See this from a Cleveland pastor for Trump.

 

Thought for the moment, if not for the day:

If Trump hadn’t taken positions on immigration, trade, etc. or on any one of them as vigorously as he has, all the coarseness in the world would not have earned him the opprobrium he’s received, much less the efforts to disrupt his rallies.

The coarseness provides cover for the opposition.

Fearsome creature instructed in thievery.

“There now, fine fellow, fit for the forty-second;” said [Jacob] Bunting [retired corporal of “the 42nd”], clapping [local publican Peter Dealtry] on the back. “Well, and—a—nd—a beautiful cat, isn’t her?”

“Ah!” said Peter very shortly—for though a remarkably mild man, Peter did not love cats: moreover, we must now inform the reader, that the cat of Jacob Bunting was one more feared than respected throughout the village.

The Corporal was a cunning teacher of all animals: he could learn goldfinches the use of the musket; dogs, the art of the broadsword; horses, to dance hornpipes and pick pockets; and he had relieved the ennui of his solitary moments by imparting sundry accomplishments to the ductile [teachable] genius of his cat.

Under his tuition, Puss had learned to fetch and carry; to turn over head and tail, like a tumbler; to run up your shoulder when you least expected it; to fly, as if she were mad, at any one upon whom the Corporal thought fit to set her; and, above all, to rob larders, shelves, and tables, and bring the produce to the Corporal, who never failed to consider such stray waifs lawful manorial acquisitions.

These little feline cultivations of talent, however delightful to the Corporal, and creditable to his powers of teaching the young idea how to shoot, had nevertheless, since the truth must be told, rendered the Corporal’s cat a proverb and byeword throughout the neighbourhood.

Never was cat in such bad odour: and the dislike in which it was held was wonderfully increased by terror; for the creature was singularly large and robust, and withal of so courageous a temper, that if you attempted to resist its invasion of your property, it forthwith set up its back, put down its ears, opened its mouth, and bade you fully comprehend that what it feloniously seized it could gallantly defend.

More than one gossip in the village had this notable cat hurried into premature parturition, as, on descending at day-break into her kitchen, the dame would descry the animal perched on the dresser, having entered, God knows how, and gleaming upon her with its great green eyes, and a malignant, brownie expression of countenance.

Various deputations had indeed, from time to time, arrived at the Corporal’s cottage, requesting the death, expulsion, or perpetual imprisonment of the favourite. But the stout Corporal received them grimly, and dismissed them gruffly; and the cat still went on waxing in size and wickedness, and baffling, as if inspired by the devil, the various gins and traps set for its destruction.

But never, perhaps, was there a greater disturbance and perturbation in the little hamlet, than when, some three weeks since, the Corporal’s cat was known to be brought to bed, and safely delivered of a numerous offspring. The village saw itself overrun with a race and a perpetuity of Corporal’s cats!

Perhaps, too, their teacher growing more expert by practice, the descendants might attain to even greater accomplishment than their nefarious progenitor. No longer did the faint hope of being delivered from their tormentor by an untimely or even natural death, occur to the harassed Grassdalians. Death was an incident natural to one cat, however vivacious, but here was a dynasty of cats! Principes mortales, respublica eterna!

More to come on this remarkable cat . . .

Walking out of the canceled Trump appearance at the UIC Pavilion, I passed a police officer standing at the door, one of dozens at the event. Protestors were filing out too, shouting slogans. I looked at the officer, she looked at me, and a grimace was all it took, between us, to register our mutual impatience if not disgust at these people.

Earlier, our waiting for Trump was interrupted by an announcement that from my seat in the upper deck, next to a couple slightly younger than I who had helped me get to my seat without tipping over, I could hardly make out.

Asking around, I learned that Trump wasn’t coming. A big roar had accompanied the announcement. I thought wow, did Cruz withdraw or something? Nope, it was the Bernie people roaring their approval. 

They materialized as if out of nowhere at the end of the main floor, probably 100 or so, massed together, yelling out “Bernie, Bernie.” By then, even from my perch above, it was clear that they had arrived to break up the rally, which they did. 

“Nazi youth movement,” I told a friend whom I had called. Well, calm though I was, I’d gotten a little in the exaggerating mode. Before I left the main entrance to the ouside, walking down to the main-floor concourse, I’d passed a tall, skinny white kid wearing a t-shirt with writing he’d put there himself with magic marker or something like it, “White people, racism hurts us all.”

He stood there as we walked past, his back to a wall, just looking, as if he wanted us to see his t-shirt with its writing. A few Trump supporters, young white guys, gave a fuckin’ this or that and were angry at his type having driven their man away. They pointed fingers at him but made no move. He walked away.

More walking on the concourse, and a scuffle broke out but was over right away. With others I walked out (past the police woman) on to the street, where we faced other signs far less noble than what we’d seen:

“No Trump.” “Let me see your dick.” “Small hands, small dick.” (Rubio has to regret that exchange which he started.) And other signs there were, in the crowd in the middle of the street, far more than we who filed past them on the sidewalk, many of us on our way to the Blue Line station a half block away.

These were college students making noise and not much else. Watching TV when I got home, Blue Line to Clark bus, the bus to Andersonville, I saw brief fistfights — a few, over and over, by the way — but on the scene, let’s say it was easy to be there and see almost nothing of the sort. 

One scuffle that was played a lot on TV was of a guy on the stage. That was something we could see from the upper deck, him trying to get to the mike, struggling with two men trying to hustle him off the stage. Playing to his audience, he was.

As for Trump not showing, seeing the size of the anti-Trump group, and if I said 100, maybe more like 200, I cannot imagine Trump being able to speak. Hustling that many out would have made it ridiculous for anyone to do anything but listen to the “Bernie, Bernie” chants.

It was a setup, in other words. A mob had taken over the rally, disrupting it beyond repair. Trump afterwards told Hannity that the police would surely have done their duty but that he saw it would be messy indeed (my word) and might have gotten very bad indeed.

All in all, police were very patient, and besides a few nasties, the violence seemed to be very much contained. Not bad for a college campus, where students increasingly feel entitled, even obliged, to disrupt what they disagree with. Now that’s why I thought Nazis at first, come to think of it.

. . . and move on? He gave her a lot of time, answered everything, including with his own question when she irritated him. At what point did she come across as on a mission?

Source: Newsalert: Donald Trump denies his campaign manger hurt Michelle Fields: ‘Nobody saw anything’

Canton OH steelworker on Trump:

Sitting in a steel workers’ meeting at their Canton union hall, Curtis Green, the chapter’s vice president, described Trump’s support among a growing number of members as their “dirty little secret.”
“I view him as a radical and a racist and I don’t want to be affiliated with that,” Green said. “But if you say what you mean, a lot of guys see that in Trump and they respect that. He doesn’t dance around the issues, he takes them head on. There are a fair amount of our members who do support Donald Trump.

While we’re at it, it also depends on what you mean by racist.

Where your stomach is, there your chance for influx of wisdom:

Many of us think of fasting as a spiritual duty to God, depriving ourselves of food and drink for a period of time in order to prove our love for Him.

While long-suffering is a part of being human and certainly a part of being Christian, fasting should not be included when we think about “suffering for Christ.

”On the contrary, fasting is less about what we’re giving up and much more about what we’re making room for. When we fast, we exchange what we need to survive for what we need to live—more of God. Here are five spiritual benefits to fasting:

Source: 5 Spiritual Benefits of Fasting

In the middle of her about-face statement, Paglia nails the Trump Attraction:

. . . Trump’s fearless candor and brash energy feel like a great gust of fresh air, sweeping the tedious clichés and constant guilt-tripping of political correctness out to sea.

Unlike Hillary Clinton, whose every word and policy statement on the campaign trail are spoon-fed to her by a giant paid staff and army of shadowy advisors, Trump is his own man, with a steely “damn the torpedoes” attitude.

He has a swaggering retro machismo that will give hives to the Steinem cabal.  He lives large, with the urban flash and bling of a Frank Sinatra.  But Trump is a workaholic who doesn’t drink and who has an interesting penchant for sophisticated, strong-willed European women.

As for a debasement of the presidency by Trump’s slanging matches about penis size, that sorry process was initiated by a Democrat, Bill Clinton, who chatted about his underwear on TV, let Hollywood pals jump up and down on the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom, and played lewd cigar games with an intern in the White House offices.

Read the whole thing: I was wrong about Donald Trump: Camille Paglia on the GOP front-runner’s refreshing candor (and his impetuousness, too) – Salon.com

Between a cool shower on a hot day and a hot one on a cold day.

For grass-roots conservative Republicans — mocked by the Beltway’s imperial punditry and lied to again and again by the GOP establishment — what could be sweeter than this?

Source: To stop Trump, GOP establishment must rally around Cruz – Chicago Tribune

They slipped by, did they not?

Dutch authorities identified about 30 war crimes suspects, a third of them Syrians, among the 59,000 people who applied for asylum last year, the immigration minister said on Monday.

Among them ten Syrians, who said

the Syrians could not be sent home because international treaties prohibit forced repatriation to a country where there is ongoing conflict….

Stuck with them.

Source: Dutch find ten Syrian war crime suspects among Muslim migrants