Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina really puzzles me. In 2010, she ran for the United States Senate in California, and I was hoping she would win, along with gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, but California has just become too “blue” to elect Republicans these days. (Arnold Schwarzenegger was an exception, but he was running in a field of over 100 candidates, and he was the best known, while the opposition was split.) Last year she decided to run for the 2016 Republican nomination for the Presidency, and though she was hardly my first choice, she was easily the best-qualified among the three that had no Governmental experience, so I was rather favorably inclined toward her. But I never anticipated the turn she has taken now.

When she withdrew from the race, it made sense because her polls were so low after an initial upward swing, but it troubled me to see her backing Ted Cruz. Still, I figured she was simply assuming that Cruz and Donald Trump were the only viable candidates, and she obviously did not like Trump. When subsequently she revealed that she had voted for Cruz even though her name was on the Virginia primary ballot, I cringed a bit, because at the time Virginia had its primary, there were others, such as Marco Rubio, who were still considered viable candidates.

And now she has accepted the role of vice-presidential candidate on the Cruz ticket. I never would have thought she'd be all in for Cruz to this extent. I'm obviously disappointed in Fiorina, and while previously I'd have thought she had a good political future (perhaps, now that she lives in Virginia, she could win a seat in the Senate), I've lot a lot of respect for her.

Donald Trump really won big

I am not very happy with Tuesday's results, and I'm getting more and more resigned to Donald Trump's nomination. If he does get the nomination, I'll hold my nose and vote for him in November, of course. The two main reasons are:

1. He's a clown and proposes all sorts of outrageous things, but we do have a Constitution, and most of his outrageous proposals will never happen, either because Congress will never pass such legislation for him to sign, or because the courts will knock them down, and

2. Hillary Clinton may be the most competent person running (assuming it's Trump against her!) but she wants to take this country in the wrong direction and she might actually succeed because she is so skilled. I'd rather take a Trump who might take us in unknown directions than a Clinton that I know will lead us in a bad direction.

So if it's Trump vs. Clinton, I'll vote for Trump, not very enthusiastically, but as the lesser of two evils. And if it's still possible to nominate someone else (as long as it isn't Ted Cruz!) I'll be a lot happier to vote the Republican line. (However, as I said in an earlier post, if Cruz is the nominee, my vote will go to the Libertarian or another minor party candidate!)

Ted Cruz, the one Republican I cannot ever support

Ted Cruz has stated he was “a Christian first, American second…” A surrogate of his, Pastor Mike Gonzalez, has said, and this was never denied by Cruz,

Well, the reality is that this idea of the separation of church and state is a myth. I mean, you bring your faith into the marketplace like you do anything else. So Ted Cruz is a — will be a president, not just, you know who is a preacher and pastor in the White House. That’s not the idea. I believe all Americans can rally around Ted Cruz because he upholds the Constitution. I believe all Americans want to truly uphold the law.

Well, I have a different idea of what the Constitution says; it was expressed in this blog in a post entitled “On reading the Constitution,” dated December 2, 2010, and one entitled “Separation of church and state,” dated December 28, 2010. It is clear that on this issue, Sen. Cruz and I are diametrically opposed.

So while I have supported every Republican candidate for the Presidency for nearly 50 years, if Cruz is the nominee, I will vote for someone else, probably the Libertarian.

Bathroom bills, showers, and “gender identity”

There are really two different aspects to the quarrel we see between the sponsors of “bathroom bills” and so-called “transgender” individuals. There is actually a difference between bathrooms and showers: it is hard to enforce a “bathroom bill” on people simply entering a bathroom — are we going to have police examining everyone's genitalia as they enter? I can't imagine anyone, whether “transgender” or not, putting up with such an examination. On the other hand, in a shower, where everyone gets naked, the true sex of an individual becomes obvious. And what of dressing rooms, where everyone is naked at one point in the process of getting dressed or undressed?

When I was in high school, and again when I was in college, the physical education program required a year of swimming, which was done in the nude. I don't know whether nude swimming classes have everywhere been abolished, but even if they have, the students have to get dressed and undressed; you do not swim in street clothes. And usually students are expected to shower in a communal place. It is things like this that give me pause when “transgender” individuals want to be able to use the facilities of the sex opposite to their real sex. What is fair to all involved in such cases?

Two days till Primary Day…

…and as long as I can make it to the polls, I'll be voting for John Kasich. The polls all say that Donald Trump will win the state, but there seems to be some Kasich support in this district, and I'm hoping it shows that Kasich will win some delegates in the districts near Washington, D. C. (including the one I'm in). At least two of the candidates for my district seat in Congress on the Republican side have openly expressed their support for Kasich (one for Ted Cruz, and two haven't expressed support for anyone that I've seen), and this may be a sign.

Statewide, as I said, Trump will win it, but the polls differ on whether Kasich or Cruz will take 2nd place. I've seen recent poll results both ways.
Probably more eyes will be on Pennsylvania than Maryland, though. And That's probably justified because it's a bigger state. We'll be seeing results for a lot of the Northeast, though: from Rhode Island down to here, except for New York, which voted last week, every one of the Atlantic coastal states votes this Tuesday. It's going to be interesting!

I wonder how they got me

I've been receiving a lot of e-mails from everyone ranging from John Kasich to Paul Ryan (presumably from their staffs; I doubt that any of these people acrtually sent out the e-mails personally!) asking for contributions. And while, if I had money to spare, I might give to some of them — certainly to Kasich — I definitely do not have the money. But one source of e-mails surprises me: Ted Cruz. I get e-mails like one that begins, “Bruce, You are a key supporter. Your support has allowed us to take on the Washington Cartel and win. …” I wonder how I was tabbed as a Cruz supporter. I'm certainly anything but! While I have voted for the Republican nominee in every Presidential election for almost 50 years, a Cruz nomination would drive me to vote Libertarian! I wish I could write back to the actual people who send out those e-mails, and tell them that I think Ted Cruz is the worst possible choice for a nominee.

I wish I could believe it!

There is a post I read yesterday, dated a week ago but first coming to my attention yesterday evening, by Seth Abramson on the Huffington Post site, with the title “John Kasich Will Be the Republican Nominee for President.” I really wish I could believe things will play out that way. It would cap a crazy primary election season with the best outcome I could possibly imagine: a Republican ticket that I could enthusiastically support.

The major premise of Abramson's post is that:

Donald Trump needs 1,237 delegates to win on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, and not only will he not get to that figure prior to the Convention — he’d need to win well over 50 percent of the remaining delegates to do so, and even during his current run as front-runner he’s only won 46 percent of delegates — he won’t even get close enough to that mark to pass it via uncommitted delegates at the Convention.

Ted Cruz and John Kasich staying in the race through Cleveland not only will ensure that Trump can’t get close to 1,237 delegates via primary and caucus votes, it will also ensure that both men have a reasonable delegate total by the time they arrive at the Convention — more than enough to keep both of them in the picture in the view of Convention delegates.

So far I think he is right. There is a good chance, even a likelihood, that the first ballot in Cleveland will sho no majority for either Trump or Cruz. However, in his next point he strays into unpredictable territory; whether it will come about is unclear to me:

Republican Party elders have more than enough clout to make sure that “Rule 40(b)” gets changed prior to or at the Convention, thereby enabling Republicans like John Kasich who haven’t won a majority of delegates in eight states to nevertheless be considered for the nomination.

I hope so; it is very important that that rule be changed, and I think the probability of this happening is high enough that I cannot be certain whether it comes about. Certainly, without the change in the rules, Trump gets the nomination, even if Cruz is the one pushing hardest to keep the rule.

The next two points are crucial, and I devoutly hope Abramson is right:

After the first ballot in Cleveland — during which no candidate will have the require[d] delegates for nomination — most of the delegates will be free to vote for whomever they wish, and while Ted Cruz has craftily planted his supporters in many delegations, it’s not nearly enough to get him to 1,237 delegates on the second ballot.

Whereas Ted Cruz is loathed by the Republican Party elite, has lost to Hillary Clinton in head-to-head polls 55 percent of the time since November 2015, and has no actual accomplishments in government to point to, John Kasich hasn’t lost a single head-to-head poll to Hillary Clinton in 2016, is broadly if imperfectly acceptable to both Party elites and movement conservatives, and is far and away the most accomplished Republican primary candidate left.

If “electability” were what mattered most, the second of these would be very important. Will it? Most certainly Kasich is hoping so. It's also what I really wish would happen. I think that last point is the key to Abrahamson's argument. But the next point is equally critical:

Marco Rubio has deliberately held onto his 172 delegates so that he can create a unity ticket with John Kasich in Cleveland — a ticket that will begin with somewhere between 350 and 600 delegates on the first ballot at the Convention, depending upon how many delegates John Kasich wins going forward.

Has Rubio held onto his delegates “so that he can create a unity ticket with John Kasich in Cleveland”? I can't read Rubio's mind. He certainly has a plan to be an influence on the result. So Abrahamson's next point is a given:

Rubio is certain not to give his delegates away for free, nor to give them to his arch-enemies Cruz or Trump, nor to — as some suppose — merely fade into the background when he was and remains among the most ambitious politicians in the Republican Party.

And the next point is also certainly true:

A Kasich/Rubio ticket would appeal to both mainstream Republicans (Kasich) and Tea Partiers (Rubio), to both white and Latino voters, to younger voters who want to see someone relatively young on the ticket, to those looking for a ticket whose members run the gamut from executive to legislative experience at both the state and federal levels, and to those who believe all members of a presidential ticket should hail from a major battleground state.

Yes, a Kasich/Rubio ticket would be acceptable to many Republicans and to people who might be persuaded to vote Republican in November. It would be more than merely acceptable to me: John Kasich started off as one of my two favorite candidates, and ever since Chris Christie dropped out has been my #1 choice; Marco Rubio was originally the person I thought would be the Presidential nominee, and one I would not have any qualms about supporting if he had been nominated. The question is not whether Kasich/Rubio would be a good ticket; it is one which I have already said I would support with enthusiasm. The question is whether all these pieces of the jigsaw puzzle which Abrahamson has put on the table will actually fit together to produce a Kasich/Rubio ticket in reality.

I hope so. I wish I could believe it will happen that way. Nothing could happen at Cleveland that would make me happier.

The primary in just over two weeks

In two weeks and a day, the state of Maryland will hold its primary elections. I have said that the only way I could vote for Donald Trump in the primary was if it looked like the only way to stop Ted Cruz. But all the polls show that in this state, Cruz is a distant third. So I can safely vote for my true first choice: John Kasich. And that is the way I will vote on the 26^th. And anyone else in this state that reads my blog, please do the same.

I don't “get” transgender!

A few years ago, in this state (Maryland) there was a referendum on permitting gay marriage. At one point I signed a petition in favor of marriage equality, and as a result I was put on the e-mail mailing list of Marylanders for Marriage Equality, and ultimately on the mailing list of their affiliate, the Human Rights Campaign. Since I agree with a lot of what HRC stands for, I have no problem with that, although HRC's strong advocacy of Democratic Party candidates leaves me behind; there are other issues, more important to me than gay rights, which keep me on the Republican side in most elections.

Lately I have been receiving e-mail from HRC about the recent laws passed in Mississippi and North Carolina curtailing gay rights, and most of what HRC says makes sense. But in one way, I agree with what these states have done, and that part of the laws would meet with my approval if I were a legislator or executive involved with a state lawmaking process.

The laws state that a person must use the bathroom appropriate for the gender named on his/her birth certificate. I see nothing wrong with such a provision. I really do not understand why a person who is biologically male can call himself a woman, or one who is biologically female can call herself a man. In other words, I cannot understand transgender.

Bruce Jenner has fathered a child, so he is unquestionably a male, regardless of whether he dresses in drag or chooses to call himself “Caitlyn.” And in general the real test of someone's gender comes down to one thing: Is there a Y chromosome in his/her genome? (I deliberately use that rather than a test of the number of X chromosomes, because it is a known fact that people with unusual genetic makeup like one X and no other sex chromosome, or XXY, are biologically whatever sex the presence or absence of a Y chromosome determines. See the article on Klinefelter's syndrome, for example.) Apparently Bruce Jenner and his ilk have some new definition of “female” or “woman,” which allows them to claim they are; I would love to see that definition.

If Bruce Jenner dresses up in female attire, he is just a man in drag. If some day he has his male parts surgically removed, he will still be only a castrated male. This does not mean he cannot do these things; only that he can never become truly female.

And what does a man who likes to pretend he is a woman gain by being considered one? He does not gain the opportunity to marry a man; he already has that right, via the Windsor decision. He does not gain any other right that women have, either. Unless, of course, you count the right to use the ladies' restroom in those states that have not passed bills like the one to which I am referring.

Some men are attracted to men rather than women, and some women to women rather than men. (And some men and women are attracted to both!) Allowing them to marry the partner of their choice does not hurt anyone. Certainly, it does not prevent straight people from marrying their opposite-sex partners. So marriage equality is a reasonable thing. Anti-discrimination laws are also good things, as nobody should be treated unfairly just because of whom he/she loves. But there is a real danger that someone might claim to be transgender, just to get a free peek at the opposite sex. (In my younger days, I had an immense curiosity as to what a female body looked like!) While if a “transgender boy” (who is really a girl) is forced to use the ladies' restroom, or a “transgender girl” (who is really a boy) is forced to use the men's restroom, they only get to see bodies like their own!

“I'm a Christian first”

Ted Cruz has been quoted as saying: “I'm a Christian first, American second, conservative third and Republican fourth.” Is this what we want for the Presidency? I think not.

Perhaps a clergyman, whose job is to serve God, should be “a Christian (or whatever religion he is) first.” But I think a President, whose job is to guide the country, has to be an American first.

While I don't like Donald Trump, I'd still take him over Cruz. My first choice is still John Kasich. But if, as Cruz has said, A vote for John Kasich … is a vote for Donald Trump, I say, “So be it.” I'd rather see Trump nominated than Cruz.

Whatever happens, I cannot support Ted Cruz

There are some signs that people who want to thwart Donald Trump's nomination as Republican candidate are coalescing around Ted Cruz. I am quite appalled at this. If Cruz is the nominee, for the first time in over 50 years I could not vote for the Republican candidate for the Presidency. It is clear. Ted Cruz is a religious fanatic, whose view of the Constitution is so far from mine, I could not vote for him. When I read things like

When Cruz says he wants to “reclaim” or “restore” America, he does not only have the Obama administration in mind. This agenda takes him much deeper into the American past. Cruz wants to “restore” the United States to what he believes is its original identity: a Christian nation.

it makes me shudder. This is not my America. I see our country as a pluralistic nation, one which may have a majority of its citizens Christians, but one equally open to all religions, which means the Government should be totally secular.

If it happens that I am forced to choose between Trump and Cruz, I will go with Trump. And if Cruz gets the nomination, though I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton, I will not vote for Cruz in November either. My vote will go to a third-party candidate: which one depends on who will be on the Maryland ballot.

John Kasich for President

The results are in on yesterday's primaries. Marco Rubio, who was the man I expected to be the eventual nominee, did so poorly in his home state of Florida that he quit the race for the Presidency. But John Kasich won Ohio. He won it big. The most recent polls showed him narrowly defeating Donald Trump in Ohio, with the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls showing a 39% to 35% margin. The actual results were 47% to 36%.

I had been withholding an endorsenment, though ever since Chris Christie withdrew, those who read this blog knew that Kasich was my favorite, only because Rubio was still an acceptable choice, and if I thought he was more likely to beat Trump and Ted Cruz, and Kasich did not, I wanted a chance to endorse him. But now the race is down to three men:

1. Donald Trump, an inexperienced-at-politics man whose knowledge of the Constitution is flawed and whose manner is decidedly un-Presidential,
2. Ted Cruz, a religious fanatic whose accession to the Presidency would really hurt our First Amendment rights, and
3. John Kasich, who has been such an outstanding Governor of Ohio that his popularity there, where they know him best, is immense.

With the above characterizations, it is clear that Kasich warrants my support. If it ever comes down to Trump vs. Cruz, I'd take Trump (unlike my wife, who has such a visceral dislike of Trump that she would certainly vote for any Democrat — even socialist Bernard Sanders, though she does not approve of his socialistic politics — to defeat him). But as long as Kasich is in the running, I have to say he is the best choice.

Rally around Cruz? Never!

An article on the Chicago Tribune website entitled “To stop Trump, GOP establishment must rally around Cruz.” The author, John Kass, claims that the only way for the establishment to stop Donald Trump is to back Cruz. And to me, generally supportive of the establishment, this article s plain and simple anathema. The fact is that Cruz represents everything bad within the Republican party. He is simply a bigot, far more than Trump. Note that John Fea of Religion News Service says:

Cruz wants to “restore” the United States to what he believes is its original identity: a Christian nation.

Fea's article is worth reading. And it points out that Cruz' attitude is disavowed even by many “evangelical Christians.” As a non-Christian myself, I believe that the vision of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others of a nation with a total separation of church and state is the correct one. And no matter what else may be a point of agreement between myself and Ted Cruz, I cannot support him. He wants this to be a Christian nation, and that is not a nation in which I can live. I will even support Trump, if it is the only way to deprive Ted Cruz of the nomination.

Another case of strange bedfellows

Another candidate that I liked and respected has endorsed someone surprising. I was surprised to see Chris Christie, who was one of my two favorites for the 2016 nomination, endorse Donald Trump a few days ago. Now Carly Fiorina, who was not among my top favorites but who I liked enough to count her as someone I could happily endorse if she won the nomination, has endorsed someone I dislike more than Trump: Ted Cruz.

I think in each case the former candidates saw the likely matchup as a Trump-vs.-Cruz competition and endorsed the one they disliked least. Christie (who once was asked his beliefs on evolution and responded “That’s none of your business”) obviously agrees with me that religious beliefs should not override the Constitutional ban on establishment, and like me, he is trying to avoid a Cruz presidency. Fiorina, in her statement endorsing Cruz, said she was horrified by Trump. And she obviously sees Cruz as the best hope to beat him.

As for me, I'm more horrified by Cruz. Sorry, Carly. I like a lot about you, but between Cruz and Trump, I'll hold my nose and choose Trump.

In a Trump vs. Clinton election, the vote will be strange

I'd heard before of well-known Republicans who might vote for Hillary Clinton rather than see Donald Trump in the Presidency, and others, like Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who might go for a third-party candidate. Now along comes former Senator Jim Webb, who considered himself enough of a Democrat that he entered the competition for that party's nomination, who looks to be headed the opposite way.

This November may see some strange voting patterns.

Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump?

I got a surprise today. One of the two candidates I considered my favorite at the start of this campaign, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who withdrew after the New Hampshire primary, gave his support to Donald Trump.

I guess, on the issues, they are not far apart. When I did a CNN questionnaire a while ago, it showed Christie #2 and Trump #3 in closeness to me. But Trump is someone without any governing experience (something I would think Christie would consider important), and he really turns off a lot of people. (Of course, Christie turns off a lot of people too, but not in quite the same way.) It's not a development I expected — I figured if anyone would get Christie's endorsement, it would be another governor, John Kasich.

Which should drop out? Kasich or Rubio?

I had lately been thinking that even though I preferred John Kasich to Marco Rubio as a candidate, the best thing for the Republican Party this year would be for Kasich to drop out and let the reasonable people in the Republican Party coalesce around Rubio to prevent Donald Trump, or even worse, Ted Cruz, from gaining the nomination. But I saw a post yesterday by Tom Bevan entitled “The Case for Kasich Staying In” which makes a case for the reverse, and I quote it in full:

Admittedly, 2016 is a year in which the electorate—especially the rebellious voters who have turned the GOP primary season upside down—aren’t putting a premium on political experience. But of the five Republican candidates left in the field, there's one person who has the traditional résumé indicative of a president of the United States.

That would be 63-year-old John Richard Kasich of Ohio. He’s a pro-life conservative who emphasizes the working poor. He’s a fiscal conservative who helped maneuver President Bill Clinton into balancing the federal books in the 1990s budget wars. He is also, not to put too fine a point on it, governor of a big Midwestern state with a significant distinction: No Republican has ever ascended to the White House without carrying Ohio.

And the Republican “establishment” is trying to force him out of the race.

I don’t have a horse in the GOP nomination fight, but it was hard to argue with Kasich, who said yesterday that anyone calling for him to leave the 2016 race needs to “chill out.” He has as much right to stay in this race as anyone else—and more than some. I’ll come back to that in a minute.

First, let’s talk about the panic that has gripped vast swaths of the Republican Party in the wake of Donald Trump’s smashing victory in Nevada on Tuesday. After months of denial about the strength of Trump’s appeal and wishful thinking about his imminent demise, the GOP establishment now fears that Trump is on the verge of running away with the nomination. Hence the frantic calls for some sort of “unity ticket,” or for Kasich and Ben Carson to get out—or even for Rick Perry, freshly cleared by the courts Wednesday of bogus and politically motivated charges, to get in as a third party alternative. Republicans are grasping for something, anything, to stop Trump before it’s too late.

The trajectory of this race reminds me of the plot of the classic 1983 anti-war movie “WarGames.” The film starts innocently enough, with a teenager trying to pirate the latest video games accidentally hacking into the U.S. defense network. The computer responds by asking the now iconic question in its halting, robotic voice: “SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?”

This is more or less how the Republican establishment viewed Trump’s entry into the 2016 race: a harmless diversion that would be over in a few weeks. Eight months later Donald Trump is at DEFCON 1, threatening to nuke the Republican establishment and win the nomination, and GOP elites are running around shrieking like Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy trying to break into NORAD and pull the plug on the whole thing.

Except it’s looking more and more like this movie ends with the computer winning. Trump heads into Super Tuesday on March 1 with the wind at his back. He’s leading in 10 of the 11 states up for grabs that day, with a combined 595 delegates in play.

The only state where Trump isn’t leading is Texas. Ted Cruz currently has a 5.2-point lead in the RealClearPolitics Average, though the most recent poll, by TEGNA/SurveyUSA, shows the two candidates tied.

Obviously, Texas is a must win for Cruz. If he loses his home state to Trump, his rationale for being the Trump-stopper is demolished. Similar tests awaits Rubio and Kasich on March 15, when both Florida and Ohio are up for grabs as winner-take-all states, for 99 and 66 delegates, respectively.

In Florida, polls taken in late January show Trump with massive leads and, equally as stunning, with support over 40 percent in a multi-candidate race. A new poll is expected later this morning from Quinnipiac University, which will take into account most of what has transpired in February and will give us a better understanding of where Marco Rubio stands in his home state.

In Ohio, there’s not much data to work with either. The most recent poll, also conducted by Quinnipiac last week, shows Kasich trailing Trump by five points, 31 to 26. Things could, and probably will, change by mid-March, but at the moment Kasich remains within striking distance.

Imagine we wake up on Wednesday morning, March 16, to find that Sen. Rubio has lost Florida to Trump, while Gov. Kasich has beaten Trump in Ohio. If that happens, how do Rubio’s supporters, which include much of the existing GOP officialdom, make the case that Kasich should defer to Rubio? Why wouldn’t the logical argument be the other way around?

Kasich bolsters his argument by pointing to the fact that he runs far better against Hillary Clinton in general election match-ups than either Cruz or Rubio. So why wouldn't establishment Republicans rally behind the most "electable" candidate who carries his home state in the primary?

As we’ve already seen, anything can happen in a race as crazy and unpredictable as this one. Which is why John Kasich has every right to stay in this contest through March 15 and let Republican voters in Florida and Ohio have their voices heard. Until then everyone should listen to Kasich and chill out.

An interesting point. And perhaps that is right. Let's see where things stand on March 15.

Mark Salter's vew of Donald Trump… is it John McCain's?

There is a posting by Mark Salter dated yesterday, entitled “Donald Trump, the Anti-Patriot,” which I've been reading. Now Salter's name is not widely known, but he has co-authored a number of Senator John McCain's books, and I suspect that he and Sen. McCain have very similar views on many political topics. In Salter's post, there are a number of points, and one of the counts he has against Trump is the remarks he has made about Sen. McCain:

By his own admission, the closest he came to combat was his sexual adventurism in the 1980s, when HIV/AIDS was claiming the lives of better men than him. It was his “personal Vietnam,” he told shock jock Howard Stern in 1997. “I felt like a great and very brave soldier.”

While Americans with little wealth and few family connections were dodging bullets, mortars and booby traps in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam, our Sergeant York of well-appointed bedrooms was bravely jumping in harm’s way, armed only with the aphrodisiac of his daddy’s money.

From his brush with mortality in service to his libido he acquired the self-regard to find John McCain’s heroism wanting, and by implication the heroism of all POWs. What’s to admire about being shot down, imprisoned in solitary confinement and tortured? Losers.

But there is a real concern there as to Trump's own proposals on how he might treat our enemies:

His cluelessness about what a genuine love of country entails seems to have liberated Trump from other conventional scruples including a respect for the inherent dignity of human beings that is central to Judeo-Christian values.

Trump is also ignorant, it seems, about just what constitutes a war crime; what is and is not permissible in lawful warfare. Or worse, he vaguely knows and doesn’t care.

Trump’s ignorance is a distinctive kind, familiar to schoolyard bullies everywhere. It’s indifferently stupid and reflexively brutal, a dumbass cruelty exercised by people too emotionally incontinent to let reason govern passions, too selfish to develop a conscience, and too insecure to relate to others by means other than base instinct.

In the war against terrorists, he’s recommended deliberately killing their wives and children. He promises to waterboard captured prisoners and torture them even more severely though the practice of waterboarding was ended by executive action and outlawed by congressional legislation. He can’t reinstitute it without new legislation and without changes to war crime conventions.

Were he to order military and intelligence officers to employ torture, as he insists he would, they would resign rather than comply, as they would if he ordered them to take innocent lives on purpose. He would deserve to be impeached. He would belong in an international court of justice, on trial for his life, the fate met by enemies in World War II who authorized the torture of our prisoners.

Trump recently cited as an example of how to deal with captured Muslim insurgents an anecdote from America’s occupation of the Philippines in the beginning of the 20th century. Gen. John J. Pershing ordered 49 of 50 Muslim prisoners shot with bullets dipped in pig’s blood, defiling them under Islamic law, and ordered the survivor to report to his confederates what he had witnessed. After which, Trump assured his audience, “for 25 years there wasn’t a problem.”

In fact, Salter points out,

The story is fiction. Pershing did nothing of the kind. He was a disciplined general officer, whose sense of honor remained intact through the trials of war, as did his loyalty to our country and values. See what I mean about dumbass cruelty? Trump’s never more ignorant then when he’s playing at being a tough guy.

And I did some checking. Salter is right about this story being fiction; perhaps Trump actually believed it, however, as such a story has been circulating on the Internet:

On Friday in South Carolina, Donald Trump told a story of how General John J. Pershing executed 49 Muslim prisoners in the Philippines.

In the early 1900′s, Trump said, Pershing “caught 50 terrorists that did tremendous damage and killed many people.” So Pershing “dipped 50 bullets in pig’s blood” and executed 49 of the men. Then he released the 50th prison to tell others what had happened. Trump’s point was that America needs to get tough on terrorism.

But the story is not true. There was no mass execution led by Pershing. That is a rumor created on the Internet.

A Chicago Daily Tribune article from 1927 reports the true story that Pershing was holding prisoners from the Moro Rebellion in the Philippines. The Moros were Muslims who resisted American or any other occupying force. The Moros included swordsmen, called Juramentados, who were killing Christians in the uprising. It had to be stopped.

The Tribune story reports that Pershing sprinkled some prisoners with pig’s blood, which the Juramentados believed would condemn them for eternity. But then Pershing let the prisoners go. He issued a warning to others about being sprinkled with the pig’s blood. And, according to the Tribune story, “those drops of porcine gore proved more powerful than bullets.”

There were no executions as described by Trump.

In fact, Pershing was more inclined toward peace talks with the Moros rather than violence. The general met with the Moros and read from the Koran with them. Pershing wanted to build bridges. An illustration accompanying the story shows the general in peace talks in the jungles of the Philippines.

Salter continues:

Wars have brought out the worst as well as the best in Americans. We have struggled at great cost to uphold the values that distinguish us from our enemies. In every war, soldiers under enormous strain have committed atrocities. In some cases they had been ordered to. But those instances were aberrations, considered a national disgrace and are remembered that way. Except, I guess, by Donald Trump, the man who fought his war in the discos of New York and would have American soldiers commit atrocities as a matter of national policy.

Much of what Salter says has validity. However, his final conclusion gives me pause:

Trump is not trying to make great America great. He’s trying to make us the worst we can be to satisfy his own vainglory. There’s no dealing with him, no trying to encourage him to behave like a grown-up, much less a statesman. If you can see him plainly and you love our country, you must vote against him. Even if that means electing Hillary Clinton.

That last sentence goes, in my mind, too far. “Even if that means electing Hillary Clinton”? I hope that Sen. McCain does not agree with this part of what Salter says here. For she has her own problems. She may not plan to torture our enemies. However, she has a direction for this nation that goes counter to our greatest needs. She has said,

I'm a progressive, but I'm a progressive that likes to get things done

and “progressive” is a term that here means “extreme leftist, possibly socialist.”

I do not know whether Sen. McCain agrees with Mark Salter on this position. I strongly respect Sen. McCain, and wish he had been elected eight years ago and was now coming to the end of two terms as President, rather than the man who is actually in that office today. But if he agrees with Salter's remark that Hillary Clinton is preferable to onald Trump, I must there respectfully disagree.

The South Carolina results

I'm not unhappy with the results of yesterday's South Carolina primary. Yes, the winner was Donald Trump, whose nomination would be a disaster. But I am glad to see that Marco Rubio beat Ted Cruz for second place, and this in a state where Cruz' extremist conservatism might be expected to do well. Since Jeb Bush (who has now withdrawn) and John Kasich got together over 16% of the vote, and Trump's plurality over Rubio was only 10%, if the supporters of so-called “establishment” candidates combine, Trump can be beaten.

And he will be. Trump, even in “winning,” got only a third of the vote. A lot of commentators seem to think this was a big win for Trump, but they don't seem to understand that he only “won” because there was a split in the opposition. As it consolidates, and it looks like Rubio will be the one it consolidates behind, Trump will lose the nomination.

Will Rubio be the candidate?

For a long time, I've been saying that while I preferred Chris Christie (now dropped out) or John Kasich as the candidate, I thought Marco Rubio was the actual probable winner. Then, along came New Hampshire, and Rubio stumbled badly, leaving me in doubt as to the likelihood of his win. Now at least one post that I've seen seems to imply that Rubio has once more emerged as the candidate to beat Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

Possibly. But we will have to see what happens in South Carolina tomorrow.