And Now, The Trump Card
I'm liking this...
Donald Trump dramatically escalated his feud with rival Ted Cruz on Monday, threatening to sue the Texas senator over his eligibility for office if he does not retract alleged “lies” about Trump’s positions – and calling on the Republican National Committee to intervene on two fronts.
The billionaire businessman wants the RNC to pressure Cruz, and also stop allowing so many donors at the debates. If the RNC does not “get its act together,” Trump warned, they would be violating the “pledge” he signed to support the eventual GOP nominee.
I think he should sue.
Cruz either has a CRBA from the State Department or he does not. For a citizen born outside the United States that document is the proof that you were born as a citizen of the United States, just as a US birth certificate is the proof that you were born here as a citizen if you are born in the United States, as I've written on before.
But there's more here that Trump has every right to be angry over. First, the GOP misappropriated his name and likeness to solicit donations for the GOP. They recently solicited donations allegedly for "Trump supporters" but the funds they were soliciting will go to the GOP generally, not to Trump's campaign, and they did it without his permission.
Absent some sort of formal agreement by Trump to allow his name and likeness to be used in this fashion that's an outrageous abuse and breaks a number of laws, including the fact that the GOP needs a photo release for the picture they used since it was used for commercial, not editorial, purpose.
The law on such is quite-clear, incidentally. I can take a photo of you (provided I have or acquire the copyright) and use it for editorial purpose, or for that matter I can sell the image as a work of art. But if I use that image to sell something (e.g. a brand of soda, a brand of shirt, etc) then I have to have a release from every person in the picture or I've violated your rights and the person who does the advertising (not the photographer) can be sued and will probably lose.
Well, GOP? Where's your photo release? You don't have one, do you?
That's what I thought.
Then there is the stacking of debate audiences, "strategic" placement of microphones in the stacked portions of the audience and worse, blatant electronic "enhancement" of both boos and cheers, all of which has happened in the last two "contests."
Remember that Trump signed his pledge to the Republican Party under the specific condition that his candidacy be treated fairly.
Any one of the above would be a clear violation of that constraint and thus free him from his pledge. But he doesn't have one violation, he has at least three, never mind the phony GOP solicitation made under his name but for the GOP's benefit, not his.
There's a basic reality that the GOP has to face here: The establishment GOP is not in charge when it comes to Trump, nor for that matter, are they in charge when it comes to voters.
They may think they are but we have a candidate in the race this time around who is more than willing to stick up the middle finger when it's called for -- and in my opinion that line was crossed quite some time ago with all the phony promises of "reducing spending", "erasing the deficit", "enforcing the rule of law" and similar flat-out lies.
As for people like Starnes who wish to blame Republican voters for "screwing this up" by refusing to vote for Romney **** you with a rusty chainsaw. Neither I or anyone else is under any obligation to vote for anyone or to vote at all.
The party that wishes me to vote for their candidate instead of either staying home or voting for Cthulu has the affirmative obligation to run a candidate worth voting for, and if they cannot be bothered to do that they deserve to be destroyed as a political force in this or any other nation.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by jslo
Millions of people (especially millennials) would welcome a tyrannical welfare state with open arms. The good news is, there are more than 100 million of us who wouldn't welcome such a change, but as Foxtrot posted earlier, it won't happen with a bang: it is the quiet incrementalism that is killing us. Incrementalism in gun rights. Incrementalism in education. Incrementalism in economic policy. Incrementalism in Executive actions. While there will always be a small number of lazy and selfish individuals, the state has actually made it very appealing and hip to be lazy and selfish (and entitled). It will be interesting to see how this movement collides with significant geopolitical movements like Islam over the next few decades. It most certainly won't be pleasant.
