republican debate Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Friday Morning News Roundup

The NY Knicks have a problem. Jeremy Lin has taken the league by storm. New York has almost forgotten about the Giants, who won a Super Bowl, and have just jumped on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon. I follow Spike Lee on twitter. He has been going nuts over Lin’s outstanding play over the last week. The only reason that Lin is in the lineup is that superstar Carmelo Anthony has been hurt. Melo is now healthy. There is only one basketball. Now what? This is going to be interesting. Lin has been on a very unique hot streak. Here is what Lin has meant to basketball –

Greece is closing in on a bailout deal. Germany may want more.

Why does Rupert Murdoch still have a job? Why hasn’t the board of directors fired him? Murdoch is rushing back to London to try to calm nerves since the arrest of several high-level officials. This just gets worse and worse.

NY Times journalist died in Syria. He died of an apparent asthma attack. He was covering the war in Syria.

The 189th republican debate (have there been fewer..? it seems like more) has been cancelled by CNN. It appears that only Newt was going to show up. I think that would have been perfect. Newt debating with himself for over an hour about whether, frankly, he is the greatest candidate of all time. Now, that would have been TV worth watching.

There was a plane flying in presidential airspace on Thursday. As per protocol, F-16 fighters were scrambled and intercepted the prop plane. It may be the most expensive drug bust in a while because the plane was full of pot. Busted for transporting pot because you flew into presidential airspace.

The multi-millionaire Rick Santorum backer went on the tellie to mention that all of this stuff over contraception is overblown. He said, “Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.” Of course, back in the good ole days women had back room abortions which frequently ended in death. Back in his day, women were forced to marry early because they knew nothing about sexual education. Back in his day, it was rare for women to go to college and have a career. Back in his day the dinosaurs roamed the plains, as did woolly mammoths… you get the picture. Women need to have information. They need to be free to make their own decisions about contraception. They don’t need advice from this guy.

Ron Paul could still win Maine in a non-binding straw poll/caucus-type thing that really means nothing since no delegates were decided. Our political process gets uglier and uglier the more I examine it.

Unemployment claims decreased.

Did you know that the economy is growing in spite of President Obama? Yep, that’s the Romney line for today.

Romney’s campaign is in trouble. He is at risk of losing his home state of Michigan. So, he decided that it would be a GREAT idea to give a major speech in his home state bashing the auto bailout and unions. That’s a winning formula for Michigan!!

Jokes about the tragic death of Whitney Houston, I guess, if told by someone with taste, could be okay, but calling her a “crack ho” was out of bounds and a radio duo got suspended for their thoughtless and tasteless remarks. When I said on the air that Whitney Houston had a huge problem with drugs and that her problems have been well documented. I think that was okay. I said that I would be surprised if drugs and alcohol did not contribute to her death. I think that was also okay. I don’t think that it is okay to call her a crack ho and ask why it took so long for her to die. These morons are doing what morning drive time guys do, push the envelope of taste. This is why folks listen to them. Sad that you have to be offensive to get an audience these days.

By ecthompsonmd|2012-02-17T10:21:25-04:00February 17th, 2012|Civil Rights, Domestic Issues, Economy, Media, Obama administration, Party Politics|Comments Off

Gingrich cries

I find it interesting that the hyper-macho Republicans can cry but Democrats can’t. When Hillary Clinton choked up she got criticism. John Boehner seems to cry every week, yet there is little or nothing about it from the mainstream media. Newt teared up and everyone is talking about the terrible pressure that the candidates are under. Whatever. All I know is that if Barack Obama would have broken down in Iowa, it would have been open season on Obama. The amount of non-stop criticism about how unfit he was to lead the country would have been unprecedented. Fox News would have played the loop non-stop for a week. There would have been a Fox News special on how emotionally unstable he was.

As Newt began to tear up there was someone in the audience (several people, I think) who said, “Awww.” Now contrast this reaction to the Republican debate in which people cheered Perry for executing more than 200 Americans …

Or what about when Ron Paul was asked about the patient without insurance and Wolf asked whether society should let him die? There was applause from the audience.

I guess you could argue that we are looking at two different groups of Republicans. Or you could argue that the Republican party is really schizophrenic.

By ecthompsonmd|2011-12-31T09:32:57-04:00December 31st, 2011|Party Politics|Comments Off

The suspense isn’t killing me (Updated)

For the past four years, the Republican Party has been doing backflips, trying to prove to America that they care about minorities. They’ve been trying to prove that they are an inclusive party. They’ve been trying to come up with the Republican version of Barack Obama ever since Barack Obama was elected to a Senate in Illinois. As far as I know, Allen West is the only Republican Congressman who’s black (I’m sorry I over looked Tim Scott of SC. My apologies.) and there are no black Republican senators. I don’t think that this is because the Republican Party would not embrace a black figure, because they seemed to be plenty happy with Condoleezza Rice and with Colin Powell, before he endorsed Barack Obama and before he said that torture was not the direction that our country should be going.

Three years ago, the Republican Party picked Michael Steele out of relative obscurity in Maryland politics. Michael Steele had no previous experience in the national spotlight and his inexperience showed. There were many times when it was unclear whether Michael Steele was representing the GOP or simply his own interests. So at their first opportunity the GOP gave Michael Steele the boot.

Finally, the Republicans found the perfect candidate – Herman Cain. His resume looked impressive. He ran a successful company. He made tons of money (almost a prerequisite to run for the Republican nomination). He had a conservative talk show, which had a decent sized audience. He had a personable, almost folksy way of talking at campaign events. The bread-and-butter conservatives really like this. He was the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. All of this was really cool!! Herman Cain for President!

Problems with Herman Cain surfaced almost from the start. He seems to do well in these rallies where he can talk off the cuff and get the crowd energized. He seems to have problems with interviews. He seemed to have problems during the debates. During his closing statement in the first Republican debate, Herman Cain quoted the song the movie Pokémon. He said, “A poet once said, ‘life can be a challenge, life can seen impossible, it is never easy when there’s so much on the line.'” Personally, I think if you have to stoop to quoting a cartoon (“I’m strong to the finish, ‘cuz I eat my spinach” – Popeye), your candidacy should be over. Then, Herman Cain came out with his 9-9-9 plan. This seems to be directly derived from the 2004 version of SimCity (“It’s clobbing time” – The Thing). He has no economist to stand up and say “I came up with this plan and gave it to Herman Cain.” He has no team of advisers who said that they were knocking around different ideas for flat taxes and came up with this 9-9-9 plan. By itself, it isn’t really all that crazy, but when he added the Pokémon quote, doesn’t that mean that you’re not a serious candidate (“You’re despicable” – Daffy Duck)? So, Herman Cain continues to campaign and try to sell more books (selling items that personally line your pockets seems to be a theme in this Republican race this year – see Newt Gingrich). He then has a softball question tossed at him. What do you think about president Obama’s handling of Libya? I’m not sure what was difficult about this question. Libya has been in the news for more than six months. I think was reasonable for Herman Cain to ask for a point of clarification, just in case the reporter was trying to ask about a specific aspect of the Libyan policy. Yet, even with prompting, he came up with nothing (“I think I should’ve taken that left turn at Albuquerque” – Bugs Bunny). I won’t even going to the Iran nuclear issue question that Herman Cain also fumbled. The bread-and-butter of the Republican Party since Richard Nixon has been foreign-policy. Yet Herman Cain fumbles and bumbles the most basic foreign-policy questions. Republican voters should have been running for the exits.

We must remember that the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan has embraced this idea that they are morally superior to the rest of us. They have courted the religious right. A Republican candidate who seems to have a new woman alleging unwanted sexual advances every week should be nauseating. Then, this week, we have a woman who basically stated that she’s had a 13-year sexual affair with the guy who is running to be the nominee of the “family values” party. Sure, it would be easy to dismiss this woman as Herman Cain has dismissed all of the other accusers. This woman had Herman Cain’s phone number in her cell phone. She sent a text message to that number and only a couple minutes later Herman Cain called back. (“That’s all folks!” – Porky Pig.)

For the last three or four days Herman Cain has been “evaluating” his candidacy. Why? The rest of us have moved on. Sure, some time later on today Herman Cain is supposed to make a big announcement. Do we care? My answer is no. I don’t think that Herman Cain was ever a serious candidate for president. I hope he sold the books that he wanted to sell. I have no animosity or malice towards Herman Cain. He just should not run for president. The thousands and thousands of Americans who were duped into supporting this man should have their money refunded. (Somewhere on my blog, somebody posted a comment telling me that Herman Cain was going to “kick Barack Obama’s butt” in the general election. I wonder what that shortsighted supporter is thinking now.)

Update: Cain has suspended his campaign. (“Are you still here? The movie is over. Go home.” – Ferris Bueller. [I couldn’t think of any more great cartoon quotes. Sorry.])

By ecthompsonmd|2011-12-03T15:29:55-04:00December 3rd, 2011|Elections|7 Comments