LMN8R
3662
Sure, but he’s just saying what everyone else has alluded to. Hence everyone else would also happily try to enforce a Muslim ban and widespread deportation.
Aw 20 years is nothing. Try becoming a citizen of Japan as a Cacausian or Switzerland where they decided that 75-year-old university professor who spoke German and had lived in Switzerland for 39 years was not sufficiently integrated into Swiss culture. Even ignoring the unusual American law of granting citizenship to people who were born here, it is the lot easier to be a US Citizen than most European countries or even Mexico.
I am trying to decide which would be worse Trump/Carson or Carson/Trump.
This debate was the least entertaining one of them all to me. I guess when all the candidates are saying insane things it’s more difficult to pull out the zingers.
I loved how CNN would ask a question, let the candidate ignore it and say whatever they wanted, then follow up by saying “but you didn’t answer the question…,” restate the question … and then let the candidate ignore it again.
I also learned Dr. Carson’s patients thanked them when he opened their brains.
I also learned Carly Fiorina thinks there are many words that start with the letter B… plus all of America’s generals retired because they don’t like how Obama is making our military weak (not because of silly things like sex scandals).
I learned taking debate questions from Facebook is a bad idea.
I also heard a rumor that Christie was a Federal Prosecutor… can anyone confirm/deny?
Scuzz
3666
I only watched their opening statements. Based on that alone Paul won, Fiorina lost and Trump wasn’t sure why he was there.
Debate results!
CNN is calling the “winners” as Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Christie and Bush. The “losers” are Carson, Fiorina, Kasich and Paul.
Fox News appears to give the winning spots to Cruz and Rubio.
Me? I’m declaring Frank Underwood the winner. His new FU2016 ad shows exactly what the country needs.
Hah, I just noticed the FU. Too bad season 3 sucked. :(
Someone hit me with this on Twitter last night, and I’m still chuckling.
Just watch Triumph Of The Will. Same message, shorter running time, better cinematography.
I think Bush did better… I guess if CNN’s definition of winning is “not sucking as badly as in the past”, then both Bush and the Redskins are in the winners’ circle now.
Cruz and Rubio both tried - and succeeded - in looking like front-runners.
Trump seemed a bit deflated and I think he “got” better than he “gave”, but he didn’t hurt himself. Honestly, with the exception of the first debate, these things are just rituals that Trump has to sit through. His real power is out on the trail where the media can fawn over him. I’d say he’s a winner, and so would he.
Christie had a good performance, but he always seems to do well in the debates and it never seems to help him in the polls. Another push.
Likewise, I think that Paul did quite well and I wouldn’t put him in the “losers” bin myself… but then I’m not a GOP voter. His lines always got cheers (albeit from the same group, based on pitch), and he had a couple really good moments. Too bad what he had to say was pretty much the polar opposite of what the average GOP voter wants to hear. Loser.
Carson is still sounding like he’s taken too much cold medication. Additionally, he sounded (sleepily) desperate to be taken seriously. Too bad name-dropping obscure towns from Jordan and Syria didn’t make him sound any more competent. And pathetically dodging a question on a subject that he obviously hadn’t been paying attention to was painful to watch. Loser.
Fiorina and Kasich didn’t bring anything new to the table, simply offering up more of the same talking points that GOP voters have not found compelling in the past. I imagine both will drop out after Iowa. Losers.
Timex
3671
I am always baffled when CNN keeps calling Trump a winner from these debates, where he has performed poorly in every one. I mean, on some level you need to question the measurement. He offers no defense against the claims that his plans are nonsensical and hollow. He just repeats crap like, “You gotta be tough”.
It’s like his policy is designed to target meathead jocks from a 1950’s highschool football team. Which hell, I guess it is.
In terms of Rand Paul getting cheers, that’s because he had a group of hard-core supporters in the audience. It doesn’t really mean that much.
You win votes by appealing to peoples emotions, not with fact laden presentations.
So at some level, I don’t think it matters.
Bush was too little too late. He stikes me more like his dad than his brother, but I’ve I also described Bush 41, speaking sytle as a hastily written email.
Political rules don’t apply to Trump and there was less ganging up on him, so he did fine. My favorite anti-Trump momement was when Rand Paul went after him on shutting down the internet as repelling the 1st amendment, and killing terrorist families requires us to get out of the Geneva convention. But it polled horribly with the Fox focus group, the worse point of the debate.
Carson has become just too painful to watch. I hope he drops out before his reputation as doctor gets trashed.
Conventional wisdom is that Cruz beat Rubio. However, the fact checking I think is going to hurt Cruz. Britt Hume basically called him a liar on his claim he didn’t support ammensty. . National Review called him a slick lawyer and the comparison to Slick Willie and Hillary just write themselves. I’d used the tag line, isn’t one Clinton running bad enough.
I like Christie, and I think he did pretty well, although he really needs to remind us only once an hour he was a Federal prosecutor. Kaisch doesn’t have Christie’s charisma and has clear anger deficit for a Republican this year. Carly really had nothing new to say and I think her time has come and gone.
Oghier
3674
Here’s an excellent segment from last night’s Daily Show, a focus group discussion with Donald Trump supporters. It’s not a parody.
It’s worth watching through to the muslim registry question.
Timex
3675
Here a question:
Who is worse, the people who think it’s ok to have a national registry of Jews, or the people who don’t think that’s OK, but DO think it’s ok to do that for Muslims?
It was funny and scary. However, why do you think it wasn’t a parody? They said they spent hours talking to this people and they showed us 5 minute. Do you really think they didn’t skillfully edit the responses to show us the weirdest most bizzare and funniest moments.
To me one of the most frightening aspects of (ok not as frightening as Donald Trump himself) American politics, is otherwise intelligent people, mistaking stuff on Comedy Central, or John Oliver as actual news. It is comedy not news.
Timex
3677
In fairness, much of the time it is equally valid as news compared to what is presented by the news networks themselves.
For instance, they virtually always back themselves up with actual clips of their claims, which is far more than what is often done by people like Sean Hannity.
It’s very rare that the daily show or Jon Oliver have ever been caught being factually incorrect, and when it has happened they have generally always issued corrections.
While there is certainly a satirical slant to them, and they are not under any strict obligation to be unbiased, no such obligation exists for the “news” providers either. And the daily show actually tend to have a better record when it comes to factual accuracy.
Oghier
3678
I’m sure they edited it to the funniest, most disturbing bits. And you’re right that there is some context missing, but the bits that we saw actually happened.
As for the ‘comedy not news’ point, I agree somewhat. But what the heck is news anymore? It’s all newstainment, particularly the US Cable channels. Neither Fox, CNN nor MSNBC practice any recognizable, legitimate form of journalism. Al Jazeera and the BBC are better, but they probably combine for .5% of the cable audience.
I trust John Oliver more than Wolf Blitzer, Chris Mathews or anyone on Fox not named Shepard Smith.
CraigM
3679
I was going to comment to Strollen, but you basically said exactly what I would have.
It isn’t unbiased, for sure, but neither does it pretend to be. They absolutely own up to what their biases and slant is, which is a damn sight more honest than what Bill O’Reilley does. He intends to distort and insinuate what he can’t come out and say outright. John Oliver makes his argument, and gives support for it usually.
How do you know that? Comedy Central is under no legal, moral, or journalism ethical obligation to actually have a real focus group of Trump supporters any more than Saturday Night Live is obligated to use non-actors for a skit. It is like people believing that Reality TV shows don’t have scripted moments.
For all, we know they could have had paid 7 actors to be focus group attendees reading from a script.
Now, I’m willing to believe that those really were Trump supporters. However, I’ve been to way too many focus groups (on both sides of the wall) to know that behavior of the moderator was anything but a comedian being funny. In much the same way that folks on Jay Leno All-Stars were encouraged to be funny (according to a friend of a friend who was on the crew), I believe these people were encouraged implicitly or explicitly to make outlandish claims. In particular the whole hold signs with Trump face bit, seemed staged to me.
Frank Luntz did focus group of 29 Trump supporters, and results were scary and crazy enough. So I am not saying that what we saw was scripted, but people need to more critical of comedy news shows. As Stewart himself has said on numerous occasions he was doing a comedy show.
Timex
3681
Strollen is right that most folks don’t really fact check the daily show, which really needs to be done if you are going to take it as news. In the past, I’ve found that they tend to make lies of omission sometimes.
But most of the time, such as in this case, they are mainly just pointing out the absurd. Or pointing out hypocrisy. And in those cases, it works well.
In the cases here, I think their presentation of those supporters is likely accurate, as it messages with every other coverage of them I’ve seen thus far.
