Sunday, February 14, 2016

Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire! A fact check of last night’s debate.

I hate wasting my time. I really do. The people who support Trump are divided up into two categories. White Supremacist Nationalists, who won’t listen to reason, and people who would consider other candidates, but feel that Trump is inevitable and so they want to get on the right side of history… even though there is nothing Right, or Conservative about Trump. No facts about Trump, no matter how damming, will ever change the minds of the former, but I write in hopes of swaying the latter, but odds are that is a waste of time, but alas, here we go.


The facts are not on Trump’s or Rubio’s side. Trump is a bomb thrower. That’s his style, that’s his thing. Nothing he says ever survives a fact checker, and his opinions are more fluid than our water supply. Those that try to pin him down on issues get attacked, and his Jerry Springer watching fans love him for it. With regard to Rubio, he is a candidate in decline, so naturally he is lobbing bombs any which way he can (Metaphorically… isn’t it sad we have to spell that out on the Internet? It’s sick that we live in a culture that can’t even use the term “literally” correctly, but never understands speaking in metaphor… but I digress.)

Last night’s debate was absolutely disgusting because of those two. Naturally, Fox won’t call out Rubio, so I will. Both Rubio and Trump were acting like petulant children, screaming, “liar, liar, liar,” when Ted Cruz tried to bring their record to the forefront. Trump, especially, may not like it, but where Reagan spent twenty years as a hardline Conservative activist, Donald Trump has spent the last twenty years all over the ideological map. Which is why looking at what he is saying right now is so important… because virtually none of it is Conservative. Nevertheless, when Ted Cruz tried to point out some of the ways that Trump deviates from Conservatism, he was met by a barrage of, “liar! Liar! Liar!” But #factsmatter, and they are stubborn things. Said differently, Cruz tried to stay on policy, and Trump responded with personal attacks. But lets look at the facts, shall we?

Ted Cruz tried to point out that The Donald has previously defended Planned Parenthood. Note: Cruz said nothing of abortion. Trump always tries to separate the two into different things, but with PP, you really can’t. Still, Cruz said nothing of abortion, he cited Trump’s previous defense of PP and Trump went ballistic. Incidentally, within the mix, Trump does say, “they do many wonderful things for women’s healthcare,” a common line by liberals in defense of the abortion mill. By saying that, Trump actually cedes the point to Cruz, but of course, keeps calling him “liar, liar, liar.” But Ted Cruz is right. Trump has previously stood up for Planned Parenthood.



Not only that, but Planned Parenthood has defended him, saying “Donald Trump seems to have realized that banning all abortions, shutting down the government, and defunding Planned Parenthood are extreme positions that are way too far outside the mainstream for even him to take. We hope that the rest of the GOP field will wake up and reconsider their extreme and unpopular positions on defunding preventive care, abortion bans, and the other economic issues that women and their families care about.” -1 Whose the liar now?

But even in that mix, Trump says that Planned Parenthood does “wonderful things,” during the debate. Ted Cruz tried to simmer down the tone of the debate by saying, “you and I disagree with that…” and then tried to tie it all together by pointing out that, based on Trump’s record, Trump will appoint liberals. Trump, of course, spazzed out about that as well. But here again the record is very, very, VERY CLEAR. Sorry, I just thought that since Trump supporters seem to like a lot of shouting that if I shouted that last point they might pay attention.

In addition to defending PP previously, Trump has also stated he would appoint his sister, a left wing activist judge, to the high court. Although he has since backed off of that, suggesting he was only kidding.-2 Still, a Conservative would never ever suggest such an appointment in the first place, even in jest. To be fair, we can all lament Cruz’s backing of Justice Roberts, but we did not know that Roberts would betray the trust we were placing in him at that time. Roberts did not, in any way, telegraph his liberal leanings. This happens a lot, sadly, like with Rubio on immigration… but we will get to that shortly. Trump said his sister would make a phenomenal Supreme Court Justice. That fact should be an indication of his judgement. In contrast, it’s unfair to hold Cruz accountable for what we didn’t know about what Justice Roberts, because Roberts, like many politicians, sold himself as a Conservative. We could not have known what Roberts would have done, but we do know what people like Trump’s sister will do, and with the passing of Justice Scalia, now is not the time to joke around about Supreme Court appointees. Again, and trying to be fair, Trump has since backed off this, and now insists he’d appoint Conservative judges, but then they all say that, so where in his record is the proof? They all say they are Conservative during the primary, then they shift center, and sometimes center-left, in the general or as President… a move Trump is already telegraphing.

                                                        Beginning at marker 1:36.

Ted Cruz’s record, in contrast, is one of unyielding devotion to core principles. He has a long history of standing up for Conservative principles. Thus, due to his record, I trust him far, far more on this issue than Trump. I’d wager quite a lot that a Cruz appointment would be on the lines of a Senator Mike Lee who, as I recall, worked with Justice Alito, one of the most Conservative Justices out there. How awesome would that be for Utah? Of course, it’s probable that Rubio might do likewise, but that should tell us a lot about the better options we have out there for SCOTUS appointments than what Trump has offered up so far.

Of course Trump then brings up Carson gate. This nontroversy is getting beyond annoying for a myriad of reasons. Most of all, because Cruz himself had LITERALLY NOTHING TO DO WITH IT AT ALL! So let’s explain this AGAIN. Again, sorry for the shouting, but Trump supporters are all so willfully deaf that you have to shout to get their attention. Again. Facts matter, so a Carson staffer talked to CNN and telegraphed that Carson was leaving the campaign trail. CNN put out a series of tweets that this was odd, and then reported it on their channel.



Cruz was in the middle of giving a speech at the time, but then his staffers start getting the word out that it looks like Carson is out, and encouraging Carson voters, who on principles should be natural ally to the Cruz camp, to come caucus with them. Of course, there is no evidence at all that this swayed any voters. In fact, Carson, who polling had coming it at 7% and 4th place, actually over performed expectations, coming in with 9% of the vote.

At some point CNN corrected themselves, and now completely deny any involvement with the dissemination of this story… but we have them red handed, don’t we? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3AQeIglpGU&feature=player_embedded They can lie all they want, but that video is pretty damming.

At any rate, Carson is angry because Cruz never got the record corrected. But we can expect this sort of nonsense from people with no political experience, and its why I am disinterested with people who have no political experience because I have been with candidates as the voting begins, and I can tell you from firsthand experience, CNN goes off, and all eyes on Cell Phones, Tablets, and Internet at large are glued to whatever website is counting the vote. Once in a while the candidate gives a morale boosting speech. We might snack a bit, but then it’s back to watching the vote tallies come in. The idea that Cruz was involved in any wrong doing here is an outright lie. Cruz knew nothing about this, and apologized profusely and repeatedly when he found out about it, even though there is ZERO evidence that Carson lost any votes at all because of it.

But isn’t it interesting that Rubio gets involved here too, when his people were also disseminating the same story? To his defense, knowing personally how crazy busy things are behind the scenes on election day, Rubio probably doesn’t know. But yeah, his people were doing the same thing. -3 I guarantee you that if Trump had people on the ground they would have been disseminating that story too. For Rubio to get indignant over this issue, which again, did not cost Carson one single solitary vote at all, when his people were also involved, and then to attack Cruz over it and call him a liar is disgustingly dishonest, and my vow to never ever vote for Trump under any circumstances is about to be extended to Rubio as well. It is, in fact, Rubio, so desperate to get away from scrutiny for his involvement with the gang of eight that is willing to tell people anything to get elected. Deflect, distract, deny. Is that the way of it with Rubio? Do we not deserve someone with more honor?

It’s also worth noting that Trump does not care one iota about Carson in reality. Cruz pointed out quite rightfully, that it was, in fact, Trump running around comparing Carson to a pedophile while Carson was leading in Iowa.-4 If anyone did anything dirty to cause the collapse of Carson in Iowa it was Trump. Strange, then, that Carson would pursue a course that can only benefit the candidate whose trash talk did bring him down. But I digress…

And finally Gang of Eight. Cruz has admitted to playing the Senate games in order to introduce a poison pill designed to kill the bill. Jeff Sessions, Mike Lee, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh have all supported Cruz’s claim that this is what he was trying to do. Yes, he said what he had to say in order to ensure that his amendment, which stripped citizenship out of the bill, would pass. The hope was, of course, that if the bill was inevitable, that he could at least make it less bad. Sometimes in legislation that is all you can do. You may not be comfortable with some of the games that go on in the legislative branch, but it is what it is. There can be no doubt that the actions of Ted Cruz, Jess Sessions and Mike Lee stopped that bill from succeeding. Cruz never supported amnesty. Ever. Period. Even Megyn Kelly, who confronted Cruz with the heavily edited video that Rubio is passing around, (which of course removes Cruz from the entire context of what was happening at the time) even Megyn Kelly was forced to admit, immediately after the debate, that Cruz had been telling the truth. -5



So here again, it is a point of fact that it is RUBIO, not Cruz who has been lying about this. And just so that we are clear, we Cruzers (note, I am a former Carsonite, as my record on this blog clearly shows, but Carsongate flipped me over to Cruz) are angry with Fox News because A) They refused to acknowledge Cruz as the winner in Iowa, making it look as though Rubio had won. And 2, they are still allowing guest to disseminate this myth spread by “say anything to win,” Rubio that Cruz flipped on immigration as well, when in fact that is not the case at all, and it is demonstrably, provably and categorically false. Fox can be as flippant as they want that we all think they are in the tank for Rubio, but that is because they flat out are. Denying it at this point is ridiculous.

Rubio, in the meantime, was on record during his Senate campaign as being opposed to amnesty. Rubio’s signature accomplishment in the Senate, however, was the gang of eight amnesty package. Rubio should just apologize for it, own his mistake, and quit trying to drag down the only person in this race who can beat Trump with him.

1-Donald Trump Is Planned Parenthood’s Favorite Republican, Betsy Woodruff 8/11/15 www.thedailybeast.com, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/11/donald-trump-is-planned-parenthood-s-favorite-republican.html, accessed 2/14/16

2-Trump Says He Was Kidding in Suggesting His Sister for the Court, Maggie Haberman, New York Times, www.nytimes.com, http://www.nytimes.com/live/supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia-dies-at-79/trump-says-he-was-kidding-when-he-suggested-his-sister-for-the-court/ 2-14-16, accessed 2-14-16.

3. Et Freakin Tu, Marco? Marco Rubio’s Own Ben-Carson-Is-Quitting Gambit, Streiff (Diary), redstate.com, http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2016/02/03/et-freakin-tu-marco-marco-rubios-ben-carson-quitting-gambit/ 2/3/16, accessed 2/14/16

4-Trump: Carson's Incurably and Pathologically Diseased, Kind of Like a Pedophile, Guy Benson, townhall.com, http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2015/11/13/trump-carsons-incurably-and-pathologically-diseased-kind-of-like-a-pedophile-n2080044, 11/13/15, accessed 2/14/16


5- No, Ted Cruz Did NOT Support Amnesty, Concedes Megyn Kelly After #GOPDebate, Caleb Howe, www.redstate.com, http://www.redstate.com/absentee/2016/01/29/ted-cruz-support-amnesty-concedes-megyn-kelly-gopdebate/ 1/29/16, accessed 2/14/16. 


No comments:

Post a Comment