Free Republic

“Just saw photos of boxes of documents taken from WH stored in a bathroom at Mar Lago. Seriously. How stupid.”

Not unlike housing a server in a bathroom.

“There wont be a next Republican POTUS, the left will make sure they keep power forever..this will be a one party Govt rule country”

If there is another Republican president that president will not waste any political capital on a Trump pardon, much less addressing the illegal activities of the federal bureaucracy. Most members of the Republican establishment hate Trump and despise MAGA populist voters.

“Trusty was on Fox and was very forceful in attacking the indictment. Will we ever know the full story about his resignation? Maybe he is being threatened by the special counsel.”

More likely his other clients threatened to leave and it was made clear he would have great difficulty securing new clients as long as he was associated with Trump.

“Romney is very much like a Democrat—always wrong.”

Romney was governor of Massachusetts, a very liberal state in which politics are dominated by Democrats. The fact he was elected governor was strong evidence he was not a conservative. Yet GOP primary voters and insiders made him the nominee in 2012.

When Romney became the GOP nominee in 2012 he made it clear he wanted no part of the Tea Party movement that have given the GOP a House majority in 2010. Despite his dissing of the conservative Tea Party movement, millions of conservative Republican voters supported him at the ballot box.

In 2018 Romney ran for Senator from Utah. He won the GOP primary with 71% of the vote and then won the general election. The people of Utah will have a chance to revisit that decision in 2024.

“Thats because McConnell and Thune are Deep State”

Most GOP senators are politicians who give lip service to being conservatives in order to obtain votes. In reality they are servants for corporate interests and wealthy donors. As the executives at big corporations, and wealthy donors, become more woke GOP Senators have followed the money. Likely 3/4 or more of Republican Senators would like for Trump to be convicted and put in prison for the rest of his life. What this does to the country is secondary to serving their wealthy patrons and using insider information to increase personal wealth.

Other than Rand Paul, and occasionally John Kennedy there is little outrage expressed by Republican Senators at the assault on the social fabric of this nation and the attacks on the bill of rights.

The timing of the attorneys quitting is not good. Perhaps they fear continuing to represent Trump will result in loss of clients today and in the future.

“I wonder, who is paying Christy’s 40 pieces of silver?”

In this era of instant digital communication, campaign finance laws should require names of donors and amounts given to be posted on the internet instantly for voters to see when the donation is received. This posting should occur on the campaign’s website as well as the Federal Election Committee website.

Additionally, all non profits giving monetary and non-monetary (say volunteers for canvassing) contributions to any political campaigns should be required to provide a detailed list of all of their donors, with amounts, for a 10 year period.

Voters should know who owns candidates. With today’s technology, the data should easy and instantaneously available to query and should be updated in the moment.

The leftist who talk constantly about saving “our democracy” should support full transparency and this would be a good issue for conservatives to use to heighten awareness of their hypocrisy since we know the last thing they want is transparency. Unfortunately our GOP politicians don’t want transparency, or accountability. Therefore you will never see transparency of campaign donations.

“Bud Light should continue to suffer the consequences of its actions, and so should Brooks.”

Points of distribution are costly for a manufacturer to maintain, particularly when sales are falling. Suppliers in many product categories pay “slotting” allowances to essentially “rent” facings on the store shelf. As unit sales decline stores will reduce the facings for the declining product or demand significantly higher slotting allowances to maintain the number of facings. The number of facings in a store is a proxy for the strength of the brand.

No doubt major retail chains are being courted aggressively by Bud Light competitors with lucrative offers to obtain some of Bud Light’s facings. The same retail chains are demanding higher promotional funds and slotting allowances from AB to maintain the space. Each week Bud Light sales drop 25% the battle for its shelf space intensifies. If the boycott continues, and gains new supporters, the economic squeeze will become unbearable. Competition in free markets is a wonderful thing.

“There is no risk to them or their operatives...we won’t fight...we won’t even protest. They KNOW that they have whipped us.”

This was the lesson of January 6. If you resist, you will be punished severely, without due process, and no one will defend your liberty.

“The people will never support Ryan Binkley, Doug Burgum, Larry Elder, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Perry Johnson, Vivek Ramaswamy or Ron DeSantis.”

I have come to the conclusion the GOP elites prefer losing the White House in 2024 to winning it with Trump as the candidate. Therefore I suspect Asa Hutchison is telegraphing the play we are going to see unfold. When Trump is indicted by a federal prosecutor, the RNC will meet and determine anyone under federal indictment cannot participate in Republican primaries or be nominated as the GOP candidate for POTUS. They may even take the step of formally removing him from the party.

Once Trump is gone from the Republican field it will be a free for all to earn the nomination. That’s why we see so many announced contenders for the GOP nomination. They know the fix is in and Trump will not be the candidate.

As for Trump he can decide to sue the RNC in Federal courts which probably will refuse to hear the case or rule against him. He can also choose to run on a third party ticket. He will have every leftist social justice group, as well as both the DNC and RNC doing everything they can to keep him off the ballot in enough states to prevent him from receiving an Electoral College majority. Likely states will pass laws prohibiting convicted felons from running for office until their sentences are complete. The political uniparty establishment will freeze him out.

On Election Day MAGA voters will have the choice of staying home, thereby ensuring a Democrat landslide for POTUS, both houses of Congress, many governorships, and many state legislatures. With command of the federal government, and possibly 3/4 of the states, the Dems will be in a position to quickly call a convention of states, and rewrite the Constitution.

The alternative for conservative voters will be voting for Trump in the few states where he is on the ballot, knowing he cannot win in the Electoral College, and then supporting GOP candidates in other elections in order to keep Democrats from having supermajorities in Congress and the state legislatures. In that case, the GOP establishment gets what they want. Trump gone forever from politics and most likely sent to prison by a federal court in DC or a state court in New York (Bragg) or Georgia. Plus they will have effectively destroyed the MAGA movement. No other politician on the scene has the personal wealth, drive, and public appeal of Trump to lead the populist MAGA movement. If Conservatives go to the polls, after Trump has been shafted, and vote for RINO candidates in the races below POTUS, the RINO’s will once again have manipulated conservatives into voting for the perceive lesser of two evils instead of candidates representing their interests.

American history shows that every populist movement dies and is coopted by the existing political parties. Asa Hutchison is telling us how they are doing it.

“What goes around comes around.”

Really? When did the Republicans in power turn the full force of the DOJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, and IRS on a former Democrat president? During my lifetime I’ve seen Richard Nixon hounded into resignation and only saved from prosecution by President Ford’s blanket pardon. I’m now seeing Trump spied on by federal agencies as well as hounded by federal, state, and local prosecutors.

While the House of Representatives rightly impeached Bill Clinton for a federal crime (perjury), the Republican Senate would not convict. Should the GOP House impeach Joe Biden, I can’t see Republican Senators voting in mass to convict him even if the evidence of bribery and influence peddling is overwhelming.

How many leftist dictatorial judges have been impeached by a Republican House of Representatives? Zero. Remember Eric Holder and Lois Lerner. The Republicans did nothing to them. Which Republicans are demanding criminal trials for James Comey, Robert Mueller, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok?

Remember, Republican Senators elected and reelected Mitch McConnell as their leader. Mitch has no desire or intention to go after any Democrat politician for any crime. In fact, if the Dems put Trump in jail Mitch, along with at least half of the Republican Senators, will be happy.

It only comes around if the aggrieved party wants to take action.

“He needed to have cleaned house at the beginning.”

You are 100% correct. I’ve seen new leaders walk in the door, take charge and clean house within 30 days. The organization that emerges is leaner and committed to the new program.

I’ve also lived through the long, drawn out agony Friday firings spread out over many months. In those cases the organization freezes. People fear for loss of their jobs and fear making recommendations or taking any risk. Decision making stalls and people focus on survival, not the welfare of the company.

CNN’s ratings are in last place after having invented and led the 24/7 cable news business for decades. Time Warner needs to find a strong visionary leader and empower that leader to totally reshape the network from content to people. With Fox moving left the “center right” positioning is wide open. There is also a strong consumer demand for straight objective news reporting, something which currently doesn’t exist in the 24/7 news channels.

Perhaps Licht wasn’t truly empowered by Time Warner so he took the cautious approach. Perhaps Time Warner executives want the network to remain progressive. If so, anyone taking the job is likely doomed.

One thing that is for certain. A committee cannot manage either a turnaround, or the stewardship of an organization facing a crisis. Clear lines of decision making and full accountability must be in place to manage an effective turnaround.

“Chris Christie recommended Christopher Wray as FBI director.”

Donald Trump appointed Chris Christie, during the 2016 campaign, to be his transition director. The federal government gives both major party candidates several million dollars to create a transition team during the final months of the campaign so they can begin the process of identifying, vetting and securing commitments from individuals to be appointed by a new President for key positions in the administration. If the transition team does its job, the day after the election the shadow administration is identified and ready to take office in January. Nominations requiring Senate approved can be forwarded, and approved, before Inauguration Day in January. The new administration will be ready to govern on day 1.

Christie completely failed in the transition director role. Whether intentional sabotage, laziness, or he just didn’t believe Trump would win, on the day after Election Day there was no administration in waiting. Trump had to scramble finding candidates for cabinet jobs and other positions in the executive branch, after firing Christie. On Election Day he was forced to start work with hundreds of Obama holdovers in place, a situation that persisted for months. In addition, he experienced a number of failures with his original cabinet and high level appointees, some of which he reportedly did not know and only spent an hour interviewing.

If the American media was truly independent and non-partisan, Christie would be getting hammered daily by reporters asking how he is qualified to be president when he utterly failed Trump as transition director. A follow up question might be why he accepted the job as transition director when he obviously loathes Trump.

Christie though has nothing to fear from the media as long as he remains highly critical of Trump. Sadly for Trump, Christie was one of a long list of poor appointments. If Trump had named a truly outstanding professional to the transition job, he would have started his administration without having to use Obama holdovers and would have put people in place fully vetted and committed to his MAGA program.

“Whatever happened to Microsoft’s HoloLense which was at least a decade ahead of this and Meta?”

I don’t know. The history of technology adaptation is often determined by marketing and product development. Apple usually has superior marketing. It seems to define itself more as a consumer products company than a technology company. Some of its messaging and advertising has been pure genius.

Microsoft is clearly a technology company and likely views business oriented products as more important than consumer products.

Meta, is a social media platform so it is consumer oriented. However its expertise is in providing a platform for consumer communication, not as a producer of hardware for consumers.

I thought Apple’s launch presentation was brilliant in that it demonstrated the integration of its vision product with its other products — highlighting the integrated Apple ecosystem. Microsoft has an ecosystem of products but does a poor job of integrating it in the mind of the consumer. I’m not aware of Meta’s messaging, I just don’t follow the tech industry as closely as I once did.

An integrated system of products is a more powerful consumer proposition than one off products. Ultimately the success of a product may be due more to how it is marketed than purely technological superiority. Remember Betamax versus VHS in video recording? Sony’s exclusive Betamax delivered superior video quality. VHS was sold by a number of manufacturers and was advertised as providing longer recording time. VHS ultimately obliterated Betamax. Superior technology lost to what consumers apparently wanted — acceptable video quality and long recording time.

“ They have priced it such that it’s the sum of all other Apple devices you were going to potentially own and then some.”.

The history of technology is first generation products are extremely expensive. Over time features and capabilities increase dramatically as competition emerges and prices fall. Consider the cost and features of of the first flat panel televisions compared to televisions today. The same for personal computers. Or cell phones. We are seeing the same trend in home security cameras.

Apple is not obsoleting its existing business today. It is introducing new technology which will evolve as early adopters explore its potential and develop new uses for it. Over time the product will die from lack of adoption (remember Apple’s Newton) or it will evolve in ways we cannot imagine today and drop in price. If it evolves, ten years from now the just introduced headset will probably look like the “brick” bag carphones of the 1980’s compared to today’s latest iPhone. In ten years the large goggles may be gone and the product look like a pair of eyeglasses. Fifty years from today the technology may be driven by a chip implanted in ones head and wired directly into the brain. Would it then enable the blind to see and the deaf to hear?

I won’t be an early adopter. However in ten years if the product has evolved into AR super eyeglasses for $1000 I might be a customer. Meanwhile I will continue using my MacBook, iPhone, and Apple watch.

“Aside from its whopping $3499 price, the Vision Pro does something absolutely unique, in that it replaces every single other Apple device. “

Better to lead the technological revolution, and obsolete your existing products, than fail to innovate and be crushed by new competitors bringing the new technology to market.

“That’s not science.”

My remark was meant to be sarcasm. I’m well aware of biology as it was taught 50 years ago. Unfortunately “scientists” today ignore real science as we see in gender “selection”, vaccines, and climate change.

” If it were to happen most will hitch there wagons to DeSantis.”

If Trump or DeSantis isn’t the nominee, will the GOP conservative voter base even show up for the 2024 general election to cast a ballot for Christie, Hutcheson, Pence, Haley, Scott, or anyone else? It is conceivable the base is so fed up with milk toast candidates a RINO GOP nominee will be crushed in a landslide by anyone the Dems run. It is hard to believe any of these candidate perceive they can motivate conservatives to vote.

“RFK Jr. is a great what-if candidate for the Democrats.”

If RFK Jr. gets the Bernie Sanders treatment by the DNC and Biden, he might decide to run 3rd party. As a third party candidate, if he hit Ross Perot’s 19% in the general election he would almost certainly ensure election of the GOP candidate. Even if he wins only 5% in the general, it might be enough to keep NC red and swing PA, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire and Michigan red. Colorado and Minnesota might also come into play.

“Real in what way?”

Trust the science. Have some hormone treatments, some irreversible surgery, and adopt a few pronouns. In 2023 USA you can be anything you want to be.