Just saw the Ben Carson ad from yesterday. Reminds of the scandals that took down some of our candidates during the last elections. Horrible things like Rick Perry drove by a rock with the “n” word on it. Michelle Bachman’s husband looks gay. Santorum didn’t grieve for for his still born child the right way.
Interesting, I missed last night’s debate and the first commentary I saw of it was on MSNBC (yes, I watch it from time to time and Hannity was on at that time on Fox, not as bad as O’Reilly, but I’m not overly fond of him either). All the guests (which included at least one Republican that I recognized) agreed the Carson completely blew his answers on the economy & national security, blathering and not saying anything of substance.
Because they all had the same take, I figured Carson must have had a pretty poor night.
But then I began reading other commentaries later in the evening (conservative, but a variety that included some moderate/mainstream sites) that all said he did quite well and that his answers were really quite substantive.
On O’Reilly, one conservative blogger I read last night suggested it’s time he was fired from Fox (George Will went after him again in his column this week for completely bungling history). He won’t be, his ratings are too high, but he really is an embarrassment — someone compared him to a typical schoolyard bully which I’d say is pretty accurate.
Still (back to the debate), no one I’ve read seems to put Carson in the top of those who did best last night. And Trump, sigh, still seems to be holding his own.
But most of those I’ve read seem to think it will come down to Rubio & Cruz as the final most viable GOP candidates.
(Someone else said Kasich came off so obnoxious last night that one commenter online asked if someone could please announce that Kasich’s car was being towed, just to pull him off the stage already).
I’m still liking Rubio as the nominee (I genuinely like and agree with most of his positions — but I also like him because he looks to me to be possibly the most electable against Hillary or any other Democrat).
And there is no absolutely perfect candidate — I learned an accepted that early on, it’s always something of a compromise in politics.
I watched most of the debate. My recording cut off early for some reason and I didn’t see the end.I agree that Carson didn’t say anything that made a lot of sense. I beginning to think it’s like Sheldon Cooper running for president. Kasich tried too hard. I think Rubio, Cruz, Fiorina and Paul did well. Bush didn’t hurt himself. Trump got booed twice, but I’m convinced he could stomp a puppy on stage and his people would still support him.
One friend, a conservative Libertarian Christian, writes that Rand Paul was the only fiscal conservative on the stage. I think he (my friend) used to be Republican, but came to feel betrayed by the Republican party when he realized that they pander to Christians & conservatives, but still seem to love big government as much as the Democrats do, but for different reasons. He goes on to say…
“But of course he [Rand Paul] can’t win. Republicans love war. They love Big Centralized government. They love deficits and debts.
GW Bush doubled the national debt. He got us in multiple wars, which handed Iran a new ally. He doubled the Federal Education budget. He gave us a new entitlement that added $9trillion in new unfunded liabilities.
He gave us Homeland Security, taking off our shoes at airports, the Patriot Act, etc.
The GOP pips uttered not a squeak.
There’s no way an actual conservative has a snowball’s chance in Hell of being nominated by a party that hates freedom and loves big government and loathes our Constitution”
Elsewhere I read…
“In 2014 the United States, a country at peace with its neighbors that has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, accounted for more than a third of the world’s military spending. Congress could cut the Pentagon’s budget in half, and the U.S. would still be ‘the strongest military power in the world.’ “
One complaint I’ve seen about Rubio is that he is too much of a hawk.
What do you all think of these various observations? (I’m still weighing all the things I’ve read & heard. All I know is I definitely don’t like Trump.)
Donna, it’s like Bobby Jindal was trying to say, we can’t keep nominating moderates hoping the MSM and the democrats will come to like us. We tried that twice with McCain and Romney and we lost. Bush tried for eight years and ended up both hated and in debt. They will never like us until we become just like them, so why not just be real conservatives. There are a lot of real conservatives running, Pretty much anyone but Trump, Kasich, Bush or Christie.
“However, in yesterday’s interview Rubio went a step further in defending his involvement in the Gang of Eight immigration expansion plan—effectively confirming the recent assertion of Sen. Chuck Schumer who said that Rubio’s “fingerprints are all over that bill.”
Rubio defended his handiwork claiming, “I was trying to produce the most conservative bill possible in a Senate controlled by Democrats and had hoped a more conservative House would make it even better.”
This line of argument, however, is likely to open Rubio up to substantial criticism, since critics of the 1,200 page bill have argued that his 2013 immigration expansion bill was substantially more progressive than the 2007 McCain-Kennedy bill, which a number of Democrats opposed.
Marco Rubio’s “conservative” immigration bill, by contrast, received zero Democrat opposition and, rather, almost unanimous Democrat support. Every single Senate Democrat voted for Rubio’s bill— unlike the Kennedy bill— and virtually every House Democrat endorsed it as well. Rubio’s “conservative” legislation was supported by La Raza, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)17%
, Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)9%
, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)2%
, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD)6%
, Sheila Jackson Lee, Mark Zuckerberg, groups backed by George Soros and Paul Singer, SEIU, the Center for America Progress and practically every progressive immigration group in the country.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, Rubio’s “conservative” bill would have added four times more new foreign workers than the rejected 2007 McCain-Kennedy bill, and also would have added 33 million new immigrants on green cards in the span of a single decade.”
Karen O, I agree with most of what your friend said. By the way, was it Solar Pancake?
I do think that Cruz is also a conservative. I am not sure I would call Rand Paul a conservative since he is such a wimp on crime.
President Rubio and Speaker Ryan are the best the U.S. can hope for. The U.S. would still be Sodom, but it might be slightly less socialist. That would be an improvement.
Ted Cruz could be President, but only of an independent Texas.
I would disagree that Rand Paul was the *only* fiscal conservative (and I actually read that he declared that of himself). This may sound harsh, but frankly he’s odd and a poor candidate to boot; zero likability in my book, he comes off as kind of a self-righteous scold.
And I disagree with his national security stance. The scary state of the world has made his (what I see as) isolationist message even more unappealing.
Not that we need to fight every battle — and we’re all clearly weary of foreign wars at this stage.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t sometimes warranted for the larger good, like it or not.
I have to say that there are only 2 Republicans running that I really just could not vote for (as of now): Trump or Paul.
I’d have to find a 3rd party candidate I suppose.
As I said, no candidate is going to be perfect for any of us, in the end. But I still think this is a fairly good field from which to choose, with a few exceptions.
Donna – I’m not necessarily endorsing Paul, just passing by you all what a friend wrote in favor of him.
Ricky – No, not SolarPancake. But it would be funny if it turned out that SolarPancake & my Facebook friend turned out to be the same person, & I didn’t know it. 🙂
Rubio seems too much of a Washington establishment candidate. I don’t know what it is, but I distrust him. I like Cruz and Carson, but cannot decide for which one I would vote. Not that it matters. By the time Missouri gets a chance it’ll be down to a few and all of them will be hold-my-nose types. And if it’s like 2012, the Missouri primary will be a popularity contest. The actual delegates will be chosen at the state convention in June. Mrs L and I were delegates for our county, but I found it a waste of two days. Glad we went, though.
I normally would never vote for a 3rd party candidate, believe me. But I don’t know if I could, in good conscience, hand the country over to Donald Trump. Rand Paul is less problematic, and I might be able to cast a vote for him.
I guess I can say that, though, because I don’t think either has a chance of being the nominee.
Cruz comes off as harsh to me, I don’t think he’d be very appealing as a candidate, to be honest.
Again, no one’s perfect, they’re all flawed, some just more than the rest. 🙂
But I do think another 4 years under a liberal Democrat would spell disaster.
donna j: Why do you think that Cruz is harsh? I think he is very principled, with the courage to back it up. He is actually an ‘outsider’, yet has government experience. I think he would be a great President who would truly seek to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
Wandering Views 
Just saw the Ben Carson ad from yesterday. Reminds of the scandals that took down some of our candidates during the last elections. Horrible things like Rick Perry drove by a rock with the “n” word on it. Michelle Bachman’s husband looks gay. Santorum didn’t grieve for for his still born child the right way.
LikeLike
It is good to live in such an understanding, accepting society.
But way beyond that, I am grateful to have been placed here by the King of Kings.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Interesting, I missed last night’s debate and the first commentary I saw of it was on MSNBC (yes, I watch it from time to time and Hannity was on at that time on Fox, not as bad as O’Reilly, but I’m not overly fond of him either). All the guests (which included at least one Republican that I recognized) agreed the Carson completely blew his answers on the economy & national security, blathering and not saying anything of substance.
Because they all had the same take, I figured Carson must have had a pretty poor night.
But then I began reading other commentaries later in the evening (conservative, but a variety that included some moderate/mainstream sites) that all said he did quite well and that his answers were really quite substantive.
🙂
LikeLike
On O’Reilly, one conservative blogger I read last night suggested it’s time he was fired from Fox (George Will went after him again in his column this week for completely bungling history). He won’t be, his ratings are too high, but he really is an embarrassment — someone compared him to a typical schoolyard bully which I’d say is pretty accurate.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Still (back to the debate), no one I’ve read seems to put Carson in the top of those who did best last night. And Trump, sigh, still seems to be holding his own.
But most of those I’ve read seem to think it will come down to Rubio & Cruz as the final most viable GOP candidates.
(Someone else said Kasich came off so obnoxious last night that one commenter online asked if someone could please announce that Kasich’s car was being towed, just to pull him off the stage already).
LikeLike
I’m hearing Rubio and Fiorina, but I’m not paying a lot of attention.
LikeLike
Meanwhile, more on Little Sisters of the poor:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-little-sisters-of-the-poor-are-headed-to-the-supreme-court/414729/
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m still liking Rubio as the nominee (I genuinely like and agree with most of his positions — but I also like him because he looks to me to be possibly the most electable against Hillary or any other Democrat).
And there is no absolutely perfect candidate — I learned an accepted that early on, it’s always something of a compromise in politics.
LikeLike
I watched most of the debate. My recording cut off early for some reason and I didn’t see the end.I agree that Carson didn’t say anything that made a lot of sense. I beginning to think it’s like Sheldon Cooper running for president. Kasich tried too hard. I think Rubio, Cruz, Fiorina and Paul did well. Bush didn’t hurt himself. Trump got booed twice, but I’m convinced he could stomp a puppy on stage and his people would still support him.
LikeLiked by 1 person
One friend, a conservative Libertarian Christian, writes that Rand Paul was the only fiscal conservative on the stage. I think he (my friend) used to be Republican, but came to feel betrayed by the Republican party when he realized that they pander to Christians & conservatives, but still seem to love big government as much as the Democrats do, but for different reasons. He goes on to say…
“But of course he [Rand Paul] can’t win. Republicans love war. They love Big Centralized government. They love deficits and debts.
GW Bush doubled the national debt. He got us in multiple wars, which handed Iran a new ally. He doubled the Federal Education budget. He gave us a new entitlement that added $9trillion in new unfunded liabilities.
He gave us Homeland Security, taking off our shoes at airports, the Patriot Act, etc.
The GOP pips uttered not a squeak.
There’s no way an actual conservative has a snowball’s chance in Hell of being nominated by a party that hates freedom and loves big government and loathes our Constitution”
Elsewhere I read…
“In 2014 the United States, a country at peace with its neighbors that has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, accounted for more than a third of the world’s military spending. Congress could cut the Pentagon’s budget in half, and the U.S. would still be ‘the strongest military power in the world.’ “
One complaint I’ve seen about Rubio is that he is too much of a hawk.
What do you all think of these various observations? (I’m still weighing all the things I’ve read & heard. All I know is I definitely don’t like Trump.)
LikeLike
Donna, it’s like Bobby Jindal was trying to say, we can’t keep nominating moderates hoping the MSM and the democrats will come to like us. We tried that twice with McCain and Romney and we lost. Bush tried for eight years and ended up both hated and in debt. They will never like us until we become just like them, so why not just be real conservatives. There are a lot of real conservatives running, Pretty much anyone but Trump, Kasich, Bush or Christie.
LikeLike
My biggest issue with Rubio, who I mostly like, can be summed up in 3 words.
Gang of Eight.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/10/rubio-defends-gang-eight-bill-conservative-ahead-debate/
“However, in yesterday’s interview Rubio went a step further in defending his involvement in the Gang of Eight immigration expansion plan—effectively confirming the recent assertion of Sen. Chuck Schumer who said that Rubio’s “fingerprints are all over that bill.”
Rubio defended his handiwork claiming, “I was trying to produce the most conservative bill possible in a Senate controlled by Democrats and had hoped a more conservative House would make it even better.”
This line of argument, however, is likely to open Rubio up to substantial criticism, since critics of the 1,200 page bill have argued that his 2013 immigration expansion bill was substantially more progressive than the 2007 McCain-Kennedy bill, which a number of Democrats opposed.
Marco Rubio’s “conservative” immigration bill, by contrast, received zero Democrat opposition and, rather, almost unanimous Democrat support. Every single Senate Democrat voted for Rubio’s bill— unlike the Kennedy bill— and virtually every House Democrat endorsed it as well. Rubio’s “conservative” legislation was supported by La Raza, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)17%
, Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)9%
, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)2%
, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD)6%
, Sheila Jackson Lee, Mark Zuckerberg, groups backed by George Soros and Paul Singer, SEIU, the Center for America Progress and practically every progressive immigration group in the country.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, Rubio’s “conservative” bill would have added four times more new foreign workers than the rejected 2007 McCain-Kennedy bill, and also would have added 33 million new immigrants on green cards in the span of a single decade.”
=============================
And the decades of Democrat rule would begin…..
LikeLike
Sen. Ted Cruz for Prez…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Karen O, I agree with most of what your friend said. By the way, was it Solar Pancake?
I do think that Cruz is also a conservative. I am not sure I would call Rand Paul a conservative since he is such a wimp on crime.
President Rubio and Speaker Ryan are the best the U.S. can hope for. The U.S. would still be Sodom, but it might be slightly less socialist. That would be an improvement.
Ted Cruz could be President, but only of an independent Texas.
LikeLike
I would disagree that Rand Paul was the *only* fiscal conservative (and I actually read that he declared that of himself). This may sound harsh, but frankly he’s odd and a poor candidate to boot; zero likability in my book, he comes off as kind of a self-righteous scold.
And I disagree with his national security stance. The scary state of the world has made his (what I see as) isolationist message even more unappealing.
Not that we need to fight every battle — and we’re all clearly weary of foreign wars at this stage.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t sometimes warranted for the larger good, like it or not.
I have to say that there are only 2 Republicans running that I really just could not vote for (as of now): Trump or Paul.
I’d have to find a 3rd party candidate I suppose.
As I said, no candidate is going to be perfect for any of us, in the end. But I still think this is a fairly good field from which to choose, with a few exceptions.
LikeLike
But I still love ya Karen 🙂 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I will NOT vote for a 3rd party candidate and hand the election to the Democrats.
LikeLiked by 2 people
In 2008, a guy, trying to make conversation, asked, “Who do you like for president?”
I said, “I don’t like any of them, but I’m voting for McCain.”
That’s when I came up with my “I’m more qualified to be president than Obama.”
That may still be true.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Donna – I’m not necessarily endorsing Paul, just passing by you all what a friend wrote in favor of him.
Ricky – No, not SolarPancake. But it would be funny if it turned out that SolarPancake & my Facebook friend turned out to be the same person, & I didn’t know it. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here is an article about the poor little hunger striker at Missouri protesting “white privilege”.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/11/mizzou_hunger_striker_protesting_white_privilege_has_a_father_making_6_million_last_year.html
Our nation is truly insane and the biggest cauldrons of lunacy are the universities.
LikeLike
Black lies matter.
http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-coverage/is-the-entire-mizzou-protest-based-on-lies-111115
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rubio seems too much of a Washington establishment candidate. I don’t know what it is, but I distrust him. I like Cruz and Carson, but cannot decide for which one I would vote. Not that it matters. By the time Missouri gets a chance it’ll be down to a few and all of them will be hold-my-nose types. And if it’s like 2012, the Missouri primary will be a popularity contest. The actual delegates will be chosen at the state convention in June. Mrs L and I were delegates for our county, but I found it a waste of two days. Glad we went, though.
LikeLike
I normally would never vote for a 3rd party candidate, believe me. But I don’t know if I could, in good conscience, hand the country over to Donald Trump. Rand Paul is less problematic, and I might be able to cast a vote for him.
I guess I can say that, though, because I don’t think either has a chance of being the nominee.
Cruz comes off as harsh to me, I don’t think he’d be very appealing as a candidate, to be honest.
Again, no one’s perfect, they’re all flawed, some just more than the rest. 🙂
But I do think another 4 years under a liberal Democrat would spell disaster.
LikeLike
donna j: Why do you think that Cruz is harsh? I think he is very principled, with the courage to back it up. He is actually an ‘outsider’, yet has government experience. I think he would be a great President who would truly seek to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
LikeLike