2016 Presidential Election Thread

Don't lose heart Beth! Thank you Jesus! Keep praying:

A third-party candidate could win this time: Column
Gabriel Schoenfeld3:35 p.m. EDT May 9, 2016
Trump's rise proves the extraordinary can happen, maybe even an independent in the White House.
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An ocean of conventional wisdom is telling us that an independent conservative candidate, should one emerge, will go nowhere fast. But a short while ago, an ocean of conventional wisdom was telling us thatDonald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket violated the basic laws of the universe. This is plainly a moment in American politics in which the extraordinary can happen.

Here are five reasons why the #NeverTrump movement might provide the only serious competition to the Democrats this November — and could even siphon off a few who are themselves looking for an alternative:

• The greatest asset of the #NeverTrump movement is Trump himself. It has become obvious by now to almost all that the GOP presumptive nominee cannot change his spots. Trump promised that after knocking out John Kasich and Ted Cruz, he would tone down his act. “I will be so presidential,” he pledged, “you will be so bored.” But his antics continue — the insults, the tweets, the recycling of tabloid trash that might endear him to his die-hard supporters but mystify or repel almost everyone else. Either Trump does not know what the concept of “presidential” means or, more likely, he is inextricably stuck inside the same cartoonish character he has been all his life.
• During the primaries, Trump’s Republican adversaries mostly held fire, trembling in fear lest they offend Trump voters. Typical was Cruz, who only unloaded on his tormentor on the day he pulled out of the race. Hillary Clinton (assuming she will be the Democratic nominee) will not be so constrained, and neither will her surrogates. Indeed, the Democrats are already having a field day auditioning a cornucopia of ridiculous and offensive pronouncements generated by Trump over decades. To be sure, these negative attacks will do nothing to dampen the fervor of Trump’s fans. But they will inevitably have a discernible effect on everyone else.
• Then there's the news media. They were relatively gentle to Trump in the primaries when there were 17 GOP targets to scrutinize. Now there is only one Republican standing, and journalists everywhere are entering the operating room suiting up for a vivisection. In 2012, mild, moderate, respectable, sane Mitt Romney got a taste of what it means to be under the journalistic knife in a general election. The liberal press is now going to cut out Trump’s liver, fry it up and eat it out of a taco bowl.

• Which brings us to Trump’s taxes. He says he cannot release any of his returns from the past decade because they are all under audit. According to tax professionals, that is almost certainly either a fib, a falsehood, or a lie, and in any case is hardly a reason why they cannot be made public. Whatever Trump is trying to conceal, the news drumbeat to release the returns will now grow louder and more insistent. Eventually, it will reach a volume that will cause political pain.
• A parallel deficit of substance, yet much more important, goes for policy. The proposals Trump has put forward appear to be based almost entirely upon imaginary thinking. His plan to reduce the national debt to zero in eight years while leaving entitlement spending untouched is about as realistic as manufacturing gold out of seawater. His promise to create a deportation force to ship out America’s 11 million undocumented aliens is no more feasible. Trump got away with this and more in the primaries. In the general election, he will be held by journalists and by his opponents to a standard that he shows no signs of being able to meet.

 

Fatima.....thank you too.

We should all do exactly that...pray, pray, pray.

If we here At the MOG forum actually practice the faith we profess, then everyone of us needs to be doing just this.

The power of prayer is not just a sweet sentiment, it is real.
God will not interfere with the free will of this nation...we are free to do His will or reject it. But discernment does come with prayer, and grace to accept the sufferings of life if His will is ignored will come as well.

 

We have been warning trump supporters all along that the media was holding back their fire on trump until the general. Had they unloaded earlier, trump might not have gotten through the primaries.

It's also true that so many folks will take the approach of voteing for the lesser of two evils, (?)hold their nose and vote for trump. But, there are many disatisified democrats as well. If the right third party candidate came along, it is possible that he or she would have cross over appeal. Short of that...we will be at the mercy of a throughly godless government. Anyone thinking this will go well, IMHO , is sadly mistaken. Godless is just not an option. Any candidate who has never felt the need to ask God for forgiveness, in my mind is a godless candidate.

 

Ben Sasse
May 4 at 11:39pm ·
AN OPEN LETTER TO MAJORITY AMERICA

TO: Those who think both leading presidential candidates are dishonest and have little chance of leading America forward:

(…or, stated more simply)
TO: The majority of America:

Note: If you are one of those rare souls who genuinely believe Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are honorable people – if they are the role models you want for your kids – then this letter is not for you. Instead, this letter is for the majority of Americans who wonder why the nation that put a man on the moon can’t find a healthy leader who can take us forward together.

I want to tell you about four unsolicited conversations from the Fremont Wal-Mart this morning:

**Retired union Democrat meat-packer:
“What the heck is wrong with that city where you work? Why can’t they give us a normal person? Is it really so hard?”

Me: “Actually, it is for them – because most people in DC buy the nonsense that DC is the center of the world. You and I, despite our party differences, both agree that Fremont is the center.”

Union Democrat (interrupting): “…Because this is where my grandkids are.”

**Young evangelical mom:
“I want to cry. I disagree with Hillary Clinton on almost every single thing – but I will vote for her before Trump. I could never tell my kids later that I voted for that man.”

**Middle-aged Republican male (more political than the other folks):
“It feels like the train-car to hell is accelerating. Why is DC more filled with weirdos and yet more powerful at the same time? How do we slow this down long enough to have a conversation about actually fixing our country?”

**Trump supporter (again, unsolicited):
“Please understand: I’m going to vote for him, but I don’t like him. And I don’t trust him – I mean, I’m not stupid. But how else can I send a signal to Washington?!”
________

I’ve ignored my phone most of today, but the voicemail is overflowing with party bosses and politicos telling me that “although Trump is terrible,” we “have to” support him, “because the only choice is Trump or Hillary.”

This open letter aims simply to ask “WHY is that the only choice?”

Melissa and I got the kids launched on homework, so I’ve been sitting out by the river, reflecting on the great gap between what folks in my town are talking about, and what folks in the DC bubble are talking about.

I trust the judgment of this farm town way more than I trust DC. And so I’d like to share a dozen-ish observations on these Wal-Mart and other conversations today:

1.
Washington isn’t fooling anyone -- Neither political party works. They bicker like children about tiny things, and yet they can’t even identify the biggest issues we face. They’re like a couple arguing about what color to paint the living room, and meanwhile, their house is on fire. They resort to character attacks as step one because they think voters are too dumb for a real debate. They very often prioritize the agendas of lobbyists (for whom many of them will eventually work) over the urgent needs of Main Street America. I signed up for the Party of Abraham Lincoln -- and I will work to reform and restore the GOP -- but let’s tell the plain truth that right now both parties lack vision.

2.
As a result, normal Americans don’t like either party. If you ask Americans if they identify as Democrat or Republican, almost half of the nation interrupts to say: “Neither.”

3.
Young people despise the two parties even more than the general electorate. And why shouldn’t they? The main thing that unites most Democrats is being anti-Republican; the main thing that unites most Republicans is being anti-Democrat. No one knows what either party is for -- but almost everyone knows neither party has any solutions for our problems. “Unproductive” doesn’t begin to summarize how messed up this is.

4.
Our problems are huge right now, but one of the most obvious is that we’ve not passed along the meaning of America to the next generation. If we don’t get them to re-engage -- thinking about how we defend a free society in the face of global jihadis, or how we balance our budgets after baby boomers have dishonestly over-promised for decades, or how we protect First Amendment values in the face of the safe-space movement – then all will indeed have been lost. One of the bright spots with the rising generation, though, is that they really would like to rethink the often knee-jerk partisanship of their parents and grandparents. We should encourage this rethinking.

5.
These two national political parties are enough of a mess that I believe they will come apart. It might not happen fully in 2016 – and I’ll continue fighting to revive the GOP with ideas -- but when people’s needs aren’t being met, they ultimately find other solutions.

6.
In the history of polling, we’ve basically never had a candidate viewed negatively by half of the electorate. This year, we have two. In fact, we now have the two most unpopular candidates ever – Hillary by a little, and Trump by miles (including now 3 out of 4 women – who vote more and influence more votes than men). There are dumpster fires in my town more popular than these two “leaders.”

7.
With Clinton and Trump, the fix is in. Heads, they win; tails, you lose. Why are we confined to these two terrible options? This is America. If both choices stink, we reject them and go bigger. That’s what we do.

8.
Remember: our Founders didn’t want entrenched political parties. So why should we accept this terrible choice?

9.
So...let’s have a thought experiment for a few weeks: Why shouldn’t America draft an honest leader who will focus on 70% solutions for the next four years? You know...an adult?
(Two notes for reporters:
**Such a leader should be able to campaign 24/7 for the next six months. Therefore he/she likely can’t be an engaged parent with little kids.
**Although I’m one of the most conservative members of the Senate, I'm not interested in an ideological purity test, because even a genuine consensus candidate would almost certainly be more conservative than either of the two dishonest liberals now leading the two national parties.)

10.
Imagine if we had a candidate:
...who hadn’t spent his/her life in politics either buying politicians or being bought

…who didn’t want to stitch together a coalition based on anger but wanted to take a whole nation forward

…who pledged to serve for only one term, as a care-taker problem-solver for this messy moment

…who knew that Washington isn’t competent to micromanage the lives of free people, but instead wanted to SERVE by focusing on 3 or 4 big national problems,
such as:
A. A national security strategy for the age of cyber and jihad;
B. Honest budgeting/entitlement reform so that we stop stealing from future generations;
C. Empowering states and local governments to improve K-12 education, and letting Washington figure out how to update federal programs to adjust to now needing lifelong learners in an age where folks are obviously not going to work at a single job for a lifetime anymore; and
D. Retiring career politicians by ending all the incumbency protections, special rules, and revolving door opportunities for folks who should be public “servants,” not masters.

This really shouldn’t be that hard.

The oath I took is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. In brief, that means I’m for limited government.

And there is no reason to believe that either of these two national frontrunners believe in limiting anything about DC’s power.

I believe that most Americans can still be for limited government again -- if they were given a winsome candidate who wanted Washington to focus on a small number of really important, urgent things -- in a way that tried to bring people together instead of driving us apart.

I think there is room – an appetite – for such a candidate.

What am I missing?

More importantly, what are the people at the Fremont Wal-Mart missing?

Because I don’t think they are wrong. They deserve better. They deserve a Congress that tackles the biggest policy problems facing the nation. And they deserve a president who knows that his or her job is not to “reign,” but to serve as commander-in-chief and to “faithfully execute” the laws – not to claim imperial powers to rewrite them with his pen and phone.

The sun is mostly set on the Platte River -- and the kids need baths. So g’night.

Ben

‪#‎WeCanDoBetter‬
‪#‎GiveUsMoreChoices‬

 

Who is Ben Sasse,....this is who he is::

 

Truth to power...first speech....

 

Sen. Ben Sasse....this is the kind of man America needs as president......

 

You guys are so upset at Trump...you should use the same energy against Hillary...who is much worse. She has used her power to destroy people. You three might be the loudest but in reality you show your true colors. If you had a problem with both candidates you would be attacking both equally. But instead you use MOG as your anti-Trump podium. You might think you stand on higher ground but I see a United States that has lost its way. We tried Obama Hope and Change. It's time for Let's Make America Great Again.

al

 

You are very wrong Al....and I think you know it.

No one who considers themselves to be a faithful catholic and a member of this forum, could ever be a Hillary supporter.
That being said, there is no need to focus on her evilness...we all know it.

We are posting on trump because his record is only now coming to light...shedding light on his beliefs and policies are what one does during a political debate. Now that Cruz is out, conservatives are searching to find an alternative to both Clinton and trump who we find to be godless and unacceptable.

It is totally appropriate to inform fellow Catholics of positions , personalities and policies of a candidate that they may not know, in order to protect our religious freedom to post on religious forums such as this. Trump has already expressed the potential of controlling the Internet and of suing publications who say things about him that he considers unflattering. This is fascist thinking. This forum could be shut down with thinking like that!

Yes, this forum members have a right to read about the candidates that threaten their right to express their beliefs, even if king trump does not agree.

 

No one was stopped from pulling out all the plugs before Obama got elected. He got re elected to boot. So what was the point of anyone broadcasting what they thought. It did not stop Obama, one of the worst American Presidents in history being elected in the past. Or am I missing something.

Poor preaching from the pulpits has left USA much like UK and Europe incapable of making moral judgements about the candidates who present for positions in government. I think that is the root of the problem.

 

You got the root of the problem, Julia, but what's the solution? Prayer is the best solution but in Europe and the US prayer must be politically correct if you want to survive in the public square. Clinton will advance the agenda of pushing all prayer out of the public square. Trump, for all his faults, doesn't have the same anti-Christian focus as Clinton and her party.

I saw billionaire Bloomberg interviewed on TV today. He explained that the US electoral college system is geared towards having only two candidates for the Presidency because the successful candidate must win a majority of votes in the electoral college. A strong third candidate could produce a result where nobody wins a majority of votes, leaving the Congress to choose the winner. That appears to be what this push for a "genuine conservative" is about. They want to gamble on a third candidate taking enough votes from both Trump and Clinton to leave nobody with a majority. If that happens, the Republican party having the majority in Congress would choose the next President. It's a last ditch attempt by the select few to hold on to power because it would result in either Clinton getting a majority, or the power brokers in the Republican Party choosing somebody other than Trump. They are running out of time to get their man's name on the ballot papers. It could be too late already.

We must all keep on praying, even or especially in private, that God will guide the world out of this mess. Meanwhile, we are God's hands and must do what we can to at least slow down the evil agenda.

 

For me, the last 16 yrs have been the same. Under Bush and Obama, abortion was not overturned. The national debt increased under both. Unjust wars have continued under both. Our civil liberties have been curtailed under both. These are just a few examples of crooked administrations. List the 4 sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance: murder of the innocent, sodomy, not taking care of the poor, and defrauding workers of their wages. Look at the USA and tell me, if these sins are not being committed. Trump is not the antidote to our problems. This is what happened in the 2008 elections. American were looking for change and voted Obama in. Americans rejected God in 2008 and we are repeating the same mistake in 2016. We are looking to a man to save us. If we do not turn away from offending God, it does not matter who we elect in 2016, because we are still REJECTING GOD AND GOD WILL NOT BE MOCKED. Sometimes I think it is counterproductive on this forum to argue politics so much, because we may be missing the bigger picture. I know the devil will try and do anything to get me so busy, that I forget to pray and prepare spiritually and physically. Lincoln and Washington prayed for our nation publicly. Where are these leaders today? They are not electable and no longer in contention. God has everything under control as Rev Wilkerson used to say. Amen and it is time to move on.

 

You are right...the silent pulpits ....shame on them. They won't even address the issues. The majority of priest in my diocese voted for Obama. Catholics are left twisting in the wind...sad, sad state of affairs.

 

Possibly the most truthful statement yet:

, it does not matter who we elect in 2016, because we are still REJECTING GOD AND GOD WILL NOT BE MOCKED.

 

Well, it looks like Trump is now beating or tied with Crooked Hillary in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in latest polls http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/trump-clinton-florida-ohio-pennsylvania-222994 and these polls dont take into account the fact that Trump is going to turn out huge numbers of new voters and swing voters. Looks more and more like Trump is going to win big, just as long as the #NEVERTRUMP geniuses don't do something stupid like running a third party candidate.

 

Who Promoted Private Ryan?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Forty-eight hours after Donald Trump wrapped up the Republican nomination with a smashing victory in the Indiana primary, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he could not yet support Trump.

In millennial teen-talk, Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “I’m just not ready to do that at this point. I’m not there right now.”

“[T]he bulk of the burden of unifying the party” falls on Trump, added Ryan. Trump must unify “all wings of the Republican Party, and the conservative movement.” Trump must run a campaign that we can “be proud to support and proud to be a part of.”

Then, maybe, our Hamlet of the House can be persuaded to support the elected nominee of his own party.

Excuse me, but upon what meat has this our Caesar fed?

Ryan is a congressman from Wisconsin. He has never won a statewide election. As number two on Mitt Romney’s ticket, he got waxed by Joe Biden. He was compromise choice as speaker, only after John Boehner went into in his Brer Rabbit “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah” routine.

Who made Ryan the conscience of conservatism?

Who made Ryan keeper of the keys of true Republicanism?

Trump “inherits something … that’s very special to a lot of us,” said Ryan, “the party of Lincoln and Reagan and Jack Kemp.”

But Trump did not “inherit” anything. He won the nomination of the Republican Party in an epic battle in the most wide-open race ever, in which Trump generated the largest turnout and greatest vote totals in the history of Republican primaries.

What is Ryan up to?

He is pandering to the Trump-hating Beltway media and claiming the leadership of a Republican establishment routed and repudiated in the primaries, not only by that half of the party that voted for Trump, but also by that huge slice of the party that voted for Ted Cruz.

The hubris here astonishes. A Republican establishment that has been beaten as badly as Carthage in the Third Punic War is now making demands on Scipio Africanus and the victorious Romans.

This is difficult to absorb.

Someone should instruct Paul Ryan that losers do not make demands. They make requests. They make pleas.

What makes Ryan’s demands more astonishing is that he is the designated chairman of the Republican National Convention, a majority of whose delegates and whose nomination Trump is about to win.

Ryan is saying he is ambivalent over whether he will accept the verdict of the Cleveland convention — of which he is the chairman.

If Ryan holds to his refusal to accept the decision of the Republican majority in the primaries, he should be removed from that role. And if Ryan does not come out of Thursday’s meeting with the Donald, endorsing him, the presumptive nominee should turn to Paul Ryan, and, in two words, tell him, “You’re fired!”

Trump cannot allow the establishment to claw back in the cloakrooms of Capitol Hill what he won on a political battlefield. He cannot allow a discredited establishment to dictate the issues he may run on.

That would be a betrayal of the troops who brought Trump victory after victory in the primaries.

To longtime students of politics, there is rarely anything new under the sun. And there is precedent for the shakedown Ryan and his Beltway collaborators are trying to do to Trump.

Paul Ryan is the Nelson Rockefeller of his generation.

In 1960, Gov. Rockefeller refused to challenge Vice President Nixon in the primaries. When Nixon went to Rockefeller’s New York apartment to persuade him to join the ticket, Rocky refused, but demanded concessions in the platform, to which Nixon acceded.

The Chicago convention, a Nixon convention, believed itself betrayed by the “Pact of Fifth Avenue.”

Only the appearance of Sen. Barry Goldwater at the podium to tell conservatives to “grow up. We can take this party back,” halted a suicidal drive to take the nomination away from Nixon.

After Goldwater won the nomination in the 1964 California primary by defeating Rockefeller, Rocky arrived at the San Francisco convention to demand that a plank equating the John Birch Society with the Communist Party and Ku Klux Klan be written into Goldwater’s platform. Hooted and rejected, Rocky went home and refused to endorse the nominee, who went down to a crushing defeat by LBJ.

Nixon, a party loyalist, campaigned across the country for Barry and his doomed party.

In 1968, Nixon got his reward, the nomination, with Goldwater’s support. And Govs. Rockefeller and George Romney, who had done the Paul Ryan thing, never came close.

Rockefeller got what he deserved when the Reaganite heirs of Barry Goldwater, at Kansas City in 1976, demanded the dumping of Rocky from President Ford’s ticket. And they got it.

Paul Ryan, in declaring that he cannot now support Trump, and imposing conditions to earn his support, has crawled out on a long limb.

Trump cannot capitulate. He has to saw it off.

This is one Private Ryan we cannot save.

http://buchanan.org/blog/promoted-private-ryan-125221

 

Just my opinion and maybe I'm wrong, but reading the same anti comments from Beth and Dawn over and over again is suspiciously troll like. Is it possible they are Internet robots used by a particular country outside the U.S. that benefits more if Hillary wins?

 

No, Padraig can tell you I've read the forum for many years and on and off I join but usually not enough to keep up so I have to re-join. The themes of Trump's amoral, abortionist, anti-constitution, pro-executive order and fascist tendencies are not more repetitive than what is seen from the other side.

Here are their points, in order.

1.The Republicans are "elites" who have had their day.
2.Trump is throwing a wrench into the plans of the "elites".

When one questions this and offers evidence against it, such as that then Cruz, and Ryan too, seemed to be saying the same thing, they move to this:

3. we are being taken advantage of in trade agreements. NAFTA, NAFTA, NAFTA

When one points out that Trump was for NAFTA during the Clinton administration and supported President Clinton for his second run, after NAFTA was signed, and that free trade is an economically sound tenet of the American Revolution, they move on to this:

4. This country is going down the tubes and we have many enemies and Charlie says the world is about to end. We need a Napoleon-like authoritarian tough guy to get us through that. (They don't say Napoleon, they tend not to look at actual history because it might reveal how wrong they know they are...same thing is happening right now in the Philippines, but our revolution was over 200 years ago, not 30 years ago, we should be way past the instability stage...)

When you point out that, in the off chance armageddon is delayed and we are around a bit longer than another few months, we will then have a totalitarian dictator as president of the most stable and relied upon nation on earth, then they conveniently do not answer. None of them. They start with #1 over again and will absolutely not respond to the last point made or answer the last question you asked them. They will, to use your word, exceedingly ROBOTICALLY, to a person, start again with #1, only throw in a few insults.

To point out that fundamentally, no matter what he says, and he has said literally everything possible on every issue, he is amoral, has to be the retort to any of the above. Yes, it bears repeating on a Catholic forum. I refuse to be a part of a forum that a casual observer or religious seeker may stumble upon and see Catholics, unopposed, repeat such talk.

How about you, Byron, how long have you been on the forum. What do you think about this pattern? Dismaying, or no? Waiting for your reply....

 

Oh, I forgot. One more trope of the Trumpers, they never bring up abortion. Those against him do, time and time again. Then and only then do they say, well, Hillary comes out and says she is for abortion, Trump doesn't. Trump says he is against abortion. (pause for laughter). Yes, Trump has said that, as well as that is his VERY pro-choice, women should be arrested who try to get abortions (anybody worried he did not say the abortion providers should be arrested? Still hasn't?), women victims of rape should have abortions, he will change the current Republican party platform to reflect a more "moderate" view on abortion. Most telling, he has been an ardent supporter of both Clinton administrations and the first Obama administration. Funny huh? Why did he become a birther after the start of the second Obama administration? Maybe he tried to call in a few too many favors? Anyway, back to my point, the Trump supporters don't like to talk about abortion. They will only address this issue once a nevertrumper (a very conservative and pro-life lot) brings it up. Sorry Byron.

 

e="Byron, post: 130499, member: 4941"]Just my opinion and maybe I'm wrong, but reading the same anti comments from Beth and Dawn over and over again is suspiciously troll like. Is it possible they are Internet robots used by a particular country outside the U.S. that benefits more if Hillary wins?[/quote]


Dear Byron,

Thats quite funny....insinuating that Dawn and I are trolls!

Your profile indicates that you are a female with a male name and you are a NEW member ....as NEW as LAST month....hummmmm....and YOU are accusing US as the trolls?

Me thinks I smell a trump rat! Lol nice try

Now tell us ...BYRON....who are YOU? ....

You joined this forum last month...on the 26th. I believe and the ONLY forums that you have commented on or "liked" were pro trump political post....not one other topic on this MOG site?

As I said. Looks like a trump troll to me. Just saying....

P.S. Actually you are so new that you do not yet have a avatar...may I suggest this one:

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