The state of the GOP

[spence]

I think two memorable moments from the past week were Gov. Rick Perry asserting dark crowded movie theaters would be better off with lots of firearms...

...and then following it up by challenging Donald Trump to a pull up contest.

Did that guy from Ohio get in the race?

Is anyone else besides Trump (and Perry) still running?

[Jackbass]

Both Parties live in a toilet. Any other thought is based in BS. Look at the DEM challengers Hillary?? Really. No one has taken more big business money. Sanders. How well will a "socialist" poll in the Midwest. Sorry but this election will be decided by TMZ just like the last two.
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[Nebe]

Originally Posted by Jackbass

Both Parties live in a toilet. Any other thought is based in BS. Look at the DEM challengers Hillary?? Really. No one has taken more big business money. Sanders. How well will a "socialist" poll in the Midwest. Sorry but this election will be decided by TMZ just like the last two.
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I had this exact discussion this morning. It's like watching a season of professional wrestling. Or better yet, like watching everyone jump out of a clown car.
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[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

I had this exact discussion this morning. It's like watching a season of professional wrestling. Or better yet, like watching everyone jump out of a clown car.
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That's because this far out, the most vocal and flamboyant candidates (read, the freaks) get all the press.

Spence would have you believe that Donald Trump represents the whole party, even though 80% of registered republicans prefer someone else. Trump and Bernie Sanders are getting a lot of press, I have a better shot at getting chosen as a Vidal Sassoon model (I'm bald) then either of them has of getting elected.

Spence, what's your problem with "the guy from Ohio" exactly? I guess he comes across as a bit of a bumpkin, but if all you care about is a smooth talker who has zero common sense, Weird Harold shows us what happens when we go that route.

[Raven]

Originally Posted by Nebe

It's like watching everyone jump out of a clown car.
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[Jackbass]

Besides that what is wrong with responsible people legally carrying for self defense. Not my cup of tea but given the recent rise of gun violence by people who carry illegally in my area my mind is opening to the option.
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[tysdad115]

Originally Posted by spence

I think two memorable moments from the past week were Gov. Rick Perry asserting dark crowded movie theaters would be better off with lots of firearms...

Ever shot in low light situations? I have, and I'd prefer me and several others be armed and at least able to defend ourselves if the situation ever arose. 90% of "mass shootings" are in Gun Free zones, whats that tell you?
The more I see and read from Rand Paul the more I like him. Term limits, tax code etc etc ..

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

I think two memorable moments from the past week were Gov. Rick Perry asserting dark crowded movie theaters would be better off with lots of firearms...

...and then following it up by challenging Donald Trump to a pull up contest.

Did that guy from Ohio get in the race?

Is anyone else besides Trump (and Perry) still running?

Look at the political leanings of states with highest/lowest debt. Or states that are losing population versus those that are adding jobs. In the face of that, all you can do is what you just did, lob personal attacks.

Spence, did Al Sharpton represent your entire party when he ran? Does he speak for you? Or is it possible that both parties have a certain freak element?

Neither Trump nor Perry will be around after Super Tuesday, it's a disgrace that Trump will be in the first debate, and not someone like Bobby Jindal.

[fishsmith]

I saw a good post the other day, it said, "asking the American people to pick a good representative from the republican or Democratic Party, is like telling them to eat healthy at McDonald's or Burger King. "
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[Nebe]

Wow. That hit the nail right on the head !
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[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

I think two memorable moments from the past week were Gov. Rick Perry asserting dark crowded movie theaters would be better off with lots of firearms...

...and then following it up by challenging Donald Trump to a pull up contest.

Did that guy from Ohio get in the race?

Is anyone else besides Trump (and Perry) still running?

this is like making fun of someone's new car while you are riding around on a crappy old moped the GOP has quite a few options....looks like "recruit Biden" is the dems last hope currently....haaaaaaaaaaaaa

[spence]

Did anyone else waste 2 hours watching that "debate" last night? Fox News should be embarrassed.

[Slipknot]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015...get-a-warrant/
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[spence]

One of the funnier moments. My observation was there wasn't much debate, just FOX trying to stir the pot.

[JohnR]

Watched it last night - mediocre. Probably put a good nail in the Trump coffin.

Dying to see Hillary and Bernie Sanders - I am going to arrange an online drinking game where you take a sip for every swig for every Marxist slogan and a swig for every time they try to come across as tough on liberty and and strong foreign policy

#hashtagsmatter

Originally Posted by tysdad115

Ever shot in low light situations? I have, and I'd prefer me and several others be armed and at least able to defend ourselves if the situation ever arose. 90% of "mass shootings" are in Gun Free zones, whats that tell you?
The more I see and read from Rand Paul the more I like him. Term limits, tax code etc etc ..

Yes - how many shootings / killings are caused by legal armed crazy people versus how many caused by sane people with illegal guns.

Numbers are not close but we only hear about one of them on the news.

Originally Posted by Nebe

I had this exact discussion this morning. It's like watching a season of professional wrestling. Or better yet, like watching everyone jump out of a clown car.
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Jump out, while moving 10mph, and then trying to jump back in again.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Dying to see Hillary and Bernie Sanders - I am going to arrange an online drinking game where you take a sip for every swig for every Marxist slogan .

In that drinking game, Eril Flynn and Richard Burton would be dead 5 minutes in.

The Clintons gave 15M to charity over the last few years. Sounds great, right?. Turns out 14.8 million of that, went to their foundation, from which they reimburse themselves for lavish travel expenses, and give themselves a podium on which to promote their agenda. The word 'disgusting' doesn't even come close.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

The Clintons gave 15M to charity over the last few years. Sounds great, right?. Turns out 14.8 million of that, went to their foundation, from which they reimburse themselves for lavish travel expenses, and give themselves a podium on which to promote their agenda. The word 'disgusting' doesn't even come close.

The Clinton's have multiple charities. They donate most of their money to the Clinton Family Foundation which acts as a distribution point for donations to other charities, though from what I've read most of their money is applied directly.

For the most part you're just parroting the original WSJ opinion piece that all the pundits jumped on not realizing it was severely flawed.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

The Clinton's have multiple charities. They donate most of their money to the Clinton Family Foundation which acts as a distribution point for donations to other charities, though from what I've read most of their money is applied directly.

For the most part you're just parroting the original WSJ opinion piece that all the pundits jumped on not realizing it was severely flawed.

"They donate most of their money to the Clinton Family Foundation "

14.8M, out of 15.0M, to be precise.

"the original WSJ opinion piece that all the pundits jumped on not realizing it was severely flawed"

How was it flawed? Does the Foundation provide these weasels with perks (luxury travel, a platform to promote their agenda) or not?

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by spence

The Clinton's have multiple charities. They donate most of their money to the Clinton Family Foundation which acts as a distribution point for donations to other charities, though from what I've read most of their money is applied directly.

Does that also include the $600,000/yr salary to Chelsea Clinton, nice girl ,I like her a lot, working for the Clinton Foundation?

[Jackbass]

I can't beleive trumps response to calling women fat pigs! Sorry Rosie lol
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[Raider Ronnie]

Fox is clearly in the tank for Jeb Bush, #^&#^&#^&#^& Fox and him.
Trump is an ass but he reflects how most feel with our elected officials, pissed off.
Too bad he doesn't have any answers or solutions.
Christie must have got lessons from his buddy Obozo on how to blame the guy before him.
Ben Carson is the guy I'll support if he can get the nomination of the party.
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[detbuch]

Why some conservatives enthusiastically favor Trump over establishment Republicans:

http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/2015/0.../?subscriber=1

Trump is not my choice. I prefer either Cruz, Jindal, Carson, or Fiorina--and a combination of any two of them for Pres. and VP. But the Democrat-lite establishment leadership prefers to support their own Dem-lite guys, like Jeb Bush etc., and it invites the conservative base to bolt the party and give the election and future of the country to progressive socialist rule.

Those who think that, at this time, a plurality, or even a small majority of Americans won't vote for a socialist, might be right . . . but they may not be right.

If establishment conservatives actually offered a distinct choice to progressivism, Trump would not be a factor.

[PaulS]

Same as one of Pres. Bush's daughters.
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[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by PaulS

Same as one of Pres. Bush's daughters.
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It's not remotely the same, because Bush didn't base his campaign on bashing the system that made him stinking rich. Hilary is doing exactly that.

Clearly, Hilary isn't too offended by our capitalist system, because she's taking advantage of it for immense personal gain. WHy is OK when she does it, but not a hedge fund manager? Let me re-phrase, why is it wrong for hedge fund managers, except her son-in-law, to do what they do? Why does he deserve his riches, but no one else in his profession?

What the hell is in that Kool Aid, anyway?

[PaulS]

But to the state of the GOP – examples - refuses to take $10 in spending cuts if $1 in tax increases, deny global warming (and pass rules for certain depts. to prevent them from looking at it), want to defund environmental depts. (who started the DEP? It would never be proposed by a Rep. now) seem racist, sexist (see Trump Mexicans/woman and the refusal of the candidates to say anything until the noise got so load), disrespectful of the Pres. (you can disagree strongly w/o the rude, disrespectful things said) the constant “if your poor, you’re lazy and on welfare”, insist. on bringing up social issues where the cand. position is much further right than the general pop. bc they’re appealing to the evangelical right, etc. etc. They have gotten further and further right and have alienated more and more segments of the population (“illegals”, “anchor babies”, etc) leaving their base as old white guys and married white woman. When they lose the next election, they will pay lip service to why and then continue to say it is bc people want things for free. White men are a shrinking % of the pop., yet that is who they focus on. This is not the GOP who use to regularly get my vote.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by PaulS

But to the state of the GOP – examples - refuses to take $10 in spending cuts if $1 in tax increases, deny global warming (and pass rules for certain depts. to prevent them from looking at it), want to defund environmental depts. (who started the DEP? It would never be proposed by a Rep. now) seem racist, sexist (see Trump Mexicans/woman and the refusal of the candidates to say anything until the noise got so load), disrespectful of the Pres. (you can disagree strongly w/o the rude, disrespectful things said) the constant “if your poor, you’re lazy and on welfare”, insist. on bringing up social issues where the cand. position is much further right than the general pop. bc they’re appealing to the evangelical right, etc. etc. They have gotten further and further right and have alienated more and more segments of the population (“illegals”, “anchor babies”, etc) leaving their base as old white guys and married white woman. When they lose the next election, they will pay lip service to why and then continue to say it is bc people want things for free. White men are a shrinking % of the pop., yet that is who they focus on. This is not the GOP who use to regularly get my vote.

"seem racist, sexist "

Oh, please tell that to Carly Fiorina, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and Bobby Jindal.

"insist. on bringing up social issues "

You're right, how DARE we bring up social issues.

"They have gotten further and further right and have alienated more and more segments of the population"

This is great. You accuse us of alienating, yet you also call us racist and sexist. Yes, we can clearly learn to be inclusive by patterning our behavior after those on your side, who never ever talk about th actual issue, they just label everyone who disagrees with them as a racist hatemonger. That's inclusion, all right. Yesterday, Hilary compared the pro-life group (which is almost half the country) to ISIS. That's how to be inclusive?

“illegals” - Paul, why is that in quotes? If someone comes here illegally, it's inappropriate to say that out loud? Are you that politically correct?

"leaving their base as old white guys and married white woman"

again, tell that to Cruz, Rubio, Carson, Jindal, et al.

It's funny, I used to be a Democrat, and I felt like I got pushed out when the Dems got in bed with radicals like George Soros and Moveon.org. I also remember the way those racially sensitive democrats in the US Senate, led by Joe Biden, tried to block Clarence Thomas' nomination by playing to the lowest racial stereotype, by saying (with zero supporting evidence) that he i snot to be trusted around women.

A higher % of the US population identifies as conservative, rather than liberal. Which is probably we the GOP continues to do well in mid-terms, because those elections are decided more locally than presidential cycles.

The GOP controls both houses of congress, they have a majority of governborships and state legislatures. So while you did a great job regurgitating the MSNBC labels of Republicans, clearly the American public isn't buying it.

As the country becomes less white, I agree the GOP will have a hard time. But about the time that happens, is when Social Sucurity and Medicare will go belly up, and when that happens, lots of people will see irefutable proof that liberals lie through their teeth about such things to get votes.

Trump is a clown, but I get where his support comes from. In the last 2 elections, the GOP nomoinated McCain and Romney, 2 very very moderate guys. The country said no. So now some folks want to get someone who is further to the right. Is Obama a moderate? A guy who think sit's OK to kill babies who survive abortions and are outside the womb? A guy who sends his kids to a jillion dolla year private school, but is opposed to vouchers that let others escape failing schools?

The facts spit in the face of much of what you said. Less than one year ago, the GOP absolutely demolished the Democrats. How did that happen if the party only cares about rich white guys?

GOP agenda:
small federal govt
individual liberty
individual responsibility
power of the free market to provide upward economic mobility
being charitable to neighbors
sanctity of all life
fiscal responsibility
strong national defense
importance of American exceptionalism on the world stage

Granted, that's not how MSNBC describes the GOP agenda.

[Jim in CT]

Paul, as to global warming, it's far from settled. I wa saround when the scientists all said that the earth was freezing, and we needed to act to stop that threat. Then it was global warming. Then climate change.

we need to look into these things, obviously. But I'm not ready to tell anyone, that they can't live as comfortably as I do, until we have mor efacts. If much of what the alarmists predicted was true, Denver would be underwater by now, and North Dakota would be exporting pineapples.

It must be nice to hide behind a theory where if it gets warmer you are right, if it gets colder you are right, if it rains you are right, if it doesn't rain you are right, if it snows you ar eright, and if it doesn't snow you are right. But it's OK for the face of this movement, Al Gore, to have huge mansions and a private jet because shut up!!

[RIROCKHOUND]

But but but Gore...

Gore did a great thing by mainstreaming the science in a palatable way for the general public. If you think we scientists run around asking him what to say.....

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Paul, as to global warming, it's far from settled. I wa saround when the scientists all said that the earth was freezing, and we needed to act to stop that threat.

This is such a line of crap that gets tossed around, largely due to a newsweek article. See below. I bolded a great line. Read Merchants of Doubt, it is a good book on the climate change rhetoric.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/What...l-cooling.html

"Figure 1: Number of papers classified as predicting future global cooling (blue) or warming (red). In no year were there more global cooling papers than global warming papers.

So in fact, the large majority of climate research in the 1970s predicted the Earth would warm as a consequence of CO2. Rather than climate science predicting cooling, the opposite is the case. Most interesting about Peterson's paper is not the debunking of an already well debunked skeptic argument but a succinct history of climate science over the 20th century, describing how scientists from different fields gradually pieced together their diverse findings into a more unified picture of how climate operates."

The science the CO2 is a greenhouse gas is settled, as is the fact that we are contributing to changes to the climate. This is not just done with models, which larely do work, but with actual data. A chosen few stay and try to fight that, but the legitimate science on this is done.

Trust me, scientists are contrarians by nature. The but but but grant money so they lie argument is crap. Do you know how much funding would be available to those who could disprove (legitimately) human's impact on climate change? What attempts get made, an email hack that basically showed nothing when viewed in context, a bunch of people playing games with statistics on other peoples results, etc..

I think reasonable people can debate the changes that are very likely to (are) occurring. Ask local fisherman with a long memory; Laptew was quoted in an article lately outlining all the changes he has observed, particularly on the changes of species ranges, which lines up with the temperature measurement data from local waters. Not models, actual measurements.

There are alarmists, and Hansen's latest paper is one. Is it out of the realm of possibility that rates of sea level rise could be drastically higher than currently estimated? Of course not, but it may be on the extreme. That is what we should be discussing, will sea level be 1ft bt 2050, or 2075 or 5ft by 2100; not bury our heads in the sand and accuse all the scientists of lying.

[spence]

What I find really ironic is that the scientific process shares much more with conservative thinking than does liberalism.
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[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

What I find really ironic is that the scientific process shares much more with conservative thinking than does liberalism.
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The models are based, largely, on speculative assumptions. That's where the skepticism comes from.