Hey Reince Priebus! Show us Scott Walker's signed Pledge to Support the Nominee!

Gov. Scott Walker has large personal debt problems, consistent with reports of his negative net worth

Reported here:

"The Re­pub­lic­an pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate has cast him­self as both a fisc­al con­ser­vat­ive lead­er and a penny-pinch­ing every­man on the cam­paign trail, of­ten tout­ing his love of Kohl’s, the dis­count de­part­ment store. His newly pub­lished fin­an­cial dis­clos­ure shows that, like many Amer­ic­ans, Walk­er has few as­sets, some ma­jor debts (in­clud­ing more than $100,000 for stu­dent loans for his chil­dren), and a pun­ish­ing in­terest rate on his cred­it-card ob­lig­a­tions. Walk­er in­curred one cred­it-card debt with Barclays in 2014, ac­cord­ing to the fin­an­cial dis­clos­ure form, and owed between $10,000 and $15,000 at a 27.24 per­cent in­terest rate as of Ju­ly 2015. ... One of Walk­er’s cred­it-card debts, to Bank of Amer­ica, dates back to 2011, his first year as gov­ernor, ac­cord­ing to the dis­clos­ure form. Walk­er cur­rently owes between $10,000 and $15,000 on that one, with an in­terest rate of 11.99 per­cent."

Flip-flopping Scott Walker ends campaign for president, declares war on Trump

Scott Walker's entire political career comes to an ignoble end, lashing out at the man who seized the issue of the time, illegal immigration, from his hands.

Watch Walker triangulate again in the near future and moderate his position on amnesty back to what it was just a couple of years ago. Walker never really opposed amnesty. He just wanted the Republican base to think he did, and now proves it.

The Guardian had the money quotes, here:

“Today, I believe that I am being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive conservative message can rise to the top,” Walker said. “With this in mind, I am suspending my campaign indefinitely.” Walker encouraged other candidates to do the same, “so that voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive, conservative alternative to the current frontrunner.”

A small man was he, not ready for prime time.

With 99% of the vote counted in Greece, Syriza retakes power as before while Popular Unity at 2.86% of the vote gets NOTHING

Why George W. Bush was wrong not to kill everybody and break everything in Afghanistan

Kill 'em all, let Allah sort 'em out.

Alexis Tsipras and Syriza consolidate power in Greece without the anti-austerity rebels

At this hour with 75% of the vote counted, Alexis Tsipras and Syriza are set to return to power and head the Greek government for the next four years with 145 seats and a coalition with the Independent Greeks as before, but without the Syriza rebels who left to form Popular Unity. The latter isn't polling even 3% and will not win one seat, meaning there is no viable party representing anti-austerity or a return to the drachma. Turn out at 56% hasn't been this low since 1946 when only 53% turned out when leftists boycotted the election.

US House voted Friday to defund Planned Parenthood 241-187, Justin Amash joins the party

The Roll Call vote is here.

Justin Amash of Michigan, the formerly "consistent" conservative, decided this time to vote to defund, whereas in 2011 he voted "present".

There is no explanation up on his Facebook page as far as I can tell at this hour, his usual claim to fame being that he explains every vote there.

Estimated net worth of Democrats for president in 2016

Chafee $43 million

Clinton $21.5 million

Warren $6.69 million

Webb $4.6 million

Biden $600,000

Sanders $330,506

Estimated net worth of Republicans for president in 2016

Trump $10 billion

Fiorina $59 million

Carson $10 million

Bush $10 million

Santorum $5 million

Huckabee $5 million

Christie $4 million

Cruz $3.17 million

Perry $3 million (out already)

Jindal $2.7 million

Kasich $2.5 million

Paul $1.33 million

Graham $1.02 million

Rubio $443,500

Walker ($71,500), that's right, he's in the hole

Trump loses significant ground in CNN poll, still in first at 24%, Walker Jindal and Graham get goose eggs, Trump retains lead in Real Clear Politics poll average with 28.5%

Ted Cruz' Munsters problem

Ted Cruz

"Grandpa" Al Lewis

Tony Heller corrects Jonah Goldberg about September warming

Here.

Trump publishes 2nd Amendment position paper, calls for national right to carry

Here:

"NATIONAL RIGHT TO CARRY. The right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway. That’s why I have a concealed carry permit and why tens of millions of Americans do too. That permit should be valid in all 50 states. A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving – which is a privilege, not a right – then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege."

Morning Consult post-debate poll of 504 registered voters finds Trump still way ahead in first with 36%

Here.

Obama flashback 2008: "My Muslim faith"

Here.

Oops. I meant the totally opposite thing. 

George Bush didn't keep us safe: 911 happened under his watch

Two doors down there's a memory that won't ever end

Rush Limbaugh can't remember shit about taxes under Reagan: Why do we listen to this guy?

Here yesterday, wrong on both years, and forgetting that G. H. W. Bush raised taxes by adding a 31% bracket in 1991, getting himself defeated by Clinton in 1992:

"What did Ronald Reagan do? When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 the top marginal tax rate was 90%. And the amount of money raised by the tax code was about $500 billion back then. When Reagan left office in 1989, there were three tax rates, essentially two, but there was a 31% bubble in there. But the top 90%, that marginal rate of 90% had been dropped to 28%. And the amount of money generated by the tax code had doubled, almost a billion dollars, by reducing tax rates."

Revenues in 1981 were $599.3 billion nominal, in 1989 $991.1 billion, up 65%, not 100%. Revenues did not double until 1993-1994, after Bush and then Clinton raised marginal rates as high as 39.6%. Revenues did not double again until 2006. The record shows that whether marginal rates were higher or lower, revenues took twelve to thirteen years to double.

What Rush Limbaugh means by "doubled, almost a billion dollars" is anybody's guess. Only his pharmacist knows for sure.

The facts are that Ronald Reagan persuaded Democrats to bring the top marginal rate down from 70% in 1981 to 50% 1982-1986. After the tax reform of 1986 the top marginal rate dropped to 38.5% in 1987. For three years 1988 through 1990 there were just two marginal rates: 15% and 28%. That was the brief golden age of taxation under Reagan, which his successor totally screwed up.

Reagan had NOTHING to do with the introduction of a 31% bracket. That was all on George Herbert Walker Bush, for which the Democrats recently gave him the Profiles in Courage Award.

Carly Fiorina was against the bailouts in 2009 after the wind changed, but was for them in 2008 with John McCain

Against.

For.

Just like Sarah Palin.

Donald Trump has Tom Brady, Mike Ditka and Bobby Knight on the team

Charles Cook embraces the impotence of contemporary conservatism faced with Donald Trump

Where else but in National Review here, the locus of conservatism as ineffectual cult and ideology, which finds it impossible to revolt against anything except for the rebels:

"As it happens, Trump’s critics do grasp the appeal [of revolt]. What they do not do, however, is act upon it in this manner. The temptation to deliver a bloody nose to one’s ideological enemies is a human and comprehensible one, by no means limited in its allure to the disgruntled part of the Republican primary electorate. But temptation and reasonable conduct are two separate things entirely, and they should always be treated as such. Can one understand the instinct that is on display? Sure. Can one look beneath the surface and do anything other than despair? I’m afraid not. Such as they are, the explanations provided by Trump’s discordant choir are entirely risible and easily dismantled. Great, you’re annoyed! But then what?"

He's obviously proud of it. In 1776 he'd be called a royalist.

Was taking up arms against England "reasonable conduct"? Only a Catholic sensibility could fail to grasp the point. "But then what?" Well, a long war of several years, full of privations and without guaranty of success, followed by another long period of several years preparing for and culminating in a constitutional convention, during which local and colonial institutions were strong enough to support the absence of a centralized framework. The same is still true today, if only the locals more frequently told the federal courts to go to hell, as the Kentucky county clerk recently did.

By definition, an ideology ought to have some ideas in it which form a system, and should be, when all is said and done, unrealistic. That pretty much describes American conservatism since forever: unable to roll back anything, including the income tax, direct election of Senators, universal suffrage, the Federal Reserve Act, the Reapportionment Act of 1929, Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage, Obamacare, and the enormous regulatory code, and unable to permanently refound the country on any constitutional principles, say, of limited government or separation of powers. Conservatism has a massive record of zero achievement while liberalism's untruths keep marching on like tanks in Tiananmen Square.

Trump's camp, meanwhile, thinks three modest things: the way to make America great again is to restore law and order by starting with enforcing its borders and putting an end to illegal immigration, to bring jobs back to Americans by reforming the tax code, developing energy independence, cutting wasteful spending and punishing unpatriotic corporations who profit from exporting jobs, and to rebuild the military to protect freedom at home and for our friends and allies abroad.

It takes near religious nuttery to call the proponent of these measures "a self-interested narcissist and serial heretic whose entirely inchoate political platform bends cynically to the demands of the moment."

To understand Trump, it takes a village . . . of Protestants.