Old pap and I are still amazed that the Telly folk call these political ads “debates!”
WARNING: We couldn’t hold the length of this sucker down due to the exciting Republicrat “debating!” There are just so many of those wacky dudes, and sometimes they sound like robots.
For their part, the Republicrats did mix it up a bit, but debate? Come on, Ralph! Many of the “moderators” questions were totally ignored, replaced by answers such as Teddy’s sob story about his half sister and Marco’s oft repeated blast on dear old Obama, “Don’t say he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he knows exactly what he’s doing, he’s trying to change America.” (Editor’s Note: Maybe we could use a little change) Later, after he had repeated the same memorized line three more times, Gov. Christie jumped him on his dodging the questions and just “playing” his same tape back again.
Earlier, Ben was left in the “dock” by an announcement slip-up, and then his “slime-balling” by Cruz’s campaign at the Iowa Caucuses (Ben’s dropping out) was blamed by Teddy on CNN’s “tweet.” Cruz, of course, pointed out that he has apologized to Ben. Meanwhile, Teddy’s troops are studying your Facebook posts. Smarmy and real scary!
Soon, oddly enough, eminent domain came into the swirl of bunk, and ole’ Jeb regurgitated the charge about The Donald trying to evict the little old lady to build a parking lot for his casino in Atlantic City. Then, Jeb tried to claim that eminent domain would be appropriate for the Keystone pipeline since it is for the public good. Trump did correct him here, since the pipeline is obviously for private interests. Yikes!
Wow, here comes a load of bravado as the subject turns to “Commander-in-Chief.” Teddy explained his surgical carpet bombing plan, while Trump reminded that he’d just bomb the hell out of ISIS, and Rubio seconded the motion, adding that he would get our Arab pals to do the grunt work. He claimed the Sunnis won’t cooperate with us because they don’t trust Obama. Christie claimed he would smash the terrorists just as he did the public service unions in New Jersey.
Next up, North Korea’s long-range missile test. The ABC moderators asked the inane question: would you have preemptively bombed the launch pad? We think it may have been at this point that Jeb mentioned the 30 Admirals and Generals who are backing him, and, sure, he’d shoot down those missiles. Old John Kasich allowed as how he would get Japan to shot them down. In the meantime, Ted would be expanding our missile defenses, and on day one of his presidency, he’ll shred the Iran Nuke Deal. It just went on and on, including Ted’s insisting this is all about Obama’s incompetence, and Marco declaring that old “O” has betrayed Israel.
All of these brave, wannabe heroes must be honing their military skills by playing the computer game, “Mobile Strike”, simultaneously being advertised by old Arnie Schwarzenegger at the commercial breaks.
From there, the questions bounced back and forth through Immigration (build the wall, send ‘em all back), Healthcare (repeal ACA and do it way better), back to ISIS (more bombing, expand Gitmo, and bring back water boarding, or worse), over to Racism (what’s that?), Socialism and social issues (marriage – one man, one woman & ladies, what’s wrong with the good old rhythm method?, delete Roe V. Wade, and kill Planned Parenthood), finally to the VA and need for Civil Service Reform, ad infinitum.
About the only adult-like dudes on the stage were Ben and John, and John’s claims of adding jobs to his state of Ohio which come at great expense to his taxpayers for bribing employers to stay or relocate there. This is a tragic trend of pitting one state against another. The end result is more corporate welfare (which, incidentally, rarely trickles down to their workers)! Oh, yes, Gov. Christie mentioned that taxing millionaires only got them to leave New Jersey. Jeb added that what we need is to make more millionaires; we assume he meant so that the states don’t have to bribe them, also, to stay put. Hey, Jeb, what about Billionaires, are they chopped liver? Don’t we need more of them, too?
Of course, Teddy reiterated that on his first day in office, he will rescind all of Obama’s executive orders and abolish the IRS. All agreed that all of the country’s troubles are the fault of President Obama and Hillary, with the possible exception of those begun by good old Bill Clinton, such as allowing North Korea to get the nukes.
Hey, Kiddos, ole pap and I apologize for this convoluted report, but that is exactly how this “debate” appeared to us!
“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
H. L. Mencken.
The Demoblican contest seemed a tad more civil, perhaps since there were only two combatants, and one refused to be drawn into petty skirmishes. Both participants answered the questions without veering off into too many ditches.
Poor old Hillary surely got her dander up over Bernie’s “clever innuendo about her Wall Street ties;” even using his patented line, “enough is enough!” Old pap and I thought Bernie’s reply was accurate, but we would have added: However, it is certainly possible that you, Madame Secretary, are one of the rarest of politicians who, upon receiving such unsightly largesse, is not affected or influenced one whit.
Bernie, we suppose, could be accused of pulling a Rubio, and repeating himself often, except that he is speaking of the central issue of our times – financial skullduggery. It takes a bit more than a 25 second sound bite to explain this frightening situation, though old Bernie did just that on Saturday Night Live!
In the end, Bernie is the only guy pointing out the most over-looked existential threat to our good old U.S.of A., Wall Street. He emphatically and correctly stated, “The business model of Wall Street is FRAUD!” A kid gets caught with marijuana, he gets a police record and maybe goes to jail, the leaders of these big banks get caught, they get the bank to pay a gigantic fine, and they go on to their next bonus (and fraudulent scheme). Currently, they are playing the same game they used in the mortgage market: making shaky small business loans, and again “securitizing” them. If Bernie or someone doesn’t stop them, we have another meltdown in the offing! How nice, since large chunks of pension funds are invested with these “free market” cheaters!
Here we go, too, repeating ourselves, “If you ain’t a little scared, you need to get off those prescription drugs.”
Stay Calm, and Vote, ole’ Buster (with old pap on drums)
PS: Super Bowl – 1500 private jets brought a few one-tenth of one percenters out to the coast to watch grown men resemble computer game gladiators. Yuck!
PPS: This morning Dixville Notch, NH went 3 to 2 Kasich/Trump and 4 to 0 Bernie/Hillary. One John fellow said he went for “the meat versus filling,” and a Bernie voter said he went for “principles.” Lots of hype for a tiny town in a small state – don’t the Telly producers love it!!
Buster's Two Cents 