Really surprised you would make this statement. Its utterly possible with a long list of examples to hold a brilliant idea and still believe in utter nonsense.
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I really don't know what to make of the Republican Party in America. On the one hand, they've never been stronger.
They hold 31 Governorships in the States. Of those, 20 have been Republican since at least 2011. they've had a majority in the House since 2010, took majority control of the Senate in the last Election.
There are 13 states which are pure-red, that is they went Republican in the last Presidential election, they have a Republican Governor, Republican control of both State House and Senate, both their US Senators are Republicans and a majority of their Representatives are Republicans.
There are 6 pure-blue states, in comparison.
Digging deeper, there are 8 States with a Democratic Governor, but Republican control of either the Senate or the House, of those, in 6 States the Republicans control both. This is actually equally split with the Democrats, there are 8 states with a Republican Governor but Democrat control of at least one of House or Senate, but only in 4 of these to the Democrats have both Senate and House.
Overall, Republicans have control of 36 State Senates and 33 State Houses to 14 and 16 for the Democrats.
Out of all of these elected officials, you'd think there would be some strong, capable, experienced leaders who'd step forwards to lead the party.
However, out of the 8 people who will be onstage for the GOP "Main Event" Debate we're going to see a total of 12 years of Gubernatorial experience, 11 years in the Senate, 18 in the House, and 11 in State Legislatures. Take just John Kasich, who's polling at 2.8% off-stage and you're down to 2 terms of Governor Jeb (polling at 5.5%), 11 years in the Senate, no experience in the House at all, and Rubio's 9 years of experience in the Florida House, the same state Bush's Governorship was.
Hillary Clinton alone has 12 years as First Lady of Arkansas, 8 years as First Lady of the United States, 8 years in the US Senate, and 4 years as Secretary of State. That's 24 years of Executive and 8 years of Legislative experience in one person.
Sanders has 8 years as Mayor of Burlington, 16 years in the House of Representatives, and 9 years in the Senate.
Had Biden run that would have added 36 years of Senate experience and another 8 years of Vice President to the Democratic side of the equation.
What is going on in the Republican party where the most experienced, best-suited leaders are choosing not to seek the highest office?
I really don't know what to make of the Republican Party in America. On the one hand, they've never been stronger.
They hold 31 Governorships in the States. Of those, 20 have been Republican since at least 2011. they've had a majority in the House since 2010, took majority control of the Senate in the last Election.
A case of a well educated population being complete idiots.
That doesn't answer your question though. My guess is despite there being lots of experience among Republican politicians, few would stand up to close scrutiny because they and their ideas are corrupt.
There's no reason someone couldn't be a surgeon and lack critical thinking skills. He's obviously book smart and good at what he does, but that doesn't mean he can't be a crazy ideologue at the same time. They aren't mutually exclusive.
He obviously never read a book on the egyptian pyramids or learned math either.
Now this asshat claims Joseph(bible) built the pyramids to store grain
I know a lot of amazing miracles happened back in the day but did Joseph time travel over a 1000 years to when the pyramids were built?
Totally makes sense to build a 50 story grain elevator that has a couple of small rooms
Has the GOP ever in history been this much of a joke? Can you even imagine someone like this running the most powerful country on the planet? Carson is now neck an neck with Trump in the polls.
Trump should just come out and admit he's an atheist and destroy this idiot.
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You guys are getting all worked up and missing the point.
Carson and Trump will never get a sniff of the presidency. They are side-show candidates that prevent us from seeing the ugly side of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
If you had 18 months to focus on just Jeb Bush, do you think that guy comes out looking like anything but a corrupt product of a Banana Republic?
These Candidates are just taking the heat right now because they are obvious, easily attacked targets.
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I think Jeb is all but done and that the establishment will coalesce around Rubio.
But the whacko vote could coalesce around either Carson or Trump. That's a lot of votes. Curious to see what fissures develop in the party as this unfolds. At least it's entertaining.
Well Ben Carson is pretty much ####ed now. You can lie about a lot to GOP voters, just not about the military.
Quote:
Ben Carson’s campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from POLITICO, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
The academy has occupied a central place in Carson’s tale for years. According to a story told in Carson’s book, “Gifted Hands,” the then-17 year old was introduced in 1969 to Gen. William Westmoreland, who had just ended his command of U.S. forces in Vietnam, and the two dined together. That meeting, according to Carson’s telling, was followed by a “full scholarship” to the military academy.
West Point, however, has no record of Carson applying, much less being extended admission.
“In 1969, those who would have completed the entire process would have received their acceptance letters from the Army Adjutant General,” said Theresa Brinkerhoff, a spokeswoman for the academy. She said West Point has no records that indicate Carson even began the application process. “If he chose to pursue (the application process), then we would have records indicating such,” she said.
When presented with these facts, Carson’s campaign conceded the story was false.
“Dr. Carson was the top ROTC student in the City of Detroit,” campaign manager Barry Bennett wrote in an email to POLITICO. “In that role he was invited to meet General Westmoreland. He believes it was at a banquet. He can’t remember with specificity their brief conversation but it centered around Dr. Carson’s performance as ROTC City Executive Officer.”
“He was introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC Supervisors,” Bennett added. “They told him they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and performance in ROTC. He considered it but in the end did not seek admission.”
Carson and Trump are proving how lowIQ, Republican voters are, literally.
Carson should sacrifice a witch and Trump should buy some offshore sweatshops. Probably pickup more voters.
It's just gotcha politics from the media. They are just doing this to keep the focus off the issues. Just ask Ben.
Finally got caught in a lie that could be proven with documentation (or lack thereof).
If he makes it to the next debate without folding up his candidacy after this latest lie he damn well better be grilled on it by Fox and WSJ.
It's hilarious as he could be completely honest and he'd still have a hell of a life story. Instead he has to fabricate things. Well certainly this one thing and many others are very suspect.
Here's an example of what i'm talking about from noted Liberal/Communist rag, The Washington Post:
Quote:
This post focuses on problem No. 2: making the tax code more regressive. In this regard, Sen. Marco Rubio takes the cake. If you were thinking: “what tax change could I implement that would be most helpful to the wealthiest households?” you’d quickly come to the same conclusion as Rubio: zero out taxes on capital gains and dividends. That’s because taxation on these forms of income, currently taxed at a top rate of 23.8 percent, is highly concentrated: according to the Tax Policy Center, 79 percent of the tax take from this asset-based income comes from the top 1 percent, 5 percent from the bottom 90 percent.
Ever since this plan came out, my Center on Budget colleague and tax expert Chuck Marr has been bugging me about these unique data, produced by the IRS, on the 400 taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income (AGI). Well, to get him off my back, I finally took a close look and … OMG!
The average amount of capital gains held by these wealthiest of taxpayers in 2012, the most recent year for these data, is $230 million. Just to be clear, that’s the average value of capital gains — the money these wealthy people make from selling appreciated assets — held by the richest 400 taxpayers in 2012. Multiply that by 400, and you get back the total taxable base for these folks: $92 billion. Actually, in the context of this discussion, I guess I should call it the existing tax base, since Rubio wants to take it off the tax table.
That $92 billion was 12 percent of total taxable cap gains in 2012. I repeat: 12 percent of all capital gains subject to taxation was held by the richest 400 taxpayers. You often hear about the top 1 percent in these discussions. Well, those folks comprise the top 0.0003 percent.
Why would you do this? Jeb Bush and Donald Trump both take the rate on cap gains and dividends down to 20 percent (the extra 3.8 percent helps to fund the Affordable Care Act, which they both whack); John Kasich goes down to 15 percent, Ted Cruz is at 10 percent. But zero? Really?
It’s the same old trickle-down rap. I’ve tried to do my part to shine some factual light on this fatuous claim, showing the absence of any correlation between the tax rate on gains and investment. I’ve quoted an actual investor by the name of Warren Buffett: “I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain.”
If Donald Trump and Ben Carson didn't exist, the media would be forced to report on one of the GOP frontrunner's absolutely ludicrous tax plan.
Instead, we get sound bytes about mexicans, false applications to west point and a variety of other 'non-news'.
This is, of course, by design, as unfortunately, Americans no longer exist in a democracy.
Don't believe me that this is a two-horse race? Look at the parallels to the Canadian election. Who did Harper key on? His key political rival, Trudeau. Mulcair was mostly ignored because he was never threatening.
Who is Jeb Bush focused on? Trump? Of course not. It's Rubio.
Quote:
Next week’s showdowns put particular pressure on Mr. Bush to pull off what he failed to accomplish at the third GOP debate in Colorado: put his former political understudy in his place for missing Senate votes and raise doubts about Mr. Rubio’s readiness to do the job. Mr. Rubio has his own challenges; his rise in the polls has heightened scrutiny of his candidacy, including renewing questions about his use of a Florida GOP charge card for personal expenses.
“I don’t like criticizing people,” Mr. Bush said in an interview Thursday with The Wall Street Journal aboard his campaign bus in New Hampshire. “But I do think that Marco, and any other United States senator and any other congressman, needs to show up, and so, Marco’s fair game.”
Mr. Bush’s debate scolding of Mr. Rubio’s Senate absenteeism backfired when the senator cast the attack as petty politics. Mr. Bush and his allies, however, haven’t stopped talking about it.
A super PAC backing the former governor took Mr. Rubio to task on Twitter Thursday afternoon for missing a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about the possibility of a bomb downing a Russian airliner over Egypt. “He’ll go through the wringer, just like I’m going through it, and he’ll have to defend himself,” Mr. Bush said. “There’ll be scrutiny on him, just as there should be for everybody.”
Mr. Rubio, 44, has said he won’t criticize Mr. Bush, 62. Yet he has repeatedly characterized the 2016 election as a generational choice, casting himself as fresher face in a party desperate to appeal to younger Americans.
Next week’s “Sunshine Summit” serves as a precursor to their showdown in the March 15 Florida primary, a winner-take-all contest in which the loser will face the almost-certain death of his presidential ambitions—assuming one of them wins in a state where they are currently overshadowed by Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
Thirteen of the 15 GOP candidates are expected in Orlando, but the spotlight will linger on Mr. Bush, who helped build the state’s Republican Party into a political juggernaut, and Mr. Rubio, who rose through its ranks to become House Speaker and won election to the U.S. Senate in a major upset.
The problem for Jeb is that he has been good friends with Rubio. I don't like Jeb or his policies (or his brother) but he seems to lack the desire to do anything he needs to do to win. He is reluctant to throw friends under the bus and get his campaign back on the rails. His attempts are half hearted. In a way I can respect him for that...even if I don't really respect the friends he keeps. Rubio will not hesitate to throw him under the bus if he can.
The GOP I think will end up going with Rubio but he does have a lot of skeletons in his closet he can't really explain away. Or hasn't been able to so far. It really is a tremendously underwhelming group of candidates.
Personally, as whacky as the Trump/Carson side show is, Rubio is the guy I most dread...mostly because I can see him winning. He's clearly intelligent, and good speaker....yet unfortunately he also possesses the policies which I think can do the most harm the US in the long term. Whether it comes to financial issues, health care, foreign policy, military issues...his policies tend to be exactly the opposite of what I personally think needs to happen in that country to set it along the right path again.
Trump huffs and puffs, but I think in the end he would be a fairly centrist president. Carson, I just don't see getting to the finish line. Rubio seems like one of those annoying little Tracy Flick over-achievers who would actually get things done, ha.
I think he'll end up being the GOP candidate.
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I really don't know what to make of the Republican Party in America. On the one hand, they've never been stronger.
They hold 31 Governorships in the States. Of those, 20 have been Republican since at least 2011. they've had a majority in the House since 2010, took majority control of the Senate in the last Election.
There are 13 states which are pure-red, that is they went Republican in the last Presidential election, they have a Republican Governor, Republican control of both State House and Senate, both their US Senators are Republicans and a majority of their Representatives are Republicans.
A great deal of Republican success is related to gerrymandering.
California and Arizona have shown the way out by taking the job of redistricting away from politicians in the state legislature and turning it over to independent citizen commissions. And in June, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the Arizona-California method, giving the green light to citizen-led reform elsewhere.
Other states are also taking action. Seven have already set up independent nonpartisan or bipartisan redistricting. In six more states, gerrymandering is under assault in the courts. And in yet another six, either political leaders or citizen groups have mounted campaigns to reduce or eliminate gerrymandering.
Perhaps public shock over Boehner's downfall will give new impetus to a long-overdue reform movement. Otherwise, these insurgencies will continue to shackle American democracy.
I really don't know what to make of the Republican Party in America. On the one hand, they've never been stronger.
They hold 31 Governorships in the States. Of those, 20 have been Republican since at least 2011. they've had a majority in the House since 2010, took majority control of the Senate in the last Election.
There are 13 states which are pure-red, that is they went Republican in the last Presidential election, they have a Republican Governor, Republican control of both State House and Senate, both their US Senators are Republicans and a majority of their Representatives are Republicans.
There are 6 pure-blue states, in comparison.
Digging deeper, there are 8 States with a Democratic Governor, but Republican control of either the Senate or the House, of those, in 6 States the Republicans control both. This is actually equally split with the Democrats, there are 8 states with a Republican Governor but Democrat control of at least one of House or Senate, but only in 4 of these to the Democrats have both Senate and House.
Overall, Republicans have control of 36 State Senates and 33 State Houses to 14 and 16 for the Democrats.
Out of all of these elected officials, you'd think there would be some strong, capable, experienced leaders who'd step forwards to lead the party.
However, out of the 8 people who will be onstage for the GOP "Main Event" Debate we're going to see a total of 12 years of Gubernatorial experience, 11 years in the Senate, 18 in the House, and 11 in State Legislatures. Take just John Kasich, who's polling at 2.8% off-stage and you're down to 2 terms of Governor Jeb (polling at 5.5%), 11 years in the Senate, no experience in the House at all, and Rubio's 9 years of experience in the Florida House, the same state Bush's Governorship was.
Hillary Clinton alone has 12 years as First Lady of Arkansas, 8 years as First Lady of the United States, 8 years in the US Senate, and 4 years as Secretary of State. That's 24 years of Executive and 8 years of Legislative experience in one person.
Sanders has 8 years as Mayor of Burlington, 16 years in the House of Representatives, and 9 years in the Senate.
Had Biden run that would have added 36 years of Senate experience and another 8 years of Vice President to the Democratic side of the equation.
What is going on in the Republican party where the most experienced, best-suited leaders are choosing not to seek the highest office?
The very loud, heavily Koch-supported Tea Party candidates have taken over the whole party. Obama getting elected and passing the ACA immediately, and then gay marriage is becoming legal in state after state, women stepping up for rights, etc etc...the Tea Party wants the Good Old Days where women stayed home with the babies and black people were segregated and labor was cheap because there weren't unions.
And few things motivate a base to get out and vote like pure terror, and when you have Fox News blasting out "War on Christmas!" "War on Men!" "War on Whites!" "War on Christians!" it's easy to terrify a large baby-boomer base that is all too willing to go out and vote on every single election day. It's a lot harder to motivate a logical thinking progressive, or a hard-working single mother who may legitimately not have time to go and vote come election day. But middle class white Christians aged 50-70? Oh yeah. They've got time to go out and vote, and the Tea Party is spouting their language (No more taxes, stop welfare, "pro-life," stop the Gay Agenda, etc.).
A moderate Republican doesn't stand a chance. Chris Christie merely shook Obama's hand after receiving help for Sandy, and the right wing lost their minds that he was too liberal.
A moderate Republican doesn't stand a chance. Chris Christie merely shook Obama's hand after receiving help for Sandy, and the right wing lost their minds that he was too liberal.
Yeah, Christie is a loud mouth, probably corrupt jerk which seems to appeal to the Republicans but that hand shake maybe cost him his chance at the Presidential nomination. He'd have probably been made a hero if he had refused federal aid or at least avoided Obama. With some States refusing free federal health care money, it's just so a** backwards I don't know what to say.
but did Joseph time travel over a 1000 years to when the pyramids were built? 
