Nov 24^th

“This is a fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” No, that’s not Stanley Laurel complaining to Oliver Hardy; it’s Reince Priebus complaining about the current state of the Republican Party to anyone who will listen. Who can blame him; but who is listening?

Who is emerging to lead the Republican primary horse race? This depends on which race we are talking about. The Quinnipiac Iowa poll at the half-way mark has Trump leading Cruz by half a head (25 to 23), Carson beginning to fade at 18, Rubio well back at 13, Fiorina barely out of the starting gate at 3 with Pataki and Graham refusing to leave the  gate at all, both at 0.

In the Massachusetts race Trump at 32 is several lengths ahead of Rubio at 18 who is a length ahead of Cruz at 10. Carson, Bush and Fiorina are at 5, 7, and 4 respectively. Graham is joined by Huckabee at 0, both going nowhere. OK, so the metaphor is strained, but how long can candidates who can’t poll at least 10 percent expect to get financial support? You may recall that when one of Fiorina’s supporters was asked why she hadn’t paid the workers for her Senate campaign against Barbara Boxer several years ago, his reply was that she had lost that election so her support staff for the election didn’t deserve to be paid. Now that Fiorina is well down in the polls I wonder if this fellow is getting nervous.

The leaders, and particularly Donald Trump, are absolutely in clover with these ISIL attacks because it makes their jingoistic, racist, comments and suggestions much more appealing. At the same time the majority of Americans are wondering how the Republicans will get back control of their party. It is obvious that the country faces dangers but if a candidate like Trump can simply lie so as to increase his appeal to those who see conspiracies everywhere they look, we will be in more danger from Trump and his followers than we could possibly be from ISIL. The Times  today had a list of Trump’s lies but the problem is that none of the other Republican leaders object to any of them. They are simply afraid of him…and these fearful people are competing with each other to lead the country.

The New York City Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton, has called on Congress take some legislative action that would make the country safer. It isn’t very complicated. We have developed a “no fly” list. These are people who, in the view of the FBI etc., should not be permitted to fly on commercial aircraft.  However, due to the power of the NRA, they are still able to buy all the guns they want. Now Congress, which is happy to pass legislation making entry to this country more difficult for refugees who already face an 18 month to 2 year investigation, can’t find the backbone to deny guns to those on a terrorist watch list who are already here.