Kasich/Rubio 2016!

They had another JV debate today, and I definitely didn't watch it.  Listen, if you're in the JV debate the first time, that's not necessarily your fault.  This is round three though.  If you're still at the kiddie table now, you might want to take the hint.  You are not going to be President Rick Santorum.  I'm sorry man.  You too Lindsay Graham.  You seem like a nice guy, but this is where you get off the train.  I'd like to be President, but none of us are going to be and we just need to move on.

7:55PM: During the pre-debate coverage, CNBC announced that Linsday Graham won the JV debate.  That's just sad.  I feel sad for him.

7:56PM: Some CNBC guy spent a couple of minutes fact-checking the claims the JV guys made about how they've cut spending/taxes/government in the past.  Spoiler alert, they were all lying.  Hey other networks...this is a thing you can do.  You should look into it.

7:58PM: Apparently Lindsay Graham is at least a foot shorter than the other three JV guys.

8:03PM: CNBC's pre-debate round-table was a catastrophe.  They constantly talked over each other.  I don't think I ever heard one person just make a point and finish a sentence without someone else interrupting.  It was like a meeting at a nursery school.

8:10PM: If you say the debate starts at 8, you need to start the debate at 8.  I'm already tired and have a headache.  I think the biggest issue with this pre-debate panel is the lack of a moderator.  I think one guy is supposed to be moderating but he's decided he doesn't care.

8:15PM: CNBC's slogan for election coverage appears to be Your Money, Your Vote.  In some ways, that really couldn't sum up our electoral process better.

8:16PM: Did you know weed is legal in Colorado now?  CNBC does, and they won't shut the fuck up about it.

8:17PM: I don't recognize any of the three moderators I'm looking at, but one of them appears to be named John Hardwood.  I assume CNBC poached him from a lucrative career in porn.  Full disclosure, I don't watch a lot of CNBC.

8:19PM: The moderator who reminds me a little of Lou Diamond Phillips started out by asking the candidates what their weaknesses are.  Kasich came out swinging by pointing out how ridiculous many of the policy proposals of his opponents are.

8:20PM: Five candidates in and nobody has a weakness.  Ben was number six, and his attempt at a weakness was "I never saw myself as President until hundreds of thousands of people told me I needed to do it".  I wish I could disconnect my ears from my brain.

8:23PM: Still no weaknesses.  Man, these guys are all so awesome!  Can they all be President??

8:24PM: Porn star just asked Trump if his campaign is a comic book version of a Presidential campaign.  Zing! Trump's answer included "I love the Mexican people...".  President Trump would make a really good movie, right?

8:27PM: These CNBC people seem to actually understand how economics works.  Run Republicans!  It's a trap!

8:30PM: When you listen to Kasich talk, it's hard to believe that even Republican primary voters would refuse to vote for him just because he might not be mean enough to gay people.

8:31PM: Trump says all of Kasich's success in Ohio was due to fracking and that he was personally responsible for Lehman Bros.  Then he made fun of Kasich for being on the end of the stage.  I still think it's possible that Trump is just doing an impression of himself.

8:34PM: Carly says the tax code has too many pages in it.  Republicans complain about this a lot.  This is a big and complicated country, some of the laws we need to run it might get a little complicated.  Carly says the tax code should only be three pages because that's the longest it could be for a business owner to understand it.  I feel like business owners should be a little insulted.

8:37PM: Rubio says he's running for President now because he can't wait and we can't afford another four years like the last eight years.  That's basically the same argument Barack Obama used.  It worked well for Barack and I think it might work for Rubio too.  Rubes has his serious face on tonight.

8:39PM: Bush says Rubio signed up for a six year Senate term and he should do his job.  Rubio says Jeb didn't complain when John McCain missed votes in the Senate to run for President, and the only reason Jeb is attacking him is because they're running for the same position and someone told Jeb he would benefit from attacking Rubio.  Seriously, Marco isn't screwing around tonight.

8:41PM: Jeb was talking for a while so I went to see if it was still raining outside.  It is, pretty hard too.

8:42PM: Question to Carly...why should we hire her since HP fired her?  She says other tech companies did worse than HP did when she was CEO.  That's true, but a pretty low bar for a Presidential candidate.

8:45PM: Cruz answered a question about the current budget deal by attacking the moderators and saying how unfair all the questions have been.  Lou Diamond Phillips openly mocked him halfway through and then when Cruz was finished said "I just want the record to reflect that I asked you about the debt limit".  Cruz then begged for the chance to actually give an answer and Hardwood said no.  I like CNBC.

8:48PM: Rand, who I usually don't hate, is openly advocating for using the debt limit to force other people to do what he wants.  He's literally making an affirmative argument for political brinkmanship.  It's kind of unbelievable.

8:50PM: Christie is pretty smart.  He's using every question to compare his positions to Hillary Clinton's instead of just arguing with these other fools.  I don't know if it'll work for Chris, but it certainly seems like a good plan.

8:52PM: Huck thinks Christie's plan to make some necessary cuts to entitlements before they go bankrupt is punishing people who receive social security, because Huck is basically a giant child.

8:54PM: Cruz wants to privatize social security.  That's not what he said, but that's what he means.

9:00PM: Trump is rambling about Atlantic City and bankruptcy, finishing with "I used the laws of the country to my benefit".  That's the kind of "fuck you" attitude we need in the White House!

9:01PM: Jim Cramer is suddenly here and I'm already pretty exasperated.  He yelled a question about drug company price gouging at Ben Carson.  Ben somehow blamed too much regulation.

9:03PM: Cramer asked Chris if he thinks GM executives should go to jail because of the whole faulty ignition switch thing.  I don't know, I had one of those, I turned out OK.

9:06PM: Carly likes to ask herself questions and then answer them.  I don't like that.

9:08PM: Carly is much better than these other guys at ignoring the moderators when they try to tell her that her time is up.

9:10PM: Rubio is successfully playing the "I didn't come from money" card.  He's really starting to smell like a nominee to me.

9:12PM: OK that's it.  I'm declaring this nomination process over.  The Republican ticket will be some combination of Kasich and Rubio.  I have spoken.

9:13PM: Five seconds after I typed that Kasich proposed a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget.  Unless he also has a time machine to take him back to the 19th century, that's a terrible idea.  Let's all just pretend we didn't hear it.

9:14PM: Cruz loves single moms.  He'd better because we'll have a lot more of them after Ted shuts down Planned Parenthood.

9:15PM: Everything Carly says sounds vaguely angry.  If I knew her in real life I would always think she was mad at me.

9:16PM: Ben says you can be perfectly fair to the gay community while also definitely not allowing them to get married.  Apparently they don't teach you the meaning of "fair" in medical school.

9:17PM: Ben says he had "no relationship" with a company that he "gave a couple of speeches for".  Ummm, again, Ben seems to struggle with the definitions of words.

9:24PM: Rubio is in favor of more vocational training for Americans so they can do the high paying tech jobs that currently go to immigrants on H1 visas.  That's not a terrible idea.

9:26PM: Trump takes his turn complaining about the questions.  Then Rubio complained about the main stream media.  That's annoying but good Republican politics so I can't really blame him.

9:27PM: Rick Santelli just asked a very animated question.  Can somebody settle him down a little bit?  This is a debate, not a wrap party for a high school play.

9:29PM: I think I'm ready to officially give up on Rand.  Just because you can talk for a full minute about the Fed doesn't make you your dad.

9:30PM: Seriously, Santelli sounds like he's doing an infomercial for debate questions.  I have no idea what's going on or why he's here.

9:31PM: Ben doesn't know much, but he knows he hates regulations.  Again though, we have clear evidence that Ben may not know what words mean, so who knows what he's trying to say at this point.

9:32PM: Huck likes analogies and balloons.  I think he may be two six-year-olds in a man suit.

9:33PM: Huck says the economy would do better if we just cured diabetes, Alzheimer's, cancer and heart disease.  Yeah!  Why hasn't anyone else thought of curing those diseases?  Stupid politicians, just give us the diabetes cure already!

9:37PM: Rand wants to know the rules on who gets to follow-up.  He probably should have cleared that up before they went on TV.

9:38PM: Some of the other guys are taking Carly's lead on ignoring the moderators.  Hardwood and Lou Diamond Phillips have lost all control.  The lady in the middle, who I've learned is named Becky, seems to still have a little bit of a handle on it.

9:40PM: Kasich seems to be a big states' rights guy.  This always makes me nervous.  Why not just come up with one good idea instead of giving people 50 different opportunities to do something stupid.

9:44PM: Becky went to Trump's website to prove that he was lying in an earlier answer.  Again, other networks, you have the internet too, you can do things like this.

9:45PM: I'm just picturing these guys trying to negotiate a settlement between Israel and Palestine and constantly complaining about the rules of the negotiation, or crying to Putin about Robert's rules of order.

9:48PM: Hardwood asked Huck if he thinks Trump has the moral authority to bring the country together.  That got a boo from the crowd and I have to say, I agree with them this time.  Stupid question Hardwood, go back to porn.

9:50PM: CNBC has a lot of random guest question askers.  How is three not enough moderators?  Coop basically handled the whole CNN debate on his own.  I like these CNBC people, but why are there 6 of them?

9:54PM: Kasich is advocating for having college students do public service to help pay for college.  This is an interesting idea and an important issue.  Lou Diamond Phillips followed up with a question to Jeb about daily fantasy sports.  I think CNBC should quit while they're ahead.

9:56PM: Christie expressed an appropriate amount of anger over the fantasy football question.  I do like Christie sometimes.  Now he's talking about how climate change is a real thing and mocking Hardwood at the same time.  There are absolutely times when I would vote for Christie.

9:58PM: I have to say, I'm watching Christie talk and realizing that Trump has mostly faded into the background of this debate.  I think we might be at the point we've all been waiting for when Trump turns into a pumpkin.  My sense is he won't go quietly.

9:59PM: I think Rand Paul almost just said fuck.  I really think that just almost happened.

10:03PM: Huck wanted to take another chance to say we should cure diseases.  Can we just stipulate that we all would like to cure diseases?

10:05PM: Trump's economic plan is to "make a really dynamic economy".  He's like a puppet who's ventriloquist has wandered off.  It's just all nonsense now.

10:08PM: I have to stop listening to Ben because he doesn't know what words mean and it makes everything really confusing and a little frustrating.  He was also genuinely funny, even clever, in earlier debates.  He's not doing that tonight.

10:11PM: Marco is pro-mom.  Not all moms, just his mom.

10:12PM: Carly wants to use zero based budgeting for the government.  Way to end the debate.  People need to go to sleep now.

Closing Statements
-Rand likes small government.  Try to hide your surprise.
-Chris hates Washington and loves meatball sandwiches.
-Ted says he stands up against Washington.  He mentioned a lot of things he failed at.
-Carly moves her head a lot when she talks.  She says she will beat Hillary Clinton, possibly with her bare hands.
-Ben thanked the audience for paying attention, and didn't seem to know what to do with his hands.
-Trump says we're losers but he'll make us winners again.
-Rubio says he owes a debt to America he can never repay.
-Jeb says America is at a crossroads.  He then sang that Bone Thugs N Harmony song from beginning to end.  It was hauntingly beautiful.
-Huck said some words.  I've completely given up on Huck.
-Kasich says America is great from the bottom up.

I think Marco and Christie did really well.  Kasich was solid too, but I always think that and nobody ever agrees.  See you next time.

Political Nonsense

I think I need to clarify my concerns about Bernie Sanders a little before we start the first Democratic debate.  I don't actually care what Bernie thinks about guns.  As far as I can tell, there's no gun control law weak enough that Congress would even think about considering passing it, so what the next President thinks about guns would seem to be inconsequential.  We're stuck with guns.  Yay America!

My concern is that Bernie's position on guns is so off-brand for him.  Bernie isn't a talking points machine like Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush, and that's part of his appeal.  He says real stuff.  You might not agree with all of it, but when Chuck Todd asks someone if they're a capitalist and they say no, it's a pretty good bet they're telling the truth and saying something they mean, because why would anyone running for President lie about that.  So, when Bernie talks about guns and I hear the same rambling political nonsense that I hear from everyone else, it feels really suspicious to me.  Why is he such a generic politician on this one issue?  Just because people like to hunt in Vermont?  I don't buy it.

I had a similar experience listening to Donald Trump a couple of weeks ago.  Trump, like Bernie, draws a lot of his appeal from not sounding like a generic politician.  But when Trump announced his economic plan, it was basically the same economic plan Republicans have been shopping for 35 years.  The magic power of tax cuts, paid for by eliminating loopholes. 

Politicians talk about loopholes as though they're some naturally occurring phenomenon.  As if we got to Washington D.C. in the 18th century and we were like "Hey, this looks like a great capitol, but these wild tax code loopholes are growing everywhere.  We can't get rid of them, so we'll just have to incorporate them into our government."  Tax code loopholes have been very intentionally created and the people who created them aren't just going to give them up because we ask nicely.

I expect to hear plenty of political nonsense tonight.  Hillary Clinton has a microphone and she is a category 5 hurricane of talking points.  I'll be interested to see what Bernie does and, as far as the rest of them go, maybe Lincoln Chafee will talk about the metric system again.  Let's get started.

8:31PM - In case you missed it, CNN saved a podium for Joe Biden in case he decided to show up at the last minute.  It's like the Democratic version of Passover.

8:32PM - Tonight's debate is being moderated by Anderson Cooper.  I have no feelings about that.  I don't like it, I don't not like it.  Anderson Cooper.

8:35PM - I tuned in at 8:30 because CNN said the debate started at 8:30.  Now it's 8:35 and I'm watching a commercial about South Africa.  CNN can't even show up on time for its own debate.

8:36PM - CNN just ran a graphic suggesting that this debate will be in keeping with great debate traditions like Lincoln/Douglas.  Settle down CNN.

8:40PM - They're seriously having someone sing the national anthem before the debate.  I need to know if the candidates had the opportunity to veto this idea because if they did, I'm already not voting for any of them.

8:41PM - Also, the person they got to sing the anthem was Sheryl Crow.  That's neither a joke nor a typo.  I have so many questions.  Where did they find Sheryl Crow?  Did they ask other people first?  Doesn't starting the debate with someone from 1994 prove that CNN is in the bag for Hillary?

8:46PM - Cooper started by asking each candidate to do their best Obama impression.  They were all incredibly racist.

8:47PM - Maybe it's just my TV, but Don Lemon appears to be wearing a beach towel cut into the shape of a suit.

8:48PM - Lincoln Chafee's resting facial expression is "goofy smile".  He looks like Shaggy from Scooby Doo.  I don't like his chances, is what I'm saying.

8:50PM - Hey, Jim Webb is here.  Jim was a marine in Vietnam.  I swear if this wasn't Jim's first public appearance since he announced his candidacy he'd be doing great.

8:52PM - Martin O'Malley started by touting his 15 years of executive experience.  OK but that was in Maryland, where the only real city was still on fire last time I heard.  The most brutally realistic drug/crime drama I've ever seen was set in Baltimore and everyone watched it and was like "yeah, seems about right."  I'm not sure this resume bullet is as impressive as Martin thinks it is.

8:54PM - After a few Republican debates it was jarring to hear someone say "thanks to President Obama" non-sarcastically.

8:56PM - Bernie Sanders is pro habitable planet.  It's sad that there's a whole political party that isn't.

8:56PM - When Bernie says he wants to take back our government, he actually tells you who has it.  That's a helpful tip.

8:58PM - Somebody told Hillary Clinton that people don't like it when she sounds angry.  She's going for the Lincoln Chafee permanent goofy smile, but she can't pull it off.

9:01PM - Coop asked Hillary if she'll say anything to get elected.  She gave a long answer, but the short answer is yes.

9:03PM - Bernie says he's going to win because he'll explain to people what a Democratic Socialist is.  I'm not sure Bernie understands how elections work.  Cable news won't stand for just calmly explaining where you stand on issues Bernie.

9:05PM - Coop pushed Bernie on whether or not he considers himself a capitalist.  Bernie said he's not part of the casino capitalism we have now.  I'm disappointed to hear Bernie hedging a little.

9:07PM - Cooper to Chafee "You've been everything but a socialist".  Chafee started saying he's been a block of granite on the issues.  Cooper interrupted saying "it seems like pretty soft granite".  Will Coop be heckling the candidates all night?

9:08PM - Coop made essentially the same point about Baltimore that I just did, without the Wire reference.

9:10PM - O'Malley's defense of his Baltimore record was genuinely interesting.  It made me want to learn more about Martin O'Malley and also crab cakes.

9:11PM - Webb says he's always supported affirmative action for African-Americans because of their unique history, but then he seemed to also be making the argument for affirmative action for white people from the Appalachians if they're poor.  Those two arguments don't really seem to go together.  I don't think white people in Appalachia were ever held as slaves.  To be fair, I'm not up on my Appalachian history.

9:14PM - Sanders just referred to himself in the third person while trying to somehow explain his position on guns.  I heard nothing to assuage my concerns.

9:15PM - Clinton hammered Bernie on guns.  His response was essentially "I'm from a rural state, so you don't understand things about guns New York lady".  Still not buying it.

9:16PM - O'Malley just said he passed gun legislation "not by looking at pollings or looking at what the polls say".  Sounds like Marty skipped debate prep.  Also, Marty has a habit of pointing out people in the audience and telling stories about everyday Americans.  You know how much I hate that.  Having said all that, Marty was really strong with his guns answer.

9:18PM - Bernie made another argument about rural Americans.  Marty went back at Bernie saying "it's not about rural".  I'm officially putting Marty in the maybe column.

9:20PM - Webb says average Americans deserve the right to protect their families...by getting into shoot-outs with criminals one assumes.

9:22PM - Chafee says we need to bring the gun lobby in to find common ground.  Good luck with that Shaggy.

9:23PM - Seriously, it's so weird hearing people say good things about President Obama in a debate.

9:23PM - Bernie just referred to Syria as a quagmire in a quagmire.  That pretty much sums it up.

9:24PM - Bernie says Iraq was the worst foreign policy move in the history of this country (I may be paraphrasing, but I also may not be).  He added..."some people voted for Iraq...cough cough...Hillary...cough cough".

9:24PM - Shaggy is also hammering Hillary on the Iraq vote.  To be fair, Lincoln was a Republican in 2003 so it was a crazy time for everyone.

9:26PM - Clinton..."President Obama made me his Secretary of State after he beat me in a primary because of my Iraq vote...are any of you looking for a Secretary of State?"

9:27PM - Bernie says a no fly zone in Syria is a dangerous idea.  He's probably right about that, but really, everything we do or don't do about Syria at this point is a pretty dangerous idea.  It's like waking up in the morning and finding that someone has filled your apartment with poisonous snakes.  There's really no good move at that point.

9:29PM - I'm no Hillary fan, but man, all of these guys were so right about Iraq in 2003.  Too bad none of them were able to do anything about it.  These guys need to take it down a notch or two.  There are five people on the stage, none of them were able to come anywhere close to stopping us from going into Iraq.

9:32PM - Webb is openly arguing with Cooper about the debate rules.  He also says that the biggest foreign policy focus in his administration would be China, and they don't own the South China Sea.  Sadly, I don't own the South China Sea either.  Webb sounds a little Trumpy to me sometimes.

9:33PM - I'm pretty sure Coop just caught Bernie not paying attention to the foreign policy discussion.  Focus up, Bernie!  People who don't like Hillary are counting on you!

9:36PM - Webb's a marine and I'm concerned that Coop might disappear during the first break.

9:37PM - Webb says you can't get to the Tripoli airport today.  Jim has a habit of wandering off the point, maybe this is why he doesn't do a lot of TV.

9:38PM - This whole thing about Sanders being a conscientious objector during Vietnam seems like a stupid question.  Wouldn't a President who isn't inclined to go running into war be a good thing?

9:40PM - Can we have a mid-debate elimination of Lincoln?  He's just getting in the way at this point.

9:41PM - Bernie says our greatest national security concern is climate change.  I'm not saying he's wrong, but I am saying that I'm becoming increasingly concerned that Bernie would get slaugthered in a general election. 

9:49PM - Bernie backs Hillary up on the email issue, saying that the American people are tired of hearing about Hillary's emails.  This whole exchange ended with Hillary thanking Bernie and doing her whole maniacal laugh thing.  For the record, I still think it's a real issue.

9:50PM - Shaggy thinks it's a real issue too.  Cooper asked Hillary if she wanted to respond to Shaggy, she said no.  We've all dismissed Lincoln at this point.

9:51PM - Coop wanted to talk about issues of race, so he went to Don Lemon for the first time.  CNN!

9:52PM - Do black lives matter or do all lives matter?  I saw Eric Bolling suggest that question on The Five today.  Good job CNN.  We all hate you.

9:53PM - Marty says if we were burying poor white kids in the same numbers that we're burying poor black kids, we'd have a very different response in this country.  Obvious point, but still true.  Marty is really growing on me.  I wish news people would have stopped talking about Trump for five minutes and introduced me to Marty before now.

9:54PM - Webb can't stop himself from complaining about the amount of time he's getting.

9:56PM - Bernie says we need to create millions of jobs by rebuilding infrastructure, raising the minimum wage to $15, creating pay equity for women and making college free.  I don't object to any of those things.

9:57PM - Hillary wants every American to have the opportunities her and Bill did.  That's sounds a little unrealistic.

9:58PM - Put Marty down for reinstating Glass-Steagall.  Put Hillary down for not doing that.  She says she's for letting regulators break up big banks if we think they pose a risk.  I think they pose a risk.  Is that good enough?

10:01PM - Hillary says she told Wall Street to "cut it out" in 2007.  How'd that go?

10:03PM - Marty is hammering Hillary on not supporting Glass-Steagall.

10:04PM - Hillary..."I didn't take a position on Keystone until I took a position on Keystone".  Yikes.  Then she said her and Barack Obama crashed a meeting with the Chinese in 2009.  That sounds like the worst Hangover movie ever.

10:06PM - These people love telling stories about things they said that nobody listened to.

10:07PM - Cooper to Webb..."you agreed to these rules and you're wasting time".  I'd like to watch a sitcom in which Cooper and Webb have to live together in a studio apartment.

10:07PM - Chafee's answer to why he voted to get rid of Glass-Steagall was that he had just arrived in the Senate and his dad had just died.  It's like he's trying to lose.

10:09PM - While Lincoln was talking I was just thinking about how often I'll imagine a Martin O'Malley/John Kasich election while I'm listening to Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio argue about nonsense next Fall.

10:10PM - Dana Bash asked Bernie if he'd want free college for wealthy kids.  That feels like a stupid and unnecessarily divisive question, and Bernie answered it just fine.

10:11PM - Clinton..."I fully support social security", she added "I mean, that's what those pollsters over there told me I think".

10:12PM - Bernie supports social security too, but he's a socialist so that's not really a surprise.

10:13PM - CNN brought in an Hispanic guy to ask about immigration reform.  Seriously CNN, we all hate you.

10:15PM - Does Hillary Clinton want to open up Obamacare to undocumented immigrants and their children?  She talked for a minute and I'm not really sure.  I guess "sort of" was her answer.  That seems to be her position on a lot of things.

10:16PM - Same question to Jim Webb.  His answer after a pretty long pause..."I wouldn't have a problem with that".  I'm going to put Jim down for a "no, but I still think I can win so I don't really want to say that right now".

10:20PM - Talking about the Patriot Act now.  Lincoln's excuse for voting for bad bills seems to be "lots of other people did it too so leave me alone".

10:23PM - O'Malley on Edward Snowden..."whistle blowers don't run to Russia and seek protection from Putin".  That's basically what Hillary was saying, but she spent a minute not really saying it and Marty said it clearly in about 8 seconds.  Somebody get me every available piece of information about Martin O'Malley.

10:25PM - Chafee would change our approach to the middle east by not bombing hospitals and weddings anymore.  I think we all agree on that.  I'm fairly certain Barack Obama isn't aiming for hospitals.

10:25PM - Clinton on how she'd be different from President Obama...she has lady parts.  Coop immediately quipped "Is there a policy difference?".  One point for Coop.

10:26PM - Bernie said we need a revolution.  Webb responded by saying he has respect for Bernie, but he doesn't think a revolution is coming and he doesn't think Congress will pay for a lot of the things Bernie wants to do.  Solid points from Jim.

10:35PM - Hillary says she's not asking people to vote for her based on her last name.  True, that's really more of an implicit argument than an overt thing she's asking for.

10:36PM - Bernie pointed out his lack of a Super PAC.  Bernie pronounces Super PAC the same way your grandma pronounces Facebook.  Not exactly wrong, but not exactly right either.

10:37PM - Marty wants a 100% clean energy grid by 2050.  That seems like a long time from now.

10:38PM - Jim points out that we can't solve climate change by just fixing America.  I've made this point before.  Climate moves around.  You can't just stop burning coal in the United States and then everything's fine.

10:39PM - Bernie points out that fossil fuels are funding the Republican party.  To be fair, they're funding a good portion of the Democratic party too.

10:40PM - Hillary is telling her Hangover 4: Crashing the China Meeting story again.

10:41PM - Hillary says that paid family leave in California hasn't resulted in all the problems Republicans always say will come with paid family leave.  She followed up by pointing out that Republicans don't mind big government when it's telling women want to do about health care.  Alright, one point for Hillary.

10:44PM - Bernie "suspects" he would vote yes on recreational marijuana.  He followed with good points about the criminal justice system, but I got hung up on "suspect".  If Bernie has a suspicion about where he stands on marijuana, I know a guy he can ask to confirm it.

10:46PM - Is Hillary ready to take a position on marijuana now?  No, no she is not.

10:47PM - Bernie's plan for how to get Republicans to do stuff seems flawed.  Just get lots of people to ask them.  I feel like he's skipping a couple of steps.

10:52PM - Coop asked them all which political enemy are they most proud of making:
Shaggy - The Coal Lobby
Marty - The NRA (score another point for Marty)
Hillary - Of course she couldn't just give a straight answer
Bernie - Wall St. and the Pharmaceutical industry
Webb - An enemy soldier that threw a grenade at him

10:54PM - Marty's closing statement was killer.  I'm declaring him the clear winner, which probably means he'll drop out tomorrow.

Less is Nothing

I came into the 2016 campaign thinking of Ben Carson as one of the smart guys in the Republican field.  He made a living operating on brains, which I'm given to believe is somewhat challenging.  I never expected him to know things about public policy or foreign policy, having never worked in government, but I thought he'd be good at common sense things and thinking on his feet.  Don't surgeons have to literally think on their feet?  Shouldn't quick decisiveness be a strength for a brain surgeon?  I feel like if something went wrong during my brain surgery, Dr. Ben would decide what to do about it halfway through my autopsy.  He's like a glacier with glasses.  But, even though it seems like Ben really REALLY thinks before he speaks, he still says things that make no sense to anyone.

In case you missed it, Ben decided he needed to go on TV and comment on the latest episode of America's longest running reality show "Lots of People Get Shot for No Particular Reason".  Like Survivor, it was never really a good show, but we have no intention of cancelling it.  Anyway, Ben figures that if he were ever confronted with a gunman, he would just rally everyone in the room to attack the gunman and stop him.  As far as I can tell, here's how Ben's fantasy plays out:

Scene: Dr. Ben is teaching a class about brains or whatever when suddenly a guy in a black jacket busts in with an assault rifle.

Ben: Hello Sir!  Do you intend to shoot all of us?
Gunman: Yes, that's the plan.
Ben: OK, can you give me a minute to rally all of these unarmed people to attack and stop you?
Gunman: Sure, that sounds fair, I'll just hang out here in the doorway for a minute.
Ben: OK everybody, out of your chairs, we're going to stop this gunman!
Student #1: Ummm, I'd really rather just sit here and maybe not get shot.
Student #2: Agreed.  Your plan seems flawed since he has a gun and we're unarmed.
Student #3: Yeah, I like being alive and if I just run at the guy with the gun, he's probably going to shoot me.
Ben: NO! NO!  You guys don't get it.  If you all run at him, some of you will probably die, but some of you might not.
Student #2: Yeah, we're definitely not doing that.
Ben: Excuse me, Mr. Gunman.  Could you give me a little more time with this? These people aren't really understanding the plan.
Gunman: Alright dude, but like, three more minutes.  I really need to get started with this.

And scene.

Now, to be honest, I don't really care what Ben thinks or says because Ben isn't going to be President and I already knew that.  Still, I was struck by the fact that Ben's solution to a mass shooting still involves a few innocent people dying, just not as many.  I've had this same concern for a while about the standard Republican response to mass shootings (most Republicans are smart enough to at least avoid suggesting that the victims were just too cowardly to live, I thought Ben was smarter than that too).

Usually, after one of these tragedies, Republicans will go on TV to talk about it.  After they get done sending thoughts and prayers, and before they get to the part where they accuse anyone talking about gun control of exploiting a tragedy for political reasons, they opine about how this all could have been prevented by a good guy with a gun.  What a wonderful world it would be if we were all constantly surrounded by armed vigilantes with itchy trigger fingers.  Everyone knows the best part of the old west was the constant possibility of being hit by a stray bullet.  Free lead everyone!

Also, Republicans have fantasies in which they play the role of Clint Eastwood, but most people aren't capable of just shooting someone.  That's why cops and military people need a lot of training, and frequently need a lot of counseling after they shoot someone.  That's why every time one of these shootings happens we talk about mental illness.  Killing someone is harder than Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina imagine it being, probably because they're both sociopaths. 

Any time someone opens fire on a group of people, even if there's a decently trained armed citizen in the crowd, a few people are going to get shot before the gunman does.  We can't shoot people before they start shooting other people unless Ben Carson is also working on a pre-crime division for the FBI (and I really hope he is, I would just like to see Rand Paul's reaction).  Sometimes these things happen in movie theaters.  Does a shoot-out between a crazy person and a vigilante in a dark theater really sound like a good idea to you?

While we're here, this is a little off topic, but let's quickly dispatch with another stupid argument.  I've heard politicians argue that we don't talk about knife control after a stabbing.  Yes, if you want to kill one person you can use almost anything you want if you're creative enough.  But if you want to kill 10 people in 3 minutes before the cops get there, a knife or a hammer won't get the job done.  Also, knives have other legitimate uses and guns are really only used for shooting stuff.  Anyway...

I don't think we should be willing to accept "less innocent people dying" as a valid goal.  That may be a realistic outcome, but I think we have to demand "zero innocent people dying" as the actual goal and work backwards from there.  I'm not saying ban all guns.  People already have them.  I also don't want to walk through a metal detector every time I go anywhere, although I feel like that's where we might wind up and I guess I can handle that if I have to.  Come to think of it, I already made a proposal http://somethingclever13.blogspot.com/2012/07/hunting-is-stupid.html

What I'm asking for is better leadership.  When you're talking about innocent people dying, less is meaningless.  I want a Presidential candidate with a proposal to get us to zero.  Why don't we demand a higher bar for our candidates?  I made this point on another topic recently.  In a country of 320 million people, only one of us has to be in charge at a time.  Is it too much to ask for one person with a new idea?