Month: May 2016

New York Times: “Hoping for a moment of party unity, Mr. Trump had scarcely declared victory in Indiana when the cascade of rejection began, starting with the announcement by George Bush and his son George W. Bush, the only former Republican presidents still living, that they would not back his candidacy. And on Thursday night, Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 nominee, said he intended to hold to his earlier pledge not to vote for Mr. Trump, according to an audio recording of his remarks.” “Mr. Romney’s remarks came just hours after House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, the nation’s highest-ranking Republican elected official, delivered an embarrassing blow to Mr. Trump, declaring that he had not yet proven himself worthy of an endorsement.” And now Jeb Bush and Lindsay Graham say they won't vote for Trump. Trump reacted as maturely as you'd expect. And he has now turned against his top fellater Joe Scarborough because Joe said he wouldn't vote for Trump unless he dropped his Muslim ban.

I wasn't impressed by Paul Ryan's statement that he wasn't "ready" to support Trump. In the very construction is the implication that the support is coming, just not yet. Republicans always unify around this year's idiot, so Ryan's statement struck me as a perfunctory nod in the direction of Redstate commenters in order to keep his conservative street cred. Then I read this:

So, a lot happened yesterday. Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest ranking elected Republican in the country, broke with his party's presidential nominee and said he could not support Trump. It is not surprising, but it is shocking when you stop to think about that. Trump responded as you would expect, childishly and petulantly, shooting himself in the foot in the process. He said "Oh yeah, well I don't think I can support Speaker Ryan's agenda." Speaker Ryan's agenda, such that it is, is the conservative agenda. That was a fucking bullhorn signal to conservatives that Trump is not on their side. That might have devastating consequences, all because Trump is an immature child who always has to respond insultingly. And I am somehow supposed to fear this man? Yeah, no. We also got a lot of leakage in the Hillary Clinton/FBI story, which always tells you that the investigation is wrapping up and a conclusion has been reached on the nature of it. CNN reported that "some of Hillary Clinton’s closest aides, including her longtime adviser Huma Abedin, have provided interviews to federal investigators, as the FBI probe into the security of her private email server nears completion[.]" While the investigation is still ongoing and will conclude after a final interview of Hillary herself, "so far investigators haven’t found evidence to prove that Clinton willfully violated the law." Meanwhile, The Washington Post is reporting that “[p]rosecutors and FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server have so far found scant evidence that the leading Democratic presidential candidate intended to break classification rules[.] This was always going to be a Republican non-scandal, just like Whitewater, just like Benghazi. The most disappointing thing about the Democratic primary this year was seeing just how many supposed progressives gleefully repeated Republican talking points about Benghazi and her emails.