When I was actually forced to listen to pieces of the debate on Democracy
Now, I was horrified and hearing what those people said, really scared the
hell out of me. To listen to what Trump and the others said about Muslims
and Obama, the vitriole, the lies, the threats! I do blame CNN for not
interjecting reality when Trump again said that Obama isn't an American and
that he is a Muslim and when someone else said, "they're building training
camps for a war on Christians". And this monstrous lie about the doctored
Planned Parenthood video when these people have done the same exact thing
before and defunded ACORN. Yes, our government is now habitually lying to
us aboutthe wars. But those Republican candidates, pitching to the lowest of
the low with racism and lies and no one saying a word on Cable while it's
happening! It is beyond the pale. This Islamiphobia is inexcuseable and it
appears to be getting worse as the wars continue. One of the last adoptive
families I worked with in 2007 consisted of a man whose family emigrated
here from Egypt when he was a child and who is Muslim and an FBI agent, and
his wife, an American midwesterner who converted to Islam when she married
him. This is a typical American story. But they are Muslims and to those
insane candidates, just part of an enemy fifth column.
Miriam
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2015 10:39 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Republican Leadership? Face It, That's an
Oxymoron!
Face it, we are a nation built upon our self-styled myths and Fairy Tales.
Forget the "real" world around us. Just feed us our daily dose of
Make-Believe, and we'll go forward, blaming our troubles on anyone and
everyone except those who manipulate our strings.
I have become so angry over this sham that we're calling, "Candidate
Debate", that I can hardly make jokes about it anymore.
It should scare the sox off all of us.
Are we to believe that we are viewing the most qualified people for the job
of president of the worlds most powerful bully? I can pick ten of my
friends and put them up against these mindless clowns, and America would
look better for it.
We are now being suckered into the longest and most costly political contest
in the history of the known world. And probably the unknown world, too.
Thank all that is sane that we are not exposed to the same babbling idiots
on the Democrats side. Hillary? Get real! She's the Daughter of the
Empire just as surely as if she had a big elephant on her chest. The best
of the Empire's candidates, Bernie Sanders, can't quite get up the backbone
to speak out against the murder and plunder of our mighty military, as it
levels the world on behalf of Freedom For All.
As a young boy, I read Gibbon's, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. In
today's American Empire, the basic conditions exist for our own downfall.
But we can't see it because of the clouds of pink froth being spun by the
Media and the obscene behavior that is passing for "debates".
So what to do? Americans are not going to wake up, no matter how some of us
wish it. Like a vast herd of mindless cattle, we drift this way and that,
going with the flow regardless of where it is headed.
Hopefully there will be a time in the distant future when scientists dig
deep into the crust of the Earth and find relics. They will carefully
uncover what is left of a mighty empire, shake their heads and wonder how it
could all have come falling down.
Carl Jarvis
On 9/19/15, abdulah aga <abdulahhasic@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
ineffective.
To day is everything
normal.
Media from European country say that Trump hate Muslim, Hispanic and
other emigrants.
No I can say this is not Trump's faults,
this is republican strategy.
So I have to say not only republican strategy,
wi all say trump hate this or hate other.
So who's is faults for situation in USA?
Media and bof political party in USA.
When bof political party make situation what is right now with media
help,
all party and many USA people was support that strategy,
and that time was competition who will more hate Muslim,
but right now when African American is in same situation and Hispanic
people
all say this is racism beck time was not racism and was not Islamo phobia.
So that why I don't blame Trump for his behave.
So if you see that he lead in his campaign you can tell that Americken
people like that,
they are lake to hate other or making slaver other.
Many American people hate all who is not
white, who is not crischen,
so Eder you like or not but this is picture of USA today.
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2015 4:58 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Republican Leadership? Face It, That's an
Oxymoron!
Boardman writes: "Making fun of the assortment of Republican
candidates for President as some sort of clown show is easy enough to
do, which is probably one reason so many people do it. But that sort
of ridicule is so insubstantial, so irrelevant, that it ends up
serving as a form of endorsement of the motley crew, as if, underneath
it all, these are actually serious people."
Donald Trump and Jeb Bush tussled during the most recent Republican
presidential debate, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
(photo:
CNN)
Republican Leadership? Face It, That's an Oxymoron!
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
18 September 15
Polls suggest America might elect a joke as President
Making fun of the assortment of Republican candidates for President as
some sort of clown show is easy enough to do, which is probably one
reason so many people do it. But that sort of ridicule is so
insubstantial, so irrelevant, that it ends up serving as a form of
endorsement of the motley crew, as if, underneath it all, these are
actually serious people. This implied endorsement is reinforced by the
tepid questions they are asked in conjunction with media coverage of
their mostly foolish answers to pointless questions, as if this
charade were somehow a meaningful and sober way to choose a leader.
Actually, it's all a big joke. The participants must know it's a big
joke, but it works for them, it protects them from answering hard
questions with possibly dangerous, relevant answers, AND it lets them
throw verbal cream pies in each others' faces - what's to hate? And
the media know it's all a big joke, which works for them, pandering to
ugly prejudices, treating truth and lie as equals, and getting good
ratings from pie-in-the-face lovers of almost all opinions.
None of this is a secret. It's an open conspiracy. Any of the
candidates or reporters involved in this campy superficiality could
break it down in a moment with consistent focus on what matters rather
than just what gets laughter or emotional outburst. Covering the
Republican debate of September 16, the New York Times the next day
winkingly gave the game away in its print-edition subhead:
"Talk of Ability to Lead Takes a Backseat to Sharp Attacks"
Then the story's lede said, confusingly and contradictorily, treating
name-calling as if it were a policy statement: "Determined to prove
their mettle, several Republican presidential candidates showed new
aggressiveness in lacing into Donald J. Trump on Wednesday night,
seeking to elevate themselves as leaders of substance.."
Say that again. "Lacing into" Trump is the equivalent of being a
"leader of substance?" So says the Times, speaking as the organ of the
permanent ruling class. So you're on notice: it's not only a joke,
there's not only nothing you can do about it, but you're expected to
accept this absurdist theatre as an affirmation that these people, no
matter how silly or petty or nasty or vacant in style, still have the
substance to serve honorably and effectively as President of the US.
They don't. Seriously, they don't. Is there anything in the full
transcript that makes you think any of them does?
Republican policy: expand military, destroy Planned Parenthood?
The reality of American military might is pretty simple, and has been
for decades. The American military is the most powerful and most
expensive military in the world. No one else is even close. China, at
#2, spends about a third as much as the US spends on its military. The
US is alone in the world in spending more than half its discretionary
federal budget on its military. Currently that comes to $610 billion a
year. That's more than the combined military budgets of China, Russia,
Saudi Arabia, France, United Kingdom, India, and Germany. (A different
calculation puts US military spending at $711 billion a year, more
than the military budgets of the nextthirteen countries' military
budgets combined.) Looked at another way, the US accounted for 39% of
all the world's military spending in 2012, while the combined military
spending of Iran, Syria, and North Korea was less than 1% of the
global total.
US military spending has more than doubled since 9/11. During the same
period, US military has participated in the longest war in US history
and several others (some ongoing), having won none of them and having
little prospect of winning any soon. Judging by recent experience, the
military option is not only too expensive, but almost entirely
And yet Republicans (and many Democrats) want more and more military,brother George did).
and they want it for no articulable purpose, they want it because they
want it, and it polls well. (There is also a longstanding, specious
argument about military decay due to the decline of military spending
as a percentage of GDP, and the like, none of which changes the
reality that the military has been expensive and all but useless -
unless one argues the likely truth that using the military option has
cost more and caused more devastation than just doing nothing would
have cost.) Anyone here against more war? Nope.
Never mind any of that. The eleven Republicans in the recent debate
all spoke up in 60-second soundbite answers to a simpleminded
question, saying that they were all for more military, and more
military adventurism (though some were somewhat less aggressively
adventurous than others). That's Republican leadership, lockstep for
more war, with some difference of opinion on how much more war. Taking
the prize for maximum hawk among the lesser hawks was Carly Fiorina
(whose looks got almost as much debate time as militarism):
Russia is a bad actor, but Vladimir Putin is someone we should not
talk to, because the only way he will stop is to sense strength and
resolve on the other side, and we have all of that within our control.
We could rebuild the Sixth Fleet. I will. We haven't. We could rebuild
the missile defense program. We haven't. I will. We could also, to
Senator Rubio's point, give the Egyptians what they've asked for,
which is intelligence. We could give the Jordanians what they've asked
for-bombs and materiel. We have not supplied it.. I will. We could arm
the Kurds. They've been asking us for three years. All of this is
within our control.
None of the ten men on the stage with Fiorina took serious issue with
any of this. When the moderator asked about the recent Russian
increase of its military presence in Syria, he framed it as "a threat
to our national security" and he omitted Putin's call for talks. No
one corrected this deceptive spin, much less did anyone suggest that
talking to your adversaries was at least as useful as talking to your
friends. No one asked how Fiorina planned to pay for this military
expansion, nor even how many billions she thought it would cost. And
no one pointed out that arming the Kurds, whose diaspora reaches into
Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, looked like a really good way to get a
much bigger war going in the region, which is maybe her point.
Rand Paul came the closest to sort of opposing more militarism,
pointing out that he would talk to Russia and China and Iran. He
reminded people that he had opposed the Iraq War and American
involvement in Syria's civil war.
Unlike others, Paul said: "I don't think we need to be reckless."
America's war on drugs creates more Republican ambivalence Rand Paul
expressed outright opposition to the war on drugs, as he has for some
time, pointing out that the war on drugs is effectively a war on poor
people and a war on people of color. He argued that the federal
government should have no role in drug law enforcement, that under the
Tenth Amendment to the Constitution that role properly belongs to the
states, leaving them free to experiment as Colorado is doing (under
the shadow of federal intervention). Paul also nailed Jeb Bush, who
admits to smoking marijuana, as one of those privileged white kids who
never had to worry about going to jail (any more than his drug-using
Fiorina supported Paul on the drug war. Last May, in a conference callCalifornia audience.
with reporters promoting her book, she said: "Drug addiction shouldn't
be criminalized." But she said saying that smoking marijuana was like
drinking a beer was a bad message, and that marijuana now was not the
same as it was 40 years ago, which drew strong laughter from the
Fiorina referred to the story of her step-daughter in her book, wherereaping sustained applause:
she spoke of not seeing the signs of the step-daughter's addiction
until it killed her at age 34. Fiorina did not make any connection to
her step-daughter's going into rehab three times and working in a
pharmaceutical sales job. Nor did she make any connection between her
step-daughter's situation and her never being arrested or jailed.
When it came to the war on Planned Parenthood, the other half of the
Republicans' two-point consensus, Fiorina was on the front line,
firing wildly. She was not alone, Planned Parenthood was named 23
times in all by her and others. She linked attacking Planned
Parenthood to attacking Iran, the first as a defense of national
character, the second as a defense of national security. Then she
cited a controversial, spurious videotape and demagogued it shamelessly,
As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape -billionaires?"
I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a
fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking,
while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain. This
is about the character of our nation, and if we will not stand up and
force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us.
No one at the debate pointed out that the videotape in question was
attached to a faked tape indicting Planned Parenthood falsely. No one
pointed out that no one knows where the video with the fetus came from
or what it actually shows or who is speaking on it. And no one pointed
out that Planned Parenthood has adamantly denied the accusations of
harvesting. So Fiorina was demonstrating her presidential ability to
attack with as much solid evidence as George Bush used to go to war on
Iraq.
Republican candidates: is there any there there?
Given the conventional wisdom about Donald Trump being a showman
without qualification to be President, even though he's the leading
candidate in the polls by far, one might have expected at least one of
the other Republicans to try a more substantial tactic, like appearing
to be the grown-up in the room. Maybe some did try, but none
succeeded, since being the grown-up requires the willingness to
confront reality honestly and that was rare in this debate.
Perhaps the most hilarious detachment from reality was when Jeb Bush
said of his brother the former President: "He kept us safe." Hello,
Jeb? Your brother was in charge when 9/11 happened, your brother chose
to take no action when briefed of the imminence of an attack on the
US, your brother didn't keep us safe before 9/11 (when the information
needs was available but unconnected), and your brother has hardly made
us more safe since 9/11.
George Bush squandered thousands of innocent lives and trillions of
tax dollars for the sake of strutting puffed up on an aircraft
carrier. George Bush took a budget surplus and turned it into a series
of devastating deficits that have ballooned the national debt to the
point where a former chairman if the joint chiefs of staff called it
"the most significant threat to our national security."
He did not keep us safe, ever.
In a far less serious moment, Fiorina and Trump exchanged accusations
that the other was an atrocious business person and a bad manager. No
factual basis was introduced to measure the insults. The likelihood
seems to be that they were both right.
The absence of any sensible, engaged discussion of what to do about
climate change (not all the candidates are outright deniers) provoked
some funny comments on the twitternet. One featured Marco Rubio's
comment, "America is not a planet."
For all their faults, and their absence of strengths, none of the
candidates was as baldly unwilling to treat the selection of the next
President seriously as CNN. There is no excuse for CNN asking silly,
irrelevant, insubstantial questions. There is no excuse for CNN not
asking questions about the important priorities of our time. And in
this day and age, there is no excuse for CNN not fact-checking in real
time, and holding the candidates to account (they don't all tell the
truth all the time). Maybe media responsibility would make no
difference, but we can't know till it's tried.
Meanwhile, early, unofficial, and unscientific returns after the
debate show Trump farther in the lead than ever. The almost instant
Drudge poll results put Trump at 53%, followed by Fiorina at 21%. Way
behind them at 6% are Ted Cruz and Rubio, then Rand Paul and Ben
Carson at 4%. At the bottom, with 1% or less, are Bush, Chris
Christie, John Kasich, Scott Walker, and Mike Huckabee.
Another unreliable real world indicator, the tweet count, also shows
Trump with an overwhelming overall lead by one measure. An assessment
of the debate in Forbes finds Fiorina and Ben Carson in a virtual
twitter tie, with Trump a distant third and the rest much farther
back. International Business Times also scored it for Fiorina, with
John Kasich second.
Some of this is the result of self-fulfilling prophecy, as CNN managed
to give Trump the frontrunner more time than anyone else. Surely
there's good reason and many methods for CNN to give the impression of
fairness and neutrality by giving candidates close to equal time.
About an hour into the debate, Bernie Sanders tweeted: "War, war, war.
When do we get to their other major priority: tax breaks for
Hillary Clinton tweeted in Spanish about the right to speak anyvalid.
language in the US.
This debate didn't get to tax breaks for billionaires, and there was
no question about that issue, so people could be left with the
impression that these Republicans might at least be willing to let the
rich suffer in their present condition. And if the majority of
Americans end up believing enough things that are not true, the
Republicans will win the presidency in a walk.
________________________________________
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
ineffective.
Donald Trump and Jeb Bush tussled during the most recent Republican
presidential debate, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
(photo:
CNN)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Republican Leadership? Face It, That's an Oxymoron!
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
18 September 15
Polls suggest America might elect a joke as President aking fun of the
assortment of Republican candidates for President as some sort of
clown show is easy enough to do, which is probably one reason so many
people do it. But that sort of ridicule is so insubstantial, so
irrelevant, that it ends up serving as a form of endorsement of the
motley crew, as if, underneath it all, these are actually serious
people. This implied endorsement is reinforced by the tepid questions
they are asked in conjunction with media coverage of their mostly
foolish answers to pointless questions, as if this charade were
somehow a meaningful and sober way to choose a leader.
Actually, it's all a big joke. The participants must know it's a big
joke, but it works for them, it protects them from answering hard
questions with possibly dangerous, relevant answers, AND it lets them
throw verbal cream pies in each others' faces - what's to hate? And
the media know it's all a big joke, which works for them, pandering to
ugly prejudices, treating truth and lie as equals, and getting good
ratings from pie-in-the-face lovers of almost all opinions.
None of this is a secret. It's an open conspiracy. Any of the
candidates or reporters involved in this campy superficiality could
break it down in a moment with consistent focus on what matters rather
than just what gets laughter or emotional outburst. Covering the
Republican debate of September 16, the New York Times the next day
winkingly gave the game away in its print-edition subhead:
"Talk of Ability to Lead Takes a Backseat to Sharp Attacks"
Then the story's lede said, confusingly and contradictorily, treating
name-calling as if it were a policy statement: "Determined to prove
their mettle, several Republican presidential candidates showed new
aggressiveness in lacing into Donald J. Trump on Wednesday night,
seeking to elevate themselves as leaders of substance.."
Say that again. "Lacing into" Trump is the equivalent of being a
"leader of substance?" So says the Times, speaking as the organ of the
permanent ruling class. So you're on notice: it's not only a joke,
there's not only nothing you can do about it, but you're expected to
accept this absurdist theatre as an affirmation that these people, no
matter how silly or petty or nasty or vacant in style, still have the
substance to serve honorably and effectively as President of the US.
They don't. Seriously, they don't. Is there anything in the full
transcript that makes you think any of them does?
Republican policy: expand military, destroy Planned Parenthood?
The reality of American military might is pretty simple, and has been
for decades. The American military is the most powerful and most
expensive military in the world. No one else is even close. China, at
#2, spends about a third as much as the US spends on its military. The
US is alone in the world in spending more than half its discretionary
federal budget on its military. Currently that comes to $610 billion a
year. That's more than the combined military budgets of China, Russia,
Saudi Arabia, France, United Kingdom, India, and Germany. (A different
calculation puts US military spending at $711 billion a year, more
than the military budgets of the nextthirteen countries' military
budgets combined.) Looked at another way, the US accounted for 39% of
all the world's military spending in 2012, while the combined military
spending of Iran, Syria, and North Korea was less than 1% of the
global total.
US military spending has more than doubled since 9/11. During the same
period, US military has participated in the longest war in US history
and several others (some ongoing), having won none of them and having
little prospect of winning any soon. Judging by recent experience, the
military option is not only too expensive, but almost entirely
And yet Republicans (and many Democrats) want more and more military,brother George did).
and they want it for no articulable purpose, they want it because they
want it, and it polls well. (There is also a longstanding, specious
argument about military decay due to the decline of military spending
as a percentage of GDP, and the like, none of which changes the
reality that the military has been expensive and all but useless -
unless one argues the likely truth that using the military option has
cost more and caused more devastation than just doing nothing would
have cost.) Anyone here against more war? Nope.
Never mind any of that. The eleven Republicans in the recent debate
all spoke up in 60-second soundbite answers to a simpleminded
question, saying that they were all for more military, and more
military adventurism (though some were somewhat less aggressively
adventurous than others). That's Republican leadership, lockstep for
more war, with some difference of opinion on how much more war. Taking
the prize for maximum hawk among the lesser hawks was Carly Fiorina
(whose looks got almost as much debate time as militarism):
Russia is a bad actor, but Vladimir Putin is someone we should not
talk to, because the only way he will stop is to sense strength and
resolve on the other side, and we have all of that within our control.
We could rebuild the Sixth Fleet. I will. We haven't. We could rebuild
the missile defense program. We haven't. I will. We could also, to
Senator Rubio's point, give the Egyptians what they've asked for,
which is intelligence. We could give the Jordanians what they've asked
for-bombs and materiel. We have not supplied it.. I will. We could arm
the Kurds. They've been asking us for three years. All of this is
within our control.
None of the ten men on the stage with Fiorina took serious issue with
any of this. When the moderator asked about the recent Russian
increase of its military presence in Syria, he framed it as "a threat
to our national security" and he omitted Putin's call for talks. No
one corrected this deceptive spin, much less did anyone suggest that
talking to your adversaries was at least as useful as talking to your
friends. No one asked how Fiorina planned to pay for this military
expansion, nor even how many billions she thought it would cost. And
no one pointed out that arming the Kurds, whose diaspora reaches into
Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, looked like a really good way to get a
much bigger war going in the region, which is maybe her point.
Rand Paul came the closest to sort of opposing more militarism,
pointing out that he would talk to Russia and China and Iran. He
reminded people that he had opposed the Iraq War and American
involvement in Syria's civil war.
Unlike others, Paul said: "I don't think we need to be reckless."
America's war on drugs creates more Republican ambivalence Rand Paul
expressed outright opposition to the war on drugs, as he has for some
time, pointing out that the war on drugs is effectively a war on poor
people and a war on people of color. He argued that the federal
government should have no role in drug law enforcement, that under the
Tenth Amendment to the Constitution that role properly belongs to the
states, leaving them free to experiment as Colorado is doing (under
the shadow of federal intervention). Paul also nailed Jeb Bush, who
admits to smoking marijuana, as one of those privileged white kids who
never had to worry about going to jail (any more than his drug-using
Fiorina supported Paul on the drug war. Last May, in a conference callCalifornia audience.
with reporters promoting her book, she said: "Drug addiction shouldn't
be criminalized." But she said saying that smoking marijuana was like
drinking a beer was a bad message, and that marijuana now was not the
same as it was 40 years ago, which drew strong laughter from the
Fiorina referred to the story of her step-daughter in her book, wherereaping sustained applause:
she spoke of not seeing the signs of the step-daughter's addiction
until it killed her at age 34. Fiorina did not make any connection to
her step-daughter's going into rehab three times and working in a
pharmaceutical sales job. Nor did she make any connection between her
step-daughter's situation and her never being arrested or jailed.
When it came to the war on Planned Parenthood, the other half of the
Republicans' two-point consensus, Fiorina was on the front line,
firing wildly. She was not alone, Planned Parenthood was named 23
times in all by her and others. She linked attacking Planned
Parenthood to attacking Iran, the first as a defense of national
character, the second as a defense of national security. Then she
cited a controversial, spurious videotape and demagogued it shamelessly,
As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape -billionaires?"
I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a
fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking,
while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain. This
is about the character of our nation, and if we will not stand up and
force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us.
No one at the debate pointed out that the videotape in question was
attached to a faked tape indicting Planned Parenthood falsely. No one
pointed out that no one knows where the video with the fetus came from
or what it actually shows or who is speaking on it. And no one pointed
out that Planned Parenthood has adamantly denied the accusations of
harvesting. So Fiorina was demonstrating her presidential ability to
attack with as much solid evidence as George Bush used to go to war on
Iraq.
Republican candidates: is there any there there?
Given the conventional wisdom about Donald Trump being a showman
without qualification to be President, even though he's the leading
candidate in the polls by far, one might have expected at least one of
the other Republicans to try a more substantial tactic, like appearing
to be the grown-up in the room. Maybe some did try, but none
succeeded, since being the grown-up requires the willingness to
confront reality honestly and that was rare in this debate.
Perhaps the most hilarious detachment from reality was when Jeb Bush
said of his brother the former President: "He kept us safe." Hello,
Jeb? Your brother was in charge when 9/11 happened, your brother chose
to take no action when briefed of the imminence of an attack on the
US, your brother didn't keep us safe before 9/11 (when the information
needs was available but unconnected), and your brother has hardly made
us more safe since 9/11.
George Bush squandered thousands of innocent lives and trillions of
tax dollars for the sake of strutting puffed up on an aircraft
carrier. George Bush took a budget surplus and turned it into a series
of devastating deficits that have ballooned the national debt to the
point where a former chairman if the joint chiefs of staff called it
"the most significant threat to our national security."
He did not keep us safe, ever.
In a far less serious moment, Fiorina and Trump exchanged accusations
that the other was an atrocious business person and a bad manager. No
factual basis was introduced to measure the insults. The likelihood
seems to be that they were both right.
The absence of any sensible, engaged discussion of what to do about
climate change (not all the candidates are outright deniers) provoked
some funny comments on the twitternet. One featured Marco Rubio's
comment, "America is not a planet."
For all their faults, and their absence of strengths, none of the
candidates was as baldly unwilling to treat the selection of the next
President seriously as CNN. There is no excuse for CNN asking silly,
irrelevant, insubstantial questions. There is no excuse for CNN not
asking questions about the important priorities of our time. And in
this day and age, there is no excuse for CNN not fact-checking in real
time, and holding the candidates to account (they don't all tell the
truth all the time). Maybe media responsibility would make no
difference, but we can't know till it's tried.
Meanwhile, early, unofficial, and unscientific returns after the
debate show Trump farther in the lead than ever. The almost instant
Drudge poll results put Trump at 53%, followed by Fiorina at 21%. Way
behind them at 6% are Ted Cruz and Rubio, then Rand Paul and Ben
Carson at 4%. At the bottom, with 1% or less, are Bush, Chris
Christie, John Kasich, Scott Walker, and Mike Huckabee.
Another unreliable real world indicator, the tweet count, also shows
Trump with an overwhelming overall lead by one measure. An assessment
of the debate in Forbes finds Fiorina and Ben Carson in a virtual
twitter tie, with Trump a distant third and the rest much farther
back. International Business Times also scored it for Fiorina, with
John Kasich second.
Some of this is the result of self-fulfilling prophecy, as CNN managed
to give Trump the frontrunner more time than anyone else. Surely
there's good reason and many methods for CNN to give the impression of
fairness and neutrality by giving candidates close to equal time.
About an hour into the debate, Bernie Sanders tweeted: "War, war, war.
When do we get to their other major priority: tax breaks for
Hillary Clinton tweeted in Spanish about the right to speak any
language in the US.
This debate didn't get to tax breaks for billionaires, and there was
no question about that issue, so people could be left with the
impression that these Republicans might at least be willing to let the
rich suffer in their present condition. And if the majority of
Americans end up believing enough things that are not true, the
Republicans will win the presidency in a walk.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
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Supported News.
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