Rational Nation USA

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Mr. Trump’s bet: When the politician most fluent in American rage roars, the movement she gave voice to in the fall of 2008 will roar back today. With his call to deport illegal immigrants, especially because Mexico sends us its “ bad ones ,” his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the country, his emphasis on the threats to lawful gun ownership and his promise to protect American goods and workers from China, Mr. Trump is riding the wave of anxiety that Ms. Palin first gave voice to as Senator John McCain’s running mate. Mr. Trump has now usurped and vastly expanded upon Ms. Palin’s constituency, but the connection between the two movements is undeniable. Sarah Palin introduces Donald J. Trump at a campaign event in Tulsa, Okla. Credit Brandi Simons/Associated Press          Full story HERE . And now on to THIS . Donald Trump’s outreach to Chris...

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth America has certainly entered a new era of fear and paranoia. For the many Americans who take a broader and more in depth view of world events and what is driving them the fear and paranoia is indeed seen as irrational. The rise of Trump and other GOP candidates who have played to the fear factor does neither the GOP or our nation any good. The following article, published by BBC , hits the nail squarely on its head, putting the rise of Trump in a historical perspective that is both interesting and accurate. One startling feature of the latest race to become the next president of the US - which begins in earnest with next week's Iowa caucuses - is the runaway success in the opinion polls of the outspoken billionaire, Donald Trump. But this should not be so surprising, says Michael Goldfarb, as Trump is just the latest example of a tendency in American politics that goes back a very long way. Fear. The simple four-letter word that ...

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Michael R. Bloomberg at City Hall in New York in 2013 on the day before his last day as mayor. The state of play in this year’s presidential election has prompted Mr. Bloomberg to consider a third-party run for the White House. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times         Interesting and intriguing. Given the circus car that is the GOP field the entry of Bloomberg as an independent presidential candidate would be a welcome and refreshing breath of fresh air. Bloomberg, who is and acts like an adult, certainly has credentials; having served as Mayor of New York City. Michael R. Bloomberg has instructed advisers to draw up plans for a potential independent campaign in this year’s presidential race. His advisers and associates said he was galled by Donald J. Trump’s dominance of the Republican field, and troubled by Hillary Clinton’s stumbles and the rise of Sena...

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth It was certain to happen and was fully expected. GOP brand loyalty, regardless of lack of truth in their candidates utterances, is expected by the republican brass. The action dis-inviting the National Review as debate partner by the RNC ought to raise everyone's eyebrows. The National Review article, as well as the supporting views of the many contributing articles, are spot on. Real conservatives will not support Donald Trump . The Republican National Committee has disinvited National Review from a presidential debate partnership following the release of an edition devoted to taking down Donald Trump, the conservative magazine reported late Thursday. Jack Fowler, publisher of National Review, outlined the RNC’s rationale in a piece published on the magazine’s website. “The reason,” he wrote, explaining the RNC’s stance: “Our ‘Against Trump’ editorial and symposium. We expected this was coming. Small price to pay for speaking the ...

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Mary Altaffer / AP Sarah Palin is back at doing what she does best, spreading nonsense and freely tossing out the "red meat" that the tea party faithful loves to digest. Of course their curiosity and desire for the truth died long ago and that is precisely what billionaire Donald Trump is counting on. And, unfortunately, he is right, they will gobble it up; which of course is why he has Sarah on the campaign trail stumping for him. Irony and humor is thick in the tea party and GOP these days. In endorsing Donald Trump, Sarah Palin faced a challenge. How does a woman who has built her brand on hating cultural elites endorse a billionaire, Manhattan TV star? Her answer: by turning Trump into a victim. She began by reasserting her own victimhood. When considering endorsing Trump, Palin said she was “told left and right, ‘you are going to get so clobbered in the press. You are just going to get beat up, and chewed up, and ...

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Sarah Palin is back in the news (along with her son Track), right where she loves to be. After sliding into relative obscurity her path to again receiving national media attention was her endorsement of Donald Trump for the republican nomination. Palin will be hitting the campaign trail with The Donald in an effort to boost his support among tea party conservatives. Trump, being very appreciative of Palin's endorsement made mention that Sarah may find a position in his administration. Hopefully Trump does not have the opportunity to make good on his remark, but in the unlikely event he does let us all hope it is an obscure position in some basement office of the White House. Hitting the campaign trail today in Tulsa, Oklahoma the former republican VP nominee and half term Governor of Alaska wasted no time in " addressing the elephant in the room" linking her son's arrest for domestic violence to President Obama. “They co...

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Could Trump be the destruction of the GOP? One RNC committeeman apparently thinks it is a possibility' CHARLESTON, S.C. —A Republican National committeeman delivered a call-to-arms against Donald Trump during a closed-door GOP meeting on Thursday, urging his colleagues to take a forceful stand against those who he said are destroying the party’s brand. At a breakfast at the RNC winter meeting, Holland Redfield, an RNC committeeman who represents the minority-rich Virgin Islands, rose to address party Chairman Reince Priebus. In the five-minute impromptu speech, a video recording of which Redfield provided to POLITICO, Redfield did not explicitly mention Trump’s name. But he made clear that angry voices in the party pose a grave threat to the GOP’s future, and expressed alarm at what he described as crushing pressure to play nice. “You can argue with me, but we’re almost terrorized as members of our party. ‘Shut up. Toe the line, embr...

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Another View -- John H. Sununu: Don't drink the Trump Kool-Aid     By JOHN H. SUNUNU - Most of us know “Drinking the Kool-Aid” refers to a commitment to an idea without comprehending the implications of that commitment. We remember that this phrase derives from the horrible tragedy of 1978 where 900 followers of Jim Jones died when he convinced them to drink a mixture of Kool-Aid and cyanide. What is often forgotten is that hundreds of others who did not want to drink the deadly cocktail were murdered by forcibly being given doses of cyanide.Today Republicans find themselves in a similar position as many of our primary voters continue to support Donald Trump. Trump has even become the darling of some of our most influential conservative talk radio hosts despite support for issues that historically have been anathema to conservatives. In truth, Trump is cut from the same big government cloth as Barack Obama. He welcomed the Obama...

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Eleven days into 2016 and still recovering from the hustle and bustle of the preceding year end holidays I was looking for something to get me back to normal and give me a great belly splitting laugh. But that laugh needed to be a laugh caused by something that was funny because of the great truths it held. Today that great belly splitting laugh happened. June 28, 2015 Jeff Landry, an aide to Donald Trump, scratched the back of his right leg with his left shoe, stalling. You have to answer just right , or he goes apeshit . Jeff remembered grimly what a pleasant change he’d thought this job would be, but now he looked back on those six harrowing weeks working for Harvey Weinstein like a long-ago Hanukkah. The question Trump had put to him was “How do we close this?” Jeff played it safe: “I say go big.” Trump lit up. “I can do big,” he said. “This whole thing, which was my idea, incidentally, and a very good idea, really a very gr...

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson has joined the crowded 2016 presidential race. But he's not making any promises about his ability to defeat the likes of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. “I am announcing my candidacy right now for the Libertarian nomination,” Johnson said on Fox Business’ “Coast to Coast” with Neil Cavuto on Wednesday. “I do believe that crony capitalism is alive and well. It’s Democrats and Republicans that contribute to that. I’d like to be that choice that is not going to succumb to that. Johnson — a self-made millionaire — also ran in 2012 as a member of the Libertarian Party, which advocates for a radically smaller and less powerful federal government. In an interview with POLITICO, Johnson vowed to run a completely different campaign than he did in 2012, when he received just 1,275,971 votes, or 0.99 percent of the total electorate. In 2012, he launched his campaign with a splashy event that he said cost t...

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth In as much as this site does not support the actions of Cliven and Ammon Bundy or the other "patriots" in Oregon, there is, however, a thin logic thread supporting those on the rightwing cusp out west. Ammon Bundy has explained the occupation this way: “The people cannot survive without their land and resources. All comfort, all wealth, everything that we have as a people, to live, to eat, comes from the earth. We cannot have the government restricting the use of that to the point where it puts us in poverty.” Asked how long the occupiers would stay, Bundy replied that they would be satisfied “when the people of Harney County can use these lands without fear: once they can use these lands as free men.” SKIP ... Bundy’s movement makes sense—a strange and parochial kind, but still sense—only in a more specifically American and Western context. In American politics, there are two traditions of laying claims by occupying a place. ...

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Worldwide terror perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalist extremists must be confronted by the nations of the world. This truth is unquestioned by governments whose people have been affected Islamic terror and most have responded to quell Islamic terrorism. This includes the USA and Obama administration who has put the risk in the proper perspective and responded with a measured and rational response. Unfortunately many in the USA apparently prefer to hit the panic button and rush headlong into fear mode advocating a response hugely disproportionate with the actual threat we are exposed to. Exactly how much more dangerous has terrorism made our lives? To answer this question, it helps to run the numbers. There are about two and a quarter million people in Paris. This means that, if you were living in Paris on the day of the recent attacks, there was roughly a one-in-twenty-thousand chance of being a victim. While that may seem high, the annual...

The Donald Trump and Ted Cruz agenda for 21st century America .

Rational Nation U S A Purveyor of Truth Our nation's pledge of allegiance before religionist were successful in influencing our government to change it in 1954.   Wouldn't the patriotic action be to revert back to the original pledge? One the Founding Fathers would be more likely approve of. Hat Tip goes to Captain Fog from The Swash Zone