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Rand Paul? Establishment?
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I'm sorry, I'm not sure I follow you there.
(Happy tenth page everyone)

The under 50 Republicans have been waiting for someone like Trump to come along for the last 15 years. They were never not-fringe, they just had no choice not to be, it's not like they'd stay home or vote for a Democrat. Now that there's an alternative, Breitbart is the most well known alternative conservative news site that's willing to cover him fairly. Breitbart was never this significant, they're not even ten years old, and they've always been fringe. This cycle has really flipped everything on end. 50-55% of GOP voters, who may have voted staunchly Republican and never strayed from FOX before now, have abandoned the establishment and they're not looking back atm.

Rand Paul has served as a politician for the GOP (unlike Trump/Carson) and is somewhat bipartisan (unlike Cruz). He was also endorsed by the Freedom caucus recently, a rather powerful faction in the Republican Party. He's not establishment in the sense that Jeb! is, but he is compared to the current front-runners.

If he had the ideological consistency of his father then he would probably be subversive enough to current Republican doctrine to be counted as one of the anti-establishment candidates. However, his recent swerves toward conservatism and the evangelical right (evidenced by his remarks about gay marriage) have somewhat sullied his reputation for libertarianism. Although Carson has managed to pull off an anti-establishment run by appealing to these same evangelicals, Paul seems to be trying to maintain both libertarian and social conservative credentials and as such lands awkwardly somewhere in the middle.

Fair enough. He's still an odd one though, in terms of ideology.
The third Republican debate is tonight at 8, EST, on CNBC. Basically nothing has changed since the last debate in terms of positions, so hopefully this will change this. Anyone else going to be watching other than me and Lisa?

I'll be tuning in.

It's happening at my university, but I didn't bother getting any tickets :D

I wouldn't really call him "establishment" even though he's closer to the establishment than Trump or Carson. It's not really that loose a term, when people talk about the GOP establishment or the Democrat establishment they're referring to a very specific set of ideals and people. If Trump is fringe and Jeb is establishment, Paul is an outlier somewhere in the middle. He's not the ideological middle though, he's all the worst parts of both parties lmfao.

John Kasich goes berserk on fellow Republican candidates – 'What has happened to the conservative movement?'

"I've about had it with these people," Kasich said at the rally in Westerville, Ohio.

He criticized various positions taken by GOP candidates, including the gutting of medicaid, a flat tax, and mass deportations.

Looks like he's legitimately going to be the moderate's man this time.

Whoops, missed the first fifteen minutes of the undercard debate. Although I hopped in with Jindal seemingly saying he'll destroy the federal budget even more than it has already been destroyed.
@PM That's part of why he has appeal to me – the more honest appeal, separating from the pack -, although as mentioned, his lack of respect for younger people concerns me.
Lol what Pataki? I'm pretty sure there were attempts to hack it, but we don't have any comfirmed cases of it actually being hacked.
@Lisa well, mass deportations aren't standard.
The undercard debate is so boring. No wonder these people are polling below 1%.

All of those are pretty standard conservative policies…? The only two examples he had were Trump and Carson… whose opinions he's dramatically cherry-picked and who are not politicians anyway. Ben Carson the medical professional wants to gut Medicaid because it's a failure, but he's written a lengthy op-ed about alternatives. Trump's flat 10% is made up for by closing loopholes and revoking special privileges from the corporate class. He's just trying to stay in the media, and he attacked his party's two most popular candidates to do it.

Ah yes, the issue all Americans want to hear about: What apps politicians use
Thank the flying spaghetti monster it's over. That was boring as heck and stupid.
I agree with Jindal heavily on economic issues, but otherwise he's not my guy.

I don't think they're even trying with the first group anymore.

…these NBC commenters are terrible, who are these people.

Do you think Trump has been practicing? His sentences sound less stuttered and on the spot.

Cruz for national DD 2016. He will get you home.

Okay Trump has definitely been practicing. What the fuck did he hire a new PR person or what?

"we need not just politicians but people who know how the CEOs think…(oh fuck hang on Trump is here uhhh… too late I'll just keep rolling with it)"

Here we go, the debate is starting. Unfortunately there's a chance I'll miss a lot of this, or have to completely sit it out, but we'll see if I can stay. My money is on Hispanic Man and Ramen Hair.
KASICH THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE QUESTION
oh my gosh stop humblebragging
"That is why I, the Big, the Powerful, the Wealthy, and the Connected am going to join the Federal government!"
STOP HUMBLEBRAGGING OH MY GOSH
I swear half of them didn't actually say what their greatest weakness is
"I know you're already over your time, but you're the second most popular candidate so here's more time"
"That's not true." "it is true, I looked at the math." haha whoops
Trump layin' down the truth, like he do
You go Rubio!

"the majority of Americans don't believe in building walls"

haha yeah Cruz lost it a bit there, I think he genuinely expected them to back down and give him 30 seconds.

"Tough calls" Is Fiorina trying to be a republican Hillary? ("Hard Choices")
"Lemme just use up this minute to make a point and then steal more time to answer the question"
Huckabee isn't going to get the bid, and if he does, he'll lose the general election.
Did they bring up the whole Shrekeli (or however you spell it) thing? Don't they know the market fixed that amazingly well in a few weeks?
Man that moderator is annoying
Like that economic honesty from Bush. Still isn't my choice though.
Fiorina and Trump are the most interesting to listen to.
hahaha that's really funny Kasich, implying that because you'll be president you'll pass an amendment, hahaha, like you could actually do that
Every single policy? EVERY? Can you actually give me some evidence for that, Fiorina? That's kinda hard to believe

Rand Paul has gotten like NO TIME. What in the world?
It's like Rubio, Carson, and Trump are getting all the time. It's almost like they're trying to give more time to the most popular candidates… oh wait
Paul's only got to talk twice if my counting is right. This is upsetting. At least Rubio has gotten a decent amount of time.
It doesn't matter that he's polling lower. That's the point of debates, to help them.
Marijuana, the issue Republicans just don't seem to get right.
Funny how these people want to make America the #1 economy, powered by freedom, when last I checked Switzerland holds that title economically.
Actually, I'm not sure we've heard much from Trump for a while.

{ Record 56,253,000 Women Out of Labor Force: The BLS reported Friday that 56,253,000 women, ages 16 and older, were not participating in the workforce in August. The labor force participation rate for women remained at a low 56.7 percent. }

Just an add on.

Ben Carson just said exactly it. You can tax anything you want from the top 1%, it will not even make a dent in the out of control spending. No part of the working class can afford to shoulder the burden of the corporate class, it's supposed to be the exact opposite. Conservative fiscal policy revolves around the corporate class supporting the working class, that's our version of welfare, government welfare is taxing the people who need government assistance to pay for the people who need government assistance! Whoever gets elected can't be someone who wont seriously examine the tax code.

Paul hasn't really moved in the polls. They're starting to phase people out on the lower end, campaigns are ending. It's not going to be 10 people on stage much longer.

These people are all about Cruz tonight and I think it's hilarious.

haha the moderators are like FUCKING DAMN IT every time someone pretends to start answering a question then says "I'd like to go back to…"

"is it made in China" literally everyone wanted him to check.

Not all Democrats get weed right either. A lot of them are products of the war on drugs. They really did throw some crazy propaganda at that poor generation. It's an issue like gay marriage, it's inevitable whether the states are going to do it one by one or the Supreme Court oversteps their legal boundaries and makes it national. Even as someone whose tolerance could probably hold up against Snoop because I smoke so much, it's such a non-issue for me when I'm voting.

If anyone is drinking to the phrase "in Ohio" tonight they are dead. RIP friends.

NBC is getting destroyed all over the place, I can't stop laughing

Jeb: "Re-gu-late! Re-gu-late! Re-gu-late!"
I think that's the first thing Christie's ever said that I liked.
I saw it a few times. No want to watch it here.

I can't believe they interrupted them to ask about fantasy football. I thought Jeb was gonna laugh but he choked it back.

This debate's tone is much more anti-Democrat than anti-Trump, feels good man.

ooh did anybody see the trailer for Suffragette? I look forward to not paying to see that.

It's overwhelmingly Trump then Cruz then Rubio at Drudge atm. Only ~65k votes right now though.

post show w/Trump

"did you think the balance was right between attacking each other and attacking the real enem- the Democrats?"

HAHAHA who the fuck is this guy, that was inadvertently the most hilarious thing I've heard all night.

The CNBC poll has Fiorina, Huckabee, and Bush trading off in the last three positions. Rubio and Paul are constantly switching between 4th and 5th. Trump has consistently held first pretty well. Carson has also done well.
@lisa to me the funniest part was earlier when it seemed Jindal promised to destroy the economy by plunging the government further into debt. I'll probably be corrected on what he really said though
The CNBC poll seems to be like this:
Trump, Carson, Cruz, Rubio/Paul, Kasich, Christie, Huckabee/Fiorina/Bush.
If the CNBC poll has a good amount of voters, I'd argue it's more representative than Drudge as it was advertised on the very distracting bar at the bottom of the screen, so it's more likely that people who watched the debate and only them voted. But I may be horribly wrong.

Well I know who lost this one. The press. They totally got burned. Especially by Rubio.

*berned

Okay, official CNBC poll results are in.
1. Trump
2. Carson
3. Cruz
3. Paul
5. Rubio
6. Kasich
7. Christie
8. Fiorina
9. Huckabee
9. Bush
Percentages don't seem to be given; however, it's reasonable to assume Trump and Carson had large margins as they held those positions pretty consistently.

Drudge is up to 125k, still shows Trump significantly (66.89%), then Cruz (14.89%), Rubio (6.98), Paul (3.69), Carson (2.99).

This the Republican debate Epyc so bernie wasn't there.

1. Trump
2. Carson
3. Cruz

Buh-bye establishment. Its margin of opportunity to reclaim the 2016 nomination is growing ever slimmer.

Particle Mare said:

…that roughly 50-55% of Republicans…

Remember that only about 10% of people actually respond to polls so poll numbers don't accurately represent what the entire electorate thinks.

Breitbart ranks 296th in the US according to Alexa, while Fox News is at 46th. If you wanted to an idea of what the "anti-establishment" faction of the GOP thinks, Breitbart would be a good place, but if you want to get a ore general feel of conservatives, Fox News is where you want to go simply because it statistically represents a greater share of the electorate than Breitbart does.

Personally, I'd take internet comment sections with a grain of salt. What the commentators of NPR, Huffpost, and Occupy Wall St (yes, their site is still operating) think about the Dem candidates will be as different as what Fox and Breitbart commentators think of the GOP's.

ProfessorRivers said:

Rand Paul has gotten like NO TIME. What in the world?

Welcome to the Republican Party.

@Debate

My lifelong Republican dad's impression (since I didn't actually watch it due to being busy):
>Trump was lousy
>Paul was good on budget issues
>Bush did nothing
>Cruz did well
>Kasich also did well

As I mentioned in the comments of the CISA article and the forum thread for it, I've decided to contact a few Republican Senators who are running for president but couldn't vote on it due to being at the debate. I'm anxious to see if they'll respond, and if so, what they think. If you don't know what it is, go check out the EFF's response to it passing here

For those who care, I also decided to contact Huckabee and all the candidates who are doing better than him, including all the Democratic candidates. For Sanders I'll just ask why he opposed it. With all these questions, someone's likely to respond!
…
right?
(Edit: I can't find a place to contact Bernie Sanders to ask him that, so for now I'll leave him out since I know he's opposed. He voted against it.)

Looks like there's a bit of a riot happening over the blatant liberal bias displayed by NBC last night, and I'm glad other people also noticed that the commenters between the debates practically fell over themselves to immediately cut off their field reporter who was in the middle of reporting that a lot of the college students felt the Democrats were not discussing the issues that mattered to them and that they might be voting with the GOP this cycle.

Hey guys I'm giving a speech on the top 4 polling presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Ben Carson. I need to focus on much lesser known things about them though. What are some really specific, very unknown facts about each of them?

Well, I know Bernie Sanders released a folk album. Go check it out on YouTube, it's absolutely amazing to hear that man sing folk songs.

I'm not joking, listen to this stuff

.

I can't believe Trump is so popular amongst conservatives. I know a bunch of moderates and staunch conservatives where I live in MS think he's an idiot and are horrified at the prospect of him becoming President, so I'd gotten the impression he was pretty controversial even within his own party. Yet it looks like he's winning the polls handily every time.

(Granted, it might just be that they like Hilary Clinton even less.)

The moderates who don't like him are only listening to the MSM coverage, he's the most moderate of any candidate in either party hence the far-right hates him.

The reason he keeps gaining voters is because he's following through on his early campaign promises of "I have more than just talk, I'm going to release good plans and you'll see". His tax plan is still the most widely accepted between economic pundits in this country. The most significant tax reform critic in the country lauded it openly.

You guys have got to stop buying into the liberal media TRUMP IS A HUGE FUCKIN RACIST AND EVERYONE VOTING FOR HIM IS JUST A RACIST GOP BIGOT1!!11!!!1! Watch some speeches online. Read through the plans and editorials he's published so far. Or don't. Just stop taking everyone else's word for it and evaluate him yourselves before spreading the false-narrative further.

Every other candidates dull as dirt aside from Rubio, Carson, Cruz, and Fiorina(to some extent). I can't tell you a thing about the others that makes them stand out(aside from their appearances).

I can give some notes on all candidates polling above 1%. In case anybody doesn't know anything about them, here's my notes on them, spoilered because it's kind of long. (I'm probably going to be corrected a lot by Lisa or someone else who knows more than me…)

Serious post incoming, would genuinely like to hear responses.

Trump did an interview with Breitbart to clear up his stance on H-1B workers, which he seemed to support in the debate (tl;dr or if you have a slow computer you should avoid clicking that link: he says he is okay with strictly regulated visa workers if they're only used as they were originally meant to be and not abused as they are today).

Particularly, he called out Disney again for the extremely controversial firing of 250 tech positions who were replaced with H-1B workers, which became even more controversial when it was revealed the fired American workers had to spend their last few weeks training their replacements.

An ABC affiliate in FL recently did an exclusive interview with some of the ex-employees:

{ Powers and Perrero were two of the brains behind your magical Disney World experience. For the past 10 years, both worked behind the scenes in the IT field, using high-tech data to ensure all points of sale -- from tickets to resort stays -- were seamless for visitors. Attaining some of the highest recognitions Disney could give, being let go was the last thing they expected.

"So many American workers, across the country, hundreds of thousands are losing their jobs because they're being replaced by foreign workers," says Sarasota-based employment Attorney Sara Blackwell, who is representing both men. Blackwell tells us this isn’t just a problem with Disney. Companies, including Toys R Us, IBM and Verizon, have been contracting with companies and outsourcing work. The reason: Loopholes in the law that establishes the H1B visa.

"H1B, when done properly, is a great avenue,” she says. “The purpose of H1B is to bring in foreign workers, when there's no qualified U.S. worker."

But when Disney lets go of more than 250 employees at once, something doesn't add up.

These highly specialized tech fields yield average salaries in the $100,000 range, but for the younger, foreign workers their median salary is about $62,000 -- some even less, according to published reports. In response, Disney acknowledges it outsourced Powers' and Perrero's jobs to Indian workers, but Disney claims they've expanded and added jobs for U.S. IT workers.

According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, only 26% of science and engineering graduates are currently employed in a STEM occupation.

"The grandparents in Sarasota, in Manatee County, wherever, you don't want your kids coming out of college, your grandkids coming of college, and having no jobs. The STEM programs a joke," Powers says. }

A lot of us here are in STEM fields ourselves, so I really want to know where you guys rank this issue on a scale of importance and if you've looked up any candidates' positions on it?

@Lisa & Patrick

I have to admit, I haven't looked into his policies much. I'll be a Bernie supporter all the way, but I'd probably ought to research Trump's stances too, since his becoming president looks like a real possibility at this point.

In any case, as someone going into a computer science career, I can definitely get behind not outsourcing tech jobs. I'd heard about the mass layoff, but I hadn't thought it would be a big enough issue for the candidates to look at it.

It's a huge issue, a few Senators called for a Congressional probe into Disney's potential abuse of the system, and most similarly significant corporate moves were at least mentioned. It's simply not worth it for companies to pay American employees and all the payroll taxes associated with American employees, which they do not have to pay on H1B workers on top of their cheaper salary. And the Democrat answer is to use more bigger government regulation to legislatively force those companies (the ones who can't lobby them for loopholes and exceptions anyway) to use American workers instead of addressing our ridiculous tax code and making us globally competitive so companies want to move to the USA and hire American workers.

Just so we all know, Rubio's immigration plans include expanding the number of H1B workers allowed to enter the country per year as well as who is allowed to use how many of them. He co-sponsored a bill that would triple the entry limit and allow family members to be brought as well without counting at all.

Another H1B fact to know: the visa lasts 6 years before it needs to be renewed.

H1B workers also greatly contribute to the BLS stats.

We keep hearing 200k jobs added this month, unemployment lowest since April 2008 etc etc, but we also see for a fact that labor force participation is a literal \ as a graph. How can the labor force be dropping if we're adding millions of jobs per year and unemployment is the lowest since our Savior Obama took office?

It's because they're all private sector jobs, and they're all filled by H1B workers. The legal immigrants. The feds openly admit and report this, but the MSM doesn't, so nobody hears about it.

Here's a factcheck for Santorum's claim that of the 6 million new jobs created in America since 2000, ALL OF THEM have gone to immigrants.

You'll notice immediately the article says "all jobs did not go to immigrants". Control your usual headline-skimming impulses and read on: { Rick Santorum touted a shocking statistic to Iowa voters: Of the “6 million net new jobs created in America” since 2000, “all of them” are held by immigrants. That’s not accurate. Santorum ignores the 2.6 million job gains by native-born Americans over the age of 65 in the same time period. }

So, 3.4 million jobs went to immigrants between ages 16-65, and 2.9 million jobs went to native-born Americans over the age of 65.

How's that for a positive job outlook, all you college kids (in STEM fields!). We are truly fucked.

Well, from what I know about this issue it sounds like Trump is absolutely right, and I agree with you that we need to cut regulations and taxes to encourage companies. I'd like to know if any other candidates have positions on this issue. I'm also in the STEM field myself, but even beside that I'm opposed to the abuse of the system.

RNC pulls out of February NBC debate, say they will find elsewhere to host and moderate among continued criticism from voters and candidates over the handling of Wednesday's debate.

Given the debate pulled CNBC's highest ratings ever, that's gotta hurt bad. I remember hearing the head of CNBC said that the moderators did fine. I wonder how he could say that on the face of basically everyone saying it sucked.

Jeb after the debate

Newly released Clinton emails show she approved increased Benghazi security and transportation services for Libya's PM, but failed to respond to the multiple requests for increased security for our own ambassador who, as I'm sure we all recall, was killed in Benghazi less than a year later.

{ The email shows Clinton received a request for supplies to help the acting prime minister leave Benghazi and transition into Tripoli, the nation's capital. Clinton seemingly greenlighted his request, and asked her aide Huma Abedin if the U.S. government could ship the requested supplies to a Libyan port.

The message from August 2011 is likely to give fresh fodder to her critics, who point out that requests for tighter security for U.S. officials never made it to her desk. }

{ Pressed on her support of military action during a hearing before the House Select Committee on Benghazi last week, Clinton downplayed her personal advocacy for the airstrikes, framing the U.S. involvement as an administration-wide policy that she supported by association.

But her emails suggest Clinton was deeply involved in formulating the military position the administration eventually took in Libya. }

Breaking update: Jeb campaign's Chief Operating Officer has quit.

500th post. If you are reading this it means Donald Trump is destined to become Bernie Sanders's vice president and Hillary Clinton becomes the speaker of the house.