Tag: 2016 Primary

Trump tells Jeb Bush that GW Bush lied us into war. Audience of Republicans applauds!

It is a bad state of affairs when the Republican party’s best candidate is also the one virtually guaranteed to lose if he ever won the nomination. The awesome thing about Trump is that he is sticking it to the Republicans on their absolute worst issue in decades and he’s doing it in a way that doesn’t humiliate them for it. Democrats have a nasty way of smearing anyone who disagrees with them, while Trump is exhibiting exactly the right way to do something like this and attack the power structure, not the follower, in cases where appropriate.

“Obviously the war in Iraq was a BIG. FAT. MISTAKE.” – Donald Trump / majority of Americans, including Republicans.

First – notice the bias in this video by CBS on how they chose a thumbnail in where Jeb is smiling and Trump is frowning when the actual video shows an upbeat Trump absolutely demolishing Jeb. It’s not a photoshop or anything – Trump and Bush both made those expressions – it just isn’t a thumbnail that summarizes the content well at all. Take a look –

This is an amazing point in history because everything he said feels true – a majority agrees with it – but its kindov actually *not* true – but for the most part *is* true.

And that is the problem with Donald Trump… he opens himself – in a very GW Bush kind of way, coincidentally – to unfair attacks and smears on himself and his policies by begin factual on a subject but not entirely accurate on a specific word choice within that bubble. That gives enemies an opportunity to attack and not be non-factual when they mislead the public with an attack.

Specifically: The “Buh lied” trope has never been proven and doesn’t have strong evidence to support it. All accounts show that Bush and his top administration officials actually did – and had reasonable reason to – believe that they would find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. To an extent, they did find such weapons – but never the most scary that they claimed were likely being worked on or hoarded in the country. That lack of validation to their claims plus the objectively bad management of the war has made a clear “wasn’t worth it” label on the effort. It cost billions, slaughtered thousands of innocents, and hurt America. So Trump starts 100% right with saying it was a mistake and then veers off into iffy territory by saying Bush knew he was lying the whole time.

That’s the biggest problem here and with this guy in general: Trump, used the Democrat talking point that Bush “lied” us into war. Which is wrong, but not wrong in the way that matters, because its “basically” right… meaning – it’s directionally right, just not specifically accurate in the exact words used. And that appears to be Donald Trumps whole thing. Probably due to his background in real estate and Hollywood showmanship – he speaks far too casually and that is both his appeal and likely his downfall. He’ll say shit like “we had a beautiful time, it was tremendous – beautiful – absolutely stunning – and then after – we went out, we got some ice cream – it was a beautiful time” and lying liars will call him a liar because he actually got frozen yogurt, not ice cream. (*this is a made-up quote & scenario to illustrate the point, btw. we all know Trump would never get frozen yogurt and is 100% an ice cream man).

Imagine Donald Trump actually won the nomination (lol) and that he somehow won the election (like, if Hillary was caught on video or audio exhibiting all those stories about how nasty and mean she allegedly is to staff behind the scenes, for instance) – the media and his hack enemies would have a Scrooge McDuck moneybin’s wealth of fodder to lie about alleging “Trump lied” for saying things – exactly like this – that are “basically true” but require clarification. When other politicians do this, its called misspeaking, being imprecise, or in this case – just having one wrong opinion stated among 4 other facts about the subject. Doesn’t matter. Republicans need to wise up and learn the game or they will get crushed.

In this situation, however, Republican critics don’t know what to do because they want to hate Trump, but… he agrees with them on the most important issue of the past 18 years… The GW Bush led Iraq war was a bad move. Bush deserves blame at least, impeachment as a moderate compromise, and prosecution for war crimes at most. Trump takes the moderate position here amidst a larger anti-war stance and no one knows what to do.

Except Republicans that is. They like it. Republicans and independent Bush voters on whole never liked the war garbage. It was always a stain that had to constantly be defended and was never articulated well by the administration. That’s why Trump is getting support.. he is literally more liberal in all the best ways – in this case, being more anti-war – than his democrat opponent.

It’s an amazing thing to see. But a dangerous view of where it could lead.

Sorry Hippies: Welders do make more money than Philosophers

In the 4th debate for the Republican nomination to be the contender for President that faces off against the Democrat (see: “Hillary Clinton“) in the 2016 election, a question was posed about about whether the government should force employers to pay their least important and profitable employees a higher amount (instead of allowing the labor market to dictate pay based on the value and demand of the work a position holds). Amidst the candidates comments supporting freedom of choice over government meddling in the private decisions workers and businesses make for their own lives, Florida senator Marco Rubio cut to one of the causes of the question by noting the useless degrees many students choose to go into debt over more prudent vocational education.

“Here’s the best way to raise wages: Make America the best place in the world to start a business or expand an existing business, tax reform and regulatory reform, bring our debt under control, fully utilize our energy resources … repeal and replace ObamaCare, and make higher education faster and easier to access.”

He added:  “For the life of me, I don’t know why we have stigmatized vocational education. Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.”

His closer of “You’re going to make people more expensive than a machine. We need more welders and less philosophers” was noted that proper grammar in such a context is “fewer philosophers”, not “less”. Others had more aggressive criticism of the comment in what seems to me to be merely a transparent attempt at finding something to attack more than anything resembling an actual legitimate point of contention.

While the points that people shouldn’t make themselves less valuable to employers than machines and that they should instead should go to school for an actual reason and not just to burn money and waste valuable years on completely non-beneficial titles for fields they don’t get employed in seems pretty unassailable – it was heavily assailed non-the-less. The reasons why are obvious, even though the point itself is an obvious one: aside from the academic industry not wanting dilution of its brand, there are a lot of people who have already wasted their time and money on useless degrees and want to feel better about that waste by continuing to laud them, not to mention opportunists who are merely looking for an excuse to take down Rubio’s rising star.

Evidently, Rubio was so sterling in his debate performance that this Welders vs Philosopher salary thing was the biggest trending story of the whole debate in articles and social media afterward.

The refrain in most of the reaction was in claiming that Rubio’s statement is wrong and that Philosophers actually make much more than welders.

Except they don’t, and here is how Rubio’s critics are making the false attack:

TEACHERS ARE NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH DOERS
CNN notes that “Most critics cited the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which lists the median annual salary for welders at $37,420. For philosophy teachers, the wage is significantly higher: $63,630.” The obvious answer to this should be a resounding “so what?” as this means nothing.

A welding teacher is not necessarily a welder so why would anyone accept the bogus premise that a philosophy teacher is a philosopher? This is a fallacy of changing the goal posts since it is using imbalanced criteria to make a point. You either compare welding teachers to philosophy teachers (i.e: teachers compared to teachers) or you compare welders to philosophers (i.e: people gainfully employed doing the act of welding vs people who philosophize as their profession) but you can’t claim to un-make Rubio’s accurate point by keeping only half of his statement and changing the other half.

LEARNING IS NOT THE SAME AS WORKING
The other dubious debunking of Rubio’s claim rests on changing the context of his comment. The Washington Post headlined “Sorry Rubio. Philosophy majors actually make more than welders”. But why would Rubio a “sorry, but…” statement about yet another irrelevancy to his point? Again, the criticism requires changing the comments of the criticized, which in turn doesn’t go on to debunk a point but rather just goes into an irrelevant tangent that uses some of the same words in the original point.

Someone with a degree in Philosophy is just “someone with a degree in Philosophy”. You don’t become a lawyer by studying law in college – you become a lawyer by becoming a lawyer. Likewise, you don’t become a welder by studying welding – you study welding to become a welder.

Rubio didn’t say “those who study Philosophy” in his comparison, so what are his critics so afraid of that they can’t just respond to what he actually said? Probably because the context of his remarks make it clear that he was just using shorthand for “useless liberal arts major” in the context of minimum wage workers and as I noted earlier – that is impossible to argue against. But his critics couldn’t just let him go and make such an obvious and accurate point like that without appearing to counter it, so they engage in all this nonsense to obfuscate the truth.

But even playing the game of literalness these critics are using, the numbers and logic just don’t support the claims against the comment. To accurately fact check the legitimacy of Rubio’s point about “welders making more than philosophers”, one has to look at the number of people who studied philosophy and used that study to become employed as a philosopher vs those who learned welding and made a living from being a welder. Sorry, Philip Bump, who wrote that WashPo article, but what you study isn’t the same as what you do for a living. By Bumps metric, he’s conceivably including the hypothetical person who majors in philosophy in college and then went on to become a welder. But replace “welder” with anything and you’ve got the same non-point. A doctor, lawyer, scientist, politician, entrepreneur or other business professional might very well have majored in philosophy but they’re not “Philosophers” and it ain’t their philosophizing that earns them a higher salary than a welder.

(INTENTIONALLY?) MISSING THE POINT
The most bizarre criticism is from the people butthurt about an alleged attack on Philosophizing as a profession. You would think someone learned in the art of using logic and reason to understand reality would… do any of that… and then realize that making an obvious statement regarding advice about career trajectories is not an attack or statement that having a skill used in that career is useless.

I’m regarded as pretty self absorbed and I can’t imagine feeling similarly about such an obvious statement on the fields that apply to me. I’m an improvisational actor and would agree with a candidate saying we need more welders than improv performers. I also think improv should be taught in high schools, business schools, and elsewhere because of its inherent skill while at the same time telling everyone who will listen to absolutely not count on it as a career and instead learn an actual skill that actually builds things. Pretty simple to see the non-competition within those points, if you ask me, but others had trouble with Rubio’s comment as if he made some kind of condemnation on knowing anything about philosophy.

BY THE (SUPER OBVIOUS) NUMBERS
By using the intellectually dishonest metrics of “philosophy teachers” and “philosophy majors” to be synonymous with what a “philosopher” is, Rubio’s point is ignored, not fact-checked or even rebutted.

To revisit: Rubio’s point was about the responsibility of government and the individual. He said the responsibility of government is to make America the best place to start or grow business and that the responsibility of individuals is to train themselves for preparation in such a business climate by learning necessary skills for their career goals. He didn’t say anything against majoring in philosophy, one assumes (if they are to honestly appraise the argument he’s making) for a reason: such a major could very well fit into a larger career goal. His comment made an observation about preparation for success in the workplace and it was accurate: On average – welders earn more money than philosophers, so choose your education spending wisely and with a plan in mind.

There are a lot of welding jobs and there are very few philosopher jobs. There are essentially no philosophy jobs outside of entrepreneurially creating your own business or website, advice column, book, or becoming a thought leader that can command hefty speaking fees.

But even going off of the pre-mentioned fallacy about Philosophy teachers being “Philosophers” instead of what they actually are (“teachers”), the numbers don’t add up since the number of people who have risen to the title of tenured professors in philosophy is far smaller than the number of employed welders. Likewise, majoring in philosophy (or any other liberal art) that is not a requirement or aid to your intended profession is a waste, even if such major holders go on to make a good living outside of the field they majored in.

There is just no possible honest angle that makes Rubio’s comment incorrect.

Sorry Hippies, but the fact remains that most liberal arts majors made bad decisions with that choice and their inability to use those majors in the workforce illustrates it.

Marco Rubio gets the most important question right

On the eve of the 3rd GOP Primary debate, the campaign for Florida Sen Marco Rubio released this nifty lightning-round style question session of the candidate titled “15 Questions Marco Won’t Be Asked at the Debate”. It’s a good social media spot that highlights the Senators natural demeanor and quickness that subliminally contrasts him with the Democratic frontrunner, a slowly calculating robot named Hillary.

Thank friggin goodness he got the most important question right. When asked who would win in a fight between my 2 favorite SuperHeroes since childhood – Spiderman or Batman – Marco answers perfectly.

Rubio answers every question quickly and concisely with minimal deliberation but one from the bunch causes the candidate to pause in consideration. He starts to deliver what to the layman seems like the obvious answer by starting the “SSS” of “Spiderman” but then, thoughtful analyst that he is, takes a moment to really weigh the opponents. He confirms with the off-camera questioner, his choices: “Spiderman or Batman?” and pauses with a “hm” and a look to the side as he accesses the logical areas of his brain to retrieve the relevant and necessary fact points and then delivers the correct answer: “Probably Batman”.

It’s actually not just the correct answer, but the perfect answer, for the following reasons:

THE DELIBERATION IS NECESSARY
Spiderman vs Batman is a matchup that requires a moment of thought. An immediate answer doesn’t reveal accuracy but rather reveals which character you simply like better and would root for to win. If such a question is to be taken seriously, at least a moment of analysis is required before blurting out an answer as the heroes are not so obvious in the outcome of their strengths and vulnerabilities could suggest.

Rubio showed himself to be a serious and thoughtful servant of the public in taking his time to reflect on the choice posed to him before blurting out an irresponsible answer.

THE FINAL ANSWER IS CORRECT
Surveying the fighters: Spiderman has meta-human strength & agility, tactile gadgets, unparalleled acrobatic ability and a super sense that alerts him to surprise attacks while Batman has “the peak of what the human body is capable of without chemical or meta enhancement” and an array of gadgets.

After analyzing the data in detail, an objective mind puts the odds on the bet that Batman would win against most comic book foes, Spiderman included, which is initially counterintuitive until one explores the reasons this is so. Fully understanding why Batman is such a formidable foe despite constantly being out-gunned and out-powered by rivals is something I’ve explained at length before but to summarize: Batman has the stealth power of superior strategy. In combat, the only thing that matters is strategy and if your superior strategizing can blindside your opponent then you are more likely to successfully defeat them. Batman is both routinely over-prepared and massively underestimated, allowing him to pull dark-horse victories against extremely deadly meta-humans, monsters, machines, armies, aliens, and fellow heroes.

THE “PROBABLY” IS WHAT MAKES IT A PERFECT ANSWER
Some hypothetical battles can be predicted with certainty and most are various degrees of likelihood. A Batman vs Spiderman battle isn’t obvious, and there are certainly a number of ways the Wall Crawler could defeat the Dark Knight (those are both nicknames for Spiderman & Batman, in case i’m losing you there), but the right answer is in fact “probably Batman”.

You cannot be President of anything important or hold any office of any consequence whatsoever without getting this question right and Sen Rubio hit it out of the park.

5 Reasons a Biden vs Romney 2016 Election is the best matchup for both sides

As I’ve said before, I like Joe Biden and would like him to run for President.

But, in the interest of fair disclosure: I also would like Joe to run because I want Mitt Romney to run and a Biden vs Romney election would give me peace about the country since both men pass the authenticity and decency tests I filter political picks through.

Non-dangerous candidates running against each other with mostly the same end-goals who just differ on policies arriving at those goals takes the terror out of the election but I like the matchup as a matter of interest in the news as well since it levels the star-power playing field, forcing a discussion on actual substance.

Substance hasn’t been at issue in national elections for decades. 2008’s McCain vs Obama was all about the star power of Obama and McCains VP pick Sarah Palin for their “first” status and rockstar appeal and Obama vs Romney similarly focused the race the perceived personalities of the two candidates instead of Obamas record and Romneys ideology.

Romney vs Biden is a race between two rich white guys in their 70s.
Biden – a career politician whose first run for the presidency was in the 80s, then again in the 2007 Democrat primary Barack Obama won and current sitting Vice President at the time of the election
vs
Romney – a private sector businessman who has been flirting with politics since the 90s, having unsuccessfully run against Ted Kennedy for senate and later serving 1 term as Governor of Massachusetts, running for president in the 2007 primary and again in 2012, becoming the Presidential nominee but losing to the Obama/Biden ticket.

This match-up creates a dynamic where issues and ideology can take the spotlight in place of the identity-politics of the previous examples. It also raises several interesting points…

 


1-  IT’S THE REMATCH AMERICA DESERVES

Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and Republican Mitt Romney all ran for president in 2008 and failed to get their parties nomination for the race that elected Barack Obama to the presidency.

A Hillary Clinton vs Mitt Romney race would mean 2 candidates who both ran directly against Barack Obama (Clinton in 08, Romney in ’12) and lost so it’s more of a story about candidates getting another bite at the apple (Hillary to win the nomination and Romney to win the presidency after the nomination). While Hillary served for 1 term in the Obama administration as secretary of state and thus would not only put on electoral trial the administration of her husband but also that of Obama’s, her lack of any actual life accomplishments or significant role in history other than “being around men making history” is a problem.

There is a better matchup…

Joe Biden vs Mitt Romney would be a rematch of the Obama Administration vs a potential Romney administration. This is a much more interesting divide than “Republican ideals of smaller government vs ‘first woman president'”.

Barack Obama was the first president to win reelection with less states and less votes than he was initially elected into office with and he largely won through demonizing his opponent and sliding by unchallenged by a sympathetic media to some majorly false promises, predictions, and attacks. America deserves to revisit these attacks straight against the VP of an administration that scored debate points on things like “the sequester will not happen” (it did, after Obamas reelection), or that Romney’s regard of Russia as a geopolitical foe was ridiculous “cold war (ie: backwards/outdated)” thinking only to then, after safely being re-elected, have to face Russia as – oops – a geopolitical foe in a list of troublesome ways.

Not that anyone besides insiders and nerds like me even remember any of those moments today and are hungry for a straightening of the public record – but rather because everyone following the election remembered them at the time and then forgot them. That’s kindov cheating, don’t you think? When you get positive buzz that translates to more support which translates to more votes that translate to a victory and then later the roots of it all not only turn out to be false but turn out to reveal that your opponent was right… that’s some shady ass sh*t, bruh. A Romney vs Obamas-2nd-in-command race would force some record setting and give the VP an opportunity to defend his boss and party’s terrible judgement and let the people decide.

Advantage: Romney

 

2- IT’S A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

For the Democrats, a Romney nomination kills the starpower momentum on the Republican side. At the time of this writing, the top Republican primary candidates are Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and Marco Rubio. In the same order: A celebrity billionaire, a black neurosurgeon, a former tech CEO, and a 1 term cuban-American senator from Florida. In any of those matchups except Trump (whom everyone knows will not be the nominee), the Democrats are at a “personal story” disadvantage because all of those top contenders are non-career politicians and have compelling personal stories while the Democrats current top candidates – Hillary Clinton and the as-yet-undeclared Vice President Biden are both life long politicians, gray haired and white as mountain snow.

Hillary faces a disadvantage among all of those candidates because they are all fresh faces with earnestness in their character while Hillary is an old face (politically) with the words “dishonest’ and “liar” most commonly associated with her and her “first woman president” story is undermined by Rubio being Cuban-American, and Carsons “first black president” credential (succeeding the nations first half-black/darker skinned president, Barack Obama).

All that makes Biden a better choice since the choice would be between 2 lifetime politician older white candidates – better to go with the one with actual accomplishments in his record and who has authenticity and honesty attached to his name than an accomplishment-less candidate thought to be serially dishonest.

For the Republicans, however, those names I mentioned win the scorecard on personal story and fresh face charisma, but lose on experience, which can be easily exploited by a Biden campaign. Their solution ought to be to run one of those candidates or one like them as their Vice Presidential nominee and one most-like them but without their baggage in their top slot. The only option that ticks all those boxes is one Mitt Romney. A candidate who has already been vetted, is popular among donors, is not a career politician, and is a good debater.

Advantage: Biden

 

3- BOTH MEN WOULD SURELY PICK NON-WHITE MALE RUNNING MATES

It would be both mens 3rd run at the Presidency and I highly suspect both would choose non-white-male running mates which would be great for political engagement and general dialog.

Advantage: Draw

 

4- IT IS BOTH MENS LAST CHANCE AT THIS WHOLE ‘PRESIDENT’ THING

They are both too old and have gone around the block too many times. 2 runs for president is generally the maximum. Reagan and Nixon are the only ones to successfully run 3 times and only Nixon ran as the losing nominee (to JFK), coming back to run again and win the nomination and the presidency years later. For both Romney and Biden, this is their back to back #3. Biden is still living on the White House grounds, for gosh sake, and Romney was the GOP nominee for the last election that Biden won his VP reelection in. They’re both too old to ever make their 3rd try after 2016. This is it. Both men want the job. Both men have tried for it. Both men have this one and only last chance bid for the position… That’s exciting. That’s a story. That’s some Reality Show level stakes. And frankly, both men deserve to make their case on why they should lead this country before its too late.

Advantage: Draw
5- IT WOULD “END” ARGUMENTS ON BOTH SIDES

End is of course in quotations because obviously no political argument ever truly “ends” regardless of the amount of facts involved. But for all intents and purposes, both sides would be able to make various claims about a victory in this unique matchup alone that don’t work for other match-ups.

Democrats – Think that Romney really is the evil corporate uncaring monster the Obama 2012 campaign claimed? Lets see if America still thinks so…

Republicans – Think the Obama administration really is an America ruining pestilence across the land that the American people were bamboozled into? Lets put its VP up for the job and see if America really thinks so…

The victor of these divides come with more than a victorious election, but with a history proving set of “see I told you so”s under their belt that raises the stakes for both sides.

Advantage: Draw

 

But whatever – that aspect of this isn’t important. The thesis here is that Joe Biden is presidential material, a mountain among midgets, and deserves a national spotlight as a nominee for the nations highest office. Mitt Romney, likewise, was the best nominee either party has seen in decades and got cheated out of a victory he objectively deserved by metrics regarding the ideology of the electorate and the number of key campaign arguments the winning side made that later turned out to be false.

This is the matchup that America may not want or care for, but it’s the race the country needs and deserves.

Why I hope Joe Biden runs for President (and why you should too)

The country and the world would be in such better shape under a Biden, instead of Obama presidency.

Joe Biden ran for president in 2008, but his experience and policies didn’t make for appealing enough figureheads as having that center-left view come from a mouth that was attached to either a woman or a brown skinned guy so Biden was iced out and America missed out.

Any number of VP choices in a Biden administration in 2008 would have worked fine but I actually think a Biden/Obama administration would have done immense good for the country because while the frank speaking non-phony competent negotiator knowledgable elder statesman who actually likes working in politics was in the top position, the political neophyte that doesn’t like actually working in politics

Instead, the appropriate positions are reversed and the country has had 7-ish years of a petulant manchild president who doesn’t negotiate, doesn’t compromise, doesn’t care what his constituents actually want, is easily butthurt, wastes time, wastes money, and a completely wasted Vice President doing little outside of make an occasional gaffe or other screw-up. What a tragic waste of truly great potential.

Now, the country might get a 3rd chance to reject Joe Biden (he ran for president in the 80s as well as 08 and would face an uphill climb promoting what would be perceived to be a 3rd term to an unpopular Obama administration full of unpopular policies, minus the only thing about the administration that *is* consistently popular – Barack Obama).

I hope Biden runs even though I will feel bad for him losing. He’s the only potential 2016 candidate on the Democratic side besides Jim Webb (the fact that you just said “who?” says all it needs to in that regard) who isn’t either a phony (sorry, Hillary fans – Update: sorry x2) or fruitcake (sorry Bernie fans) and would add sanity and honesty to an otherwise circus style primary and general election that no one needs this year in particular.

—

Update: Poll: While Clinton struggles with ‘liar’ tag, voters find Biden ‘honest’