When I review things, I try to make a point of not reading other reviews before I write, to avoid getting swayed by others’ opinions. Of course this means that I often miss things that more knowledgeable or discerning observers pick up on, but that is fine because different people are attuned to different things. But now I have had time to read around the topic and here are some interesting reactions.
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The fifth Republican debate last night was on the topic of national security and this is exactly the kind of topic that Republicans love, because it enables you to talk tough and freely advance the most preposterous suggestions knowing full well that such fact-free speculations carry no costs. But in order to make their case that the US needed tough new leadership, they had to start with a baseline where things are really bad so all the candidates praised the abilities of ISIS to the skies, describing it as this immensely powerful and sophisticated force that was expanding its territory by leaps and bounds and threatening the entire world. ISIS could take clips of the debate and make it into a recruitment video, to impress young people around the world that the US was quaking in its boots in fear of their power.
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There is something vaguely creepy about Ted Cruz.
It is more than the smug expression that is his standard face. He also has the sly expression of someone who thinks he is way smarter than you and can argue better and thus can make you believe what he says. This confidence is shown in the way he flatly distorts things and uses his skills in sophistry to try and make his lies sound truthful.
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This question has arisen because the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the state of Nevada’s largest circulation newspaper, was bought by someone and no one, not even the reporters working at the paper, knows their identity. What is more, the new owner paid a sum of $140 million, which was well above what people considered the market value.
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Three years ago yesterday, 20 children and six adults died in the massacre that took place at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. It was a tragic event, as all such events are, with the added poignancy that always accompanies a child’s death. There are apparently people who think that the whole thing was a hoax that was perpetrated for who knows what reason, but they think that the government and president Obama are behind it
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Today is yet another Republican debate featuring nine people in the main event with Chris Christie just squeaking back in and Rand Paul barely avoiding getting relegated to the minor league. The field has effectively narrowed down to just three people (Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio) and you can expect to see them sparring with one another, with Jeb Bush and Ben Carson struggling to act as if they are still relevant.
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On Monday, February 1, 2016 Iowa holds its caucuses. This is a complicated process and there is a long and tortured path from what takes place that evening to how the final delegates to the party convention are apportioned. So in one sense, what happens that night is not really definitive but the media, anxious to quickly identify winners and losers, have used the non-binding secret ballot that begins the proceedings as their marker and this can lead to problems as in 2012, when Mitt Romney was declared the winner on caucus night but later it turned out that Rick Santorum had edged him out.
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You may recall Will Ferrell doing his impersonation of George W. Bush during his presidency. On Saturday Night Live, he reprises his role to announce that he is entering the race for the Republican presidential nomination and while doing so sizes up all his main competitors.
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It is a striking testimony to how far the Republican party has gone off the rails in its xenophobia and anti-Muslim venom that some people in the party are now looking back fondly at George W. Bush as a model of how one should respond to the appalling actions taken by some Muslims, such as in the San Bernadino attacks. Following the events of 9/11 he is now said to have struck the correct note, carefully distinguishing between the specific beliefs of the people who carried out those attacks and the vast mass of people who happened to share their same religion.
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Marco Rubio asserts that he cannot see any evidence of discriminatory actions against Muslims in America. Has he not heard of the internet? It has been full of news stories about random people are perceived to look like Muslims being targeted for harassment as you can see here, here, and here.
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