REPUBLICAN DEBATE, SEPTEMBER 2015

Great lines:

Bobby Jindal:

[Obama] has declared war on trans fats ands a truce with Iran. Think about that. He’s more worried about Twinkies than he is about the ayatollahs having a nuclear weapon.

Fiorina nails Trump:

Fiorina responded to Trump’s attack on her business career by attacking his. She said that Washington politicians had run up huge amounts of debt, and pointed out that Trump had done so in some of his business ventures in Atlantic City, N.J.

“That is precisely the way you ran your companies. You ran up mountains of debt, as well as losses, using other people’s money,” Fiorina said. “Why should we trust you to manage the finances of this nation?”

Rubio:

Obama is "more respectful to the ayatollah of Iran than the prime minister of Israel."

Walker:

We don't need an apprentice in the White House. . .we have one right now.

INFORMATION VOTERS

According to Pew Research, Republican voters are more informed than Democrat voters.

Out of 12 questions asked, Republicans outperformed both Democrats and Independents on 10. The differences were most pronounced on the questions regarding Common Core, fracking and where Shiites outnumber Sunnis, where the percentage of Republicans answering correctly outpaced Democrats by double digits. But Republicans also outperformed Democrats on questions centering on the federal minimum wage and the Fed Chairwoman, even though she's a Democrat appointed by Obama, while the minimum wage is Democrats' favorite wedge issue this election year to try to keep Harry Reid (D - Nevada) as the Senate Majority Leader.

Democrats only outscored Republicans in naming the primary Ebola outbreak location and the federal poverty rate, but only by 2 and 5 percentage points, respectively.

EBOLA ROUND-UP 10/3/14

Listening to events over the past week, especially with regard to the incident in Dallas leaves one wondering.  The news keeps changing regarding the potential threat.

President Obama said not to worry. . .it wouldn't happen here, but it has happened.  And the CDC was saying how difficult it was to spread and even Chris Matthews the liberal talk host at MSNBC went after his inconsistencies.  So where are we?

"Obama Nixed Bush-Era Quarantine Proposal":  In 2010, the Obama administration withdrew updated quarantine regulations drafted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and proposed by the Bush administration. The new rules would have required air passengers to submit more information to airlines and strengthened the government’s authority to detain travelers suspected of carrying disease.

Liberals like to say that President Bush and Republicans generally are “science deniers.” But in this instance, Bush followed the path recommended by the Centers for Disease Control — no science deniers, they. It was Obama who elevated ideology over science thereby (to borrow the CDC’s words) denying Americans “critical” protection against “dangerous diseases spread by travelers.

"Obama Rips Bush for Being Unprepared for Avian Flu Outbreak":  But something must have been done right, according to the article. . .you don't hear about the Avian flu anymore.

Investors.com.  "Obama's Pathetic Response to Ebola Isn't Reassuring."  "The chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low," President Obama said recently. But he was wrong. We wonder: Was he repeating a considered medical opinion, or just offering his own?

The Hill.  "Health Officials Clam Up about the Effort to Contain Ebola in Texas."  It sounds like the CDC and others don't know what they are doing.

George Will:  "Americans Want to Trust Government But Can't."

Vice President Joe Biden:  "The disease spreads with blinding speed"--but there are no travel restrictions.  The Veep should maybe read the Daily Mail.  With open borders and travel who knows who or what is coming in.

Cleaning up Dallas apartments without proper suits!  Government gone brain-dead.

Chris Matthews goes after Obama ("it isn't likely") and Ezekiel Emmanuel.

NBC News:  "Ibuprofen Is All It Takes to Pass Airport Screening."

REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN AD

From Louisiana's Senate race.  I have never seen a Republican ad raise the issue of class warfare!  It is taken right out of the Democrats playbook.

See it on You Tube.

REVENGE IN WISCONSIN

A Democrat district attorney and the media go after a person who leaked a story that was unfavorable to the Democrat D.A. as he pursued a vendetta against the Republican governor.

We all know that politics isn’t softball, but surely this is crossing a very bright red line. It also exposes the rather dirty nature of liberal Wisconsin politics and the media there who seem to be not only their willing surrogates, but their foot soldiers in the field.

ISIS & THE WASHINGTON ELITE

Angel Codevilla argues that the Washington crowd is fooling itself in this fight with ISIS.

This indulgence so overwhelms our ruling class’s perception of reality that the recipes put forth by its several wings, little different from one another, are identical in the one essential respect: none of them involve any plans which, if carried out, would destroy the Islamic State, kill large numbers of the cut-throats, and discourage others from following in their footsteps. Hence, like the George W. Bush’s “war on terror” and for the same reasons, this exercise of our ruling class’s wisdom in foreign affairs will decrease respect for us while invigorating our enemies.

The quote by Representative Duncan Hunter (R, CA) is right on:  “We need to crush ISIS and not work on arming more Islamic radicals. Just what would arming these people accomplish?”

Evidently the CIA doesn't think the Obama ISIS policy has a chance.

He added that, as the CIA sees it, the ramped-up backing of rebels is an expansion of a strategy that is already not working. “The CIA also believes that its previous assignment to accomplish this was basically a fool’s errand, and they are well aware of the fact that many of the arms that they provided ended up in the wrong hands,” the congressman said, echoing intelligence sources.

Also troubling is that the ambassador handling ISIS policy, Anne Patterson, was a supporter of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  She is not well-liked in Egypt as a result.  Also she was very optimistic about US policy in Libya--Libya is in shambles (not to mention the Benghazi affair).

The country seems to be in the very best of hands.


But the founder of Blackwater says he could take care of the job, but the Obama administration put this controversial private contractor out-of-business. 


“It’s a shame the [Obama] administration crushed my old business, because as a private organization, we could’ve solved the boots-on-the-ground issue, we could have had contracts from people that want to go there as contractors; you don’t have the argument of U.S. active duty going back in there,” Prince said in an on-stage discussion featuring retired four-star Gen. James Conway. “[They could have] gone in there and done it, and be done, and not have a long, protracted political mess that I predict will ensue.”

MEDIA COVERAGE OF OBAMA & DEMOCRATS

Recently there has been more criticism in the media of Obama but it clearly doesn't rise to the level of how Bush had been treated.

Powerline has a summary of recent press criticisms of Obama.  The left-liberal establishment is in crisis at the moment. They can’t make up their mind between desperately trying to prop up Obama, and giving up on him and increasing their distance.

Kyle Smith at the New York Post discusses why comedians and Saturday Night Live have trouble making fun of Obama like they do other politicians, especially when he has said some things that could be used in a skit.  Downey comments in “Live from New York,” “I have to say, and even [Al] Franken agrees with me — I’ve talked to him about this — that the last couple seasons of the show were the only two in the show’s history where we were totally like every other comedy show: basically, an arm of the Hollywood Democratic establishment. . . . We just stopped doing anything which could even be misinterpreted as a criticism of Obama.”

Leftist Cornel West always speaks his mind and has changed his view of Obama.  I wonder if I will hear this on the nightly news.  And we ended up with a brown-faced Clinton. Another opportunist. Another neoliberal opportunist.

Meet the Press goes after Senator Rand Paul (R, KY) implying that he was trying to gain publicity for his charitable medical work in Guatemala while not criticizing Obama for golfing or expensive vacations.

DEMOCRATS USE COURTS TO STOP REPUBLICANS

With the court indictment against Governor Perry (R, TX), Bryan Preston examines 8 cases where the Democrats tried to use the courts to hurt Republican chances in an election.  Most were frivolous, but obviously the Republican faced an image problem as a result and in some cases lost an election.

SUPPORT FOR OBAMA ON BOMBING ISIS

Interesting.  Republicans are more likely to support Obama for his actions in bombing ISIS in Iraq than Democrats.

The Aug. 13-17 survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, found that 61 percent of self-identified Republican respondents support the airstrikes, while only 54 percent of Democrats say the same.

This obviously puts the president in a difficult position: Does he continue the airstrikes on ISIS, as many Americans prefer he would? Or does Obama appease his base by discontinuing the attacks?

If he the president caves to his base, then he loses support from a broad range of voters, some of whom want him to take stronger action. But if he stays the course and continues going after ISIS with limited strikes, he then runs the risk of alienating members of his party.

In January 2014 Obama dismissed ISIS as the "junior varsity" when compared to al Qaeda.  I wonder if he still believes this?

In the 2012 campaign, Obama spoke not only of killing Osama bin Laden; he also said that Al Qaeda had been “decimated.” I pointed out that the flag of Al Qaeda is now flying in Falluja, in Iraq, and among various rebel factions in Syria; Al Qaeda has asserted a presence in parts of Africa, too.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama said, resorting to an uncharacteristically flip analogy. “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.

Also see The Blaze. Or the comment at National Review.

FAILURE OF CONGRESS TO DO ITS JOB

The media and the American public are criticizing a do-nothing Congress.  But who is not doing anything in Congress?  It is Harry Reid's Democrat controlled Senate according to Jennifer Rubin at WAPO.  They have not considered almost any of the legislation passed by the Republican controlled House.  Harry Reid could at least have a vote on the legislation and then as usually happens when the two bodies of Congress disagree sit down in a joint committee and try to hammer out compromise legislation.

The Senate has not voted on jobs bills sent by the House, any “fix” for Obamacare or a domestic energy development bill. The Senate will not take up a real vote on the Keystone XL pipeline. It will not take up Iran sanctions. It did pass Veterans Affairs legislation and Iron Dome funding, not exactly difficult votes. Other than that, not much of consequence has gone on in the Senate, but not because of Republican objections. The GOP would love to take up many of these subjects, debate them and offer amendments; it is Reid who either won’t take up meaty issues or won’t allow any minority amendments, a practice he has taken further than any modern Senate leader. Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said succinctly: “Well, if you look at the last six years, the president and his people, I think, believed they got just about everything they wanted legislatively the first two years.”

FALSE CAMPAIGN AD DIRTY TRICKS

How can any candidate protect themselves from dirty tricks?  In this case some Democrat women got together to broadcast radio ads that a Republican Senatorial candidate in Mississippi was linked to the KKK.

Asked why she felt the need to get involved in runoff campaign and run ads with hard-hitting language that suggested McDaniel and the Tea Party were racists who would return Mississippi to the state’s ugly segregationist past, Harris said: “One being, [McDaniel saying he] wouldn’t stoop so low for asking for a Democratic vote. And the way politics is going, it seemed liked something we needed to do.”

McDaniel lost.

And in Kentucky Democrats are attacking Senator McConnell's wife for not being "Kentuckian" enough--she is Asian.

GAZA AND AMERICAN ATTITUDES

The Christian Science Monitor has analyzed the latest Pew Research polling data on American attitudes toward Hamas and Israel in the recent Gaza crisis.

But according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, this support is less monolithic than one might think.

How one views Israel in the recent Gaza conflict depends largely on race, age, and political affiliation, the poll indicates. While 40 percent of Americans overall see the Palestinian militant group as the prime instigator of the current violence versus 19 percent who blame the Israelis, this gap is smaller – and even nonexistent – within certain demographic groups.

For the first time pro-Hamas demonstrations are occurring on the streets of American cities. They are more widespread and serious in Europe, but nevertheless I never recall a public display like I have seen in a number of major American cities for any radical Islamist power. Now, I think the majority are Arab immigrants, but nevertheless they are in the streets, even in front of the White House. This is not just an issue for the future of Israel in the Middle East, but also what kind of country America will be in coming years. Support for Israel has been a hallmark of American foreign policy since President Truman.

Support for Israel in the U.S. varies based on age. Younger Americans are more likely to be pro-Hamas than older Americans. I have not read reasons for this trend: is it a result of ignorance or pro-Palestinian professors in American universities, or something else. This will become a more serious issue for Israel as older Americans die off. And I think this includes evangelical Christian young people.

It is clear that the age of dispensational theology in evangelical churches is disappearing. This theology has always strongly supported Israel based on its interpretations of prophecy. But now that theology is dying out as the older generation of pastors and theology professors pass on. I do not expect future evangelical pastors and theology professors to be as supportive of Israel.

From Legal Insurrection:  “Angry Black Woman” to anti-Israel activists: Stop pilfering civil rights legacy for your “repugnant agenda”

From Calgary, Canada:  "Pro-Palestinian Protesters in Calgary: 'All Hail Hitler.'"

REPUBLICAN FAILURE

I am with Larry Kudlow on this -- Republicans seem to have no thoughtful alternatives to Obama and the Democrats. Republicans need to develop a vision or agenda and they certainly have not done so up to this point.  They have no message or solutions to communicate to voters.

And here's what I see as a big part of the problem: Instead of putting forth a clear growth message — like a new Contract with America — congressional Republicans this week voted for a lawsuit challenging President Obama's abuse of executive power.

Now, suing the president is different from impeaching the president. But is it so different in the public's eye? And don't most people think this lawsuit will go nowhere? And isn't this just a big distraction from key issues, like the economy, tax reform, regulatory rollbacks, immigration reform, and rewriting  Obamacare?

IMMIGRATION POLICY

From ABC News -- a confrontation between Nancy Pelosi and a Republican congressman on the House floor.  He accused her and the Obama administration of not doing anything with the border crisis in 2008 and 2009 when Democrats controlled the House.

In an unusual breach of decorum, even for the divided Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi chased Rep. Tom Marino across the House floor, taking offense at comments by the Pennsylvania Republican during debate on the border funding bill Friday night.

“We don’t have law and order,” Marino began as he wrapped up his comments on the border supplemental. “My colleagues on the other side don’t want to do anything about it.”

“You know something that I find quite interesting about the other side? Under the leadership of the former Speaker [Pelosi], and under the leadership of their former leader [Rep. Steny Hoyer], when in 2009 and 2010, they had the House, the Senate and the White House, and they knew this problem existed,” he continued. “They didn’t have the strength to go after it back then. But now are trying to make a political issue out of it now.”

Off-mic, Pelosi then approached Marino, crossing the aisle in view of cameras, and apparently challenged Marino’s assertion that Democrats did not do anything about the issue when they had majority control.

“Yes it is true,” Marino replied directly to Pelosi, who was House speaker in those years. “I did the research on it. You might want to try it. You might want to try it, Madam Leader. Do the research on it. Do the research. I did it. That’s one thing that you don’t do.”

PAUL RYAN ON HELPING PEOPLE IN POVERTY

Representative Paul Ryan (R, WI) has an interesting proposal to help people in poverty. . .give them what they need based on individual needs.

He described the case of a 24-year-old single mother of two with a high school education, two years of retail work experience and dreams of one day being a teacher. Instead of relying on food stamps, housing vouchers and welfare checks, she could go to a social services provider, sit down with a case manager to develop an "opportunity plan" to meet her goals, targeting money where it is needed most.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

DEMOCRATS ON IRAQ

While this is a GOP production, it does show the verbal support given George Bush when he first invaded Iraq.

And here is Biden in 2010 about the administration's success in Iraq.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE PUNISHMENTS

Democrats and Republicans should be punished equally for campaign finance law violations.  The case of how D'Souza (R) and Corzine (D) were treated.

IRS RULES & FREE SPEECH

From the Chicago Tribune.  The IRS wants to curb free speech, but it also lets some social advocacy groups off the hook by letting them camouflage political activity.

CAMPAIGN DONATIONS, 1989-1914

From Open Secrets:  a list of the biggest donors to Republicans and Democrats.

OBAMACARE & REPUBLICANS

Here is the Republican plan to replace Obamacare.

Unlike ObamaCare, our plan acknowledges the real world in which people live and operate. We understand that markets are not perfect. But the answer is not a government-centered approach that limits choices and increases costs.

Our problems in health care are solvable if we chart a new path forward. The first step is to embrace a vision that respects individual freedom and puts our country on a more sustainable path.