Kasich Fantasy
Ohio governor John Kasich is trying to position himself as the grownup in the Republican free-for-all. He has solid credentials. He’s a two term governor of a swing state with a 2 billion budget surplus. He was chairman of the House Budget Committee when the federal budget was last balanced in 1997.
It’s an impressive resume, and he’s impressed by it.
Kasich Fantasy
Kasich does not take The Donald or The Doctor (Ben Carson) seriously. They annoy him.
In Wednesday’s debate he called the various Trump and Carson immigration and tithing tax plans a fantasy. Given the hostility of the CNBC moderators you’d think someone might have picked up on the theme. Instead they asked about fantasy football.
Speaking of fantasy, this morning’s Real Clear Politics poll average has Trump at 27, Carson at 22.2, and Kasich at 2.2.
CNBC Cage Match
The candidates bit back at the moderators during the CNBC debate. For good reason.
John Harwood got things started by asking Donald Trump if he’s a comic book presidential candidate. Chris Christie didn’t like being asked about fantasy football while ISIS is chopping off heads in the real world.
Cage Match
Ted Cruz told the moderators the debate was not a “cage match“.
Think Progress called the debate “a total train wreck”.
LLoyd Grove writing for the Daily Beast, said it was pretty clear who the loser was – the mainstream media:
The mainstream media—as represented by the business cable network’s principal moderators, Carl Quintanilla, Becky Quick, and especially John Harwood—took it on the chin as candidate after candidate, to hearty applause from the partisan audience at the University of Colorado, pointed out that their questions were inaccurate, unfair, or otherwise plain silly.
World Health Hates Hot Dogs
Nagging us about climate change isn’t enough for the World Health Organization. Now it warns that eating processed meat causes cancer. NPR calls it a bad day for bacon. Hot dogs too.
World Health
In a Financial Times piece titled You can either savor the bacon or relish the hysteria Tim Hayward says, “your breakfast banger” is now in a category “with tobacco, alcohol, asbestos and radioactive materials such as uranium.”
Speaker Ryan
Paul Ryan has agreed to serve as Speaker of the House. On his terms. If all goes well he’ll be elected Friday.
Update: Paul Ryan says the secret $80 billion spending increase “stinks”. Freedom Caucus takes him at his word and will support him for Speaker. Ryan will benefit from the spending increase by avoiding a government shutdown.
Hillary and Trump on 9/11
Hillary told Chelsea, via email on the night of 9/11 2012, that the Benghazi attack was a planned terrorist attack. Yet two days later Suzan Rice appeared on 5 Sunday talk shows claiming it was an angry reaction to a movie. Hillary then promised parents of the dead she would hunt down the movie maker.
9/11
Dr. Krauthammer says, “We’re living in an age where what you say and its relation to the facts are completely irrelevant.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is driving Dan Henninger up a wall at the WSJ by implying George W. Bush was responsible for the original 9/11:
Just as Mr. Trump suggested responsibility for 9/11 lies somehow with former President Bush, Mrs. Clinton’s view has been that responsibility for the failure in Benghazi is so diffuse that no one is responsible, that asking questions about what happened is a political attempt to “come after me. ” …
What a spectacle it would be to have America’s highest office contested next year between these two.
