CNBC's Moderation of the Debate - An Epic FAIL!

The Debate
If you missed the third Republican primary debate last night, don't worry you didn't. It was so poorly run that it didn't even resemble a debate at all. Being a business network, I had better hopes for a more professionally run debate by CNBC. However, as I watched the pre-debate show, it became clear that there was a strong bias against those who were about to participate in the debate. There was open hostility and disdain for the candidates. Furthermore, the pre-debate discussion was unorganized, rambling and it telegraphed what was to come. This attitude carried over into the debate itself and the moderators - John Harwood, Becky Quick and Carl Quintilla - became participants in the debate themselves representing the Left. To make matter worse, they were often not in command of the facts even when they had their facts straight. In one example, Quick challenged Trump on his stance on H-1B visas. Turns out, as Megan Kelly pointed out afterwards on her show The Kelly File, Quick had Trump's position right and Trump had it wrong - at least according to his own website. However, she was so incompetent that she didn't even know the source of her information and when Trump provided a quick (no pun intended), disarming retort, she folded and later even apologized to Trump! It was unbelievable.

The purpose of a primary debate is to help potential primary voters decide which of their candidates should get their vote to become their party's presidential candidate. It should be a forum for the candidates to compare and contrast their views to substantive issues and to the same questions. Instead, what viewers saw was the moderators inserting themselves and their views into the debate as defenders of left-wing policies which they framed as reasonable, normal, successful, etc. as a part of each of their questions and then challenged the candidate to defend their "extreme" views. It was so completely transparent and one personal "gotcha" question after another. Fortunately, I think any fair-minded person saw this charade for what it was - progressive members of the left-wing mainstream media against their Republican enemies. Hopefully what will come of this will be to no longer allow journalists act as moderators for future debates. They have clearly proven themselves to be incapable of doing the job.

The blame isn't solely that of the moderators and the media. They are what they are - full time lobbyists and spokespeople for progressivism and the Democrat Party. Much of the blame needs to fall squarely in the lap of the Republican National Committee for allowing this to happen.

Win/Lose/Draw
In spite of the fact that the debate itself was a complete fail on the part of CNBC and the moderators, it was possible for the candidates to advance their standing, fall behind or maintain their position.

First, those who were able to make gains. In my opinion, the clear "winners" were Rubio, Cruz, and Fiorina. Each of these candidates were able to demonstrate that they are principled, understand the issues and articulate them in a clear manner. Additionally, in the case of Cruz and Rubio in particular, they were able to counter-punch those who attacked them to great effect and highlight just how awful and hypocritical the media are. Fiorina helped advance her candidacy by insisting on getting her time to speak and clearly discussing the issues. Time will tell, however, if the performance of any of the candidates translates to higher numbers in the polls. I suspect we will see at least a moderate bump for Rubio and Cruz. I don't expect much impact on Fiorina's numbers because between debates she has had a tendency to remain largely out of sight which caused a slip in her numbers following a strong performance in the first two debates. To a lesser extent, I think Chris Christie had a pretty good night. He also effectively made his points and slapped around the moderators; delivering what I found to be one of the best lines of the night: "...even in New Jersey, that question would be considered rude."

Next, those who maintained their standing - Trump and Carson. Trump was somewhat less the center of attention during this debate but he continued to promote himself as only Trump can: using the same hubris, bravado and running as an insurgent that has led to his popularity so far. He was also able to  delivered some effective counters to the moderators who seemed to have it in for him in particular even though some of his facts weren't exactly straight. Perhaps most importantly, Trump delivered a stinging rebuke to criticism of him by John Kasick by pointing out Kasick's connection to Lehman Brothers where he was a board member when it collapsed; nearly crashing the entire US economy. Even though he gave supporters what they like to see, I don't think there was enough of it to change his numbers much. On the other hand, I don't think Carson had a particularly good night. He was measured and under control even while under attack by Quick but he didn't come off as confident of his budget plan numbers as he needed to be. Fortunately for Dr. Carson's, his best assets have been that he isn't an insider, he is likable, principled and a gentleman which continued to come through during the debate. I anticipate that will continue to serve him well following this debate and his poll numbers will remain steady.

Last, the losers (in addition to the aforementioned CNBC and the media) - Paul, Kasick, Bush, and Huckabee. Of these candidates, Paul and Huckabee just didn't garner enough attention although Huckabee did deliver a positive message and give a pretty humorous analogy comparing our bloated federal government to the runaway aerostat that broke away and rampaged across rural Pennsylvania earlier in the day.  Speaking of our current problems he said, "It is the perfect example. It's something the government made - basically a bag of gas. It cut loose; destroying everything in its path, left thousands of people powerless but they couldn't get rid of it because they had too much money invested in it so we had to keep it." Spot on!
Paul made a few good points but I just don't think it was enough to matter. Kasick went after his fellow candidates and tried to paint their views as crazy. Thanks John, that was helpful! After getting slammed by Trump for his role at Lehman, Kasick tucked his tail and slinked back to his corner to lick his wounds. In my opinion, he is done. Likewise, Bush really didn't impress. He just hasn't seemed to have gotten the memo that most Republicans, especially Conservative Republicans, are fed up with "establishment" types. Spouting off past political accomplishments isn't what Republican primary voters are looking for. It just reinforces the notion that Conservatives have been betrayed by the establishment types they sent to the House and Senate in the last election and Bush is a kindred spirit with them. They aren't going to make that mistake again. His attack on Rubio citing an editorial from the left-leaning Sun Sentinel was ridiculous and a serious unforced error - a proverbial hanging curve ball right down the middle that Rubio knocked right out of the park by pointing out that neither Bush nor the Sentinel had any problems in the past with Democrats when they ran for office and had even worse records for missed votes. Money or no money; ground game or no ground game; establishment support or not, I think this is it for Bush. He might last a bit longer but he has all the traction of a "donkey" (or maybe RINO) standing on the ice in the middle of a frozen lake.

That's how I saw it. I invite reader thoughts and observations. Comment by clicking where it says, "No Comments" or "Comments" and feel free to share this with friends. I enjoy hearing from those who agree or disagree.

And Trump is the One Out of Touch?

In response to a question from a supporter about his success, Trump characterized a million dollar loan he received from his father as a small loan. Democrats are sure to try to turn this around on him in their effort to further their politics of envy and war on producers. Keep in mind, to someone with a multi-billion dollar net worth, a million dollars is a small loan. Additionally, it was a loan [i.e. It was expected to be paid back with interest] made from one private citizen to another. The Donald turned that into a highly successful business that employs thousands.

Compare this to how liberals run things. The Obama Administration gave $535M in federal loan guarantees [i.e. Essentially a grant - Never expected to be paid back] using taxpayer money to a bunch of political cronies. They used it to build a solar cell manufacturing business, Solyndra, that included a lavish factory in the Silicon Valley complete with plush offices and fitness facilities and high salaries for its executives. Today, Solyndra is bankrupt, the money is nowhere to be found (probably lining the pockets of political doners) no jobs were created and not a single solar cell was produced.

Liberals will try to paint Trump as the one who is out of touch.

The Movie "Truth" Has Nothing to Do With Truth

In September 2004, Dan Rather of CBS 60 Minutes II reported on a story based on four memos reportedly taken from the files of George W. Bush's former Air National Guard  commanding officer. They were memos regarding Bush being absent without leave and his poor performance. It was a clear effort to discredit Bush and influence the upcoming election. The problem was the memos were obvious forgeries. It was easily shown that they were created using a word processor because the font they were typed in is a "computer" font that didn't even exist at the time the memos were claimed to have been written. Had Rather or the producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, bothered to do their journalistic due diligence, they would have easily discovered this and never run the story. But either because of their political motivation or zeal to get a juicy story, they didn't fact check their information and it cost both of them their jobs and reputations - as it should have. A former network news executive called this scandal the worst in American journalistic history.

Now apparently Hollywood feels as though enough time has passed in order for them to re-write history and tell the story they way they wish it had happened rather than the way it actually did. To be fair, Hollywood and the media having a certain bias is nothing new and it hasn't always been left-leaning. However, manufacturing evidence, rigging tests (as NBC did with GM) and forging documents is a dangerous new development that imperils a free society.

Hopefully moviegoers will be savvy enough to see through this shameless piece of propaganda and not financially reward those who were responsible for making it. Hollywood needs to be taught a painful lesson - lies don't sell.

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Yesterday's Word of the Day

Yesterday my dictionary app sent "kakistocracy" as the word of the day.
Kakistocracy: noun
1. government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.

As we anticipate Hillary Clinton's testimony before the House Benghazi committee, see our President threaten to veto the Defense Appropriations bill, watch the establishment Republicans in Congress vilify and attack members of their own party and presidential candidates, I can't help but think this word of the day wasn't just random.

Impressions on First Democrat Debate

Here are my impressions of the first Democrat debate by candidate.

Before I start with the candidates, I'd like to offer some general thoughts. First, I think Anderson Cooper did a good job as the moderator. His questions were tough and he really seemed to make an effort to get the candidates to answer them. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, those being questioned often just refused to answer. Cooper could have done a better job with follow up questions and I was disappointed that he allowed Bernie Sanders to derail his question for Hillary Clinton regarding her emails. Overall, I was pleased with how Cooper and CNN conducted the debate.

As to the candidates themselves, much of what we saw was long on left-wing ideology and short on solutions. There was the typical politics of division and envy; populist appeal replete with promises of free stuff paid for by someone else and rants against the usual suspects: big business, capitalism, and of course the Republicans. What was offered was more government without much in the way of acknowledging that government played a significant role in causing most of the ills against which they railed. Further, many assertions made by the candidates were allowed to be offered as fact instead of being challenged. Chief among these was the continued claim that climate change is "settled science". This is mainly based on a survey that was conducted that states that 97% of scientists agree that climate change is real and it is caused by man. The facts behind this claim are far less convincing. The poll has since been shown to have been "cherry picked" more like a high school paper rather than a peer reviewed scientific study. It is produced by an activist woman with a master's degree, not a PhD researcher, who initially polled a large and diverse pool of the scientific community - physicists, geologists, meteorologists, climatologists and other earth scientists. When the first results returned a roughly 50/50 split in opinion, the pollster did what any respectable researcher would do: begin throwing out responses that didn't support her hypothesis. In the end, thousands of responses from the scientific community at large were reduced to about 79 responses from mostly climate scientists and wonder upon wonder, 97% of them believe in the work they are doing - a surprising result to be sure.
I also found it very telling that nearly to the person, all the candidates named groups of their fellow Americans as enemies with the exception of Jim Webb who actually named an enemy.

Now for the candidates. I'll start with the lessor knowns.

First, former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chaffee. He basically said, I have been in politics my whole life and I have never been involved in a scandal. In a sane world that should be a given not considered a selling point - so next!

Then there was former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley. He is polling 4th in Maryland which says something about how his own State feels about him. He left the State deep in dept and his gun control laws have resulted in a surge of gun violence throughout the State especially in Baltimore which is already well ahead of previous years in gun murders.

There was also James Webb. Webb is a fellow Naval Academy alumni so I have a bit of a fondness for him. He is what one would have traditionally called a Southern Democrat and he was truly the odd man out as the only one on stage who wasn't clearly far left. During the George W. Bush years, I lost some respect for Webb for his belligerence towards the president. He wasted much of his time to comment complaining about not getting equal time - time which would have been better spent making his points. Webb is highly educated, experienced, and accomplished which makes him more than capable of making compelling arguments for his views.

I'll discuss the two better known candidates, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Clinton next. Sanders is a self-described socialist. He promised loads of new domestic spending which the GAO estimates would cost about $17 trillion and said it would be paid for by the rich. The problem is the entire net worth of all the billionaires in the US would only amount to about $7 trillion and then that source is wiped out. Then what Bernie? He also proposed free college for everyone. As someone who has lived overseas and traveled extensively, I can tell you that highly educated people without jobs to apply the knowledge to results in unrest. You see it throughout the developing world where college educated young men sit in cafes all day long growing angrier and angrier because there is no opportunity. Additionally, much of what Sanders said about economics demonstrates he has no understanding of the subject whatsoever.

Lastly, there was Clinton, a progressive, who spent much of her time railing against business, the wealthy, of which she is one, and claiming as achievements among other things, the US action against Libya which has left that country in complete chaos. Much of the rest of the world is similarly far worse off now as a result of her tenure as Secretary of State. Her one big applause came when she refused to respond to the implication by Chafee that she is dishonest. Despite the thunderous applause by the audience, I have been very pleased to see that her debate performance has failed to lead to a bump for her in the polls. Character does still matter.

In all, those on the far left got what they were looking for - more promises of free stuff, vilification of other groups of Americans, global warming hysteria and America continuing to lead from behind in international affairs. For those of us on the right, there was a collective yawn.

Jump on in Joe; The Water's Fine

As I have been getting my thoughts together on the Democrat debate, the news keeps on coming. Now several credible sources report that VP Joseph Biden will announce that he will enter the presidential race. What does this say about Hillary's prospects? Obviously the Democrat establishment is concerned about her viability as they should be. Her upcoming testimony before the Benghazi committee could be very damning and the Chinese water torture drip, drip, drip of her email scandal continues to erode her credibility. But seriously, Biden? The White Knight riding in to save his party?

Biden is a decent fellow albeit an amiable dolt with a perchant for skinny dipping in front of his female secret service protection and whose far left views lay outside the realm of reality.

Please, by all means VP Biden, run. The gaff a minute fest we will be treated to will be priceless!

Spike (Putin) and Chester (Obama)

This old Warner Brothers cartoon reminds me of the relationship between Putin and Obama.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UVNHcob3oJg

In Australia, How Can This Be?

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/04/world/australia-shooting/index.html

But they confiscated all the guns in Australia? Apparently some didn't get the memo.

Presidential Bernie Sanders First Offical Act

Socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has proposed new programs that have been projected to add $17T to the debt. Sanders say the ultra wealthy will pay for it. The only problem? The math! The richest man in the world, Bill Gates, has a net worth of roughly $50B. There are an estimated 100 billionaires in the US. Even if they all had the same net worth as Gates - not even close to reality- and the government confiscated all their wealth, not just impose a 90% income tax, that would raise only $5T. And that would be a one time only shot. That's it!

So his first official act as president will have to be the establishment of the Ministry of Magic. He will tap Lucius Malfoy to run it. Liberals and their fantasies!