Reflections: The First GOP Debate

This is how my friend, Robert A George, ranked the opponents after last night's debate:

 1. Kasich
 2. Christie
 3. Rubio
 4. Paul
 5. Bush
 6. Trump
 7. Walker
 8. Carson
 9. Cruz
10. Huckabee

I think this is a pretty good take. I, however, was not as impressed with Rand Paul as Robert apparently was. I thought he came off looking like a prematurely aged, spoiled adolescent. I'd put Trump where Paul is, and rank Walker and Paul at 9 and 10 respectively. I think Carson at 8 is spot-on. I expected him to be better; he was lame. Ditto, Cruz--but I'd move him and Huckabee up by virtue of ranking Walker and Paul beneath them. Kasich is probably charismaticly challenged, but overall he was the least scary of the group. A Kasich-Fiorino ticket would be the one that I believe would draw the least scorn from the rest of the world. Perhaps it will emerge that Fiorino belongs on the top of that ticket.

Reflections: The Southern Strategy Goes National

X
Let us not try to pretend that this imbecilic lashing out against the president’s upcoming address to the nation’s school kids is anything more dignified than good old down home, conservative, GOP racism.
X

Rants: Republican Fascist Hyenas

X
When I got home from work today, I had mail. Snail mail, that is, in the actual metal mailbox out by the road. It was sent to me by the Ohio Republican Party. (They have to be kidding, right?) Anyway, the item in question is a slick, four-fold, flyer. On the “back side” of the unfolded flyer it says:

THIS IS THE STORY OF WILLIAM AYERS…
Terrorist.
Radical.
Friend of Obama.

On the front side, where my name and address is printed, down in the lower left-hand corner is Bill Ayers’ forty-year-old mug shot. In the upper right-hand corner is a muddy close-up of Barack Obama’s scowling face. In a rectangular box above Ayers’s mug shot, pointed at Obama’s portrait like the barrel of a handgun, is the infamous Ayers quote:

“I don’t regret setting bombs.
I feel we didn’t do enough.”

When you unfold the flyer, the interior left side has the large font header:

OBAMA HAS CLOSE TIES TO DOMESTIC TERRORIST.

Beneath this there is text that includes the following:

“His group was finally stopped when a bomb to be detonated at a U.S. Army dance, prematurely exploded, putting Ayers on the run and his current wife on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.
“Then William Ayers became of friend, colleague and supporter of Barack Obama.”

“Then” for fuck sake? “Then?” That “then” entails a span of what? Three decades? That wouldn’t mislead anybody, would it?

On the right side of the fold is the large font header:

TERRORIST.
RADICAL.
FRIEND OF OBAMA.

And at the bottom of the page:

BARACK OBAMA.
NOT WHO YOU THINK HE IS.

How the fuck do they know who I think he is? On the final side is a two-paragraph recounting of the nefarious history of the Weather Underground, purportedly excerpted from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review—the journal of record in the “real America,” I guess? Then finally a repeat of the mug shot and the scowling Obama.

This is character assassination. This is un-American. This is your Republican Party as it is at home. Own it, you fascist hyenas.
X