Yesterday, as Caleb reported, Ted Cruz romped his way through the Minnesota GOP convention that chose some delegates to participate in the Cleveland Convention.

MINNESOTA: Of Minnesota’s eight congressional districts, the delegates from three were decided yesterday, three from each one. Cruz swept all nine. Keep in mind, this was the one state won by Marco Rubio, at which time the state bound 17 then-unnamed delegates to Rubio, 13 to Cruz, and Trump only ended up with 8. Now that the Rubio delegates are on the market, the question is who picks them up. On Saturday, Cruz shut out Trump entirely. The remainder will be decided at the state convention in May.

This raving Branch Trumpidian tweeted a link to an article by the totally deranged Jim Hoft, Trump fellatisto extraordinaire:

#Cruz Steals more #Trump Delegates in #Minnesota–Been Relentless with his Crooked Underhandedness. #Bribery #Thief https://t.co/lgIwCI7mrh

— Kurt von Schleicher (@kurtwvs) April 24, 2016

To Hoft, in the few minutes a day he’s not tongue-bathing Trump, anything Ted Cruz does is stealing: Ted Cruz Steals Egg McMuffin. Ted Cruz Steals Toilet Paper. You get the picture. So I was curious what this latest “theft” amounted to. And I found this hilarious story by a goofy Trump supporter on Reddit:

I really wasn’t surprised, but it was still enraging to watch in person.

One of the first orders of business at the convention was to go over the rules set by the higher-ups in the party. The original rules were fair. There were 3 national delegates up for grabs. One for Trump, one for Cruz, and one for Rubio. The way the national delegate selection was originally planned, was that every CD-6 delegate would cast ONE vote. Only one. Otherwise their ballot would not be counted. That way, Cruz people would select the Cruz delegate, the Rubio people would select the Rubio delegate, and the Trump people would select the Trump delegate. Totally fair.

The hijacking of the rules that followed was perfectly planned. The Cruz rat squad had a slate of people in the delegate slots for all 3 candidates. It would have made no sense to do this with the original rules, because with one vote per CD-6 delegate, we would still have gotten a Trump loyalist in the Trump slot. (It should be noted that there were no Trump people in the Cruz slot as everyone in the Trump camp figured the rules were rules.) The solution to this little problem for the rat squad was simply to change the rules!

As the convention got going, the bald rat who was the slated Cruz delegate quickly made a motion to amend the rules of the national delegate selection process. He proposed that each CD-6 delegate be allowed to cast a total of THREE votes. One for each national delegate slot. Every single person there knew that the intent of this was to railroad all of the Cruz loyalists in each delegate slot. That way, in a contested convention, a vote for Trump, a vote for Rubio, and a vote for Cruz would turn into 3 permanent Cruz votes after the first ballot.

It took about two hours to railroad this amendment through. Some of the Cruz people had a sense of honor, and explained that this amendment to the rules was completely in El Rato’s favor, and even though it would benefit them, they felt that it was unethical. Sadly, enough of them only cared about getting Cruz loyalists in every slot that the amendment to the rules was passed (the first voice vote was very close, and the person conducting the show attempted to say it passed, and so after another half-hour of debate, a standing vote was conducted, and the rat squad came out victorious).

And with that completely dirty move, Cruz loyalists (from his slate) now fill all three national delegate slots for Minnesota Congressional District 6.
This is how they do it. They railroad pre-planned amendments specifically written to benefit them, they change the rules, and then they brag about their “ground game”. The thing is, every single person in that convention knew that that move was specifically for Cruz to steal delegates. There is no way that what they did can be defended in any reasonable way. They say “rules are rules” when it suits them, and change them when they don’t. The rat pack is TOTALLY DISHONEST.

First off, why would Cruz agree to a deal that gave equal representation to supporters from Trump? For that matter, why would they agree to put Rubio loyalist in as delegates when Rubio is not in the race? It doesn’t make sense and anyone should have recognized that the agreement worked very much against Cruz and very much in favor of Trump. It was obvious that the rule was going to be challenged. The fact that Rubio’s delegates ARE NOT BOUND on the first ballot should have been a clue.

Minnesota, where Rubio won his second largest haul with 17 delegates, applies a similar rule. The state party ruled that delegates may “vote for any candidate” if the one they support is not on the first ballot at the convention.

The icing on the cake for Rubio’s rivals is that most of his lapsed delegates have not even been selected yet, making them easier to pick off.

One has to ask why the Trump people agreed to such a rule when the Rubio delegate slots were up for grabs. If you rule out stupid and lazy there are no easy explanations left.

Second, if you go into a convention outnumbered you deserve whatever bad fate befalls you. It is obvious that a lot of people who were Rubio supporters voted to change the rule, too.

This takes me to my third and main point. This type of low IQ complacency is the standard within the Trump campaign. It is only supplanted on occasion by low IQ thuggery of the Corey Lewandowski sort. (see Moe’s story for more on the thuggery.) Yesterday, I posted on a statement by a convention official to the effect that arriving at Cleveland with 1,237 delegates means jack s***. They have to vote and their vote has to be recognized in order to count. What is going on in delegate selection is Ted Cruz establishing control over the rules of the convention. The strategy of alleged Russian mob fixer and Trump convention manager, Paul Manafort, to challenge the Cruz delegation from Colorado and Louisiana is not going anywhere because there are simply not the votes to sustain his challenge. A Cruz challenge to Trump delegates, on the other hand, is nearly guaranteed to carry the day.

Trump is running his campaign in the same way he’s run his life. He thinks that if he demands something, and kicks and screams and befouls himself if he doesn’t get his way immediately, then he will get what he wants. Most of us learned by the time that we were working in our first job that life doesn’t work that way. Often actual hard work and planning and effort are required for success if you don’t have a daddy who can give you several billion dollars to play with.

If God does decide to chastise our nation with a Donald Trump candidacy, then this same kind of lackadaisical, old-folks-home level of energy operation guarantees Trump cannot win the White House.