night.

And, you know, we really wish she wouldn’t.

To the one, sure, you know, everybody needs to make a living. To the other, this should be neither demand nor excuse for going out of one’s way to be part of the problem.

____________________

Image note: Cuban President Raul Castro (left) poses for a photograph with U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and U.S. President Barack Obama before a state dinner at the Palace of the Revolution, 21 March 2016, in Havana Cuba. (Detail of photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.)

Feldman, Jamie. “Michelle Obama Blends In With The Scenery At The State Dinner In Cuba”. The Huffington Post. 22 March 2016.

A Monday Tease

“Well, if Bill Kristol has a memo, what could possibly go wrong?”

―Steve Benen

The only real question is whether you really want to know. Yeah. One of those.

Benen’s sketch is pretty straightforward: Bill Kristol, third party, Tom Coburn, Rick Perry, some sarcasm here, the RNC there, and the question remains whether or not you really want to know.

____________________

Image note: Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, appears on Face the Nation in 2014. (Detail of frame from CBS News)

Benen, Steve. “Anti-Trump forces start eyeing possible third-party candidates”. msnbc. 21 March 2016.

The Republican Message

Let’s talk about messaging.

Okay, we get that President Obama is the big bad villain and all that, but am I the only person who noticed that the GOP “oppo dump” against Judge Merrick Garland, besides being utterly flaccid, is filed under “Hillary Clinton”?

(sigh)

Here. Consider this note, please, from Greg Sargent, offered a couple days before the president nominated Judge Garland:

Republican operatives will “vet that person and put their real record on display.” Ideally, of course, this is what would happen if the Senate were to hold hearings on that person. But that might afford the nominee a chance to directly respond to his or her Republican cross-examiners in a high profile setting (as opposed to only having Democratic groups mount all the pushback, which of course they will also do, once there is a nominee). Direct exchanges between the nominee and Republican Senators, alas, might reflect well on that person. And so the only “vetting” and examination of the nominee’s “real record” will be undertaken through the RNC and associated GOP-aligned groups.

That’s not meant as sarcasm. It’s the actual Republican party-wide position right now. Remember, Senate Republicans themselves have told reporters that they don’t want to hold hearings explicitly because it would risk drawing the wrong kind of media attention to the nominee, thus making it harder politically for GOP Senators — particularly vulnerable incumbents facing reelection in states carried by Obama — to oppose that person later.

It also seems a good time to reiterate Stuart Rothenberg’s recent reflection on this year’s U.S. Senate races. No, really. Trying to tie it all together is an exercise in futility, because it’s almost like a harm reduction scheme implemented in advance of scheduled self-harm. And, yes, that sentence is supposed to read so ridiculously; that’s kind of the problem.

____________________

Image note: Detail of screenshot from GOP.com, taken 19 March 2016.

Republican National Committee. “Meet Merrick Garland”. GOP.com. 16 March 2016.

Rothenberg, Stuart. “Dem Senate Takeover Probable, If Cruz or Trump Nominee”. Rothenblog. Roll Call. 13 March 2016.

Sargent, Greg. “In Supreme Court fight, Republicans lead with their chins”. The Washington Post. 14 March 2016.

A Memo to Mike Huckabee (Civic Leadership)

MEMORANDUM

To: Mike Huckabee

re: Civic leadership

So … Mike―

The two-time Republican presidential also-ran lashed out Erickson, again on Fox News, accusing the conservative of attempting “to blow up the Republican Party.”

“The message that’s coming across is the voters are stupid so we’ll figure out a way to make the decision for you because we don’t trust your decision,” Huckabee complained of Erickson’s anti-Trump effort.

(Tesfaye)

―you do realize, do you not, that sometimes that’s exactly what civic leaders are expected to do?

In our own American heritage we say the Constitution is not a suicide pact. In our human endeavor, we might simply say that civilized society is not a suicide pact. Observably, the Donald Trump phenomenon disdains either expression.