The ABC Republican debate in New Hampshire was not an exciting evening. Other than that Marcobot malfunctioned magnificently—and with it the folly of the Rubio press was exposed. The best part of the evening was Megyn Kelly’s absence on the panel.
Lines to remember, in sequence:
Marcobot # 1:
And let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Barack Obama is undertaking a systematic effort to change this country, to make America more like the rest of the world.
That’s why he passed Obamacare and the stimulus and Dodd-Frank and the deal with Iran. It is a systematic effort to change America. When I’m president of the United States, we are going to re-embrace all the things that made America the greatest nation in the world and we are going to leave our children with what they deserve: the single greatest nation in the history of the world.
Marcobot # 2:
But I would add this. Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He is trying to change this country. He wants America to become more like the rest of the world. We don’t want to be like the rest of the world, we want to be the United States of America. And when I’m elected president, this will become once again, the single greatest nation in the history of the world, not the disaster Barack Obama has imposed upon us.
CHRISTIE about Marcobot:
I think he mentioned me and my record in there, so I think I get a chance to respond. You see, everybody, I want the people at home to think about this. That’s what Washington, D.C. Does. The drive-by shot at the beginning with incorrect and incomplete information and then the memorized 25-second speech that is exactly what his advisers gave him. … [Marco] gets very unruly when he gets off his talking points. …
TRUMP: [Waffles a lot before he spits out a reasonable position on North Korea.] The Chinese … They tell me. They have total, absolute control, practically, of North Korea. [L]et China solve that problem.
BUSH: More sanctions on Iran and North Korea [so that more of the people may die or fall into poverty. What’s new in Republican “thinking”?]
Kasich: “It is completely ridiculous to think we are going to go into neighborhoods, grab people out of their homes and ship people back to Mexico. That’s not where the party is. The party is not for departing 11.5 million people.”
CRUZ:[About that wall] I’ve got somebody in mind to build it.
we’re going to build a wall. We’re going to triple the border patrol. We’re going to increase — and actually, since Donald enjoyed that, I will simply say, I’ve got somebody in mind to build it.
We’re going to increase four-fold, the fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, so that you have technology monitoring an attempted incursion to direct the boots on the ground where they’re occurring. We’re going to put in place a strong e-verify system in the workplace, so you can’t get a job without proving you are here legally.
We’ll put in place a biometric exit-entry system on visas, because 40 percent of illegal immigration comes not over the border illegally, but people coming on visas and overstaying.
We will end sanctuary cities by cutting off taxpayer dollars to any jurisdiction that defies federal immigration law.
MARCOBOT: Like Kasich, he supports what his large donors call “a very reasonable, but responsible approach to people that have been here a long time, who are not dangerous criminals, who pay taxes and pay fines for what they did.”
TRUMP ON HEALTHCARE: “The insurance companies are getting rich on Obamacare. The insurance companies are getting rich on health care and health services and everything having to do with health. We are going to end that. … We’re going to take out the artificial boundaries, the artificial lines. We’re going to get a plan where people compete, free enterprise. They compete. So much better.
As for Trump on eminent domain. His only reasonable defense (which he doesn’t put forward because he’s not surrounding himself with the smartest people) is that “the Con-stitution” gives government the power to confiscate. It’s wrong. And the Con-stitution is wrong to do it:
The Constitution gives authorities the right to seize private property for the “common good—that catch-all constitutional concept. READ “The Con-stitution And The Power To Confiscate.”
Why we’re glad circus girl was not on stage:
(Thanks, Washington Post, for providing a transcript of the GOP debate, Feb. 6, for those of us who still favor the written word.)
