38 thoughts on “News/Politics 8-7-15

  1. AND THE WINNER IS
    Fox News.

    I watched it until the break at 10:15. Then I went to bed. I don’t think I missed anything because the quotes on the news this morning were things I had heard last night.

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  2. From Newsmax website. The “Dick” mentioned is Dick Morris

    “In his post-debate analysis, Dick named the winners: Trump, Cruz, Huckabee and Christie. The losers: Rubio, Walker and Bush.
    Also, Dick hit Fox News for “obvious bias” against conservatives”

    I disagree, I didn’t notice any bias. The questions were tough. But they knew that going in.
    Nobody is going to ask Republican candidates, “When do you think Hillary will release her server:” 😆

    I notice Dick Hammer and Martha McCollum in the first debate did a good job. They were not the “B” team.

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  3. Newsmax magazine lists the speaking fees of twelve people. Of interest are:
    Donald Trump—-$1.5 million
    Hillary/Bill $200k
    GW Bush $150k
    Al Gore $100k
    Sarah Palin $100k
    Chelsea $75k
    Dick Chaney $75k

    I was once paid $30.00 for preaching a sermon.

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  4. I see that PolitiFact is “checking” the debate to see who was truthful. If it’s anything like this, and I don’t doubt it will be, then don’t waste your time with such unreliable and untruthful fact checkers.

    https://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/politifact-and-planned-parenthood-erroneous-fact-checks-all-way-down_1005629.html

    “Planned Parenthood now finds itself being heavily criticized after being caught on tape brokering fetal body parts. Fortunately for them, they have no shortage of allies in the media, including PolitiFact.

    Fox Business reporter Sandra Smith recently said on air “Almost 95 percent of all (Planned Parenthood) pregnancy services were abortions.” On Tuesday, PunditFact, a division of PolitiFact, rated it false.

    PolitiFact concedes the source of this statistic is Planned Parenthood’s own annual report. If you take the number of services listed in the report, exclude the ones that don’t apply to women who aren’t pregnant, you do indeed get a figure that showing that over 94 percent of pregnant women who go to Planned Parenthood get an abortion.

    After validating the source of the stat, PolitiFact then says, “For several reasons, that’s a misleading way to analyze the data.” That’s an odd statement because PolitiFact then goes on to provide one concrete reason for why the statistic is inaccurate. And it’s a very dubious rationale:

    Not all of Planned Parenthood approximately 700 clinics offer prenatal services because prenatal care is not Planned Parenthood’s focus. As a result, many pregnant women are referred to outside obstetricians or other health providers for prenatal care.

    How many? It’s impossible to know.

    Planned Parenthood does not record how many pregnant patients are referred to outside health care providers, said Catherine Lozada, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman.

    If referrals were included, the 95 percent figure would likely change, though we can’t say by how much — and neither can Smith nor the [pro-life] Susan B. Anthony List.”
    ——————————————

    And this is only one state.

    http://www.wsvn.com/story/29720923/inspectors-find-violations-at-4-planned-parenthood-clinics

    “Three of the 16 Planned Parenthood facilities inspected in Florida last week were performing procedures beyond their licensing authority, and one facility was not keeping proper logs relating to fetal remains, officials announced Wednesday.

    The Agency for Health Care Administration released a report saying clinics in St. Petersburg, Fort Myers and Naples were performing second-trimester abortions when they were only licensed to perform first-trimester abortions. The report also found that a Pembroke Pines clinic was not following its own procedures for the labeling and dating of the disposal of fetal remains.”

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  5. Kudos to Fox for a good first round of debates – tough questions, it all made for an informative & entertaining night. Of course, you had the usual “dodges” from candidates, always funny to hear a question asked and some random answer given in response.

    Huh?

    🙂 It’s the political silly season.

    One of my co-workers yesterday cracked that even though Fox may have high ratings now, its audience will all be dead in a few years. 🙄

    But if you look at the Republican “bench” vs. what the Democrats are offering as presidential candidates right now, it would seem that youth and fresher ideas are, again, to be found with the conservatives.

    Hoping there’s some momentum that will begin to build for a few of these candidates among the electorate as a viable alternative to the downright miserable leadership we’ve been under for the past several years.

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  6. How are they ignoring them?

    I think Cruz did fine, but Huckabee did better than I expected — I like him.

    With 17 GOP candidates, everyone is going to feel ‘ignored’ at some point.

    But I guess not everyone was happy with the debate:

    http://mediaequalizer.com/brian-maloney/2015/08/liberals-cnn-agree-fox-did-a-great-job

    It’s still way early in the entire process with the caucuses and primaries 6 months away (although there’s always more interest in presidential races when it’s a wide-open affair with no incumbent running).

    It will be interesting to see the polls in a couple days as things re-settle a bit.

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  7. Donna,

    AJ here.

    Cruz, Huck, and Carson didn’t get near the time or questions that Trump did (because they were obviously out to trip him up) or Bush (who they’d prefer be the candidate). I thought it was pretty obvious. The more conservative the candidate, the less time they got it seemed.

    And as I said last night, they ran the risk of giving the impression they were after Trump, and that might get him some sympathy support. A quick check on Drudge this morning shows that’s what happened.

    I expect that treatment from the more liberal media outlets because they obviously support the Dems so they do what they can to help. I expected better from Fox. They disappointed me.

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  8. He was asked at one point: “Just when did you become a Republican?” 🙂

    I disagree with your assessment AJ, although I haven’t looked at the parsing of time allotted to each candidate. I thought it was tough and fair.

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  9. Pretty cynical analysis from Dreher. But, yeah, I get the fact that we all grow weary with politics, heaven knows. I’ve been there. Will go there again before it’s all over. 🙂

    But right now I’m feeling reasonably good about the “field.”

    Again, it’s way early, a lot will change. I viewed last night’s debate as more of an introductory exercise — and the general consensus that Bush fell flat was interesting. One commentator said Bush seems to “shrink” under the spotlight, which summed it up pretty well.

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  10. KBells @ 1:32. I have heard that also. Some believe that it’s an agreement between the Clintons and Trump to do a Ross Perot deal.
    Remember, if not for Perot, Bill would not have been president.
    And Bill did call The Donald. Probably just to thank him for a donation. 😉

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  11. Re: Drher’s comment about watching the debates. Rush said that over 24,000,000 watched the debate. That’s more than any other non sports event special.
    I wonder if that’s 24 million TV sets or est. 24 million people?

    Liked by 1 person

  12. The consensus from the left seems to be Fiorina and Kaisch. They were cited as the only sensible common sense voices. And the Democrats will go after Fiorina’s business record as soon as she graduates to the “A” list. Her work at HP included massive lay-offs and outsourcing.

    I watched the Canadian election debate which occurred the same night. Probably not nearly as interesting as the American debate but there’s no Trump.

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  13. HRW, the last thing we need is the left’s ideal of a sensible voice. They think Hillary is sensible. Kasich answer on same sex marriage was the standard conservative Christian answer. Of course we would still love our child if she told she was gay. It is he left who associates hate with disagreement.

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  14. Well, I’d say only that running a debate isn’t an exact science — the number of minutes would naturally vary on the free-flowing nature of the event and the way it was structured.

    I still think it was well done and informative — not to mention a huge leap beyond the usual yawn we see in debates during election years.

    From the Federalist:

    http://thefederalist.com/2015/08/07/the-gop-debate-was-awesome-we-need-more-like-it/

    ______________________________________________

    The first top-tier Republican presidential debate of the 2016 cycle was one of the most substantive, and certainly the most entertaining, I’ve seen in 20 years.

    For one, it featured journalists willing to ask genuinely challenging questions. The performance by the moderators, a fiesty Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, and Chris Wallace, should put to the rest the notion that Fox News is any less interested in serious political journalism than competing cable news networks. Fact is, it’s difficult to imagine a panel of MSNBC or CNN anchors peppering a slate of Democratic Party candidates featuring Hillary Clinton with comparably vigorous queries.

    But even tough questions can be brushed off by a competent politician. What made this debate atypical was that—unlike the GOP JV iteration earlier in the day—moderators deliberately poked at the vulnerabilities of each candidate, bringing up their most inconvenient opinions and statements, and challenging specific contentions rather than teeing up softballs. They acted as if they were the opposition. ….

    …. The second reason it worked was that the moderators were able to pit certain candidates against each other—and then let them go at it. Sometimes these were legitimate ideological fights; most memorably, the Christie-Paul squabble over National Security Agency data collections, with Rand making idealistic libertarian case and Christie the hawkish national defense position.

    ……….. Back and forth they went. Paul seemed to get the best of the skirmish, even before topping it off with a quip about Christie hugging Obama. But then cameras caught Paul’s unsightly smirking as Christie threw a comeback about only remembering the hugs of the 9/11 widows.

    And if you love politics, this, my friends, is all gold….

    ….. Thirdly, though there has been plenty to scoff at, this GOP field is actually pretty strong. …
    _______________________________________________

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  15. And the last line of the piece I quoted above — about how Trump came off — made me smile:

    “Seeing him like this, I’m not sure Trump is as detrimental for Republicans as everyone imagines, considering he makes anyone standing near him look like Cicero. And these debates? They’re only going to help the GOP.”

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  16. Kbells, the left doesnt approve of fiorina or kaisch rather they thought they won their respective debates. These two will appeal to independent voters yet are strong business republicans. The left would rather see a trump/cruz/huckabee or even bush who they view as an easy target for clinton and even sanders. Kaisch’s ohio base should make him attractive to republicans and fiorina would nulify the gender factor (if there really is one). Theres the winning ticket.

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  17. Washington Post:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-debate-performance-gives-democrats-reason-to-worry/2015/08/07/f87905c0-3d1c-11e5-a312-1a6452ac77d2_story.html

    CLEVELAND — Donald Trump may top the polls in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination, but Thursday’s debate was a reminder that the party has able rivals who eventually could take him down — and who also could mount a stiff challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton in the general election …

    … Democrats have enjoyed the summer of Trump and hope it lasts long enough to inflict serious damage on the Republican brand. But they no doubt saw enough Thursday night to begin to worry about what a general election pitting a vulnerable Clinton against one of the non-Trumps could portend.

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  18. (conti’d):

    “Trump likely will continue to draw the most attention from the media. But Thursday’s debate proved to be about more than just the Donald Trump Show. It put new and credible Republican faces in front of a huge audience. That could give Democrats, some already nervous about Clinton, something else to worry about.”

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  19. The Donald Vs. Megyn

    http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/donald-trump-deputy-megyn-kelly-gut-her-retweet-121160.html

    ______________________________________

    “Donald Trump and his allies have escalated a feud with Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly, with top deputy Michael Cohen retweeting a tweet from an account named “surfersfortrump” that said, “#boycottmegynkelly @realDonaldTrump we can gut her.”

    The tweet came after Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, during which Kelly and Trump clashed onstage over her tough questions about the mogul’s history of taking liberal positions and insulting women he dislikes. …”

    ________________________________________

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