I'm Still Not Feeling the Bern

Last time I watched a Democratic debate two of the candidates dropped out of the race immediately after the debate.  Come to think of it, Jim Webb may have dropped out during the debate.  I've heard about debates happening since then, but the DNC did a pretty good job of keeping them secret.  I heard one of them was on the moon and you could only watch it with a telescope.  Hillary 2016!

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, they seem to be choosing between Cruz and Trump.  That's as bad as it could be.  If we elect one of them, it's not like he'll be President for a few weeks and we can all have a good laugh and move on.  We'd be stuck with him for four years.  We have nuclear weapons.  Lots of them.  It's a bad situation.

So, the Democrats really need to get their act together.  I still have concerns about Sanders in a general election, and the Clinton campaign is predictably collapsing.  I can't figure out what's wrong with the Clinton campaign except to say that they're just bad at being in a race.  Also, Martin O'Malley is a person who exists.  I thought O'Malley could at least get enough support to maybe drop out and make an impact with an endorsement.  Even that seems like a long shot now.  Things are bleak, is what I'm saying.

8:53PM: Tonight's debate is in South Carolina where Bernie Sanders is, let's be honest, just way too Jewish for those people.  Clinton leads by approximately 109 percent in South Carolina polls.  I assume Debbie Wasserman Schultz is spending these last few minutes offering Sanders increasing amounts of money to just go back to Vermont and eat some ice cream.

8:57PM: Sounds like Bernie has recently changed his position on guns, or at least some part of the gun debate.  That's fine.  I was never under the impression that any of these people could actually do something about guns if elected, I was more concerned about Bernie's position on guns being inconsistent with everything else he believes.  I still have that concern.

9:00PM: Tonight's debate is being moderated by Lester Holt and Andrea Mitchell.  Color me underwhelmed.  To be fair, I can't really think of anyone at NBC who I would trust to not be completely in the tank for Hillary.  I think they still feel bad about 2008.  Obama was just so cool though.

9:02PM: Apparently we'll have questions from "the YouTube community" throughout the debate.  Oh goodie.  Glad to see NBC can't even come up with two hours of their own questions.

9:03PM: Hillary thinks Martin Luther King Jr. was pretty great.  Leave it to Hillary to take controversial positions.  She's a real maverick.

9:04PM: Bernie also thinks Dr. King was super.  African-American voters do not think Bernie is super.  I don't really understand that.  It can't just be that he's old and white.  Hillary is almost as old, and incredibly white.  Like, translucently white.

9:05PM: O'Malley is a fan of Dr. King too.  His actual name is Martin, so I guess he wins this round?

9:07PM: Bernie's top three priorities would be universal health care, $15/hr minimum wage and infrastructure spending to create jobs.  Hillary's are essentially the same, but she added equal pay for equal work.  Both of them want to bring the country together.

9:09PM: O'Malley fit like five things into his first priority.  He threw in support for unions and immigration reform.  Then he talked about climate change.  Marty's top three priorities are roughly 13 different things.  He said everything that a Democrat has even been for.

9:10PM: Bernie just called Clinton's attacks on him about guns disingenuous.  Clinton came back by reciting Bernie's record on gun votes.  He looks genuinely embarrassed, which again raises my concerns about his motivation on this issue.

9:14PM: Hey Marty, do you want to take everyone's guns?  O'Malley says he's never met a self-respecting deer hunter who needed an automatic weapon to down a deer.  Marty also says he agrees with Bernie and Hillary, they've both been inconsistent on guns.  Zing! You've just been O'Malleyed!

9:17PM: Hillary says we need to end the systemic racism in our criminal justice system.  She added "some of that shit was signed into law by my husband, but what can I say, I married a dumbass...you get it ladies".  OK I made that second part up.

9:19PM: Bernie is employing the Trump argument of quoting polls he's leading.  Sanders is confident that African-American voters will come around when they become familiar with his record.  That could be true. He is kind of running out of time though.

9:20PM: O'Malley was the only person to actually say "black lives matter".  I feel like that should count for something, but I have a sense that it won't.

9:21PM: Holt says we're going to hear from "some of the most prominent voices on YouTube".  Prominent voices on YouTube?  What?  I'm interested to see what cats would ask Presidential candidates.

9:23PM: Sanders just said "if a police officer breaks the law, like any other public official, they should be held accountable".  Is it just me, or did he subtly motion towards Hillary as he said "like any other public official"?  Maybe it's just me.

9:25PM: We've been talking about heroin I think.  I don't know, I got distracted by a fire truck outside my building.  Bernie said something about pharmaceutical companies taking some responsibility for the drugs they're producing.  I'm for that.

9:31PM: Clinton says the Democratic party worked since Harry Truman to get the Affordable Care Act passed.  I'm not sure that's exactly what Harry had in mind, but OK.  The question was does Bernie want to destroy Obamacare.  Hillary didn't answer that question, which Bernie quickly pointed out.

9:33PM: Bernie, as we all know, is for universal health care.  He wants to provide health care for everyone and get rid of private insurance.  This is a simple question.  Do you want a candidate who's for universal public health care or do you want a candidate who's for subsidizing private health care?  It's a simple question.  I don't know what Hillary is arguing about.  Bernie's a socialist.  He wants universal health care.  It's the one thing everyone knows about him.

9:36PM: Hillary's argument seems to be that Bernie's goal of universal health care would force us to start from scratch and give up the gains made by the Affordable Care Act.  That's a fair point.  Hillary is basically saying we'll never have the votes for universal health care.

9:39PM: Bernie says we need to have guts and he brought up the influence of money on politics.  This is pragmatism vs. idealism and it's a pretty fun debate but neither of them appear to be having any fun.  Maybe (seriously) this is why Trump is doing so well.  He seems to be having a blast.  Yeah, he's angry, but he's happy to be angry.  These two look like they're getting side by side colonoscopies.  Also, I think Martin O'Malley is still here but I can't really be sure.

9:43PM: Oh, there's Marty, unsuccessfully trying to break the Sanders filibuster.  When he finally got to talk, he quoted Frederick Douglass and everyone clapped but still nobody voted for him.

9;45PM: Some fucking douchebag from YouTube just asked how these people are going to engage his generation.  Hillary talked about how young people value their independence and autonomy.  Wrong.  I work with college students.  They're the least independent and autonomous people you could ever meet.  Who's next?  Oh, apparently nobody, only Hillary gets to answer that question.  Awesome job NBC.

9:52PM: Bernie says "I don't get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs".  Ouch.  We all understand Bernie would be roughly a trillion times tougher on Wall St. than Hillary, right?  If you want Wall St. to be better regulated, you're voting for Bernie.  We really shouldn't have to spend a lot of time of this.

9:54PM: Hillary just called Dodd-Frank a "regulatory scheme".  I have a feeling you'll be hearing that sound bite in a Ted Cruz commercial this fall.  Where is Elizabeth Warren right now?  Why won't she run?  Is she busy?  Can't somebody else do whatever it is she's doing right now?

9:56PM: O'Malley is making snide remarks every time Hillary pauses.  It's pretty funny.

9:57PM: Marty says he's for a modern version of Glass-Steagall and Hillary isn't.  That appears to be true.  Hillary responded by saying O'Malley took Wall St. money in the past.  Yes, yes, everyone's a whore.

9:59PM: In case you didn't know who Bernie was talking about when he brought up Goldman Sachs speaking fees a few minutes ago, he was talking about Hillary Clinton.

10:01PM: How will Bernie pay for all his fun socialism?  Taxes on Wall St. speculation.  I think Bernie believes he has adequately explained himself now, but I don't think most people understand Bernie's plan anymore than they did two minutes ago.

10:04PM: Solid explanation of something from Bernie.  Yes, he would raise middle class taxes to pay for medicare for all, but those same people wouldn't have to pay $10,000 in private health insurance premiums anymore.  My employer does pay a nice sum for my health insurance, but if Bernie got rid of those premiums, I don't feel super confident that my employer would gladly just hand that money over to me.

10:07PM: Another YouTube question.  This one had cartoons.  Journalism!

10:09PM: Bernie wants to move our energy system away from fossil fuels.

10:10PM: Marty invited the other two to join him in pledging to have a 100% clean energy electrical grid by 2050.  Lester decided to go to a commercial instead of letting them answer.

10:13PM: Chuck Todd is now talking to the camera for some reason.  Since when do debates have halftime?

10:16PM: Andrea asked Bernie if it's now time to re-open a US embassy in Tehran.  Personally, I would love to see Argo 2.

10:19PM: Hillary's three point plan for Syria doesn't include ground forces.  Marty has a three point plan for lunch tomorrow, but honestly, two of the points are just two different kinds of cheese and I'm not sure that really counts.

10:20PM: Bernie showed some restraint by not actually staring directly at Hillary while talking about the mistakes of Iraq.

10:21PM: Marty says Governors have led us to victory in two world wars.  George W. Bush was a Governor too.  There may be a hole in Marty's argument.

10:23PM: Bernie, once again, pointed out that he strongly opposed the Iraq war.  He added "UNLIKE SOME OTHER HILLARY CLINTONS WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS".  OK he didn't, but maybe he should have.

10:27PM: We all agree Assad is bad.  Bernie seems to be advocating for a one problem at a time approach, saying we should work with anyone who wants to destroy ISIS because that has to come first.  I feel like that's one of those things you say before you become President and realize the actual scope of the mess over there.

10:29PM: Hillary just said something about advancing your security and your values.  No, no to the second thing.  We tried that.  Not everyone wants our values.  Values are things that you value.  You can't tell other countries what they're supposed to value and you certainly can't bomb them into sharing your values.  We've learned nothing.

10:31PM: Marty says the government should have to get a warrant no matter what door they want to come through.  Some people in the audience applauded very loudly and I'm pretty sure Rand Paul was one of them.

10:33PM: Bernie says private companies and the government know where you are at this very moment.  Hi private companies!  Would you like to send me some money or something?

10:38PM: Even though all night nobody else ever got to follow up on the last question after a break, Hillary gets 30 seconds to make a point about what they were talking about before the break.  O'Malley asked if he could also have 30 seconds.  The moderators seemed very reluctant but Marty got his 30 seconds in and used it to say bad things about Trump.

10:41PM: Would Bill Clinton have a real policy role in Hillary's White House, or just a kitchen table role?  She says he'd advise her on the economy.  Weird question, OK answer.

10:43PM: Goldman Sachs will not have a Treasury Secretary in Bernie's cabinet.  Well that should fix it.

10:44PM: Bernie says Bill Clinton's actions (I assume we're talking about the intern banging) were deplorable but that's not what he's here to talk about.  That whole section was about Bill Clinton.  That was weird.

10:49PM: Lester asked them if there's anything they wanted to say tonight that they didn't get a chance to say.  He started with O'Malley and everyone laughed.  Poor Marty.  He took his 60 seconds to talk about immigration, Puerto Rico, Honduras and El Salvador.  Maybe Marty is struggling because he's not great at staying on message.

10:51PM: Hillary took her time to talk about Flint, Michigan.  She just kicked the shit out of the Governor of Michigan, and rightfully so.  Bernie said he also called for the Governor's resignation.

10:53PM: Bernie also took his time to talk about money in politics.

I guess that's it.  I could name like 10 Democrats I like more than any of these three.  Booker/Warren 2016!

Tommy Handsome...And His Balls

Can you imagine being the first ancient Egyptian to take the hieroglyph for ball and carve it where the hieroglyph for testicle was supposed to be.  You call all your Egyptian friends and mummies over to see what you've done and they're just like "Dude, that's genius.  We have so many balls in regular life, if we make it so that balls also means testicles, that's comic gold for the next 10,000 years.  Why didn't those stupid aliens who built our pyramids think of this?"

NBC's pre-game was six and a half hours long.  Six.  And a half.  Hours.  That gives a guy a lot of time to think, and he's what I came up with.  Handsome and the Hoodie.  A new sitcom coming to ABC in the Fall.  Brady and Belichick are banned from football for being cheaters and forced to live together in a small two-bedroom apartment in a Boston suburb.  Hijinks ensue.

Brady embarks on an acting career, but can only get roles as a corpse on procedural cop dramas (cut to David Caruso whipping off his sunglasses and glibly exclaiming "looks like someone sent this handsome devil straight to hell!"  Cue The Who).  Belichick takes a job at one of the fourteen Dunkin Donuts locations within walking distance of the apartment, and constantly fights with his boss because he wants to create 91 different types of donuts so he never has to work with the same exact combination of available donut flavors more than once.

Eventually, Brady gets his big break, being cast in one of the new Star Wars movies as the galaxy's most handsome man, but he gets the flu, so Belichick has to take his place.  Belichick immediately gets cast as the new darth vader, leaving Brady to run the Dunkin Donuts.  Look for plenty of Gronk guest appearances.

Hey, did you know there's another team in this game?  It's true, they're from Seattle or Portland or somewhere rainy like that.  Sports journalists seem genuinely surprised to see them, with Cris Collinsworth inquisitively musing "Hey, who are those guys?  I thought this was just about the Patriots and football inflation levels".

6:29PM: It's nice to see Lindsay Lohan alive and speaking in full sentences.

6:30PM: Marshawn Lynch has a small Tupperware container of Skittles on the sideline.  How is he not everyone's favorite football player?

6:34PM: Jonas Gray is inactive for this game.  It's like he made a deal with satan where he could rush for 200 yards in one NFL game but then nothing good ever happens to him again.  I'd say Jonas isn't a great negotiator.

6:36PM: Seattle almost screwed themselves with a roughing the kicker penalty.  The Seahawks, as good as they are, are one of the most undisciplined teams in the NFL.  You have to wonder how good they'd be if they could just stop taking stupid penalties.

6:39PM: The crowd in Arizona is decidedly pro-Seattle.  I'm surprised by that since Arizona is in Seattle's division, but I guess people just really hate the Patriots, and while I don't personally feel that way, I sort of get it.

6:42PM: "Hey, I have an idea for a commercial! Kate Upton!"..."...and..." "No and, just Kate Upton".  "OK yeah, that's a pretty good idea".

6:44PM: Collinsworth seems mildly obsessed with Belichick's #2 pencil.  Is he taking the SATs after the game?

6:45PM: Collinsworth just referred to Kam Chancellor as "the hammer".  Kam's wife has already told him 100 times that she's not calling him that.

6:51PM: People who have been paying attention to football this year know that Seattle doesn't really rush the passer that well and it isn't that surprising that they aren't pressuring Brady too much.  Apparently Collinsworth is not a person who has been paying attention to football.

6:53PM: Brady just threw the ball right to one of Seattle's DBs.  Right to him.  Jeremy Lane got hurt at the end of the play, but it's not like he was going to have two interceptions in the game, so his job's mostly done already.  Sidenote: The NFL doesn't give a fuck about knees.  As long as you don't hit a guy in the head, you can do pretty much whatever you want.  Unless you're hitting a quarterback, then you can only hit him in a 2 inch sliver of his body between his waist and his ribs.

6:58PM: After one quarter, points for nobody.  Somebody better go deflate some footballs, the NFL does not want a 9-6 superbowl.

7:05PM: They're making a new Terminator movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger.  California voters must be so proud.

7:08PM: New England isn't really having trouble moving the ball.  They just need to not give it away this time.

7:11PM: Touchdown! Brady to LaFell.  Both of these teams make a strong argument against spending money or high draft picks on big time wide receivers.  Where are the Cowboys right now? Or the Lions?  Or the Bengals?  Or any team with a receiver that anyone ever wanted?

7:16PM: Jason Statham, The Rock and Vin Diesel star in Incoherent Grunt: The Movie.

7:18PM: Seattle's offense is a mess right now.  The look like the Jets have looked for, basically, my entire life.

7:22PM: That Nissan commercial was an awfully long walk to nowhere.  Emotionally manipulative commercials only work on me when animals are involved.  You can't get me with humans.

7:27PM: Paul McCartney is at the superbowl.  I find that disappointing for some reason.  Like he should have more important Paul McCartney things to be doing.

7:31PM: Russell Wilson just completed a pass to a guy I've literally never seen in a Seahawks game this year.  I'm pretty confident Russell Wilson could throw a football through a brick wall.

7:33PM: Touchdown Lynch!  It's nice how Seattle's offense can basically just show up whenever they feel like it and everything's still cool.

7:36PM: The commercial featuring Walter White is currently the leader in the clubhouse for me.  Commercials don't have to be so complicated.

7:39PM: The two minute warning is one of the strangest rules in any sport.  "Hey, what if we just stop the game with two minutes to go in each half" "Why?" "I don't know, just for commercials and shit."

7:44PM: First really bad penalty of the game for Seattle.  I predict many more.

7:46PM: Wait, there's a Katy Perry performance and a pointless halftime show?  How long is this halftime?  I do have to go to work at some point this week.

7:48PM: Gronkowski touchdown.  If Gronkowski wins the MVP, I'm finding a way to start a riot.  He's the worst.

7:57PM: We've had 6 seconds left in the 1st half for about 5 minutes now.  This is why people who don't really like sports wind up really hating sports instead of just feeling indifferent.

7:58PM: Seattle makes a gutsy call to throw it into the end zone with 6 seconds left instead of just settling for the field goal and it gets them 7 instead of 3.  I hope Mike McCarthy is taking serious notes.

8:01PM: Time for the superbowl halftime show, brought to you by Pepsi and boobs.  Pepsi: It's how people who don't like Coke get diabetes.  And Boobs: They're what Katy Perry does.

8:13PM: Katy Perry is wearing an outfit that defies description while riding a mechanical tiger with satanic red eyes.  Can you imagine trying to explain why this is happening in the middle of a football game to someone who just refuses to understand marketing tie-ins.

8:24PM: I'm going to give the halftime show a solid B+.  Katy Perry was perfectly watchable.  Lenny Kravitz just played his little guitar and didn't bother anyone.  Missy Elliott was a welcomed addition.  I really don't have any complaints.

8:29PM: Market research conclusion for superbowl ad agencies: People are really into dads this year.  I think the fact that Cliff Huxtable turned out to be a rapist made people appreciate their own dad's ability to not be a horrible human being.

8:32PM: I've decided I'm stopping this at the end of the 3rd quarter.  I'm tired and I've had a headache for like 8 days and nobody's going to read this anyway.  Also, according to the TV, we're all going to die from snow poisoning tomorrow so what's the point.

8:34PM: Another catch by this Matthews fellow.  Where did they find this dude?  I imagine Russell Wilson spent the last two weeks telling Pete Carroll "Hey, you know that good receiver we have?  I think we should really use him."

8:37PM: Seattle settles for a field goal and takes their first lead.  Kudos to the New England defense for hanging in there.

8:41PM: Market research note #2: Voice-overs.  People love that shit.

8:47PM: Brady throws the ball to a Seahawk again.  I'd say that one was more on Gronk than Brady, but then again, I hate Gronk, so...

8:49PM: Are we sure Chris Matthews isn't actually Calvin Johnson or Dez Bryant in a mask?  What's happening here?

8:51PM:  Russell Wilson has never been tackled.  He just slides when he feels like it.

8:54PM: Touchdown! Wilson to Baldwin.  At least most Pats fans are probably getting a day off tomorrow.

8:58PM: Just be honest Budweiser.  Your beer is shitty but it's cheap and widely available.  When you try to tell me that you work really hard at brewing it, that just makes me feel sorry for you.

9:03PM: Punt for New England with about 3 minutes left in the third quarter.  Things looking bleak for the Patriots.  Usually when one team dominates after halftime, I'm inclined to say the other guy is getting out-coached.  Hard to believe about Belichick, but...

OK I think this is probably a good stopping point.  New England looks beaten right now.  Either they're going to make a big comeback which I'll want to pay attention to, or they'll continue to suck and I'll want to make fun of them, and I have to live here.  Enjoy the 4th quarter.

The Trouble With Mitt

I don't mind Mitt Romney being rich, and I don't think voters do either.  Everyone who runs a serious Presidential campaign is pretty wealthy.  And I don't care what Mitt's tax returns say when he releases them tomorrow.  It isn't Mitt's fault that our economy values investment over work.

The trouble with Mitt is his claim that he's been "creating jobs in the real economy".  Mitt isn't a job creator anymore than criminals are job creators because we have to employ police to stop them.  The fact that what you do sometimes results in adding jobs doesn't make you a professional job creator. 

More importantly, Mitt made most of his money in a game he couldn't lose.  Bain invested in failing companies, when the companies recovered, Bain made money.  When the companies failed, Bain still made money. 

Imagine a casino in your town with only two games.  The casino is full of nickel slots.  Everybody in the town can play them, but nobody ever wins.  The casino tells them they can win, but they can't.  Meanwhile, around the edges of the casino, you've got roulette wheels.  The roulette wheels always pay off.  No matter where you put your money, you always win.  But the minimum bet is 10 million dollars.  So guys like Mitt come in and clean the place out whenever they want, and for a while they're just carrying out all the money the poor people keep putting into the slots, but eventually the casino goes out of business.  Of course, in the real world, the casino is our economy and Mitt is, well, still Mitt.

Maybe that's a crappy analogy, but the point is, Mitt isn't a bad guy for being rich.  Mitt's a bad guy because he got rich being selfish (not a problem by itself) and then tried to sell it to us as some sort of altruistic job creation scheme (and there's the problem). 

Debate time!  Tonight's host from NBC is Brian Williams.  I think it'll be harder for Newt to push Williams around, but then again, Newt wins with volume, not content. 

9:02PM: Newt just described himself as someone who "has the courage to stand up to the Washington establishment".  It's honestly like he can't even hear himself talk.

9:05PM: Mitt just used the phrase "resigned in disgrace" twice while talking about Newt.  Newt responded by saying Mitt just said at least four things that were false, but he doesn't really want to get into what they were.  This is a debate, right?

9:07PM: Romney on why rednecks don't like him: (paraphrasing) "I don't know, but New Hampshire seems to like me just fine".  I would have gone with "because nobody likes me".

9:09PM: Can Brian Williams see Ron Paul or Rick Santorum?  Are they invisible?

9:10PM: Newt may be medicated tonight, he hasn't yelled at Williams once yet.

9:12PM: Apparently Santorum's mic is working, too bad.  Still no news from Ron Paul's podium.

9:14PM: Santorum is proud that he was too stupid to change his message when nobody in Pennsylvania agreed with it and he lost by 18. 

9:15PM: Hey, Ron's awake!  Ron says Newt didn't voluntarily step down from being the Speaker in 1998, he just didn't have the votes.  It was weird because it took a while to find out if he was trying to attack Newt or trying to compliment him.  Fun moment.

9:18PM: Mitt says you won't see any surprises when his tax returns come out tomorrow.  I predict Mitt will be surprised by how easily Newt can exploit his tax returns for political gain.  Then Mitt claimed that people will be happy to see he didn't pay anymore taxes than he owes.  I'm pretty sure nobody will be saying that.

9:22PM: Mitt and Newt are nice enough to work together to remind us that both of them would love it if rich people didn't have to pay any taxes at all.  At least they're honest about it.

9:23PM: Mitt says he "earned" what he has "the old fashioned way".  Yeah!  Since the beginning of time people have earned their keep by raiding failing companies and selling off the tattered pieces for profit.

9:26PM: Newt insists that consulting isn't lobbying work just because you're consulting for lobbyists.  Yeah!  Wait, what?  Then he refers to Mitt's telling the truth about Newt's history as "defamatory" and way too personal. 

9:28PM: Mitt makes the point that Freddie Mac wouldn't hire Newt as a historian for $25,000 a month.  Who would hire Newt as a historian?  He's an idiot.  I wouldn't hire him as a historian for 25 cents a month.

9:30PM: Newt and Mitt are just openly arguing with each other right now.  Williams has apparently taken a quick pee break.

9:32PM: Romney is basically admonishing Newt for "influence peddling" when he worked for Freddie Mac.  Still no word from Williams.  Newt was legitimately rattled there, it's like Mitt finally learned enough about human emotions to exploit them.  This could be dangerous.

9:35PM:  Dear NBC, I am not watching Smash, I don't care how many commercials you show me.

9:37PM: I like how Republicans blame the collapse of the housing market entirely on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Nothing else went wrong in the economy, just those two things.

9:40PM: Wait, my bad.  Ron pointed out the whole mortgage derivatives thing.  He was still blaming it all on the government somehow, but even when Ron's wrong, he's sort of half right.

9:41PM: Williams gives each candidate 30 seconds on how to fix the economy.  I could give all of their answers in three seconds - "cut taxes...and some nonsense about regulations".  Well, all except Ron, who would say those things, but then go on four two minutes (or two days if you let him) about the gold standard and liquidating the debt and interest rates and whatever else he could think of.

9:44PM: Talking about Fidel Castro hypothetically dying (welcome to Florida politics), Mitt said he'd be happy that Castro had met his maker.  Newt immediately criticized Mitt for suggesting that Castro is going to heaven.  Neither one of them said anything that made sense, but here comes Ron.

9:46PM: Ron on Cuba "the cold war's over".  He went on to point out that our embargo just props Castro up and we should stop "living in the dark ages".  Boom!  That might be the most correct answer we've heard in any of these debates.  Of course, Santorum couldn't wait to completely disagree.

9:48PM: Santorum says jihadists are apparently infiltrating Cuba.  That doesn't sound right, but even if it is, you would think even an idiot like Santorum could see the connection between our enemies finding friends in Cuba and 50 years of us giving Cuba the "lalala we can't hear you" treatment.

9:50PM: Mitt's foreign policy seems to involve putting aircraft carriers everywhere.

9:50PM: Newt says the American people had "no interest" in going to war with Japan after Pearl Harbor.  I wasn't there, but I feel like we had some interest.  Remember, Newt's a historian.

9:51PM:  Ron should get a full one minute response to every answer given by every other candidate on foreign policy, just so he can continuously point out how stupid they all are.

9:53PM: Ron just kicked Mitt's ass on the Gulf of Hormuz and how it's hard to say Iran closing the Gulf of Hormuz is an act of war when they're doing it as a response to us blockading them.  Ron basically suggested that the blockade is an act of war already.  Probably a little over the top, but the point is, Mitt has no idea what he's talking about.

10:00PM: Santorum: "blah blah blah...bombing Iran...blah blah blah"

10:02PM: Rick Santorum believes that tourism in Florida wasn't adversely affected by BP filling the gulf of Mexico with oil, but by the high oil prices that followed.  Um, no that definitely isn't right.  Not even in the ballpark.

10:03PM: Newt is perfectly happy to pander for votes in Florida in Spanish, but if you want a ballot in Spanish, you can go straight to hell. 

10:05PM: Mitt says we want people to come here from other countries who speak other languages, but once they get here they'd better stop talking that gibberish and start speaking American.

10:07PM: Question to Mitt - he's not in favor of rounding up and deporting undocumented immigrants, but he also thinks they need to go home.  How would he square that circle?  Apparently, President Romney would be so convincing that undocumented immigrants would "self-deport".  I'm not making that up.

10:11PM: Newt just gave an interesting one minute answer about sugar.  He seemed genuinely interested and almost amused by the whole sugar market thing, talking about a really interesting side story and agriculture special interests.  It was honestly sort of engaging, he actually looked like he was enjoying himself.

10:16PM: Nothing is worse than local news, especially once you've moved out of New York.

10:18PM: Santorum on why he wouldn't just let that lady in Florida die in peace in 2005.  I'd almost forgotten about that circus.  Just another in a long line of examples of how Republicans don't mind huge government overreaches when the government is doing things they like.

10:21PM: When Mitt Romney's in Florida, he is fully committed to space exploration and NASA.  Not so much for scientific reasons, but for commercial development and military development.  So, under President Romney, NASA's motto would be "Fuck science! We're gonna bomb Iran from space and sell the moon to the highest bidder". 

10:24PM: I don't know who this lady is, but she just asked "if tax cuts create jobs, then why didn't the Bush tax cuts work?"  It took 18 debates, but someone finally asked these idiots to explain that.  Newt says there were still too many regulations for the economy to grow.  That's total nonsense, but that's sort of Newt's comfort zone.

10:27PM: Seriously, I'm not watching Smash.  Not once, not ever. 

10:30PM: Williams looks legitimately bored.  It's like someone told him this debate would only be an hour and now he doesn't understand why he's still here.

10:32PM: Newt keeps talking about his involvement in the Reagan economic program and the development of supply side economics like they're good things.  That just reminds me how dumb he is.

10:34PM: Santorum just criticized Romney because he used to believe in global warming.  Then he criticized Ron Paul for believing that the Earth revolves around the Sun.  Ron said it's not the government's role to tell people what the Earth revolves around.

10:36PM: Ron - "what's wrong with having the government out of our personal lives?"  I wish Williams had gone to Santorum so we could hear him respond "Everything!"  I'm seriously a little concerned that President Santorum would make me start going to church again.

10:38PM: Williams asked Newt what scares him about the Presidency.  Newt completely ignored the question and just said whatever he wanted to say.

10:39PM: Williams asked Romney, if Mitt is running around campaigning on restoring America's greatness, when was America last great?  Mitt says it's still great now.  So, Mitt admits his campaign slogan is nonsense.  Good for him, I guess.

I guess we're done now.  These endings keep getting stranger and stranger.  We'll be back tomorrow for the State of the Union.  I don't know how much more of this I can take.  A person can only listen to Newt Gingrich talk for so long before he goes insane.