There's not much change from the last GOP debate at the Ronald Reagan Library in California, only Scott Walker has dropped out of the running after another disastrous performance. He won't be missed, but we are still stuck with a bus full of clowns and attention seekers.
The debate will be shown on CNBC and is titled "Your Money, Your Vote".
The top ten candidate line-up according to percentage aggregates of recent polls is:
Donald Trump: 25.22%
Ben Carson: 19.78%
Marco Rubio: 9.67%
Jeb Bush: 8.11%
Carly Fiorina: 8.11%
Ted Cruz: 6.89%
Mike Huckabee: 3.56%
Chris Christie: 3.00%
John Kasich: 3.00%
Rand Paul: 3.00%
There will also be a debate between the four runner-ups at the bottom of the heap. These candidates are:
"As a teenager I would go after people with rocks, and bricks, and baseball bats and hammers. And, of course, many people know the story when I was 14 and I tried to stab someone." "You know, fortunately. you know, my life has been changed" he added. "And I'm a very different person now." This statement was made by GOP candidate Ben Carson,Sunday night on CNN, Meet the Press. IS THIS WHO WE WANT AS PRESIDENT? IS THIS MAN EVEN QUALIFIED TO BE A CANDIDATE? WHAT ON EARTH IS WRONG WITH BEN CARSON? Or, is he an example of "what is wrong" with the Republican party?
This incident is just one example of why we presently feel depressed and dismayed. For almost eight years now we have been following American politics/culture and it is shocking for us to watch your country descend into a state of what can only be described as madness.
Horrific incidents appear to occur on an almost daily basis and my American friend in Arizona told me just recently "how difficult it is to live in a very conservative part of America", another wrote that she "felt like throwing up" when she read that two reports concluded that Tamir Rice's shooting was "justified". Also a good friend of the blog who lives in Texas instinctively expects to daily hear that another awful incident has taken place there.
I realised lately that we ourselves have become almost immune to the increasing mayhem, and that as I stated above is both depressing and fills us with dismay. Still we hesitated to state our true feelings because we know that many of you here are just as concerned as we are. More so because it's not our home country, it is yours and it is worth fighting for.
So please, until the doldrums lift, carry on with your comments and contributions which are appreciated. I'll do my best to put a new post up every week or so and we will cover all the debates as well.
On Thursday morning a shooter opened fire on the campus of Oregon's Umpqua Community College. There have been conflicting reports regarding the numbers of casualties but recent figures suggest that ten have been killed and at least seven injured. The gunman has been identified as Chris Harper Mercer, a 26 years old man, who ironically on a social media dating website described himself as a "lover, conservative, professional, intellectual, introvert" who is "not religious but spiritual".
Soon afterwards a clearly upset President Obama addressed the nation regarding this latest senseless shooting. He seemed at a loss to understand why such events keep on reoccurringas he repeated yet again his sentiment that "prayers and thoughts are not enough". It's a sentiment that many of us reading here can identify with.
In his addressPresident Obama also struck out at claims that the people who commit such horrific mass murders do so because of mental illness. He said that "We are not the only country on earth that has people with mental illnesses" but "we are the only advanced country on earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months."
It's the number of guns that are the cause. That and how easy it is for American people to get hold of them.And also that of the existence of an association, the NRA, which encourages more and more guns and less and less regulations regarding their use and who can own them.
Until such issues are resolved the shootings will continue and more innocent lives will be lost. Countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom which vastly regulated gun control have seen a significant decrease in such horrific crimes. It's time for America to do the same. If not now, when? If not now, why?
President Obama addresses America after the shooting in Roseburg Oregon:
As far as US politics are concerned these days, there is still only one thing I really want to talk about: The appeal or non-appeal of Donald Trump, who might be the most awkward (current) front-runner in Republican presidential primaries in living history.
Why do I want to talk about him, again? Because his continuing popularity exposes some major fundamental issues which everybody should be concerned about, for example:
1. Illegal immigration is an issue which apparently can very easily be exploited in US elections, if one is only ruthless enough to go "all the way."
2. Being a "celebrity" seems to be more important for many voters than actual policy issues.
3. Many voters do not care about details. They are easily won over by "buzzwords", and this is certainly not going to change in the future. The "Donald Trump phenomenon" proved this simple truth, again.
The list could go on and on.
Even without Donald Trump, the current line-up of GOP-candidates has never been scarier. The pure thought alone that one of these people could be the the next US president causes nightmares. So how did it come to this point? What went wrong?
While I do not have the final answer, I think I have some clues. Voters need education, Voters need guidance. Voters need good role models. These things are obviously in short supply. Don't get me wrong: I do know that there are millions of highly educated people living in the USA. In the USA, we find many of the best universities in the world. However, this did not stop very large parts of the Republican party to go crazy. They also seem to get crazier by the day. They might not win the general election next year, however, this large group of misguided and manipulated people is not going to disappear quickly. They are here to stay, and they are obviously the product of many years of propaganda.
The human brain is controlled by emotions. Thinking, the intellectual process, always come second. The brain is basically asking to be exploited, and if "political morals" are low, politicians are only too willing to comply, as well as their henchman and henchwomen in the media
I am living in a country where it is frowned upon, to put it mildly, to use any "demagoguery" in politics. The reason is of course that Hitler and his Nazi-party ruthlessly were very successful demagogues, and promptly led their country straight into the abyss. The memory of how the Nazis abused a democratic political system is still very much alive in Germany.
I do not like any of the GOP-candidates, but it still gives me some hope when for example Rick Perry says things like "Trumpism A Toxic Mix Of Demagoguery, Mean-Spiritedness That Will Lead The Republican Party To Perdition", and that other Republican politicians made similar remarks. However, the GOP has nurtured the "crazy" part of their constituency for many years, and now this group of people has simply become too large and cannot be ignored any more. They have "built it" themselves, and now they have to deal with it.
I always find it interesting to listen to "unfiltered" opinions of citizens about politics. Such kind of statements are often "cringeworthy", everywhere, in every country, however, they still contain some "truth" in it, they still reflect to a certain degree what the "man and the woman on the street" is thinking - and how they are thinking.
I found the following youtube-clip very interesting, because the interviewer does it right and asks questions which are "open", and therefore receives honest, unfiltered opinions, without putting too much in people's mouths. The interviewees explain why they love or hate Trump:
I find it interesting that Donald Trump is mostly "remembered" for his comments about the "Mexicans", the illegal immigrants. It is obvious that this is a subject which bothers a lot of people, and they "like" it that Trump is talking about it. This is of course exactly where responsible politicians have to step in: If it becomes an acceptable talking point that millions of people should be deported, and that huge "fences" should be built everywhere, the country is definitely in trouble.
Well, virtually all the bad things you suspected of Donald Trump are obviously true - examples:
3. As a kid, Trump was a major bully — and he admits he hasn't changed.
As shoddy as Trump's behavior at debates is, just be glad it doesn't include any of the following:
Erasers hurled at teachers and cake flung at birthday parties were notable examples of the problem-child behavior that separated Donald Trump from the other kids at the private Kew-Forest School ... He once said that he gave a teacher a black eye “because I didn’t think he knew anything about music.”
What's worse than all that is that Trump point-blank admits that he hasn't evolved beyond that age. "When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same," Trump told the author. "The temperament is not that different."
Where did this temperament come from? Two sources, really: a tough-as-nails father and a coddling mother. What we think of today as quintessentially Trumpian language is, D'Antonio says:
A family trait that may have been handed down by their tough-talking father. Donald Trump saw a world inhabited by winners and losers, allies and enemies. When displeased, he would indulge in tirades spiced with expletives. Employees, rivals, critics, and associates would become, in his words, “stupid,” “dumb,” “losers,” or “wimps.”
The Donald's behavior was set from childhood; he credits the respect he got from his father to the fact that “I used to fight back all the time.” As for Trump's Scottish-born mom, Mary Anne:
[British TV journalist Selina] Scott concluded that as a mother who had known true hardship in her childhood Mrs Trump had spoiled her son. “He was Mummy’s boy,” said Scott, “and terribly spoiled as a child. He had everything he wanted and never had much taken away from him.” Trump reminded Scott of bullies she had known in her school days: “I came across embryonic Donald Trumps. Usually people lose that trait of saying, ‘I want it. You give it to me, or I will smash you.’” Trump, she said, had not lost that trait.
More:
4. Violence, and the need to win all games at all costs, dominated Trump's life at school.
Trump was faced with far worse than his father's anger when he was sent to cadet school in New York. There his bete noir was a "screaming US Army war veteran" named Theodore Dobias:
“In those days they’d smack the hell out of you. It was not like today where you smack somebody and you go to jail,” said Trump decades later. “[Dobias] could be a fucking prick. He absolutely would rough you up. You had to learn to survive.”
Dobias, who coached Trump in baseball and football, had no love lost for the kid either. "He always had to be number one in everything," he told the authors. "He was a conniver even then. A real pain in the ass. He would do anything to win.”
Later in life, this manifested itself in a skiing incident with his first wife Ivana, who was an internationally rated skiier (but may have lied about being in the Olympics). When Ivana beat him down the slope just one time, here's what she said happened next:
"Donald was so angry, he took off his skis, his ski boots, and walked up to the restaurant. So we find his skis down the mountain with the instructor. He went foot bare up to the restaurant and said, ‘I’m not going to do this shit for anybody, including Ivana.’ He could not take it, that I could do something better than he did.”
Scaffolding goes up at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, the site of the tonight's GOP debate. (Scott Shafer/KQED)
Round 2 of the GOP debate on CNN tonight. Donald Trump is still the front runner but I predict that he will drop out towards the end of the race and endorse Ted Cruz. Watch this space.
Image from CNN Instagram
The first debate starts at 6pm ET and features Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham and George Pataki. These are the bottom four runners. There is a post debate analysis by Anderson Cooper at 7.45pm ET The second debate starts at 8pm ET with the following candidates (in no particular order) Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Donald Trump, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Mike Huckabee. The post debate analysis by Anderson Cooper is scheduled for 11.00pm ET
I will be here for the live coverage of both debates. My hint is that you should take a drink of your favourite beverage every time Ronald Reagan's name is invoked by a candidate. Just don't drive afterwards.
"Hedge Fund Billionaires vs Teachers" is a new short film by Robert Greenwald of "Outfoxed" fame ( the film that exposed the fact that Fox is not a news channel but a conservative propaganda channel) and his production company is called "Brave New Films".
The film reveals the shameful fact that the "top 25 hedge fund managers in the USA make more than all kindergarten teachers
in the country combined. These investors make millions - sometimes
billions - of dollars investing borrowed money in hopes of realizing
large capital gains. But what is most absurd is that these millionaires
and billionaires pay a lower tax rate than kindergarten teachers -– and
very likely a lower rate than YOU!"
The hedge fund managers pay less tax than many working class Americans because of a loophole in the taxation system called "carried interest".
The producers of Brave New Films say:
"We wanted to know what
kindergarten teachers thought about this insane disparity, so we talked
to them. And the consensus is clear – this must end!
So
together we are calling on all 2016 presidential candidates to commit to
closing the carried interest loophole within their first 100 days of
office. If we closed this tax loophole and taxed hedge fund managers
like we tax teachers and every other American, we would generate $17.7
billion over a decade.
This is money that could go to public
education – and into normal working American’s tax breaks! Join us to
call on all 2016 presidential candidates to commit to closing the
carried interest loophole within their first 100 days of office."
The premiere of the film was live screened to an audience at Pace University in New York and the introduction of this important issue was led by Mayor Bill de Blasio who has also campaigned on the topic.
There was a good discussion after the film was screened and I urge all our readers to take time to watch the video which I have posted below. Readers might also consider contacting your favoured presidential candidate to ask what he or she is going to do about closing this ridiculous loophole.
