Nov 28, 2015

The Cat Hair Cook Talks donald trump and the Threat of Independence

No, the GOP is not bossing me around!

According to the Ohio papers trump was asked to reduce his amount of ridicule against John Kasich recently at a rally in Ohio with the explanation that Ohio is needed to carry an election and it did not do any favors for the good of the Republican agenda to bash the popular Governor. Perhaps this will push trump to actually go independent since he is running his campaign at the expense of the GOP. He is now and always has been only interested in himself and not in any of the conservative values.

stated by the dark peasant:
I'm sure Trump will comply while Kasich and his POS PAC compares Trump to Hitler and the Nazis.

But don't you think that is why he was recently threatening to go independent again. Once the Republican operatives started chatting with him in Ohio he may have gone along with it for a moment but in the end I do not think he will agree to be bossed around by the the party and in particular John Kasich who could be a real threat to him. I think he knows that. Once John Kasich started calling him out twice at the debates and it went all over the news for his unimplementable schemes and now the party is ganging up on him for handing the election to my girl Hillary Clinton, it is the beginning of the end for the end for the tramp.

from The Hill:

The GOP in a Panic Over Trump

The Republican establishment is nearing full-blown panic about Donald Trump.

The demise of Trump’s candidacy has been predicted by centrist Republicans and the media alike virtually since the day it began. But there is no empirical evidence at all to suggest it is happening.

Last month, the liberal ThinkProgress collated more than 30 predictions of the business mogul’s imminent demise. One typical example was The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart, who discerned “the beginning of the end of Trump” in mid-July, soon after the mogul criticized the Vietnam War record of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)

Despite all that, Trump has led the RealClearPolitics (RCP) polling average in a virtually unbroken spell for four months. The only person to briefly wrest the lead away from him, Dr. Ben Carson, appears to be fading. And numerous polls show Trump drawing double the support of his closest establishment-friendly rival, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)

Add to all this the fact that Trump’s lead over the rest of the GOP field has expanded since the terrorist attacks in Paris, and it becomes clear why anxiety among his many Republican critics is reaching new heights.

“He has a real shot at this. He is the clear front-runner,” said Ron Bonjean, a consultant and former aide to GOP leaders on Capitol Hill.

Adding that “months ago, we all discounted Trump as a candidate,” Bonjean now acknowledged that it seems “safe to assume that he is going to continue with this strong momentum right into Iowa.”

The Iowa caucuses are set for Feb. 1, a little over two months away. Voters tend to pay less attention to politics over the holiday season than at other times, a trend that makes dramatic shifts in the race less likely during that period.

Only one more televised debate will take place before the end of the year, on Dec. 15 in Las Vegas. Beyond that, there will be only one more such clash, in January, four days before the caucuses.

“The media has twisted and turned through a number of different positions where they tried to explain that it was just a fad — the summer of Trump,” said Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa. “Well, it’s lasted all fall. There is a realization that you are not going to wake up tomorrow and he’s going to vanish.”

Robinson, who is not affiliated with any candidate, was scathing toward those GOP centrists who assert that Trump will be unable to translate his polling support into votes because of a weak ground game.

“That is the wishful thinking of the establishment,” he said. “That is what they tell themselves so they can sleep at night. The truth is, Trump has one of the better ground operations in Iowa. Will he turn out every single person who shows up at his rallies? No. But if he turns out a fraction, he will roll over the field.”

Trump’s critics within the GOP are now coming to believe that an air war — that is, negative TV advertising — is more likely to deliver results than anything else. They note that a $1 million campaign in Iowa by the conservative Club for Growth appeared to put some dent in Trump’s numbers. (It also drew the threat of legal action from the candidate.)

A super-PAC backing the presidential candidacy of Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is already targeting the business mogul. On Nov. 20, The Wall Street Journal reported that Liz Mair, a well-known Republican operative, was planning a “guerrilla campaign” against Trump. A memo prepared by Mair’s organization, Trump Card LLC, stated that “in the absence of our efforts, Trump is exceedingly unlikely to implode or be forced out of the race.”

Rick Wilson, a Florida GOP strategist who has agreed to help produce TV ads for Mair’s group if it raises funding, told The Hill, “I expected that the other candidates and campaigns would by now have stepped up to knock down Trump’s numbers, and I was wrong. Unlike Donald Trump, I will admit when I have made an error.”

But Wilson added that capsizing the businessman’s chances at this point would require a significant financial effort.

“It’s going to need a sustained commitment from people who need to understand that if you hand the Republican nomination to Donald Trump, you hand the White House to Hillary Clinton,” he said.

Some experts still contend that Trump will fall of his own accord, or that his current poll ratings will prove deceptive. Statistician Nate Silver, of the FiveThirtyEight website, has argued that the majority of voters only make their decisions much closer to polling time.

Others have cited the 2012 cycle, when several Republican candidates’ stars rose and faded, to suggest that Trump will lose altitude before the first votes are cast.

Silver’s thesis seems to rest on the idea that late-deciding voters will make completely different choices than those who have already tuned in to the process — a supposition that may be true but is unproven for now.

As for 2012, while it is true that former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) was leading the RCP average at the equivalent point to now, that was to be a relatively short-lived phenomenon, just as earlier boomlets for candidates such as then-Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and businessman Herman Cain had proved to be.

In fact, the consistency of Trump’s polling performance this cycle has more in common with the steady showing of eventual 2012 nominee Mitt Romney than anyone else.

Other anti-Trump forces within the GOP hold out hope that as the field winnows, the whole dynamic of the race will shift, with primary voters coalescing around a different option.

But none of that is guaranteed. Trump remains as bullishly confident as ever. And Republican insiders know the hour is getting late.

“If Trump is not your cup of tea, it’s time to bring your own coffee pot out and start brewing something,” said Robinson.

by Niall Stanage

Nov 26, 2015

Tips from The Cat Hair Cook and Pushy Pie Crust

Pumpkin Pie from a *real* pumpkin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you use a plastic fork to stir the ingredients for the pumpkin pie because all of the other dishes are dirty in the sink just be sure to look at the fork carefully after stirring the mixture to make sure all of the tines are still there.

Pushy Pie Crust

1 1/2 cups of flour

big pinch of salt

stick of butter (1/2 cup)

2 eggs

stir the flour and salt

grate the butter into the flour

(just take the butter out of the fridge and use the large holes on a box grater--it is helpful to have a large bowl or large frying pan if all of the bowls are dirty, too)

just keep covering and stirring in the butter with the flour so the little pieces are covered in flour and do not get into one big ball

crack 2 eggs directly into the butter flour mixture and beat with a fork

mix the whole thing together with your hands

the mix should turn into a ball quickly and just push it down with the heel of your hand a few times to mix it

place the dough ball into the pie pan--I have a glass pie dish--this may be difficult if it is a disposable aluminum pie pan

push the ball down and flatten with your hands--if it is too sticky sprinkle with a little bit of flour

just keep flattening and pushing the crust--it takes a while but I could not find my rolling pin and it eventually works well.

Continue flattening the bottom of the crust in the dish until it is the usual pie crust feel or thickness--it does not have to be exactly even all over the dish. If the crust becomes too thin in the process just pinch off a little and fill it in. It works like play dough.

After the bottom seems right--it is not an exact science--continue to flatten the crust against the sides of the pie shell and over the edge.

Cut off the the crust overlapping the edge of the dish running a knife along the edge.

Crimp the edge.

Save the rest of the crust in a flat ball in the fridge to make jelly tarts later--a plastic square container is good.

Readers, do you live with someone insane and you are trying to survive the holidays without overeating because you deserve it.

Do you have any tips?

comments on insane family members and pie crust accepted--agree or disagree

big boy bams

liza--makes good pot roast

sam--the mixer is not a couch

chloe--writes a blog

Nov 25, 2015

Obama Lover: trump is weird

English: President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama meet in the Oval Office of the White House Monday, November 10, 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Karl Rove Assistant to the President, Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This thing is an emergency situation to me. Of course I value freedom of speech and every ones opinion but trump and Carson are an embarrassment to our country. I feel like Hiter is running for office and too many people like it.

It would be nice if policy was the issue and not rounding people up which is obnoxious and unrealistic.

Voting for Hillary but admire Kasich for being more or less normal with a good track record and having the nerve to call out donald with the knowledge that an ungly backlash would come his way.

Call me Karl Rove but it is the political conversation that moves things forward--DT is not conversational.

Folks accuse President Obama of being too intellectual--isn't that a good thing--we do not have to worry about that term ever being applied to trump.

Hello.

Hillary girl forever and Obama lover.....cl

Ohio Gov. John Kasich talks Detroit, Donald Trump on 8th presidential campaign visit to Michigan

copied from mlive.com

By Emily Lawler | elawler@mlive.com
on November 25, 2015 at 9:52 AM, updated November 25, 2015 at 10:50 AM

DETROIT, MI -- The Detroit skyline lit up through the windows of a black SUV taking presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich between appointments Monday.

"I gotta tell ya, I like Detroit," Kasich says, looking out the window and into the city.

After serving in Congress for 18 years Kasich entered the private sector, taking a job with the now-defunct Lehman Brothers. Working there he'd traveled to Detroit a lot, and when he became governor of Ohio in 2010 he started coming for the Auto Show. Like many Michiganders, he's optimistic that Detroit is on the verge of a major comeback.

"I know you ride through some of it and you just say, "how's it ever going to come back?' But that's the way Brooklyn was," he says.

He's been to Michigan eight times so far during his presidential run, most recently to tour Shelby Township-based incubator Velocity. He expects Michigan to be an important state in the primary and general elections in 2016.

As the governor of a neighboring state he's worked with Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and thinks highly of him. They're both often cited as moderate Republican governors for decisions like expanding Medicaid. But Kasich says he's a hands-down conservative.

"When they say that we're not conservatives, or I'm not conservative at least, I don't know where that comes from. When you balance as many budgets as I have, cut as many taxes as I have, supported as much school choice as I have, reform regulation, strengthened our credit, reform our pension system, what is it that's not conservative about that?" He said. "I am a conservative and maybe if some people would like me to have an angry tone I'm just not going to have one."

But Kasich -- trailing in the polls at 2.8 percent, according to an average from Real Clear Politics -- has picked a Twitter fight with leading contender and ultra-conservative Donald Trump over some of his issues. He says he doesn't have any personal animosity toward Trump but thinks he strikes it wrong on things like his tax plan, which Kasich says doesn't add up, and foreign policy surrounding ISIS.

"These are just positions that I think need to be challenged, but it has nothing to do whatsoever with any personal feelings towards Mr. Trump," Kasich said.

He says he isn't focused on any of his opponents in the crowded Republican field. If he isn't personally, the Super PAC supporting him is. On Monday the New Day for America super PAC released an ad attacking Trump.

But Kasich said his biggest challenge isn't his opponents.

"My challenge is that I'm still largely unknown," Kasich said.

He's trying to combat that by being visible and continuing to "be known," as he puts it. He touts a lot of experience. In Congress he served on the House Armed Services Committee and balanced budgets as chair of the House Budget Committee. As governor of Ohio, he helped bring the state out of a recession and can rattle off a list of numbers to prove it.

"When you're on an airplane you'd like to have a pilot who knows how to land it. And I think particularly with the problems in Paris and the problems of national security, of which I served for 18 years, and whether it's getting the country to climb out of what has been a very poor recovery, I think at the end people will go for somebody that has a record and somebody that has a vision for the future," Kasich said.

His experience, especially in balancing budgets, has attracted some important supporters in Michigan including House Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Tom Leonard, R-DeWitt, and Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive.

Leonard met with Kasich for about half an hour while he was in Lansing in September.

"I will tell you honestly, going in I had no intention, no plans of getting involved in this presidential race," Leonard said.

But he came away impressed.

Leonard pointed to Kasich's experience balancing state and federal budgets, as well as being an executive.

"First and foremost I do want to see a governor in the White House. I think we need somebody that has shown that they can lead, that has shown that they can govern, has shown that they can work with legislators on both sides of the aisle and evidently Gov. Kasich has done that," Leonard said.

But on a practical level, Leonard thinks Kasich has a winning case to make in the general election.

"Most importantly, Republicans have to win. And this is a governor that just won his reelection in Ohio with 65 percent of the vote. We have to carry Ohio and I believe he's best positioned to do that," Leonard said.

Emily Lawler is a Capitol/Business reporter for MLive. You can reach her atelawler@mlive.com, subscribe to her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter:@emilyjanelawler.