The Republicans can’t seem to get it right. They invited Ben Netanyahu to speak before congress and loved his speech but it caused so much trouble it really wasn’t worth it. Next they invited the Pope and then realized that almost everything he would talk about was stuff they don’t want to hear. Whoever is running this party and his name is Reince Pribus, (no I didn’t make that up.) needs to get a safer job, something with far simpler demands, maybe something in sanitation.
*****
Watched Marco Rubio being interviewed by George Stephanopolis and quite frankly he appears to be a very intelligent and functional young man as well as a good speaker. There are a lot of matters on which to disagree with Rubio, the main ones being that he is a crazed hawk, and that he lies like a rug, But he shows promise, with some changed points of view and learning to lie only about what we can’t instantly prove to be untrue, of being a functional Republican at some later date .
He showed himself very well by refusing to rise to Stephanopolis smarmy bait and involve himself in the innocuous argument over Trump and his birther nonsense. He is one of the GOP’s best hopes for the long distance future. He shows a functional knowledge of foreign policy and a sense that something has to be done about wages, even though he is still a long way off on health care, who to bomb and immigration.
What he needs is a couple of years in the minors to get some seasoning, which is why he shouldn’t give up his senate seat for this election. That unfortunately is exactly what he is in the process of doing. His record of being in chambers for votes is pathetic and a close friend has let it slip that Marco hates being a senator. Everybody wants to be Caesar even before they learn how to be Cassius. He’s like a spoiled kid who can’t be the quarterback so he’s taking his ball and going home
******
Debates matter. At least the Republican ones have. Fact checking not being one of the GOP’s stronger functions, Carly Fiorina surged in he second debate, despite having lied about everything she discussed. Carly is bombastic, a very good speaker and a fine debater but she hasn’t found an issue she won’t lie about. This obviously means nothing to her followers or those who crossed over to her from other candidates. She seems impressive but she is an empty dress.
*****
Ben Carson was on the tube today. His ratings are ahead of Trump in Iowa, so I guess he was feeling his oats because he came out with volumes of psychobabble in one interview, proving that he is incapable of leading a cub scout troop, let alone a country.
His diatribe against the government for allowing ISIS, Russian and other criminals to cross the border unfettered was the ravings of a madman; all done in the agonizingly slow motion style of speech he has adopted, probably so he can figure out what he’s going to say next.
When questioned on his statements about not supporting a Muslim in a run for the presidency, he had a legitimate answer, which for some reason, Martha Raddatz, his questioner wouldn’t accept. So instead of leaving it there, he went on to describe his knowledge of the Islamic faith, which is the basis for his opinions and it turned out to be a comic book version of Ali Baba. We already know that Carson doesn’t know much about the geographic world, now we see that he doesn’t know much about what’s in the geographic world.
While on the subject of Sharia law Carson points out examples of it, which violate the constitution, such as being against the rights of women, gays, etc,. What he doesn’t seem to realize, is that these violations of human rights are also present in the tenets of both the Christian, Hindu and Jewish religions and indeed most others. The problem it seems isn’t Islam but organized religion, a point at which Carson doesn’t seem to arrive.
****
Carly Fiorina was interviewed on Meet The Press and she proved again that she is an avid follower of the big lie theory. She vomited out already disproved non-facts, she doubled and tripled down on the lies she has already uttered that had been wholly disproved by all reliable sources and she stood by her false guns like a true Republican. One thing can be said for Carly. She has presence on the tube and she used that presence in a battle to make her lies sound like truth.
Contrary to her constantly stated opinions, Planned Parenthood does not sell fetal tissue. It gives it away to research facilities. It only does that with the permission of the mother. No tax money is ever used to perform abortions. These are documented facts but Fiorina keeps hammering at another, very false story.
Sure she’s a hell of a speaker but that isn’t why we elect presidents. There has to be some modicum of truth in what they believe. Why is Fiorina willing to go out on a limb with this failed attack on Planned Parenthood? The answer seems quite simple. Fiorina has as her only other asset, a failed reign as CEO of HP. All this noise about abortion is a smoke screen set up to appeal to the fanatic and not very judicious anti-abortion faction to hide the fact that in the only important job of her career she was a complete disaster, causing the unemployment of thirty thousand workers, before being kicked off the job. It’s important to note; that because of an industry-wide knowledge of her blatant incompetence, and at a level where failing upward is a normal career path, she was never offered another job in management.
While Fiorina was causing thousands of job loses, she got a golden parachute and a yacht. She loves to run off figures that mean nothing because the only thing that means anything is that she lost thousands of American jobs and almost destroyed her company while sending those and other jobs overseas. But despite all this, she is a strong enough personality to be able to continue her blatant lies and stand up to the onslaught of truth that condemns her positions on Clinton, abortion and her past work history.
The bottom line is that Fiorina’s disconnect with reality is nothing short of stupendous. Faced with facts that proved that she had lied about everything she said, she simply refused to accept proven facts. This is not rational behavior and we have more than enough nuts on the political scene already. We don’t need corporate manic corporate castoffs to add to it.
*****
Bobby Jindal was on the tube this weekend proving that he isn’t presidential material or even dogcatcher material. He spends his time attacking congress because they haven’t done anything, which is fine but then we hear what he wants them to do; stuff like kill Obamacare, the deal with Iran, and various other issues, which are all fait d’accompli we realize that this guy is too dumb to breathe and we wonder why the press is wasting an inordinate amount of time covering him, instead of viable candidates like Kasich.
****
Iowa is proving that it is a state filled with bigoted, slow thinking misogynistic evangelists none of whom project any realistic grasp of reality. They have elevated Ben Carson over Donald Trump in their polls; not a bad thing by any means. Trump winning anything is definitely a bad idea, but Ben Carson, as smart as he’s supposed to be, often rambles on like a demented troll. This is not a man with a firm grasp on reality. But then, one looks at the questions on a recent poll in Iowa and one sees stuff like: “Is he a committed Christian?” What difference does that make in a presidential election? These guys aren’t running for a place on the pulpit. They are looking to lead a country that has, in its constitution, protections against committed Christians like those in Iowa who would consider that question important.
*****
The Republican Party is in chaos. They won the 2010 and 2014 elections and now have the biggest margin in the House since the 1930s but they are in the midst of collapsing completely. Why? Can we really blame it all on the 40 or so Freedom Caucus members? Is it really that simple? Of course not, the problem is that the party has no leaders, only pretenders to the throne. Look at its candidates. The three leaders are all non-politicians. The people who back them are all voters who voted for candidates that they now hate. They are non-functional losers who were willing to promise the voters things that catered to their bigotry and personal wants, rather than programs that would help the country.
So now, the dumb voters are displeased with the bad choices they made and are looking to demagogic amateurs to solve the problems that the losers they voted for created. Is a more potent recipe for disaster possible?
Practically every Republican outside the Freedom Caucus is happy that Paul Ryan has taken over as the Speaker of the House. No one in the Freedom Caucus wanted Ryan. They all wanted Daniel Webster (don’t let the name fool you.) ® Florida, one of their own. This in itself tells us what a bunch of losers the Caucus is. They have no interest in governing, only in getting their way, only in getting what they want, regardless of how it effects the rest of the country. Until the Freedom Caucus is crushed, destroyed completely, until all its members are voted out of office, the GOP has almost no chance of becoming the great party it once was. The Freedom caucus is like a giant oozing pustule, infecting the gut of the GOP, poisoning it and trying, despite itself, to kill the Party and destroy the nation..
*****
So it was a really bad weekend for most of the Republican candidates. Jeb Bush held a press conference, at which he spent all his time childishly whining about how he could be doing something cool, something he could enjoy. Then he ran home to Mommy and Daddy to sulk. That’s a sure sign that it’s time to get out of the race. With all the dough this fish raised, he is now cutting back on his campaign staff. Do we really want a guy who can’t manage something as small as a campaign trying to run the country? It seems that the GOP field is made up of a bunch of front running quitters.
Then came the debate and for about ten seconds he had nailed Marco Rubio on his finances and being too immature for the job and then Rubio fought back and Jeb had nothing to say. All the material he needed was at his fingertips because Rubio was lying through his teeth but Bush didn’t have the stones for the fight. Bye, bye Bushy.
Then a little to the south, Marco Rubio has opted out of the Senate. Not that he ever showed up for the job that the taxpayers were shelling out almost two hundred grand for him to do. Rubio got his Senate seat and almost immediately didn’t like it. He was not instant statesman, so he pouted. Is this what we want in the White House? What happens if he wins and then finds out he’s not having a good time? Does he just quit that job too?
So we’re 0 for 2 and then we get to Donald Trump. For the first time he fell behind in a poll when Ben Carson briefly pushed past him in Iowa. This is one poll out of 50 and he reacts to it like a petulant child, lashing out at everything in sight. If this is his reaction to one bad poll, what happens if he really gets in trouble? Will he completely crash and burn and take the country with him? More important, what happens if Putin tells him to go f**k himself in a negotiation? Does he run home with his tail between his legs and press the button? There is a reason why Trump is so widely unpopular in New York. It’s because we’ve been living with him for many years.
These clowns look really bad right now. How can anyone with any intelligence really vote for any of them?