The Republican Debate got off to a strange start. ABC front loaded the thing with commercials before one word. It was ten after five and they did commentary and then we were in for another batch of commercials so I went out to smoke and when I returned they were just going over the rules. This “referencing another candidate” rule got a little out of hand when Marco Rubio and Governor Christie were monopolizing the conversation with a tit for tat. Donald Trump says he will without question bring back water-boarding and “worse than that”. Trump kept talking about the ISIS beheadings and torture in the middle ages, and kind of hinted that "If they do it, then it's OK for me to do it" and said he would embrace waterboarding "and a lot worse" without a moment's second thought. I find this kind of scarey. Ted Cruz doesn’t want to take water-boarding off the table but he doesn’t think low level officers should be doing it. I would agree with Ted Cruz's position to the extent that I would never broadcast to the enemy what we will NOT do to elicit information. This takes away the surprise factor. However I also believe in the Golden Rule, and if we don't want our prisoners tortured by Moslems, then we shouldn't torture them. Donald Trump wants to make deals with bankers to dry up the funds of ISIS and “bomb their oil” but also “take their oil” and within a year they will be very weakened. Christie has his compassionate thing about drug addiction and no prisons. Christie aiming his remarks at Rubio says that “Marco can’t face real crises on a day to day basis because he lacks the experience in an executive position”. So many of the arguments advanced each of the candidates were ones that have been used in the past. Trump believes Obama is incompetent but Marco Rubio believes that everything President Obama has done is a direct attempt to sabotage this country. Rubio would lapse into this same stump speech repeatedly about Obama, and Governor Christie called him on it for repeating the exact same words over again. None of the candidates was that good at answering a question directly. John Kasech said very little but somehow billed him as the sunny, optimistic candidate. One area where Jeb Bush shined is when he took on Donald Trump on eminent domain. Trump said that the XL Trans Canada pipeline would be a case of eminent domain. I believe in treading carefully on private property rights. Certainly you don't foreclose on an eighty year old lady's home to build a golf course. One thing we hate for instance about Cuba is that they trod on private property rights of big land owners. Two wrongs don't make a right. The force of government should not be employed to destroy a middle class neighborhood because they have lake front property for instance- - that could better be used by a luxury development for the rich. Often the term "blighted' is used t run people off their property. People in South Pasadena have been fighting a freeway for over the past fifty years, which would cut their community in half. If Trump ever wants my vote, don't feed my fears about crushing the little guy. Of course I missed the Mc Laughlin group this night. They had major commercials at six, and again at seven and again at seven thirty. The candidates didn’t make opening statements but they did make brief closing statements and they were done at a quarter to eight. That’s two and a half hours this debate ran on network television.
I’m glad I watched that Carley Feurina rally at ten or so. Carley wants to institute zero based budgeting where every department every time had to justify every dollar they spend. Otherwise they just spend it all on waste and come back for more next year. I dialed away when Carley was asked a question about Putin and she acted like she wanted to start WW III. I skipped the snack break because I’d gotten coffee and cigarettes at nine thirty at the store. It was later in the hour I turned on the radio and listened to KLOS and some KRTH. The lead singer of the Stone Temple Pilots died not too long ago and they are auditioning for a new lead singer. It seems to me after nearly 25 years they could just declare R I P for the group.
Marco Rubio claimed that Hillary Clinton supports abortions on the baby’s due date. Hillary talked a good game but she never denied the claim of that, or that she supports partial birth abortions. This is an excellent reason not to vote for Hillary. I have “Face the Nation” on. All of the Wall Street people have given Hillary 2.46 Billion dollars. Dodd Frank was a very weak bill and even that has not been enforsed. Only an insane person would claim that Wall Street regulations are tougher now than they were thirty or forty years ago. Thom Hartman has a point. We should restore the democratic party to what it was seventy years ago when FDR was president. There are times when we need regulations to guard against the machinations of sheer human greed. Certainly we don't want situations where lenders are betting against their own clients. We don't want these investment swaps - - where defaulting on them is a near certainty. We don't want the wild west on Wall Street. Another broad reason for not liking Hillary is a variation of the Bengazi argument. The bigger question is how the deaths at Bengazi came about in the first place. Hillary and Obama and NATO voted to take down the Qadafi government, something the wiser among us were against.
They had classic girl groups on Rhapsody in Black today. They started out with all the familiar songs and groups. They played “Mr. Lee” but then followed it up with “I Shot Mr. Lee” also by the Bobettes, which was just as hyper. But it was pledge week and they spent an awful lot of time on that cutting down on the music. They also had a guest with background stuff about the various groups in more detail than we usually get. Darlene Love and the Blossoms is the group that made “He’s a Rebel” but the “Blossoms” also were featured in another song. Unlike usually, the girl groups weren’t restricted to Black girls. There are also two different groups named the “Cookies”. One was mid 1955.
The Denver people around here were proven right because Denver won the Super Bowl 24 to 10. Denver kept scoring in bits and pieces. I turned on the TV at 2:15 and that was way too early so I called Mom and talked to her for a while, though it was a shorter conversation than usual. I asked her about her sleep and her showering. Mom had the TV on and she was waiting to see the half time show and I told her it would probably be a little after five. I turned on the TV at three and they had the Most Valuable Players from Super Bowl’s one through 48. They repeated some numerals with the same player. They had both teams taking the field and that took a while. Then they sang America the Beautiful with a choir and then the National Anthem. Then it was the coin toss- silver verses gold. NC won and chose to defer. North Carolina only scored one full touchdown the game and that came early. The final score was 24 to 10. Denver was clearly in control of the game. The game didn’t start till about twenty to four or record lateness. We had veal parmison for dinner minus the melted cheese and the tomato. Glenda says she likes it that way, with just a slightly breaded patty. We had herbal pasta and mixed vegetables with that and lemon pudding for dessert. The first half didn’t end till nearly twenty after five. Then Olivia came over here with two Mexican buddies of hers. They were burly fellows. Bill said Olivia had been drinking. They spent a lot of time smooching. The half time featured Bruno Mars, Biance, and Cold Play. (in the opposite order) Half time ended at seventeen to six. I went outside and Tommy, Linda’s boyfriend was out there and said he was thinking about moving in here if the food was OK. He had a sense of humor. I watched the rest of the game and it got hot in here during the evening but I didn’t open the window. The game ended at twenty after seven. Then it was America’s Funniest Home Videos for nearly two hours. I fell asleep. I did get coffee at one point from Glen but it didn’t help. I got some vanilla flavored coffee for four cigarettes.
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