Friday Open Thread [12.4.15]
NEW HAMPSHIRE—PPP : Clinton 44, Sanders 42, O’Malley 8
NATIONAL—CNN/ORC: Trump 36, Cruz 16, Carson 14, Rubio 12, Christie 4, Bush 3, Fiorina 3, Kasich 2, Huckabee 2, Paul 1
NATIONAL—Reuters: Trump 34, Carson 16, Cruz 14, Rubio 11, Bush 7, Christie 4, Paul 4, Fiorina 3, Kasich 2, Huckabee 1
NEW HAMPSHIRE—PPP : Trump 27, Cruz 13, Rubio 11, Christie 10, Carson 9, Kasich 8, Bush 5, Fiorina 6, Paul 4, Huckabee 1, Santorum 1
In the four man race that the GOP Primary has become, Ted Cruz is now firmly in second place, nationally and in both Iowa and New Hampshire. The fifth man in the four man race between Trump, Cruz, Rubio and Carson is now Chris Christie. He is up to 4% nationally and 10% in New Hampshire.
An interesting stat from the CNN poll: “Trump is supported by 46% of Republicans without a college degree, compared to 12% for Cruz, 11% for Carson and 8% for Rubio.” But we already knew that.
Politico: “Nearly 60% of Democratic insiders in the first four nominating states say the businessman — who has mostly avoided tapping his vast personal fortune to fund his campaign — would be the easiest of the leading GOP candidates to defeat in the general election.”
“Roughly two out of three picked Rubio from a list of five leading GOP contenders — including Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush — as the most formidable GOP hopeful due to his biography and political skill.”
CNN: “Anxious that his lead may not fade before the voting starts, GOP strategists have begun to brace for a long and painful nomination fight, with Trump’s opponents hoping to grind him down over a period of months.”
“But even in the face of more evidence of Trump’s endurance — and grudging recognition that a Trump victory is no longer outside the realm of possibility — many establishment Republicans still insist that ultimately, the businessman is unlikely to clinch the nomination. They are starting to anticipate a protracted primary race that extends far beyond the early states and possibly into the summer, in which the party slowly wears Trump down.”
Employers added 211,000 jobs in November, and the unemployment rate held steady at 5 percent, according to data released by the US Department of Labor Friday morning. Consensus expectations had been for 190,000 new jobs, so the report was a bit better than expected. That means the pace of job creation was good enough to make it all but certain that Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve are done delaying and will raise interest rates at their December 17 meeting.
Last night, a theater performance played out in the Senate. Mitch McConnell managed to get the Senate to finally pass a bill, by a vote of 52-47, that repeals Obamacare, defunds Planned Parenthood, and allows terrorists to keep buying guns legally in the United States. They also refused to increase security at Planned Parenthood facilities in the hopes that conservative terrorists will find it easier to commit more attacks.
The bill will be vetoed by President Obama, of course, after it is passed in the House. This was all theater so that the GOP could send a message. And that message is that the Republican Party opposes women’s healthcare, opposes healthcare in general, and is in support of terrorists and will continue to arm them. The GOP wants you to die, and because you are not dying quickly enough for them, they will arm terrorists to see that you do die.
Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post:
The common denominator in mass shootings is the use of firearms. Variables such as political ideology, religious fervor and mental illness are motivating factors, but death comes from the gun.
Until our society recognizes that simple truth, the list of place names to which Colorado Springs and San Bernardino were recently added will have no end.
Iowa state Sen. Mark Chelgren (R), who is running for Congress, told the Knoxville Journal Express that if someone “is found to have crossed into the country illegally, committed a felony while here, then been deported, he supports executing that individual if they break America’s immigration laws a second time.”
Big news yesterday from Defense Secretary Ash Carter:
Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Thursday said he’s ordering the military to open all combat jobs to women, overruling Marine Corps commanders who requested exceptions for a small number of front-line combat jobs and furthering President Barack Obama’s legacy of making the military more inclusive.
“We cannot afford to cut ourselves off from half the country’s talents and skills,” Carter told reporters at the Pentagon.
It would be nice if we had some kind of opposition party in this country that could use these votes against the GOP. I know, dream on.
Al Gore wanted to face George W Bush, (the easiest to beat). I don’t trust Americans to do what “Democratic insiders” say they will do.
“The GOP wants you to die, and because you are not dying quickly enough for them, they will arm terrorists to see that you do die”
Do you expect anybody to take you serious with that rhetoric?
Seriously. Because obviously the GOP only wants that if you’re black and/or an immigrant.
Protest vote here. Going to Stand With Rand. The GOP and right-wing media despises him for calling out their endless war and domestic spying propaganda.
With regards to the Eugene Robinson excerpt above and given the revelation today that Tashfeen Malik, the female shooter in the San Bernardino massacre, plead loyalty to ISIS online, I suppose we are finally permitted, without spurious and knee-jerk accusations of racism¹, to at the very least write that “religious fervor” is a “motivating factor(s)” in these types of attacks.² We can still accept the fact that the vast majority of Muslims here in the US and around the world are not extremists or jihadis and that, moreover, Muslims are the biggest victims of ISIS violence, yet still dispose of the pretense that somehow the intellectual rationale³ here is somehow entirely outside the realm of the Islamic religion.
We can accept as fact that the United States has a history of violence across the world, but also that the operations in which ISIS, Al Qaeda, al-Nusra, al-Shabaab, et al. are currently engaged are foundationally Islamic.⁴ The military offensives and kidnappings and overseas attacks are motivated and planned within an Islamic context. It is based on religion that these groups recruit and convince others to participate. It is also religion which is the basis of their political philosophy in Iraq and Syria (and Somalia and Libya, etc.).
This is not a blanket accusation.⁵ My soul is sad and I have great sympathy for all the Muslim I know personally; the guys in my cricket club and their families, my professional colleagues, etc. None of them practice this particular brand of theological insanity, but, as in Robinson’s usage, the adjective is appropriate.
It should going without saying⁶ that no measure of crackdown on Muslims in general in the US will be of any help to us here. In my view the only way these radical Islamic ideas are destroyed is by strikes from within the religion. This is actually why speaking in clear terms is so very important.
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¹and jingoism, and hate, and, god-forbid being accused of being a “neo-con”
²It should go without saying that the proliferation of hand-held war machines and mental illness cannot be dismissed.
³for lack of a more accurate term
⁴It seems like a fairly simply intellectual exercise to conclude that several things can be true at the same moment. Eg., Yes, the US drone program is bad, possibly criminal, but I still don’t see how a fact like this impacts the clear buttress of religious dogma observed in ISIS, et al. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi & co. have been quite lucid and effective about explaining this. Unfortunately many people don’t seem to have the time to sufficiently reflect on it. Either that or accepting the complexity of the thing somehow weakens the other political and cultural arguments one is simultaneously engaged in.*
*I actually think it’s the last bit, or at least that’s most of the issue.
⁵This is redundant based on what I’ve already written, but I know this isn’t what liberals generally want to hear, but I thought it was interesting that Robinson was comfortable making a simple statement of fact w/r/t motivations.
⁶but if you’ll indulge me
What types of attacks? Gun attacks? Not most of them. A few are Islam-related, a few more Christianist-related, but most are people with different sorts of grudges.
I’ll start worrying about Islamic terrorism as soon as the odds start favoring my getting shot by one of them instead of a white conservative. Until then, forgive me for not caring if some of the 10,000 or so people shot to death by others each year are victims of people deranged by religion, instead of being victims of people deranged about something else.
Because if we eliminate the Islamic terrorists, we’ll still have about 10,000 people shot to death by others each year. Until then, why should I give a fuck?
@John: Don’t kid yourself. The son is a dribble down his old man’s leg.
Personally, I can consider several things in my head at the same time. See Note 6 and subset…
I understand that the Dem insiders say that Trump would be the easiest to beat, but didn’t the GOP insiders say he would of faded by now? Also, I know that the trade Unions may publicly endorse hillary, but what I’m hearing from the rank and file on the job is trump. Illegal immigrants are a big threat to the trades, and a lot of people are talking trump strictly out of immigration.
People base their votes on all manner of idiotic bullshit. For that reason, Trump will be tough to beat.
I agree with Bob J. Democrats are fools to hope that Trump takes the nomination.
@Geezer
Do you see a lot of white conservatives shooting people in Wilmington? I am not familiar with this threat.
Trump would not be the easiest campaign to beat–as Malcolm Gladwell could probably tell you. Trump has the financial ability and the personal (if negative) charisma to change the rules of the game and force Hillary Clinton into a non-standard type of campaign. I’m not saying the odds would favor him, but that he would place the election into new territory, where “conventional wisdom” wouldn’t work.
Cruz, on the other hand, would have much the same message but play by generic political campaigning rules … and lose badly.
Hillary will be in jail this time next year.
Nah, she will get out of it somehow. I’m telling you, that the labor rank and file will be for Trump no matter who gets publicly endorsed.