The circus was not in town. No personal insults, no demeaning taunts, no candidate bragging about his… well, you know. Instead, thanks in part to some solid questioning from Jake Tapper and CNN’s other moderators and a strategic recalibration from Marco Rubio after his collapse in recent primaries and caucuses, we had what passes for a serious policy debate on the Republican side.
It was not impressive…
They weren’t all terrible all the time. Rubio and Kasich do know their stuff in several policy areas, and Cruz actually did give a solid defense of international trade. But over and over, there’s just very little substance on the stage. For a major political party’s candidates for president of the US, it’s a sorry show, even if they did stay out of the gutter this time.
—Jonathan Bernstein
Posers on Parade as Republican Debate Veers Toward Substance
You know, this is fine so far as it goes — maybe UBI could be some sort of solution. But it’s pretty ridiculous to me as well. What is far more likely to happen is what is already happening — massive income inequality, permanent poverty for many, a downwardly mobile middle class, and the rise of candidates like Donald Trump able to tap into the deep discontent and anger this all causes, channeling that anger away from capitalism and toward black and brown people. The only possible thing UBI as going for it as a realistic policy is that since it is truly universal in theory, even white people might use it. But since that’s not really the intent — it’s a baseline, to a topline, what it really means almost certainly is that it will be seen by the public as another welfare program disconnected from work where the taxpaying white people are subsidizing people of color. Never mind the reality of this where millions of whites would also benefit.
Donald Trump answers the question: What is 2+2?
I don’t know how many times people have given me the stock market [argument]. Well, that’s great if you own a lot of stock. But that’s almost no one. Invariably, when I say that, reporters are really taken aback, “What do you mean?! I own stock! My friends own stock!” I go, “Yeah! Like I said: almost no one.” You have a lot people who are writing on economic issues that are incredibly out of touch with what the economy is for most of the country.
Islam doesn’t promote violence or peace. Islam is just a religion and like every religion in the world it depends on what you bring to it. If you’re a violent person, your Islam, your Judaism, your Christianity, your Hinduism is gonna be violent. There are marauding Buddhist monks in Myanmar slaughtering women and children. Does Buddhism promote violence? Of course not. People are violent or peaceful and that depends on their politics, their social world, the ways that they see their communities.
The worst terrorist attack this year did not happen in Paris on Friday, despite the fact that it was a horrific incident. Yet, though 129 people have been confirmed dead by French authorities — and presumably more will die in the coming days and weeks from the wounds they suffered — the Paris attacks don’t even come close to being the worst terrorist incident this year. It only seems like the worst.
Arizona, where I was born, in July became the first state to cut poor families’ access to welfare assistance to a maximum of 12 months over a lifetime. That’s a fifth of the time allowed under federal law, and means that 5,000 more people will lose their benefits by next June.
Republicans asked more than 160 questions about Mr Blumenthal’s relationship and communications with the Clintons, but less than 20 questions about the Benghazi attacks. Republicans asked more than 50 questions about the Clinton foundation but only four questions about security in Benghazi. Republicans asked more than 270 questions about Mr Blumenthal’s alleged business activities in Libya, but no questions about the US presence in Benghazi. And Republicans asked more than 45 questions about David Brock, Media Matters — I have no idea what that is even — and affiliated entities, but no questions, no questions about Ambassador Stevens and other US personnel in Benghazi.
Cities across the United States and Canada are finally starting to wake up to the damage wrought by Columbus’ expedition, acknowledging why it’s wrong to blindly worship a man for essentially jump-starting the systemic extermination of two continents worth of indigenous societies. Several of these cities have begun to institute Indigenous Peoples’ Day in its place. And that’s a step in the right direction.
ISIS is not re-enacting the seventh-century Arab conquests, even though some among its ranks may think they are. They’re nostalgic for a make-believe past, and those among them who know plenty about Islam’s first decades have conveniently revised medieval history to fit modern ideological needs…
But regardless of any human error, there is a deeper and not-at-all accidental cause to blame, and it is the same thing that has contributed to the American bombing of so many wedding parties and innocent villages before: this is how a bombing war works. This is what a bombing war does. It is the war we’ve chosen in Afghanistan, the war we’ve chosen in Syria and Iraq, and the war that, if history is any guide, the United States will continue to choose over and over. When we treat it as mainly an accident or an aberration, we obfuscate that fact and ignore what makes this incident truly terrible.
In late September, the Supreme Court refused to stay the execution of Richard Glossip, whose conviction on a charge of murder has been strongly called into question. However, his execution was stayed at the last minute by Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin. Glossip’s fate remains unclear, but we can be certain of one thing: The American death penalty system is irretrievably broken…
