The GOP Debate of December 15, 2015

While the debate was not a major change event I predict the further decline of Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina in the polls. The discussion on foreign affairs was beyond their understanding as reflected in their answers.

There were at least two answers at last night’s GOP debate that should disqualify these candidates as contenders for the presidency. Their supporters will overlook the remarks as if they had no consequence.

1. Chris Christy said he would enforce a no fly zone over Syria and would shoot down Russian aircraft that would challenge that enforcement even if it meant World War 3. In other words he would take the United States into war over Syria that could bring on worldwide devastation.

2. Donald Trump was asked “What’s your priority among our nuclear triad?” by Hugh Hewitt. Trump clearly did not understand the question because he launched into a diatribe into about he would have handled Syria and the Middle East.

Hewitt: “Of the three legs of the triad, though, do you have a priority? I want to go to Sen. Rubio after that and ask him.” Trump: “I think – I think, for me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”

Senator Rubio new exactly what the question was about and informed everyone on the stage and in the audience.

I know that Rand Paul was out of step with the rest of the candidates but his answers were the best thought out.

The debate was primarily about hate and fear and who could best address those issues. The candidates offered nothing positive.

Is the United States Becoming a Nazi Replica?

-Doctor Ben Carson: ‘We should have a database on everybody’

-Donald Trump told NBC News there should be a database of all Muslims.

-Senator Ted Cruz agrees with Donald Trump. He would winnow the field of acceptable refugees down to only Christian Syrians, similar to what Jeb Bush proposes.

-Kasich on Syrian Refugees: ‘We Don’t Know Who They Are, Where They Come From’

-There’s nothing outrageous about barring Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. unless they pass background checks, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said on “The Kelly File.”

As reported on CNN
Shockingly, Trump told Yahoo News that he would consider requiring Muslim-Americans to register with a government database, or worse, mandating that they carry special identification cards that note their faith.

The reaction to this idea, fairly or unfairly, by many on social media, was to accuse Trump of wanting to mimic laws that Nazis had imposed on Jews, including requiring them to wear a gold Star of David on their clothes.

After Trump confirmed that he would set up a database for Muslim-Americans, an NBC reporter asked him point blank: “Is there a difference between requiring Muslims to register and Jews in Nazi Germany?” A clearly annoyed Trump at first refused to respond, but then told the reporter, “You tell me,” and walked away.

The likelihood is that a Republican will be the next president of the United States.

Trump is now reported to have “backed away” from tracking people. Still, the fear factor has taken over this nation.

With the rise of radical Islam and the non-stop reports on television we are all observing a frightening rise in those wanting the government to monitor every person’s movement. It is a form of fascism.

I wonder if any of these politicians have read George Orwell’s 1984. In that story the government spies on everyone’s personal life. Televisions are everywhere an each has a camera that watches what you are doing.

The data base idea is the most worrisome idea I have heard. Perhaps we could have the Muslims wear arm bands so they can be easily identified. Does this idea remind you of a past event? Yes! It reminds me of Hitler and the arm bands worn by Jews in Germany and all the places invaded by the Nazis.

The reaction of governors and the Speaker of the House to the situation in Europe is reminiscent of American reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

My reaction is what about other minorities in the United States? Will all of us be subject to data bases?

The only official definition of Fascism comes from Benito Mussolini, the founder of fascism, in which he outlines three principles of a fascist philosophy. 1.”Everything in the state”. The Government is supreme and the country is all-encompasing, and all within it must conform to the ruling body, often a dictator. 2.”Nothing outside the state”. The country must grow and the implied goal of any fascist nation is to rule the world, and have every human submit to the government. 3.”Nothing against the state”. Any type of questioning the government is not to be tolerated. If you do not see things our way, you are wrong. If you do not agree with the government, you cannot be allowed to live and taint the minds of the rest of the good citizens.

The use of militarism was implied only as a means to accomplish one of the three above principles, mainly to keep the people and rest of the world in line. Fascist countries are known for their harmony and lack of internal strife. There are no conflicting parties or elections in fascist countries.

Nazi Germany was extreme Fascism, better examples of fascist countries were Mussolini’s Italy, Iraq, Iran, and many middle eastern countries.

Why Ben Carson has no business near the Oval Office

by Los Angeles Times commentator Doyle McManus, on line and in print November 11, 2015

I don’t really mind that Ben Carson thinks the pyramids in Egypt were used to store grain; that’s a folk belief that’s been around since the Middle Ages. At least he dismisses the theory that the pyramids were built by space aliens.

And I don’t really mind that Carson’s autobiography, by his own admission, isn’t precisely accurate on every detail. He still insists that he tried to kill a classmate with a knife, an unusual claim for a presidential candidate. But even if that story was an exaggeration, it’s harmless myth-making — a dramatization of how low the teenage Carson had sunk before God intervened to shape him up. Barack Obama’s autobiography used creative license to make him sound like a juvenile delinquent, too.

Here’s what I do mind: Even though Carson considers himself brilliant, he doesn’t seem to care much about the actual duties of a president. His speeches, interviews and books betray a shaky grasp of economic and foreign policy, to put it kindly. And when a candidate is tied for first place for the Republican nomination in most polls, that’s no laughing matter.

Case in point: His comments about the federal budget.

Carson has proposed turning the income tax into a 15% flat tax on rich and poor alike — a massive tax cut for the wealthy (and tax increase for the poor) that would reduce federal revenue by more than half a trillion dollars, according to most estimates.

But more than a year after he began running for president, the good doctor still hasn’t explained how he would fill the yawning budget gap his tax cut would produce.

Indeed, this week he appeared to make the problem worse. Previously, Carson said he would cut federal spending by 3% to 4% across the board (except for the military, which he would grow). Now he says the cuts would amount to only 2% or 3% — a more realistic target, but one that would only widen the deficit.

Where are the details? There aren’t any available; none of these plans has been reduced to paper. A Carson spokesman told me that the campaign hopes to release specific proposals by the end of the year.

I don’t envy Carson’s aides; the candidate often sounds confused.

“The lion’s share of the gross domestic output is consumed by the federal government,” he complains in his latest book, “A More Perfect Union.” Actually, no: Federal spending consumes about 20% of GDP while consumer spending takes the true lion’s share: almost 70%.

On the public radio show “Marketplace” last month, Carson was asked whether he would block an increase in the federal debt ceiling. “I would not sign an increased budget,” he replied. No, his interviewer clarified, the question was about debts already incurred, not future spending. Carson still seemed to think they were the same thing. “We’re not raising any spending limits, period,” he said.

His vagueness and apparent lack of understanding on those counts isn’t comical; it’s troubling. Next to Carson, Ronald Reagan was a detail-oriented policy wonk.

Economics isn’t his only blind spot.

In his book, Carson argues that federal judges shouldn’t be allowed to rule on the constitutionality of state ballot initiatives like California’s Proposition 8, which the Supreme Court overturned in 2013.

“Having a ballot referendum on an important issue is a farce if a federal judge can throw out the results,” he writes. He suggests, as a remedy to this problem, that Congress simply impeach any judge who “ignores the will of the people.” So much for the Constitution.

Carson thinks the U.S. military should be taking the lead in ground combat against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. “I would commit everything to eliminating them [Islamic State] right now,” he said. That’s a controversial position, but a defensible one. Here’s where Carson goes off course: He argues that U.S. forces shouldn’t be bound by the laws of war.

“There is no such thing as a politically correct war,” he told Fox News. “If you’re going to have rules for war, you should just have a rule that says ‘no war.’ Other than that, we have to win.”

Carson is, by all accounts, a brilliant surgeon. He’s a splendid motivational speaker and an admirable philanthropist. But he’s not ready to be chief executive of the United States.

In his books, he often mentions incidents in which God intervened in his life. When he neglected to study at Yale, God showed him the answers on a chemistry exam. When he fell asleep while driving home one night, God spared his life. When he used new surgical techniques on children’s brains, God saved some of his patients. And when he was on a safari in Africa, God answered his prayer for plenty of photogenic wildlife.

Now that he’s running for president, Carson sounds as if he’s counting on divine intervention to pull him through again. There can be no doubt about the sincerity of Carson’s Christian faith or his belief in the power of prayer. But voters — even the most devout — deserve more earthly evidence that he’s up to the job.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

GOP Debate #3 – No Clear Winner

A GOP effort to avoid offering solutions to issues.

The debates are becoming somewhat boring. We have all heard the positions of the candidates. For the most part we know who wants to create a flat tax and who wants to protect Social Security. That made the moderator’s job more difficult.

The candidates were asked some questions that were obviously meant to start arguments among them. For the most part that strategy failed. Jeb Bush’s attacks on Marco Rubio were induced by the moderator. The attacks were fended off fairly well by Rubio.

The one significant continuing problem for me was the lack of answers to reasonable questions. The candidates all spoke about the lagging income of the middle class but not one offered even an outline of a solution. There were some who acknowledged the growing college student debt but not one had any solution.

Remarks about the Federal Reserve by Ted Cruze and Rand Paul might have rung a bell with the No-Nothings but seemed obtuse and irrelevant. Inserting politics into the management of our monetary system would likely result in endless Benghazi like hearings conducted by people who have an agenda beyond the management of the nation’s banking system. Somewhat bizarrely, Cruz also appeared to call for a return to the gold standard.

Ted Cruze was a master at avoiding answering the questions put to him. He attacked the moderators and pointedly guessed that none would be voting in the Republican primaries. When asked his view on the fact that women on average earn 77% of the pay of men for the same job he went on a spiel about helping the middle class.

I could not identify a winner of this event. Neither Donald Trump nor Ben Carson offered any impressive position or statement that would keep them in the lead in the polling. Jeb Bush, considered the early favorite of the establishment made no statement that pushed him ahead. Carly Fiorina’s idea of a three page tax code was a good sound bite, remember Herman Caine’s 2012 9-9-9 plan, but is obviously an unlikely outcome. The Herman Caine plan was 9 percent “individual flat tax,” a 9 percent “business flat tax,” and a 9 percent sales tax.

I do not anticipate anyone dropping out of the race as a consequence of this debate.

No Matter What the Jews Do They will be Blamed!

First view and read this: http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/fox_news_psychiatrist_blames_jews_for_surrendering_guns_to_Nazis

“In other words while Ben Carson was only implying that Germany’s Jews were responsible for their own deaths, Fox News’ Keith Ablow went all the way there:

If Jews in Germany had more actively resisted the Nazi party or the Nazi regime and had diagnosed it as a malignant and deadly cancer from the start, there would, indeed, have been a chance for the people of that country and the world to be moved to action by their bold refusal to be enslaved.

In other words: We didn’t fail Europe’s Jews in the Holocaust, the Jews failed us. Good to know.”The Weekly Sift

It seems that no matter what Jews do or don’t do they are to blame. Millions of Jews did as they were told and were killed before and during WWII. Many people continue to say they did not stand up to the Germans and that cost more lives than simply following orders. Of course that is not entirely accurate. Jews did fight against the Nazis while being held in the Warsaw Ghetto. Jews did join underground efforts against the Nazi war machine. At the end of WWII they fought to the British in Palestine before the state of Israel became a reality. The tactics used by those Jews in Palestine were condemned by many people.

Israel has received military hardware to defend itself from the United States but no participation of U.S. military. When they are attacked they continue to conduct their own defense in their own way. They are condemned for their tactics.

So what is it you want from Israel? Surrender and be killed or fight with every tool you have. That is the choice. The Israelis have chosen to fight. I am not an Israeli but if I was, I would fight.

Being a Boss is not the same as being President of the United States

Let’s consider the leading outsiders who want the GOP nomination.

When you’re the boss there is no democracy involved. You make the rules and all of your employees must do as they are told. That includes department heads and company CEOs. So when Donald Trump, owner of a large business or Carly Fiorina, when she was CEO of Hewlett Packard gave an order it had to be followed. The consequence of not following your orders is their termination.

When you are a legislator you must sit with other legislators and agree on a plan that is then acted into law. You alone cannot command anyone to do anything (other than your immediate staff).

Those differences between being the boss and working with others to initiate orders are the reasons that CEOs and bosses are not necessarily successful in elected office. Former President Ronald Reagan never was a boss. He was an actor and in show business you must learn to get along with others to make a movie or television program.

Donald Trump owns his business. It is not listed on a stock exchange. When he gives an order to his employees they do as they are told. Not following Trump’s directions can lead to termination.

Carly Fiorina tried to do what she wanted in Hewlett Packard but even as CEO, while still being as boss, she still had a boss. That was the roll of the Board of Directors. Carly Fiorina left Hewlett Packard effective immediately upon termination. There were no goodbye parties.

Doctor Ben Carson probably had a team of assistance who responded to his direction. They too had no choice.

The skill set to work successfully in politics is not the same as being the boss. You may like what the non-politicians say but can they carry out their promises? Well not if they use the same skill set used as a boss.