Tough Talk

One quick thing before we start tonight's festivities.  I heard that Jeb Bush recently said he would kill baby Hitler.  I really can't think of a better example of everything that's wrong with our political process and the people we have to choose from to pick a President.

Here's this guy, Jeb.  He's trying to get us to elect him to a very complicated job with lots of difficult decisions.  When faced with the prospect of an infant who is eventually going to grow up to kill millions of people, his first reaction is "Well, I had better get busy murdering that infant!".  Given all the possible courses of action in that situation, Jeb immediately selected the least rational, most violent decision possible.  Not even a thought like "Hey, I bet if we start now we could make sure that baby grows up to live a productive life instead of becoming Hitler" or "Hey, we have like 40 years to make sure Germany doesn't devolve into the kind of place that produces Hitler".  Nope, just right to "Somebody fetch me my baby stabbing knife!".

This is such a perfect example of the way we've conditioned Presidential candidates to behave.  All tough talk and soundbites, no actual thoughts.  I understand regular people joke about using a time machine to kill Hitler all the time, but this guy is running for President.  I wish he had taken the opportunity to show us that he understands world history at a higher-than-3rd-grade level.  The only thing that surprises me is that he hasn't shot up in the polls.  Republicans really have given up on Jeb.

Tonight's debate is being hosted by Fox Business Network.  The existence of Fox Business Network has always troubled me a little.  I get the conservative argument for Fox News.  The media is liberal, it needs a conservative counterbalance.  OK.  But CNBC isn't exactly anti-business.  CNBC has roughly the same relationship with big business that ESPN has with the NFL.  They may try to be tough when they think nobody is looking, or when they feel like they have to, but for the most part, ESPN needs the NFL to exist, and CNBC needs big business.  So what does the conservative counterbalance to a network that's already mostly in the tank for big business look like?  Honestly, I've never bothered to find out, but maybe I'll get a little taste of it tonight.

9:00PM: The FBN intro just referred to Wisconsin as "the cradle of American industry".  That doesn't sound right.  Something about cheese seems closer to the mark.

9:02PM: Tonight's moderators are Neil Cavuto, Maria Bartiromo and Jean-Luc Picard.  Neil is like a less charismatic Sean Hannity.  I know that doesn't sound possible, but it is.

9:05PM: At the end of his explanation of the purpose of tonight's debate Neil paused for applause that never came.  Classic.

9:06PM: Neil asked Trump if he's sympathetic to the people who want to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr.  Trump said "I can't be".  Not even a no, he physically can't be.  Trump appears to believe that wages in America are too high.

9:08PM: Carson also opposed a higher minimum wage because he thinks it'll make jobs go away.  A job that doesn't pay you enough to feed yourself seems like it isn't really worth saving, but whatever.

9:10PM: Rubio correctly pointed out that every country has rich people but the middle class is what makes America great.  He neglected to mention how his buddy Reagan destroyed the middle class, I'm sure he'll get to it later.  He added "we need more welders and less philosophers".  Everyone knows Republicans hate thinking.

9:12PM: Kasich started out by sort of sounding a little bit like he doesn't hate the idea of raising the minimum wage.  He sort of circled back to it at the end by saying that just looking the other way (away from people at the bottom) isn't acceptable.  You can see why I don't hate this guy, right?  I would gladly vote for Kasich over Hillary Clinton.  I would also gladly vote for a cheese sandwich over Hillary Clinton, so I guess that doesn't really say much about John.

9:16PM: Why is Ted Cruz still here?  Honestly.  Have you noticed that Congressional Republicans keep endorsing Rubio?  You know why?  Because the only people who hate Cruz more than Democrats are Congressional Republicans.  He's not a serious person.  He's a crazy idiot.  He's currently talking about locusts and Calvin Coolidge.  And he still looks like a muppet.

9:19PM: Jeb is for repealing every rule that Barack Obama ever made.  Yeah!  That's how Presidencies work!  When you replace a guy, just repeal all of his bullshit and start from scratch.  Luckily, even Jeb isn't voting for Jeb at this point.

9:21PM: Picard asked Carly how she'll respond when people point out that the last two Democratic Presidents added lots of jobs while the last Republican President really didn't do much of that.  Carly responded with talking points about how politicians are bad, and also her plan for a three page tax code.  Carly goes in the not a serious person category.  Sorry Carly, I don't like making you hang out with Ted, but you did this to yourself.

9:24PM: Rand says we should look for root causes for income inequality.  His suggested root cause appears to be Democrats.  And also the Fed.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, Rand's ability to talk about the Fed for a solid minute doesn't make him his dad.

9:29PM: Cavuto was happy to affirm Ben's assertion that nobody ever scrutinized Barack Obama when he ran for President, because Fox.  Ben says he's an honest person.  I think that's probably true, but I'm still not voting for him.

9:32PM: Trump criticized Barack Obama for using executive orders.  Yeah!  How dare he do things he's empowered to do!  Jerk!

9:33PM: Trump says walls work, just ask Israel.  Glad to hear that Trump's vision for a perfect U.S./Mexico border is based on the relationship between Israel and Palestine.  That sounds fun for Texas.

9:34PM: Kasich just called the argument about sending illegal immigrants home "silly" and "not an adult argument".  He actually got solid applause for that.  The Wisconsin crowd seems a little iffy about Trump.

9:35PM: Kasich is running the table right now.  He's going to talk whenever he feels like it and you can't stop him.  And Trump gets more boos than cheers every time he attacks Kasich.  This is a fun group.

9:37PM: Jeb is also for not deporting 11 million people.  You can see Jeb and Kasich trying to position themselves as the adults on the stage.  Trump remains quite happy to play the petulant 9 year old.

9:38PM: I can't blame Rubio for staying out of the immigration conversation.  One immigration bill almost destroyed his whole career.

9:39PM: Rubes keeps saying we have an outdated higher education system.  Hey!  I have feelings you know!

9:40PM: Cruz is for raising the retirement age as younger workers get to retirement age.  Where's Huckleberry to cry about this?  Was he in the JV debate?  Poor Huck.

9:41PM: Cruz thinks Democrats would care more about border security if lawyers and bankers were crossing the border illegally.  Following Ted's train of thought is like trying to follow...trying to follow...I really can't think of anything more erratic than Ted Cruz.

9:43PM: Carly turns every answer into an argument for her three page tax code.  She also thinks we need to try the free market...THE FREE MARKET, she said angrily for some reason, for health care.  We did try that, for like a really long time.  It didn't work.  That's how we got into this mess.

9:46PM: Carly just mentioned Scott Walker, which reminded me how funny it is that Scott didn't even make it to the Wisconsin debate.

9:46PM: Carly openly acknowledged that there are a lot of good things about Obamacare, but she still wants to repeal it because Obama.

9:51PM: Cavuto asked Carson whose tax plan God would endorse.  That's obviously a perfectly reasonable question.  Tell me again about how it's the liberal media who asks unfair gotcha questions.

9:53PM: Ben says people at the poverty line will get a rebate under his tax plan.  Great plan for poor people, just make them wait until April to get some money, I'm sure they'll find food somewhere until then.

9:54PM: Rand says he has three different plans to balance the budget.  Does that mean that if we elect him we get to pick one?  That sounds fun.  Put Rand back in the maybe column.

9:56PM: Ted appears to have adopted Huckleberry's 10% flat tax plan.  Like most of these guys, Ted's tax cutting plan includes balancing the budget with magic.

9:58PM: Ted hates the Department of Commerce so much he'd eliminate it twice.

9:59PM: As I watch Jeb try to keep going now that he's just another guy on the stage, it occurs to me that Jeb doesn't really need this shit.  I don't know how much money the Bush family has, but I would guess that it's somewhere around a lot.  Jeb could easily walk away and spend his retirement sailing and time traveling to kill toddlers.  If I were Jeb, I probably would have walked away a month ago and told Republicans that they can have Trump if they want him.

10:02PM: Rubio says no one is born with strong values.  I think that's a really interesting argument.  I've known great people raised by terrible parents, but I also get what he's saying about values being learned.  I think this would be a fun chat for Marco and I to have.

10:04PM: Marco just called Rand a committed isolationist.  Rand says you can't be a conservative but be liberal on military spending.  Marco and Rand are actually having an substantive exchange.  The moderators look nervous.  Quick, somebody ask Trump a question!

10:06PM: Cruz said he wanted to offer a middle ground, which appears to be talking like a conservative while still spending on the military like a drunken sailor.

10:07PM: Carly really wants zero base budgeting.  I think somebody just told her to go out there and say business stuff so people will remember that she was a CEO.  She also still can't answer a question without mentioning her three page tax code.

10:08PM: Trump says we need to make our military bigger and better than ever before so nobody messes with us.  Trump wants to treat the world the same way the mafia treats local business owners.

10:10PM: Republicans really hate things that have a lot of pages.

10:11PM: Trump really doesn't like China.  To Trump, China is the Mexico of Asia.

10:12PM: All of Trump's China nonsense was about the TPP, which Rand pointed out does not include China.  They appeared to be trying to play Rand off to commercial while he was making his point.

10:18PM: Just got some great insight into Carson's nuanced understanding of foreign policy.  He seems to believe that, in general, putting American troops somewhere is better than not doing that.  He also thinks we need to make jihadists look like losers.  Somebody is running to be Trump's Secretary of State.

10:20PM: Maria just showed us a word cloud of issues people on Facebook want to talk about.  Obviously, we're ignoring the giant "Campaign Finance" in the middle of the cloud.

10:22PM: Trump says the Iran deal is "one of the worst contracts ever signed ever in anything".  Can you imagine how stressful it would be to just live around Donald Trump on a daily basis?

10:24PM: Trump says we can't continue to be the policemen of the world.  Trump just made a coherent point.  My brain hurts.  Jeb couldn't wait to disagree.

10:25PM: Trump says Assad is a bad guy, but we have no idea who the rebels in Syria are and we shouldn't be so quick to arm them.  Yet another coherent point.  What's happening right now???

10:26PM: I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to hear how Carly can relate Syria to her three page tax plan.  Carly's plan for Putin appears to be to annoy him by doing military stuff in countries near Russia.  She would do that while going on Russian TV and saying "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you".

10:29PM: Trump on Carly "why does she keep interrupting everybody?".  There's the Trump I know.  I feel better now.

10:30PM: Rand is strongly in favor of not arming ISIS.  Yes, maybe don't give weapons to random people in the Middle East.  I know it sounds crazy, but couldn't we try it?

10:31PM: Rubio is noticeably better at debating than the rest of these people.  It's not that he's making better points, but he's better at saying stuff.  He finished this point about ISIS by saying "either they win or we win".  That's a pretty simplistic way of looking at things, but it's also a great soundbite.

10:33PM: Kasich, on the other hand, generally says better things than everyone else, but there's something off about his style.  Kasich just went for about three straight minutes, and most of what he said made sense.  I predict the Fox people will not mention his name in the post-debate discussion.

10:40PM: Jeb says he was recently in Washington, Iowa talking about how bad Washington D.C. is.  Jeb loves word play.

10:41PM: Jeb is desperately trying to talk about Hillary Clinton as if he's still the front-runner.  It's kind of sad.

10:42PM: These guys are talking about how they don't like the big banks, and how they're too big.  It's like I've stumbled into some kind of bizarro Republican debate.  Obviously, none of these guys would actually break up any banks, but all of them would love to travel back in time to make policies that would stop them from getting big.  For guys who don't like science, Republicans seem to really be relying on somebody inventing time travel.

10:43PM: Carson appears to be attributing the economic success of early America to the lack of regulation.  Well, that and slave labor.  He left that second thing out.

10:45PM: Kasich says Wall St. has too much greed.  He knows he's a Republican, right?

10:47PM: Cruz says he wouldn't bail out the big banks again (more time travel based policies) and he would prosecute criminals on Wall St.  He said yes to that question, but then he just mostly talked about Washington D.C. again so I suspect when asked about it in the future he'll say he was talking about criminals in Washington.

10:50PM: Cruz also wants to go back to the gold standard.  Did I mention that he's not a serious person?  Sidenote, Trump would love the gold standard.  Everything he owns is gold-plated, including his head.

10:52PM: Kasich just got booed because Cruz tricked him into saying he wouldn't let banks fail if it meant letting working people who put their money in the failing bank lose all their money.  I think the crowd is getting a little punchy.

10:53PM: Carly doesn't understand what socialism is, but she knows she doesn't like it.

10:58PM: Maria got booed for calling Hillary Clinton's resume impressive.  She was asking Rubio how he would run against someone with that kind of experience.  Rubio, instead of taking some cheap shot, talked about how this election is about the future.  I told you, he's good at debating.

Listen, it's 11PM and, as you may remember, I've developed a very strict not putting up with more than two hours of this shit policy, so I'm done.  I'm sure the closing statements will be quite riveting.