BloggeRhythms

Didn’t watch the Republican debate last night, and from the recaps in the press this morning, missed nothing at all. 

Two points raised by Chris Cassidy @bostonherald.com, raise questions, though, that voters should certainly be able to grasped on their own. And, if debates are needed to understand those points clearly, those requiring the clarification are far too dumb to find voting booths. 

Mr. Cassidy writes: “A malfunctioning Marco Rubio crashed as he was overloaded by attacks last night from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who tried to portray the Florida U.S. senator as a Washington robot pre-programmed by political consultants during a high-stakes Republican debate. 

“See, Marco — Marco — the thing is this,” Christie said, “when you’re president of the United States … the memorized 30-second speech where you talk about how great America is at the end of it doesn’t solve one problem for one person.” 

“Four different times — often word-for-word and at awkward non-sequiturs — Rubio claimed Obama intentionally wants to make America like the rest of the world. 

“Here’s the bottom line. This notion that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing is just not true. He knows exactly what he’s doing,” said Rubio, repeating the line for a third time in a matter of minutes. 

“There it is. There it is,” pounced Christie. “The memorized 25-second speech. There it is, everybody.” 

The point here is that Christie's exactly right. Rubio is “a Washington robot pre-programmed by political consultants.” What’s more, there isn’t an informed individual in the nation that doesn’t understand clearly that Obama intentionally wants to make America like the rest of the world, knowing exactly what he’s doing. However, Obama isn’t running for reelection, because he no longer can. 

Yet, the most important error made by Rubio apparently wasn’t noticed by Christie, or the author of the article.  

After the exchange, “Rubio fired back at Christie, accusing him of neglecting New Jersey to campaign during last month’s blizzard, saying the state had to “shame him into going back.” 

Christie responded: “It gets very unruly when he gets off his talking points,” missing the obvious point that Rubio’s doing precisely the same thing. Spending just as much time campaigning as Christie is. Which also means that while Rubio’s not only performing just like Christie, it seems Rubio’s constituents don’t miss him at all. Because they're not complaining that he’s gone.   

And then, another pointless exchange caused wonder at what these candidates are all about.  

Mr. Cassidy writes: “Meanwhile, front-runner Donald Trump and Bush battled back and forth over eminent domain with Bush accusing Trump of using the legal maneuver to take property for a “limousine parking lot for his casinos.” 

“He wants to be a tough guy,” said Trump. “And it doesn’t work very well.” 

“How tough is it to take property from an elderly woman?” replied Bush. 

Trump responded by shushing Bush: “Quiet.” 

Now, in this case, what exactly does Trump’s saying “Quiet’” mean? It’s not a relevant comment, has no substance and certainly makes no intelligible point. However, that's Trump’s general response to whatever he’s asked. And is also perhaps what he told those who inquired about how he bankrupted four New Jersey casino’s. 

I also get the feeling that if he “shushed” any number of other accomplished, less polite, individuals and told them “Quiet,” he’d be out shopping today. For new front teeth and a body cast. 

On another subject, Nidhi Verma @reuters.com in New Delhi via Drudge, reports that: “Iran wants to recover tens of billions of dollars it is owed by India and other buyers of its oil in euros and is billing new crude sales in euros, too, looking to reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar following last month's sanctions relief. 

“A source at state-owned National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) told Reuters that Iran will charge in euros for its recently signed oil contracts with firms including French oil and gas major Total, Spanish refiner Cepsa and Litasco, the trading arm of Russia's Lukoil.” 

U.S. officials estimate about $100 billion of Iranian assets were frozen abroad, around half of which Tehran could access as a result of sanctions relief. India alone “owes Tehran about $6 billion for oil delivered during the sanctions years.” 

Having the world's fourth-largest proved reserves of crude oil, and expecting to quickly increase production, which could lead to tens of billions of euros worth of new oil trade, Iran's insistence on being paid in euros rather than dollars is “also a sign of an uneasy truce between Tehran and Washington even after last month's lifting of most sanctions.” 

Meaning that. not only wasn’t the nuclear deal a good one for the U.S. and the rest of the free world, Iran obviously plans to insure that the U.S. can never gain control over their assets again. Which certainly doesn’t seem to be the reaction of a nation intending to maintain its side any kind of “agreement.” 

Bringing us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife. 

In trying to explain Bill’s wife’s future planning, a glaring example unwarranted of media support and bias was found in an article by Lisa Lerer and Ken Thomas, of the Associated Press via Drudge. 

The article begins: “With victory seemingly out of reach in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton is looking ahead to the next round of voting as she tries to counter the rising challenge from Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential race.” 

And then in the very next paragraph, the authors write: “Clinton hopes to use a narrower-than-expected loss in Tuesday's primary as a springboard into contests later this month in Nevada and South Carolina, with a goal of having a more heavily-minority electorate help her build the foundation for a delegate-by-delegate drive toward the nomination.” 

Thus, instead of giving Sanders his due respect, the authors go to use the piece to present Bill’s wife’s platform and strategies, stressing the issues they feel important to her successful nomination. 

However, nowhere do they mention that as recently as two months ago, a landslide win was expected of her, with Sanders not even being considered as viable competition in any sate whatsoever. Much less the two that begin the presidential campaign contest. 

Nonetheless, it’s now apparent that voters don’t seem to care very much about what the major media thinks, being certainly capable of making up their own minds. Which at present doesn’t bode very well for Bill’s wife. 

It also brings the continuing question up again: Joe Biden, Mayor Bloomberg, Jerry Brown, and Starbuck’s chairman and CEO, Howard Schultz, are you guys reading this?    

That’s it for today folks.   

Adios