Donald Does Dallas

Well, if Donald Trump's recent rally in Dallas proved one thing, it's that the guy really knows how to put a show. For that matter, he's rather shameless about sucking up to an audience as long as it's the right audience -- but then what politician isn't rather shameless about doing that?

That said, I still don't trust the guy and I would not be a bit surprised to find out that most of his "supporters" are just voting for him to yank the chains of the type of people who don't like Donald Trump. (And I'm not referring to people like me.)

I do find it interesting that though my mother and my middle brother both lean conservative -- indeed, my middle brother can be very conservative when it comes to politics -- neither one of them is a Trump supporter. But then Trump isn't interested in appealing to people like us so I'm not all that surprised.

Anyway, it sounds like it's going to be an interesting election year next year. And if nothing else, Donald Trump deserves credit for stealing Rand Paul's thunder -- which is probably the last nice thing I'll say about Mr. Trump this year.

Pop Song of the Week: “Land of Confusion”

I bet John Nolte just loves this video and yet he would probably hate it if it was released today -- and substituted Rand Paul for Ronald Reagan.

Lauren Valle Almost Died for Their Sins

Oh, geez. I guess I should not be surprised by anything done by people who consider chair-throwing a legitimate form of political protest but the incident this past week in which protester Lauren Valle got thrown to the ground by Rand Paul supporters and then stomped in the head by one particularly loathsome individual kinda takes the cake.

Did they really believe the woman deserved that kind of treatment? Granted, I am old enough to remember Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, the woman who tried to kill President Gerald Ford back in the 1970s, but then I see no comparisons between a would-be political assassin like Ms. Fromme and a legitimate political protester like Ms. Valle any more than there should be any connection between the Oklahoma City bombing and the original Boston Tea Party. And should not the woman just have been held till the cops arrived if Paul's supporters truly believed she was that much of a legitimate threat? As it stands, it seems like the only thing Ms Valle had in mind was a political stunt that would embarrass Mr. Paul -- and last time I checked, that was not an act deserving of a citizen's arrest, much less a beating.

Ironically, I was just discussing the modern-day Tea party just a few weeks ago with my mother, a former Reagan Democrat who recently admitted to me that she did not care for either the Tea party or Sarah Palin. Of course, my mother's biggest concern back then was not seeing some protester get the stuffing knocked out of her but rather the potential for splitting the conservative vote in the 2012 elections. And indeed, if I were a more cynical person, I would be tempted to argue that the main reason Democratic politicos like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have not come down harder against the Tea party was their hopes for just such a split. After all, the more people who vote for Rand Paul or Sarah Palin as a way of getting back at Obama, the less people left to vote for whoever the GOP picks as their presidential candidate -- and the less likely a victory for anyone running against Obama.

So now the good people who support Rand Paul have given me yet another reason to vote against their party apart from family loyalty. Here's hoping that I do not get kicked in the head as well.