The Combover Whisperers

Jim Geraghty goes to the cutlery drawer and pulls out the long knives:

Technically we’re supposed to welcome previous Trump fans-turned-foes with open arms. But barring some miraculous comeback by Ted Cruz, the Trump campaign will have cost the Republican Party the presidency after eight years of Obama, and perhaps the Senate and even the House – and Scalia’s replacement on the Court as well. Years of effort spent attempting to dispel the accusations of inherent Republican misogyny, xenophobia, hypocrisy, ignorance and blind rage have been undone by Trump’s campaign. And every Trump advocate in front of a camera had a hand in this.  

We’re not just gonna hug it out. 

I checked the calendar. It's March 31. We are still several months away from the general election. It's reasonable to assume any damage Trump has done can be mitigated. Still, Geraghty makes an important point about Trump's media cheerleaders:

Donald Trump didn’t suddenly change in the past few days, weeks or months. He’s the same guy he always was, the same guy that most of us in the conservative movement and GOP have been staunchly opposing for the past year. He didn’t abruptly become reckless, obnoxious, ill-informed, erratic, hot-tempered, pathologically dishonest, narcissistic, crude and catastrophically unqualified for the presidency overnight. He’s always been that guy, and you denied it and ignored it and hand-waved it away and made excuses every step of the way because you were convinced that you were so much smarter than the rest of us. You were so certain that you had received some superior wavelength giving you special insight into the Donald; only you could tell that it was all an act.

J'accuse! Yes, we should call out the Ann Coulters and Newt Gingriches and the Matt Drudges. They aren't nearly as smart as they thought they were. And yet, and yet. . . this bit of dialogue from "The Princess Bride" sticks in my mind:

Grandpa: It was ten days to the wedding. The King still lived, but Buttercup's nightmares were growing steadily worse.
The Grandson: See, didn't I tell you she'd never marry that rotten Humperdinck?
Grandpa: Yes, you're very smart. Shut up.

Conservatives are used to recriminations -- we've had experience galore with it in the last two election cycles. It's too soon for that. Hillary Clinton is still likely to be the nominee for the Democrats. She is a weak candidate and corrupt to the core. She can be defeated and she richly deserves it. The story is not concluded. Eyes on the prize. And while we're at it:

Stepping on rakes

I believe the term is message discipline:

Donald Trump said women who undergo abortions should be punished if the procedure is made illegal. In an interview for a town hall meeting to air on MSNBC Wednesday night, Trump said "there has to be some form of punishment" for women.

Really? Just kidding:

"If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed — like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions."

If you are always talking, you inevitably are going to contradict yourself, especially if you are too busy talking to actually do some thinking first. Trump never stops talking and now, finally, it's biting him in the ass. This tendency is also why comparing Trump to Reagan never made any sense. Reagan spent years reading and absorbing the works of the best minds in the conservative movement. He believed in something other than himself.

Saint Combover

All in -- here's a screen grab from Drudge:

Love means never having to say you're sorry

A lot going on here, but we'll begin at the bottom. Note two things in particular: the scare quotes around the word battery, and the red herring reference to Huma Abedin.

One can argue the relative merits of the battery charge that was filed against Corey Lewandowski, The Donald's combative campaign manager, but the charge has been made. It's an inconvenient story for Trump; there's any number of sites with video of the incident if you'd like to learn to more, but it's tangential to the larger issue -- Trump's bizarre tendency to double down when something inconvenient happens. His response to the charges being filed was breathtakingly stupid:

Responding to a question about the bruises on her arm, a photo of which Fields tweeted out shortly after the incident (below), Trump expressed skepticism: “How do you know those bruises weren’t there before?” he demanded.

Trump's largest hurdle is how women perceive him and his behavior. This won't help. And, by the way, who cares what Huma Abedin did? In case you do, here's the link.

The more amusing part is the "you saved me" reference. Trump has been involved in the beauty pageant business and apparently has corresponded with Miss Wisconsin 2005, who apparently has an incurable illness. Very nice of him to do so, but it's not clear what that has to do with running the country.

There's a larger problem that this screen grab illustrates. And we'll get back to that next.

Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues

I haven't had time to listen to the entirety of the Charlie Sykes interview of The Donald, but from all reports it didn't go well for Trump. There are links to the audio of interview all over the place, but I haven't been able to find a transcript yet. Patterico has a few quotes:

“Is this your standard?” Sykes asked. “That if a supporter of another candidate, not the candidate himself, does something despicable that it’s okay for your personally –a candidate for president of the United States– to behave in that same way? I mean, I expect that from a 12-year-old bully on a playground. Not someone who wants the office held by Abraham Lincoln.” 

“I did a retweet,” Trump said. “And it was art by someone else.”

“Your wife is a beautiful, classy woman, why can you not say the same about Ted Cruz’s wife?” Sykes asked.

[*I don’t know Ted Cruz’s wife. I’m sure she’s excellent though. I don’t know her, but you know, all this was was a response to what he did.]

In response, Trump explained that his decision to tweet the photo of Cruz’s wife grimacing was a very “mild” response.

“I didn’t even know it was necessarily a very bad picture of her versus [my wife] Melania,” he said.

And regarding Trump's record for business:

“Why shouldn’t conservatives here in Wisconsin think your claim to be a conservative is just a giant fraud?” Sykes asked.

“As a businessman, I never even thought about all the things you’ve talked about,” Trump said before lauding his past business successes.

“You’re not answering my question,” Sykes responded.

“I am a conservative,” Trump said. “I’m not so conservative when it comes to the pure aspects of trade… I believe in free trade, which is nice and conservative,” he said before repeating his usual talking points about being a tougher negotiator with other countries by threatening to implement costly tariffs on imported goods.

“It’ll never happen,” Trump said of a tariff. “But you have the threat out there.”

“Well you’re a much better negotiator than I am,” Sykes said. “But you just said it’ll never happen, so you’ve basically said your negotiating ploy is a bluff.”

As damaging as this stuff is, the larger problem for Trump is that it reveals something that people need to understand -- he doesn't do his homework. Trump was completely unaware that Charlie Sykes has been opposing Trump pretty much from the get-go and if he'd even bothered to do any rudimentary research, he would have understood the landscape and avoided Sykes entirely. For a guy who has overseen as many enterprises as Trump has, you would think he'd have information at the ready to counter such questions. Attention to detail isn't his thing, though.

Which brings up another point -- Trump has a big problem looming with keeping his delegates in line. Ace Commenter Chuckwagon Boy brings to our attention a Politico piece that describes how Trump is winning the votes, but losing the count:

More than 700 GOP activists are running for the state’s 34 delegate slots (34 more will be elected as alternates). Steve House, Colorado's GOP chairman, has put all of their names, phone numbers and candidate allegiances on the state GOP website, which shows Cruz with more than 100 would-be delegates in his corner, compared to just over 70 for Trump.

“Cruz has the activists behind him, it’s pretty clear,” Penry said.

On Saturday, Cruz drew 71 percent of the more than 1,000 ballots cast in an unofficial presidential straw poll at the El Paso County GOP assembly, the largest county Republican gathering in the state. Trump, meanwhile, drew 18 percent, and Kasich won 11 percent.

“Trump has no operation here. Zero,” Murray said. “I see no evidence of organization from him. I see evidence of support; there are a lot of people who support him. There are people organizing and strategizing about slates at the county assemblies. I’ve seen no one from Trump.”

Ted Cruz has his faults, but he's a smart guy and he pays attention to details. He spends a lot of time doing the blocking and tackling, building the local networks and getting the support of the party organizations at the local level. Colorado is a key state and Trump not having an organization to woo the party activists shows that he doesn't understand what it takes to win. The popular vote doesn't mean much if it doesn't translate into delegates.

We're at a point where things could change. Watch carefully.

Meanwhile, back on the hustings

You may not have noticed, but this feature was a campaign-free zone for the past week. It got interesting again over the weekend, though:

Bernie Sanders did not just win all three states that voted this weekend -- Washington, Alaska and Hawaii -- he won them by overwhelming, impressive margins. The presidential hopeful won every county in Washington, and some of his biggest victory margins came from the state's most rural and traditionally conservative areas.

The win will likely mean a fundraising boost for the small-donor driven campaign. Sanders does not have a super PAC and instead has enjoyed injections of cash from his fans after big wins or important nights in the election calendar. According to the campaign, supporters from Washington State already give to his cause at disproportionately high rates, so these wins will likely produce another windfall.

These were routs -- Hillary Clinton got crushed in all three states. And that's a problem for her. It won't do to pretend that no one supports her candidacy, but if she were a more popular candidate, she wouldn't get crushed. The prevailing wisdom is that Clinton is going to be the next president, but we thought that eight years ago as well. She should have flicked a septuagenarian socialist away long ago, but here we are.

Martyrs

It's not terribly difficult to be a Christian in the United States. In other parts of the world, it's liable to get you you killed:

A suicide blast claimed by Islamist militants ripped through crowds of families celebrating Easter at a park in the city of Lahore on Sunday, killing at least 70 people and injuring an additional 300 in an attack the jihadists said had deliberately targeted Christians.

The attack was carried out by a suicide bomber in the parking lot of Gulshan e-Iqbal Park around 6:30 p.m., transforming a joyful scene of picnicking families into a spectacle of chaos and horror. Many children were among the dead, local officials said.

No surprise on the perpetrators, either:

A spokesman for the Jamaat ul-Ahrar militant group, which is an offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban, asserted responsibility in a telephone interview on Sunday.

“It was our people who attacked the Christians in Lahore, celebrating Easter,” the spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said. “It’s our message to the government that we will carry out such attacks again until sharia Islamic law is imposed in the country.”

Meanwhile, in Yemen:

The Islamic State committed a grisly Good Friday commemoration, crucifying a Catholic priest. 

The Rev. Thomas Uzhunnalil, a Salesian priest, was kidnapped in Yemen in early March during a raid on a nursing home run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.

His execution by the Islamist sect, using the same method used by the Romans on Jesus and marked on Good Friday every year, was confirmed at the Easter Vigil Mass by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna.

Father Uzhunnalil was a native of India and had been the object of both prayers and diplomatic efforts since the March 4 raid where 16 Christian nuns and nurses were killed.

It won't do to pretend that Christians aren't capable of terror themselves. You could ask Lord Mountbatten about that one, to use just one example. We are called to be better than we are, but as sinners we regularly fall short. What we rarely face, at least in the West, is the possibility that we might die for our faith. As we enter into the Easter season, it's worth remembering that martyrdom isn't an abstraction.

Luke 24

He is not here; he has risen

1 On the first day of the week, at the first sign of dawn, they went to the tomb with the spices they had prepared.

2 They found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb,

3 but on entering they could not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

4 As they stood there puzzled about this, two men in brilliant clothes suddenly appeared at their side.

5 Terrified, the women bowed their heads to the ground. But the two said to them, 'Why look among the dead for someone who is alive?

6 He is not here; he has risen. Remember what he told you when he was still in Galilee:

7 that the Son of man was destined to be handed over into the power of sinful men and be crucified, and rise again on the third day.'

8 And they remembered his words.

9 And they returned from the tomb and told all this to the Eleven and to all the others.

10 The women were Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. And the other women with them also told the apostles,

11 but this story of theirs seemed pure nonsense, and they did not believe them.

12 Peter, however, went off to the tomb, running. He bent down and looked in and saw the linen cloths but nothing else; he then went back home, amazed at what had happened.

Two thousand years on, we are still amazed. And we believe. Happy Easter, everyone.

Marketing

Before they make me run

Watch this one

Higher education has been exceptionally loyal to the Left for a very long time. Other than expressly evangelical colleges and universities, you'd be hard pressed to name too many that aren't leftist. You'd think that loyalty would be worth something. You'd be mistaken:

There is a widespread (and not-unfounded) perception that the top university endowments are approaching irrational levels—Yale’s chief Ivy League rival has been called a large hedge fund with a small research institute attached to it.

Meanwhile, desperate cities and states—caught between the unpayable pension promises created by decades of irresponsible governance, bloated workforces organized into unions that keep asking for more, poor residents wanting and needing more basic services, and rich residents threatening to flounce out of town unless they get more ‘amenities’—have no choice but to scrounge under the couch cushions for extra cash. And university endowments are a prime target.

The invaluable Walter Russell Mead notes that the state of Connecticut is now considering legislation that would tax the investment profits of colleges with endowments of over $10 billion. One college in Connecticut meets that standard -- Yale. And it's not surprising; some schools are sitting on a pretty huge pile. According to U.S. News, the top ten at the end of 2014 were:

Only two public institutions on the list

It's a list that is reeking of prestige. And with the exception of Notre Dame, all of the private schools on the list are in states that are typically run by liberals. Back to Mead:

These schools should think about ways to clone themselves—either by setting up satellite campuses that offer low cost, high quality education to people in all parts of the country, or pioneering new ways to make MOOCs and other forms of online education really work for a larger portion of the population. Some such efforts are already underway at these campuses, but there is much more to be done. If tens of thousands of Connecticut students were benefiting from Yale’s efforts in the state, politicians would be much less eager to go after its endowment.

From the point of view of much of the public, highly-endowed colleges are becoming an underperforming asset: The feeling is growing that elite fat cat universities are an expensive luxury, and that the money spent propping up their endowments would be better spent buying school lunches for needy kids, or topping off up the pensions of retired civil servants.

I doubt Yale or Harvard would take Mead's recommendations, because they'd view such efforts as diluting their brand. But they can't roll up the sidewalks forever. We are all broke, in ways that can't be imagined. Plundering the endowments of these schools will only buy more time until the day of reckoning arrives.

Omens

So, how do you interpret this announcement?

Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau issued a stern public warning Thursday that protesters who interfere with public safety will be arrested, as activists await a decision any day on whether two officers will be charged in the shooting of Jamar Clark.

And this:

“We will not allow people to set fires on our streets or occupy and vandalize our buildings,” Harteau said. “We will not allow people to jeopardize the safety of others by causing massive disruptions and hindering emergency vehicles from helping those in need.”

I'm guessing the police know how the decision is going to go. I would also imagine the protestors aren't going to like the decision. Place your bets.

The new archbishop

I'm surprised, but pleased:

The news Thursday that Acting Archbishop Bernard Hebda will become the permanent leader of the Twin Cities archdiocese came as a relief to area Catholics — and as a shock to Hebda and Vatican observers.

Hebda, who has been splitting his time between the Twin Cities and Newark, N.J., since Archbishop John Nienstedt resigned last June, will be installed officially May 13.

Archbishop Hebda came to my parish, St. Rose of Lima, early on after he'd been appointed as the interim replacement for Nienstedt. I was out of town that day, Mrs. D and the kids were there and they were impressed. The plan was that Hebda would return to Newark after the Vatican found a permanent replacement, but that has changed. Given the amount of trouble this archdiocese faces, I would wager that the Pope and his advisors figured that Hebda needed to be here.

Given the speed of events, Hebda said he had no master plan for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. However, he plans to work with clergy, staff and parishioners as he charts his path forward.

"Up to this point … my primary concern is to do no harm," Hebda said at a news conference Thursday morning at the Cathedral. "After May 13, [the day he is installed] it's going to be my responsibility to set a longer course."

It will be an interesting process to watch.

Vagaries of weather

As far as I can tell, it did not snow at all at my house yesterday. Near my office, about 25 miles away as the crow flies, almost a foot of snow:

The National Weather Service says an estimated 12 inches of snow fell on Savage by early evening Wednesday, before it began to taper off in the south metro. That total stood up at 11:56 p.m., when the National Weather Service updated the storm's totals.

Other reports include 11.5 inches of snow in Burnsville, 11 inches 2 miles south of Lakeville and 10 inc inches in several locations.

By contrast, as of 7 p.m., 3.7 inches was recorded at the airport, with 3.2 inches at the Weather Service's office in Chanhassen.

In downtown Minneapolis, snow was swirling through the taller buildings late in the afternoon but failing to coat the streets and sidewalks below thanks to temperatures holding above freezing. It stopped downtown in the early evening, and the northern suburbs largely escaped the early spring reminder of Minnesota’s reputation.

It was bizarre driving home yesterday. As I slogged through the streets of Burnsville, the snow was falling fast and hard and the commute was slow -- the plows could not keep up with it. As I made my way north, it looked like a particularly malevolent snow globe throughout Bloomington, Richfield and into south Minneapolis, but as I approached downtown Minneapolis, the snow was minimal. Once I crossed the Mississippi River, it was gone. I've never seen anything quite like it.

Go figure

Least surprising news of the day:

Americans have been killed by prisoners released from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a senior Defense Department official told lawmakers Wednesday, triggering sharp criticism from Republicans opposed to shuttering the facility in the wake of deadly attacks by the Islamic State group in Brussels and Paris.

Paul Lewis, the Pentagon's special envoy for Guantanamo detention closure, declined to provide the GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee with details. He would not say whether the incidents occurred before or after President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.

"What I can tell you is unfortunately there have been Americans that have died because of (Guantanamo) detainees," Lewis said during an exchange with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.

I honestly don't know if closing Gitmo will help or hurt. I would like it if we could be realistic about the implications, though.

Howl

who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury,
who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy,

-- Howl, Allen Ginsberg

Forget Allen Ginsberg -- if you want a howl of pain, come to Emory University:

Students protested on campus earlier this week at the Emory Administration Building following a mysteriously appearing series of overnight, pro- Trump for president (“Trump 2016″) chalkings. The chalkings were too much to bear for many students who received no trigger warnings.

“I’m supposed to feel comfortable and safe [here],” one student said. “But this man is being supported by students on our campus and our administration shows that they, by their silence, support it as well … I don’t deserve to feel afraid at my school,” she added.

Emory is widely considered to be one of the finest universities in the country. Further evidence:

Roughly 40 students gathered shortly after 4:30 p.m. in the outdoors space between the Administration Building and Goodrich C. White Hall; many students carried signs featuring slogans such as “Stop Trump” or “Stop Hate” and an antiphonal chant addressed to University administration, led by College sophomore Jonathan Peraza, resounded “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!” throughout the Quad. 

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!
Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

Man, are these people gonna hate annual performance reviews.

A public service

The Pioneer Press gets to an important question:

Bad songs spew from the radio, infect your ears in stores and dampen evenings at the corner bar. But what elevates a song from merely bad to truly the worst?

The worst songs are like an infection you can’t quite shake. They burrow into a corner of your brain and set up shop, looping idiotic choruses and inane lyrics endlessly through your skull. Sometimes, you don’t even have to hear the song at all, just reading the title will get it stuck in your head on repeat.

In honor of March Madness, we’re launching a contest to find the Worst. Song. Ever.

I'm going to play. They have identified three of the very worst, in my opinion, which are:

"I'd Really Love to See You Tonight," by England Dan and John Ford Coley
"Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," by Rod Stewart
"We Built This City," by Starship

I'll expound on my reasoning later on, but for now, it's time to play.

Ain't no drag

Papa won't have a brand new bag, at least not in Minneapolis:

A proposal to ban Minneapolis stores from handing out plastic bags — and require them to charge customers for paper bags — has cleared an important hurdle at City Hall.

Monday, following a lengthy public hearing, the City Council’s Health, Environment and Community Engagement committee voted 4-0 to forward the plan to the full council. It appears the plan may have enough support to pass the 13-member council; in addition to the four committee members who voted in favor of the plan, two other council members attended the meeting to voice their support. A fifth committee member, Council Member Andrew Johnson, expressed support for the plan but abstained from voting because he intends to work on an amendment that would make the policy more “consumer and business friendly.”

So think about the utopia that Minneapolis is creating -- you need to buy something and you're not particularly wealthy. You might have to carry what you're purchasing, say, groceries, around on public transportation, which for most people still means a bus. The plastic bags make it easier. But we don't believe in easy in Minneapolis.

Don't worry, though -- you can always get all the bags you want in Roseville or Richfield.

Brussels

I'm on the move today so not much time to respond to the latest terrorist attacks, this time in Belgium. I will pray for the victims today. After that, we can discuss the implications, yet again.

Open thread

A lot of things going on, not much time to write today. Have at it, if you wish.

Yep

Brilliant!

The greatest advantage Donald Trump has  is the self-indulgence and stupidity (pardon the redundancy) of his opponents.

Waupun 59, Xavier 58

A heartbreaker, but another fine season for my beloved Hawks. They will be back. Meanwhile, Waupun was at the state tournament for the first time since 1927, so you have to be happy for them.

Blocked again