HALF-FULL REPORT 01/15/16

Ted Cruz Makes Donald Trump His Mitch. That’s got to be the best headline on last night’s Pub debate. And it was so satisfying to hear the audience boo Trump as he made a horse’s ass of himself.

Beyond the fireworks and one-liners, however, was a useful lesson in morality and patriotism.

One of the requirements for getting a Ph.D. in Philosophy is to have a thorough grounding in ethical theory – to understand what history’s major thinkers considered to be the basis of morality and why.

As a graduate student, I saw how Western philosophy since the Ancient Greeks to today is divided broadly between Platonists and Aristotelians – and that applies to ethics.

For Plato, actions were moral if they adhered to Goodness or The Good regardless of the individual well-being of anyone involved. For Aristotle, there is no such entity as “The” Good floating around in some Platonic netherworld of abstractions. “Good” for Aristotle can only mean “good for” specific actual human beings.

Platonists thus ascribe to duty-based ethics – called “deontological” from deon, the Greek word for duty. They think there is an “unbridgeable abyss” – as modern British philosopher H. A. Prichard (1871-1947) expressed it – between actions that are moral and actions that are prudential, i.e., in one’s interests.

Aristotelians would look upon this as utter nonsense, asking that if there is no practical reason to be moral, then why be moral?

The ultimate expression of Platonist deontological morality is the Latin phrase Fiat justitia ruat caelum – meaning “Let justice be done though the heavens fall,” that justice must be realized regardless of consequences.

The Tennessee Supreme Court unthinkingly uses the phrase as its motto; it appears in the seal of the Court and is inlaid into the floor of the lobby of the court’s building in Nashville.

This is sheer Platonist idiocy. No judge is supposed to apply the law to someone with no consideration or understanding (what Aristotle called sunesis) of the particular or extenuating circumstances involved.

The ultimate deontologist was Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who asserted it was your moral duty not to lie, so that if a murderer asked you where the person was he intended to kill, you had to tell him. A current example is a libtard claiming it’s immoral to torture a terrorist who knows where a bomb is that will kill thousands.

Another example? A birther claiming Ted Cruz can’t be president. Cruz birthers would rather see America destroyed – America’s heavens fall – than be wrong on their definition of “the law.” Like all Platonists, they’d rather be right than be happy.

As Cruz stated last night, “The facts and the law here are really quite clear. Under longstanding U.S. law, the child of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen. If a soldier has a child abroad, that child is a natural-born citizen… If an American missionary has a child abroad, that child is a natural-born citizen.”

And as Cruz mentioned, Trump is using this canard knowing it’s dishonest as he stated last September his lawyers assured him Cruz was “natural born.” But now that Cruz and Trump are neck and neck in Iowa, suddenly he’s quoting Hillary’s lawyer Larry Tribe.

Typical Trump – smearing a competitor without a trace of integrity. All Trump cares about is his ego, his being President, America be damned. He’ll trample and smear a good decent man, damage his chance to rectify the horrific damage Zero has done to our country, just to get his way.

What was weird last night was no mention of Zero’s “natural born” status. It’s exactly the same as Cruz’s – or Trump’s. Each had one parent who was a US citizen, not both. If the Dems want to challenge Cruz’s presidential legitimacy, ipso facto they challenge Zero’s. If they win, then they delegitimize Zero’s entire presidency making his every presidential act illegal.

As a constitutional lawyer, Cruz knows this backwards and forwards, so he’s likely waiting for the best time to fire that arrow.

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Meanwhile, I’m breathing easier this morning with Cruz looking like he’ll win Iowa after all. Trump lied last night when he said he was leading in all the latest Iowa polls. The gold standard for them is Ann Selzer’s for the Des Moines Register – which this week shows Cruz still ahead. Note just how far ahead TC is in the Combined score of First + Second Choice: 25+23=48, compared to Trump’s 22+11=33.

Now take a look at this bleak story Wednesday (1/13) in the NYT about how lousy Trump’s ground game is in Iowa, described as “amateurish and halting, committing basic organizing errors.” Trump’s volunteers are so pathetic they don’t want to go out in the cold to knock on doors.

Then there are the two Gallup polls released Wednesday. The first one ranks the Pub candidates’ “Net Favorable” scores (Favorable + Unfavorable) among Republican and Republican-leaning Indies. Cruz’s score is the highest Favorable – 61% – and the lowest Unfavorable – 16% – for a Net of 45%, crushing Trump’s 59/35 Net of 24%. The only candidate Pub voters across the country dislike more than Trump is Jeb Bush.

(Note the bias in Gallup’s reporting, with the headline “Jeb least liked,” instead of “Cruz most liked.”

The second Gallup poll ranks the Pub candidates’ Net by party. Trump comes in dead last among Dems with a minus-74%. That’s not surprising. The real bad news for Trump is how “deeply negative” his image is among the largest political party in America: Independents: minus 27%. Cruz is only minus 3%.

For a third Gallup poll now shows that self-identified Dems have dropped to 30% of the electorate, Pubs to 26%, while Indies have risen to 43%.

Indies hate Trump. That alone makes him the most unelectable Pub. They are neutral towards Cruz. Yes, I’m feeling better now.

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Now that’s all out of the way, let’s get to the best news of the week: The PIAPS is going over the edge.

Here she is on Tuesday (1/12) equating “white terrorism” and “police violence” with ISIS:

As she was babbling incoherently, the Monmouth University Poll came out showing Bernie Sanders ahead of her in New Hampshire by 14 points, trouncing her among the young, the old, Dems, Indies, men and women.

Also on the same day (1/12), the Quinnipiac University Poll reported Bernie surging past her, 49-44, in Iowa. One month ago (Dec 15^th) she was ahead 51-40. There’s now a good chance she’ll lose both Iowa and NH to Bernie.

Oh, yes, the moonbats of MoveOn.org voted on Wednesday to endorse Bernie 79% to 19%. It was MoveOn that destroyed Hillary’s candidacy in 2008 and got Zero nominated – raising $127 million and putting 934,000 volunteers on the ground walking precincts.

Her goose is getting more roasted by the minute. Maybe Zero won’t even have to greenlight the FBI’s indictment of her. Her candidacy may just collapse all by Herself. Then, in steps Biden, as no way the DemElite is going to let some goofy geezer be their nominee.

As John Kasich said last night (his one memorable line) with a laugh, “If Bernie Sanders is their nominee, we’re going to win every state!” (Note: One massive defect of the debate was having John Kasich on stage instead of Carly Fiorina.)

Here’s the frosting on this cake, the week’s must-read. DC Whispers reports yesterday (1/14) Bill & Hillary Clinton Fear the End. It’ll make your day.

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Time for some fun. The DM yesterday (1/14) has a story about twin brothers, Jeremy and Jason Holden in Los Angeles, who rigged a bicycle to shock the hell out of anyone who tried to steal it. They’d leave the bike lying around waiting for some punk to ride off with it then zap them.

Click “What Happened, Buddy?”, then click on the white arrow in blue for the video. You’ll laugh your head off.

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Let’s talk about food. All the time Rebel tells me how she cannot believe how expensive food prices are. The prices for vegetables, meat, milk, you name it, have been exploding for some time now. When we were in Paris and Warsaw last month, she was amazed how much lower food prices were – and with better quality.

Why would this be – especially with global food prices at a five year low? Rebel asked me this very question. My answer?

Food Stamps.

Subsidize something – anything from food to college education – and it’s a sure bet the price will skyrocket. Zero has put 50 million people on Food Stamps to make them dependent on government so they’ll vote Democrat. They’re convinced they’ll starve and die without Food Stamps to feed them.

So it’s heartening to see SNAP Benefits [Food Stamps] Running Out in a number of states like Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. The article is a sob-sister story, about the smart woman who’s been on Food Stamps for ten years ‘cause she can’t find a job. No mention of the tens of millions of working people who have to spend a fortune at the supermarket every month while paying thieving taxes to subsidize food-stampers.

Want to spend less at the grocery store to feed your family? Get someone in the Oval Office who’ll defund Food Stamps.

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Time for the HFR Hero of the Week. That would be Congressman Steve King of Iowa – who walked out on Zero during his SOTU speech Tuesday (1/12).

Zero left an empty chair next to Moochelle for those killed by guns. Steve left an empty chair in the gallery (every member of Congress gets to invite someone) for those unborn children killed by their mothers. He then walked out of the House chamber just as Zero was starting his speech, and went to the Congressional Prayer Room to pray “for God to raise up a leader whom He will use to restore the soul of America.”

Zero’s SOTU of course was not worth listening to, empty, boring, excruciatingly disingenuous. We’ll never hear another again. Steve King is a noble man who did the right thing. It’s worth noting that he has endorsed Ted Cruz with passion:

One small addendum. When asked what he thought of Trump’s vaunted put down of Ted last night regarding “New York values” and the resultant New York Daily News cover this morning blaring “Drop Dead Ted!” with a classy cartoon of the Statue of Liberty giving him the finger, Steve laughed.

“Ted told the exact truth,” said Steve. “Ted said, ‘There are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York. But everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media,’ and Donald Trump thought that was ‘very insulting.’

Well, guess what? Almost everyone in America outside of New York City, including upstate New Yorkers, agrees with Ted. The people of Iowa certainly do, and they’ll be voting for Ted on February 1^st, not Trump, the guy with the New York City values.”

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I want to end this HFR with a heartfelt Thank You. All your comments on the Forum in response to my Three Strikes and I’m Out yesterday encouraging me to never give up, have renewed my commitment to TTP, and to continue striving for the rebirth of freedom in America.

So no Third Strike. Thank you all very, very much.