Posted on 02/19/2016 9:36:10 AM PST by RightSideNews
Joan Swirsky
I'm watching the fierce South Carolina primary contest among the six remaining candidates for POTUS and a few things strike me as astounding.
The first is that all the seasoned politicians on stage -Governors Bush and Kasich, Senators Cruz and Rubio--have been relegated to straggler status by the non-politician in the race, billionaire businessman Donald Trump. (Dr. Ben Carson, the other non-politician, is hanging in there but not lighting any fires).
Second is that only Mr. Trump is raising the biggest issues facing our country, among them:
Fourth is that he is saying out loud what most Americans have been thinking and feeling for almost eight years, specifically that as a result of our thunderously ineffective "leadership," we have utterly failed to destroy ISIS and the other Islamic terrorists who spend every waking hour figuring out how to obliterate America, which they call "the great Satan," and our staunchest ally, Israel, "the little Satan."
ISIS has about 50,000 adherents, maybe even 75,000. In one week, the American military could obliterate this murderous sect from the face of the earth. But Barack Obama seems to have a peculiar aversion to fighting the enemies of America, hence the rise of this homicidal cult and the escalating threat it poses to our country.
And fifth is the degree to which Mr. Trump is already negotiating with both domestic and foreign leaders. He is letting American politicians know that deals can and will be made but that all of them must benefit America! And he is telling the entire world that the vacation that overseas leaders have had from true American leadership will be over the very second he enters the Oval Office.
All the while, Mr. Trump's competitors and critics carp and whine about his "bluster," "naiveté," and "crudeness." Wasn't President Teddy Roosevelt accused of bluster? Wasn't President Ronald Reagan accused of being naive? Wasn't the liberals’ hero LBJ accused of crudeness? These are trifling criticisms, as are the accusations that Mr. Trump is "not a true conservative" and that in the past he was, gasp, a liberal. Well, we’ve given the self-described conservatives the entire House and Senate and they've failed us, so it's time to give a born-again conservative a chance!
Once in office, I have full confidence, Mr. Trump would glassify ISIS into oblivion, take the oil they've stolen and give it to the families who have been destroyed by these psychotics. He would overturn and replace Obamacare in record time, build an impenetrable wall in record time to keep out the swarms of illegals who, again, Mr. Obama seems fatally attracted to. He would get rid of a half-dozen or more bloated government departments, reduce the tax code to less than 25 pages, and overturn all the Executive Orders Mr. Obama has inflicted on the nation in his eagerness to bypass the U.S. Congress and spit on the U.S. Constitution. Most important, Mr. Trump would immediately build up our military and promptly reverse the preposterous, Obama-dictated Rules of Engagement (i.e., don’t shoot unless the other guy shoots first).
How do I know this? Because I come from a business background where people actually get things done! Where executive decisions are made decisively, political correctness is considered the silly indulgence of people with too much time on their hands, accountability is the order of the day, and outcomes are regularly measured to gauge success––all of which is the polar opposite of how our government works, which is why both Mr. Trump and the American people hold our government and its current leadership in such contempt.
Those who point to Mr. Trump's business failures purposely fail to mention the personal courage and financial risks it takes to pursue new, bold, entrepreneurial ventures, or the resilience it takes to weather failure, to rebound, and to go on to even greater heights. They also forget that a man who heads an incredibly successful organization with over 20,000 employees, who surrounds himself with talented experts, and who does business in dozens of countries (including Mexico, Canada, Mumbai, Philippines, Dubai, Turkey, Panama, et al) knows better than any of his rivals––in fact, better than any politician––how to run a complex bureaucracy, and a tight ship!
The political criticisms Mr. Trump has been receiving from the establishment wonks at National Review, Rupert-Murdoch’s puppets at Fox News, the hysterical and frenzied Republican National Committee, and leftists all over the place, are from people who operate in the rarefied and self-congratulatory realms of academia, the media, and of course Washington, D.C.–– including the politicians who go out for drinks every night with the lobbyists they depend on to support their reelection campaigns and pay them enough to live quite richly in retirement. In common parlance, they’re known as whores!
That same American public, through their earnest efforts, managed to elect a Republican-controlled Senate and House in the 2014 midterms, only to realize that the people they elected have caved in to every Marxist initiative of the Saul-Alinsky-driven regime in power. We’ll never know to what degree threats, intimidation, and bribes played in this craven capitulation, but Americans finally understand they’ve been betrayed––hence the overwhelming support for a candidate who is absolutely impervious to bribes, threats, and intimidation.
Track Record
I want the next POTUS to have an impressive track record of accomplishment, not simply a laundry list of rosy promises. Now that Mr. Trump has effectively quashed the rest of the competition and is ahead by double digits in the South Carolina primary contest to be held on Saturday, February 20th, he may just run the table. Unlike everyone else in the race, he has run a gigantic corporation with immense success, a business that has required him to deal with titanic problems.
As Steve Cuozzo has written in the New York Post, long before The Donald considered running for president, he had already helped save New York City by being “New York’s most important and bravest real-estate developer.â€
And Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka remarked recently to Breitbart, “From day one, my father set the agenda for what the whole party is talking about.â€
That is called Leadership!
I trust that Mr. Trump will come into office on Day One with the world’s biggest broom!
Appearance
I remember watching the JFK-Nixon debates in the presidential contest of 1960. It was the first presidential debate of the fledgling TV era and it had a profound effect on the entire country.
Previous televised hearings about organized crime were held by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) in 1950 (the year my family actually bought our first TV), and about the infiltration of Communists into our government and military (sound familiar?) held by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) in 1954.
JFK was a dashing and articulate Harvard graduate, and Nixon a sort of awkward, looking-for-the-right-word graduate of Whittier College, whose wife Pat was slim, blond and beautiful, as were his two young daughters. But who on earth could compete with Jackie, the breathy, willowy, gorgeous 30-year-old who had graduated from the tony Miss Porter’s School, Vassar College, and the Sorbonne, and had two adorable babies?
All the glamour of the Kennedys was featured in print by besotted newspaper editors across the country, and blared on TV by leftist anchors at the three networks that existed at the time: CBS, NBC, ABC. All of them, of course objectively, touted the always-intriguing ingredients of youth, glamour, sexiness, romance, scandal, and wealth of the "Camelot" couple. And guess who won the presidency?
However, it turned out that Kennedy, who had been in the Senate for seven years––longer than Obama, Cruz, or Rubio––was not as equipped as his rival Nixon would have been to deal with the Bay of Pigs invasion in April, 1961, which strengthened the position of the Communist Fidel Castro's leadership and his relationship with USSR, and the disastrous Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which was the closest the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war.
In that era, Kennedy's appearance proved to be just that, appearance.
Appearances still matter and certainly Mr. Trump and his family are amazingly glamorous, appealing, photogenic and wealthy. And his worldly business experience supersedes and eclipses that of his rivals by light years. Also, the billionaire mogul looks presidential! He's big, like America. He's bold, like our Founders. And he's masculine, not one of the sissified, metro-sexual men of today who have been cowed into tiptoeing through the tulips of political correctness, too afraid to say what they think for fear of offending the perpetually aggrieved, oh-so-sensitive, hothouse-flower special-interest groups among us.
Who can forget when right out of the gate, Mr. Trump said he would close the borders and ship all the illegal aliens back to where they came from, including anchor babies? When a self-important reporter told him that the “anchor baby†term was offensive, Mr. Trump said, "That's what I say, anchor babies." Slam dunk.
That is called Leadership!
Ideas
Barack Obama came into office intent on turning our country into his childlike utopian version of social-justice paradise, the better to cut down to size what he and his far-left cronies believe is the big, bad colonialist power known as the United States of America.
Using the Cloward-Piven strategy, outlined in 1966, to bankrupt the country through gargantuan expenditures, Obama increased welfare costs (through the importation of millions of illegal aliens), increased our debt to $19-going-on-$20-trillion, and financed a great number of phony-baloney schemes like Solyndra, which received a $536 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee in 2009 and then went broke in 2011. Ever wonder into whose now-bulging pockets all those millions went?
In contrast, Mr. Trump came on the scene and immediately said he would stop the tsunami of illegal aliens crossing our border by building a fence that Mexico would pay for! He then cited the Muslim jihadists and their carnage in San Bernardino and said he would immediately suspend all Muslims coming into this country until the U.S. Congress figured out what was going on.
That is called Leadership!
True Patriot
A Gallup poll of February 7th indicates quite persuasively that America is overwhelmingly conservative. The poll, wrote Bruce Walker in the American Thinker, reported that the number of states "in which conservatives outnumber liberals has been as low as 47 states and as high as 50 states. This ought to be a very big story, but Gallup, like nearly every other polling organization, tilts left ideologically."
That's exactly what people and pundits say about Mr. Trump, that he tilts left ideologically. So how can a rock-ribbed conservative like me possibly support him?
Simple! I gave birth to my first child when I was 18. Right there and then, practically when I was still lying on the delivery room table, I knew what my job was. It was not to give my beautiful little boy the most nutritious meals or the best education or a fancy home or the shiniest tricycle. It was to keep him safe! Without safety, everything else is moot. In fact, more than moot, non-existent! If you're not safe, nothing else matters.
And here comes Mr. Trump, a non-politician, who gets it, who deeply understands that if we don't close our borders and continue to let un-vetted aliens into our country, we are de facto not safe!
And how is the safety of our country secured? Only through the overwhelming strength of our military and local and national law enforcement agencies, which the current occupant of the Oval Office has systematically tried to decimate, right up to this month, when he issued an order––in keeping with his fetish about the hoax of global warming––that no military action can be taken without first assuring that no harm comes to the environment. Hard to believe, but true.
To compound the stupidity of this policy, consider that former CIA director, Michael Morrell recently admitted that concerns about contaminating the environment have prevented the White House from bombing oil wells that finance the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which Barack Obama calls ISIL, the "L" standing for Levant, an area that includes Israel. Translated: Obama––as we know by now–– considers Israel the enemy!
| Can you imagine a President Trump not bombing our enemies because of a few trees? As my fellow New Yorkers would say, gimme a break! |
Before he formally announced his candidacy in June 2015, Mr. Trump attended the Iowa Freedom Summit the previous January, where he received a standing ovation when he said that he could "make this country great again."
He said he believed that "any credible American foreign policy doctrine should be defined by at least seven core principles":
Don Fredrick, the creator of The Complete Obama Timeline, says that "the establishment is frightened to death that Trump will win…you can be certain that if an establishment candidate wins in November 2016, America loses."
Former Navy SEAL and writer Jim O'Neill says that "Trump is a true-blue patriot…" He cites Harlem Pastor James Manning who says that Trump speaks truth to power. Trump “knows full well that Big Business, Big Media, Big Banking, and Big Government are all in bed together," O'Neill adds, "and like no other major political figure that I can recall from my lifetime, he calls them on it. His love for the United States is obvious, deep-seated, and true."
As for me, I'm as conservative as it gets, but Conservatives have failed me and our country. I'm counting on Mr. Trump to fix what's been broken, to keep our country safe and employed and on the road back to a spectacular recovery!
Joan Swirsky is a New York based author and journalist. Her website is www.joanswirsky.com, and she can be reached at joanswirsky@gmail.com. Check out her latest book, The Caregiver's Survival Guide.
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I share your feelings WRT Kennedy’s social nonsense, but as to his economic policies, we would have collapsed soon without his tax cuts, and he did give his life because of them.
Reality can be tough when one is busting his ass to be partisan.
It’s because she has daddy issues
You are my role model.
Reagan was never a pro-abortion. The issue was much less polarizing in 1967 then it is today. He signed that bill thinking he could soften it since he was going to be vetoed.
After admitting to signing that bill being a mistake, he took up the mantle of life. Unlike Trump, Reagan never promoted abortion nor did he seek to support it. Trump did both, vigorously, especially partial birth.
The notion that Conservatives are looking for the perfect candidate is folly used by Trump supporters to deflect the fact that he's not conservative at all. You look for the candidate that promotes and believes in the principles of the cause. The perfect human does not exist.
You have identified one issue with Reagan upon which he changed his mind. Ok, this can be forgiven and if Trump had the same wake up then I would agree that it's human to evolve.
But with Trump it's not just abortion that he defended and promoted.......
Progressive taxes (still does) - one time wealth tax - Universal health care (still does) - Affirmative Action (still does) - eminent domain (still does) - assault weapons ban - no touching SS or Medicare (still does). To name some.
Trump can never be compared to Reagan on any level in any way, most importanly never on core principles.
No modern day Conservative has ever been a registered Democrat in favor of so many left wing causes as Trump.
Before June 2015 he was just another NY liberal. Now he's a “pragmatist."
But Conservative principles are not living and breathing. Either you believe in them with your core, or you find reasons why they don't quite fit for the sake of victory.
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin
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Keep on rolling in your own feces.
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It contains some great insights into Kennedy, who distrusted the older generation and especially the culture of the military (some of the descriptions remind me of Obama). He dismantled the national security apparatus he inherited from Eisenhower. This broke the chain of communication between JFK and the military. It played a major role in his Cuba fiasco, and also his Southeast Asia policy. He bungled Laos which set up Vietnam as the major point of conflict between the Soviet bloc and the West. Worth reading.
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Well stated!
Dittos.
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The US war effort in indo-china began in the mountains of Laos in about 1956.
For about half of 1955, a few hundred special ops men were trained in the languages of southeast asia at the Monterey linguistics school.
There was absolutely nothing dishonorable about any part of the military effort there, from beginning to end.
The pull-out is what was dishonorable.
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Yes, and there is no secret that he arranged the assassinations of Vietnamese leaders whom he did not like. He also backed the UN war against Katanga, which was one of the most vicious attacks on traditional values of the era. The man was utterly contemptible.
Is there a quote from Trump where he promotes abortion?
The best that the Washington Post could come up with to demonstrate Trump's change of position was this:
Abortion
Then: On "Meet The Press" in 1999, Trump said he was "very pro-choice." "I hate the concept of abortion," he said. "I hate it. I hate everything it stands for. ... but I just believe in choice."
Now: In an interview with Bloomberg Politics in January, Trump said, "I'm pro-life and I have been pro-life." He said he believed there should be exceptions in cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother.
“Yes, and there is no secret that he arranged the assassinations of Vietnamese leaders whom he did not like”
Absolutely. This is very little remembered in America, but Kennedy set in motion the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem, the first and only leader South Vietnam had known.
This set in motion years of chaos in the leadership of South Vietnam and helped push Lyndon Johnson into sending American combat troops into the country to keep it from falling apart.
Rusk & McNamara were not on our side; rather they were pursuing their own version of a Leftwing Revolutionary ethos, on a a global scale. I deal with this in the Chapters in the Conservative Debate Handbook on Foreign Policy & Democracy In The Third World.
No our career military were indeed honorable men. The Government under JFK & LBJ were not.
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What was far worse than SE Asia, was the capitulation to the UN massacre that was carried out by US and Canadian forces in Katanga.
Katanga was a solid democratic province of the Congo, and the backbone of the entire country.
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My question to you is why would you back a candidate who states he's “very pro-choice” yet hates abortion? That doesn't even make sense. Not to mention the fact that he wouldn't ban partial birth which is barbaric.
I gave you the life thing anyway. Fine, he had his coming to Jesus moment and is now on board. Good for him and good for us. But you cited Reagan here so on that comparison, it was easy to take it down.
He's not a Conservative. Maybe most of his supporters are not too and that's fine. Freewill. But we Conservatives know he's not and trying to compare him to Reagan to prove it just makes it look a bit off center.
Laos is addressed in McMaster’s book.
Kennedy’s willingness to accept a defacto partition of Laos, giving Communists allied with Ho Chi Minh control of the border with Vietnam, set up Vietnam as their next target. And one that would prove much harder to defend than Laos would have been, had Kennedy not suffered a failure of will.
This was one of Kennedy’s great failures as President. It set in motion the Vietnam War.
“There was absolutely nothing dishonorable about any part of the military effort there, from beginning to end. The pull-out is what was dishonorable.”
Nothing dishonorable, but it was doomed by the defensive, gradual, start and stop nature of Johnson’s strategy. Neither Johnson nor Nixon was willing to win the war by doing to North Vietnam what we had done to Tokyo and Berlin only twenty years earlier.
“My question to you is why would you back a candidate who states he’s “very pro-choice” yet hates abortion? “
Because that’s not his position now, is it?
That interview was 16 years ago. People change.
Reagan signed abortion into law 1 year before he first made a run for the nomination. 9 years before he challenged Ford for the nomination. 13 years before he was elected. This is 16 years.
LBJ used the Vietnam War to prop up the Stock Market. There is a 36 year cycle, in the Anglo American world—in Britain since 1821, in America at least since 1857. Note the crash sequence 1857, 1893, 1929! The market topped out at 1000 in December 1965, but LBJ being savvy and totally corrupt, deliberately masked the 1929 reprisal by inflating the money supply via “guns & butter,” at the same time. The hapless Jummy Carter paid the price for what followed in the late 1970s, which was only arrested by the ridiculously high interest rates engineered by Paul Volcker.
” and he did give his life because of them.”
So... Oswald’s motive was a secret love for high marginal tax rates? And not his open Communism?
There’s a number of cycle theories in economics. Kitchin cycle, Juglar cycle, Kuznets swing, and Kondratiev wave among them. They aren’t deterministic, much to the chagrin of many market timers. Johnson owes a good deal of the prosperity of his time to the Kennedy tax cuts, deficit spending, and Europe still rebuilding.
Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon failed to address the Triffin Dilemma and Nixon junking Bretton Woods gave us the inflation of the 70s. Nixon and Carter both employed price controls. Reagan wisely adopted the supply side ideas which Democrats Lloyd Benson and Russell Long had been toying with in the Carter years.
https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_07_3_roberts.pdf
Agreed it was some time ago..........but who can pinpoint when he changed? Doesn’t matter, he did. Just found it odd that he would not oppose partial birth abortion but says he hates abortion. Reeks of political expediency.
But.....this is the one issue I’ll relent to you on. The others are all in doubt as to where he stood, stands, will stand.
As I said, no true Conservative has been on the other side of so many principles as Trump. Hence why he’s not one.
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