The press is all out to make Donald Trump look like a sexual predator – which he is not – in order to get a criminal elected president.

Kimberley Strassel writes at the Wall Street Journal:

Even if average voters have the TV on 24/7, they still probably haven’t heard the news about Hillary Clinton: That the nation now has proof of pretty much everything she has been accused of.

It comes from hacked emails dumped by WikiLeaks, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, and accounts from FBI insiders. The media has almost uniformly ignored the flurry of bombshells, preferring to devote its front pages to the Trump story. So let’s review what amounts to a devastating case against a Clinton presidency. …

Clinton staffers debated how to evade a congressional subpoena of Mrs. Clinton’s emails — three weeks before a technician deleted them. The campaign later employed a focus group to see if it could fool Americans into thinking the email scandal was part of the Benghazi investigation (they are separate) and lay it all off as a Republican plot.

A senior FBI official involved with the Clinton investigation told Fox News this week that the “vast majority” of career agents and prosecutors working the case “felt she should be prosecuted” and that giving her a pass was “a top-down decision.”

The Obama administration — the federal government, supported by tax dollars — was working as an extension of the Clinton campaign. The State Department coordinated with her staff in responding to the email scandal, and the Justice Department kept her team informed about developments in the court case.

Worse, Mrs. Clinton’s State Department, as documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show, took special care of donors to the Clinton Foundation. In a series of 2010 emails, a senior aide to Mrs. Clinton asked a foundation official to let her know which groups offering assistance with the Haitian earthquake relief were “FOB” (Friends of Bill) or “WJC VIPs” (William Jefferson Clinton VIPs). Those who made the cut appear to have been teed up for contracts. Those who weren’t? Routed to a standard government website. …

The entire progressive apparatus — the Clinton campaign and boosters at the Center for American Progress — appears to view voters as stupid and tiresome, segregated into groups that must either be cajoled into support or demeaned into silence. …

The leaks also show that the press is in Mrs. Clinton’s pocket. Donna Brazile, a former Clinton staffer and a TV pundit, sent the exact wording of a coming CNN town hall question to the campaign in advance of the event.

Other media allowed the Clinton camp to veto which quotes they used from interviews, worked to maximize her press events and offered campaign advice.

Mrs. Clinton has been exposed to have no core, to be someone who constantly changes her position to maximize political gain. Leaked speeches prove that she has two positions (public and private) on banks; two positions on the wealthy; two positions on borders; two positions on energy. Her team had endless discussions about what positions she should adopt to appease “the Red Army” — i.e. “the base of the Democratic Party”.

John Perazzo rightly asserts in an excellent article at Front Page:

Hillary Clinton is a woman with a mindset that is totalitarian in every respect.

To make matters worse, she is a lying, deceiving, manipulative, self-absorbed criminal without a shred of personal virtue.

Truly it can be said that never before in American history has anyone so unfit and so undeserving, run for president. Never. 

He gives ample evidence for his assertion. The whole thing is worth reading.

John Hinderaker writes at PowerLine:

Wikileaks has released transcripts of three speeches that Hillary Clinton gave for Goldman Sachs in 2013. These were events hosted by Goldman, presumably for clients – e.g., the “Builders and Innovators Summit”.  You can download the transcripts here. Hillary reportedly was paid $225,000 apiece. …

The first thing that struck him about the Goldman speeches was –

How utterly pedestrian they are. By 2013, Mrs. Clinton had served eight years in the Senate and four as Secretary of State, yet she never has an original observation or an insight worth paying for.Everything in them, you have heard 50 times before. They could have been delivered by anyone who has never held public office, but who spends Sunday mornings studying the New York Times. … I think her speeches reflect her limited ability.

Oh, yes! They are utterly pedestrian, they do reflect her limited ability – and her dull mind.

Trump is not eloquent. He distinctly lacks the gift of oratory. But what he is saying is worth listening to:

We quote from Breitbart:

“Our Independence Day is at hand, and it arrives finally on November 8,” Trump told voters.

Our great civilization, here in America and across the civilized world, has come upon a moment of reckoning. We’ve seen it in the United Kingdom, where they voted to liberate themselves from global government and global trade deal, and global immigration deals that have destroyed their sovereignty and have destroyed many of those nations.

But, the central base of world political power is right here in America, and it is our corrupt political establishment that is the greatest power behind the efforts at radical globalization and the disenfranchisement of working people. Their financial resources are virtually unlimited, their political resources are unlimited, their media resources are unmatched, and most importantly, the depth of their immorality is absolutely unlimited.

Trump highlighted the now well-documented collusion between the global special interests, corporate media, and Hillary Clinton who champions policies to cede “U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends. and her donors”.

Trump slammed what he described as our “illusion of democracy”– explaining how our political process is controlled “by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system”.

Trump explained that the “Clinton machine”, working through its arm in the corporate media, has declared “war” not just against him, but against the American people, who want to reclaim their government to represent their needs and interests, rather than simply representing the desires of corporate donors and transnational elites. Trump said:

Let’s be clear on one thing. The corporate media in our country is no longer involved in journalism. They’re a political special interest no different than any lobbyist or other financial entity with a total political agenda, and the agenda is not for you, it’s for themselves.

And their agenda is to elect crooked Hillary Clinton at any cost, at any price, no matter how many lives they destroy. For them it’s a war, and for them nothing at all is out of bounds. This is a struggle for the survival of our nation, believe me. And this will be our last chance to save it on November 8, remember that.

The only thing Hillary Clinton has going for herself is the press. Without the press, she is absolutely zero. 

The political establishment that is trying to stop us is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration, and economic and foreign policies that have bled our country dry … The Clinton machine is at the center of this power structure.

We’ve seen this first hand in the WikiLeaks documents, in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends, and her donors …

With their control over our government at stake, with trillions of dollars on the line, the Clinton machine is determined to achieve the destruction of our campaign… They knew they would throw every lie they could at me and my family and my loved ones. They knew they would stop at nothing to try to stop me. But I never knew how bad it would be. I never knew it would be this vile, that it would be this bad, that it would be this vicious …

I will not lie to you. These false attacks are absolutely hurtful. To be lied about, to be slandered, to be smeared so publicly, and before your family that you love, is very painful. What is going on is egregious beyond any words … It’s reprehensible beyond description, it’s totally corrupt.

But, I also know that it’s not about me. It’s about all of you and it’s about our country. I know that. I fully understand that. That’s why I got involved. It’s about all of us together as a country. It’s a movement the likes of which we have never in history in this country seen before. Never in history.

I take all of these slings and arrows gladly for you. I take them for our movement so that we can have our country back. …

The corrupt political establishment is a machine … I knew these false attacks would come. I knew this day would arrive; it was only a question of when. And I knew the American people would rise above it and vote for the future they deserve.

The only thing that can stop this corrupt machine is you. The only force strong enough to save our country is us. The only people brave enough to vote out this corrupt establishment is you, the American people. 

This election will determine whether we are a free nation or whether we have only the illusion of democracy, but are in fact controlled by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system, and our system is rigged. This is reality, you know it, they know it, I know it, and pretty much the whole world knows it.

The establishment and their media enablers will control this nation through means that are very well known. Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe, and morally deformed. 

They will attack you, they will slander you, they will seek to destroy your career and your family, they will seek to destroy everything about you, including your reputation. They will lie, lie, lie, and then again they will do worse than that, they will do whatever is necessary … 

This is our moment of reckoning as a society and as a civilization itself. I didn’t need to do this, folks, believe me — believe me. I built a great company and I had a wonderful life. I could have enjoyed the fruits and benefits of years of successful business deals and businesses for myself and my family. Instead of going through this absolute horror show of lies, deceptions, malicious attacks — who would have thought? I’m doing it because this country has given me so much, and I feel so strongly that it’s my turn to give back to the country that I love … 

This election is about every man, woman and child in our country who deserves to live in safety, prosperity, and peace … We will rise above the lies, the smears, the ludicrous slanders from ludicrous and very, very dishonest reporters. 

We will vote for the country we want. We will vote for the future we want. We will vote for the politics we want, and we will vote to put this corrupt government cartel out of business and out of business immediately. …  

They’ve betrayed our workers, they’ve betrayed our borders and, most of all, they’ve betrayed our freedoms. We will save our sovereign rights as a nation. …

Our Independence Day is at hand, and it arrives finally on November 8.

In this time of painful stress and deep dread leading up to the most important US presidential election ever, the great actor Jon Voight speaks eloquently to us and for us. (We politely overlook his appeal to “God”.)

Half the voters of the United States want an unindicted criminal to be president.

Yet to vote for Hillary Clinton is to vote for

Higher taxes

Higher unemployment

More debt

More terrorism

The discarding of the Constitution

A traitor.

To vote for Donald Trump is to vote for

Lower taxes

Higher employment

Lower debt

Much less terrorism

The upholding of the Constitution

A patriot.

Those who are against Hillary Clinton coming to power but do not cast their vote for Donald Trump will be as guilty of putting a corrupt criminal traitor into power as those who vote for her.

The guilty will also be putting the indicted and impeached criminal Bill Clinton back in the White  House from which he, with his criminal wife, stole hundreds of dollars worth of furnishings.

How can there be any hesitation on the part of any sane voter in choosing which of the nominees should be president? Or any doubt as to which of them would  be best for his /her own interests as well as the interests of the country?

If pollsters are to be believed –

President Obama has attained a high “job approval” rating of late.

Yet

His health care plan has failed miserably.

He has vastly increased the country’s debt.

The number of unemployed has risen beyond calculation under him.

The incomes of workers have dropped.

No one earns anything on their savings.

He has grossly worsened race relations.

He has let hundreds of felons out of prison.

He has diminished the strength of  the US military.

He has encouraged illegal aliens to pour into the US over the southern border.

He has imported tens of thousands of Muslims and refuses to recognize or name Muslim terrorism from which America and the whole world are increasingly suffering.

Every one of the agencies of his government have become deeply corrupted under his leadership.

The Middle East is in flames because of his policies.

Libya is in chaos because he bombed it.

Third World migrants are flooding Europe as they flee from the areas where his policies have caused war and the rise of savage tyrants.

Iran is on the way to becoming a nuclear power due to his efforts.

Russia is preparing for nuclear war again.

He is so disrespected by the Chinese that they wouldn’t even give him stairs to descend from his plane when he landed there, let alone a red carpet or a greeting by the leader of the country.

He has alienated Israel, cold-shouldered Britain, broken his promises of providing defense weaponry to Poland and the Czech Republic.

And that’s only a partial list of the harm he has done to this country.

Yet

His “job approval” has gone up.

What can explain this?

The editors of American Greatness held a symposium of scholars and writers who are for Donald Trump’s presidency.

We select some contributions and quote what we judge to be the most salient points.

The full texts of all the contributions can be found here:

*

I always thought that Donald Trump was perfect … [being] the only person who could defeat Hillary Clinton. What with her corrupt ways, her alliance with the most destructive policies imaginable, and especially the manner in which through her immigration policies she’d render it impossible for any conservative to win in my lifetime, this was an easy one. It became easier still when I saw the fainéants and milquetoasts on stage with Trump at the first candidates’ debate in Cleveland in 2015. But on the positive side I also saw in Trump someone who could rescue what is living from what is dead in conservatism. And by dead I mean what passes for the higher thinking of today’s conservatism, the contempt for the poorest Americans, the indifference to mobility, the compromises with corruption, and mostly the sense of failure, the small-souled man’s belief that our best days are behind us. Against that, I take my stand. – F.H. Buckley is a law professor at George Mason University and the author of The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America.

*

There are many reasons for Americans of varying political persuasions to support Donald Trump for President. Among these reasons, three are especially important: First, Donald Trump has a plan to re-energize the U.S. economy after more than a decade of slow growth, stagnating incomes, and rising government debt. He will slash corporate taxes to encourage businesses to repatriate more than $3 trillion that they are holding offshore because of the current corporate tax rate that is the highest in the industrial world. Those funds once brought back home can be invested in American enterprises to provide jobs and incomes for American workers. He will cut individual income taxes to encourage work and investment, and economic growth. Just as important, he will cut regulations that have accumulated during the Obama years and that are discouraging investment and the hiring of U.S. workers. Second, Mr. Trump will focus on national security in all of its dimensions by attacking the interlocking problems of terrorism, illegal immigration, and rising crime in the inner cities. He is committed to restoring America’s borders as an essential feature of national sovereignty and to fulfilling the first duty of government, which is to protect the security of its citizens. Third, Donald Trump is by far the preferred alternative to Hillary Clinton who promises to entrench further the failed economic and foreign policies of the past eight years. For conservatives and moderates who hope for a stronger and more dynamic America, and a nation of rising incomes, strong communities, and secure borders, the choice could not be clearer. Donald Trump … is the candidate in this race who promises to restore American greatness. – James Piereson is, most recently, the author of Shattered Consensus: The Rise and Decline of America’s Post War Political Order. His essays appear in many newspaper and journals, including The Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and The New Criterion.

*

I register my support on this list not as a conservative partisan, but rather as a young academic with a critical perspective on the prevailing left-right political paradigm — a subject I have taught at the university level both in the United States and in Europe. … The Bush-Clinton politics of the past 30 years is the rotten carcass of a politics that perhaps made sense in the past but has proven woefully inadequate to address the contemporary challenges we face. Donald J. Trump is the first major politician to reflect an understanding of this post-Cold War reality and to point boldly toward an alternative — for this he has my admiration and my support. – Darren Beattie is Visiting Assistant Professor Department of Political Science, Duke University.

*

Donald Trump shows an intuitive grasp of what most politicians must have explained to them: here in America, the people rule. Popular sovereignty requires borders, and it requires security. The people cannot govern by reflection and choice if they must forever respond to accident and force. Popular sovereignty also requires that the people not be slaves to an unelected and unrepresentative administrative state. The laws as well as the agencies of government must be trimmed and tamed so that they once again serve the people. Donald Trump grasps this too: the Supreme Court is the least republican branch of the federal government, and the people cannot rule if they are subjected to capricious judicial edicts masquerading as constitutional interpretation. Trump has put forth a serious list of judicial nominees who would only go where the text, tradition, logic, and structure of the Constitution — rather than currently fashionable political preferences — point. Beyond this, Trump has wisely called for the resignation of a transparently political Supreme Court justice, thereby reminding us of constitutionally legitimate political checks against an overweening judiciary. – Bradley C. S. Watson is Professor of Politics and Philip M. McKenna Chair in American and Western Political Thought at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where is co-director of the college’s Center for Political and Economic Thought.

*

No other presidential election in my lifetime has had so much at stake. The differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton could not be starker. If Clinton wins, she has promised that the Supreme Court Justices that she will appoint will overturn Citizens United. Few people seem to understand that would mean that the federal government would be able to ban movies and books deemed too political during election years. It is hard to believe that we could soon be living in a country where movies and books could be banned because of their political positions. The judges that Trump has listed as the ones he would appoint would protect the 1st Amendment and would not allow the government to ban movies or books based on politics. – John R. Lott, Jr. is President of the Crime Prevention Research Center.

*

Of all the contenders for the office of president in the primaries and general, Donald Trump was alone in recognizing the seriousness of our national condition, and declaring that his goal was to make America great again. He understands that our national standing is on the line. A third of our adults do not “participate” in the labor force. Entrepreneurship and innovation are frozen. The stifling tax and regulatory policies of the last eight years have left us with the lowest productivity and family income growth in three generations. These are big problems, and Mr. Trump is willing to apply big solutions. Small-ball economics won’t save us. In national security matters, he has had the courage to break with past Republican mistakes and focus on America’s national security interests. We still have an opportunity to reverse course; after another four years of Democratic governance, it may be too late. Donald Trump is our last, best hope. – David P. Goldman (Spengler) is a columnist for Asia Times and PJ Media, and the author of How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam is Dying, Too). 

*

America has become unmoored from the constitution that has maintained and encouraged her freedom, justice, and prosperity and has entered a period of post-constitutionalism that imperils the natural rights of her people  Coincident with the decline of American constitutionalism has been the rise of a ruling class that exercises authority through control of the state and elite cultural institutions without regard to the interests or consent of the sovereign people.  The ruling class is insensible of, when they are not openly hostile to, the legitimate interests of the American nation and her people.  They long for a post-national millennial utopia and will use whatever means necessary to achieve it.  Trump’s candidacy has already done the nation a great service by giving voice to the nagging, sometimes urgent, concerns of ordinary people imperiled by ruling class hegemony.  They said only Nixon could go to China so perhaps only a billionaire could name the peril posed by the globalist ruling class.  Only Trump, of the two candidates running this year – or of any candidate running since 1984 – has shown an innate understanding of the challenges the country faces and a willingness to name them publicly and face them head-on. – Chris Buskirk is the publisher and a senior editor of American Greatness.

*

There are three basic principles of government in America, and only Donald Trump is likely to maintain them. These are that government exists to protect our rights and not to redistribute our property, that the only legitimate source of authority is the American people themselves, and that the sovereignty of the people cannot survive without adherence to the rule of law. These principles can only be secured if we have a judiciary committed to implementing the original understanding of our Constitution and laws, and not one committed to altering the meaning of the Constitution and laws to shift resources to groups or causes particularly favored by elite opinion. These were the views of the late Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court Justice whose recent passing has left the United States Supreme Court precariously divided and unable to fulfill its responsibilities. Donald Trump has made clear that his potential Supreme Court nominees would be in the mold of Justice Scalia, and any of them would begin the necessary process of restoring the Supreme Court and our nation to a point where the federal leviathan can be restrained, and where the American people can once again enjoy our ultimate Constitutional right, self-government. – Stephen B. Presser is the Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History Emeritus at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, and the author of the forthcoming Law Professors: Three Centuries of Shaping American Law.

*

America’s influence is in tatters, thanks to Obama and Clinton’s feckless foreign policies. Our friends no longer trust us. Our enemies are emboldened. This leadership vacuum has made America — and the world — far worse off than we were eight years ago. Terrorist attacks occur near-daily due to incompetent border-enforcement. ISIS is growing, thanks to Obama and Clinton’s suicidal policies. Trump has pledged to reverse these dysfunctions — through protecting our borders, fighting Islamic terrorism, and returning national-security-critical industries to America. At home, Trump would expand the economic pie for lower- and middle-income Americans through lowering taxes and reducing regulations. America’s dignity can be restored. But not if we continue the liberty-threatening, economy-killing policies championed by Obama and Clinton. Americans crave a change. Donald Trump alone can bring it. – Thomas K. Lindsay, has served as a university dean, provost, and college president. He was Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2006-2008. He is co-author and editor of the college textbook, Investigating American Democracy. 

*

Donald Trump is the only choice for those that look around the world — and at home — and see something very much wrong going on.  What is that wrong?  The inversion of common sense.  We conservatives have long-lamented the increasing state of political correctness and multiculturalism, the “kick me” sign on our country’s back, and the increasing hostility to our allies and appeasement of our enemies.  Donald Trump stands athwart the latter and has staked his campaign on reversing all of the former — in a way no other Republican has, in a very long time.  I will vote and urge others to vote for Donald Trump. – Seth Leibsohn is a Contributing Editor at American Greatness, a Senior Fellow of The Claremont Institute, and the host The Seth Leibsohn Show on KKNT in Phoenix. He is the co-author with William J. Bennett of The Fight of Our Lives.

*

I am for Trump not only because of what he is not but because of what he is. He is not a progressive ideologue like Hillary and so there is greater reason to believe his nominations for the federal courts and executive branch will help extend the lives of these key freedoms. But I am also for Trump because he has shown great fortitude in insisting on the need to discuss topics of truly existential import like the growing influence of radical Islam in the United States. – Tiffany Miller is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas

*

The political amateur Trump was the only one in 2016 who could assemble a majority for the elementary principles of American democracy — the sovereignty of the people, the consent of the governed, and standing on one’s rights as Americans. Political correctness had prevented conventional partisans from making obvious objections to nonsensical policies ranging from restrooms to terrorism; objectors were derided as bigots or dog whistlers. But “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” is absurd if government continues to ignore real people. That is the open secret of Trump’s victorious message. – Ken Masugi has been a speechwriter for two Cabinet members and for Clarence Thomas, when he was Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He has taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy,  James Madison College of Michigan State University, the Ashbrook Center of Ashland University, and Princeton University.

*

One contributor to the “Against Trump” forum in the Feb. 15 issue of National Review wrote, “Should [Trump’s] election results match his polls, he would be, unquestionably, the worst thing to happen to the American common culture in my lifetime.” If Wikipedia is to be trusted, the author of this sentence was born not yesterday but in 1961, since which America’s common culture … has been nearly obliterated. The same issue of NR contained a review of two books on Bush 41, whose break with the politics of Reagan hurried America down the road of globalist post-constitutionalism and initiated three decades of bipartisan political ineptitude … that has driven America from a high point in its history to its knees. It read in part: “If ever there was an indispensable man at an essential time, it was George H. W. Bush.” The publication of such rubbish in National Review indicates that not only has conservatism failed to conserve a way of life consistent with our founding principles … but that too many conservatives have been co-opted by the administrative state or have grown so accustomed to it that they have forgotten what that way of life looked like and are incapable of imagining its recovery. Hence the realignment we see occurring, long overdue, for which we have Trump to thank. – Douglas A. Jeffrey is vice president for external affairs and editor of Imprimis at Hillsdale College.

*

All the contributors state or imply that Hillary Clinton MUST be kept out of the presidency, and only a majority of votes for Donald Trump will do that.

In addition, taken together, they cover the most important positive reasons why Donald Trump is needed now, urgently, to be president of the United States.

The “moderator” – more accurately called the “challenger” – at last night’s presidential candidates’ debate did a very bad job.

Daniel Greenfield writes at Front Page:

Lester Holt’s actions at the first presidential debate were inexcusable. And also unsurprising.

The day when media lefties were patient enough to believe that the system would work without being this blatant are over. They’ve been open this election about rejecting even the illusion of objectivity.

The only question is why do Republicans continue to allow mainstream media figures to moderate presidential debates? Lester Holt decided to debate Trump. But you can increasingly expect this kind of behavior from any media figure below a certain age to whom the concept of journalism is a dead and incomprehensible notion. Or rather, to them it means that it’s their duty to attack Republicans.

2012 should have buried this. And I don’t know why we’re still dealing with this in 2016.

A debate between two candidates, one Democrat and one Republican, is the only time that the GOP has unquestionable leverage to get its way by rejecting mainstream media moderators. There are still a handful of journalists working for the big news networks who could be trusted to be fair, but most of them are over 70. There’s obviously no future in that. I can’t think of a single media figure who has any remote credibility in this regard except maybe Tapper.

It’s the right of Republicans to demand independent, professional moderators who can be trusted to do their job of asking questions and checking the time, instead of offering false fact checks and trying to debate the candidates. Lester Holt’s antics should be the final nail in the coffin of the mainstream media moderator.

Hillary Clinton’s replies were so glib, so well rehearsed, it seemed obvious to us that either her campaign had supplied the questions to Holt, or Holt had let her campaign know them in advance. Or perhaps they colluded even more closely. 

Holt baited Donald Trump. But Trump should not have let himself be put on the defensive. He could have brought up Hillary’s easily hacked private server when she talked about cyber attack. She opened the door wide for him to talk about her insistence on bombing Libya. Then he could have attacked her on Benghazi. He repeated himself too much, wasting time. He should have raised the Clinton Foundation corruption without waiting for a question about it.

Still, some good news came out of the fiasco. This is our abstract of a Breitbart report:

From a “flash poll” after last night’s debate by Pat Caddell, the Democratic pollster: “95 percent of the people we contacted told us they were not going to change their vote based on the debate. Two percent of voters, previously undecided, switched to Trump after the debate. No undecideds went to Clinton. Trump won on the most critical factor, on whether Clinton or Trump was more ‘plausible’ as president, 46 percent to her 42 percent. That for him is really what this debate was really about. On ‘Who showed that they care about people like you?’ Trump won 49 percent to 44 percent for her. Trump, as the challenger in this race, gained what he needed. Like most debates, this debate did not shift the race. What it did do was show Trump as a strong leader. Trump really helped himself out tonight.”

Hope so!

So the light of reason has broken over Senator Ted Cruz. He has seen at last that Donald Trump MUST win the presidential election.

Any vote not cast for Trump helps Hillary Clinton into power. Another presidency of the Left will do all it can to change the demographic composition of America with the intention of creating a permanent Democratic-supporting electorate.

This election is very probably the last chance Americans – those who value the liberty their country was founded to preserve – will have to save themselves from the tyranny of full-blown socialism, the advance of Islam, the dissolution of the nation-state, the end of the rule of law, and a life that is collective, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

The enlightened Ted Cruz writes:

This election is unlike any other in our nation’s history. Like many other voters, I have struggled to determine the right course of action in this general election.

In Cleveland, I urged voters, “Please, don’t stay home in November. Stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket whom you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.”

If “voting your conscience” means preserving your moral purity while your free nation crashes round you, you are making a vain and foolish choice. Your nice clean little conscience, brother, doesn’t matter a damn when your civilization is at stake. 

Fortunately, Cruz brought his conscience in line with political good sense.

After many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

If Jesus advised him to vote for Trump, then Jesus has at last developed some degree of useful intelligence.

I’ve made this decision for two reasons. First, last year, I promised to support the Republican nominee. And I intend to keep my word.

Second, even though I have had areas of significant disagreement with our nominee, by any measure Hillary Clinton is wholly unacceptable — that’s why I have always been #NeverHillary.

Six key policy differences inform my decision.

First, and most important, the Supreme Court. For anyone concerned about the Bill of Rights — free speech, religious liberty, the Second Amendment — the Court hangs in the balance. I have spent my professional career fighting before the Court to defend the Constitution. We are only one justice away from losing our most basic rights, and the next president will appoint as many as four new justices. We know, without a doubt, that every Clinton appointee would be a left-wing ideologue. Trump, in contrast, has promised to appoint justices “in the mold of Scalia.”

For some time, I have been seeking greater specificity on this issue, and today the Trump campaign provided that, releasing a very strong list of potential Supreme Court nominees — including Sen. Mike Lee, who would make an extraordinary justice — and making an explicit commitment to nominate only from that list. This commitment matters, and it provides a serious reason for voters to choose to support Trump.

Second, Obamacare. The failed healthcare law is hurting millions of Americans. If Republicans hold Congress, leadership has committed to passing legislation repealing Obamacare. Clinton, we know beyond a shadow of doubt, would veto that legislation. Trump has said he would sign it.

Third, energy. Clinton would continue the Obama administration’s war on coal and relentless efforts to crush the oil and gas industry. Trump has said he will reduce regulations and allow the blossoming American energy renaissance to create millions of new high-paying jobs.

Fourth, immigration. Clinton would continue and even expand President Obama’s lawless executive amnesty. Trump has promised that he would revoke those illegal executive orders.

Fifth, national security. Clinton would continue the Obama administration’s willful blindness to radical Islamic terrorism. She would continue importing Middle Eastern refugees whom the FBI cannot vet to make sure they are not terrorists. Trump has promised to stop the deluge of unvetted refugees.

Sixth, Internet freedom. Clinton supports Obama’s plan to hand over control of the Internet to an international community of stakeholders, including Russia, China, and Iran. Just this week, Trump came out strongly against that plan, and in support of free speech online.

These are six vital issues where the candidates’ positions present a clear choice for the American people.

If Clinton wins, we know — with 100% certainty — that she would deliver on her left-wing promises, with devastating results for our country.

My conscience tells me I must do whatever I can to stop that.

We also have seen, over the past few weeks and months, a Trump campaign focusing more and more on freedom — including emphasizing school choice and the power of economic growth to lift African-Americans and Hispanics to prosperity.

Finally, after eight years of a lawless Obama administration, targeting and persecuting those disfavored by the administration, fidelity to the rule of law has never been more important.

The Supreme Court will be critical in preserving the rule of law. And, if the next administration fails to honor the Constitution and Bill of Rights, then I hope that Republicans and Democrats will stand united in protecting our fundamental liberties.

Hoping that Democrats will protect fundamental liberties is like hoping for rain in the Sahara desert.

Our country is in crisis.

Hillary Clinton is manifestly unfit to be president, and her policies would harm millions of Americans. And Donald Trump is the only thing standing in her way.

A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment. And if you don’t want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency, I encourage you to vote for him.

Bravo, Ted!

Hear him, all you obstinate conservatives and Republicans!

On November 8 you will pass through Last Chance Gate. Go through it and turn Right.

If you turn Left, the next gate is the one displaying the immutable instruction: “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

Of course a vote for Obama can be counted as a vote for Karl Marx. A vote for Bernie Sanders too. And Hillary Clinton. Indirectly.

Mark Dice asks Americans who have been to school – and graduated – whether they will consider voting for Karl Marx himself, now that “he is standing as an Independent”.

Some say they will. Others – more prudent and thoughtful types – explain that they need to find out a bit more about him before they commit themselves.

The media – Left and Right – declare Donald Trump to be hugely unpopular. Pollsters, asking some unknown question, announce that overwhelming majorities of the American public don’t like Trump and would not vote for him.

Isn’t it then passing strange that tens of thousands of voters fill vast stadiums to overflowing to hear this unpopular man speak – and cheer him to the rafters?

Furthermore ….

The New York Post reports:

Donald Trump will likely wind up winning the most primary votes of any GOP presidential candidate in modern history …

After convincing victories in Tuesday’s primaries in five East Coast states, Trump has roughly 10.1 million votes, about 200,000 more than Mitt Romney got during the entire 2012 primary campaign.

He won every congressional district in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, all but six in Connecticut and one in Rhode Island.

And with the primaries ahead — including in populous states such as California, New Jersey and Indiana — [he] should easily break the modern record of 10.8 million held by George W. Bush in 2000 …

But hardly anyone likes him? Very few voters will vote for him in the general election? Most people would rather have, as president of the United States, a physically weak, infamously crooked, deeply dishonest old woman who lived in the White House in the 1990s and took its furnishings and valuables away with her when she had to leave it? And who inspires close to zero enthusiasm? (See here, here, here, here and here.) And whose Party is shrinking? Even as the GOP is growing according to Trump (though the Washington Post denies it).

The Democrats are putting out that the only Republican candidate they fear could beat their corrupt, old, sick candidate is a sentimental bore “awaiting a signal from God” (name of Kasich) who’s won only the state he is governor of. Seriously? How many do they think they’re fooling?

How long will old guard Republicans, the Democratic Party and the media be able to carry on with the fiction that the nasty, corrupt, sick old woman is likely to win the presidency in a race against the powerful, successful, energetic Donald Trump for whom a very large part of the nation is loudly cheering?

It becomes plainer every day that a sizable majority of Republican voters want Donald Trump to be their nominee for the presidency.

Astonishingly, there are leading Republicans who would actually rather have another Democrat in the White House for at least another four years! (See here and here.)

Roger L Simon writes cogently at PJ Media:

I thought one of the first duties, if not the first duty, of a political party was to win. If you don’t win, everything else, every policy, every theory, every idea, is air.

That was until I joined the GOP.  … The attacks on Donald Trump by his fellow Republicans have been, to put it bluntly, waaaay out of proportion.  If – as Trump himself said in his press conference Tuesday after winning handily in Mississippi and Michigan – Mitt Romney had attacked Obama with half the vitriol he has attacked Donald Trump with, Romney would be president today.

And then there’s the conservative punditocracy, so many of whom seem to be suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome — or perhaps it’s Trump Envy (for which I wouldn’t blame them).

But I ask – as someone who would gladly vote for any Republican candidate still running and probably any of the thirteen who dropped out – what exactly do they find so terrible about Donald Trump?  … Maybe he isn’t the most conservative of conservatives (wasn’t John Roberts supposed to be that?), but he is clearly one of the more politically shrewd candidates to come along in a while – and not just for a non-politician.  Just the way he is turning post-primary victory speeches into quasi-press conferences, monopolizing the media, reinvents the game.

And he is expanding the Republican vote.

What most surprises me, however, is the approach taken to Trump by his enemies, those known under the rubric #NeverTrump and those better heeled who have blown millions on nauseating and evidently useless attack ads painting Donald as Mussolini … For a group of smart people, in some cases very smart, they seem to have skipped Psychology 101 in college, making them curiously oblivious to the blowback from their assaults. … (Personally, I find it hard to resist someone who finally spoke a truth at that press conference that the media seems deliberately to have ignored all year: “I don’t think there is such a thing as an establishment.” There isn’t – and who would want one?)

The best approach to someone like Trump, who is at heart a business pragmatist without rigid  ideological convictions (convictions that would make it extremely difficult for a businessman to function), is to … bring him over to your side, politically and ideologically. … He wants to make a deal and fairly invites co-optation.

Trump himself, in that press conference or whatever you want to call it (press-infomercial?), extended an olive branch of sorts to his opposition in the Republican Party at large.  They should take him up on it – at the same time urging him to reciprocate and keep it up on his end.  Start a mutual admiration society. …

The Trump Derangement Syndrome has got to go. …  We are headed to an epochal  general election and November is closer than it seems. Close your eyes and it’s here. The time to start dialing down the internecine warfare is now.