A Reaction That's Not So Surprising

Most Americans don't care a whole lot about foreign affairs, and that applies to the fight between Jewish Palestinians and Arab Palestinians.

There are exceptions, however, as reflected in responses to a tweet of Rula Jebreal reacting to the conference at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee currently underway in Washington, D.C. Jebreal, a self-described "secular Muslim," ethnic Palestinian born in Haifa, and professional anti-Zionist, tweeted at 7:07 p.m. Sunday

Joe Biden getting jeered & told to  "vote Trump" at @AIPAC for mentioning illegal settlements' role in eroding peace prospects & democracy  

Jebreal's tweet apparently was a slight- but significant- reworking of a tweet by Jacob Kornbluh, described by employer Jewish Press as an "up-and-coming Jewish Orthodox blogger."  His comment read

Biden booed and jeered as he criticizes Israel's expansion of settlements and illegal outposts (Guy yells: "vote for Trump") #AIPAC2016

Already you've noticed a problem here: The highly-educated and well-known Jebreal contended Biden "getting jeered and told to 'vote Trump'" after Kornbluh maintained "guy yells 'vote for Trump.'"  One evidently objective commenter who apparently noticed tweeted "thought it was one 'attendee' who shouted vote Trump?.... of 19,000? No aipac fan but think context is important?" Another went with "clueless liberal Biden doesn't understand imprtance of Israel, or indeed the US, to maintain a solid security wall."

To be fair: Jebreal had her defenders. They did not, however, include accuracy.

Politico (though with an extremely misleading headline) noted

“Actions on either side to undermine trust only take us further away from the path of peace,” Biden said. He cited efforts by Israel’s critics to sanction it in international bodies like the United Nations — which Biden said the U.S. would continue to block — and Israel’s policy allowing settlements to proliferate. Such activities, Biden said, move Israel “toward a one-state reality, which is a reality that is dangerous"...

Biden also sought to confront lingering opposition to the Iran deal at AIPAC, which campaigned aggressively against the nuclear agreement. (Shortly before Biden’s remarks, the conference honored an activist who had lobbied Hispanic members of Congress to oppose the deal.)

So the Vice-President goes to the annual conference of a determined, singularly pro-Israel group and criticizes the Israeli government for its settlement policy and defends the Iranian deal anathema to Prime Minister Netanyahu.  Politico reports "And In general, however, Biden was received warmly by the 18,700 people he said were in the audience."

Those vicious Zionists! Won't they ever open their hearts and minds to criticism?

The real lesson, for individuals supporting Arab Palestinians, should be that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is pursuing a policy so antithetical to the cause of lasting peace that even engaged AIPAC members are willing to entertain the idea of changing Tel Aviv's settlement policy. That would be more or less the take of someone who is wants both a Palestinian homeland and a secure, Jewish state in the Middle East. Clearly, that would not be Rula Jebreal and others like her.
















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Sunday Religious Speculation

On Friday, Mitt Romney wrote on his Facebook page

This week, in the Utah nominating caucus, I will vote for Senator Ted Cruz.

Today, there is a contest between Trumpism and Republicanism. Through the calculated statements of its leader, Trumpism has become associated with racism, misogyny, bigotry, xenophobia, vulgarity and, most recently, threats and violence. I am repulsed by each and every one of these.

The only path that remains to nominate a Republican rather than Mr. Trump is to have an open convention. At this stage, the only way we can reach an open convention is for Senator Cruz to be successful in as many of the remaining nominating elections as possible.

I like Governor John Kasich. I have campaigned with him. He has a solid record as governor. I would have voted for him in Ohio. But a vote for Governor Kasich in future contests makes it extremely likely that Trumpism would prevail.

I will vote for Senator Cruz and I encourage others to do so as well, so that we can have an open convention and nominate a Republican.

Utah is famously Mormon with 55%-60% of its residents belonging to the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  The devout Mitt Romney is the not only the nation's most famous Mormon, but also evidently eligible to vote in Utah. He is not alone there in his opposition to Donald Trump, for

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has zoomed to a commanding lead in Utah's GOP caucuses, according to a new poll released Saturday. It also gave a glimpse into how frustrated the state's Republicans are with Donald Trump's candidacy.

The Y2 Analytics survey shows Cruz with 53 percent support among likely Republican caucus-goes and if that matches Tuesday's caucus vote, he'd win all of the state's 40 GOP delegates.

Coming in second is Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 29 percent, while Trump, the national front-runner, was a distant third at 11 percent.

Inasmuch as Donald Trump apparently is cruising (pun intended) to nomination in Cleveland this summer, the lack of support for the frontrunner in a state is astounding news. It is not, however, to Buzzfeed's McKay Coppins, who writes

while Mormons make up the most reliably Republican religious group in the country, they differ from the party’s base in key ways that work against Trump.

On immigration, for example, the hard-line proposals that have rallied Trump’s fans — like building a massive wall along the country’s southern border to keep immigrants out — are considerably less likely to fire up conservative Latter-day Saints. The LDS church has spent years lobbying for “compassionate” immigration reform. In 2011, church leaders offered a full-throated endorsement of “the Utah Compact,” a state legislative initiative that discouraged deporting otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants and offered a path to residency for families that would be separated by deportation.

These pro-immigrant attitudes are common among rank-and-file believers, many of whom have served missions in Latin American countries. Mormons are more than twice as likely as evangelicals to say they support “more immigration” to the United States, according to Notre Dame political scientist David Campbell. And a 2012 Pew survey found Mormons were more likely to say immigrants “strengthen” the country than they were to call immigrants an overall “burden.” When Romney ran for president in 2012 on a restrictionist immigration platform, his views were widelynoted in LDS circles for being at odds with his church.

That's all very logical, and such a thoughtful and relatively objective report on the interrelationship of religion and politics is disturbingly uncommon. However, consider that Coppins has been (understandably) antagonistic to Trump. Additionally, he was convinced (understandably) in February 2014 that he would not make become a candidate, at the time maintaining

For a person who has carefully cultivated an image of cartoonish gravitas, his constant courting of the political press seems grindingly small: picking fights with pasty, underpaid reporters, feeding sound bites to niche right-wing political websites, trekking up to frozen New Hampshire in January on the off chance that his antics will flash across a dayside cable news chyron for a few seconds. Why bother?

Coppins also is a Mormon, as he has noted, as well as left-of-center.  His explanation, therefore, may be incomplete.

Utah Republicans are hardly liberal or even moderate. The two main GOP presidential candidates at this time are Trump and Ted Cruz. The latter is inarguably the (even) more conservative candidate and much of the opposition to Trump stems from the belief that he is not a true Republican or true conservative. Clearly, he is not the free-market ideologue that the Texas senator is and Utah Republicans, most of them Mormon, may simply prefer the thoroughly extreme right-winger to the less reliable right-winger.

Further, there may be a direct religous component to the inability of Trump to gain traction among Utah Republicans.   The front-runner has (infamously) and oddly referred to "Two Corinthians" rather than "Second Corinthians."  At an event of Christian right organizations last July, he stated "When I drink my little wine -- which is about the only wine I drink -- and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed,"

It did not escape the attention of Christians that "my little wine" and "my little cracker" are a little patronizing or at least trivialize the act of communion. Some also realize that the purpose of communion is not "asking for forgiveness."

Trump;s response when asked whether he has asked God for forgiveness was even more surprising for a political candidate. "I am not sure I have," he admitted.  "I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don't think so.  I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don't bring God into that picture. I don't."

There are agnostics who have asked God for forgiveness. It's who we are vulnerable and uncertain, as human beings.  Yet while bold enough to leave God out of the equation of forgivenss, Trump did assert "People are so shocked when they find ... out I am Protestant. I am Presbyterian."  Less than 14% of residents of Utah identify as Protestant, compared to almost 48% nationally.

It is unusual, though honest and in this instance appropriate, for a candidate to downplay his faith and pointedly note that he is a Protestant and Presbyeterian. Mormons routinely consider themselves Christian but obviously are not Presbyterian and their relationship to Protestantism is tenuous.  It wouldn't be surprisng if that plays a role in their resistance to Trump, the man while they are repulsed by the nativist and nationalist presentation of Trump, the politician.

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He Wins Again

There is little doubt that in introducing Merrick Brian Garland as his Supreme Court nominee, President Obama cleverly employed the judge's work in prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers. With that "law and order" rhetoric, Elias Isquith argues, Obama is taking a traditional conservative issue and "driving that wedge as deep into the GOP coalition as he can."

"In this (i.e., pre-election) scenario," Isquith continues

it’s hard to see how Obama loses. If ratcheting up the pressure causes the GOP to cry uncle, then Garland ends up on the Supreme Court, giving liberals the majority for the first time in a generation. And if that pressure isn’t enough to get Garland a vote, it’s still going to cause the GOP even more internal strife than it’s experiencing already — which makes a Clinton victory more likely, too.

While it's conceivable that Garland is approved by the Senate in the next few months, it's hardly likely. And any "internal strife" the nomination causes the GOP won't account for a hill of beans in November. (Garland is 63 years old. At least he knows what "hill of beans" refers to.)

Isquith adds

And if Clinton wins, then Obama has a few options. He can try to get Garland confirmed in a “lame-duck” session; or he can punish Republicans even further, as many liberals will no doubt advocate, by withdrawing Garland and letting Clinton pick an even more liberal nominee herself. Either way, the Supreme Court just got a lot more liberal; and the Republican Party just got a lot more demoralized and divided.

If Garland is not approved, Hillary Clinton wins the election, and President Obama withdraws Garland's nomination in favor of allowing a President Clinton to make a selection, a DNA test must be ordered. Barack Obama will have been whisked out of the White House without anyone noticing and replaced by a double.

Ironically, that is precisely why, as Isquith concludes

Republicans may prove just smart enough to take what Obama’s giving. But even if that happens, it wouldn’t change the subtly ruthless nature of the president’s gambit. You may disagree with the strategy — you may prefer firing up liberals to splitting Republicans — but there should be no question that Obama knows what he’s doing.

Barack Obama does know precisely what he is doing....  and knew what to do before anyone figured it out. Before Garland was tapped, the scenario laid out by the media, politicans, pundits, and virtually everyone was that the individual selected by the President would be denied a hearing or approved in a somewhat routine fashion. There was little or no talk of the possibility that he would be given serious consideration if, and only if, a Democrat were to be elected in November.

It is quite probable that President Obama foresaw this scenario. Even now, the question generally is framed as to whether Obama out-maneuvered the Republican Party or- conversely- the GOP will get what it wants by waiting till the truest lame-duck period, the time between the election and the convening of the new Congress. "They've been asking for him (Garland) for years," noted the National Constiution Center's Jeffrey Rosen, and the GOP has it within its power to get what it wants if a Clinton presidency looms.  Democratic senators could be expected to fall in line and do as the President asks them to.

That is, of course, unless following a Clinton victory, Obama withdraws the nomination of the highly-respected centrist/moderate.  However, given that his legacy then would include placing not three, but two, judges on the United States Supreme Court, that is improbable. And if, during the lame-duck period, Merrick Brian Garland is approved, both Barack Obama and the Republican Party will have won.  That's not helpful for the cause of progressive change and of the Democratic Party, but it would mark a victory for a truly prescient president who values bipartisanship above all.

















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The Reactions Missing From National Democrats

On February 17, Lauren McCauley of Common Dreams reported that Senator Bernard Sanders had spoken at a rally in Michigan and

said that Flint “may be the worst example of a collapsing infrastructure, but it is not the only example.”

Sanders contrasted those who question the expense of replacing Flint’s damaged pipes and water infrastructure to the “trillions” spent on waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan. “When we went to war in Iraq, the trillions we spent there, not a problem,” Sanders said.

Throughout the campaign for the Democratic nomination, Sanders has repeatedly differentiated himself from his opponent Hillary Clinton over their opposing votes on the Iraq War—which she supported and he did not. Both candidates, however, have made the ongoing water crisis in Flint a focus of their campaigns with Clinton visiting the city earlier this month.

And so they have, while GOP candidates for President largely have stayed silent, which was positive given what they would have said.   Sanders (in debate, below) and Clinton responded much more rapidly than did Republicans and have been much more decisive, as well as wiser in their assessment of the situation.








But their responses have been inadequate- and disappointing in the case of Sanders, the "democratic socialist," from whom much more should have been expected. Fortunately, we now know what we should have heard. At the hearing held by the House Government Oversight Committee on Thursday, Representative William Clay (D-MO.) observed (hat tip to Eclectablog)

You know, I have to hand it to my Republican colleagues. They are actually making their argument with a straight face. And, you know, just to be clear, Republicans here today are claiming that the EPA – the Obama EPA – should have been more aggressive in stepping in and seizing control and overruling the Republican-controlled state of Michigan. They are just outraged that the EPA wasn’t more assertive with Michigan and didn’t immediately go public with their complaints about the state’s failure to follow the law. Ms. McCarthy, the irony is almost overwhelming, isn’t it? Republicans have been absolutely slamming the EPA for overreaching at every possible turn. Now they criticize the EPA for not doing more when Gov. Snyder fell down on the job.

Let’s go through some of these ridiculous government statements.

Donald Trump has called for entirely eliminating the EPA and handing power over to the states. He said this, and I quote, “Environmental protection, we waste all of this money. We’re going to bring this back to the states. […]

Another Republican candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, agrees with Mr. Trump. He said this, and I quote, “I think states should press back using every tool they have available. […]

Marco Rubio, now a former Republican candidate, has vowed to scale back the Clean Water Act. He said this: “Regulations in this country are out of control, especially the ‘Employment Prevention Agency’, the EPA.” […]

Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said this: “Let’s shut down the federal EPA and focus on those issues where, here in the state, the state knows best how to protect resources.” […]

Obviously the state of Michigan did not know best in this case. They poisoned thousands of their own people. […]

House Republicans, including some in this room, have voted at every turn to gut the EPA’s authority to enforce the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the list goes on.

That is a healthy dose of partisanship, needed and enlightening, which has not been heard from anyone named Clinton, Sanders, Obama, or Carter.  Neither has any of those individuals drawn the obvious cause and effect, explained by Charlie Pierce as

Regardless of who sent what memo to whom and when they sent it, the crisis in Flint is the result of a full implementation and exercise of a philosophy of government that noisy pissants like Chaffetz, Grothman, Carter, and Rick Snyder have proposed as a solution to almost all the nation's problems—government is bad, government bureaucrats are always incompetent, devolve federal powers to the states, and that government is best that is limited and, preferably, run like a business.

We haven't gotten anything like either remark from the Democrats running for President. Of course, neither has it been uttered from the former, living "Democratic" presidents- Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter nor the current one. Perhaps with a few breaks, and the realization of  the populist mood in the land, the next President- if a Democrat- will talk the talk and walk the walk (or at least avoid such bad cliches).  Hope springs eternal.










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The Trump, Kasich, Fox News Partnership

“I will say this," Donald Trump told reporters on March 11, then added

I think we’ve had enough debates. We’ve had 11 or 12 debates. I did really well on the last one. I think I’ve done well in all the debates. I mean, according to Drudge and everybody else, I have won the debates. But I think we’ve had enough how many times can the same people ask you the same question? So I was very surprised when I heard that Fox called for a debate. Nobody told me about it. And I won’t be there, no.

The answer to the question, if Trump is allowed to have his way, is: zero (0). And if he's looking for a wing man, he need look no further than Columbus, where Governor John Kasich holds forth.

Fox Wednesday morning issued a statement reading

This morning, Donald Trump announced he would not be participating in the debate. Shortly afterward, John Kasich’s campaign announced that without Trump at the debate, Kasich would not participate. Ted Cruz has expressed a willingness to debate Trump or Kasich — or both. But obviously, there needs to be more than one participant. So the Salt Lake City debate is cancelled.

Trump stated that he would be speaking in Washington, D.C. at the annual conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Council, which runs from Sunday through Tuesday, on March 21. There is no report at this time as to whether the front-runner might have been able to re-schedule his speech for Sunday evening, which presumably would have allowed him to attend the debate in Utah on Monday.

According to CNN Money, the event "had been penciled into the calendar in February," whatever that means. In this under-reported story, there is no indication whether Trump had been informed earlier that there would be a debate on March 21.  Perhaps he had been made so aware, given it would be an obvious case of malfeasance if no one at the network had earlier gained the candidate's agreement to appear on that date. Clearly, Trump is "scared of debate," as Cruz told Megyn Kelly Wednesday night.

Fox News may have maneuvered the situation so as to give Trump an out.  Ted Cruz has been overtly lusting for an opportunity to go one-on-one with the frontrunner (Cruz after Trump pulled out of an earlier debate, video below).  It is counter-intuitive for a candidate in the position of Kasich, who cannot be nominated on the first ballot in Cleveland even if he were to win every single remaining delegate, to turn down an opportunity for going toe-to-toe with the other candidates. Yet, eager to run on a ticket with Trump, the Ohio governor declined to participate.

Fox reportedly offered a town hall meeting to Cruz- after the candidate, learning the debate had been canceled, made other plans. Alternatively, Fox could have held the semblance of a debate, with the three moderators posing questions to the Texas senator in that same format. That would have allowed for a cross-examination of the candidate with considerable follow-up, which might have made for riveting television. However, Rupert Murdoch of NewsCorp, owner of Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, has been warming to Donald Trump for a couple of months, and never has been a fan of Ted Cruz.

That might have proved embarrassing to Cruz (as it might to any candidate), but it would have been seen as a prime opportunity for a guy who has argued in front of the US Supreme Court.  Further, Fox could have set up two lecterns, those by which the other two candidates would have stood had they been willing to wrangle with the Texas senator. Even without those, it would have been great television, as well as an indication that the network was not to be trifled with.    Instead, Fox News has decided to do the bidding of Donald Trump, much as it (and its main star) did by refusing to back Megyn Kelly when Trump demeaned her at an earlier date.

The network may be transitioning into general election mode, in which it  will do everything to get the GOP  nominee elected. While viewers in Utah may be disappointed, neither Donald Trump nor the governor of Ohio, who hopes to be the other guy nominated in Cleveland, is complaining.

















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He Knows What He's Doing. That May Not Be Good.

President Obamais  periodically credited with playing three-dimensional chess because he knows everyone's moves before they are made and acts accordingly.

And so it is, we all agree, with the President's nomination of Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Law professor Paul Campos believes the nod puts Republican

senators in a terrible bind. If they carry through with their we-just-made-it-up-on-the-spot principle, and refuse to even give an indisputably moderate nominee such as Garland a hearing, they will look like petty obstructionists to swing voters in their home states (engaging in petty obstruction tends to be the kind of thing that makes you look like a petty obstructionist).

On the other hand, if they relent and hold hearings, the pressure to actually confirm Garland will build, since the only argument against confirming him will be, essentially, that he’s not Antonin Scalia reincarnated.

Confirming Garland before next year, however, is almost out of the question. Such an act would throw the GOP base, already in the throes of the belief that they have been“betrayed” by RINO squishes, into a rabid frenzy that would make the average Trump rally look like graduate school seminar.

So Garland almost certainly won’t get a vote, or at least not until next year. But that decision in turn has a non-trivial chance of playing a role in flipping the Senate back to the Democrats. 

."A centrist like Garland," Slate's Jim Newell similarly writes, "was someone that first-term Obama thought might earn Republicans’ respect. Now he is someone that second-term Obama knows will earn their irrational enmity."  Both Newell and Campos understand that President Obama realizes that a candidate he nominates is unlikely to get a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and that virtually no one would be approved by the GOP-dominated chamber.

Steve M. agrees, believing the President has outmaneuvered the opposition because "he didn't choose someone to put on the Court. He chose someone to be blockaded. I think it was a canny choice." He adds

This pick motivates Democratic voters who are a little closer to the center. Frankly, some of those voters are likely to be ... well, not racist exactly, but people who'd find an African-American or Indian-American nominee less relatable. Obama knows this. If these voters can be motivated to vote Democratic in November by Republican intransigence, they're most likely to respond to a blockade of someone they can identify with.

So I get what Obama's doing. Now let's see how the Republicans react. And if they say, "Well, we told you 'Hell, no,' but we changed our minds," they might pay a price with their base in November.

Well, yes, they would if they're so foolish as to change their minds.  However, it is not all about ethnicity.  Garland (Jewish, by the way) teared up Wednesday when Obama introduced him to the media- and is not someone whom most of those voters will "identify with."

A few GOP senators facing re-election (Ayotte, Collins, and Grassley) have indicated they would consider meeting with Garland.  However, Republicans probably would pay a bigger political price- with their base, Steve M. notes- if they go ahead with hearings than they would with the November electorate if they hang tough.

If that's the case, the President realized and considered it. He also is unlikely to have been surprised when GOP senators

indicated that they might be willing to take up Obama's nominee during the lame duck session in December, if they lose the presidential election. 

"I'd probably be open to resolving this in a lame duck," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said. 

How generous. If Hillary Clinton is elected, they might kindly consider Obama's nomination instead of waiting on the selection made by Hillary Clinton, who has been investigated and reviled by the GOP for a quarter of a century and surely knows payback is a bitch.

If Republicans in mid-November do offer to take up Mr. Garland's nomination, Democrat will fall in line with the wishes of Barack Obama. The President's legacy, then, will be enhanced, as he is hailed by future historians for having gotten three of his people onto the Supreme Court.  That's a fitting goal for someone who, as Democrats didn't recognize in 2008 and in many cases still don't, finds fighting for principle uncomfortable. In a similar vein, Jack Mirkinson explains

But Obama also signaled that he chose Garland because—aside from the fact that he clearly thinks he would make a good Supreme Court justice—he sees him as a symbol of the kinds of moderate compromise politics that he has been preaching ever since he rose to prominence. He hailed Garland’s ability to forge consensus and “assemble unlikely coalitions,” and called him a “thoughtful, fair-minded judge who follows the law,” an implicit rejection of the more activist, pathbreaking judicial approach Obama has said in the past he prefers not to take. Obama used his most disappointed, whispery tone when he lamented that the Supreme Court is “supposed to be above politics” and that “courtesy” and “comity” seemed to be things of the past.

This has always been one of the sides of Obama that has infuriated his critics ever since he arrived in the White House: his insistence, against all available evidence, on continuing to see if his opponents can be reasonable. It has led him to some major disasters, but after almost eight years in office he’s still singing the same tune.

















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No Need For Alarm

It's too soon.

Not so, would argue MoveOn and the leaders of 21 other national leftist organizations. They have signed an open letter denouncing Donald Trump and encouraging a three pronged effort: "non-violent mobiliation and organizing;""asking every media outlet, corporation, and office-holder to condemn Trump's racism, misogyny, and xenophobia;" and "a voting renaissance."

Premised on myths, the letter includes

We cannot afford to underestimate him until it’s too late, as many Republicans now regret having done during the primaries. If we wait to see how things shake out to make our plans, it’ll be too late and November will come sooner than anyone thinks.

Republicans who say they waited too long underestimate their own voters. Author Solomon Jones summarizes "Republicans, in an attempt to capitalize on the anger of white voters after the election of the first black president, spent nearly eight years sowing fertile seeds of anger in the rich soil of hatred. The result was a bumper crop of Donald Trump." The Party practically created Donald Trump, and it's unclear what strategy, employed months earlier, would have stymied him.

Panic seems to be setting in as they warn against waiting "to see how things shake out to make" their plans.  Prior to the first general election presidential debate in 2012, Mitt Romney had a lead of less than one percentage point over Barack Obama among likely voters. After that face-off in Denver, Romney's lead grew to approximately 4%. President Obama eventually won the election by 3.9%. Preferences come and go, changing rapidly and significantly. .Further, the nomination of Trump is not a foregone conclusion, especially- ironically- if he wins in Ohio, thereby creating a two-man race.

The authors believe contend Trump's likely nomination represents "a five-alarm fire threat to our democracy" while he

peddles the same right-wing agenda holding back working families and their communities: low wages, massive tax cuts for the wealthy, mass incarceration, denial of climate change, unraveling protections for workers’ rights, attacks on immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, attacks on LGBTQ rights, and more.

That is "the  same  right-wing agenda"- aside from Trump opposing cuts to Social Security and elimination of Planned Parenthood- which consistently is peddled on the right. However, the GOP nomination, after today, will come down to Trump, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich, or only Trump and Cruz. And while John Kasich is- arguably- less conservative than Donald Trump, no one would claim that of the Texas senator.

In the recent National Review issue dedicated to presenting the argument against Trump, L. Brent Bozell maintained the real estate mogul never had supported conservative causes because "he was too distracted publicly raising money for liberals such as the Clintons; championing Planned Parenthood, tax increases, and single-payer health coverage; and demonstrating his allegiance to the Democratic party."  Mona Charen cited his "countless past departures from conservative principle on defense, racial quotas, abortion, taxes, single-payer health care, and immigration." Erick Erickson claimed that until recently Trump supported "the prosecution of hate crimes. He favored wealth-confiscation policies. He supported abortion rights."

And Ben Domenech, the right-wing libertarian sufficiently reasonable-sounding that he frequently appears with Chris Hayes as a guest on All In, levels the greatest Republican insult of them all: Trump supports "Euro-style identity politics" (freedom fries, anyone?).

Donald Trump, as a few of his rallies have indicated, certainly has sown the seeds of discord and as observed by the group of progressives, "has repeatedly incited and praised violence against those whom he belittles and with whom he disagrees."  Nonetheless, it is unwise to mobilize to defeat a candidate who may not become the nominee and who apresents less of a danger than does his major opponent of being elected if he is nominated and would be less of a threat to liberal values.
















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