Random Politics & Religion #00

According to this forum

Yes, because that makes perfect sense. If I go shooting up an orphanage and quote one of your posts while doing it, should you be tried for murder too?

If I said what Lindsey Graham did KN, you'd call me a Hillary sycophant yet here's a senior member of the GOP calling half the lineup ***.

Just tell the media the entire P+R section was your motivation. Maybe we can all finally meet on Good Morning America or something.

Cruz has looked like an idiot recently

Cruz has looked like an idiot recently by saying we should carpet bomb ISIS off the map, which isn't possible, then clarifying by saying we should not carpet bomb the cities, but embed special forces so they can laze the targets and we hit them with precision strikes..Which is exactly what we are doing everyday. Everything Cruz says on foreign policy is exactly what Obama has been doing but he tries to paint it as if he has a different plan. But he doesn't, none of them do.

Cruz has looked like an idiot recently by saying we should carpet bomb ISIS off the map, which isn't possible, then clarifying by saying we should not carpet bomb the cities, but embed special forces so they can laze the targets and we hit them with precision strikes..Which is exactly what we are doing everyday. Everything Cruz says on foreign policy is exactly what Obama has been doing but he tries to paint it as if he has a different plan. But he doesn't, none of them do.

What I want to know, really, is how Fiorina got this far in the first place. Her claim to fame is somehow "business expertise" but last I checked, HP is a smoking pile of rubble that still hasn't recovered. Her name is mud in technical circles after the galactic level failures that managed to destroy not one, but ultimately three former giants in tech (HP, DEC, Compaq).

What exactly was the appeal there?

She's a business person Clinton and a woman AND that's all that matters! Don't let something like a track record keep you down.

If I said what Lindsey Graham did KN, you'd call me a Hillary sycophant yet here's a senior member of the GOP calling half the lineup ***.

*sighs*

What I want to know, really, is how Fiorina got this far in the first place. Her claim to fame is somehow "business expertise" but last I checked, HP is a smoking pile of rubble that still hasn't recovered. Her name is mud in technical circles after the galactic level failures that managed to destroy not one, but ultimately three former giants in tech (HP, DEC, Compaq).

What exactly was the appeal there?

What exactly was the appeal there?

Honestly, Fiorina never got that far. She never broke 12% in the polls and outside some key moments in a debate which leaned towards an impassioned anti-abortion stance she was never frontunner.

But I don't think she has come that far.

She was in nationally televised debates and got actual people to say "yes, that's who should be our next President". That's farther than any of us got, despite the fact that our collective track record as executives is better than hers.

It's hard to overstate what a complete disaster she was, so it's really just a question of "why wasn't she laughed out the door thirty seconds in?"

and got actual people to say "yes, that's who should be our next President".

It's hard to overstate what a complete disaster she was, so it's really just a question of "why wasn't she laughed out the door thirty seconds in?"

I think the biggest reason was most people had no idea who she was. I didn't, I had never heard of her, I'm not tapped into her part of the world. And I think she did ok for the early parts, but when people took a real look at her, who she was, what her accomplishments were, what her failures were, combined it with her policy proposals, if you can call them that, she plummeted. Trump called it correctly, she dropped like a rock. She is out of it.

But that said, she should be the one that decides when she ends her campaign, not the networks.

" at least she beat two establishment guys!"

In an attack on Sen. Marco Rubio’s stance on immigration, Sen. Ted Cruz makes two overly broad accusations that distort Rubio’s position.

Cruz claims Rubio “advocates amnesty for criminals who are here illegally.” But Rubio supports deporting felons, and he has supported legislation that would bar legal status for those with three or more misdemeanors and those with a single serious misdemeanor, such as a domestic violence or drunk driving offense.
Cruz claims Rubio said “that he would not revoke President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty on the first day in office.” Rubio said he wouldn’t immediately revoke Obama’s 2012 order protecting so-called “Dreamers” — young people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents. But Rubio has said he would revoke Obama’s 2014 executive action that protects as many as 5 million adults from deportation.

Cruz’s comments about Rubio’s positions on immigration came during an interview on “Fox News Sunday” the day before the Iowa caucuses, in which Cruz ended up placing first and Rubio third.

It’s true that Rubio once cosponsored and supported S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, the so-called Gang of Eight Senate immigration bill that included a “path to citizenship” for those currently in the country illegally. Rubio’s later rejection of the bill has been well-documented. But we were interested in Cruz’s claim that Rubio “advocates legalization and citizenship for everyone here illegally” and “even advocates amnesty for criminals who are here illegally.”
Amnesty for Criminals?

Cruz’s claim that Rubio “advocates legalization and citizenship for everyone here illegally” is not accurate. The Gang of Eight bill would only have provided a path to legalization for those who had been living in the U.S. since Dec. 31, 2011. It also would have required those seeking permanent legal residency to demonstrate an average income of at least 125 percent of the federal poverty level while in provisional status, with some exceptions. And it would have excluded anyone who had committed a felony or three or more misdemeanors. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that as a result of the Gang of Eight bill “about 8 million unauthorized residents would initially gain legal status under the bill, but that change in status would not affect the size of the U.S. population.” That amounts to a majority of the people estimated to be living in the U.S. illegally, but not “everyone,” as Cruz said.

As backup for the claim that Rubio “advocates amnesty for criminals who are here illegally,” the Cruz campaign pointed to a story on the conservative website Breitbart.com that highlighted comments Rubio made in a Jan. 17 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” The host, Chuck Todd, asked Rubio about the estimated 11 million currently living in the country illegally and whether he was “still for finding a way for them to legally stay in the United States.”

Rubio began his response by saying, “If you’re a criminal alien, no, you can’t stay.”

Todd asked him to define criminal alien.

“A felon,” Rubio responded. “I mean, a felon, someone who’s committed a crime, a non-immigration-related — and that’s what I’ve talked about in the past … I don’t think you’re gonna round up and deport 12 million people.”

So, Brian Phillips, a spokesman for the Cruz campaign told us via email, “Rubio would only deport convicted felons. That leaves a whole lot of people who commit crimes still in the country.”

But that’s not the sum of Rubio’s public record on the issue.

In his 2015 book, “American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone,” Rubio said more generally that those who have committed “serious crimes” will “have to leave”

The Gang of Eight Senate immigration bill, S. 744 — which Rubio voted for but later backed away from — would have withheld Registered Provisional Immigrant status from those convicted of felonies, three or more misdemeanors, certain foreign offenses or unlawful voting.

Rubio’s campaign noted that Rubio also supported a failed amendment to the Gang of Eight bill sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn that would have gone even further to preclude from residency anyone who had committed misdemeanor offenses including domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, assault resulting in bodily injury, the violation of a protection order, or driving while intoxicated. The amendment also would have excluded from residency anyone convicted of three or more misdemeanors other than minor traffic offenses. (See page 4427 of the Congressional Record.) Cruz also voted in favor of the amendment.

So one could argue that Rubio’s plan would allow those convicted of some misdemeanor crimes to obtain legal residency, but Cruz’s blanket claim that Rubio “advocates amnesty for criminals who are here illegally” omits the criminal exceptions that Rubio has outlined.
On Obama’s Executive Actions

Cruz went on to say that Rubio would not immediately rescind Obama’s “illegal executive amnesty.”

Update, Feb. 4, 2016: Cruz made a similar claim on CNN’s “State of the Union” the same day. “Marco has gone on Univision in Spanish and told Jorge Ramos he will not repeal, he will not rescind Obama’s illegal executive amnesty on day one,” Cruz told host Jake Tapper. “He says you can’t do it overnight, and he won’t do it.”

Again, Cruz has painted with too broad a brush. There are two main executive actions that Obama has taken with regard to immigration enforcement — one related to so-called Dreamers, who were young when they were brought to the U.S. by their parents who themselves entered illegally, and another issued two years later that sought to protect from deportation as many as 5 million adults in the country illegally. Rubio has a different position on each.

It’s true that Rubio said he would not immediately revoke Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which allows immigrants who came to the U.S. when they were 15 years old or younger and have been illegally living in the country since June 15, 2007, among other stipulations, to remain in the U.S. legally for two years. That’s the position Cruz highlighted when he referred to Rubio’s October 2015 interview with Fusion’s Jorge Ramos.

Cruz and Rubio have a difference of opinion on that. Cruz has said he would deport so-called Dreamers.

But as Rubio went on to say in the same Fusion interview, there was another executive action announced by Obama in 2014 — Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents — that would allow immigrants who have lived in the U.S. illegally for more than five years and are parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents to lawfully remain in the U.S. temporarily without the threat of deportation. According to Obama’s action, they would have to register and pass criminal and national security background checks and start paying taxes, but they would be allowed to stay and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation for three years at a time. The policy hasn’t gone into effect, however, as it has been blocked in federal court.

In the Fusion interview, Rubio said he would immediately revoke that Obama executive action.

Again, Cruz’s overly general comment about Rubio balking at the immediate revocation of Obama’s immigration actions ignores Rubio’s different stances on two separate executive actions.

Too Lazy Didn't Read.