What I Want From Republicans

At Thanksgiving, my aunt asked me if I still consider myself politically independent.  Seeing as how I've dedicated most of this blog space over the last three months to mocking Republican Presidential candidates and calling them stupid, it was a pretty fair question.

On the drive home, I thought about it a little and tried to be honest with myself.  Could I really ever see myself voting for a Republican?  I certainly won't vote for Scott Brown in Massachusetts next year.  He's running against Elizabeth Warren, who, if elected, would immediately become the best Senator in the Senate. 

But would I vote for any Republican, under any circumstances?  Yes, yes I would.  Here's what I'm looking for in future Republicans.  One quick but important note.  My support for these hypothetical future Republicans assumes that future Democrats will remain mostly cowardly, disorganized and incompetent. 

First of all, shut up about jesus.  Listen, I'm not so delusional that I think I'll actually get to vote for a Presidential candidate in my lifetime who doesn't believe in the magic invisible spacegod.  I can live with that.  But, can I just have someone who doesn't feel the need to end every speech with a laundry list of things he'd like his invisible friend to bless?  Someone who doesn't think it's more important to pray for homosexuals than it is to just let them have equal rights? Someone whose brain is capable of accepting scientific realities, even when they conflict with our culture's mythology? 

Even my man Ron Paul rambles on about god from time to time.  It breaks my heart.  I'm not saying I expect Presidential candidates to give up their faith when they run.  I just want someone who talks about reality at work and saves the mythology for home.  Is that really too much to ask?

Next, I'd like a candidate who offers economic policies that aren't just tax cuts.  Perpetually lower taxes isn't a viable policy position.  Rick Santorum, king of the idiots, has been proposing a 0% tax rate for manufacturing.  Zero!  As if we can tax cut our way back to 1953.  If Congress cut all tax rates to 1% today, Republicans would spend the next election telling us how those tax-and-spendocrats in Washington think they're entitled to a whole percent of your money.  I'm not wrong about this.

The Republican response to the wall street occupiers has really tipped their hand on the economy.  Instead of the rational response ("These people obviously have a point about wealth disparity, corruption and the incredibly blurry line between the financial sector and our government...but what do bongo drums have to do with any of that"), Republicans totally flipped out ("Get a job! And take a shower!"). 

This knee-jerk animosity toward anyone who threatens to give the game away tells you all you need to know about Republican economic policy.  Is a candidate who thinks the economy works best when it works for everyone too much to ask for?  Really?

Also, grow up a little on foreign policy.  The Republican party (other than Ron Paul, of course) still lives in this fantasy world where America is the only country that matters and everyone just needs to do what we say.  It isn't like that anymore.  I'm not saying I want a candidate who doesn't want us to lead sometimes, but can I get a candidate who doesn't think calling something "European" is an insult?  How hard is that?

I'm not asking for much, just someone who doesn't criticize the current President for not being an arrogant dick whenever he goes abroad.  And maybe even someone who isn't super eager to wade into every internal conflict in some other country by sending our troops there for an indefinite period of time, because once they get there, they can't ever leave or we're letting the terrorists win. 

If I could get even two out of these three things from a Republican candidate, I would seriously considering voting for him or her.  I don't like having to go vote for Democrats.  It's no fun.  Democrats aren't really any different from Republicans.  Here's a good example.

Republicans have become deficit hawks.  Being a deficit hawk while you're trying to dig your way out of a recession is pretty stupid.  Are the Democrats saying that and arguing for a totally different and better way.  No!  They're deficit hawks too, they're just worse at it.  So they propose awful half measures that are big enough to add to the deficit but not big enough to actually help.  Well done.

You might be tempted to point out that I seem to disagree with almost the entire Republican platform.  And you'd be right, that's the problem.  The Republican platform is made up almost entirely of nonsense.  It shouldn't be, and it doesn't have to be.  And if it wasn't, I'd be willing to vote for some Republicans.  I swear.

The Newt Front-Runner

According to the TV, Newt Gingrich is now the front-runner for the Republican nomination in at least three different polls.  At first, I assumed this was some kind of horrible nightmare from which I cannot awake.  That was the most logical explanation, but it's becoming less and less likely.  This may actually be reality.

The funny thing about this (other than the thought of President Gingrich, which is both hilarious and terrifying) is how it happened.  Everyone knows the media loves the horse race.  Whenever someone new jumps to the top of the polls, every political news outfit freaks out like that person is the next FDR (or in the case of Fox "news", the next Saint Reagan), until the next week when they say something stupid and we all laugh them off the stage.

This time, as far as I could tell, the media went first.  After Herman Cain imploded, over and over again, I started hearing all this nonsense about how Newt was going to rise to the top of the polls.  Next thing you know, there's good ole Newt, right at the top.  Just like the media said!  I watch too much political news to think they actually got a prediction right, so all I can think is Republican primary voters heard these stories about Newt and thought "well, he ain't Mitt Romney, so why not?". 

And really, that's the lesson.  Republicans would try out a half-eaten breakfast as their potential nominee as long as it wasn't Mitt Romney.  This makes me a little more hopeful for the President's re-election changes, since, last time I checked, he isn't Mitt Romney either.

Hey look!  It's another debate!  The TV says this one's about foreign policy.  Ugh.  You may be thinking the same thing I was thinking when I saw this.."why do these people, at least 5 of whom don't know anything about anything, keep having debates about a complicated topic like foreign policy?" 

Well, you only have two choices, foreign policy or domestic policy.  The Republican party in 2011 only has one domestic policy, tax cuts...Tax Cuts!....TAAAAXXXXXXXX CUUUUUTTTTTTTSSSSSS!!!!!!!!  You can't get too many debates out of that.  So, here you go, another foreign policy debate between Huntsman, Paul, Romney and five idiots. 

8:00PM: CNN opens this foreign policy/national security debate with a super scary OH MY GOD YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE IF YOU ELECT THE WRONG PRESIDENT montage.  Terrifying the audience is a great way to get them to make a rational decision.

8:02PM: Running the Olympics once doesn't make Mitt Romney an expert on foreign relations anymore than it makes him a world class downhill skier.

8:03PM: First bit of bad news, it looks like Blitzer will be doing the moderating again.  Last time he had no control, it was a total disaster.  I'm not looking forward to this.

8:04PM: Second bit of bad news, it looks like CNN has attempted to put together the whitest audience in the history of audiences and whiteness.  Considering this debate is taking place in Washington DC, that couldn't have been easy.

8:06PM: They're singing the national anthem before the debate.  Not the first time, probably not the last, but I'll be annoyed by it every time.

8:08PM: Blitzer keeps saying he'll "try" to do stuff.  Don't try Wolf, do!

8:10PM: Am I crazy, or was Rick Santorum balder when he was younger?  I could swear I remember a very balding Rick Santorum.

8:11PM: Blitzer made a joke about Wolf Blitzer being his real name.  Romney tried to capitalize by saying "I'm Mitt Romeny and, yes Wolf, that's my real first name too".  Except it's not.  His real first name is Willard.  What's wrong with him?  I never thought Romney would be the one on this stage who literally couldn't even get his name right. 

8:15PM: Talking about extending the Patriot Act, Gingrich says "all of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives".  Who invited the good news bear?

8:16PM: Ron Paul on the Patriot Act..."don't be willing to sacrifice liberty for security".  As usual, Ron is schooling these idiots.  This time he's kicking Newt's ass on civil liberties.  Newt believes the Patriot Act would have stopped Timothy McVeigh.  Ron's trying to explain that just because something might work doesn't make it Constitutional or legal.  Newt's not really following.

8:19PM: Bachmann just said something about mirandizing terrorists.  Is she still in this race?

8:22PM: Perry on the TSA..."I would privatize it as soon as I could and get rid of those unions."  Great idea!  Why have airport security people be accountable to the duly elected government of the people when they could be accountable to no one?  Also, how did unions get involved in this? 

8:24PM: Santorum is openly suggesting profiling muslims at airports.  Another fantastic idea!  But how will we know who the Muslims are?  We should probably make them get special tattoos or something.  Or we could just throw bacon at everyone who gets on a plane and see who gets really angry about it.  Oh but jewish people don't like bacon either.  This is hard.  Rick, help us, how do we know who the muslims are?

8:25PM: Ron Paul on the war on terrorism..."I don't remember voting on a declaration of war...terror isn't a person, it's a tactic."  Go get 'em Ron!

8:27PM: Cain just called Blitzer "Blitz".  I'll miss him when he's gone.

8:31PM:  Bachmann says we shouldn't stop giving Pakistan money, but only because if we don't, they might stop being our friend and start being China's friend.  I guess Rick Perry doesn't care about friends, because he's not giving Pakistan a dime.  But then they won't come to Michele's sweet sixteen! Damn you Rick!

8:33PM: Bachmann just called Perry's position "highly naive".  Uh oh, I think she's about to find out that you don't mess with Texas.  Rick looks mad.  Hmmm...he went pretty easy on her.  He may have taken a Valium before the debate.  Let's keep on eye on him.

8:35PM: Romney on Afghanistan..."we can't just write off a significant part of the world."  He forgot to add "...that has oil."  Then he said we need to bring Afghanistan into the 20th century.  Yeah, what's up with that country?  Why do they have all that rubble everywhere?  Get some roads, jerks!

8:38PM: Good point by Huntsman.  The President doesn't always have to listen to the Generals on the ground when it comes to war.  The President is the one in charge and he calls the shots.  Mitt says he would call the shots, by doing whatever the Generals tell him to do.

8:40PM: Newt's first complaint about the questions.  A Republican debate tradition like no other.  Then he follows up by complaining about the rules.  Also, his podium is too small and the food in his dressing room was far from adequate.

8:42PM: Santorum says radical islamists are just waiting us out.  So, I guess Santorum would just never withdraw troops from anywhere.  He's not suggesting colonizing Afghanistan, just visiting...forever.

8:48PM: Cain says he'd support Israel if they attacked Iran, as long as they had a good plan.  I'd like to hear what Herman would consider a good plan.  Wolf didn't ask, glad he's here.

8:49PM: Ron Paul on Israel..."if Israel decides to bomb something, that's their business, but they have to suffer the consequences."  Republican foreign policy debates should just be two hours of all the other candidates shutting up and listening to Ron.

8:52PM: Perry says we need to sanction the Iranian central bank to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.  I assume "sanction the national bank" is some kind of Rick Perry secret code for "bombing the shit out of the country".

8:53PM: Blitzer points out that sanctioning the Iranian central bank would essentially end Iranian oil exports and, ya know, cripple Europe's economy.  Newt sees this as an opportunity to sell Europe some of our own oil.  Wait, when did we get all this extra oil to sell to Europe?  Is Newt hiding oil somewhere and not telling us?

8:56PM: Ron Paul is openly laughing while Bachmann is talking about Israel.  Me too Ron.

8:57PM: Santorum just called Africa "a country on the brink".  Country...continent...whatever.   Rick points out the important part, which is making sure we force our values on anyone in Africa who wants our help.

8:59PM: Cain on aid to Africa..."it may be worth while to continue, it may not." Yes Herman, those are the two choices.

8:59PM: Ron Paul believes all foreign aid is worthless.  Say what you want about Ron, he doesn't hedge.

9:00PM: Romney implies that the President is cutting 1 trillion dollars from defense and putting it directly into Obamacare.  That's a good talking point.  Patently false, but a good talking point.

9:03PM: Newt says, if we were serious about oil, we would magically produce all the oil we need in the next year.  OK, he didn't use the word magically, but I can only assume magic is part of his plan.

9:07PM: Huntsman just talked for like two and a half minutes.  Are there any rules here?  Does Blitzer have any authority?

9:08PM: Perry just said (he said this in the last debate too) that he's been the Commander in Chief of 20,000 Texas National Guard troops.  I'm surprised he hasn't declared war on Oklahoma yet.

9:10PM: Perry just suggested making Congress part-time.  Yeah, because that's what we need, a Congress that does even less.  I know everyone right now is thinking Congress does way too much.

9:12PM: Santorum is willing to compromise on anything, as long as it's not raising taxes.  I'm pretty sure you can find a version of that statement on the RNC letterhead.

9:13PM: Question about entitlement reform.  How did we get here?  I thought we were talking about national security.  What is Blitzer doing?  I'm getting frustrated.  Somebody should confiscate Wolf's beard.

9:25PM: Rick Perry promises to shut down the Mexican border.  What does that mean?  How do you shut down a border?  It's not a Walmart.

9:26PM: Ron Paul's talking about how "the federal war on drugs is a total failure", and he just said he's for medical marijuana and treating drugs the way we treat alcohol.  I assume he means dealing with the stupid behaviors that come from abusing them, as opposed to just criminalizing the drugs.  I'm all for all of this.  Blitzer, of course, failed to follow-up, and the rest of the candidates ignored it.  Booooo!

9:30PM: Now Santorum is, once again, plugging his brilliant plan for 0% taxes on manufacturing corporations.  I still don't know how we got here from national security, but since it's an important tradition for all of my debate blogs, this is as good a time as any to point out that Rick Santorum is an idiot.

9:32PM: Newt proposes some kind of panel to decide which illegal immigrants get amnesty and which ones don't, including subtly suggesting (twice) that immigrants who belong to a church get to stay.  So...religiously based death panels for immigrants...got it.

9:34PM: Blitzer repeats Newt's idea that belonging to a church would be an important part of getting to stay here as an immigrant.  If only there were some kind of moderator at this debate to find out why the hell that would be a consideration.  Too bad.

9:36PM: We seem to be having a serious disagreement about kicking out most of the illegal immigrants or all of the illegal immigrants.  Perry had to step in as the voice of reason (yeah, seriously), pointing out that we would have to secure the border before a meaningful immigration policy would work.  Unfortunately, it still sounds like Rick wants to secure the border with predator drones.  So, half credit I guess.

9:44PM: Lots of great beards at this debate.  Just saying.

9:46PM: I'm becoming concerned that we might get through this whole debate without hearing about Cain's 999 plan.  What happened to you pizza man?  You used to be fun.

9:47PM: Perry suggests a no-fly zone over Syria as a way to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.  Um...OK.  Either Rick knows more about the middle east than I thought or he thinks Iran and Syria are the same country.  I'd say it's 50/50.

9:49PM: Huntsman says we need to be careful about taking sides in conflicts we don't fully understand (yes!), but then says our only interest in the middle east is Israel (arrgh!). 

9:50PM: Ron Paul suggests we should treat other countries the way we want to be treated.  Mitt quickly counters by making sure everyone understands that America is special and we can do whatever we want and just blow stuff up if other countries don't like it.  Mitt's always a puzzle because you never know if he actually believes anything he's saying. 

9:55PM: I think we're all in agreement that everyone's first trip abroad as President would be to Israel.  Except Ron, who, I assume, would never leave the country.

9:56PM: Perry says China is "not a country of virtues".  Way to grasp the nuance of foreign policy there Rick.

9:57PM: Cain says he was a ballistics analyst early in his career.  Do pizza companies have weapons?  Why didn't I know this?  Are the weapons pepperoni-based?

Once again, no closing statements.  That's always a missed opportunity to hear some stupid nonsense, but I guess we'll have to live without it.  Until next time, just remember, Newt Gingrich is leading the polls, so you probably want to start looking at houses in Canada, just in case.

Not Ready For Prime Time

I'm looking forward to this a little.  Why?  This is the first time these candidates have debated on a network, and I found out this debate is only an hour long.  To me, that says they may try to dumb it down a little, for the broader audience and with less time to talk.  What happens when the likes of Bachmann, Perry and Gingrich try to dumb themselves down?  I don't know, but I think it's certainly possible the vortex of stupidity could open up a portal to another dimension.  Granted, it would be a very stupid dimension, but still, I think, worth seeing.

Why is this one only an hour?  I can only surmise that CBS figured some of these people would be able to muster some dignity by now, or borrow some from a friend, and stop embarrassing themselves...I'm looking at you Rick Santorum.  Actually wait, I shouldn't say that.  Rick Santorum isn't an embarrassment to himself so much as he's an embarrassment to America and the entire human race. 

8:00PM: CBS started the debate with what I have to describe as a montage of the craziest things each candidate has said in all the previous debates.  I think these people deserve to be mocked as much as anyone, but, honestly, that seemed like a low blow.

8:01PM: One of the moderators just said this debate would last 90 minutes, so I've got conflicting reports on length now.  Maybe they'll just do the last 30 minutes off camera since everybody will have tuned out by then anyway.

8:04PM: Confirmation that the first 60 minutes will take place on TV, while the last 30 minutes will happen on the internet.  CBS doesn't have 90 minutes to dedicate to electing the leader of the free world, they have very important NCIS reruns to broadcast.

8:06PM: Herman Cain suggested helping the opposition movement in Iran, but not militarily.  I guess he's planning to send them juice boxes and lunchables and what-not.

8:07PM: Romney calls Iran President Obama's "greatest failure", then promises that if he's elected President, Iran will never have nuclear weapons.  I'm almost willing to vote for him just to see him fail.

8:09PM: Gingrich just proposed taking out certain Iranian capabilities in a way that is "covert and deniable".  I'm not sure he meant to say that out loud, that wasn't very covert.

8:10PM: Ron Paul finally sets us straight by pointing out that war with Iran would be stupid, and that the President can't just go to war on his own.  If I could elect Ron just to run foreign policy, I would sprint to the voting booth to do it.

8:13PM: Santorum suggests neutering the taliban.  I'd like to suggest neutering Rick Santorum. 

8:16PM: Bachmann's main point about Afghanistan - everything good that happens can be attributed to our troops, everything bad that happens is the President's fault.  And really, that's a pretty good summation of the Repubilcan party platform.  Well done, Congresswoman.

8:17PM: Huntsman says it's time to come home from Afghanistan...saying "I don't wanna be nation building in Afghanistan when this nation (America) needs to be built".  See?  I told you he may not be a moron.

8:19PM: I think Newt wants to go to war with Pakistan too.  I guess, in Newt's mind, the sight of him as President will be enough to convince millions more Americans to enlist in the military so we can fight all the wars Newt wants to start.

8:21PM: When asked if Pakistan is a friend or foe, Cain says "we don't know".  Well Herman, I know you don't know, but that doesn't mean we don't know.

8:22PM: Perry got a similar question and totally dodged it, possibly because he doesn't know what Pakistan is.  Then he says the foreign aid budget in his administration would start at "zero dollars" for every country.  I have a feeling Israel's budget would find it's way up from zero pretty quickly.

8:25PM: Bachmann just placed Pakistan in the middle east.  I feel like that's a stretch, but OK.  I would probably accept that from someone I didn't think was an idiot, but I have a feeling Bachmann defines "middle east" as anywhere muslims live. 

8:26PM: Later, Bachmann says it's clear the stage is being set for worldwide nuclear war against Israel.  Don't worry Israel, she's not terribly bright.

8:30PM: I think Santorum just suggested stimulating our economy by selling military hardware to Pakistan, but only after we make friends with them and stuff.

8:34PM: Sounds like Newt said something stupid on the radio yesterday.  When asked about it, his explanation was, "I was on the radio".  It's a well known fact that whatever you say on the radio doesn't count.

8:36PM: Cain's brilliant plan for his administration is to have advisers around him.  That's quite an idea.  He should also consider living in a big white house, and maybe getting some armed guards or something like that.

8:37PM: Santorum very directly promises to only hire people that completely agree with him (proof that he knows he's too stupid to even defend his positions to people who work for him).  Then he says he hopes that the problems he's been hearing about in Iran are actually covert American operations.  Seriously, you guys, shhhhhh!

8:39PM: Question to Perry, what would he do with our nuclear weapons if he eliminated the Department of Energy.  His answer? There are plenty of places in government we could put our nuclear weapons, but he decided not to name any of them.  I guess it's a secret.

8:40PM: Question about Cain's stance on torture.  He says "I do not agree with torture, period...however..." Stop right there!  Nothing comes after period, that's what periods are for.  Cain, of course, went on to reveal that he's actually pro-torture as long as we call it something else.

8:42PM: Bachmann too...everyone loves torture as long as you call it enhanced interrogation.  That's a fun little trick we can thank the Bush administration for.

8:42PM: Ron's turn, go get 'em Ron!

8:43PM: Ron points out that waterboarding is definitely torture, as well as being "immoral" "uncivilized" "illegal" and ineffective.  I think I missed a few too.  As always, Ron's the best.

8:44PM: Huntsman is against torture too.  That won't do him a lot of good after the debate when Perry and Bachmann are waterboarding him just for shits and giggles.

8:46PM: Romney uses one of my least favorite talking points, calling America "exceptional".  This annoys me so much.  We're so happy with ourselves.  I'll vote for anyone who will be honest for five seconds and tell us that we're not really that special.  Why is this important?  Because the people who believe we're somehow entitled to being the greatest country in the world for ever and ever because their imaginary friend said so are the same people who don't see a problem with the destruction of our middle class, and that's not a coincidence.

8:48PM: Perry says the Communist Chinese government will wind up on the ash heap of history.  China may be older than Rick Perry believes the earth is, but I'm sure he's got a fool-proof plan for getting rid of them.

8:51PM: Romney's back to his brilliant idea of having a trade war with China, saying that we're already in a war and they're stealing our jobs.  I love this phrasing, as if China is sneaking over here in the middle of the night with a ski mask on and putting jobs in a big sack and taking them home.  When actually, what's happening is our lovely corporations, whose taxes Mitt and everyone else on stage can't wait to cut, again, are voluntarily moving jobs to China where labor is cheaper and regulation is softer or non-existent.  I'm not sure stealing is the most exact description, but it certainly sounds the most scary.

8:52PM: Huntsman, the guy who worked in China, is happy to point out that Mitt is just flat wrong, and then he used a weird word I hadn't heard yet in these debates...diplomacy?  Is that how you spell it?  Most of the other candidates looked as puzzled as I am.  Is that some kind of fancy way of saying war?

8:56PM: Ohhhh, a twitter question! Fun! The question was, would Israel's foreign aid budget also start at zero.  Perry says yes, but then says not really, because Israel is "a special ally".  I don't have anything against Israel, it just annoys me that idiots can get votes from other idiots by pretending to give a crap about Israel.

8:59PM: TV time is over now, let's see if I can find the rest online. 

9:00PM: Hey! It's working!

9:01PM: First internet question - should we increase military spending?

9:02PM: Bachmann takes the long way to saying that she's all for cutting military spending, as long as by cutting military spending you mean repealing Obamacare.

OK, screw this.  I don't know what CBS is up to, but their debate feed was cutting out on every third word, making these candidates even more incoherent than usual.  I tried, but I'll have to settle for two-thirds of tonight's debate and I'll just have to guess at what happened in the last half hour.  One guess for each candidate:

Perry: Let's say he finally fell asleep this time.
Romney: Said something arrogant while smirking.
Paul: Suggested putting an end to something government is currently doing.
Bachmann: Said the word Obamacare 13 more times.
Cain: 999 999 999 999 999 999 999 999
Huntsman: Said something reasonable and got booed for it.
Santorum: Lit his podium on fire after someone told him a "gay" had touched it earlier.
Newtster: Bitched about the questions (which he's apparently required by law to do at least once per debate).

Insert Generic Herman Cain Joke Here

So much has happened since we last heard from our Republican friends.  Rick Perry showed up in New Hampshire, seemingly drunk or stoned or something.  Herman Cain made the difficult journey from amusing fake candidate to creepy old guy.  Now he's like Bill Clinton without the intelligence, or ideas, or accomplishments, or likability.  Cain and Newt apparently had their own little pretend time debate that nobody saw or cared about. 

Most importantly, I went a whole week without power or heat or hot water.  And, to be honest, that's left me in a bit of a foul mood, and I can't wait to make fun of some stupid people.  Let's get to it.

Tonight's debate is being hosted by CNBC.  Looks like Jim Cramer will be asking some questions, I'm looking forward to this.

8:00PM: Everything Herman Cain says sounds dirty now.  I'll miss you, pizza man.

8:03PM: I always think it's funny that all the other candidates get introduced by their current or former titles (Governor Huntsman, Congresswoman Bachmann, etc), but when they get to Cain, it's just Mr. Cain. 

8:05PM: Cain just declared Italy "beyond the point of return".  Somebody should tell the Italians he has no idea what he's talking about before they panic.

8:07PM: Romney doesn't think the US should be setting up a "TARP-like" program to bail out Italian banks.  Is somebody suggesting that?  What is Mitt talking about?

8:08PM: Cramer starts his first question by yelling loudly at the candidates and asking Ron Paul if he would really just let Italy fail.  Ron would let pretty much anything fail, as he just made clear.  I think he just suggested liquidating Italy...I may have missed some words there.

8:10PM: This is fun, Cramer will not take no for an answer on Italy.  He's basically telling them what the right answer is, but they still won't say it.  Other than my man Ron, they won't even address it.

8:12PM: I could swear I just heard Romney use the phrase "gay market share".  That can't be right, I need to focus.

8:13PM: I don't know who these people running the debate are, so we'll just call them Question Dude and Question Lady. 

8:13PM: Question Dude just asked Romney why Republicans should believe he has any actual principles.  He responded with a barrage of talking points and a promise to never apologize for the United States of America.  So there.

8:16PM: Question Lady just asked Newt why tax reform is the path to job creation?  Are you kidding me?  That's like asking these people to explain how gay people are destroying the family.  They can't explain it, it's just an article of faith:
Step 1: Tax Cuts
Step 2: Magical Things Happen
Step 3: Jobs

8:19PM: Bachmann just squeezed all of her talking points into one answer.  It had everything...tax cuts, repealing Obamacare, magic Mexico border fence.  She should have finished by dropping her mic and walking off the stage.

8:20PM: Santorum continues to defend his proposed 0% tax on manufacturing corporations.  Then he said "some people talk about trade wars with China", as if he disagrees with that.  Like two debates ago, Santorum said he doesn't want to have a trade war with China, he wants to win a trade war with China.  As always, Rick Santorum sucks.

8:22PM: Cain's defense for his sexual harassment charges?  For every woman that says he harassed her, he could produce 1,000 women who would say he didn't.  That's pretty air tight..."well, your honor, maybe this one guy says I murdered him, but I could show you a whole courtroom full of people who would say I haven't murdered them...yet."

8:25PM: Huntsman just opposed the auto bailout in Michigan.  That's balls right there.  Stupid balls, but still.

8:26PM: Important point about how Republicans see the economy.  Cramer asked Romney if corporations should focus on job creation or on creating profit for shareholders.  Romney said they go hand in hand, so did Perry...no they don't!  You can keep the money and give it to your shareholders, or you can use it to create more jobs.  Yes, more profitable corporations have more money to re-invest in jobs, but that's only helpful if they actually do that at some point.

8:27PM: Perry suggests planting "a big ole flag in the middle of America that says 'Open for Business Again'".  Well, that should do it.

8:28PM: Newt thinks it's sad that the media doesn't accurately report how the economy works in his imagination. 

8:29PM: Cramer seems genuinely amused by these morons.

8:32PM: Cain is still pushing his hilarious 999 plan.  Question Lady asked him how he would guarantee the rates would stay at 9%.  In Herman's mind, people love his 999 plan so much, that they'll never let politicians mess with it.

8:34PM: Romney - "The Obama economy has really crushed middle income Americans".  I don't want to get too technical here, but, in the business, we call that bullshit.

8:35PM: Michele Bachmann's tax plan? "I have everyone paying something".  I'd go for paying "something" as a tax rate.  Where do I sign up?

8:37PM: Ron Paul is suggesting the market should determine interest rates, not the Fed chairman.  He's not suggesting lower or higher rates, just rates determined by the market.  Question Lady is not getting it.  Ron seems frustrated.

8:46PM: Perry makes the blanket Republican point that regulations are killing America.  He suggests doing away with every regulation that isn't creating jobs.  Right, because that's the only thing in the whole world that matters.  Child labor laws don't create jobs.  In fact, they destroy jobs, millions of tiny little adorable jobs.  I wonder how Rick feels about them.

8:49PM: Newt says he warned Freddie Mac not to give out bad loans to people who couldn't pay them back.  I can't believe they didn't listen to him, just look how big his head is.

8:51PM: Cain says he would solve the problem with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by not starting them in the first place.  Does Herman Cain have a time machine?  Why hasn't he mentioned this before?  Why doesn't he go back and tell himself not to harass those women?

8:53PM: Question Dude asked Huntsman if he would break up the big banks.  Huntsman says he would "right size" them.  Question Dude asked what he meant by that, and he said something about making the banks set up some kind of fund to mitigate the risk that they would otherwise be passing on to the taxpayers.  That sounds like a non-moronic idea, but it also kinda sounds like a tax.  Luckily for Huntsman, nobody else on the stage was smart enough to figure that out, or they weren't paying attention.

8:57PM: We're doing a thing now where every candidate gets 30 seconds to talk about health care.  I can sum up the Republican health care position in two seconds - "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

8:58PM: Romney suggests health care should work like a market.  Why?  Why is that automatically better?  Not everything can be fixed by the magic of the free market.

8:58PM: Question Lady has been subtly but effectively interrupting Newt every time he starts bitching about the questions.  This time, when he kept bitching, she interrupted with "would you like to try to answer a question about health care tonight or not".  I like her, I should learn her name. 

9:01PM: Santorum just gave us a brief history of all the things he did back in the 90's.  Ya know, back when people gave a shit about Rick Santorum.

9:05PM: Ron Paul says bailing out Europe would be "a real tragedy." I'm not sure tragedy is the word he was looking for.

9:12PM: The CEO of Caterpillar (who got to ask a question for some reason) just asked how they will put party aside and compromise for the good of the country.  Santorum finds a way to suggest that his 0% tax rate for manufacturing corporations is somehow a big compromise.  I'm not sure compromise means what Rick thinks it means.

9:15PM: Romney just criticized the President for only worrying about his re-election.  Yeah!  Mitt Romney would never just say anything people wanted to hear just to get elected!  Wait, did I say never?  I meant to say Mitt Romney constantly does that.

9:16PM: Perry just spent a full minute failing to remember the third government agency (I think he meant Cabinet Department) that he would get rid of.  Education, Commerce and...something.  We never found out what the third one was.  If you go back through the tape, you can see the exact moment when it went from funny to sad.

9:20PM: Newt just accused Lyndon Johnson of faking a balanced budget in 1969.  Yeah! Fuck Lyndon Johnson!  Seriously, what's going on here?

9:21PM: Romney just said he won't raise taxes four different ways in about 9 seconds.  This gets close to the heart of the problem.  We should have two parties arguing over what the appropriate tax rate is.  The problem is, for one of the parties, the appropriate tax rate is just "lower". 

9:25PM: Huntsman just said we have a real trust problem in this country with our institutions.  In a related story, let's go back to our debate where 8 leading presidential candidates tell us why we can't trust the government to do anything.

9:27PM: Ron Paul says the student loan program has failed and given students more debt and a worse education.  First of all, I work in higher education.  I could give you 100 reasons why students aren't getting better educations at colleges, and none of them have anything to do with student loans.  Secondly, failed at what? 

Here's the thing about student loans.  The fact that students borrow so much money to go to school allows colleges and universities to explode costs, because nobody expects to actually be able to afford college on their own anymore.  It's a crappy system, but you can't put the horse back in the barn.  Like housing, college is insanely expensive now, and we can't go back.  What we can do is find a way to create quality entry level jobs across a variety of industries so college becomes a good investment again, and that's why I'm proposing my 999 plan for...wait a minute!

9:31PM: Perry just remembered the third department he was trying to think of before...Energy!  Man, I'm so glad he remembered, that would have kept me up all night.

9:38PM: Wait, I'm confused.  Is Barack Obama killing jobs, or is China killing jobs?  Or is Barack Obama secretly Chinese?

9:40PM: Newt suggested yielding to Huntsman on the China question because, ya know, he used to work there and stuff.  An actual coherent thought from Newt, now I've seen everything.

9:42PM: Hunstman just accused Romney of pandering by suggesting punishing China with tariffs and calling them currency manipulators.  He brought up a good point, when we do it, it's "quantitative easing", when China does it, it's "currency manipulation".  Mitt responded by pandering some more.

9:43PM: Bachmann just accused China of building 3,000 miles of underground tunnels to house their nuclear weapons.  These people all know that everyone already knows China has nuclear weapons, right?  Is Bachmann surprised by this?  If I had nuclear weapons, I'd probably keep them underground too.  Those things are dangerous.

9:45PM: Cramer asked Cain a question that started with him specifically telling Cain that 999 is not an answer to the question.  Cain took 30 seconds to get to his 999 plan anyway.  Cramer is now lecturing Cain about why he's wrong.  Can we get Jim at every debate?  I can't tell anymore if he's genuinely amused or if he's five seconds away from killing everyone.

9:48PM: I've said this before, but it's worth repeating.  Rick Perry has a habit of starting sentences without knowing where he's going to end up.  It's like listening to a four year old tell you about his day, just a bunch of little strings of unrelated words, punctuated by strange facial expressions.

9:50PM: Ron Paul finished the debate by talking about crony capitalism while the other candidates hid behind their podiums.

Well, that was fun.  Quick programming note...there appears to be a debate this Saturday.  On one hand, watching Republicans isn't exactly my idea of a fun Saturday night.  But on the other hand, most of my friends live four hours away, outside of work people, I really only have one friend in Massachusetts, and I spent all day last Saturday bothering her.  Plus, I do enjoy this.  So, I guess what I'm saying is, the odds of me being here for Saturday's debate are about 50/50 right now.

Ideas for New American Mottos

Sometimes I don't write anything for a while because I'm lazy or I've grown bored with my own sense of humor.  Other times, I don't write anything for a while because I'm stuck without power for a week while my utility company (Western Massachusetts Electric, aka FUCKYOU...err...I mean WMECO) is exploring new depths of incompetence.  I'll let you guess which one of those things is happening now.

By the way, "you" in that last sentence will probably refer to absolutely nobody since I'll be posting this around midnight on a Friday and I doubt anyone will ever read it.  I'm camping out somewhere temporary while I continue to wait for my actual apartment to have power, so I figured why not do this for a little while.

One of the few news items I've been able to pick up this week from the internet and Twitter is Congress finding some time in their busy schedule of not doing anything to re-affirm "In God We Trust" as our official motto.  I could go on and on about all the reasons why this is stupid, but in the interest of time, how about just one?  We've been trusting god for quite a while now, how's that been working out for us lately?  Maybe it's time to trust someone else for a while.  People seem to like this Tim Tebow fellow.

As always, I'm all about problem solving.  You can't just call our current motto stupid and not offer ideas for a better motto. I've got all kinds of ideas:

"In Tebow We Trust"
"First in Religion, 38th in Math"
"Home of the Filibuster"
"Made in China"
"Can We Interest You in An Abandoned Factory?"
"You Know All That Rubble in Your Country? Your Welcome"
"We Can Put Ranch Dressing on Anything"
"Canada's Beard"
"Mexico's Sombrero"
"Fuck Soccer"
"The World Leader in Foul-mouthed Cartoons"
"We Invented David Hasselhoff"
"We Can Has Gunz!"
"More Likely to Believe in Ghosts Than Evolution"
"If You Can Fry It, We Can Eat It"
"The World's Leading Exporter of Explosions"
"Where Christmas Starts on Halloween and Ends on St. Patrick's Day"
"Jesus Works For Us"
"Is George W. Who Home? I'm sorry, I Think You Have a Wrong Number"

I think that's all I've got.  I sure hope I have power by the time the next Republican debate happens.