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If it's true that Ted Cruz as “dishonest,” or “unlikable,” how can we support him for President?

We’ve been asked by many friends to share insight into Ted Cruz 

testify Chip Roy and Brooke Bacak (gracias per Fausta), who "happen to know him quite well" (check out the Texas senator's CPAC speech),

based on the two years we spent working for him in the U.S. Senate. It is clear from these conversations that while few doubt the sincerity of his conservative political convictions, many are struggling to make sense of the way he has been characterized by the media and a few of his Republican colleagues as “dishonest,” or “unlikable.” Many of you are trying to understand who this man is and how can you like him or trust him enough to support him for President of the United States.

The truth is – you are right to question. This is the political choice of our lifetimes – and we all feel how critical this choice of president will be for the future of America. From concerns about national security to economic growth, from healthcare costs to education opportunity, from mounting debt to a broken immigration system, from religious liberty to questions of life and marriage – all with the 9th Supreme Court seat sitting empty… we feel a sense of duty to get this choice right and at this particular moment. We know we owe that to our children. So how can we hand the reins to that so-called “jerk,” Ted Cruz?

Well, we happen to know him quite well. And we know that the vast majority of these characterizations are completely false; that Senator Cruz is an honest and decent man; that the negative portrayals of him are purposeful and a direct consequence of his willingness to fight for the American people against the massive power of the ruling class that our founding fathers predicted would occur; and that it would be an incredible disservice for you not to take a serious look at him as the only nominee who will lead this country away from its current path and toward the American promise of freedom, security and prosperity our children deserve.

Read why Chip Roy and Brooke Bacak believe this.

Witness the Unbelievable Amount of Racism That Exists Among Conservatives and in the Tea Party

… there’s also … the stain that won’t go away

writes Paul Krugman darkly in his op-ed:

race. 

    This comes at the end of a column in which the New York Times' economist has castigated the right for "Republican hostility toward the poor and unfortunate" (Re-posted).

    Every time I read a column by Paul Krugman in which he laments the racism he constantly finds among conservative groups (A War on the Poor, New York Times, November 1), I wonder if he has ever heard about Tim Scott.  Given that for awhile, the legislator from South Carolina was the only member of the United States Senate who is African-American, one would think that his name might be — almost — as renowned as Barack Obama's.

    The explanation for Scott's relative obscurity is that he is a Republican — one who is backed by Tea Partiers (endorsed by Tea Party favorite Jim DeMint, Scott's Senate predecessor) and one from a Southern state to boot.  And were Scott better known, it would be far more difficult for people like Krugman to bewail the racism of Republicans and Tea Partiers, not to mention Southerners. 

    You would think that this black pauper's rise from rags to the halls of the U.S. Senate is a living memorial to Martin Luther King's dream.  But because leftists (conveniently and self-servingly) define themselves as the valiant fighters against the racism they (conveniently and self-servingly) constantly find throughout the ranks of the Republican Party, it comes as no surprise that South Carolina's conservative Senator did not even receive an invitation to participate in the 50th anniversary commemorations of MLK's Lincoln Memorial speech.

    Should Krugman need more evidence of his own prejudices, one could also mention Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal, Republican governors (both of Indian heritage) backed by the Tea Party whose skin is about as dark as, if not darker than, that of Barack Obama. Yes, they too were elected in states from the former Confederacy.

    As for blacks who are favorites of the Tea Party, either nationally or locally, they include Herman Cain, Allen West, Darryl Glenn, and Mia Love as well as Thomas Sowell (the Stanford economist who deserves the Nobel Prize in Economics at least as much as Krugman), Walter Williams, Larry Elder, and Stacey Dash.  But all these African-Americans must be ignored, because for the Left, the only good "Negro" is the martyred "Negro" — the one who constantly thinks he and his like are victims and therefore votes for the victimization party (i.e., the Democrats).

    Currently, one favorite of the Tea Party crowd for presidential candidate in 2016 is Dr Benjamin Carson, a neurosurgeon who is offering a free-market alternative to Obamacare that would keep prices down and Washington's brand-new army of bureaucrats out of the health care system.  His skin, too, is darker than Obama's.

    But all these inconvenient facts must be ignored or belittled by media people like Krugman in order to push the narrative that America is an intolerant hell hole of prejudice populated by hordes of despicable racists.

Note: The initial text of this post held that Tim Scott was the only black member of the United States Senate; that was true at the time of the writing of the post, over several weeks, but 12 days before this post was posted, Cory Booker had become New Jersey's junior senator.

Update:  one year after the original post was written, Tim Scott won South Carolina's 2014 mid-term Senate election — in a landslide

Is Uribe's Successor as Colombia's president Throwing His Victory over the FARC Guerillas Away?

At CPAC, on Wednesday, a member of Columbia's Chamber of Representatives made an appeal to Norteamericanos for assistance in persuading the American public to turn against the U.S. government's decision to spend $450 million towards Bogota's "peace process" with the FARC guerillas.

According to María Fernanda Cabal, it seems like Álvaro Uribe's choice to succeed him as president of Colombia has let him down (to say the least), throwing away his hard-won military victory over the FARC guerilla movement. (Shades of the USA's Democrats with regards to Vietnam 40 years ago and to Iraq four years ago…)

"Santos, it's not peace that's near, it's the surrender to FARC and the tyranny of Venezuela."

the Washington Post's Joshua Partlow quotes Uribe, now a senator, as tweeting.

With help from the Castro brothers and their Havana Process (Maria Fernanda Cabal added at Maryland's Gayelord Hotel), Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos (who served his predecessor Uribe as his defense minister) has decided to fuel America's millions towards FARC leaders, effectively reviving the formerly defeated terrorist group doubling as a cocaine cartel.

Previous NP posts on Uribe and/or Colombia…

The Era of the Drama Queens: Every Crisis Is a Triumph

We live in hard times. [Re-posted — because of eternal relevancy.] This is a hard, hard time for the Republic.

We live in the era of the Drama Queen.

We have been digging ourselves deeper and deeper into that era for the past fifty years.

[Update: thanks for the the links, Ed Driscoll and Bird Dog]

Leftists are drama queens. Leftists constantly erupting in hysterics — male (girly men?) or female — rule the roost.

Racism! Patriarchy! Sexism! Rape on campus! Global warming! Christianity's bigotry! The reactionary average American! Republicans' hate speech and hate thought! US history, a litany of racism and oppression! All the founding fathers, hypocritical sonzabitches! All our ancestors, imperialist mongrels! Oppression of women, and gays, and transgenders!

(The only person, the only people, who come out positive in this (self-serving) world view are — surprise, surprise — the drama queens themselves! Also known as the wise men, and the wise women, arriving as knights in shining armor on their white steeds to fight for the victims and the martyrs of the world.)

Whenever there is drama — whenever there is a crisis (or the semblance of a crisis) — the left's  drama queens win.

There must be constant drama — crises, if you prefer — or the movement loses momentum and/or comes to a standstill and/or dies out.

Related: The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell: A World of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables

We have been in the midst of the triumph of the drama queens and the Chicken Littles and the other arrested-development adolescents since the 1960s, with the movement reaching its zenith with the 2008 election.

Ain't that true? Can't the biggest drama queen of all [Barack Obama] be found in the White House?

When the Republicans won the 2014 elections, they didn't realize that this was actually manna in heaven to the top drama queen of them all.

— I will defend the poor innocent martyred immigrants against the monstrous Republicans, against the ignominious inhabitants of Middle America!

— I will defeat the aggressive and clueless warlike policies of the despicable Republicans, regarding the relations with (say) Russia or Cuba, provide a reset, and open an era of peace and prosperity and friendship with those poor, misunderstood nations!

— I will fight for the American people tenaciously, by attacking the nation's, indeed the world's, main enemy, its only enemy (no, not Isis, not Al Qaeda, not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the Iranians, not any foreign dictator), and that as relentlessly and as often as I can — the contemptible members of America's Republican Party and the clueless average American citizen. 

Anything that will provide food for drama, for a crisis, may, and will, be used.
In no sense whatsoever is there the slightest value in unity.

Creating chaos is their raison d'être.

War, and crises, with the opposition must be used all the time, and no event may occur without it being used for political advantage.

All these battles in Congress makes Obama happy. He has created his crises, one after the other. He appears as the knight in shining armor come to save the American people.

With the Homeland Security shutdown, you have to wonder if nothing would make Obama happier if there was a terrorist attack on some place in America. He could blame it, would blame it, on the Republicans. And the media would gobble it up.

Why? Because journalists are drama queens too (they have to be, that is how the "newsmakers" survive). That is why so many of them are Democrats, while that is why so many leftists go into the news business in the first place (I want to fight for the little man).

(And why do the drama queens, in- or outside the media, hate conservatives? Republicans? Fox News? Where does their sense of anger, and revulsion, at Dubya, and Reagan, and Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck originate? The main reason is because the latter are, they were, happy people with a smile on their face, who take pleasure — indeed, pride — in their country, and who are not constantly outraged at everything around them.)

Does Obama deserve to be impeached? Want to impeach Obama?

You know what? Nothing would make Barack Obama happier than to be impeached. Then there would be another drama, another one at which he would be the center, and one which could be milked to increase the fortunes of the Drama Queen Party the Democrat Party.

The numerous pitfalls of Obamacare? The Iranian deal leading to a greater chance of terrorism and war? The drama queens are fine with that, they don't even mind being blamed for having made "mistakes," it all leads to more crises down the road and a greater need for intervention, ever more intervention from politicians and bureaucrats and members of the Intervention Party the Democrat Party, aka knights in shining armor.

Indeed, one of the victories of the drama queens was when even the party of the historically calm and pensive, the party of the grown-ups (or of the alleged grown-ups), turned to the Candidate of Melodramatics and Excitement, which has been, and which is, allowing the Democrats to milk the dramatics for the entire 2016 election season.

Obama wins all the time.

Related: The Modus Operandi — The Vicious Circle
of Crises, Or, How the Drama Queens Operate

PS: Do I doubt that Obama is patriotic and loves America?

What is the American Dream? The dream to be rich, i.e., the dream to be powerful, i.e., the dream to be independent — independent of politicians — the dream to be content and feel secure.

This is the American Dream as far back as the 1770s.

This is the America that statists like Obama want(ed) to "fundamentally transform."

There is nothing Obama resents more than the America where its citizens are independent of the politicians, the élites, and their ever-growing armies of bureaucrats (there to "help them").

The founders' vision was the dream to be rid of Drama Queens — certainly, the dream that we should be rid, that we could be rid, of those drama queens who are in positions of power to rule, or who wish to rule, over us. (For our own good, natch.)

Since then, for the past two centuries, drama queens at home and abroad have done all in their power (Norway's 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, f'r'instance) to make America a Drama Queen-run nation…
Related: Bernie Marcus's dependable, mature golf player acting responsibly to prevent the ice hockey players from going berserk (Republicans are playing golf while the Democrats are playing ice hockey)

• The Divine Right of Democrats: Kevin Williamson on the liberation of the Donkey party by the practical elimination of the Republican party (America is  "suffering from a kind of infection in the form of the Republican party, which inhibits the normal and healthy — meaning Democrat-dominated — political life of the United States")

It’s a mystery how homosexuality differs from racism if both are inborn traits

Jim Grimsley penned an editorial last week in the Los Angeles Times that accused white people—all white people—of being racist.

Unfortunately for the gay columnist and playwright, one Benny Huang plans to examine the issue of racism in a dispassionate manner and, indeed, to take the argument to its logical conclusions.

Grimsley, who is white and grew up in Georgia at the tail-end of the Jim Crow era, railed against the cluelessness of white America on the issue of race. Even white people who consider themselves enlightened on racial issues, he argues, are often unaware of the racism that lurks within their own hearts. “…I have found that black people are all too aware that progress on racial issues has hardly moved forward at all, while white people are nearly as blind to their racism as ever,” he wrote.
 
I wish Grimsley had been clearer on one point—that is, whether white racism is cultural or genetic. Within the space of the same sentence he seems to blame both nature and nurture for white racism. Grimsely writes: “…[T]hese are symptoms of the insanity of white culture and our refusal to understand that racism is part of our makeup — each and every one of us, north, south, east and west — from cradle to grave.”

 … The idea that white people are irredeemably racist is central to the social justice movement. All white people are racist, even good white liberals.

 … Enter Tim Wise, another white southerner. He may be America’s best known “anti-racist activist” and he’s pretty extreme in his beliefs. Wise has made a career out of countering anti-black racism, most of which is entirely fictional, with anti-white racism. Even Wise admits to harboring certain racist tendencies though he blames it on growing up in a “white supremacist” culture. He nonetheless believes, despite his efforts to be the best friend black people have ever had, that he has internalized certain racist attitudes. And no, he isn’t talking about racist attitudes towards whites though that would at least be true.

According to Tim Wise, icon of “anti-racism,” even Tim Wise can’t claim to have washed away the stain of racism. Without exception, all white people must be racist.

 … It should be noted here that this attitude [Tribalism] has existed in all time and in all places. The only societies in history that have even tried to resist the tribalist urge are modern Western societies—this is, white societies of the post-World War II era. If you regard tribalism as negative–and in most cases I do—then Europe and North America are actually paragons of virtue. Colorblindness is an idea that modern Westerners have strived for even if they have not perfectly achieved it. Within those societies, it’s the white majority that has been the most willing to suppress their instincts. Other races seem less enthused about colorblindness. They have demanded and received preference which they will cling to from now until eternity.

 … The idea that we’re born racist, something I think at least some social justice warriors would agree with as long as we’re discussing only white people, has certain ramifications. If we accept it (and I do), we must accept that racism will always exist. The war against racism can never be won but we can lose our freedom fighting it.

I’ve noticed that liberals often use human nature as an excuse for behaviors that would otherwise be rejected. If we have an urge, what’s the use of trying to suppress it? Consider homosexuality, for example, a behavior regarded as aberrant by nearly every society prior to the late Twentieth Century. Putting aside moral and religious arguments for a moment, homosexuality comes with certain health risks, particularly the male variety—rectal cancer, AIDS, gonorrhea, etc.

(In a previous column, Benny Huang talked of doctors who, while gallantly joining in the battles on smoking and fast food, live in fear that their careers will be summarily ended if they advise against anal sodomy—which turns out to be far from bad medical advice, no matter how you slice it.)

But don’t tell that to liberals. “Gays” are just “born that way” they argue with very little evidence. No “gay” gene has ever been found and studies indicate that children exposed to sexual abuse tend to become homosexuals. Liberals reject this notion because they believe that homosexuality is not a choice. Homosexuals therefore have no obligation to suppress their urges. Be your true to yourself, they say. Telling anyone that homosexuality is shameful is a form of abuse because it forces that person into the proverbial closet.

It’s a mystery to me how homosexuality differs from racism if they are both inborn traits. According to dogma, “gays” couldn’t stop being “gay” any more than a leopard could change his spots. But isn’t the same true of racists? If racists are born, not made, then even heavy guilt tactics won’t cure them. What’s the point of trying to make racists change? All of this “racist shaming” seems both pointless and destructive to its subjects.

As a certified “homophobe” I am often asked if “gays” choose to be “gay.” I always answer the same: yes, because people choose who they sleep with. That doesn’t satisfy the homofascists who always respond, “If being gay were a choice, who would choose it?”

 … The social penalty for homosexuality is non-existent. The same cannot be said about the social penalty for racism. You can lose your job for the slightest episode of racism, real or perceived, which is really hypocritical in that everyone is at least a little racist.

A simple question demands to be answered: do people choose to be racist? If say you say no, then what’s the point of shaming them? They’re beyond reformation. If you say yes, that necessitates a follow-up question—if racism is a choice, who would choose it knowing that it would mean living life as a pariah? Certainly no one I know would knowingly accept the social penalty that comes with harboring forbidden thoughts. It must therefore be an inborn characteristic.

Trump is the Republican Party’s monster, yes; But what he represents is also part of the Obama legacy

THE spectacle of the Republican Party’s Trumpian meltdown has inspired a mix of glee and fear among liberals

writes Ross Douthat in the New York Times (echoing Glenn Reynolds's columns in USA Today) — 

glee over their rivals’ self-immolation, and fear that what arises from the destruction will be worse.

What it hasn’t inspired is much in the way of self-examination, or a recognition of the way that Obama-era trends in liberal politics have helped feed the Trump phenomenon.

 … Trumpism is also a creature of the late Obama era, irrupting after eight years when a charismatic liberal president has dominated the cultural landscape and set the agenda for national debates. President Obama didn’t give us Trump in any kind of Machiavellian or deliberate fashion. But it isn’t an accident that this is the way the Obama era ends — with a reality TV demagogue leading a populist, nationalist revolt.

First, the reality TV element in Trump’s campaign is a kind of fun-house-mirror version of the celebrity-saturated Obama effort in 2008. Presidential politics has long had an escalating celebrity component, a cultish side that’s grown ever-more-conspicuous with time. But the first Obama campaign raised the bar. The quasi-religious imagery and rhetoric, the Great Man iconography and pillared sets, the Oprah endorsement and Will.i.am music video and the Hollywood stars pledging allegiance — it was presidential politics as one part Aaron Sorkin-scripted liturgy, one part prestige movie’s Oscar campaign.

 … If Obama proved that you can run a presidential campaign as an aspirational cult of personality, in which a Sarah Silverman endorsement counts for as much as a governor or congressman’s support, Trump is proving that you don’t need Silverman to shout “the Aristocrats!” and have people eat it up.

He’s also proving, in his bullying, overpromising style, that voters are increasingly habituated to the idea of an ever more imperial presidency — which is also a trend that Obama’s choices have accelerated. Having once campaigned against his predecessor’s power grabs, the current president has expanded executive authority along almost every dimension: launching wars without congressional approval, claiming the power to assassinate American citizens, and using every available end-around to make domestic policy without any support from Congress.

 … that [right-wing] Caesarist, crucially, is rallying a constituency that once swung between the parties, but that the Obama White House has spent the last eight years slowly writing off. Trump’s strongest supporters aren’t archconservatives; they’re white working-class voters, especially in the Rust Belt and coal country, who traditionally leaned Democratic and still favor a strong welfare state.

These voters had been drifting away from the Democratic Party since the 1970s, but Obama has made moves that effectively slam the door on them: His energy policies, his immigration gambits, his gun control push, his shift to offense on same-sex marriage and abortion. It was possible to be a culturally conservative skeptic of mass immigration in the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton. Not so anymore.

  … liberalism still needs to reckon with the consequences. As in Europe, when the left gives up on nationalism and lets part of its old working class base float away, the result is a hard-pressed constituency unmoored from either party, and nursing well-grounded feelings of betrayal.

Hence Marine Le Pen and the nationalist parties of Europe. And hence, now, Donald Trump.

He is the Republican Party’s monster, yes. But what he represents is also part of the Obama legacy — a nemesis for liberal follies as well as conservative corruptions, and a threat to both traditions for many years to come.

Double Standards: Women Should Have As Many Rights As Wusses Do

(Dilbert)