Donald Trump Didn't Start the Wife-Baiting Political Attacks

Following-up, "Donald Trump Twitter War with Ted Cruz (VIDEO)."

Here's some background, at the S.D. Union-Tribune, "Trump threatens Cruz over naked Melania photo."

And see this great piece, from Milo Yiannopoulos, at Breitbart, "In Defense of Donald Trump’s Heidi Cruz Tweet":

The first point to be made is that Trump didn’t start the wife-baiting. Make America Awesome, a Trump-opposing PAC founded by the mannish Liz Mair, started circulating a particularly raunchy image of Melania Trump, urging GOP primary voters to back Cruz. While Cruz didn’t authorise the ad himself, it was retweeted by many of his supporters. As always, the super PACs acted like a ninja assassins for its candidate. “It wasn’t me, your honour – it was those dastardly, nefarious PACs!”

*****

Trump’s crass tweets and objectionable comments may not be comfortable reading for old-fashioned conservatives who appreciate decency and good manners, but they are helping to break the language codes that were primarily set up by the left, for the left. Trump is destroying old notions of what’s acceptable and unacceptable to say, and the primary losers of his new paradigm will be left-wingers and establishment types.

If Republicans learn anything from the unbelievable failure of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, it should be that “presidential” and “nice” don’t go together.  Isn’t it strange that elections follow the same rules as dating? Nice guys finish last.

Republicans typically reject the “everybody gets a trophy” mentality that has invaded our culture, but if you insist, we can add up to the attractiveness quotient of Cruz’s wife and all of his alleged mistresses and compare the total with Melania. That ought to at least earn him a participation trophy.

To beat Hillary, Republicans must focus on getting more people under the tent, which means snagging Democrats. Would Trump gain the support blue collar working Democrats by tearfully apologizing to Cruz after the senator’s minions attacked his wife? He could actually alienate them with that behaviour. Outside of the D.C beltway, respect is gained by standing up for yourself, and punching back twice as hard.

You also need balls to tame the beast of political progressivism. Trump is facing attackers from all sides. GOP establishment members planning convention shenanigans to steal the nomination, RINOs like Rick Wilson promising to vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump, and Soros-funded goons from Black Lives Matter and MoveOn planning attacks on the democratic process.  The Donald knows that the best defense is a good offense, and that’s exactly the style we need to win the election.

Trump isn’t just changing politics, he’s changing culture. The grievance wars have created a daily reality of fear for people who fall foul of the hyper-offended, even when the offense is unintentional. When actor Drake Bell cracked a joke about calling Caitlyn Jenner “Bruce,” he faced an internet lynch-mob of people who were offended on Jenner’s behalf and was forced to apologise.

Taking offense is a sort of one-upmanship. If you’re offended, especially on behalf of an allegedly “marginalized” group, it signals you’re a part of the educated, progressive elite. This, from people who’ve never read a book outside 2 years of a Gender Studies degree.

This is the consensus that’s prevailed in politics and culture for more than a generation. There are only two significant forces that are putting up a fight against it: the anonymous pranksters of the internet, who reside on websites like 4chan and 8chan and delight in deliberately offending people, and Donald Trump...

Still more.

John Hawkins: No, I Will Not Vote for Donald J. Trump in a General Election

The proprietor of Right Wing News, at Town Hall:

I hammered John McCain and Mitt Romney so brutally during the GOP primaries that I was blackballed from the 2008 and 2012 Republican conventions in retaliation, but when the time came in the general election, I did vote Republican. I will never be a fan of John McCain or Mitt Romney, but I could at least embrace Reagan’s my “80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy” mantra and support them.

I cannot say the same about Donald J. Trump.

He’s not a good man, a Christian or a conservative and he doesn’t care about the Constitution, the country or as far I can tell, anything other than making money and hearing his name repeated as often as possible. If Matthew 7:16 is right and, “By their fruit you will recognize them,” what fruits has Donald J. Trump borne into the conservative movement? He’s managed to turn longtime allies against each other, good people are approving of despicable behavior they would have unhesitatingly condemned a year ago and the way he behaves is so childish and disgusting that 35% of Republicans and Republican leaning independents want a third party if he’s the nominee. Many Donald J. Trump fans assume these people who detest him so much are “establishment” Republicans. While it’s true that many members of the GOP establishment dislike Donald J. Trump (And others, like Chris Christie, Rick Scott and Scott Brown have endorsed him), the majority of people who oppose him are grassroots conservatives. Donald J. Trump may have more backers than anyone else in a divided field, but so far roughly two-thirds of Republicans have picked someone other than him as their candidate.

I don’t insult people for supporting or endorsing Donald J. Trump, I haven’t called for any blacklists, I’m not calling for the nomination to be taken from him at the convention and I’m not encouraging anyone to start a third party. In fact, I know there are many good conservatives who support Donald J. Trump. Unfortunately, when a third of the Republican Party rallies behind an unelectable, unstable, misogynistic, authoritarian conman who says any stupid thing that comes into his head, there is no escape for the rest of us from the ramifications of that decision...

Keep reading.

Body Cam Footage Shows Fatal Police Shooting of Mentally Disabled Man Freddy Centeno (VIDEO)

At KABC News 30 Fresno, "BODY CAM FOOTAGE: FREDDY CENTENO SHOT BY FRESNO POLICE," and "FRESNO POLICE RESPOND TO BODY CAM VIDEO OF FATAL SHOOTING OF FREDDY CENTENO."

And watch, at ABC Nightly News:

Donald Trump Twitter War with Ted Cruz (VIDEO)

This is the weirdest presidential primary I can remember, and it's not pretty.

At CBS Evening News:

Deal of the Day: Pebble Time Round Smartwatch

At Amazon, Pebble Time Round Smartwatch - Silver/Stone (20mm) (Certified Refurbished).

More, Save on Pebble Smartwatches.

And, Save on Puma Athletic Shoes.

Also from Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.

And Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.

BONUS: By Saul Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-1945: Abridged Edition.

#BrusselsAttacks: Suspect Shot in Schaerbeek Raid (VIDEO)

See the live blog at Telegraph UK, "Images emerge of suspect from Schaerbeek raid being dragged away," and "Video purports to show man 'neutralised' in Brussels raid."

Also, "'Several explosions, man neutralised'."

Plus, at WSJ, "Two Shot as Belgium Intensifies Terror Sweep":

BRUSSELS—Belgian police carried out multiple raids and shot two people who resisted arrest on Friday as they broadened their investigations into the Islamic State terror network linked to the Brussels attacks and a plot foiled Thursday in France.

The Belgium prosecutor identified the second suicide bomber at the Brussels airport as Najim Laachraoui, a 24-year-old Belgian national of Moroccan descent who is believed to have been the bomb maker of both the Paris and Brussels attacks. His DNA traces were found on one of the suicide vests and one of the detonators used in Paris, as well as in the hideouts used by the Paris attackers before the assault.

Mr. Laachraoui traveled to Syria in 2013 and was charged in absentia in February for being a recruiter for Islamic State. U.S. officials said they were surprised that Mr. Laachraoui, one of the Islamic State’s most well known bomb makers, blew himself up in the Belgian attack. Some of these officials said they think he had little choice, and was clearly worried that authorities were moving in on him.

Officials said Islamic State has many experts in explosives and it isn’t clear how quickly another of their operatives will step into Mr. Laachraoui’s role.

The raids in Belgium on Friday followed the arrest of a man in France who had been convicted for terrorism and was said to be “in an advance stage” of planning an attack, in the latest example of the potential danger posed by the Brussels-based network responsible for the Brussels and Paris terror attacks.

French President François Hollande told reporters Friday that the network of terrorists that carried out the attacks in Paris and Brussels was “on the way to being destroyed” but there were “other networks” that constituted a threat.

“We have had results in tracking down the terrorists and, in Brussels as well as Paris, there have been a number of arrests made,” Mr. Hollande said.

On Thursday, French authorities arrested Reda Kriket, a 34-year-old Frenchman who was convicted of terrorism in absentia in Belgium last year, along with the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud. French police found explosives and weapons in his apartment.

Belgian police detained two people on Friday in connection to the suspected French plot. One of the men, identified by the Belgian prosecutors, as Tawfik A., was also shot in the leg at the time of his arrest during a house raid. A second suspect, Salah A., was arrested without injuries on Friday.

In another operation, in the Schaerbeek neighborhood of Brussels, police ended up shooting and arresting a man near a tram stop with a backpack that authorities thought was suspicious. The Belgian prosecutor’s office didn’t identify the man, who was injured in the leg.

A Belgian government official described the captured man as a “big fish” and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel canceled a planned event with Secretary of State John Kerry just as the Schaerbeek operation began, officials said...

More.

'I will not be intimidated' — Amanda Carpenter Decries 'Tabloid Trash' Allegations of Affair with Ted Cruz (VIDEO)

Oh boy this is sickening.

I've not even blogged the Ted Cruz/Donald Trump Twitter-spouses flame war, and you can see why.

At Mediaite, via Memeorandum, "Trump Supporter Derails CNN Segment by Accusing Fellow Guest of Having an Affair With Ted Cruz."

And on YouTube here.

Plus, at New York Magazine, "Trump-Backing Columnist Accuses Former Cruz Aide of Affair During Live CNN Interview." (Via Memeorandum.)

'Bathroom Battles' Erupt Over Transgender Issue

At WSJ:

RALEIGH, N. C.—A broad new law here requires transgender people to use the public bathroom corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate, a rebuke of a move by the state’s largest city and the latest skirmish in the “bathroom battles” popping up in statehouses and city halls.

North Carolina on Wednesday became the first state to enact legislation restricting access to sex-segregated facilities on the basis of sex assigned at birth, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. At least 13 other states are considering similar bills, according to the nonpartisan group.

Several big cities have moved in the opposite direction. Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order requiring city agencies to allow people to use the city’s 2,200 public restrooms based on their self-declared gender identity. Philadelphia recently required private businesses to use gender-neutral signs on single-occupancy bathrooms.

But Houston voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure last year to extend nondiscrimination protections to gay and transgender people.

Ten states are considering “religious-freedom” laws, according to NCSL, which could allow businesses to refuse to work with gay couples on religious grounds. North Carolina approved a law last year allowing magistrates to opt out of performing same-sex marriages.

The flurry of proposals on LGBT issues could be a backlash to changes playing out in federal court, particularly the recent legalization of gay marriage, said Maxine Eichner, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law. But, she added, “The story with LGBT rights has been surprising—not in that there’s backlash given how quickly views on this issue have changed, but that there hasn’t been more backlash.”

The Republican National Committee, the Washington, D.C.-based group that sets the national Republican platform, is encouraging state legislatures to push back against what it describes as the Obama administration’s federal overreach on “gender identity politics,” particularly in schools.

The RNC adopted a resolution in February encouraging legislatures “to enact laws that protect student privacy and limit the use of restrooms, locker rooms and similar facilities to members of the sex to whom the facility is designated.”

The Republican-led North Carolina General Assembly passed the bathroom bill in an emergency session Wednesday night. The move came in response to an ordinance passed last month by the predominantly Democratic Charlotte City Council. State lawmakers debated, approved and had the signature of Republican Gov. Pat McCrory within 12 hours.

Civil-rights advocates say the fast track left no room for public debate and resulted in a mishmash that repeals local protections against discrimination based on race, national origin, sex and sexual orientation. These advocates say that means it puts at risk billions of dollars in federal Title IX funding, which goes to an array of public programs, including education, and prohibits discrimination...

More.

Plus, watch at ABC News, "Transgender Law Signed by NC Governor."

We're Seeing the 'Awful Legacy' of Obama's Presidency

From Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today, "Bill Clinton's inadvertent truth" (via Instapundit):

Monday night in Spokane, Wash., former President Bill Clinton praised his wife, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, by contrasting her to what he called "the awful legacy of the last eight years” under President Obama.

Although a Clinton spokesperson has since walked back Bill's apparent gaffe, that couldn’t have gone over well at the White House — or, at any rate, at the mansion in Cuba where President Obama was staying just then — but Clinton was right. Barack Obama has left an awful legacy, and the next president, whoever it is, will have a lot to deal with. Fortunately, the next president — whether it’s Hillary, Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, or even Bernie Sanders — will probably be a better president.

For one example of Obama’s “awful legacy,” we need look no further than the terror attacks this week in Brussels. These attacks, which killed dozens and injured close to 200, were perpetrated by the Islamic State, the group that Obama once disparagingly called a “jayvee team.”

Well, for a jayvee team, they’ve done a lot of damage, in the Middle East and beyond, and it’s in large part because of Obama’s premature withdrawal from Iraq, which fulfilled a political promise, but which had the effect of squandering a decade of blood and treasure, and costing many thousands of lives.

As late as 2010, things were going sufficiently well in Iraq that the Obama Administration was bragging about what a huge success they had going there. But in his 2008 campaign, Obama had promised to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, and so it was essential that he do so before 2012, or his antiwar supporters would complain. So Obama pulled out. And that was a mistake...

Big mistake.

Keep reading.

Whites 'Losing Out' to Minorities Want Donald Trump to Win GOP Nomination

This is interesting, at WaPo, "Economic and racial anxiety: Two separate forces driving support for Donald Trump."

Of course, these findings will "confirm" leftist allegations of "racism" among Republican primary voters, although that's not what the data indicate.

Indeed, roughly this same demographic of Trump supporters is made up of old-line Democrat Party voters, a kinda inconvenient fact for idiot progs.

#BrusselsAttacks: Is America Next?

From Daniel Benjamin, at Politco, "Is America Next?":

When a bomb goes off in Europe, Americans shudder as if rocked by the blast. Whatever the geographical reality, post-industrial Old Europe—in Donald Rumsfeld’s deathless phrase—is, emotionally speaking, our nearest neighbor and closest peer. So if an explosion propels shattered glass and broken bodies in a Brussels airport, we instinctively expect it to happen here next.

We shouldn’t. While the jihadist threat is genuinely global, it is by no means equally distributed. There is, of course, no such thing as perfect security, and as we saw as recently as the San Bernardino shootings in December of last year, there are individuals in the United States who are prepared to commit violence against other Americans. But the European context underlying the attacks at Brussels Airport and the downtown Maelbeek subway station—one of alienated, underemployed and ghettoized Muslims as well as subpar security—differs dramatically from anything found in the United States...

Meh.

He hardly broaches jihad at all. As long as Muslims cling to the Koran for inspiration, they'll continue to launch terrorist jihad.

More.

Deal of the Day: Dirt Devil Vacuums

At Amazon, Dirt Devil Dynamite Plus Bagless Upright Vacuum with Tools, M084650RED.

And check the whole line, up to 68 percent off, Save on Dirt Devil Vacuums.

More, Backyard Birding & Wildlife.

BONUS: From Pamela Geller, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.

Can Jihad Terror Be Stopped?

Front page at the O.C. Register. What do you think? I'm not optimistic.

See, "Can it be stopped?"

Erick Stakelbeck, ISIS Exposed

Pick up your copy, at Amazon, ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery, and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam.

#BrusselsAttacks Expose U.S. Airport 'Soft Targets' (VIDEO)

At CBS News This Morning:

Donald Trump Calls for Temporary Ban on Muslim Immigration — #BrusselsAttacks (VIDEO)

The attacks are only going to send his poll numbers skyward.

At Politico, "Will terror help Trump? ISIS attacks have fueled mogul's rise, and they keep coming."

And watch, at CNN, "Donald Trump: We have no choice but to ban Muslims."

Kohl's to Close 9 Stores in California (VIDEO)

Seven are in South California, and three in the O.C.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:



More at the San Jose Mercury News, "Why Kohl's is closing 9 stores in California."

Kristin Cavallari Book Signing in Laguna Beach

At the O.C. Register, "Former 'Laguna Beach' reality TV star Kristin Cavallari returns home for book signing."

And at Egotastic!, "Kristin Cavallari Sweater Puppies for Book Signing."

BONUS: Flashback, "Kristin Cavallari Super Tight in Body-Hugging Blue Dress for 'Good Morning America'."

Oh My! Charles Krauthammer Slams Obama's Adolescent Cuban Holiday 'While the World Burns' (VIDEO)

This is vintage Krauthammer, lol.

With Bret Baier earlier today, via Free Beacon:

Terror Attacks Fuel Debate Over Migrants in Europe (VIDEO)

I'm past worrying about when people are going to wake up.

There's actually no outrage in Europe. It's all daisy-chains and hippie candles (and calls for French fries, oddly enough). The Paris piano-man's going to be singing "Imagine" in Maelbeek any minute now, no doubt. "Solidarity" will see us through, you know. There's no time for the "hate."

It's Pollyanna all the way around.

At the New York Times, "Brussels Attacks Fuel Debate Over Migrants in a Fractured Europe":

LONDON — It did not take long. Almost as soon as the bombs went off in Brussels on Tuesday morning, the new act of terrorism in the heart of Europe was employed in the bitter debate about the influx of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

Even before the identities and nationalities of the attackers were known, there was an immediate association in popular discourse between the attacks on the airport and subway station in Brussels and the migrant crisis. Right-wing politicians and average citizens alike raised concerns that groups like the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attacks, are slipping radicalized recruits, including European jihadists, through the vast migrant stream and into an unprepared Europe.

The murderous attacks in another European capital — just days after the Belgians finally tracked down the sole surviving suspect in a series of similarly coordinated attacks that killed 130 people in and around Paris in November — prompted new questions about European solidarity and security. And they came during a period of severe self-doubt about the European Union, with low growth, high unemployment, and the threat of a British exit from the bloc, to be decided in a June referendum.

“There is a growing perception among European public opinion that E.U. leaders are not in control of the Continent’s terrorist threat,” said Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk and consulting company. “Combined, these attacks will increase xenophobic and anti-immigration sentiment across the E.U., which has already been rising in light of the E.U.’s ongoing refugee crisis.”

Right-wing parties all over Europe, and especially the Alternative for Germany party, “have and will continue to conflate refugees with terrorism,” Mr. Rahman said. “This will in turn put more pressure on incumbent governments and limit their space for policy action to address Europe’s multiple crises.”

Nigel Farage, a leader of the populist, conservative U.K. Independence Party, said: “I think we’ve reached a point where we have to admit to ourselves, in Britain and France and much of the rest of Europe, that mass immigration and multicultural division has for now been a failure.”

The attacks will also put more strain on the deal brokered last week by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany with the Turkish government to restrict the migrant flow into Europe, in return for more liberal visa arrangements for travel into Europe by Turkish nationals. That deal was already being criticized as a security threat to Europe and had been questioned on humanitarian and legal grounds...

More.