I will admit to rather enjoying the sight of Donald Trump storming through the Republican race. It’s simply refreshing to see someone over turning the established and perhaps too measured way that politics has been approached recently. However, my enjoyment is as nothing to the perils of the economic policy which he’s just announced, which is that he’ll get Apple to start making “their damn computers” in America instead of in other countries. This is really not a sensible policy at all even though it accords with his other misunderstandings about trade. Because the net effect of such a policy would be to make America a poorer country. Something we’ve known since David Ricardo published in 1817. And, since making the country, or the people of the country, poorer is not at all the point nor purpose of having an economy, or even a public policy about the economy, this is something we really shouldn’t try to do.
Of course, I suspect that Trump knows full well that protectionism is a lousy idea and harms those who advocate it. I am guessing that he doesn’t care.
National Review’s Kevin Williamson has a book on Trump that makes for sobering reading. If anyone thinks Trump is any kind of supporter for limited government conservatism, I have a beach resort in Leeds I’d like to sell you.
As Hirohito said in difficult circumstances ‘We must endure the unendurable.’ if anyone but Cruz wins the next US Presidential Election. Bernie, Donald, Hilary take your pick.
And if Apple were forced to move production to the USA, their products would be likely to be over-priced.
Of course, I suspect that Trump knows full well that protectionism is a lousy idea and harms those who advocate it.
I doubt it, personally.
Most people don’t seem to grasp that basic economic truth, and I see no reason to imagine Trump is any different.
He’s a mediocre – at best – businessman, though a great promoter and brand-builder [within his limitations].
What he isn’t is someone who knows anything about economics at that level.
Trump enthusiastically supports ethanol-from-corn-as-auto-fuel. No further proof of his macro-economic ignorance and stupidity is required.
llater,
llamas
It’s the primaries. Candidates will come out with all kinds of guff. Trump’s reading from the Pat Buchanan playbook – wouldn’t be the first candidate to do so since Buchanan himself. If Trump wins the nomination, you can bet his advisors will have explained to him why his mercantilist stance needs to be abandoned; assuming he doesn’t know this already and is simply playing to the base.
A successful President Trump merely has to be a good delegator, and I suspect he is exactly this. Cruz as his running mate and Fiorina in State would be excellent harbingers.
Trump will be a better POTUS than BO or any of the Democratic candidates. The US could certainly do better than Trump, but it’s starting from a low base. Count your blessings.
Fluffy is a nationalist at heart. I remember in the 1980s when he was a big booster of the idea that the Japanese were taking over the world and we had to stop them with protectionism.
I don’t trust him but he’s better than the Hillbot.
The Office of the POTUS is a relatively weak one. There’s a snowball’s chance Trump would be able to get a 70s style protectionist agenda through Congress, even if he wanted to. Furthermore, the US economy is protectionist enough as things stand. Not. Gunna. Happen.
Plus a hefty dose of US nationalism when it comes to foreign policy is long overdue. The images of disarmed and kneeling US Naval personnel in the custody of Iranian forces was a game changer, I think. The US needs a President who won’t be toyed with. That is, a complete break from the Obama era.
@ James Waterton, who wrote:
“The Office of the POTUS is a relatively weak one. There’s a snowball’s chance Trump would be able to get a 70s style protectionist agenda through Congress, even if he wanted to. Furthermore, the US economy is protectionist enough as things stand. Not. Gunna. Happen.”
I’m not so sure. One thing Trump can do really well is rally people to a simple (and wrong) principle, with a combination of simplistic sloganeering and populist rhetoric. Just as he can use this approach to campaign for the Presidency, he can use this approach to campaign for the Congress he wants. Since most candidates the US Congress have the economic sense of Koko the Gorilla, he won’t find any shortage of economic dolts who are quite willing to run for Congress with his backing. All they have to do is say ‘I Support President Trump’s call for an immediate ban on the import of Chinese toilet paper! Vote for me and we’ll make it happen!’. He would have either 2 or 2 Congressional elections to make this happen (must check my calendar) and he’s quite capable of doing it.
This man is dangerous. President Obama is just foolish and misguided, but there’s no telling how far and how bad this megalomaniac incompetent could take us – never mind his fascistic love of state control, he could well take us into a shooting war with somebody who could do us real harm.
llater,
llamas
I agree with Sigivald says about Trump, but that’s not the end of the discussion. The value of Trump as a candidate is that he is truly shaking up the Republican establishment, which clearly needs a thorough housecleaning, and attracting the interest of a lot of people who ordinarily wouldn’t be paying any attention to presidential politics until October (if then). He is shaping the debate as he wants it to be, not passively accepting the status quo.
Is he an economic ignoramus? In all probability, yes. Still, we’ve had plenty of those in the Oval Office, and survived the ordeal. What matters, as James Waterton says, is who his advisors are (or will be). Obama has entirely surrounded himself with crafty political operatives who are utterly clueless about such mundane matters as economics, governance, policy management, etc.; in other words, the things a President (as opposed to a candidate) is supposed to concern himself with. It seems unlikely that Trump would do the same, if only because he hasn’t spent his entire adult life in the hothouse of party politics and doesn’t have the same type of contacts (or political obligations). It’s a certainty that he wouldn’t have the same advisors, or appoint the same cabinet officials, as would Jeb Bush.
But is the presidency really “weak”, as JW says? It is certainly supposed to be, under the Constitution. But Obama has spent 7+ years arrogating power to himself, primarily through the use of blatantly unconstitutional executive orders and “executive agreements” which clearly violate the Constitutional requirements for treaties, neither of which a Congress dominated by the opposing party is willing to do anything about. He found that he has “a pen and a phone”, which he has proven more than willing to use aggressively. (He seems to have largely abandoned the phone lately.) So Obama will leave the presidency much more powerful than he found it, which I consider a very bad thing. What Trump would do with that power, no one knows.
Trump is for getting rid of the political establishment with: anything after that is gravy, and if we have to get rid of Trump, too, we will.
A Republican legislature will be more likely to lower the boom on Trump, a (putative) Republican and a white guy, than it was on Obama. I’m hoping, anyway. A lot would depend on how he’s polling at the time.
As Senator Cruz pointed out today about Mr Trump.
Donald Trump SUPPORTED both the bailouts of the banks of 2008-2009 and the Obama “Stimulus” spending of 2009.
Ben Franklin said at the end of the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia that the Convention had produced a Republic – “if you can keep it”.
If people vote for Populari (Populist) such as Mr Trump then they do not want a Republic (a Res Publica) and they are not fit to have a Republic.
Samuel warned the people of Israel – but they ignored his warnings (see First Book of Samuel Chapter Eight).
Cicero warned the people of Rome – but they ignored his warnings.
The people of America have been repeatedly warned – will they ignore the warnings?
We will find out on February 1st in the snows of Iowa.
James I agree that a dose of foreign policy nationalism is long overdue, but from a guy who doesn’t know what the nuclear triad is ?
Lets please keep Fluffy away from the White House.
Out of interest, how good is Cruz, from a Samizdata point of view?
A successful President Trump merely has to be a good delegator,
But he’s not the delegating sort. He despises the sort of people who spend a long time actually learning how something works and then running it in the background. He’s a take-a-risk, trust-your-instincts guy.
He is also someone who is going to have difficulty sharing any limelight. As a strong Secretary of State, say, would detract attention from him, he wouldn’t pick a strong one. And even when policy was good, he’d come out and make a one-liner that would ruin it, to show he was The Man.
It’s not that I think he’s an idiot. He’s just the wrong sort of person to have anywhere near the levers of power.
Paul seems to suggest that if Trump wins in Iowa he’ll sweep to the nomination. Just like Santorum did in 2012…
‘President Obama is just foolish and misguided’
Sorry, while I agree that Obama himself is a fool, he has lived a rather luxurious, profitable and a TOTALLY carefree life by doing exactly what he has been TOLD to do or say. Go all the way back to Saul Alinsky and Ayers – why is Ayers still walking around alive and free by the way ?
That being said, the cabal around him, who I cannot believe he had anything to do with choosing, is FAR from foolish and misguided.
They have, for seven years, systematically, used greedy fools like Obama, Pelosi, Reid on and on to set the United States on a path to becoming just another 3rd world hellhole while they bask in the warmth of their plunder and laugh at the rest of us poor working slobs left holding the bag !!
If you think Obama has orchestrated this disaster-in-the-making, you haven’t been paying attention. If other world leaders / groups are laughing at this clown, with his total lack of a backbone or even one testicle, and they are, what do you think the people around the Cabinet Table think of him ? I suspect not much. He’s a mouthpiece and NOTHING more. Much like an actor reading cue
cards ( teleprompter ? ).
You want power, decision making, direction, a plan – look into Valerie Jarret.
If Trump can do ANYTHING to reverse, correct or change this path we’re on, then I’m all in for him !
In the papers here in Australia, the writers think that Trump is popular because he is not PC. For too long, pollies have been self-censoring their speeches, so as not to offend anyone. Then Trump comes along, and sounds honest. They think they’ve found that oxymoron, an Honest Politician! No wonder he’s popular!
For a short while, Australia had someone similar- Clive Palmer. But his business is collapsing, because it’s tied to China.
James Waterton – January 19, 2016 at 7:15 pm:
So would I, so would you, so would any of the Republican candidates.
Last New Year’s Eve, I was talking to a friend who is a flaming lefty; I noted that of black Illinois politicians, Secretary of State Jesse White would be a better President than Obama. (The SoS runs all the paperwork functions of the state: driver’s license, auto registration and plates, incorporations, etc. The SoS office runs OK, and there have been no scandals.) He retorted “I’d make a better President than Obama.”
I would vote for Trump in the general election over Clinton, Sanders, O’Malley, or any of the speculative Democrat alternatives, e.g. Biden ir Warren. But then, I’d rather have my kneecap broken than be shot through the head.
One scenario I have seen bruited is that Obama restrains the FBI until Clinton has the nomination sewed up and the convention is imminent. Then she is indicted and must withdraw, using her bad health as an excuse. Or else Obama forces her to withdraw for bad health, under threat of indictment. (Maybe that is more plausible, as it keeps the knife in the back out of sight. It would prevent exploding heads among the lefties who have pledged absolute fealty to both of them.)
The convention has to find a new candidate – and of course someone young and hip and charismatic and non-white and female, not old and white and male. Michelle Obama!
I think the Obamas are sufficiently vain and insulated to think they could pull it off. And so addicted to the perquisites and adulation of the Presidency that they would try this rather than give it up.
The nuclear triad question was a classic gotcha,and classic Trump. Hugh Hewitt had asked him the same damn question months earlier, and received a similar response. Any normal candidate would have gone OMG OMG I better bone up on this nucleary triady thingy so I don’t screw the pooch like that again. But Trump doesn’t really give a rat’s arse about the media – and probably decided he had better things to do, if he even gave it a second thought. And there is something to be said for that – why worry over an issue that would be explained to him pretty early on if he were ever in the Oval Office.
And so Hugh Hewitt asked Trump the same gotcha question, betting (correctly) that Trump hadn’t bothered to do the homework some pissant journo set him. Then Hewitt got to deliver the eviscerating critique of Trump’s bumbling non-answer that Hewitt had no doubt worked on for hours. More than a bit lame on Hewitt’s part
Thing is, this all works in Trump’s favour. His supporters loathe the MSM and think they have it in for Trump. This all adds grist to their mill. The majority of them wouldn’t have known what the nuclear triad was, either (ditto those guffawing about Trump’s ignorance, incidentally). They see a media ambush of their man, and their suspicions are confirmed.
I actually considered the possibility that Obama was setting up a dynasty with the help of Biden. Recall the Draft Biden! movement in its heyday prior to the first Democratic debate, when the disgraceful old phoney was crying crocodile tears and using his dead son to justify a tilt at the White House. Also, the chances that Clinton’s legal woes seemed a real threat to her candidacy. My thought at the time was that the Obamas were attempting to engineer a Biden/(Michelle) Obama ticket for 2016, with Michelle running for the top job in 2020 (no chance of Biden being a two termer). Then, by the time Michelle had hit her term limit in 2028, Malia and/or Sasha would have already been shoehorned into positions where they could gather the experience needed to follow in their parents’ footsteps some time in the 2030s.
But then Sanders pussied out on the Clinton e-mail scandal, Biden crapped his pants, refused to run and threw his dead son under a bus, who allegedly on his death bed implored Slow Joe to run.
PS. Joe. He can only die once.
Sigivald, exactly. Trump’s business, when successful, has largely been about manipulation of local government in order to achieve advantageous planning/licencing. i.e. a casino licence here, planning permission to demolish a herbage building and steamroll the little guy, permission to build a golf course against strong environmental objections etc.
If I was Clinton, I’d just take the clips from You’ve Been Trumped where the Scottish police start working as Trumps bully boys against the local guys and play it on TV every night. But of course, Clinton is exactly the same creature, she just started from a lower base.
Trump is going to be the next President, and the next Great President. Everything your saying about Trump people like you said about Reagan – and Reagan was a Great President!
As for the triad gotcha: “What’s the good of a good nuclear triad if you’re too afraid t use it”. I don’t care where Trump nukes – Middle East, Yemen, Ukraine, St Petersburg, China, San Francisco, France, who gives a shit? – but I really care that someone gets nuked hard in the first week after the inauguration. Trump’s the man for that!
The way to consider Trump is, I think, to view him as a staggeringly good salesman and not much else. And the way you succeed at being a salesman is to work out what people want to buy then offer it to them.
Which is what he’s doing. There’s a substantial portion of the US (heck, anywhere) that is robustly protectionist. No one believes that the voice over really thinks that Persil washes whiter. Any and every Trump statement should be taken the same way.
I wonder why Trump supporters come across as unhinged. It is often difficult to read their comments without feeling you are being screamed at.
Very good, at least from my point of view. As a candidate – what he will actually accomplish once in office is anyone’s guess, and this is true with regard to any other candidate, of course.
“But of course, Clinton is exactly the same creature…”
An unusual wake of dead bodies behind her would seem to suggest otherwise. Whatever else might be said about Trump, nobody suspects him of having had his colleagues and subordinates murdered over the years. That’s not to say that the suspicions about Der Rodham are correct, just that they are not there without good reason.
@Mr Ed:
“And if Apple were forced to move production to the USA, their products would be likely to be over-priced.”
Ahem:
“And if Apple were forced to move production to the USA, their products would be likely to be even more over-priced than they are now.”
There. Fixed that for you.
And his opponents are, of course, perfectly calm and rational.
YES WE ARE!!!11
So more or less a carbon copy of the incumbent, then?
I think that’s a bit of an insult to Trump, who actually achieved several impressive feats prior to entering politics.
Notwithstanding all of the above, that somebody could consider Trump a better candidate than Cruz is beyond me. That said, the ‘natural born citizen’ question is an issue that should ideally be resolved prior to the election. It is not obvious that Cruz passes the test.
Cruz/Paul 2016>>>>Trump/Palin 2016 (actually if Trump is serious about going after the democratic vote he should appoint Jim Webb VP, a fellow protectionist and ‘blue dog’ Democrat)
Angry
It’s basically impossible for a President who knows little or nothing about Foreign and Defense policy to learn on the Job. Dubya tried but he never caught up. Events overwhelmed his increased knowledge.
An ignorant t President or leader is prisoner of his (or God Help Us, her) advisers. Remember “Yes Minister ? For example Reagan spent decades studying nuclear strategy he was able to radically change the policy in 1983 with his Star Wars speech. The establishment never knew what hit them.
Bush on the other hand knew little about the question so he was stuck and spent eight years implementing Bill Clinton’s limited National Missile Defense policy instead of putting Reagan’s ideas into place or developing his own concept.
I dread to think which of Obama’s policies Fluffy will pursue.
There seems, from what I have read in the media, to be no directly applicable case law on what the infelicitous term ‘natural-born citizen‘ (‘nbc’) means, i.e. born in the United States and a citizen from birth, or a citizen from birth regardless of place of birth, but it seems that one is either an ‘nbc’, or one becomes a citizen by naturalisation. Is anyone suggesting that Senator Cruz became a citizen by naturalisation? I do not think so. Is anyone suggesting that he was not a US citizen from birth? Again, it seems not.
I have no experience of United States law, but it seems to me that the contrast is the dichotomy between being an ‘nbc’ as opposed to ‘naturalised’ i.e. one who had a foreign (or no) citizenship at birth, and became a United States citizen by naturalisation (i.e. under a law provided by the Congress). There does not appear in the Constitution to be a third category of ‘US citizens at birth born outside the United States‘, and the only third category is the extinct one of those who were US Citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution who are of course, long since dead. It does strike me as reading in an unnecessary gloss on the wording to say that ‘natural-born‘ citizen means ‘born in the USA, and born a citizen of the United States‘ rather than ‘born a citizen of the United States‘, but the XIV Amendment does refer to citizens of the United States as being:
This Amendment was a missed opportunity to clarify the definition of ‘nbc‘. The phrase ‘…person(s) born… in the United States‘ is a different wording to ‘natural born citizen‘, and presumably if the infant Cruz was ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States‘ at birth, having gestated inside an American womb and therefore contingently liable to file his tax return etc. (Not sure if that applied back then), he would have been, in some way, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, but then again that might have been a reference to US Territories or even the District of Columbia.
Whether this is a legal issue or simply mischief is best resolved by presumably Mr Cruz seeking a declaration as to his eligibility and that decision should put an end to the matter. I do recall it being said in the late 1970s that John McEnroe was not eligible for the Presidency on account of being born in West Germany, so the meme has been around a long time.
Anyway, Mr Obama has 366 days, 2 hours and around 42 minutes left in office.
@Mr Ed
> Is anyone suggesting that Senator Cruz became a citizen by naturalisation?
Actually, yes Ann Coulter suggested exactly that: http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2016-01-13.html and she does it not with handwavy “this is what it should be” but by citing the relevant case law. INAL so I don’t know if she is right, but she certainly makes a more substantial argument than most of the talking heads. One thing seems to be certainly the case — it isn’t legally crystal clear that he is eligible.
However, it does offer one benefit — were he to be President the crazy loons on the left might burn themselves out talking about this issue, and there is little doubt that the court wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot barge pole. And maybe they would have less time to stop him shutting down the IRS.
Cruz is a better candidate, unquestionably.
Fraser Orr,
Wonderful, it is an issue, I’ll have a look at that, and hopefully some of our US legal friends can assist. I have my doubts about some of the points Ms Coulter makes, as in 1608 Calvin would have been at the oldest 5 and a minor and not seeking to exercise any rights in England, if he had been born after James I/IV took the English throne.
Of course Senator Cruz may still run for President regardless of any ruling, but the President of the Senate may not, if Mr Cruz is not eligible, find him to be the President on counting the votes of the Electoral College.
The United States Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 provides at §301 (1) and (7):
So if Mr Cruz’s mother met the residency requirement, and IF that section was still in force when he was born, Mr Cruz was a ‘national and citizen of the United States at birth‘.
But the Act did not say ‘natural born citizen’ or that being a citizen at birth is deemed to be a ‘natural born citizen’ for the purposes of the Constitution, and it could it define the meaning of the Constitution? I doubt that it could, that is not its function. Naturalisation however, is a different kettle of fish which has to be, in most cases, petitioned for, but can be acquired automatically in some circumstances:
So Mr Cruz appears to fall between the stools of ‘natural born’ and ‘naturalised’ as a US citizen.
Reagan was a principled man, in the sense that he’d formed a coherent political philosophy over time and was ready to defend it. Trump is more of a “These are my principles, and if you don’t like them I’ve got others” kind of guy. You knew what Reagan thought about the big issues, and you knew his thinking wouldn’t “evolve” (to use Obama’s euphemism) if it became politically expedient.
Trump is nothing like that. Nobody knows what Trump is going to do if he gets elected – he’s taken both sides of nearly every issue. Hell, I doubt Trump has even thought about what he’ll do if he’s elected.
Judging by his fuzzy ethics and terrible economic pronouncements, my fear is that an unsuccessful Trump presidency would have the same effect as the unsuccessful presidencies before it, namely the loss of the congress to the opposition party, setting the Democrats for another turn at the leftist ratchet. Given this, I’m of the opinion that better the next term go to a bad Democrat, to be checked by a Republican congress, rather than a bad Republican like Trump shows all signs of being. And to those comparing him to Reagan, I have yet to see Trump palling around with Goldwater and Buckley during the decades prior to his presidency, but maybe I wasn’t paying attention.
When it comes to NBC, I doubt the Supreme Court what is, after all, a pretty stupid law to defy the will of the electorate.
Hmm, there should be a “would use” somewhere in there.
Problem is, we already have a bad Democrat President, and he has been anything but checked by a Republican Congress.
Patrick,
Isn’t the whole point of a Constitutional Republic that the will of the electorate is effectively irrelevant?
I found this convincing:
PDF file.
Alisa,
:>))!! on your earlier comment of January 20, 2016 at 12:52 pm. 😉
Free trade? Ricardo? Really? Read Ian Fletcher.
Alisa — The link didn’t work for me. However, I have that CRS paper. I think the correct link is
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42097.pdf
Problem is, we already have a bad Democrat President, and he has been anything but checked by a Republican Congress.
Let’s name all the major initiatives Obama has managed in his 7 years.
1) Obamacare, limping along.
2) A bunch of trade agreements (that almost all Republicans would sign themselves if they weren’t so rabid that they oppose them merely because Obama likes them).
3) …
Sure there’s been a lot of big talk, like on Climate Change, but precious little actual action (other than petty stuff like killing Keystone, which is stupid but hardly economy-shattering).
Radical economic policy change is basically dead, killed precisely by the Congress you say is ineffective.
You may argue that his foreign policy isn’t what you like, and has had a lot of mistakes. But to an outsider it is hard to spot the difference from an incompetent Republican like George W. Junior.
To a lot of moderates like me the worst thing about Obama is that he has been completely and utterly ineffectual.
Chester, you forgot that he got rid of Churchill’s bust! a major achievement. I think he would have wanted to have the capital renamed, since Washington was a slave-owner, but the people weren’t ready for it at this time.
“And his opponents are, of course, perfectly calm and rational.”
This example of extreme-case-only-acceptable is the kind of thing I was talking about. Thank you.
Actually, I was reading a fascinating book recently, which claimed that the US started off by adopting protectionistic policies, and that these served the country well. The author also pointed out that the British Empire started to go downhill after it opened up its’ economy, and he thinks that a direct link might exist. So Ricardo might be wrong. Any thoughts?
Yes, that’s it – thanks 🙂 Not sure how I botched that link, but I sure did.
Who says that the sole purpose of economic policy is to maximize overall wealth in the long-term?
Materialism is not all that matters. Employment matters; the extent to which it is productive/efficient is important but there are social benefits of employment in forming a cohesive, happy, stable society.
Well, Sarah Palin’s on board, and that’s good enough for me!
This example of extreme-case-only-acceptable is the kind of thing I was talking about. Thank you.
Let’s be honest, you’d have said the same if my reply had been “My hovercraft is full of eels”.
Does natural born exclude those born by cesarean section?
Trumps main appeal I think, is that he fights. He’s basically a middle of the road guy without any strong political principles but he takes a bat to the enemies of the right (including the GOP establishment itself) and when their media allies try to intervene, he takes a bat to them too. Voters on the right are just overjoyed to have someone on their team who is not a total coward and will not back down to the forces of liberalism and anti-Americanism.
I know nothing at all about Trumps policy positions but I see him again and again swinging his wrecking ball into the lefts rotten edifice and knocking out the supporting walls. I’d vote for him simply to encourage others on the right to emulate him.
I think that Mr Black is on to something, Trump winning would represent a form of ‘disenfranchisement’ of the media/political class and a rejection of the ‘narrative’. It would probably turn out rather badly, but so would anyone bar Cruz with his plans to abolish whole departments and agencies, and at least President Trump would generate some Schadenfreude.
It’s basically impossible for a President who knows little or nothing about Foreign and Defense policy to learn on the Job. Dubya tried but he never caught up. Events overwhelmed his increased knowledge.
Dubya had some great advisors (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton) but blew it on 9/12 when he rejected their advice to just nuke Iran the next day – and it went on from there.
TRUMP isn’t going to make the mistake of not nuking America’s enemies. TRUMP has great foreign policies: the Wall, Deporting Illegals, Winning the Middle East, Recognising Jerusalem is Israel’s sole indivisible capital, taking back Ukraine, putting Putin back in his box, etc!
Alisa – Cruz’s mother was American, his father was Cuban (communist).
At the time Cruz was born, American citizenship did not descend through the mother to those born outside the USA.
Cruz is Canadian (communist) or Cuban (communist) — not American.
TRUMP is not just American, but a Great American.
Angry Tory: I am curious, is this you on or off the meds?