I’m no foreign policy expert.
And neither are you.
One of the problems I have when discussing what to do about terrorism is precisely that: I don’t know. I don’t have the information and intelligence that the experts have access to, I don’t study the subject completely, and, as I said a few days ago, I can see that whatever the solution is, it’s not going to be easy and simple.
And that’s why I get so frustrated with people who “know” what we should do. Usually, it’s some variation of “Bomb them all” — which is what we have been doing. While some of it has been successful in removing important leaders, it also helps their recruitment and propaganda.
While I don’t know the best way to deal with this — even if there is a “best way” — I do know that turning away refugees is wrong.
“Hey, when we say ‘never again’ we didn’t really mean it…”
I don’t need to be a foreign policy expert there. I just need to have a heart.
The refugees are the ones running away from these fanatics. Most of them are educated, had jobs, and will be productive members of society. They’re just running away from war.
The recent attacks in Paris were performed by people who had already been in the country. All the evidence points away from the recent refugees.
Let’s face it, if some terrorist wants to commit these acts, they will find a way. They always do. Turning away people who need our help who are willing to obey our laws won’t matter to the terrorists. The only people we harm by turning our backs on the refugees are the ones who legitimately need our help.
Yes, Saudi Arabia and other middle eastern countries should be helping these refugees. But they’re not, because they’re the Bad Guys. Let’s not lower ourselves to their level.
As someone named Oliver Willis recently posted: “If only we had a seasonally appropriate story about middle eastern people seeking refuge and being turned away by the heartless…”
It’s one thing to be a dishonest person; it’s quite another to be proud of that fact.
For many Republicans, they revel in their dishonesty, partially because they think they’re so clever for getting away with their evil schemes.
I’m serious here. Forget about all the “death panel” lies and other crap they’ve said in the past about Obamacare — just look at a few examples from the last few months.
Take Kevin McCarthy, who admitted that the Benghazi hearings were indeed not meant to find out the truth, but were just partisan attacks on Hillary Clinton in an attempt to knock her approval ratings down. Oops! He lost his chance to be Speaker of the House not because Republicans were upset that he said this, but instead that he admitted that their stated reason for the hearings was a lie.
Then there’s all those movements to make it harder for Democrats to vote. “It’s to prevent fraud!’ they say, despite the fact that your chance of finding voter fraud is less than your chance of being hit by lightning. Every once in a while, a Republican will slip and admit the real reason. The Republicans don’t then come out and say, “Okay, you caught us, our bad, we really were lying all the time.” Nope, they double down and hope that everyone forgets the Man Behind the Curtain.
Even the Planned Parenthood attacks aren’t just about abortion — sometimes it’s just plain old Christian puritan ethics. There have been plenty of Republicans who blame the problem on “loose women” (it’s never the men’s fault in these situations; apparently the women are getting pregnant all by themselves). They lie by fabricating fake videos (and then double down and repeat the lie when the truth is exposed) and at a recent anti-abortion rally, the guest speaker admitted that they were fighting against sin: “The kind of sexual ethic that Planned Parenthood promotes is sex for recreation, sex for mere pleasure.”
And that’s what it’s about. At today’s Benghazi hearings — one of many that have produced absolutely nothing yet spent millions of taxpayer dollars — we’re seeing more of it.
The good news is that the public knows this. 75% of Americans know this is just a Republican witch hunt. People can see through the lies.
But the Republicans don’t care.
Hillary currently has 48% nationally and Sanders has 25%! Might as well name her as the Democratic nominee now and save us all some time! Or so the articles on the major news sites seem to say.
This, of course, ignores a few major things:
First, according to most polls, Sanders is ahead in New Hampshire — a very important state since it holds the first primary. A win there can change the landscape tremendously, as we have seen in previous elections.
Second, it’s 2015! There’s not even a primary for months.
Let’s look back at the last time Hillary ran. On October 20, 2007, she was at 47.5% in the polls. Way, way behind was this upstart Barack Obama guy, with only 21.7%. What a loser! That’s even lower than where Bernie Sanders is now!
A month is a lifetime in politics. Polls can change and waver hugely within a week.
So maybe we should stop declaring winners and losers before a single vote has been cast.
Obama and Hillary are so responsible for the attack on Benghazi wherein four people died. Pay no attention to the fact that Republicans gutted the budget for security at the embassy — the people at the top are responsible!
Just for comparison
Unless they’re Republicans, of course. When 3000 people died on 9/11 under Bush’s watch (even though he had been warned by both outgoing President Clinton and his own internal memos that this was bin Laden’s plan), clearly he can not be held responsible for such a thing.
At least Trump, for all his many faults, understands this basic concept. He’s caused another rift in the Republican campaign by pointing this out, and George W. Bush’s brother Jeb!* isn’t going to take this lying down!
But geez, don’t you dare ask him why then Obama and Hillary are responsible for the Benghazi attack, because then he’ll stare at the camera for a very long period, like a deer in the headlights, before rambling on for a few minutes about how security is important.
Seriously, watch this and look at his body language, because he’s being forced to say something that he knows in his soul isn’t true — that it is completely hypocritical to absolve blame for one incident while foisting blame in the other.
Squirm, baby, squirm.
*I believe he has added the ! to his name in much of the same way Prince changed his name into a symbol.
The media loves a winner, and after the Democratic debate, pundits leaped over each other to declare their choices for who “won” the debate. Most, unsurprisingly, chose Clinton, because that’s what everyone expected.
But I say no one won.
Debates aren’t elections. They’re not sporting events. In some ways, the candidates aren’t competing against each other but instead are using the debate to promote themselves in a forum that allows voters to compare. 
You “win” the debate by outperforming expectations. You “lose” by making mistakes or coming across as unlikable and untrustworthy.
I still remember Gerald Ford in a debate with Jimmy Carter claiming that there was no Soviet presence in Poland. (Hint: there was.) The press and the Democrats pounded on him for being ill-informed and he just sunk lower in the polls. George Bush looked at his watch during a debate with Bill Clinton, as if to say he was bored and this wasn’t really important to him, and that allowed the press to label him as aloof and uncaring. Al Gore’s sighs during his debate with George W. Bush made him look arrogant instead of making Bush look stupid and that didn’t help his campaign (even though he was right about Bush saying idiotic things that deserved sighs).
No one made those kinds of errors last night, although there were some comments that didn’t stand up to scrutiny when fact-checked (although nothing like the kind of lying and outright dishonesty we have seen during the Republican debates).
Hillary “won” yesterday’s debate in that she answered the questions, seemed knowledgeable, and didn’t make any mistakes. But the bar was low for her — she is a good debater, she’s been doing it for years, and she’s always well prepared. We knew what to expect from her, and she met expectations, so pundits claimed her the winner.
Bernie Sanders, however, had everything to gain. Most people knew very little about him. He didn’t make any mistakes, and he pounded his issue concerning income equality, which is a winning topic that any Democrat should push. At the same time, he gave the GOP a lot of clips they can use against him in a general election to portray him as a crazy socialist who hates capitalism, so that doesn’t really help (although in this election year, being “anti-capitalism” may help bring in more young voters).
Lincoln Chafee, Martin O’Malley, and Jim Webb merely had to show to their supporters that they were viable candidates, and of the three, O’Malley came out the best. Webb just seemed angry and many of his positions are just too moderate for the kind of Democratic activists who get involved in elections this early. Chafee had lame excuses for much of his previous votes, and really doesn’t have a chance. These three are probably just jockeying for a Vice Presidential nod.
Based on most unscientific polling, voters said Bernie Sanders won, and if you look at the fact that he took in another $2 million in donations within 24 hours of the debate, I’d say that makes it easier to say he “won” by the standards I set. He outperformed expectations. Again.
10. Sanders, confident of victory or wishing to appeal to the youth vote, lights up a blunt while Hillary is talking
9. Webb arrives wearing a Spider-Man costume, thinking it will help people remember his name
8. Hillary’s face falls off, revealing intricate clockwork mechanism
7. Chafee admits that if this doesn’t work, he’ll see which other political parties might accept him
6. Biden strides on stage mid-debate carrying a beer, slaps everyone on the back, and screams “Where’s the party?”
5. Webb and Hillary go mano a mano after a particularly nasty discussion of trade agreements; Webb carried out by EMTs during commercial break
4. O’Malley pretends to be from Massachusetts, then Nevada; finally breaks down crying upon admitting he’s from Maryland
3. Bill Clinton kicked out of the audience when close-up camera reveals him giving Hillary secret messages via his phone; turns out he was playing ‘Angry Birds’
2. Sanders announces his running mates, Ben & Jerry
1. Trump, jealous of all the attention, storms the stage and calls everyone ‘losers’
I predicted a while ago that the GOP would rally around one of the sane candidates, aware that they would have no chance with the crazies who want to run. I predicted Scott Walker, and maybe Jeb Bush.
Guess I was wrong. The GOP has become crazier and stupider than even I had imagined.
Scott Walker and Jeb Bush are doing terribly in the polls and Walker is about to announce that he is dropping out.
And the leading candidates among the Republicans left are the three least qualified of the bunch, not one of which has ever held an elective office.
There’s Donald Trump. His claim to fame is that he inherited money which he then used to get really rich while declaring bankruptcy a bunch of times. He spouts off hateful, racist, and sexist comments which his followers love because they say he’s “telling the truth.” I have an uncle exactly like that, but he’s not rich (although he has never declared bankruptcy). I have yet to understand why Trump is more qualified than my uncle.
Doctor Ben Carson also thinks it’s a perfect step to go from running a medical practice to managing the biggest organization in the history of the world. He hasn’t quite explained how he would be more qualified than any other random doctor you could find, but somehow his followers are thrilled with the hateful and downright stupid things he says, so he’s doing just fine.
Closing in fast is Carly Fiorino. She couldn’t get elected in her home state, and she got fired as CEO of Hewlitt-Packard after she ran it into the ground, so naturally she decided that made her eligible for the most important managerial job in the world. She’s a bald-face liar who makes up crap about Planned Parenthood that even Fox News calls her out on.
These are the front-runners, representing the worst parts of our society.
And that’s the key — somehow we have all underestimated the racism, sexism, homophobia, and downright evil of a large section of the Republican base.
It even surprises the Republicans.
At a recent rally, one speaker spoke about how wrong it was for liberals to mislabel the Tea Party. “When many people think of the tea party,” he said, they assume it is composed of “racist, homophobe, xenophobe, gun-toting radicals.” The room broke into applause, cheering that label. “Didn’t expect that,” the speaker said.
But that’s exactly who these people are. They’re happy to be racists, as they fly their Confederate flags and whine about the black man in the White House. They love being sexist as they scream about whores who want birth control from Planned Parenthood. They cheer on people who are trying to take rights away from gay couples. They hate all Muslims and Mexicans and anyone who isn’t male, white, and Christian. And they rant against “intellectuals” who want to use their “knowledge” to inform them about climate change and evolution.
They’re proud of being wrong and stupid.
But even I didn’t think there were that many of them. I was wrong.
This is why many of my conservative friends refuse to call themselves Republicans any more. Let’s just hope the Republican party destroys itself so something better can replace it.
“Dred Scot is still the law of the land,” said Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee today, demonstrating his complete lack of understanding of the Constitution he wants to uphold.
Seriously, I had to check to make sure this wasn’t from the Onion when I read it.
The Dred Scott case, for those unaware, was the 1857 case which held that blacks, free or slave, could never be American citizens. One of the top five worst Supreme Court decisions ever (probably even the worst), it helped send us off to the Civil War.
Huckabee’s point was that no one follows that decision any more, so therefore we don’t have to follow the gay marriage decision.
Anyone who has taken a basic government class (or even just basic history) in High School can tell you that the 14th Amendment nullified the Dred Scott decision. The reason no one follows that decision is because it hasn’t been the law for 150 years or so.
Let me remind you once again: This guy wants to be President. He wants to take an oath to follow a Constitution that he clearly does not understand.
Then again, this is the same way these guys treat the Bible — they apparently have never read that either, but they strongly believe it says only what they want it to say and no more.
Some Republicans are arguing that Hillary Clinton, who will be 69 in 2016, is “too old” to be President.
They then retreated to their evil lair, where John McCain (72 when he ran for President) and Bob Dole (73 when he ran for President) led the prayers to their God Ronald Reagan (69 when he ran for President, 73 when he ran for re-election).
Seriously, though, is this an issue? In some parts of the world, being older means being more experienced and wiser. Not sure that’s a bad thing.
So I decided to look up the ages of all of the major candidates. Here they are, from oldest to youngest, with the age they would be on inauguration day:
Bernie Sanders (D): 75
Joe Biden (D): 74 (not yet announced)
Jim Webb (D) and Donald Trump (R): 70
Hillary Clinton (D): 69
Rick Perry (R): 66
Ben Carson (R): 65
John Kasich (R): 64
Jeb Bush (R) and Lincoln Chafee (D): 63
Christine Fiorino (R): 62
Lindsay Graham (R) and Mike Huckabee (R): 61
Rick Santorum (R): 58
And then there’s all these young whippersnappers! (I say that because, like Obama, they’re all younger than me):
Chris Christie (R), Martin O’Malley (D) and Rand Paul (R): 54
Scott Walker (R): 49
Ted Cruz (R): 46
Bobby Jindal (R) and Mark Rubio (R): 45
ventrellaquest.com 