Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[Dr. Strangelove]

An armed group takes control of a govt building and threatens to shoot anyone who tries to remove them. They refuse to leave until the US govt caves into their demands. If they were Muslims, how many drone strikes would you have called for by now?

[Dr. Strangelove]

[sardis]

If ONLY the Muslims just took over that government building in San Bernandino instead of just shooting a bunch of people in the building; but that's just it, Muslims don't occupy, they just want to kill people. There is no comparison in motive and action.

[hedge]

"If the Republican Establishment presidential candidates are going to be perpetually mushy moderates losers, and the Republican Establishment congressmen aren't even going to attempt to govern conservatively, the conservative base has apparently collectively decided to burn the whole house down."

Pretty much same thing the hippies (et al.) did to the democratic party in the late 60's. Took about 25 years to right the ship. Which means, if that holds true in this case, most of you fuckers will be dead before we see another repub in the white house...

[sardis]

Amazing how much of our young people are suddenly disabled...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... -retiring-

[Toemeesleather]

My company could hire approximately 150 people (additional shift) right now, but it is not feasible due to some of the reasons stated in the above....doesn't sound like a lot, but for this size community, it would be huge....talking to piers I've grown up with over the years, they are facing exact circumstances. So much $$$ in handouts nowadays, young people don't want to work and many can't pass a drug test.

[hedge]

"talking to piers I've grown up with over the years, they are facing exact circumstances."

I wish you'd take a long walk off a short pier...

[aTm]

Amazing how much of our young people are suddenly disabled...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... -retiring-

What? The graph in your link shows the number of 20-24 not working due to being disabled as having dropped from 2004, I suspect mostly due to a drop in military casualties. Probably the number of disabled in their 30's is high now because that's how old the majority of those disabled in the early years of our middle east conflicts now are.

[Jungle Rat]

You're still a dickhead though.

[Johnette's Daddy]

Rand Paul: Cruz Is Definitely Qualified To Be Canada's Prime Minister

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/r ... ifications

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said Wednesday that GOP rival Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was qualified to be the prime minister of Canada, but dodged answering directly whether he thought Cruz was qualified for the United States presidency.

GOP hopeful Donald Trump on Tuesday revived his suggestion that the circumstances of Cruz's birth could cause him trouble in the 2016 election. Cruz was born in Canada, but was a U.S. citizen at birth because his mother was a U.S. citizen. Cruz dismissed the birther chatter Wednesday as "political noise."

Paul was asked about Cruz during an interview with the radio show, "Kilmeade and Friends."

“You know, I think without question he is qualified and would make the cut to be prime minister of Canada," Paul said. "Absolutely without question, he is qualified and he meets the qualifications."

When asked to clarify his stance, Paul said he wasn't an expert on the Constitution.

"You know, I’m not an expert on the natural-born clause in the Constitution and people have various opinions,” Paul said. “Some people believe it means you need to be born here, some people believe it means you can be born in another country as long as your parents are citizens.”

“It is interesting, and I think sometimes people point out that it’s a double standard, in the sense that people went out, hot and heavy, including Donald Trump you know, about President Obama when there was really nothing more than conjecture that he wasn’t born in the country," Paul continued. "And yet, there hasn’t been really the same outrage at all for someone who actually is born in another country.”

[Toemeesleather]

What's the difference in Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby?




One's white and one's black.

[Johnette's Daddy]

John McCain Joins the Ted Cruz Birther Train

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/01/ ... dian-birth

The former presidential candidate says Cruz’s eligibility for the office is a “legitimate question.”

BY TINA NGUYEN

Like camel coats and suede, birtherism is back in style this week thanks to two unlikely bedfellows, Donald Trump and Senator John McCain, who made waves in a radio interview Wednesday by echoing Trump in casting doubt on whether his colleague Senator Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada, is even eligible for the presidency.

Yes, Canada: in 1970, a wailing baby named Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz was brought into this world in Calgary, where his mother, a U.S. citizen, happened to be living while working for the oil industry. Now, 45 years later, Cruz’s political enemies are raising questions about whether being born on foreign soil should disqualify his White House run. Trump, who initially didn’t give a damn about Cruz’s birth, said recently that the legal question actually could be “very precarious” for the G.O.P. due to the possibility that the issue could force him to go to court. (Not so coincidentally, Cruz, who gave up his Canadian passport when the question first arose years ago, had recently overtaken Trump in the polls in Iowa.)

But it’s one thing when Trump, known for going full birther on Barack Obama in 2011, questions Cruz’s American-ness. It’s another when McCain, a respected party elder, decorated veteran, and former Republican presidential nominee—one who happens to dislike Cruz intensely—repeats the question.

When asked about the issue on The Chris Merrill Show on Wednesday, McCain said he “[didn’t] know the answer” as to whether Cruz’s Calgary birth would bar him from the presidency.

“I know it came up in my race because I was born in Panama, but I was born in the Canal Zone, which is a territory,” McCain added, noting later that he was born on a U.S. military base and therefore fulfilled the constitutional requirement of being born on American soil. He also noted that the issue came up for 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who was born in the Arizona territory before it became an official state, but that it didn’t preclude him from the candidacy.

McCain suggested that Cruz attempt to preempt the question of his status—though that might be hard now that Trump is making hay of it—but admitted that it “may be the case” that the Supreme Court could be forced to decide the issue once and for all.

Such a case, according to the Congressional Research Service, would be unprecedented: while the Supreme Court has already settled the meaning of a “natural-born citizen” in regard to people born on American territory, it’s still fuzzy whether U.S. citizens born on foreign soil count:

The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term “natural born” citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth” or “at birth,” either by being born “in” the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship “at birth.” Such term, however, would not include a person who was not a U.S. citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an “alien” required to go through the legal process of “naturalization” to become a U.S. citizen.

To many Americans, however, Canada is the cultural and spiritual antithesis of the United States, what with their politeness and socialist health care and their bacon that looks like ham. And much like how one photo convinced an entire faction of Americans that Obama was a secret Muslim, Cruz’s image may be irreparably tied up with foreigners who drink milk out of a bag—even if he is a natural-born American.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Cruz, a constitutional scholar himself, brushed the issue aside, saying that the question was akin to “Fonzie jumping over a shark,” and derided the media for engaging in “silly sideshows.”

Update (4:20 P.M.): In another interview later on Thursday, Cruz accused McCain of raising the issue in order to help Senator Marco Rubio, considered Cruz’s top establishment rival for the G.O.P. nomination.

“I think it is no surprise to anybody that John McCain is going to be supporting Marco Rubio in this election,” Cruz told Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin. “It's no surprise at all that he's trying to do what he can to help the candidate that he's favoring who he thinks shares policy positions with him.”

[AlabamAlum]

While I don't like his politics, Cruz is easily the smartest candidate on either side.

[Johnette's Daddy]

Amazingly, the company fired him when this video surfaced.

[youtube]FrY1XltlRWg[/youtube]

[Johnette's Daddy]

While I don't like his politics, Cruz is easily the smartest candidate on either side.

I respect his resume, but I don't know that he's "smarter" than all of the others.

Carson is a pediatric brain surgeon (which is the Rolls Royce of surgeons) Yale Undergrad/Michigan Med and Chair of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins
Rand Paul graduated Duke Medical School despite not having an undergraduate degree
Bush was Phi Beta Kappa (though it was at Texas, so it probably doesn't count as much)

Several of the minor candidates are Rhodes Scholars, as well.

[AlabamAlum]

Well, Cruz' academcs are impressive. Princeton with honors and Harvard Law with honors, editor of the law review, etc, etc, but I was talking about reading his writings, which bespeak a uniquely keen intellect, and less about his college.

[Johnette's Daddy]

Well, Cruz' academcs are impressive. Princeton with honors and Harvard Law with honors, editor of the law review, etc, etc, but I was talking about reading his writings, which bespeak a uniquely keen intellect, and less about his college.

Not downplaying his intellect at all - clerking for SCOTUS Chief speaks volumes b/c the clerks pretty much do all the writing for those near corpses on the bench. But it is pretty much universally agreed that the most intellectually challenging professions in the world are pediatric neurosurgeon, neuro-opthamolic surgeon and theoretical nuclear physicist.

Carson is a pediatric neuro-surgeon and Paul is an opthamolic surgeon.

[aTm]

Universally agreed? Is there a 97% consensus on that?

[AlabamAlum]

Even if I accept that being a neurosurgeon is the most intellectually challenging profession, that does not mean that Carson is the most intelligent. At all.

[Professor Tiger]

Carson is clearly brilliant, but his education and skill set don't translate well into politics. Paul is similar, but he has some political experience as a senator.

Cruz' education, experience and skill set are directly related to the office he is seeking. I agree with AA that he is the best debater out there. He would run circles around Hillary in a debate. His biggest problem is he comes across as a total jerk, at least in my estimation. But this appears to be an election cycle where being a total jerk is an asset, not a liability.