5042

Oh, bullshit that “this is how all candidates work”. Rubio is obviously unable to think on his feet at all, whether because he’s just not good at it or he is unable to explain his positions because he only knows them by rote and doesn’t have a logical framework they are built off of as his mental model.

Can’t think of which speaks worse of him, but then I still think he’s a fascist who shouldn’t be in charge of a lemonade stand, much less a US Senate seat.

5043

I think you’re kind of reaching, to try and draw a much broader conclusion from an incident. It was an example of Rubio failing to come up with an out in that situation, but I think it’s kind of overplaying your hand to think that it extends to him NEVER being able to think on his feet, ever.

5044

All candidates repeat talking points, but Christie destroyed Rubio because people already suspected that Rubio was nothing but a nice-looking young guy who can memorize speeches and deliver them earnestly. His only accomplishments are getting elected, and he’s done nothing of note while in office.

Criticisms hit home harder when they’re accurate.

5045

But to those who have known him longest, Rubio’s flustered performance Saturday night fit perfectly with an all-too-familiar strain of his personality, one that his handlers and image-makers have labored for years to keep out of public view. Though generally seen as cool-headed and quick on his feet, Rubio is known to friends, allies, and advisers for a kind of incurable anxiousness — and an occasional propensity to panic in moments of crisis, both real and imagined.

But for pro-Rubio people, honest question: Doesn’t it bother you that his assertions, repeated or otherwise, are factually incorrect? (e.g. ACA has not killed thousands of jobs, Obama has not gutted the military nor is he trying to destroy the US on purpose.) Or put differently, which of his claims are demonstrably true?

5046

Well, he’s right that Obama knows what he’s doing.

5047

Well, in terms of cutting our military, our spending has decreased by around 15% from 2010 levels. As someone who actually works with the military, I can say that this has had an impact, especially in terms of various research projects which tend to have value outside of direct military applications. With many of Rubios statements about things like cuts to the Army, poltifact marks them as mostly true. In fact Politfact has a decent rundown of a bunch of these statements, and some are actually demonstrably true. Others are rated as false, although it could be argued that even though the US is in fact building some equipment, it may not be building it quickly enough to deal with our current operational needs. The Navy, for instance, currently evaluated its needs and we aren’t slated to have enough ships to cover them until 2022 at the earliest.

In terms of things like the ACA killing jobs, I tend not to buy into the anti-ACA rhetoric.

For things like Obama wanting to fundamentally change America, I think that this statement is not totally without basis, albeit I wouldn’t phrase it in that kind of inflamatory way. I believe that Obama, along with many progressives (not that Obama is particularly progressive), most definitely do in fact want to change America to be more in line with what you see in other European nations. Not that he wants to actually DESTROY America (which I do not believe Rubio actually said, did he?), but that he wants to change it in a way that many Americans don’t particularly want. I think that some things about America which differentiate ourselves from most other nations around the globe, are in fact good.

5048

That article was speaking to reducing the size of the Army by 40,000 troops. According to that article “The only circumstance in which the Army needs those soldiers is if the U.S. were to reoccupy Iraq, invade and occupy Syria or Iran, or such.” Is that the plan, then? Foreign occupation?

Cuts to military spending are the result of sequestration, and that is a result of refusing a budget deal (I’d argue with the word ‘gutting’, but I’ll leave that alone.) Even that aside, that article says that Congress didn’t give Obama as much as he requested. So whether or not defense spending has gone down, it certainly isn’t because of Obama.

Undermine the Constitution is the phrase Rubio uses, not destroy ( destroy is the talk radio version, sorry.) With the caveat that I don’t buy into American exceptionalism - the US can’t change without losing its (I don’t know) Americanism? Other industrialized nations have universal health care, paid family leave, better wages, less income inequality. How does having or striving for those change America (for the worse I assume)?

5049

That article was speaking to reducing the size of the Army by 40,000 troops. According to that article “The only circumstance in which the Army needs those soldiers is if the U.S. were to reoccupy Iraq, invade and occupy Syria or Iran, or such.” Is that the plan, then? Foreign occupation?

It also cuts civilian personnel by something like 17k. In terms of needing to occupy a region… Maybe? Honestly, you can argue the point either way, but it’s still a significant cut in the size of the army.

Cuts to military spending are the result of sequestration, and that is a result of refusing a budget deal (I’d argue with the word ‘gutting’, but I’ll leave that alone.) Even that aside, that article says that Congress didn’t give Obama as much as he requested. So whether or not defense spending has gone down, it certainly isn’t because of Obama.

Again, you can argue whose fault it is all you want, but the reality is that the military has in fact suffered significant funding reductions under Obama’s tenure.

Make no mistake though, I’m with you in terms of not laying the blame on him. I would tend to lay it more squarely on folks like Ted Cruz who wanted to basically shut everything down. It’s why Ted Cruz’s military hawking is so bullshit, because he talks about how he wants to bomb everything, but repeatedly voted against funding the military.

Undermine the Constitution is the phrase Rubio uses, not destroy ( destroy is the talk radio version, sorry.)

I think that using executive orders to circumvent the will of the legislature, or refusing to enforce the laws, can be interpreted as a dereliction of the duties of the president as outlined in the constitution. This is not something which is unique to Obama by any stretch of the imagination, as I think the executive branch has been consistently expanding its powers for a while now.

With the caveat that I don’t buy into American exceptionalism - the US can’t change without losing its (I don’t know) Americanism? Other industrialized nations have universal health care, paid family leave, better wages, less income inequality. How does having or striving for those change America (for the worse I assume)?

Bear in mind here that I’m not arguing for the notion that America cannot change without losing the essence (our vital essence!) of what makes us America. I’m merely explaining the line of thought, and how it is not automatically ridiculous as you are kind of making it out to be. Although I think that I actually do in fact believe in American exceptionalism.

Many of those social services that you describe sound wonderful, but ultimately they require that they be paid for. This means a transfer of control from individual people to the government, through taxation. This is, inherently, a move from independence and self reliance, towards reliance on the government. This is, in many ways, antithetical to many of the founding principles of America. And frankly, I do think that many of those notions are a significant part of what makes America great.

You are free to disagree with these things, but you can’t really just say that they are WRONG, as some major aspect of this is an opinion based upon your own personal values.

5050

Reminds me of the Reagan era. I was watching the Iran-Contra hearings with my Dad and Oliver North was testifying. I remember asking my Dad what he thought about North’s testimony, and his response was, “Well, he certainly believes in a strong executive branch.” Made an impression on high-school age me and clarified why a lot of the stuff in civics class and such was relevant.

5051

And Rubio had nothing to gain by getting into a contentious argument with Christie. He just wanted Christie to go away.

5052

Yes but it shows a complete lack of historical awareness and a capability to interpret statistics, like those who complain how the military got “gutted” when the soviet union disintegrated.

Obviously it climbed dramatically after the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, did they think it would plateau there now that the American commitment to those wars were winding down? Military spending is still significantly higher now than most of the time Bush was in office (this is real spending too), doesn’t that mean in Rubio’s logic that he is more pro-military than any other Republican president in history?

5053

I don’t know where that graph comes from, or the specifics of the data it’s presenting, but the numbers I cited actually don’t include the war spending from Iraq and Afghanistan. If that spending is considered, the drop in spending is more significant, something like 23%. If you have a link to the actual study that graph comes from though, it could be useful. The picture by itself doesn’t really mean a lot.

5054

It’s not like the graph was unreferenced, it’s from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which in my experience (of other series not this one) is a well-respected source of data in a number of areas. The website SIPRI has information about sources and methods, although with the U.S. I imagine the source will just be U.S. government or NATO. If you know something I don’t about what it does or does not include (I imagine it will include Iraq/Afghanistan spending, but keep in mind it’s in constant 2011 USD so won’t be comparable to nominal 2015 figures) that is meaningful to the interpretation of Obama’s record on the military, please share.

Here’s a graph from the U.S. gov, that shows less of a drop than the one I posted above (most likely because it’s nominal not real): https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FDEFX

5055

Looks like the graph comes from the Council on Foreign Relations, and uses data from SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). The graph is of total US military spending year by year.

5056

It’s not like the graph was unreferenced, it’s from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which in my experience (of other series not this one) is a well-respected source of data in a number of areas.

To be clear, I was not suggesting that the data was coming from a bad source, but rather that I wanted to see the report it was from so I could see a textual description of what it was showing.

5057

#RobotLivesMatter

5058

No magnet, that makes no sense. Obama knows exactly what he is doing. He is trying to change this country. He knows exactly what he is doing.

Next line please?

5059

Pretty terrible night for Rubio, and awful for anyone who doesn’t want a two man race between Cruz and Trump for the GOP nomination. Christie committed murder-suicide and it’s difficult to see him continuing. Hopefully he and Carson will now leave.

5060

Christie says he’s going home “to take a deep breath”. But his speech was basically him saying he’s done.

Moving on, is gonna be trump, Cruz, Kasich, Bush, and Rubio.

Kasich’s year is going to be whether he can keep enough money to make it to the Midwest where his strength is, or somehow convert some of the angry southerners.

His speech tonight was good though.

5061

Carson is publicly begging for a VP slot.