“I’m on the tequila diet. So far I’ve lost two days!”
anymunym
5303
It appears to be an FN FNX-45, Bush was visiting its South Carolina plant. In terms of video games, you could find it e.g. in Day Z (in its tactical variant).
JFrazer
5304
That gun pic, for me, is Jeb(!)'s “driving in a tank” photo.
The sad part is that, for my moderate sensibilities, Jeb(!) is probably the lesser of all evils when it comes to Republican nominees. The current top 3 scare the crap out of me. I honest believe they would put in policies that would set the country back, socially and financially. Bush is more moderate in his policies. However, a moderate will never win the Republican nomination these days. It’s all about “appealing to the base”. The Republican primary base that actually votes in the early state primaries are, at the risk of over-generalizing, an over-the-top set of gun toting racists. That’s the only way I can explain why “arm everyone, build a wall and inter Muslims” is playing so well.
Pyperkub
5305
Given that Jeb! has got the neoconservative gang back together, I think Kasich is a far better choice for moderates on the gop side.
Jeb doesn’t seem very tough, and I can see him ceding a lot of authority to those advisors.
So apparently Trump isn’t invulnerable after all. Trump falls behind Cruz in new NBC/WSJ national poll.
Is this just an outlier, or did Trump finally manage to damage himself with his last debate performance?
That’s why Jeb! has the gun he showed on his Twitter feed. If Paul Wolfowitz gives him any lip, he’ll put a round in his kneecap.
He may actually win some Democrat votes if he were to make that a centerpiece of his campaign.
“A vote for Jeb! is a vote for shooting Paul Wolfowitz in the leg!”
On a slightly more serious not (not much more serious), we got an email today from the local school district. They typically keep schools open during the primary since having a small corner of the cafeteria open for the trickle of voters doesn’t tend to disturb the kids… but they’re looking at the turnout in Iowa and New Hampshire and wondering whether they should close schools on “Super Tuesday”.
Personally, I am for it. The less exposure my kids have to Trump supporters the better I’ll sleep.
Timex
5310
Nikki Haley came out today and endorsed Rubio.
Tim_N
5311
An outlier, the recent USA today / suffolk poll and the quinnipiac poll have trump up by at least +15 (although that may be a high number).
In any event, it’s Cruz overtaking him, it won’t be a cause of celebration unless the candidate “None of the Above thanks” polls first in the republican primary.
ShivaX
5312
Yeah, Cruz overtaking Trump isn’t really a plus, they’re both terrible and Cruz probably has a better chance of being elected.
Now if Kasich or Bush were in the lead, it would be a sign of hope.
Timex
5313
My hope is that this will cause trump to further self destruct.
“Every day will be a great day when Rubio is President.” It’ll be a return to the halcyon days of the Bush presidency: More war, more tax cuts for the wealthy, more religion, more environmental destruction. And 40 more years of a conservative Supreme Court to ensure the complete corporate takeover of America. Whew, what a relief.
Democrats should be almost equally happy with Trump or Cruz in the lead. Their policies and statements are almost equally far from mainstream America and a Democrat could bludgeon either one of them into the ground with their past stump speeches. Cruz would be tougher to debate, but I don’t think he would drive election-day turn out like Trump, so it would probably be a wash.
What’s interesting to me about the WSJ poll is how bifurcated the GOP primary voters seem to be: Trump falls by 8 points and Cruz goes up by 7; Christie drops out of the race and neither Trump nor Cruz sees a benefit. [to be fair, no one really saw much of a bump since Christie polled down in the margin of error] You really do have two separate and distinct races going on within the Republican field.
But that might really be an outlier poll – CBS/NYT poll released today has Trump leading by 17 points nationwide.
Not only that, you also have a different direction outlier with a poll putting Trump 27 points ahead (although that’s probably as unlikely). NBC News/WSJ seems to go wilder with the average. They are the pollsters that polled Carson higher, giving him 29% over Trump 23% in late October.
Anyone catch the mini-town hall debates last night on CNN and MSNBC? I missed it, but was wondering if there was a good summary article somewhere. Vox had a piece up about Carson and how he blamed social programs for everything bad in America.
I caught part of it, but I’ll admit my eyes started to glaze over eventually. However, I did see all of Carson’s stint. He came off very personable, like the kind of person one would enjoy spending time with. He sounded quite intelligent and convincing … right up until you took a moment to contemplate what he was occasionally saying and then realized the mountain of BS that his assertions were based upon. Still, he was made for long format far more than the standard debate style which relies more upon quick thinking and concise delivery.
Timex
5319
I saw part of rubios and he did well. I saw the very end of Cruz, and it was weird.
This was glossed over after the SC debate the other day, but Trump has doubled down (as is his wont) on his statement that he’ll bring back waterboarding “and worse, believe me.”
“Don’t tell me it doesn’t work — torture works,” Trump said during a campaign event at a retirement community here Wednesday morning. “Half these guys [say]: ‘Torture doesn’t work.’ Believe me, it works.”
That’s an interesting turn of phrase. Why should we “believe him” on this issue? He seems to imply that he has first-hand knowledge that torture is efficacious. Was that somewhere in an appendix of “The Art of the Deal”?
Anyway, Trump. I did like this little tidbit that gives some insight into his idea of “due process”:
“If [the torture] doesn’t work,” Trump said, “they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing.”
Tough to argue with that logic. Unless you have the introspective power of a 5th-grader.
There is a not insignificant portion of the US populace that has expressed similar sentiments when the issue of torture comes up.
