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Sowell: Sorting the Candidates
Creators Syndicate ^ | August 25, 2015 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 08/24/2015 10:30:00 AM PDT by jazusamo

Despite a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon, the media seem to be putting most of their attention on two candidates for their respective parties' presidential nominations next year. Moreover, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump each make their own party nervous.

If next year's election comes down to Clinton versus Trump, a lot of people may simply stay home in disgust.

When we are this far away from the official start of the primary election season, we can usually just say, "It's still early days." Many a front runner this early in the process ended up out of the running by the time the party conventions were held, and totally forgotten by election day.

That is the way it usually is. But that is not likely to be the way it will be this time.

This is Hillary Clinton's last hurrah. It is now or never for her. And the Democrats have nobody comparable as a vote-getter to put in her place.

Even if an investigation finds Mrs. Clinton found guilty of violating the law in the way she handled e-mails when she was Secretary of State, the Obama administration is not likely to prosecute her. And President Obama can always pardon her, so that the next administration cannot prosecute her either. So Hillary doesn't even have to take a plea bargain.

Someone with a sense of shame might well withdraw from the contest for the Democratic Party's nomination, now that public opinion polls show that most people distrust her. But since when have the Clintons ever had a sense of shame?

(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2016election; sowell; thomassowell
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To: jazusamo
The Trump candidacy brings the “campaign finance ‘reform’” issue to the fore.

Ronald Reagan could not win the nomination today, because the fund raising he used to finance his campaign is now illegal. At least nominally. Constitutionally, all CFR “laws” are void because they directly violate “the freedom . . . of the press.”

CRF is predicated on the conceit that the Associated Press and its membership, taken together, constitute the press. But the press is not free unless I can spend as much of my own money as I wanna, to promote, or to oppose, voting for whichever candidate I wanna.

Of course that principle advantages Trump, or the Koch brothers, or even George Soros. They can easily afford more money for that purpose than I’ll ever have. But the alternative is the present system which makes no sense at all unless you assume that the AP and its membership are objective. And that makes less than zero sense; anyone who claims actually to be objective (as opposed to claiming to try to be objective) forecloses the possibility that they are in fact even trying to be objective.

The first step in trying to be objective is to scrutinize the possibility that “where you stand depends on where you sit.” And if you assume that that isn’t true of yourself, your quest for approaching objectivity is over before it ever started. And thus it is with the AP and its membership, all members of a mutual society promoting the conceit that all members are “objective.”

Thus, the best we can hope for is free and independent - i.e., not “associated” - presses.


21 posted on 08/24/2015 12:37:21 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion ('Liberalism' is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: nikos1121
We need a tiger in the WH not a poodle.

Or a bichon frise like Linda.

22 posted on 08/24/2015 1:01:13 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: DaveyB

Trump is for the NSA data collection and wants Snowden punished harshly.

Trump says he’s pro-life with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother and would ask a Supreme Court nominee their view on the issue, but it not be a pure litmus test.

He isn’t for same-sex marriage but did attend a same-sex wedding. He didn’t elaborate on how this would affect his policies.

He said he would honor the Iran deal but enforce it very strictly to try to catch them in violation.

He wants the EPA and Department of Education to be reduced in power with power given back to the states.

He wouldn’t abolish the IRS but would simplify the tax code.

He is for women in the military if they can pass the standards but he would see how military leaders felt about things before making changes.

He let a transsexual into his Miss Universe beauty pageant a few years ago. At first he said he would be kicked out for falsifying his application then he backed down and let him compete.

He wants to repeal and replace Obamacare with...something. He does want insurance to be sold across state lines.


23 posted on 08/24/2015 2:14:18 PM PDT by JediJones (The #1 Must-see Filibuster of the Year: TEXAS TED AND THE CONSERVATIVE CRUZ-ADE)
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To: JediJones

Sowell is not a Trump fan because Trump is not a conservative.


24 posted on 08/24/2015 4:49:19 PM PDT by xjcsa (Ridiculing the ridiculous since the day I was born.)
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To: JediJones; xjcsa

Sowell explained it in other articles, but I didn’t want to post it because people would be trashing him right and left.


25 posted on 08/24/2015 6:54:01 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: JediJones
The short version of that is Trump is a loose cannon with no obvious core conservative convictions. When Trump fires he leaves big craters, which so far have been direct hits on the GOPe and Obama... But that could change at any moment...

Trump not long ago was talking about how we need to emulate the Canadian health care system and single payer... And how the US health system is killing us... Today he says “the free market” is the answer...

Those positions 100% diametrically apposed... You can't honestly hold both points of views.

This is what Trump had to say about Pam Geller: "I think Pam Geller is a terrible messenger. I think she’s terrible. We have enough problems without taunting and driving everybody crazy."

And: "They were totally unsympathetic. Now, you look at Muhammad and you look at some of the positions they have Muhammad and some people are going to get extremely upset about it. Now, I’m not the only one and I’m not the only Conservative Republican that feels this way. They’re lucky to be alive. Why with all the problems we have, why taunt?"

But Trump is somehow our new savior...

26 posted on 08/25/2015 12:48:25 AM PDT by DB
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To: Pirate Ragnar

“Ted Cruz has been fighting the Washington establishment with courage, guts, smarts and principles.”

Ted Cruz has weakness written all over his face. It is only because we have become a nation of pussies that people don’t see it.

Oh, he’s brave because he has talked? Bullcrap. Let’s see how he acts when there is lead in the air.


27 posted on 08/25/2015 8:02:34 AM PDT by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: virgil283
He is cautioning people against choosing style over substance. Seems we can never have both.

If he were the president and had the current GOP candidates as his cabinet, I believe we would have both. I just don't know if they could fit all those egos into the white house.

28 posted on 08/25/2015 8:08:40 AM PDT by oldbrowser (The kangaroos have taken over the supreme court.)
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To: DB

“Trump...Today...says “the free market” is the answer...You can’t honestly hold both points of views.”

No, but you can figure out that you were full of crap and change your point of view. It’s happened to me far too many times for my self-esteem to emerge unscarred.

When I was 20, I was wrong about everything. Down the decades I was forced to change my opinions on every important issue. Now I am among the most conservative of the conservative, and my convictions are no less sincere for having been born of experience rather than early training.

Trump will certainly have heard from many leftards that the Canadian system was good. He would probably have accepted that as the default position of all intelligent people.

Now he finds himself among people who are genuinely intelligent. I’ll bet that somebody showed him some actual figures after the Canadian Health Service comment, and he saw for himself what a disaster it is.

One might say that such a recent change of heart is not to be trusted; I do not argue against that. I don’t trust it very much myself.

However, it might just be a change of opinion based on a review of the facts.


29 posted on 08/25/2015 8:16:14 AM PDT by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: dsc
I hope that is based on the review of the facts but I suspect it is more based on what's politically expedient at the moment. It gives me some hope that he's consulting with Bolton, Forbes and Sessions. The question is will he listen and follow through when the going gets tough.
30 posted on 08/25/2015 12:04:25 PM PDT by DB
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To: DB

“The question is will he listen and follow through when the going gets tough.”

Yes, that is indeed the question. Regarding the other candidates, though, I’m pretty close to 99.9999999% sure that they would not follow through.

I might take a chance on Trump rather than letting the media choose the pubby candidate again.


31 posted on 08/25/2015 1:17:00 PM PDT by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: Parmy

That’s exactly what happened in 2008 and 2012.


32 posted on 09/01/2015 10:13:30 AM PDT by Cymbaline ("Allahu Akbar": Arabic for "Nothing To See Here" - Mark Steyn)
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