BloggeRhythms

Didn’t watch the Republican debate last night, and from the recaps this morning, missed absolutely nothing. 

FoxNews.com summed the event up this way: ‘'Donald Trump’s rivals teamed up at Thursday’s Fox News Republican presidential debate in a concerted effort to cast him as a political salesman willing to say anything and take any position to win the nomination – but in the end, pledged to support the GOP nominee, even if it's Trump. 

“Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and John Kasich all pledged to support the eventual nominee. And Trump, who has occasionally threatened to mount an independent bid, also vowed, “Yes, I will” support the nominee.” 

Other than that, the evening was another showing of grown men, supposedly capable of heading the greatest nation on the planet, acting like ten year olds sassing each other in a schoolyard. While the only individual on the stage with the required experience was Kasich, who’s been running last in the polls. Because an unsophisticated mass of frustrated voters don’t know the difference in value between blowhard wannabee’s and a highly successful governor.    

On a similar aspect of the Republican race, yesterday Rush took a quite negative view on the comments Mitt Romney made is his anti-Trump presentation in Utah yesterday morning.

In this case, it should be mentioned that I’ve been a Rush fan since 1988, when he began broadcasting his show nationally from WABC in NYC. Although in recent years, since his broadcasts are so overloaded with commercials, I read the text’s on Facebook and elsewhere on the Web, which is far better than tuning in. However, for the first time in those many, many years, I disagree significantly with his conclusions about both, Romney’s impact and Trump’s invincibility.

Rush said: “Now, Mitt Romney had some substantive things to say about Trump that, as I say, if you just look at it within the bubble of his comments, might make some sense.  But it's nothing nobody else has been saying about Trump in this entire campaign.  There wasn't anything new, and not one instance in the past of anybody saying any of these things about Trump has caused massive defections from Trump's campaign.  So the questions then arise, okay, if it hasn't worked prior to today, why do it today?  What's the deal?  And the answers to me are rather obvious.”

So, what we have here is Rush stating that first, Romney came up with nothing new to disparage Trump. However, Romney didn’t have to because the negatives are substantial and huge. So, what Romney did was list them, highlighting each in a way that hasn’t been done before, commenting on them individually. And as far as the lack of defections are concerned, Trump only had 35% of voters favoring him to begin with.   

Rush then used past events to further his point saying: “Let's go back, February 2nd, 2012, in Las Vegas, the Trump International Hotel and Tower, and Donald Trump endorsed Romney for president February 2nd, 2012.  And we have two Mitt Romney sound bites.  Here's the first. 

“ROMNEY:  There are some things that you just can't imagine happening in your life.  This is one of them, being in Donald Trump's magnificent hotel, and having his endorsement is a delight.  I'm so honored and pleased to have his endorsement. 

“RUSH:  Don't think the people supporting Trump don't remember this.  Don't think they're gonna hear this either on this program or elsewhere and they're not gonna be questioning Trump.  They're gonna be questioning Romney.  Here's the second bite.  Get this. 

“ROMNEY:  Donald Trump has shown an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works, to create jobs for the American people.  He's done it here in Nevada. He's done it across the country.  He understands that our economy is facing threats from abroad.  He's one of the few people who stood up and said, "You know what, China has been cheating. They've taken jobs from Americans. They haven't played fair. We have to have a president who stands up to cheaters."  So I want to say thank you to Donald Trump for his endorsement.  It means a great deal to me to have endorsement of Mr. Trump and people across this country.” 

And then Rush hit the nail on the head, but missed the point completely. Rush said: “Trump's the same the guy that he was four years ago in 2012. But here's Romney accepting his endorsement and praising him, praising him on the terms Trump is using in this campaign.  He's gonna get back at the people cheating Americans (i.e., the Chinese). He's gonna get back at the people taking jobs from Americans. Romney applauds that.  Trump is campaigning on those very things.  But strip away the details.” 

However, Romney’s point, along with many others in agreement, is that Trump has indeed changed in the past four years. He’s gone from a business man and political supporter to a candidate making loud, ridiculous, often frightening, statements and promises while having no solid platform and presenting no substance. And that’s what Romney’s worried about, and he happens to be correct.     

As Rush’s show went along, though, something must have happened to cause him to reconsider. Because some time later that very afternoon, Rush changed his tune completely, posting the following on Facebook: “There are a lot of primary votes yet to be had from people who oppose Trump. He's not winning a majority of Republican votes. He's getting a majority of the media coverage; he's getting a majority of the fascination. But when you look at raw vote totals, Ted Cruz is only 79 delegates behind him right now.” 

So, without giving Romney credit, Rush must have thought about what he’d said and came to the proper conclusion. That Romney truly knows exactly what he’s talking about regarding Trump. 

On another subject, for what it’s worth, FoxNews.com, reports: “Secretary of State John Kerry will not travel to Cuba this week as previously planned, a State Department official told Fox News late Thursday.

“It has been postponed,” the official said and noted the Cuba trip had never been formally announced. 

“According to Reuters, two U.S. officials said the trip had been canceled over Kerry’s concerns about Cuba’s human rights records.”

So, here again, just like Kerry’s surprise when told that the Ayatollah was urging anti-American activity in Iran, Kerry woke up two days late and two dollars short, looking like the colossal dupe he’s always been. 

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

According to an “exclusive,” on FoxNews.com, by Catherine Herridge and Pamela K. Browne: “The FBI is investigating whether computer passwords were shared among Hillary Clinton's close aides to determine how sensitive intelligence "jumped the gap" between the classified systems and Clinton's unsecured personal server, according to an intelligence source familiar with the probe. 

“The source emphasized to Fox News that “if [Clinton] was allowing other people to use her passwords, that is a big problem.” The Foreign Service Officers Manual prohibits the sharing of passwords. 

“Such passwords are required to access each State Department network. This includes the network for highly classified intelligence -- known as SCI or Sensitive Compartmented Information -- and the unclassified system, known as SBU or Sensitive But Unclassified, according to former State Department employees.” 

“A separate source said the list of individuals is relatively small -- about a dozen, among them Clinton aide Jake Sullivan, who was described as "pivotal" because he forwarded so many emails to Clinton. His exchanges, now deemed to contain highly classified information, included one email which referred to human spying, or "HCS-O," and included former Clinton aide Huma Abedin. 

“As Fox News first reported last year, two emails -- one sent by Abedin that included classified information about the 2011 movement of Libyan troops during the revolution, and a second sent by Sullivan that contained law enforcement information about the FBI investigation in the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack – kick-started the FBI probe.” 

So, the investigation continues with considerable disagreement from both political sides as to what the final outcomes might be. However, it’s highly unlikely that career FBI agents, along with other senior members of other agencies, are working this diligently to insure that Bill’s wife is cleared of wrongdoing. Whereas she’s the responsible individual at the top of the chain. Which means there’s a very high, and growing chance of guilt. 

Leading to the ongoing question: 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