Rubio

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio is pretty bad at this whole “campaigning” thing

In his latest scrap with Ted Cruz, Rubio has managed to draw even more attention to his biggest political weakness

As we head into the stretch before the first primary elections are held in just a few weeks, a lot of people have been wondering what’s going on with Marco Rubio’s campaign (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/16/was-marco-rubio-overrated-all-along.html).

He doesn’t seem to be spending his money wisely,

there’s a lack of personal engagement with voters, and

nobody can see what his strategy is if he fails to close the deal in the early states.


Reports have it (http://www.vox.com/2015/12/12/9910868/can-marco-rubio-win) that his plan is to go on Fox News, which is presumed to be all it will take to cut the voters’ current ties with Trump, Cruz and Carson and make them into Rubio fans. It’s not working all that well so far, but they seem to believe that ads like his latest (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/us/politics/in-new-ad-marco-rubio-appeals-to-supporters-of-trump-and-cruz.html?_r=0) will start to make some converts.

In it, Rubio declares his solidarity with “the essence of America” which is apparently white people who are sick of being called bigots when they complain about people of color ruining everything. Putin and Iran are bad too. And there should be jobs! He ends it with one of the most awkward lines ever uttered by a candidate:

“I approve this message, because this is about the greatest country in the world and acting like it.”


Yes, it sounds just as weird in the ad (https://youtu.be/mSWwz7dXUP8) as it scans in print.

Bottom line: Rubio is the establishment choice at the moment but he’s getting nowhere fast because he’s running a lethargic campaign that just isn’t very good.

And it’s not getting any better. Apparently he’s decided that the best way to make people forget his immigration apostasy, when he joined with Democrats on the notorious Gang of 8 to hammer out a Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill, is to draw as much attention to it as possible by picking a losing fight with Ted Cruz. He seems to think that aggressively accusing his rival of abandoning his conservative principles in the same way he did will somehow make his own betrayal go away.

All it’s accomplished is to make every conservative in the land think even less of him than they did before.
Perhaps his strategists believed some moldy old tropes about how Karl Rove and the Bush gang always won elections by going after his opponent’s strengths rather than his weaknesses, but even aside from the fact that putting Rubio’s own weakness center stage was daft,

attacking Ted Cruz for not being conservative enough simply doesn’t track.

You can say a lot of things about him but it’s not believable that he was secretly in favor of “amnesty.”

What is believable is that Ted Cruz was doing exactly what he admits to doing: pulling a legislative maneuver to grandstand and posture, achieving nothing and getting no results. That is where his expertise lies. :lol

The facts of this argument are not in dispute.

Marco Rubio worked with Democrats and Republicans to come up with a comprehensive Immigration reform bill that included a path to citizenship. When it became obvious that the Republican majority in the House would never pass it, he backed away and eventually repudiated his own work. It is widely considered to be his greatest liability with the conservative base of the party, which considers immigration a litmus test issue.

During the debate on the Senate bill, Cruz had offered an amendment to the bill which stripped out a path to citizenship but included “legalization” for undocumented immigrants. Cruz claims his amendment was a poison pill designed to smoke out the Democrats and get them to vote against it, thereby exposing them and proving that they what they really cared about was “amnesty.” There is plenty of evidence for this, including testimony from the Senate’s chief anti-immigration tactician Senator Jeff Sessions, who backed Cruz’s version of events.

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/18/marco_rubio_is_pretty_bad_at_this_whole_campaignin g_thing/

Rubio's brains don't come anywhere near to matching his blind ambition.

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio's rise may be a little too House of Cards for his colleagues

Has he betrayed too many people to be a true establishment favorite?

Virtually every Democrat I talk to in Washington is equal parts delighted and baffled that Republican Party stakeholders have as of yet done nothing to seriously try to unify the party establishment behind Marco Rubio. The thinking behind the two emotions is identical. Rubio seems as electable (if not more so) than anyone else in the field, and as consistently conservative as anyone this side of Ted Cruz — someone GOP elites despise and who'd be relatively easy for Clinton to beat. Of the establishment-friendly candidates, Rubio seems clearly the strongest and yet is currently weaker than both Cruz and Donald Trump. So why is the establishment so unfriendly to him?

Rubio's record of defiance and disloyalty

Rubio entered the Senate in 2010 by challenging incumbent Florida Republican governor Charlie Crist in a primary election. This ultimately worked out for Rubio, but it caused a lot of trouble for the Florida GOP along the way. First Crist was driven out of the primary, leading him to mount an independent bid. This transformed what would have been a gimme victory for Crist over Democrat Kendrick Meek into a tough three-way fight.

Rubio's key ally in all of this, however, was former governor Jeb Bush who threw his endorsement behind Rubio rather than Crist in the 2010 race giving his young acolyte a crucial imprimateur of respectability. Rubio repaid the favor earlier this year by refusing to stand aside in favor of the more senior Floridian, seriously wounding his former patron's campaign.

In the meantime, Rubio established himself in the Senate as an inconvenient rebel reluctant to follow guidance from the party leadership. Like a Tea Party insurgent, he refused to vote for the 2011 debt ceiling deal, the 2013 budget deal between Paul Ryan and Patty Murray, and a range of appropriations deals to avoid government shutdowns. But then having repeatedly rebelled from the right against Mitch McConnell's dealmaking, when the party leadership wanted to side with the right-wing of the party and reject efforts to compromise with Democrats over immigration, Rubio rebelled from the left joining with John McCain and Chuck Schumer to author a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

But then when it became clear that association with the cause of immigration reform was imperiling Rubio's presidential aspirations, Rubio rebelled against the senior members of the rebel pro-reform faction, turning against his own bill and leaving them out to dry.

Politics ain't beanbag, but the fact of the matter is that House of Cards-style chicanery is relatively rare in Washington. Rubio has backstabbed a lot of people over the past five years, none of it in pursuit of any especially clear factional goal. This lack of strong factional identification is part of what makes Rubio look, from a distance, like an ideal consensus candidate. But in combination with the line-jumping, elbow-throwing, and double-reversals it looks a lot like naked opportunism.

Trust matters

Rubio can always make the argument to his fellow elected officials that basically anyone is better than Trump or Cruz. But given his own record of disloyalty, it's easy to understand that many Republican officeholders want to hold out a little longer for a fourth option.

http://www.vox.com/2015/12/18/10461080/marco-rubio-man-in-a-hurry

[boutons_deux]

Conservative Ire Grows Over Marco Rubio’s Past on Immigration

Senator Marco Rubio (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/marco-rubio-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per) made a big bet on an immigration overhaul that failed – and he has been running away from it since. Now his past is catching up with him, stoking old grievances from conservative rivals who are reopening one of the most vulnerable episodes in his past.

The anger toward Mr. Rubio on the right has only grown in recent days as he has taken to aggressively questioning Senator Ted Cruz (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/ted-cruz-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per)’s toughness on illegal immigration, a line of attack that some Republicans say they find disingenuous.
On talk radio, on the campaign trail and on television in states like Iowa, Mr. Rubio is suddenly facing a torrent of criticism from within his own party unlike anything he has faced so far in the presidential race.

Mr. Cruz’s campaign, which was initially rattled by Mr. Rubio’s attacks, is retaliating with a new ad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW38URo-A2Q) that makes the case that the 2013 immigration bill (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/us/politics/senators-agree-on-blueprint-for-immigration.html) Mr. Rubio helped write would have left the country exposed to attacks from Islamic State infiltrators. It shows Mr. Rubio standing with Democrats and conservative bogeymen like Senator John McCain as Mr. Cruz says: “Their misguided plan would have given Obama the authority to admit Syrian refugees, including ISIS terrorists. That’s just wrong.”

People who saw Mr. Rubio speak near Des Moines the other day found their windshields plastered with black-and-white fliers that mocked the Florida senator as “Chuck Schumer’s amnesty pitchman.” If Mr. Rubio is elected president, warned the fliers, which were noticed by a freelance journalist (https://twitter.com/SamanthaJoRoth/status/677152588458885120), he would support liberal immigration policies and “impose them by force on Americans.”

Mr. Rubio’s struggle to mollify Republicans who believe he betrayed conservative principles for political convenience – two years of outreach, apology and labored professions of a lesson learned – has never had higher stakes: He is trying to break out beyond the third- or fourth-place spot he holds in many polls by peeling away support from conservative favorites like Mr. Cruz and Ben Carson.

Yet his recent attacks on Mr. Cruz carry a fair amount of risk, as some influential conservatives are now rallying to Mr. Cruz’s side and denouncing Mr. Rubio.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/us/politics/conservative-ire-grows-over-marco-rubios-past-on-immigration.html

[boutons_deux]

Rubio’s principal talking point starts to crumble

One of the more dramatic flaws in Marco Rubio’s presidential candidacy is a brutal contradiction: he’s a career politician, winning six elections (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/30/the-opportunist) before his 41st birthday, with no real accomplishments to his name.

In the enormous Republican field, voters can choose between established, experienced candidates who’ve done things in public office (Kasich, Bush) or insurgent outsiders with non-governmental records (Trump, Carson), but Rubio is burdened with the worst of both worlds, winning several elections without having done much in the way of meaningful work.

It’s a point about which the Florida senator appears increasingly sensitive. In fact, in October, Rubio tried to take credit for others’ work (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubios-pioneer-boasts-crumble-under-scrutiny) during his tenure in the state legislature. This week, Rubio’s begun telling voters (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrC4NAXe410&feature=em-subs_digest) that he actually has a major federal accomplishment – he helped undermine the American health care system – and his allied super PAC is pushing the line in a commercial:

“On Obamacare, some Republicans gave up. Some talked tough but got nowhere. For all the Republican talk about dismantling the Affordable Care Act, one Republican hopeful has actually done something.”


For some GOP voters and much of the media, this seems compelling – Rubio hasn’t just spun his wheels for five years on Capitol Hill; when he’s bothered to show up for work, he invested real time and energy into interfering with families’ access to medical care.

There are, however, two important flaws in the pitch.

The first, of course, is the fact that deliberately trying to undermine (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/marco-rubio-obamacare-bailout_5668a2dfe4b0f290e521e056) the American health care system is not an accomplishment upon which to build a presidential campaign.

The second, as the Washington Post explained (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/12/23/rubios-inaccurate-claim-that-he-inserted-a-provision-restricting-obamacare-bailout-funds/) today, is that Rubio didn’t do what he claims to have done.

Success always has many fathers, but Rubio goes way too far in claiming credit here. He raised initial concerns about the risk-corridor provision, but the winning legislative strategy was executed by other lawmakers.


The irony is, Rubio has recently tried to take credit for others’ work as a way of differentiating himself from President Obama. “I’m not like that other one-term senator who ran for president,” the Florida Republican has effectively argued,

“because I’ve gotten things done in Congress.”

It’s not just a lazy lie; it’s actually the exact opposite of reality.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubios-principal-talking-point-starts-crumble?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[CosmicCowboy]

:lmao

If Rubio's campaign is "lethargic" what is Hillary's? Comatose?

[boutons_deux]

:lmao

If Rubio's campaign is "lethargic" what is Hillary's? Comatose?

Hillary is leading on the Dem side, Rubio is down in the noise on the Repug side.

[CosmicCowboy]

Thats like running in the special olympics.

[Winehole23]

how so?

[boutons_deux]

Move by Rubio leaves U.S. without ambassador to Mexico

By most accounts, Roberta Jacobson’s confirmation as U.S. ambassador to Mexico should have been a shoo-in.Fluent in Spanish, expert in Latin American politics and skilled in cross-border trade negotiations, the career diplomat was nominated by President Obama (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/barack-obama-PEPLT007408-topic.html) to take over the crucial foreign service post six months ago.

After working on Latin American affairs for both Democratic and Republican administrations for three decades, Jacobson has broad bipartisan support in Congress (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/u.s.-congress-ORGOV0000131-topic.html).

Mexico expressed enthusiastic approval and prepared to welcome her to Mexico City. The Republican-led Senate (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/u.s.-senate-ORGOV0000134-topic.html) Foreign Relations Committee approved the nomination and sent it to the full Senate.

But the nomination is in limbo, hostage toGOP (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/republican-party-ORGOV0000004-topic.html) presidential candidate Marco Rubio’s staunch opposition to Obama's diplomatic opening with Cuba, which Jacobson helped negotiate as assistant secretary of State.

Jacobson's sin, in the senator's view, was her role in executing the rapprochement with the island's Communist-led government following Obama's decision last December to renew diplomatic ties after more than half a century of official hostility.

Jacobson subsequently led negotiations with the government of President Raul Castro aimed at opening a U.S. Embassy in Havana last summer, easing restrictions on travel and business for Americans and, most recently, establishing mail service between the two countries.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, accused Jacobson and the White House (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/white-house-PLCUL000110-topic.html) of failing to ensure that Cuba improve human rights before restoring ties, and of glossing over the Castro government's penchant for stifling dissent.

http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-ambassador-blocked-20151223-story.html

Rubio campaign stunt trumps govt operation, normal for Repugs who hate govt for the 99%.

[Winehole23]

stirring resentment of teh gheys:

https://news.vice.com/article/marco-rubio-says-he-has-a-plan-to-make-gay-marriage-illegal-again

[boutons_deux]

stirring resentment of teh gheys:

https://news.vice.com/article/marco-rubio-says-he-has-a-plan-to-make-gay-marriage-illegal-again

If he's not one himself, he's pandering to the Christian Taliban, promising to impose Christian Sharia. Fuck Christian Taliban, as big a shit stain on America as gun fellators.

[boutons_deux]

Rubio flunks key test of self-awareness

The Florida senator wants to focus on “consistency” and the propensity for being “calculating,” especially in the area of immigration? For some GOP presidential candidates, this might seem like a potent line of attack against Cruz – but Rubio isn’t one of them.

We are, after all, talking about a senator who co-authored the Gang of Eight immigration-reform package – which much of the Republican base now condemns as “amnesty” – championed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. Rubio not only voted for the bill, he also rejected GOP amendments intended to move the proposal to the right.

Rubio then betrayed his allies and announced he’s abandoned (http://www.wsj.com/articles/marco-rubio-tries-to-navigate-shifting-positions-on-immigration-1450996260) the comprehensive legislation he helped write, shifting with the winds in the hopes of placating the Republican base and helping his 2016 campaign.

The editorial board of the Washington Post recently asked (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sen-rubios-immigration-retreat/2015/11/08/d659af98-84c6-11e5-8ba6-cec48b74b2a7_story.html?postshare=7141447080742517 ), “Will Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) ever stop atoning for his apostasy in having supported an overhaul of America’s broken immigration system? Or is he so politically pliable and ideologically biddable that he will say anything, and take any stance, to shield himself from the ugly nativism Donald Trump has tapped among Republican primary voters?”

This is the guy who wants to talk about “consistency”? After Rubio abandoned his own signature cause to placate his party’s base, he decided to accuse others of shifting with “the political winds”?

Seriously?

Vox recently pondered why Rubio hasn’t received more support from the Republican Party’s establishment. “If you stop looking at him through liberal-tinted lenses,” the piece explained (http://www.vox.com/2015/12/18/10461080/marco-rubio-man-in-a-hurry), “you see a politician whose brief but tumultuous record in national politics is marked by fairly erratic behavior…. Rubio has backstabbed a lot of people over the past five years, none of it in pursuit of any especially clear factional goal.”

If Rubio wants to go after Cruz, that’s a perfectly sensible strategy. But for the Floridian to whine about Cruz’s “calculating” history suggests Rubio believes Republican voters – and the rest of the political world – have very short memories.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-flunks-key-test-self-awareness?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

‘Watching a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points’

When pundits praise Marco Rubio’s debate performances – and good lord do they gush – the acclaim generally focuses less on what the senator has said and more on how he said it. Multi-candidate debates, after all, have become political theater, and the participants are seen less as would-be presidents and more as performers, evaluated on their ability to hit their marks, remember their script, and deliver their lines.

And no matter what you think of Rubio’s record or vision, the Floridian understands these rules very well. More so than any of his rivals, the first-term senator can hear a question, remember the relevant portion of his stump speech, and regurgitate the pertinent soundbite as if he’d spent a week practicing in front of a mirror.

Are the talking points true? Does his agenda have substantive merit? Rubio knows these are pesky details that are generally overlooked, so he, like the pundits who fawn over him, doesn’t seem to care.

But once in a great while, a reporter notices the senator’s robotic qualities and is less impressed than his media brethren. For example, Erik Eisele, a reporter for the Conway Daily Sun in New Hampshire, spent some time with Rubio last week, and wrote soon after (http://www.conwaydailysun.com/opinion/columns/123862-erik-eisele-all-presidential-politics-is-local):

We had roughly 20 minutes with him on Monday, and in that time he talked about ISIS, the economy, his political record and his background. But it was like watching a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points. He said a lot, but at the same time said nothing. It was like someone wound him up, pointed him towards the doors and pushed play. If there was a human side to senator, a soul, it didn’t come across through.

That might sound like harsh critique, but in essence that is the point of the New Hampshire primary, to test candidates in a retail politics setting.


Eisele’s broader point, however, seemed to focus on Rubio being overly polished, overly scripted, and overly interested in the “expectation of perfection.”

Vox’s Andrew Prokop added (http://www.vox.com/2015/12/23/10658566/marco-rubio-new-hampshire), “This is something national political reporters who’ve followed Rubio have long observed. When you see him deliver a speech, he’s great – charismatic, fluid, winning. But he’s much better at hitting a previously prepared set of points than he is at striking a more conversational, informal tone.”

I think that’s true, but we can also take the next step and think about this in a governing context. Rubio has proven that when his staff hands him a script to memorize, he’ll do it as well as any 2016 candidate, if not better.

But if you watch his debate performances or his town-hall appearances closely, you’ll notice that Rubio often stumbles (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/tale-two-rubios) when he’s asked to think on his feet.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watching-computer-algorithm-designed-cover-talking-points?cid=sm_fb_maddow

And of course Rubio is INFAMOUS for not doing his job in the Senate, like showing up, that he was elected to do.

[boutons_deux]

How Rubio used his influence to help his cocaine-dealing, ex-con brother-in-law get a real estate license

Marco Rubio urged state regulators to grant his ex-convict brother-in-law a real estate license when he was majority whip of the Florida House of Representatives, The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-marco-rubio-helped-his-ex-con-relative-get-a-real-estate-license/2015/12/30/a1d96816-ae7f-11e5-9ab0-884d1cc4b33e_story.html) reported Wednesday afternoon.

Rubio's recommendation was one of three provided by Orlando Cicilia, who is married to Rubio's older sister Barbara, to the Real Estate Division of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation after it came to light during Cicilia's licensing process that he was an ex-convict.

Cicilia was convicted of drug trafficking in 1989. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but was paroled in 2000. Rubio's letter of recommendation came two years later. In the letter, Rubio did not mention that his sister was Cicilia's spouse, or that his parents had moved in with his sister and brother-in-law. Rubio's mother still lives with Cicilia.

Ex-convicts are not barred from obtaining real estate licenses in Florida, and, while Rubio's failure to disclose his familial relationship to Cicilia may be construed as a conflict of interest, it is not illegal.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/how-rubio-used-his-influence-to-help-his-cocaine-dealing-ex-con-brother-in-law-get-a-real-estate-license/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio Doesn’t Add Up

MATH was never my strongest subject, so maybe I’m just not crunching the numbers right.

But the more I stare at them, the less sense Marco Rubio makes.

Rubio as the front-runner, I mean. As the probable Republican nominee.

According to odds makers and prediction markets, he’s the best bet. According to many commentators, too.

But Iowa’s less than a month away, and in two recent polls of Republican voters there, he’s a distant third, far behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

So he’s killing it in New Hampshire, right?

Wrong. A survey from two weeks ago had him second to Trump there, but another, just days earlier, put him in third place — after Trump and Cruz, again. Chris Christie’s inching up on him, the reasons for which were abundantly clear in a comparison (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/01/us/politics/chris-christie-marco-rubio-iowa-campaign.html) of Christie’s freewheeling campaign style and Rubio’s hyper-controlled one by The Times’s Michael Barbaro.

And as of Thursday, the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls in South Carolina showed Rubio to be more than six points behind Cruz and 21 behind Trump among that state’s Republicans. There’s no inkling of a surge, and it’s not as if pro-Rubio forces have been holding off on advertising that will turn the tide.Plenty of ads (http://www.vox.com/2015/12/12/9910868/can-marco-rubio-win) have already run.

In fact the rap on Rubio is that he counts too much on them and spends too little time (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/strategic-or-overconfident-rubio-plays-hard-to-get-with-voters/2015/12/20/60b8a3e8-a5a0-11e5-9c4e-be37f66848bb_story.html) on the trail. The largest newspaper in New Hampshire took aim at the infrequency of his appearances there in an editorial (http://www.unionleader.com/Editorial-Marco-Marco-Wheres-Rubio) with the headline: “Marco? Marco? Where’s Rubio?”

And when he missed a Senate vote last month, a spokesman for Cruz tweeted that it was because “he had 1 event in a row in Iowa — a record-setting breakneck pace for Marco.”

Rubio can’t claim a singularly formidable campaign organization, with a remarkably robust platoon of ground troops. His fund-raising hasn’t been exceptional.

His promise seems to lie instead in his biography as the son of hard-working Cuban immigrants, in his good looks, in the polish of his oratory, in the nimbleness with which he debates.

And in this: Reasonable people can’t stomach the thought of Trump or Cruz as the nominee.

Because this is his first national campaign, reporters (and opponents) are digging into his past more vigorously than ever, and it’s unclear how much fodder it holds and how much defense he’ll have to play.

over the last three decades, no Republican or Democrat — with the exception of Bill Clinton — lost both Iowa and New Hampshire and survived that crisis in momentum to win the nomination. If that’s Rubio’s path, it’s an unusual one.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opinion/sunday/marco-rubio-doesnt-add-up.html

[boutons_deux]

Meet Marco Rubio's 'Religious Liberty Advisory Board'

Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign has announced (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2016/01/06/marco-rubio-announces-religious-liberty-advisory-board/) its creation of a Religious Liberty Advisory Board (http://www.worldmag.com/2016/01/ballot_boxing_rubio_gets_new_religious_advisers/page1) that includes Religious Right legal and political activists, including academics and some big names, like Rick Warren of Saddleback Church (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/rick-warren).

The list could be seen as a response by Rubio’s campaign to last month’s closed-door meeting at which “dozens” of Religious Right leaders voted to rally behind his rival, Sen. Ted Cruz (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-leaders-rally-around-ted-cruz-secret-endorsement-meeting). But Rubio’s director of Faith Outreach, former Manhattan Declaration Executive Director Eric Teetsel (http://www.worldmag.com/2016/01/ballot_boxing_rubio_gets_new_religious_advisers/page1), told World Magazine that “membership on the board doesn’t equal an endorsement of the GOP candidate, and the members could advise other campaigns if they wanted.”

Among the members of Rubio’s advisory board are two Latinos who have urged conservatives (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-leaders-urge-gop-fix-relationship-heaven-sent-latinos) to adopt a more welcoming approach to immigration: Samuel Rodriguez (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/samuel-rodriguez), head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, and Carlos Campo (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/carlos-campo), president of Ashland University and former president of Pat Robertson’s Regent University.

Also on Rubio’s advisory board are people affiliated with legal groups promoting Religious Right efforts to portray LGBT equality and religious liberty as incompatible, including Doug Napier and Kellie Fiedorek of Alliance Defending Freedom (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/alliance-defending-freedom) and Kyle Duncan, lead counsel for the Green family, the owners of Hobby Lobby, and former general counsel of the Becket Fund (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/becket-fund-pretends-its-not-fighting-culture-wars), which was once described in Politico as “God’s Rottweilers.” (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/becket-fund-religious-conservatives-111468#.VDKBbTe9LCQ)

Formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/alliance-defense-fund), ADF is a heavyweight among Religious Right legal groups, and is spreading (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/new-anti-gay-initiatives-europe-backed-american-religious-right) its anti-gay (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-teams-anti-gay-governments-united-nations), anti-choice advocacy (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-makes-friends-across-atlantic) worldwide (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/alliance-defending-freedom-lobbies-anti-marriage-referendum-slovakia). Fiedorek argues that the “agenda to expand sexual liberty and redefine marriage” puts religious liberty in “great peril.” (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-liberty-panelist-compromise-devil) She has compared (http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2014/04/adfs-kellie-fiedorek-opposing-lgbt-equality-is-just-like-what-rosa-parks-did.html) business owners who refuse to provide wedding-related services to same-sex couples to Rosa Parks.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/meet-marco-rubio-s-religious-liberty-advisory-board

Empty Suit Rubio pandering to the Christian Taliban.

"Religious Liberty" meaning the "right" to infringe the liberty of everybody, and impose Christian Sharia, laws, ethics, morals on unwilling, non-Christians.

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio’s Shiny Boots Stir Up the Presidential Race


http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/01/07/us/08BOOTSweb/08BOOTSweb-master675.jpg

This week “boots on the ground” took on a whole new meaning in politics.

A surprising focus on Senator Marco Rubio (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/marco-rubio-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per)’s shiny, stack-heeled ankle boots, first noted in a desultory Twitter post on Monday (https://twitter.com/mikiebarb/status/684122644250255364)by a New York Times reporter, has grown over the last few days into one of the weirder firestorms of the presidential campaign, with rival candidates and the news media all adding tinder to the flames.

Senator Ted Cruz’s communications director, Rick Tyler, wrote on Twitter (https://twitter.com/rickwtyler/status/684502404016902144): “A Vote for Marco Rubio Is a Vote for Men’s High-Heeled Booties.”

“Rubio has those cute new boots and I don’t want to be outdone,” Senator Rand Paul said before an appearance on “The View.”

Carly Fiorina posted a Twitter message (https://twitter.com/CarlyFiorina/status/684817702368731136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) with a picture of her own pair of high-heeled boots, with the message “Yeah, Marcorubio, but can you rock these?”

(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/us/politics/marco-rubios-shiny-boots-stir-up-the-presidential-race.html?partner=rss&emc=rss#story-continues-3)In the end, Mr. Rubio’s campaign told Politico (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/ted-cruz-marco-rubio-boots-tweet-217388) that the boots actually came from Florsheim. Judging by the shoemaker’swebsite (http://www.florsheim.com/shop/styles/shoes/boots/page-1.html), they look a lot like the Duke style (cost $135).

As sartorial politics go, bootgate has eclipsed any other fashion story of the election thus far, including any fashion story related to the two female candidates, Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/us/politics/marco-rubios-shiny-boots-stir-up-the-presidential-race.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[boutons_deux]

Rubio takes a turn, follows Trump’s lead on 2016 tone

Over the summer, Donald Trump soared to the top of Republican presidential polls, vowing to “make America great again.” At the time, Marco Rubio made a conscious, deliberate effort to reject his rival’s pitch.

Trump’s wrong, Rubio said in August (http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/08/20/marco-rubio-oreilly-factor-donald-trump-wrong-america-already-great), because America is already great. “I know what [Trump] is trying to say,” the senator added in September (http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2015/09/02/rubio-rips-trump-on-campaign-slogan-america-is-already-great-country/), “but my problem is that America is a great country.”

That was four months ago. Last night, at a campaign event in Iowa, Rubio told (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/01/07/the-daily-202-marco-rubio-once-sunny-turns-dark-to-try-matching-the-gop-mood/) his audience, “We are going to be a great country again … if you give me the chance to be your president.”

The difference isn’t subtle. All of that stuff Rubio said over the summer, rejecting the idea that America is somehow falling short of greatness, no longer applies. The Florida senator has stopped rejecting Trump’s line and started echoing it.

And this is hardly the only example. Bloomberg Politics reported (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-01-07/in-2016-marco-rubio-is-both-a-sunny-optimist-and-an-ominous-24-character) this morning that Rubio’s “tone has darkened as he chases rivals Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for his party’s nomination.”


Marco Rubio has adopted a darker tone in the first week of 2016, deploying increasingly apocalyptic rhetoric and fiercer attacks on Republican rivals that provide a stark contrast with the relatively non-confrontational brand of sunny optimism that had characterized his presidential campaign through 2015.


The Bloomberg article (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-01-07/in-2016-marco-rubio-is-both-a-sunny-optimist-and-an-ominous-24-character) lists some striking examples of Rubio changing his posture dramatically, pushing fear-based messages that are as hysterical as they are dumb. “Barack Obama released terrorists from Guantanamo, and now they are plotting to attack us,” Rubio foolishly claimed in a new TV ad. “His plan after the attack in San Bernardino: take away our guns,” the senator added, repeating an obvious, demagogic lie.

“If we get this election wrong, there may be no turning around for America,” Rubio told voters this week, the same day he blamed the United States for North Korea’s provocative weapons tests.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-takes-turn-follows-trumps-lead-2016-tone?cid=sm_fb_maddow

Rubio going mainstream, conventional Repug/Fox: slander, hate, paranoia

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio dials the God gab up to 11 in a new TV ad targeted to Iowa evangelicals.

“Our goal is eternity,” Rubio begins, apparently ignorant of the two-term limit of the office he seeks.

Safety, prosperity, and the right to live and worship (or not) in peace — that is not what Americans want.

Rubio informs the American electorate that what they really desire is “the ability to live alongside our Creator and for all time, to accept the free gift of salvation offered to us by Jesus Christ.” :lol

Can I get an “Amen”? Or can I at least get someone to bludgeon a disabled man to a pulp because he doesn’t believe in God (https://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/woman-beats-disabled-man-with-his-own-cane-because-he-said-he-doesnt-believe-in-god-police/)?

There’s some kowtowing to the Christian persecution complex, in references to Christians’ “struggle on a daily basis.” He notes

his intention to “cooperate with God’s plan” — :lol

not necessarily to, you know, cooperate with the federal, state, and local laws of a country that has enshrined separation between church and state as one of its core values.(Kim Davis for Attorney General — praise be!)

Oddly for a candidate who has made keeping Americans safe through hawkish military action abroad a cornerstone of his campaign, Rubio seems eerily chill with the notion of sending everyone to the afterlife for their eternal reward. Invoking the Gospel of Matthew (http://biblehub.com/matthew/6-19.htm), he asks voters, “Were your treasures stored up on earth or in Heaven?” In light of his notorious money management problems, the senator had better hope his treasure in Heaven is better maintained than his treasure on Earth.

It all begs the question, as Mediaite succinctly put it: (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/watch-is-marco-rubio-running-for-president-or-running-a-mega-church/) Does Rubio want to run the country or a mega-church?

http://www.nationalmemo.com/this-week-in-crazy-welcome-back-to-the-nuthouse/5/

[boutons_deux]

Rubio tries his hand at mind-reading

Marco Rubio recently launched a television ad in which he insists President Obama is trying to take away Americans’ guns. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked the senator the other day to defend the claim, which appears to be completely at odds with reality.

“Well,” Rubio replied (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-sen-marco-rubio/story?id=36187173), “if he could he would.”

In other words, the Republican presidential candidate lied in his campaign commercial, but he feels justified in doing so because of what he imagines the president might be secretly thinking.

In last night’s GOP debate, Fox’s Neil Cavuto pressed Rubio on the same point, noting that the White House hasn’t actually taken anyone’s guns. The senator responded (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/14/6th-republican-debate-transcript-annotated-who-said-what-and-what-it-meant/#annotations:8523176):

“I am convinced that if this president could confiscate every gun in America, he would. I am convinced that this president, if he could get rid of the Second Amendment, he would.”


Oh. So as long as a candidate has “convinced” himself that his fantasy is real, it doesn’t matter if he makes stuff up.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-tries-his-hand-mind-reading?cid=sm_fb_maddow

And Rubio is the Repug establishment BoyToy? :lol

[Nbadan]

Apparently, Rubio thinks ISIS could attack anytime...anywhere....


Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said in an interview aired Sunday that he purchased a gun on Christmas Eve to defend his family if ISIS -- or any other attackers -- were to visit his home.

Rubio told CBS "Face the Nation" host John Dickerson that he purchased the firearm on Christmas Eve because he's not in town often, but was home that day. He added that he was already a firearm holder.

"I'm a strong supporter of the second amendment. I have a right to protect my family if someone were to come after us," Rubio said. "In fact, if ISIS were to visit us, or our communities, at any moment, the last line of defense between ISIS and my family is the ability that I have to protect my family from them, or from a criminal, or anyone else who seeks to do us harm. Millions of Americans feel that way."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rubio-defends-christmas-eve-gun-purchase

[boutons_deux]

Rubio's religious ideas are also fucking weird Christian Sharia, wants to be theocratic President only of Christians

Exposing Marco Rubio's Bizarre Religious Faith -- and His Plan to Use It as a Guide in the White House

Rubio is trying to save his campaign by talking about God. We ought to be terrified if he means what he says.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/exposing-marco-rubios-bizarre-religious-faith-and-his-plan-use-it-guide-white

The sooner America can put the slave, red state white Christian Taliban and other Christian freak cults out of national politics, the better.

Cruz and Rubio seem to be infected with the same Cuban religious freakishness.

[boutons_deux]

On Iran, Reagan is the wrong example to follow


MARCO RUBIO: When I become President of the United States, :lol :lol :lol our adversaries around the world will know that America is no longer under the command of someone weak like Barack Obama. And it will be like Ronald Reagan where as soon as he took office, the hostages were released from Iran.

That was, to be sure, an unusually foolish thing for a grown-up to say on national television, but the Florida senator isn’t the only Republican presidential candidate using rhetoric like this.

In recent months, Chris Christie (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/christie-forgets-some-reagan-references-dont-work) has said Obama should follow Reagan’s example in dealing with Iran, and Rand Paul (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/06/annotated-transcript-the-aug-6-gop-debate/) and Ted Cruz (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-need-reagan-refresher) have made similar comments.

It’s hard not to get the sense sometimes that Republicans have lionized Reagan without any meaningful understanding of his presidency.

The Washington Post did a nice job setting the record straight (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/01/17/republicans-slam-prisoner-deal-with-iran-as-ransom-and-negotiating-with-terrorists/), describing Rubio’s rhetoric as “specious,” which seems like an exceedingly polite way of saying “ignorant.”

It wasn’t the case, [Brian Michael Jenkins, a Rand Corp. expert who has written about how governments handled prisoner exchanges and hostage crises] said, that the release was simply prompted by a tough-talking Reagan’s inauguration – rather, diplomats under President Jimmy Carter negotiated a resolution finalized on Carter’s last full day as president.

Carter secured the 52 hostages’ release in exchange for the unfreezing of Iranian assets, an American pledge not to meddle in internal Iranian affairs and the creation of a framework for resolving post-revolution financial claims.

“There were concessions in return for getting them back,” Jenkins said.

And while Reagan’s pledge not to “pay ransom” to the Iranians, coupled with Carter’s determination to secure a deal while president, clearly forced the crisis’s resolution, Reagan’s tough talk didn’t continue to guide his administration’s actions.

Senior Reagan administration officials later went on to engage in secret talks with Iran to gain the release of hostages held by Iranian client groups in Lebanon.

The deal negotiated by the Reagan officials included the sale of arms to Iran, the proceeds of which were funneled to right-wing rebels in Nicaragua, later exploding into the Iran-Contra affair.


http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/iran-reagan-the-wrong-example-follow?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

Rubio sees ISIS as a convenient partisan tool

“I went to go purchase a handgun on the 24, on Christmas Eve,” the senator said.

And why, pray tell, did Rubio do this? As it turns out (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rubio-defends-christmas-eve-gun-purchase), he wasn’t looking for a last-minute gift.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said in an interview aired Sunday that he purchased a gun on Christmas Eve to defend his family if ISIS – or any other attackers – were to visit his home.

Rubio told CBS “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson that he purchased the firearm on Christmas Eve because he’s not in town often, but was home that day.


According to the transcript (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-the-nation-transcripts-january-17-2016-clinton-sanders-rubio-kasich/), the Florida senator said, “[I]f ISIS were to visit us or our communities at any moment, the last line of defense between ISIS and my family is the ability that I have to protect my family from them.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-sees-isis-convenient-partisan-tool?cid=sm_fb_maddow

Holy Shit, you rightwingnuts got some real Presidential talent in your lineup. :lol

[DMX7]

Higher profile people generally need more security to begin with so it's not completely unreasonable to want to purchase a gun for self defense.

[boutons_deux]

Higher profile people generally need more security to begin with so it's not completely unreasonable to want to purchase a gun for self defense.

if this is his first gun, why did he wait so long in public life?

simply pandering to gun fellators, trying up his NRA grade

[DMX7]

if this is his first gun, why did he wait so long in public life?

simply pandering to gun fellators, trying up his NRA grade

Yes

[boutons_deux]

Rubio recycles Romney’s risible rubbish

Marco Rubio used to consider immigration his signature issue. When that didn’t turn out well, the Florida senator decided national security would be his new area of expertise.

Maybe he should keep looking. Consider this line (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/28/7th-republican-debate-transcript-annotated-who-said-what-and-what-it-meant/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_no-name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory) from last night’s debate.

“Today, we are on pace to have the smallest Army since the end of World War II, the smallest Navy in 100 years, the smallest Air Force in our history. You cannot destroy ISIS with a military that’s being diminished.”


It’s amazing to me that Rubio, for all of his purported interest in the subject, still doesn’t understand the basics.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently said (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/bushs-pentagon-chief-sees-gop-candidates-childish-misguided) his party’s national candidates “don’t know what they’re talking about” and maintain a “level of dialogue on national security issues would embarrass a middle schooler.” Why Rubio is so eager to prove Gates right is a mystery.

As we discussed (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-embraces-romney-error-his-own) over the summer, when the senator first started pushing this line, this was actually one of Mitt Romney’s more embarrassing talking points.

Indeed, this was the basis for arguably the biggest takedown of the 2012 presidential campaign. In the third debate between President Obama and Romney, the Republican complained, “Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917…. Our Air Force is older and smaller than at any time since it was founded in 1947.”

Romney had used the same argument many times on the stump, and the prepared president pounced. “Well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed,” Obama explained (http://debates.org/index.php?page=october-22-2012-the-third-obama-romney-presidential-debate). “We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting ships. It’s what are our capabilities?”

It was a rough moment for the Republican, whose canned talking points were made to look ridiculous. And yet, Rubio insists on repeating them.

Bloomberg Politics had a good piece (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-08-28/do-rubio-s-promises-on-military-stack-up-?cmpid=wsdemand) on this a while back, noting that the GOP senator’s arguments “don’t add up.”

[T]he numbers of ships and planes don’t define U.S. military capabilities. Modern warships, notably aircraft carriers and submarines, are far more effective and lethal than their World War II predecessors.

The Air Force is preparing to field the costliest jet fighter ever built, Lockheed Martin’s F-35, and already has the second generation F-22 with stealth characteristics. Advances in precision guidance and intelligence collection make even older aircraft such as the F-15 and F-16 far more capable than the jets that preceded them.


Romney at least had a decent excuse – he had no foreign policy experience, no national security experience, no working understanding of how the military operates, and he hadn’t even held public office for the six years leading up to the 2012 campaign.

But Rubio claims to be his party’s most impressive expert on matters of national security – theRepublican authority on keeping Americans safe. So why is he relying on discredited talking points from a candidate who failed four years ago?

Of course, this was just one example from last night’s debate. Slate’s Fred Kaplan described (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2016/01/republican_presidential_candidates_are_shockingly_ uninformed_about_foreign.single.html) the entire Republican field as “clueless” and “shockingly uninformed” about international affairs and security issues.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-recycles-romneys-risible-rubbish?cid=sm_fb_maddow

“clueless” and “shockingly uninformed” describes Repug voters perfectly

[rmt]

Rubio's religious ideas are also fucking weird Christian Sharia, wants to be theocratic President only of Christians

Exposing Marco Rubio's Bizarre Religious Faith -- and His Plan to Use It as a Guide in the White House

Rubio is trying to save his campaign by talking about God. We ought to be terrified if he means what he says.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/exposing-marco-rubios-bizarre-religious-faith-and-his-plan-use-it-guide-white

The sooner America can put the slave, red state white Christian Taliban and other Christian freak cults out of national politics, the better.

Cruz and Rubio seem to be infected with the same Cuban religious freakishness.




The really religious ones are Huckabee, Carson, Santorum, and to a lesser extent, Cruz.

[boutons_deux]

The really religious ones are Huckabee, Carson, Santorum, and to a lesser extent, Cruz.

nah, Krazy Kruz is the ultimate Christian Taliban, they say his town hall meeting are more like sunday morning church service. He's one fucking scary dude, like his asshole father.

[rmt]

nah, Krazy Kruz is the ultimate Christian Taliban, they say his town hall meeting are more like sunday morning church service. He's one fucking scary dude, like his asshole father.

What candidates say is deceiving. Cruz was raised in the household of an evangelical pastor - he knows all the Christian sound bytes. Look instead to what they DO.

Even in his Q&A session with voters, Huckabee made sure to criticize people who did not donate at least 10 percent of their earnings to charity — a not-so-subtle jab at Cruz... "You know, I don't want to comment on what he gives or doesn't," said Huckabee. "My view is this: On a spiritual level, it’s really hard to say that God is first in my life if he’s last in my budget."

It's not up to me to judge whether Cruz wants to tithe or not, but don't portray yourself as the candidate of the evangelical right if you're not going to walk the walk.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/ted-cruz-lies-right-to-christian-journalists-face-about-tithing/

[boutons_deux]

:lol America! spiritual commitment is measured in $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[rmt]

Here's the rest of Huckabee's quote:

On a more personal, and even a philosophical-political level, one of the reasons we end up paying 50 cents out of every dollar we earn is the government is doing all the work of welfare. That originally was the work of the church. If, as a Christian, I resent giving 50 cents out of a dollar to the government, why would I not even give a dime out of that dollar to do the work of real charity? I don't know how you can have smaller government if you don't have bigger charitable hearts."

which is very true.

[boutons_deux]

yeah, Christian Taliban would much rather suck down $Ts for themselves in taxes people pay to the govt, just like BigFinance was SS transferred into their criminal hands.

What do Christianity, Inc pay its staff? minimum wage?

[rmt]

yeah, Christian Taliban would much rather suck down $Ts for themselves in taxes people pay to the govt, just like BigFinance was SS transferred into their criminal hands.

What do Christianity, Inc pay its staff? minimum wage?

The pastors at my church are paid very well. Most stuff is done on a volunteer basis. There is even free food on Sundays after service so people can fellowship together (instead of running off to get lunch).

[Nbadan]

The pastors at my church are paid very well. Most stuff is done on a volunteer basis. There is even free food on Sundays after service so people can fellowship together (instead of running off to get lunch).

Instead of giving money to #10 – Joseph Prince ($5 Million), 9 – Chris Okotie ($7.5 Million), #8 – Matthew Ashimolowo ($10 Million), #7 – T.B. Joshua ($15 Million), #6 – T.D. Jakes ($18 Million), #5 – Billy Graham ($25 Million), #4 – Creflo Dollar ($27 Million), #3 – Benny Hinn ($42 Million), #2 – Chris Oyakhilome ($50 Million), and #1 – David Oyedepo ($150 Million) as well as hundreds of other 'christians' pretenders like Olsteen and Hagee...wouldn't it be better for well meaning folks to give money to poor churches to help spread the faith and maybe a little for the homeless....those are the Christian Taliban of who Boots speaks...

[rmt]

Instead of giving money to #10 – Joseph Prince ($5 Million), 9 – Chris Okotie ($7.5 Million), #8 – Matthew Ashimolowo ($10 Million), #7 – T.B. Joshua ($15 Million), #6 – T.D. Jakes ($18 Million), #5 – Billy Graham ($25 Million), #4 – Creflo Dollar ($27 Million), #3 – Benny Hinn ($42 Million), #2 – Chris Oyakhilome ($50 Million), and #1 – David Oyedepo ($150 Million) as well as hundreds of other 'christians' pretenders like Olsteen and Hagee...wouldn't it be better for well meaning folks to give money to poor churches to help spread the faith and maybe a little for the homeless....those are the Christian Taliban of who Boots speaks...

How I choose to spend my money is no one's business. That I think is the whole crux of the matter and maybe the difference politically. Bernie would like to tax me more and decide how to re-distribute my money. Thanks but no thanks, I'll take care of my own healthcare, don't want his "FREE" parental leave and have saved for my kids' college. I'd like the choice in spending MY money the way I want. And believe it or not, I have been a good steward of the money God has blessed me with.

[Nbadan]

If your making 10 million per year then you better support the system that lets you earn 10 million per year...also, Bernie says 70% but only get half of what he wants and settles at 50% max tax rate..minus my deductions I'm at 40%-45% depending on my accountant...not unreasonable comparatively...

[CosmicCowboy]

If your making 10 million per year then you better support the system that lets you earn 10 million per year...also, Bernie says 70% but only get half of what he wants and settles at 50% max tax rate..minus my deductions I'm at 40%-45% depending on my accountant...not unreasonable comparatively...

LETS me earn? FUCK YOU.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

LETS me earn? FUCK YOU.

:lol CC doesn't believe in roads, law enforcement, banking oversight, disaster relief, defense, food regulations but instead in an inane completely selfish ideology.

[CosmicCowboy]

If your making 10 million per year then you better support the system that lets you earn 10 million per year...also, Bernie says 70% but only get half of what he wants and settles at 50% max tax rate..minus my deductions I'm at 40%-45% depending on my accountant...not unreasonable comparatively...

you are paying 45%???? In TEXAS????

:lmao

[CosmicCowboy]

:lol CC doesn't believe in roads, law enforcement, banking oversight, disaster relief, defense, food regulations but instead in an inane completely selfish ideology.

I'm fine with roads, bridges, law enforcement and national defense.

However I don't believe in supporting fukwads like you.

[Nbadan]

you are paying 45%???? In TEXAS????

:lmao

That would be max tax rate for someone making 10 million per year...

[Nbadan]

:lol CC doesn't believe in roads, law enforcement, banking oversight, disaster relief, defense, food regulations but instead in an inane completely selfish ideology.

If your making 10 million per year your generally using many more resources than someone who doesn't make 10 million per year...your using government roads to transport your goods...your using law enforcement to protect your business....your using the military and national security to protect your intellectual or resource property overseas.....shit ain't free...

[rmt]

If your making 10 million per year then you better support the system that lets you earn 10 million per year...also, Bernie says 70% but only get half of what he wants and settles at 50% max tax rate..minus my deductions I'm at 40%-45% depending on my accountant...not unreasonable comparatively...

What system LETS Lebron earn his millions? Is it anything the government DOES or his OWN body, talent and effort? Isn't it the fans and the market that sets how much he can earn in endorsements? And you would tax him 77% (or is it even a higher rate over $10million?) on his money to give away FREE healthcare, college tuition, parental leave, etc. What happens to people who get things for free and don't have to work for it? Do they value what they get for nothing? What happens to the nation when everyone games the system and free-loads?

At that tax rate, would we even have the NBA - who could afford to buy tickets?

[Nbadan]

What system LETS Lebron earn his millions? Is it anything the government DOES or his OWN body, talent and effort?

If there was no system to pay lebron 10m per then he would make considerably less, so obviously that system exists...besides, the 10 million he makes in salary is a drop in the bucket to what he makes in endorsements....

[CosmicCowboy]

If there was no system to pay lebron 10m per then he would make considerably less, so obviously that system exists...besides, the 10 million he makes in salary is a drop in the bucket to what he makes in endorsements....

i thought advertising wouldn't be deductible anymore? Forget those endorsements.

[rmt]

If there was no system to pay lebron 10m per then he would make considerably less, so obviously that system exists...besides, the 10 million he makes in salary is a drop in the bucket to what he makes in endorsements....

What? Lebron's contract is more than $10 million. If Lebron were to earn what he is really worth, he'd be earning a lot more than what he's currently earning on this contract that's limited by CBA. The endorsements are set by the fans and market - and is more in line with what he's worth.

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio, Following Donor Dollars, Frequently Veers From Limited-Government Dogma (https://theintercept.com/2016/01/31/rubio-donor-dollars/)

What is it about those issues that gets Rubio to act against his stated small-government principals? They’re all associated with powerful political donors Rubio has carefully cultivated over the years.



Sugar Subsidies: Federal sugar subsidies provide sugar producers with special loans that boost the price of sugar for consumers while guaranteeing profits above a government-set price. Rubio has defended (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/427001/marco-rubio-sugar-subsidy-support-fanjul-brothers)the sugar program by claiming that without it, “other countries will capture the market share,” U.S. agricultural land will be developed, and Americans will find themselves “at the mercy of a foreign country for food security.” His view baffles many observers who see the subsidies as one of the more damaging examples of corporate welfare (http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-03-13/that-sickening-sugar-subsidy). It is less baffling once you realize that the Fanjul family, which owns sugar production interests, has lavished (http://america.aljazeera.com/multimedia/2015/7/fanjul-family-benefits-political-donations.html) Rubio with campaign donations throughout his political career while lobbying to maintain the subsidies.





Medicare Advantage: Though Rubio has campaigned on a promise to tackle entitlement spending, he has simultaneously fought aggressively to defend (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/medicare-advantage-lobbying-machine-steamrolls-congress-n126431) Medicare Advantage, a program that allows private insurers to administer Medicare plans. The program is rife with waste and fraud: An investigation by the Center for Public Integrity found nearly $70 billion (http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/06/04/14840/why-medicare-advantage-costs-taxpayers-billions-more-it-should)in improper payments to private health plans over just a five year period for the program. It’s a cash cow for health insurers, however, and health insurers provided Rubio with direct campaign cash and bankrolled (http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/entry/aetna-political-spending-american-action-network-chamber-of-commerce) a dark money group that helped elect (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38378120/ns/politics-decision_2010/t/us-chamber-backs-rubio-florida/) Rubio to the Senate in 2010.





Online Gambling: In the Senate, Rubio sponsored (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/06/25/in-n-h-marco-rubio-defends-sponsoring-sheldon-adelson-backed-gambling-bill/) anti-online gambling legislation heavily backed by major Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, who owns a chain of casinos. Rubio expressed support for the bill while aggressively courting the billionaire for support, and has met privately with Adelson on several occasions. Rubio is one of many presidential candidates seeking financial backing from Adelson in large part because Adelson has been willing to donate large amounts to Super PACs. In 2012, he gave more than $100 million (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/marco-rubio-sheldon-adelson-donors-2016-214680) to Republican campaign efforts.







Municipal Broadband: Rubio typically backs (http://www.ontheissues.org/Social/Marco_Rubio_Education.htm) a shift of power to local governments. Not so for cities that have chosen to sponsor high-speed municipal broadband networks for their residents, however. Municipal broadband often provide services at 50 times the rate of private telecom providers, for less money. Rubio wants to allow state governments to ban such services. He has close ties to the telecom lobby, particularly AT&T, which has fought to block competition from municipal broadband networks. Two of Rubio’s leading fundraisers (https://theintercept.com/2015/12/14/marco-rubio-pushes-to-block-low-cost-high-speed-broadband/) work for lobbying firms retained by AT&T.





For-Profit Colleges: Corinthian Colleges, once one of the largest for-profit colleges in America, was plagued by reports of fraud and deceptive recruiting practices. The company relied on $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed student loans to stay afloat, even as evidence mounted that the company systematically deceived students and federal regulators using fake job-placement numbers, heavily inflated tuition rates, and engaged in a slew of other predatory practices, including illegal debt collection efforts and job counseling services that were in fact simply links to job postings on Craigslist. Despite the overwhelmingevidence (http://www.consumerfinance.gov/newsroom/cfpb-sues-for-profit-corinthian-colleges-for-predatory-lending-scheme/) that Corinthian Colleges was engaged in taxpayer fraud, Rubio authored a letter to the Department of Education requesting that the agency “demonstrate leniency (https://theintercept.com/2015/05/04/bankruptcy-filing-shows-corinthian-colleges-secretly-funded-d-c-think-tanks-dark-money-election-efforts/)” with the company. Perhaps not coincidentally, Corinthian executives donated to Rubio campaigns, and documents The Intercept obtained (https://theintercept.com/2015/05/04/bankruptcy-filing-shows-corinthian-colleges-secretly-funded-d-c-think-tanks-dark-money-election-efforts/) show that the company secretly backed a dark money group that helped elect Rubio in 2010.





Military Spending: Rubio is campaigning on a pledge to hike military spending by $1 trillion (http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/12/politics/marco-rubio-rand-paul-conservative-debate-military-spending/) over the next 10 years, and similarly promises to exert more military muscle abroad. Fundraising records (http://politicalpartytime.org/search/Beneficiary/Rubio%2520Victory%2520Committee/) show that Rubio raises cash regularly at events hosted by lobbyists (https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/lobbyist.php?id=Y0000040579L&year=2013) for the largest (https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/lobbyist.php?id=Y0000030596L&year=2013) defense contractors in America, including Boeing, General Dynamics, and Honeywell. In addition, as we’ve previously reported (https://theintercept.com/2015/12/18/beacon-global-strategies/), several of Rubio’s foreign policy and defense advisors simultaneously consult for military contractors. The U.S. already spends (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/13/barack-obama/obama-us-spends-more-military-next-8-nations-combi/) more on the military than the next seven nations combined, including Russia and China.





Expanding Government Surveillance: Rubio has been an outspoken proponent of mass surveillance, even arguing for a permanent extension the National Security Agency’s collection of domestic phone records. After being elected to the Senate, Rubio began fundraising (http://politicalpartytime.org/search/Beneficiary/Rubio%2520Victory%2520Committee/) from lobbyists for the private contractors that serve the NSA including Leidos, as well as from the Carlyle Group (https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2016&type=I&cid=N00030612&newMem=N&recs=100), the major investor in Booz Allen Hamilton.


When he served in the Florida legislature, Rubio simultaneously (http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/jeb-bush-and-marco-rubio-were-registered-lobbyists/2238122) worked as a lobbyist for a number of private interests – so if he’s elected, he will be the first president to have worked as a registered lobbyist.

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/31/rubio-donor-dollars/

"small govt" is an automatic mantra of Repugs and libertarian frauds,

but it's small govt for the 99% and

ATM govt for BigCorp and 1%

[boutons_deux]

this asshole is bag-of-hammers dumb, and trasnparent

 Marco Rubio Wants You to Wait 6 Hours to Vote

 When asked about six-hour lines to vote in Florida, Rubio bizarrely responded, “That is only on Election Day.”

http://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Florida_voting_lines_AP_img.jpg

 As a senator from Florida—a state with a well-documented history of voter suppression—Marco Rubio opposed the restoration of voting rights for nonviolent ex-felons and supported his state’s cutbacks in early voting, which contributed to seven-hour lines during the 2012 election.

That same year, he supported a controversial purge of voter rolls by Governor Rick Scott that was stopped by a federal court.

Along with Cruz, Rubio also backed a Senate amendment requiring a government-issued photo ID to vote in federal elections.

teacher from Ankeny, asked Rubio (https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/693827713099026432), “What about the six-hour long lines to vote in Miami?”

“That is only on Election Day,” Rubio responded.

It was a bizarre response from the Florida senator, seeming to suggest that long lines are okay if they occur on Election Day, when most people tend to cast a ballot.

But it (Rubio) was also factually inaccurate.

After Florida cut early voting from 14 days to eight days during the 2012 election, which Rubio supported,

there were long lines (http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/11/01/early-voting-plagued-by-long-lines/) throughout the early voting period.

http://www.thenation.com/article/marco-rubio-wants-you-to-wait-six-hours-to-vote/

[boutons_deux]

Media hype creates strange expectations for Rubio

For much of Saturday, the political world was treated to the latest in a series (https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/status/693916394434465792) of rounds of Marco Rubio Media Hype, featuring breathless stories about the senator’s “surge,” “momentum,” and inevitable “rise.” Credible new polling (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/caucus-day-latest-polls-show-close-republican-race) suggested the fawning coverage was misplaced, which curtailed the hype – for about an hour or two before it began anew.

This (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/ted-cruz-iowa-expectations-loser-218466) Politico piece, published yesterday, captured the oddity of the expectations surrounding the Florida senator’s prospects in Iowa, where the article claims Rubio “can lose to [Ted] Cruz on Monday and walk away looking like the winner.”


Somehow, against all the evidence, Rubio has successfully spun that he’s gunning only for third place here. In sharp contrast, Cruz’s campaign, touting its superior ground game, has openly pined for and predicted victory.

The result: In the closing hours before Monday’s caucuses, Iowa is suddenly fraught with risk for Cruz while Rubio, who sits comfortably in third in most public and private polling, is almost guaranteed to meet or beat diminished expectations. :lol


What’s odd is why anyone would choose to see the race this way. When Politico says Team Rubio has “successfully spun … against all evidence,” it helps capture a curious dynamic: the media is effectively admitting that the media has come to believe something the media knows isn’t true, but will pretend is true anyway, for reasons no one wants to talk about.

As recently as mid-November – hardly ancient history – Rubio’s own campaign manager talked on the record about his belief that the senator might actually win the Iowa caucuses (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-12-23/marco-rubio-dips-in-the-polls-heading-into-christmas).




Barely two months later, however, we’re now supposed to believe that

a third-place finish – which is to say, a loss – would be a great, momentum-creating triumph.

It’s a claim that we’re all supposed to simply play along with, because the Hype Machine says so.


Coverage of campaigns can get downright weird when a candidate becomes a media darling.




http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/media-hype-creates-strange-expectations-rubio?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[hater]

Rubio sounds like an angry little bitch tbh. I rather Trump win than that little femboy

[boutons_deux]

GOP Insiders Can Pretend All They Want — Marco Rubio Is a Hardcore Conservative

Rubio’s youthful exuberance masks his old and regressive ideas.

Marco Rubio has become the darling of the Republican establishment. Jeb’s implosion is partially responsible for this, but there is also a belief on the Right that Rubio is the best “mainstream” candidate in the field.

virtually nothing about Rubio is new or endearing.

His ideas are either conventionally Republican or uncommonly extremist.

On foreign policy, Rubio is a rabid neoconservative.

He wants to double down on the Bush Doctrine; he’s surrounded himself with neocon advisers;

he supports (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?&congress=114&session=1&vote=00201) the government’s unconstitutional surveillance program;

he’s pro-torture (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article25186297.html); and

he wants to dramatically increase defense spending even though America spends more (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/13/barack-obama/obama-us-spends-more-military-next-8-nations-combi/) on defense than the next eight nations combined.

On domestic and social issues, Rubio is no less extreme. Against the backdrop of record inequalities,

he wants to reduce federal revenue and give the top 1% a massive tax cut (http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2015/11/marco_rubios_tax_plan_gives_top_1_an_average_tax_c ut_of_more_than_220000_a_year.php#.VquAt-0rK72) (which would explode the budget).

Like every other Republican, he wants to repeal Obamacare without offering a viable alternative to the millions of Americans who now have health coverage.

He supports (http://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9127153/republicans-abortion-risk-debate)a ban on all abortions, including cases of rape and incest.

And he wants to undo (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/10/moderate-marco-rubio-wants-to-undo-gay-marriage-end-obama-s-lgbt-protections.html) Obama’s executive orders protecting LGBT citizens from marriage discrimination.

Thursday night’s debate (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/28/7th-republican-debate-transcript-annotated-who-said-what-and-what-it-meant/)was yet another illustration of Rubio’s faux moderation. If you cut through the canned rhetoric and listen closely to what he’s saying,

Rubio sounds like a meat-tossing fanatic.

His mini-monologues are either outrageous or patently false.

In his opening remarks, Rubio trotted out his line about Obama hating America:

“You see, we usually elect presidents in America that want to change the things that are wrong with America. Barack Obama wants to change America. Barack Obama wants America to be like the rest of the world.”

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/gop-insiders-can-pretend-all-they-want-marco-rubio-hardcore-conservative

In fact, on all the big questions, ALL the Repugs agree with little variation.

[rmt]

GOP Insiders Can Pretend All They Want — Marco Rubio Is a Hardcore Conservative

Rubio’s youthful exuberance masks his old and regressive ideas.

Marco Rubio has become the darling of the Republican establishment. Jeb’s implosion is partially responsible for this, but there is also a belief on the Right that Rubio is the best “mainstream” candidate in the field.

virtually nothing about Rubio is new or endearing.

His ideas are either conventionally Republican or uncommonly extremist.

On foreign policy, Rubio is a rabid neoconservative.

He wants to double down on the Bush Doctrine; he’s surrounded himself with neocon advisers;

he supports (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?&congress=114&session=1&vote=00201) the government’s unconstitutional surveillance program;

he’s pro-torture (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article25186297.html); and

he wants to dramatically increase defense spending even though America spends more (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/13/barack-obama/obama-us-spends-more-military-next-8-nations-combi/) on defense than the next eight nations combined.

On domestic and social issues, Rubio is no less extreme. Against the backdrop of record inequalities,

he wants to reduce federal revenue and give the top 1% a massive tax cut (http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2015/11/marco_rubios_tax_plan_gives_top_1_an_average_tax_c ut_of_more_than_220000_a_year.php#.VquAt-0rK72) (which would explode the budget).

Like every other Republican, he wants to repeal Obamacare without offering a viable alternative to the millions of Americans who now have health coverage.

He supports (http://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9127153/republicans-abortion-risk-debate)a ban on all abortions, including cases of rape and incest.

And he wants to undo (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/10/moderate-marco-rubio-wants-to-undo-gay-marriage-end-obama-s-lgbt-protections.html) Obama’s executive orders protecting LGBT citizens from marriage discrimination.

Thursday night’s debate (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/28/7th-republican-debate-transcript-annotated-who-said-what-and-what-it-meant/)was yet another illustration of Rubio’s faux moderation. If you cut through the canned rhetoric and listen closely to what he’s saying,

Rubio sounds like a meat-tossing fanatic.

His mini-monologues are either outrageous or patently false.

In his opening remarks, Rubio trotted out his line about Obama hating America:

“You see, we usually elect presidents in America that want to change the things that are wrong with America. Barack Obama wants to change America. Barack Obama wants America to be like the rest of the world.”

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/gop-insiders-can-pretend-all-they-want-marco-rubio-hardcore-conservative

In fact, on all the big questions, ALL the Repugs agree with little variation.

Rubio isn't evangelical enough to want a ban on all abortions including rape and incest - just spouting for that evangelical vote. Charles K - trying to paint Rubio as non-establishment - makes me want to vomit. He's no hardcore conservative - gang of eight with Schumer, I-squared bill which will triple the number of H1-B visas.

Microsoft has endorsed the so-called I-Squared bill to triple H-1B visas, declaring that ‘it’s critical that America address the shortage of workers with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills,’ adding ‘there are high-skilled, high-paying jobs being created by American businesses across the country that are being left unfilled because of this gap.’ Mr. Gates himself testified before Congress that ‘our higher education system doesn’t produce enough top scientists and engineers to meet the needs of the U.S. economy,’ and has suggested as a remedy that we allow corporations to hire an ‘infinite’ number of H-1B workers. Last year, Mr. Gates coauthored an op-ed admonishing members of Congress who resisted his push for more guest worker labor.

[Pelicans78]

Rubio is in the pocket of big special interest donors. He's gonna campaign on what those guys want including the H1 visas, defense, and immigration. I see a lot of GW in him. Could easily be dumb enough to start another Iraq-like disaster. I trust Cruz in offense more than Rubio.

[rmt]

Rubio is in the pocket of big special interest donors. He's gonna campaign on what those guys want including the H1 visas, defense, and immigration. I see a lot of GW in him. Could easily be dumb enough to start another Iraq-like disaster. I trust Cruz in offense more than Rubio.

IMO, Cruz is too religious/conservative/hard-line to win a general election. Rubio is two-faced on immigration and H1-b visas. And his pretense at Christianity is painful to hear - not quite as bad as Trump's "2" Corinthianns (but Trump's not running on religion). Rubio pulls out his religion close to voting - pathetic.

[boutons_deux]

"Surprise Of The Evening": Fox News Hypes Marco Rubio's Predicted Third Place Iowa Caucuses Finish

Megyn Kelly Congratulates Rubio Campaign For "Better Than Expected Finish." On the February 1 edition of Fox News' The Kelly File, host Megyn Kelly congratulated Rubio's communications director Alex Conan on a "better than expected finish":

Brit Hume And Stephen Hayes Label Marco Rubio's Third Place Finish As A "Surprise." On the February 1 edition of The Kelly File, Fox senior political analyst Brit Hume and frequent Fox commentator Stephen Hayes praised Rubio for finishing third, with Hume calling it "the biggest surprise," and Hayes saying it was "the surprise of the evening":

Brian Kilmeade: "The Guy That Shocked More People" Is The One "Who Came In Third." On the February 2 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said that Marco Rubio's third place finish was more shocking to people than Ted Cruz's victory:

Fox's Laura Ingraham Calls Rubio's Third Place Finish "Better Than Anyone Expected." On the February 2 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Laura Ingraham lauded Rubio's "great campaign" in Iowa, calling his third place finish "better than anyone expected" and saying "he had a great victory speech for third place":

http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/02/02/surprise-of-the-evening-fox-news-hypes-marco-ru/208321

Fox "unfair and unbalanced / We distort - You Believe" is the Repug public relations/advertising/pimping division. Pretty obvious the Repugs/RNC think Rubio is their best hope, so far, for defeating Trump and Krazy Kruz.

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio will attack Donald Trump on 'personal stuff,' according to report (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/2/1478652/-Marco-Rubio-will-attack-Donald-Trump-on-personal-stuff-according-to-report)

According to a source close to the campaign, Rubioworld is now arming itself for an assault on Trump. "They’ve done a lot of oppo research. Personal stuff," the source said. "It’s going to be personal to Trump because they know Trump will be personal to Marco.”

Um. Really? Personal stuff about Donald Trump that’s going to somehow be more devastating than all the stuff we already know about his corporate bankruptcies and his three marriages and adultery and willingness to advertise that he’d date his daughter if he could? You know, the stuff that voters haven’t seemed to care about?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/02/1478652/-Marco-Rubio-will-attack-Donald-Trump-on-personal-stuff-according-to-report?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

[SnakeBoy]

That would be max tax rate for someone making 10 million per year...

So you aren't paying 45%. How much are you paying?

[rmt]

"Surprise Of The Evening": Fox News Hypes Marco Rubio's Predicted Third Place Iowa Caucuses Finish

Megyn Kelly Congratulates Rubio Campaign For "Better Than Expected Finish." On the February 1 edition of Fox News' The Kelly File, host Megyn Kelly congratulated Rubio's communications director Alex Conan on a "better than expected finish":

Brit Hume And Stephen Hayes Label Marco Rubio's Third Place Finish As A "Surprise." On the February 1 edition of The Kelly File, Fox senior political analyst Brit Hume and frequent Fox commentator Stephen Hayes praised Rubio for finishing third, with Hume calling it "the biggest surprise," and Hayes saying it was "the surprise of the evening":

Brian Kilmeade: "The Guy That Shocked More People" Is The One "Who Came In Third." On the February 2 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said that Marco Rubio's third place finish was more shocking to people than Ted Cruz's victory:

Fox's Laura Ingraham Calls Rubio's Third Place Finish "Better Than Anyone Expected." On the February 2 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Laura Ingraham lauded Rubio's "great campaign" in Iowa, calling his third place finish "better than anyone expected" and saying "he had a great victory speech for third place":

http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/02/02/surprise-of-the-evening-fox-news-hypes-marco-ru/208321

Fox "unfair and unbalanced / We distort - You Believe" is the Repug public relations/advertising/pimping division. Pretty obvious the Repugs/RNC think Rubio is their best hope, so far, for defeating Trump and Krazy Kruz.




The worst is Charles K. saying Rubio is not establishment.

[spurraider21]

Getting bored of this "outsider" and "establishment" talk on both sides. Just reeks of palin/mccain

[rmt]

What has not been said much throughout the day is that Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s campaign worked actively to spread the message that Carson was leaving the presidential race. These actions were reported on Twitter by Conrad Close who, according to his Twitter profile, is the managing editor of Outset Magazine.

http://politistick.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Conrad-Close-Tweet-1.jpg

This being a coincidence would be rather far-fetched. Right after Rubio made the claim that his campaign would never ‘spread lies’ about a candidate leaving the race, an avid Marco Rubio supporter, who is in media, removed a tweet that shows Rubio’s statement to be a blatant lie. This is a tweet that had been on Twitter for more than 24 hours.

https://politistick.com/uh-oh-was-marco-rubio-guilty-in-the-ben-carson-dropout-rumor/

[boutons_deux]

Christian Taliban news

Marco Rubio Lashes Out Against Call For Religious Toleration

President Obama, (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/02/03/remarks-president-islamic-society-baltimore) during a speech today at a Baltimore mosque:


If we’re serious about freedom of religion — and I’m speaking now to my fellow Christians who remain the majority in this country — we have to understand an attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths. And when any religious group is targeted, we all have a responsibility to speak up. And we have to reject a politics that seeks to manipulate prejudice or bias, and targets people because of religion.


Marco Rubio, (https://twitter.com/mikememoli/status/695029704043184128) a couple of hours later:

This is yet another example of Obama's "constant pitting people against each other. I can't stand that."


There you have it. Ask Christians to reject the politics of bigotry, and you're pitting people against each other. And Marco Rubio, for one, will have no part of that.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/02/marco-rubio-lashes-out-against-call-religious-toleration

Rubio so stupid, both intellectually, and politically. But he's the stupid fuck the Repug mucky mucks are financing as their "conventional" Repug asshole.

[boutons_deux]

Remember, we’ve been told repeatedly that he’s the smart one in the GOP field. :lol

On the surface, it’s stunning that Rubio could believe remarks explicitly crafted to bring people together was actually a speech that deliberately tried to pit Americans against each other. It’s as if the Florida senator has the listening comprehension skills of a third grader.

But it’s also disappointing. Rubio is supposed to be better than this. There’s probably nothing the Senate Republican can do to shake pundits’ affection for him, but his comments yesterday should lead to some reflection on the part of his media cheerleaders: Is Rubio really the amazing new leader you think he is?

The Boston Globe’s Michael Cohen noted (https://twitter.com/speechboy71/status/695062178722942977) in response to Rubio’s condemnation of Obama’s remarks, “Honestly, in a political world that was borderline sane, this comment would be disqualifying.” New York’s Jon Chait added (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/02/rubio-one-obama-mosque-visit-is-too-many.html),

“Obama and Rubio follow very different theories of the proper treatment of social minorities. One of those men is president of the United States, and the other has no business holding that position.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-makes-first-ever-mosque-visit-draws-ugly-fire-rubio?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio, in his land of make-believe where people can’t remember what happened 8 years ago, claims he can run the country, however his staff can’t even write original speeches! Rubio is being accused of plagiarism after his speech last night in Iowa. It started off really well until he had to use his own words and no longer pick from an old speech by President Obama.

Rubio gave his victory speech last night, his victory of coming in THIRD place behind both Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. His speech (http://www.addictinginfo.org/2016/02/02/rubio-copied-one-of-obamas-most-famous-speeches-and-obamas-speechwriter-just-called-him-on-it/) began:





‘So this is the moment they said would never happen. For months, for months they told us we had no chance. For months they told us because we offer too much optimism in a time of anger, we had no chance. For months they told us because we didn’t have the right endorsements or the right political connections, we had no chance. They told me that we have no chance because my hair wasn’t gray enough and my boots were too high.’


This opening is almost word for word Obama’s victory speech he gave at Iowa caucus from 2008, which he WON, the similarities are astounding.

Obama’s speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB-sNaaaJRU) began with:

‘They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose. But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn’t do.’


As with every knock-off, Rubio’s speech was not nearly as powerful and inspiring as Obama’s. The President’s glorious speech stomps all over Rubio’s substandard attempt at stealing the glory. It is apparent Rubio has never had to live in the real world where people aren’t allowed to steal intellectual property from others; a world where people can’t just plagiarize and get by with bulls****ting.

http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/02/02/plagiarism-marco-rubio-gets-called-out-for-stealing-president-obamas-speech-video/

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio Ready To Be President Of Jesus

Have you met Marco Rubio’s personal BFF, the one man who loves him more than anyone else, who braids his hair and tells him everything is going to be OK when people make fun of his sexxxy man boots? Did you know his friend also loves you too, if only you’ll give Him the chance? Surprise, it is Jesus Christ, and Rubio could not stop talking about Him at Thursday night’s GOP debate. (http://wonkette.com/598282/with-trump-gone-who-will-megyn-kelly-bleed-all-over-now-your-gop-debate-liveblog) Like, we think Jesus might have been a little creeped out and maybe wanted to get a restraining order, but He’s all about #forgiveness so maybe He was able to put up with it.

Consider: (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/28/7th-republican-debate-transcript-annotated-who-said-what-and-what-it-meant/)

Well, let me be clear about one thing, there’s only one savior and it’s not me. It’s Jesus Christ who came down to earth and died for our sins.


Later, after saying a thing about our quote unquote “JUDEO-Christian Values,” Rubio proceeded to usher all in attendance directly into the River Jordan, so that they may be baptized in the blood:

And you should hope that our next president is someone that is influenced by their faith. Because if your faith causes you to care for the less fortunate, it is something you want to see in your public figures. And when I’m president, I can tell you this, my faith will not just influence the way I’ll govern as president, it will influence the way I live my life.

Because in the end, my goal is not simply to live on this earth for 80 years, but to live an eternity with my creator. And I will always allow my faith to influence everything I do.


Say you love Jesus some more, Marco, SAY IT SAY IT SAY IT!

The Bible commands us to let our light shine on the world. For over 200 years, America’s light has been shining on the world and the world has never been the same again. But now, that light is dimming a little, after seven years of Barack Obama.


Why won’t Barack Obama stop dimming Marco Rubio’s American Jesus Light, goddammit!

http://wonkette.com/598297/marco-rubio-ready-to-be-president-of-jesus

These Repug Bible-humping, Jesus-loving Pres wannabes are fucking scary, like all freaked-out, dumbed-down evangelicals.

[Aztecfan03]

‘So this is the moment they said would never happen. For months, for months they told us we had no chance. For months they told us because we offer too much optimism in a time of anger, we had no chance. For months they told us because we didn’t have the right endorsements or the right political connections, we had no chance. They told me that we have no chance because my hair wasn’t gray enough and my boots were too high.’


This opening is almost word for word Obama’s victory speech he gave at Iowa caucus from 2008, which he WON, the similarities are astounding.

Obama’s speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB-sNaaaJRU) began with:

‘They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose. But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn’t do.’




I don't see it. WHen did "almost word for word" get a new meaning? It's the same sentiment, but very little words in common.

[boutons_deux]

High-profile backer can’t name any Rubio accomplishments

About a week ago, Chris Christie made the case (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/thursdays-campaign-round-12816) that Marco Rubio is “a 44-year-old first-term senator who’s never accomplished anything.” It’s an assessment the Florida Republican’s supporters no doubt disagree with.

Their challenge, however, is explaining why. This morning, Rick Santorum, just 12 hours after the demise of his own presidential campaign, appeared on MSNBC and was asked to name a single Rubio accomplishment from his five years in the U.S. Senate. Santorum made a valiant effort at spin, but he couldn’t think of anything (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/rick-santorum-marco-rubio-accomplishment-the-senate).

Santorum floundered right off the bat when asked to list Rubio’s “top accomplishment” while in office. “Well, I mean, I would just say that this is a guy who’s been able to, No. 1, win a tough election in Florida and pull people together from a variety of different spots. This is a guy that I think can work together with people,” he said. “That’s the thing I like about him the most.”


And while that’s nice, the question was about his accomplishments. So, Santorum was confronted with the question again, and again, and again. Eventually, he responded, “I guess it’s hard to say there are accomplishments.” Santorum blamed congressional “gridlock” on the fact that Congress gets so little done, making it difficult for any senator to develop a record of success.

When the question was expanded to include literally any Rubio bill, whether it passed or not, Santorum pointed to an obscure risk-corridor measure on health care policy – which (a) is an awful policy; and (b) happens to be an example of Rubio taking credit for others’ work (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/01/14/via-correction-new-york-times-walks-back-article-that-portrayed-marco-rubio-as-anti-obamacare-hero/).

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/high-profile-backer-cant-name-any-rubio-accomplishments?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[rmt]

High-profile backer can’t name any Rubio accomplishments

About a week ago, Chris Christie made the case (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/thursdays-campaign-round-12816) that Marco Rubio is “a 44-year-old first-term senator who’s never accomplished anything.” It’s an assessment the Florida Republican’s supporters no doubt disagree with.

Their challenge, however, is explaining why. This morning, Rick Santorum, just 12 hours after the demise of his own presidential campaign, appeared on MSNBC and was asked to name a single Rubio accomplishment from his five years in the U.S. Senate. Santorum made a valiant effort at spin, but he couldn’t think of anything (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/rick-santorum-marco-rubio-accomplishment-the-senate).

Santorum floundered right off the bat when asked to list Rubio’s “top accomplishment” while in office. “Well, I mean, I would just say that this is a guy who’s been able to, No. 1, win a tough election in Florida and pull people together from a variety of different spots. This is a guy that I think can work together with people,” he said. “That’s the thing I like about him the most.”


And while that’s nice, the question was about his accomplishments. So, Santorum was confronted with the question again, and again, and again. Eventually, he responded, “I guess it’s hard to say there are accomplishments.” Santorum blamed congressional “gridlock” on the fact that Congress gets so little done, making it difficult for any senator to develop a record of success.

When the question was expanded to include literally any Rubio bill, whether it passed or not, Santorum pointed to an obscure risk-corridor measure on health care policy – which (a) is an awful policy; and (b) happens to be an example of Rubio taking credit for others’ work (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/01/14/via-correction-new-york-times-walks-back-article-that-portrayed-marco-rubio-as-anti-obamacare-hero/).

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/high-profile-backer-cant-name-any-rubio-accomplishments?cid=sm_fb_maddow




While I'm no fan of Rubio, this is no OBSCURE risk-corridor measure. It prevents tax-payer bailout of the insurance companies and therefore forces accurate pricing of these UNAFFORDABLE policies. It allows the public to see the true cost of these policies - not subsidized on the backend by tax payer money. IMO, it will accelerate either people choosing not to buy policies because they are too expensive and/or dropout of insurance companies from the exchanges because it isn't worth it for them.

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio's campaign is mystified by the paper trail saying he was a lobbyist (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/4/1479913/-Marco-Rubio-s-campaign-is-mystified-by-the-paper-trail-saying-he-was-a-lobbyist)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/04/1479913/-Marco-Rubio-s-campaign-is-mystified-by-the-paper-trail-saying-he-was-a-lobbyist?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

[boutons_deux]

Chris Christie called out Marco Rubio for canned answers. Rubio's reply? A canned answer

Rubio's strategy was first to attack Christie — pointing out New Jersey's credit rating has been downgraded under him — then abruptly changing the subject — pointing to Obama: "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."

That's when Christie pounced. He laid out the Rubio strategy: "That's what Washington, DC, 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."

Rubio didn't do himself any favors. He repeatedly tried to make the same point about Obama, which gave Christie more and more chances to make the same point about Rubio's stump speech. It didn't look good for Rubio.

More broadly, both candidates are trying to land their arguments on experience. Christie is trying to argue that he has the best experience as governor to immediately get to work if he becomes president. Rubio, on the other hand, is trying to argue that experience doesn't matter as much as vision — and he thinks he has the right vision to reverse the damage he feels Obama has done to the US.

http://www.vox.com/2016/2/6/10929102/republican-debate-rubio-christie

[boutons_deux]

Chris Christie Helps Democrats Win By Gutting Marco Rubio At ABC Republican Debate


http://www.politicususa.com/2016/02/06/chris-christie-helps-democrats-win-by-gutting-marco-rubio-at-abc-republican-debate.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29

[hitmanyr2k]

As much as I loved seeing Rubio get his ass handed to him I don't put a lot of stock in the governor experience Christie likes to tout as being some kind of indicator that he's ready to be President. Ronald Reagan was governor of California and I consider him one of the worst presidents of all-time. George Bush was governor of Texas before his Presidency and we all see how the country turned out under his leadership :lol Of course Rubio couldn't make that point because that would have pissed off the GOP base.

[Galileo]

Rubio is with the NWO. Avoid him!

[CosmicCowboy]

I think the media overplayed the "gutting" of Rubio.

[boutons_deux]

I think the media overplayed the "gutting" of Rubio.

yeah, too strong a word, but many have observed he's robotically, inflexibly scripted, repetitive, and really weak on his feet extemporaneously. He just doesn't sound very smart.

[boutons_deux]

Here's How You Know Marco Rubio's Robot Gaffe Is Serious


Responding to Christie—and proving his assailant's point—Rubio had multiple timesrecited a prepared line (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/best-moments-gop-debate-abc-new-hampshire) in which he slammed President Barack Obama for purposefully ruining the United States. This was Rubio's emperor-has-no-clothes moment.

And after the debate, he dared not enter the spin room to explain his broken-record impersonation. But his advisers, up until now one of the most savvy teams on the GOP side, quickly developed their post-debate spin. They were telling reporters that the debate demonstrated that Rubio was so committed to criticizing Obama that he would seize every opportunity to do so. At the bar,

when Steele heard this, he laughed sadly. "No, no, no," he said. "It was a major blunder."

That's how most of the professionals saw it. Even on Fox News, which had been Rubio-friendly turf, his screw-up was the headline of the night.

Like a wolf, Christie had pounced and ripped apart Rubio's soft underbelly. (Christie had been practicing (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/chris-christie-hurricane-sandy-new-hampshire) this assault earlier in the day.)

And the politerati watched in amazement at Rubio's implosion (that word seemed to be the consensus description in the swanky Google-sponsored media filing center at the debate).

Now there's no telling how New Hampshire voters—especially those still-undecided, late-breaking voters—will respond to this. They're a volatile and fickle bunch, as likely to be swayed by a non-controversial moment (say Ted Cruz speaking about his half-sister's death from an overdose) as an exchange deemed uber-significant by the press crowd.

Yet it's hard within the media bubble not to see Rubio's brain freeze as a helluva plot development.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/can-marco-rubio-reboot-after-robot-gaffe

[rmt]

It won't hurt him that much. He's young, good looking, and Hispanic (and aren't his 2 sons so cute) - the one that the Dems would least like to run against. Most people have short memories.

[boutons_deux]

"young, good looking, and Hispanic"

typical beauty/popularity contest shit.

His POLICIES are horrendously extreme right wing, and he's stupid, dumb (which, like dubya, St Ronnie, is how Repug power powers behind the throve love their Presidents)

He's not a real Hispanic compared with "indigenous" Hispanics, Mexican and meso-American Hispanics.

[rmt]

"young, good looking, and Hispanic"

typical beauty/popularity contest shit.

His POLICIES are horrendously extreme right wing, and he stupid, dumb (which, like dubya, St Ronnie, is how Repug power powers behind the throve love their Presidents)

He's not a real Hispanic compared with "indigenous" Hispanics, Mexican and meso-American Hispanics.



I wonder if all those Columbians/Venezuelans/Cubans/etc whose ancestors are from Spain don't consider themselves Hispanic because they are not "indigenous"

[boutons_deux]

I wonder if all those Columbians/Venezuelans/Cubans/etc whose ancestors are from Spain don't consider themselves Hispanic because they are not "indigenous"

Amount of N/M/S Americans with mostly Euro genes is tiny compared to the number with predominantly Amerindian genes.

"brown" isn't Euro-Spanish.

[djohn2oo8]

Lol Republicans won't forget he said Obama knows what he is doing. Rubio is cooked.

[Aztecfan03]

Lol Republicans won't forget he said Obama knows what he is doing. Rubio is cooked.

He is saying Obama is corrupt. Why would republicans have a problem with that?

[boutons_deux]

http://15130-presscdn-0-89.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/spb160207-701x526.jpg

[djohn2oo8]

He is saying Obama is corrupt. Why would republicans have a problem with that?

Because he didnt get the point across well. Christie hammered him for saying Obama knows what he is doing. And that soundbite will work against him.

[boutons_deux]

http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-T.jpgen things you should know about Marco Rubio:



He says everyone should own a gun to protect themselves from criminals and terrorists, and would shut down "any place where radicals are being inspired."
He denies human beings are responsible for climate change.
His tax plan gives the top 1 percent over $200,000 in tax cuts per year, and would completely eliminate taxes on capital gains. That’s more than Jeb Bush’s proposed tax cuts for the rich, and about on par with Donald Trump’s.
He wants to freeze federal spending at 2008 levels for everything except defense.
He wants a permanent U.S. presence in Iraq, and would end the nuclear deal with Iran.
He wants to repeal Obamacare.
We have no way to know where he is on immigration because he’s flip-flopped -- first working on legislation to regularize citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and now firmly anti-legalization.
He’s fibbed about his personal history – saying his parents were Cuban exiles although they left Cuba before the revolution.
He’s been careless with official money. When serving in the Florida House he charged personal expenses (including a $130 haircut) to a Republican Party credit card intended for official use.
And although elected to the Senate as a Tea Party favorite, he’s now the establishment’s favorite Republican. Among his top donors are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer – along with Koch Industries.


https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/photos/a.404595876219681.103599.142474049098533/1147742908571637/?type=3

[boutons_deux]

Who Hatched Rubio?


The big boys are confident that Sen. Marco Rubio has locked up the Republican nomination. But who’s locked up Rubio?
http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-I.jpg called my bookie in London. The betting professionals were not surprised at Marco Rubio’s big Iowa showing. The smart money has been on Rubio since October 31--despite the fact that Rubio was polling at just 9%.

Paul Krishnamurty, politics odds analyst at Betfair.com, told me that, among professional betters, over just two days, Rubio soared from zero to odds-on favorite to win the GOP nomination.

Why would the guys who bet the rent money place it all on Rubio—and what suddenly changed on October 31?

Because, despite the fact that 9 of 10 Republicans rejected him, on Halloween, Rubio won the only vote that counts: The Vulture’s.

It was page one news in the New York Times: Paul Singer, Influential Billionaire, Throws Support to Marco Rubio for President.

I’ve been hunting Singer, AKA The Vulture, for nine years across four continents. And now the carrion-chewing billionaire has decided who will be your next President.

The Vulture, not the Kochs, has become the Number One funder of the Republican Party. The Vulture’s blessing signals to the other billionaires where to place their bets.

Singer doesn’t “donate” to candidates. He invests in them. And he expects a big, dripping return on his money.

But why Rubio? Because Singer’s little hatchling is doing The Vulture’s bidding already. Singer has launched a murderous financial “vulture” attack on Argentina. Singer is shaking down the gaucho nation for $3 billion (http://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2014/aug/07/argentina-debt-crisis-barack-obama-paul-singer-vulture-funds).

Here’s the story. Decades ago, Argentina’s military dictatorship issued bonds that sucked the nation dry. When democracy returned, 97% of the banks that had funded the dictatorship agreed to take a low payment for these bonds.

Then down swooped The Vulture. Singer and his partners bought up the “hold-out” 3% for $50 million – and now Singer demands that Argentina pay him $3 billion, a 6,000% return on his “investment”—or he’ll bring Argentina to its knees.

That’s why he’s called The Vulture – because Singer has used this same junk-bond ransom trick to swipe aid funds meant for cholera clinics in the Congo. (When I uncovered that scheme for BBC Television, Britain’s Parliament banned Singer’s vulture fund from British courts. His operations are outlawed throughout most of the civilized world.)

But The Vulture has a problem: Hillary Clinton. As Secretary of State, Clinton went to court on Argentina’s side and body-blocked every ugly attempt by The Vulture to savage Argentina.

Singer is screeching. A President Hillary would cost Singer billions. (As would a President Sanders, a stalwart foe of vulture financiers.) To counter Hillary, The Vulture hatched a Senator: one Marco Rubio. Senator Rubio has made several ethically dubious attempts to bully the Treasury and State Departments on Singer’s behalf.

That failed, so Singer has decided to put the anti-gay martinet Rubio into the White House. (Singer’s son is married to a man—but hey, to Singer, a feast of billions means more to him than family.)

Yet Singer knows you can’t put a Rubio in the Oval Office by winning the most votes. No way. Changing demographics doom almost any GOP candidacy.

The only way to take the White House is to block the vote of millions of voters of color.

And that’s why Singer has become donor Numero Uno to Karl Rove’s operation Crossroads.

I’ve been on the trail of racist vote suppression tactics since 2000 when Katherine Harris was Purge’n General. And behind so many of the moves to disenfranchise voters, all too successful, is the Rove operation.

Now I’m on the hunt again. I’m in the middle of ripping the lid off the biggest, most secretive vote suppression operation since Jim Crow was law.

I’m in the thick of making the movie, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits (http://www.palastinvestigativefund.org/?id=69), about the coming attempt to swipe the 2016 election through ugly — but unbelievably sophisticated — vote suppression trickery.

For BBC Television, The Guardian and Rolling Stone, I’ve been on the beat of ballot bandits – and the billionaires behind them for 16 years. This film – and a related series of articles, web videos, and a book – which we must release in Spring 2016 – has one aim: to save
The House I Live In, the America of Martin Luther King and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This is not about whether Rubio or Clinton or Sanders or any other candidate should win. This is about making sure that the ballots, not the billionaires, determine the election.

And we’ll be covering The Vulture and his hatchling.

Singer’s knuckle-draggers muscled me out of his Rubio fundraiser last month—when my disguise fell off. No kidding. So I have to try again.

http://www.gregpalast.com/who-hatched-rubio-2/

[boutons_deux]

Rubotio faces new risks following debate debacle

Oops.

It was the debate debacle that launched a thousand memes. The Marcobot Moment. The Marco Malfunction. Rubot. Marcosoft. RubiOS. Marco Roboto.

In the unlikely event you’re just learning about this story, Rubio struggled badly in Saturday night’s debate in New Hampshire, getting caught panicking and using the same phrase repeatedly (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/06/transcript-of-the-feb-6-gop-debate-annotated/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_winnerslosers1051pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory):

“[L]et’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.”

Under pressure, Rubio repeated this phrase soon after, almost word for word. Then he said it again. And then again. If you heard it was bad, but haven’t seen the video, take a moment to watch it (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-pressure-robotic-rubio-has-breakdown) – because the breakdown was even worse than it sounds.

The larger question now is whether, and how much, it’ll matter.

The obvious problem for Rubio is that he identified one of the potent lines of attack against him – he’s an overly scripted, unprepared rookie who can’t think on his feet and can’t say anything beyond the memorized talking points some handler told him to repeat – and then proved those criticisms true (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-pressure-robotic-rubio-has-breakdown).

It was as if Chris Christie put a rake on the stage, only to have Rubio step on it – four times.

Making matters slightly worse, Rubio got stuck in response to pressure he must have known was coming.

It also doesn’t help that “Obama knows exactly what he’s doing” isn’t a great GOP talking point. (And I’m pretty sure Rubio kept saying “dispel with” when he was trying to say “dispense with.” Being a talking-point machine is an unappealing quality, but he’s not even especially good at it.)

But there’s another angle to this that’s easy to overlook: this is the first time in the 2016 cycle that Rubio has made himself the target of media ridicule. Pundits, reporters, and news organizations that have gone to almost comical lengths in recent months to boost the senator suddenly realized Rubio may not be the hyper-talented superstar they made him out to be.

At the worst possible moment, when the senator needed to step up with a clutch performance, he “choked” – a word more than one news outlet included (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/gop-debate-rubio-chris-christie-fight-218873) in headlines (https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/696317534816100352) yesterday morning. Many compared it to Rick Perry’s epic memory lapse (http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/02/marco-rubio-please-call-dan-quayle/460374/); others equated Rubio’s performance with Dan Quayle’s troubles in 1988 (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/02/07/brit_hume_rubio_reminded_me_of_dan_quayle.html).

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-faces-new-risks-following-debate-debacle?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

Foxification (definition: fucking the brains of Fox viewers and Repug politicians)

"a direct sense, I suspect that it has a lot to do with Foxification, the way Republican primary voters live in a media bubble into which awkward facts can’t penetrate. But there must be deeper causes behind the creation of that bubble.

Whatever the ultimate reason, however, the point is that while Mr. Rubio did indeed make a fool of himself on Saturday, he wasn’t the only person on that stage spouting canned talking points that are divorced from reality. They all were, even if the other candidates managed to avoid repeating themselves word for word…"

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/08/paul_krugman_marco_rubios_hilarious_repetition_is_ the_result_of_the_foxification_of_the_republican_p arty/

[boutons_deux]

The test of ‘extremism’ on reproductive rights

For his part, Rubio argued, “I would rather lose an election than be wrong on the issue of life.” The senator added that, as far as he’s concerned, Hillary Clinton and Democrats “are the extremists when it comes to the issue of abortion.”

Of course, “extremism” is a matter of perspective. The morning after the debate, Rubio talked to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who asked about the rights that should be available to women impregnated by rapists. The senator reiterated the same position he’s maintained for years: the government, under a Rubio administration, should have the authority to force those women (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-hillary-clinton-sen-marco-rubio-donald/story?id=36760228) to take the pregnancies to term, whether they want to or not.


“It’s a terrible situation. I mean, a crisis pregnancy, especially as a result of something as horrifying as that, I’m not telling you it’s easy. I’m not here saying it’s an easy choice. It is a horrifying thing what you’ve just described. It’s heartbreaking. It is unimaginable, quite frankly. I get it. I really do. And that’s why this issue is so difficult.

“But I believe a human being, an unborn child, has a right to live irrespective of the circumstances by which they were conceived.”


There’s no real ambiguity here. Rubio would sign a bill that includes a rape exception, but as far as he’s concerned, the position of his White House would be that women impregnated by rapists should not be legally permitted to terminate that pregnancy – at any stage of the pregnancy.

Rubio may believe he can apply the “extremist” label on Democratic candidates, but given the attitudes of the American mainstream, that would almost certainly be more difficult than he expects.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-test-extremism-reproductive-rights?cid=sm_fb_maddow

wow, Rubotio is beyond bag-of-hammers stupid, ignorant, confused. And BigFinance is financing this shithead.

[SnakeBoy]

I think the media overplayed the "gutting" of Rubio.

Agreed. I mean Rubio had his weakest debate by far and he really needs to come up with some new lines but in order for it to be a "gutting" Christie would have had to have helped himself in the process. I don't think he did. Basically Christie's whole argument was Rubio can't be POTUS because he's repeating political lines (something every POTUS does) but I'm ready to be POTUS because I told some guys to go plow the streets when it snowed (something no POTUS does).

[boutons_deux]

“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.”

Moments later he added, “We are not facing a president that doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows what he is doing. That’s why he’s done the things he’s done. That’s why we have a president that passed Obamacare and the stimulus. All this damage that he’s done to America is deliberate.”

Read that last sentence one more time: “All this damage that he’s done to America is deliberate.”

This will probably seem silly to most of the American mainstream, but Rubio not only rejects some of the president’s most notable accomplishments – bringing affordable health care to millions of families, rescuing the country from the Great Recession, adding new safeguards and layers of accountability to Wall Street, blocking Iran’s access to a nuclear weapon – the senator actually sees them as deliberate efforts to undermine the United States.

No, seriously. This isn’t a joke. In Rubio’s mind, the Recovery Act, which ended the recession, was “damaging” to the country. The Affordable Care Act, which cut the uninsured rate to a level unseen in modern history, is part of a “deliberate” campaign to sabotage America.

Salon’s Simon Maloy explained (http://www.salon.com/2016/02/08/marco_rubios_repetitive_extremism_yes_he_repeats_h imself_and_what_comes_out_of_his_mouth_is_straight _up_bonkers/) today:


If you’ve listened to a lot of conservative radio (or watched just a few seconds of Glenn Beck) then you’ve probably come across this theme.

Each AM dial screamer has his own variation on the “Barack Obama is deliberately trying to undermine the United States” theory….

They’re all slightly different routes to the same destination:

Obama is deliberately harming the country by targeting and destroying the things that make us uniquely “American.”

It’s a dark, paranoid vision of the Obama presidency that sets up the twice-elected Democrat as a sort of supervillain whose policy achievements are rooted in malevolence. And here comes Marco Rubio, the emerging favorite of the Republican establishment, offering a very lightly sanitized version of this same lunatic message.


Quite right. In right-wing circles, it’s not enough to believe Obama is simply wrong. These conservatives also somehow managed to convince themselves that the president, motivated by a deep-seated anti-American animus, is actually carrying out a campaign intended to undermine the United States, on purpose, from within the White House.

And while such an unhinged perspective may seem limited to crackpot fringe, Rubio was offering subtle support for this argument with his carefully scripted talking points, which he repeated on Saturday night. And then repeated again. And then again. And then once more with feeling.

The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman characterized such nonsense as “positively insane (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/02/08/the-real-problem-with-marco-rubios-scripted-debate-performance-his-ideas/),” which seems more than fair under the circumstances.

Indeed, perhaps the only thing more alarming than Rubio getting stuck repeating the same phrase over and over again was the talking point itself – which showed the senator taking an unfortunate dip into the fever swamps.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubios-clumsy-case-against-obama-and-change?cid=sm_fb_maddow

Rubotio is really an extreme right-wing scripted robot, without a single idea of his own.

Fucking scary that he's the Chosen One for BigFinance patronage.

[boutons_deux]

Rubio’s Robotic Message in the New Hampshire Debate Was Code-Talk to Right-Wing Conspiracy Nuts

Rubio kept saying is evocative of seven years of conspiracy theories from hard-core right-wing gabbers:

[T]he idea of Obama as a saboteur, who "knows exactly" how to undermine American greatness, is deeply ingrained on the right. The rest of Rubio's answer, lost in the torrent of mockery, was this:



"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."

This should be familiar to anyone in the tea party movement, and especially familiar to anyone who's read the Obama-era work of Dinesh D'Souza. Starting with a 2009 cover story in Forbes, D'Souza posited that the president was "the last anticolonial," a man inculcated with anti-Western values, whose decisions were best understood if one asked how they weakened America.

"Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America," D'Souza wrote. "In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America’s power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe’s resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet."

the whole essence of a "dog whistle" is to say something that the initiated understand at a lizard-brain level as a profound message without other people being offended — a particularly useful device to a candidate like Rubio who is trying to straddle ideological lines in the GOP. To "moderates" and to media observers innocent of the Beck/D'Souza meme (which Dr. Ben Carson has also alluded to (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_09/decoding_ben_carson057406.php)), the question of whether Obama is incompetent or just wrong may seem like a less-filling/tastes-great distinction.

So there's nothing to lose by waving a secret freak flag to the citizens of Wingnuttia — unless you wave it one time too many and Chris Christie points and laughs.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/02/was-rubio-debate-repetition-conspiracy-code.html

[CosmicCowboy]

Bookaki must really be scared of Rubio considering how much he posts in this thread.

[boutons_deux]

Bookaki must really be scared of Rubio considering how much he posts in this thread.

The Great Boutons is never scared, he is filling folder full of shit why Rubotio must never be the candidate, never mind Pres.

Chris "Sit Down and Shut Up" Christie destroyed him.

[Sportcamper]

Rubio has to be the most scripted Republican light weight since Dan Quayle…

Rafael Bienvenido Cruz has been on several talk shows lately…I do not know anything about his past but he seems to be warm genuine and gracious…I wonder why Ted came out so creepy…

Governor John Kasich is a grouchy old man…When he speaks it is like he is lecturing the rest of us…

Donald Trump scares people…

Jeb! Is probably the most qualified…But Donald Trump has unraveled him beyond repair…

Like many voters I would like to see the pendulum swing more to the right this election…I am struggling to decide on a strong yet sensible candidate… :toast

[rmt]

I'm waiting for Rubio's workers to knock on my door. His I-squared bill:

https://www.numbersusa.com/news/engineering-professor-says-rubio’s-plan-would-destroy-job-prospects-his-students

[boutons_deux]

Rubio glitches again, this time while condemning U.S. culture

Marco Rubio confirmed many of the worst fears about his preparedness over the weekend, panicking during a debate and getting stuck in a recursive loop (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-pressure-robotic-rubio-has-breakdown) in which he mindlessly attacked (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubios-clumsy-case-against-obama-and-change) President Obama’s patriotism over and over again, using nearly the exact same words four times.

And last night, already facing ridicule, the overly scripted senator did it again. The New York Times reported (http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/02/08/marco-rubio-lampooned-for-repeating-himself-does-it-again/):

Maybe it was just the end of a long, tiring day of campaigning. Or maybe Senator Marco Rubio’s opponents have gotten into his head.

But on Monday, Mr. Rubio, the Florida Republican, who has been under relentless criticism for uttering his talking points over and over in Saturday’s presidential debate, had another repetitious lapse.


You can watch the clip here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVxGHDkBC7s&feature=youtu.be). He begins by complaining about the difficulties of raising children “in the 21st century” in light of “the values they try to ram down our throats.” And then, moments later, the rattled senator said nearly the same thing, complaining once more about how hard it’s become to raise children “in the 21st century” because of “the values they try to ram down our throats.”

If you watch the clip, pay particular attention to the 0:26 mark, when Rubio actually pauses. He seems to realize that he’s stuck, once again repeating the exact same talking point, but he was unable to break free of the script.

I saw some journalists question last night whether this actually happened, or whether Rubio critics edited the video to make him appear foolish. The authenticity of the clip, however, is confirmed.

There are two broad angles to this.

The first, obviously, is the fact that Rubio’s bad habits are catching up to him at an inconvenient time. The senator has long struggled with depth of thought, preferring superficial scripts to meaningful analysis. And while that may dazzle some observers for a while, eventually someone is going to expect a candidate to come up with an original thought that wasn’t written on a notecard and handed to a would-be president to memorize.

And on this front, Marco Rubio just isn’t ready for prime time. It’s almost shocking how unimpressive he can be when pressed to think for himself.

The second, largely overlooked issue here is the substance of the Florida Republican’s pitch: since when does Rubio hate modern American culture?

It wasn’t that long ago that Rubio didn’t want to be the Republican Party’s dour old uncle who always complains about Hollywood filth; Rubio wanted to be the GOP’s cool young cousin who celebrates pop culture and connect with voters who haven’t yet received AARP mailings.

In 2013, Rubio boasted (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/earshot/senator-marco-rubio-defends-tupacs-425403), “I’m the only member of the Hip-Hop Caucus in the Senate.” He went into a fair amount of detail at the time defending the late Tupac Shakur against boasts from Lil Wayne.

In 2015, BuzzFeed lauded Rubio’s “pop culture fluency (http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/how-marco-rubio-plans-to-wield-his-youth-against-clinton-and#.uqwdDMq59)” that would “give him a generational edge” in the presidential race. Salon added (http://www.salon.com/2015/04/15/marco_rubios_cynical_tupac_fandom_why_%E2%80%9Ci_d on%E2%80%99t_listen_to_music_for_the_politics%E2%8 0%9D_is_a_hip_hop_cop_out/) at the time, “Senior advisers to presidential hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio are betting on the candidate’s fluency in youth pop culture as his comparative advantage against the elder titans” in his party.

But that was before the software upgrade. Now that Rubio has been turned off and back on again, there’s a patch that has replaced his “pop culture fluency” with whining about “the values they try to ram down our throats.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-glitches-again-time-while-condemning-us-culture?cid=sm_fb_maddow

:lol Rubotio is fucking fried, shit-for-brains stupid. Thanks, Florida!

[boutons_deux]

coal bear as good as ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=284&v=AiKPZegwMjY

[Dirk Oneanddoneski]

Gotta give the fat man props for killing the neo-cohens/war machine plan b


http://i.imgur.com/rYBES99.jpg

[rmt]

Gotta give the fat man props for killing the neo-cohens/war machine plan b


http://i.imgur.com/rYBES99.jpg

Really changed the race. Trump and Cruz should send Christie flowers.

[Trainwreck2100]

Late to the party but holy fuck what a reaming, you could write a paper on how Rubio sweated himself out of the race in 3 minutes. That was a good move by cristie.

[boutons_deux]

Team Rubio has a plan: lose primaries, win nomination

As results from the New Hampshire primary were still being tallied, Marco Rubio’s communications director urged (https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/697231591370854400) Jeb Bush to drop out of the race in order to prevent Donald Trump’s nomination. As Team Rubio sees it, the Republican “establishment” should simply rally behind the Florida senator, and Jeb stubbornly stands in the way.

It’s a common refrain from Rubio, but it’s also kind of hilarious – because in this week’s high-profile primary, Bush beat Rubio. Though polls showed the senator finishing second, he actually came in fifth. The former governor narrowly edged past him for a fourth-place finish.

In other words, Team Rubio’s pitch is, “That guy who just beat us should quit, so it’ll be easier for us to do better.”

Wouldn’t it be just as easy for Team Jeb to say the same thing about Rubio? Maybe the guy who finished fifth and made himself a national punch-line should get out of the way so that the establishment can consolidate around the candidate who finished ahead of him?

New York’s Jon Chait noted (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/02/gop-establishments-tragedy-of-the-commons.html) yesterday,

“Before New Hampshire, National Review’s Tim Alberta reported that, if Bush finished ahead of Rubio, it might ‘prove crippling’ to the younger Floridian. That proved prophetic. After Rubio’s debate choke, Bush can claim vindication that Rubio is not up to the challenge of a presidential campaign, let alone the presidency.”

The senator, obviously, doesn’t quite see the race this way. But how does Rubio intend to succeed? The Associated Press published a piece (http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:41b348ce4b6c4841a95a4aefdc2ca9 f3) this morning that I had to triple check to make sure it wasn’t intended as satire.

The best hope of the Republican establishment just a week ago, Marco Rubio suddenly faces a path to his party’s presidential nomination that could require a brokered national convention.

That’s according to Rubio’s campaign manager, Terry Sullivan, who told The Associated Press that this week’s disappointing performance in New Hampshire will extend the Republican nomination fight for another three months, if not longer. It’s a worst-case scenario for Rubio and many Republican officials alike who hoped to avoid a prolonged and painful nomination fight in 2016.


On a flight from New Hampshire to South Carolina yesterday, Rubio’s campaign manager sincerely argued (http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:41b348ce4b6c4841a95a4aefdc2ca9 f3), “We very easily could be looking at May – or the convention. I would be surprised if it’s not May or the convention.”

Oh my.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/team-rubio-has-plan-lose-primaries-win-nomination?cid=sm_fb_maddow

:lol

[boutons_deux]

Even Romney sees key Rubio idea as ‘a tax cut for fat cats’

One of the important things to understand about Marco Rubio is that he takes contemporary Republican thought to levels much of the American mainstream would find ridiculous. Most of the GOP, for example, opposes abortion rights, but Rubio goes further, saying even women impregnated by rapists can be forced by the government to take the pregnancy to term – a position no Republican nominee, including Reagan, has ever endorsed.

Most Republicans are hostile towards cap-and-trade, but Rubio opposes any and all efforts to address the climate crisis, dismissing the very idea as attempts to “control the weather.” Nearly every Republican is opposed to President Obama, but Rubio is basing much of his campaign on the assertion that the president is an anti-American traitor hell-bent on national sabotage.

And just about every Republican supports tax cuts of one form or another, but Rubio’s plan to cut capital gains taxes to literally zero is so extreme, even Mitt Romney has condemned the idea. The New York Times’ Josh Barro explained (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/upshot/rubios-call-for-no-capital-gains-tax-is-a-break-with-the-gop.html) the other day:

When Steve Forbes ran for president in 1996 on a plan that called for no taxes on dividends and capital gains, Mitt Romney, then a private citizen, took out a full-page ad in The Boston Globe attacking his proposal as plutocratic.

“The Forbes tax isn’t a flat tax at all – it’s a tax cut for fat cats!” Mr. Romney’s ad declared, noting that “Kennedys, Rockefellers and Forbes” could end up with a tax rate of zero, while ordinary people would be left paying 17 percent on their wage and salary income under Mr. Forbes’s plan.


Barro added that the “mainstream Republican position on capital gains has long been that they should be taxed at a low rate, but not zero.” But then along came Rubio, embracing the “once-fringe idea” as a key part of his platform, despite the policy’s “extreme generosity to taxpayers who derive their income from investments rather than work.”

Paul Krugman added (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/rubio-for-the-rich/) that there’s literally no evidence that such a policy would produce large economic benefits. All it would do is deliver more wealth to “the very, very rich, with essentially nothing for the vast majority of Americans.”

And making matters a little worse, just yesterday we received word from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center on what Rubio’s plan would cost. Vox’s Dylan Matthews reported (http://www.vox.com/2016/2/11/10967152/marco-rubio-tax-policy-center):


Rubio’s plan would cost the government $6.8 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years, TPC concludes, and would increase the deficit by $8.2 trillion once interest payments are taken into account. […]

The analysis finds that the poorest fifth of taxpayers would get $232 back, a 1.3 percent boost in after-tax income. By contrast, the top 1 percent would get $204,995 (8.9 percent of income) back, and the top 0.1 percent would get $1,122,110 (11.5 percent). The overwhelming majority of the plan’s cost (71.1 percent) goes to helping the richest fifth of taxpayers; 40.3 percent goes to the top 1 percent alone.



Let’s not forget that Rubio not only proposes tax cuts for the very wealthy that the nation obviously can’t afford, he intends to do this while increasing military spending (which would increase the deficit) and destroying the Affordable Care Act (which would also increase the deficit).

All the while, the Florida senator, who’s never been especially good at math, says he can do all of this while balancing the budget, which suggests he’s either lying to himself or lying to voters.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but in light of the Tax Policy Center’s analysis, it’s probably fair to say Rubio’s plan is not something we’d expect from a responsible adult. His tax-cut blueprint is less a policy proposal and more a punch-line to a bad joke.

The senator’s rivals have spent the last few months making the case that Rubio just isn’t ready for the presidency, and there’s growing evidence that he’s proving his critics right.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/even-romney-sees-key-rubio-idea-tax-cut-fat-cats?cid=sm_fb_maddow

ANY Repug, they are all extremist, getting into the WH would be a disaster, with Repug extremist controlling all 3 branches of govt.

[Pelicans78]

They should make a robot Rubio toy.

[boutons_deux]

Rubio backers still struggling to find his accomplishments

The story was quickly overshadowed by Marco Rubio’s debate breakdown in New Hampshire, but just a few days prior, Rick Santorum, a prominent Rubio supporter, was asked on MSNBC to name even one accomplishment from the senator’s record. Santorum made a valiant effort, but he couldn’t think of anything (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/high-profile-backer-cant-name-any-rubio-accomplishments).

On Friday, The Hill asked (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gd5yXKnS1w) Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who has also endorsed Rubio, to name something noteworthy that Rubio has actually done. “Well, he has, he has, brought issues out in the public so that the public is aware of the problems that exist,” Inhofe said in response.

Realizing that this wasn’t much of an answer, the Oklahoma Republican tried to elaborate.

“Now, specific, what has he done? He voted for, as I did, the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, and he did it because, and there were several other senators who didn’t, two other senators who didn’t do it.”


It’s hard to blame Senator Snowball for trying, but there are a couple of problems with this. The first is that voting for a spending bill isn’t an “accomplishment,” per se. It’s not the sort of thing that requires a great deal of effort.

The second problem, as the Huffington Post’s Jason Linkins explained (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/marco-rubio-jim-inhofe_us_56bdfa56e4b08ffac124c33a), is that Rubio didn’t actually vote for the NDAA. The one thing Inhofe could come up with wasn’t even true – the Florida senator didn’t show up for work when it came time to approve the NDAA and send it to the White House for a signature.

In other words, asked to name a Rubio accomplishment, one of his high-profile Senate supporters came up with something Rubio didn’t actually do.

On “Fox News Sunday” yesterday, Chris Wallace asked Rubio about Jeb Bush’s argument that he “ran a big state eight years,” while senator “attends hearings.”

Rubio noted in response, “Foreign policy experience is doing as I did, leading the effort to impose additional sanctions on Hezbollah.”

That at least sounds like an accomplishment, except (1) the Hezbollah sanctions bill passed without opposition, so this was hardly a heavy lift; and (2) when it came time for the Senate to vote on the Hezbollah sanctions bill, Rubio again didn’t show up for work.

The senator and his allies will have to keep trying to think of something notable Rubio’s done after spending most of his adult life in public office.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-backers-still-struggling-find-his-accomplishments?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

Rubio claims he bet his political career on an immigration bill he 'never' intended to become
law (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/15/1485666/-Rubio-claims-he-bet-his-political-career-on-an-immigration-bill-he-never-intended-to-become-law)


Marco Rubio on Monday insisted the immigration reform bill he helped spearhead through the Senate was never intended to become law and that the authors of the bill expected conservatives in the House to make it "even better."

"The Senate immigration law was not headed towards becoming law," he told a questioner at a town hall in Rock Hill, S.C. "Ideally it was headed towards the House, where conservative members of the House were going to make it even better." [...] "But it was never going to go from there to the president's desk."


So you mean, Senator, you staked your entire future on a bill that you hoped would never actually become law in the form you wrote it? Wow, that's a claim we admittedly didn't see coming. Brilliant.

So when you made that Sunday morning sweep of seven Sunday TV shows (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/04/15/with_immigration_push_rubio_puts_a_lot_on_the_line .html) back in April 2013 touting the bill, you thought it was just a bunch of rubbish?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/15/1485666/-Rubio-claims-he-bet-his-political-career-on-an-immigration-bill-he-never-intended-to-become-law?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

These Repugs assholes make up shit, just like Christian Taliban pastors, as they go along, and forget about the shit they made up years ago. Do they think nobody keeps records? :lol

[rmt]

Also Rubio's I-squared bill which triples the number of H-1B visas.

[spurraider21]

dailykos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/15/1485666/-Rubio-claims-he-bet-his-political-career-on-an-immigration-bill-he-never-intended-to-become-law?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29)
:lmao

[boutons_deux]

When Jindal and Brownback agree, be forewarned

As things stand, there are 31 Republican governors currently in office. One of them, Ohio’s John Kasich, is running for president. Another, Alabama’s Robert Bentley, has endorsed Kasich.

Other than these two, before this week, the remaining 29 GOP governors were officially neutral – some backed presidential candidates who are no longer in the race, some have remained on the sidelines*.That changed this week, however, when Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) got off the fence and threw his support (http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article60470866.html#storylink=cpy) to Marco Rubio.

The senator welcomed the support, but maybe he shouldn’t have. By most fair measures, Brownback is one of the nation’s least successful governors: his radical economic experiment has failed miserably (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/brownbacks-economic-failures-start-look-even-worse), and recent polling found Brownback less popular (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-tops-brownback-ruby-red-kansas) than President Obama in of the nation’s most ruby-red states.

Perhaps the only thing scarier than a national candidate supported by Brownback would be a national candidate backed by former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R). Oh wait (http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/opinion/14827052-93/james-gill-rubio-goes-for-laughs-with-jindal-praise).

It’s been almost a week since Marco Rubio called Bobby Jindal “one of the best governors in America,” so you should have stopped laughing by now.

Rubio could not possibly have been serious, could he? If a potential leader of the Western world thinks the Jindal administration provided an example worth emulating, then we had better stock up with survival rations and hole up in the wilds.


In the wake of Jindal’s epic, cringe-worthy failures (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/nations-least-popular-governor-seek-presidency) in Louisiana, the state is struggling through fiscal (http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/14642333-171/edwards-owes-up-to-155m-to-cover-jindals-business-deals) and budget (http://theadvocate.com/news/14849227-123/state-halts-tops-payments-to-colleges-universities-in-face-of-budget-crisis) crises that appear almost beyond repair (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/blog/louisiana_faces_worst_fiscal_c.php).

Maybe Rubio was just trying to be polite when he described Jindal, without a hint of irony, as “one of the best governors in America.” But if the praise was sincere, this, coupled with Rubio’s new alliance with Kansas’ Brownback, may tell us something important.

Indeed, part of the point of a presidential campaign is to get a sense of how candidates would govern if given the opportunity. If Rubio, with no previous executive experience, sees failed governors as success stories, it’s not unreasonable to fear that he’d follow a governing model that obviously doesn’t work.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/when-jindal-and-brownback-agree-be-forewarned?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

Cautious Marco Rubio avoids another disaster by refusing questions at 'town halls' (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/18/1487069/-Cautious-Marco-Rubio-avoids-another-disaster-by-refusing-questions-at-town-halls)

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Florida senator's campaign held four events — all dubbed ahead of time as "town halls" — but the candidate didn't take questions from voters at any of them.

He did stick around each time to mingle and take selfies with audience members after delivering his roughly 40-minute stump speech. He also took questions from reporters after an event Wednesday.

A campaign spokesman said the events were changed from town halls to rallies. That more controlled setting allows Rubio to limit the possibility of a bad moment in the home stretch to Saturday's primary.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/18/1487069/-Cautious-Marco-Rubio-avoids-another-disaster-by-refusing-questions-at-town-halls?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

:lol Too chickenshit to trust himself not to put his foot in his mouth :lol

[boutons_deux]

Rubotio so damn serious about actually do the hard work of governing...

New revelations pose a problem for ‘No-Show Rubio’

For pundits, Marco Rubio’s record of not showing up for work has already been dismissed as campaign trivia. For months, the senator’s critics have highlighted Rubio’s history of skipping key votes, important briefings, and committee hearings, and for months, much of the political establishment has been inclined to blow off the issue.

But the Washington Post published a report (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rubio-secured-spot-on-911-committee-then-he-skipped-many-of-the-meetings/2016/02/18/c81bfd4e-d590-11e5-be55-2cc3c1e4b76b_story.html) yesterday that should encourage pundits to take a fresh look at the controversy.

In the anxious weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Florida House hurriedly assembled an elite group of lawmakers to develop plans to keep the state safe.

A spot on the Select Committee on Security was a mark of prominence in Tallahassee. Some of the airplane hijackers had acquired Florida driver’s licenses and trained at flight schools in the state, and legislators lobbied furiously behind the scenes in hopes of being named to the 12-member panel tasked with addressing the state’s newly exposed vulnerabilities.


Among them was a young Republican by the name of Marco Rubio, seen as a rising star in Florida GOP circles at the time, who sought and received one of the coveted slots. It was a rare opportunity for the GOP lawmaker to not only tackle the substance of a major issue, but also earn some credibility.

It really didn’t go well. The Washington Post reported (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rubio-secured-spot-on-911-committee-then-he-skipped-many-of-the-meetings/2016/02/18/c81bfd4e-d590-11e5-be55-2cc3c1e4b76b_story.html) that Rubio “skipped nearly half of the meetings over the first five months of the panel’s existence, more than any of his colleagues.” He also “missed hours of expert testimony and was absent for more than 20 votes.”

In one notable incident, Rubio arrived late for a debate, missed some expert testimony, made a passionate argument against the proposal under consideration, quickly realized his points lacked merit, and then voted for the measure he’d just criticized. :lol

At another point, the article added, Rubio’s indifference to his duties prompted then-State House Speaker Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), who agreed to reward Rubio with the sought after assignment, to “express concern.”

Lately, when asked about his poor attendance habits, Rubio routinely points to the busy schedule of a presidential candidate. But in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Rubio was just a regular ol’ state lawmaker, who had far fewer pressures on his schedule. He nevertheless regularly failed to show up for work.

Making matters slightly worse, this article coincides with a new report (http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/marco-rubio-touts-foreign-relations-work-but-review-shows-he-missed-60/2265958) from the Tampa Bay Times, which noted that Rubio points to his tenure on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as evidence of his White House qualifications, but a closer look suggests that’s probably not a good idea, given that the evidence ”paints a bleak picture of participation in the day-to-day responsibilities of the job.”

Rubio is on the Foreign Relations, Intelligence, Commerce and Small Business and Entrepreneurship committees. The Florida Republican has missed 68 percent of hearings, or 407 of 598 for which records were available.

His skipped 80 percent of Commerce hearings and 85 percent of those held by Small Business, records show.

He has missed 60 percent of Foreign Relations hearings since joining the Senate despite making his committee experience a centerpiece of his qualifications for president.

He attended 68 percent of Intelligence Committee meetings, though he has drawn criticism for missing high-profile ones, such as a briefing on the Paris terror attacks.


The argument from Rubio and his supporters is that he’s a presidential candidate, and it’s expected that senators on the national campaign trail are going to have a much lower profile on Capitol Hill. Maybe so. But the Tampa Bay Times’ analysis started with Rubio’s arrival in the Senate five years ago and ends in November 2015 – months before the official launch of his presidential bid.

The picture that emerges is that of a young man in a hurry, who’s eager for a promotion without having done much to deserve one.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/new-revelations-pose-problem-no-show-rubio?cid=sm_fb_maddow

No Show Rubotio is one diseased mofo.

[boutons_deux]

coal bear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5ZwtSwSX3Q

[ducks]

Bush trained him
Bush loser

[DMX7]

Bush trained him
Bush loser

Bush loser? You're like a caveman. Can you string together a complete sentence?

[boutons_deux]

Rubotio is fucking stupid

After Publishing On Breitbart News, Rubio Dismisses It As Not Credible

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) claimed that pro-Trump Breitbart News is "not a credible source" during a Fox News interview about a story published to the website that was critical of his previous immigration policies. However, Rubio wrote a post that was published by Breitbart News just days before he dismissed the website.

Rubio Dismisses Breitbart News As"Not A Credible Source" For Story About His Immigration Stance

Rubio: Breitbart News Is "Not A Credible Source" And Its Stories Are "Basically Conspiracy Theories."

In a February 20 interview on Fox News, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) claimed that a report from Breitbart News should be dismissed because Breitbart is "not a credible source." Rubio went on to criticize the conservative news site by saying its articles are "basically conspiracy theories and often times manipulated":

NEIL CAVUTO (HOST): You have former ICE officials now, who are saying that your push for enforcement along the border hasn't been consistent. That when you were a part of that Gang of Eight, that you were not making it a priority. When they questioned this Chris Crane, who ran this council group of officers, said that"not one of the changes we suggested was made to the bill before Senator Rubio introducedit,"that he tried and failed with you repeatedly, that your heart wasn't in it.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): Yeah, number one, that's not true and he's not an ICE official. He's the head of a union. And it's being reported on a website that's not a credible source. It's the same website that said, Neil, that you guys gave me the questions to the debate because one of the members of my staff has a family member that runs --

CAVUTO: So this was at Breitbart, so you don't give it any credence,or his remarks any credence?

RUBIO: We don't even credential them for our events. This is the same website that reported that Fox News -- and that you,and youguys,inyour debate -- gave me the questions to the debate so I could prepare. You know that that's not true. So, I literally don't even talk about the things they report because they're basically conspiracy theories and often times manipulated. [Fox News, The Cost of Freedom, 2/20/16 (http://mediamatters.org/embed/clips/2016/02/21/44877/fnc-scf-20160220-rubiocavuto)

http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/02/21/after-publishing-on-breitbart-news-rubio-dismis/208718

[spurraider21]

do you think breitbart is a credible source?

[Aztecfan03]

do you think breitbart is a credible source?

It has become a laughingstock. What is ironic is that Andrew Breitbart was really against Trump, but he's dead now and his site can't stop sucking Trump's dick.

[Nbadan]

It has become a laughingstock. What is ironic is that Andrew Breitbart was really against Trump, but he's dead now and his site can't stop sucking Trump's dick.

:rolleyes

He showed sooooo much integrity when James O Keefe was defaming Acorn with edited videos.....what an asssssshooolllleeee...

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio’s latest loss hard to overlook

Despite excessive media buzz, Rubio came in third in Iowa, and soon after, polls showed him on track to finish second in New Hampshire. The senator’s support quickly dried up, however, following a cringe-worthy debate performance, and Rubio finished an embarrassing fifth in the Granite State.

And in South Carolina, we now know Rubio finished second, barely escaping third, losing to Donald Trump by double digits. In terms of the broader race for the Republican nomination, the frontrunner picked up 50 delegates in the Palmetto State. Rubio earned none.

This, of course, is being characterized as yet another triumph for the young senator. :lol

Rubio eked out a second-place finish, which looks more impressive when compared to his New Hampshire results.

As the field narrows, and the GOP establishment and donor class gets more hysterical in demanding (http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/republicans-rush-to-crown-marco-rubio-the-anti-trump-standar#.gdj7LVnjlE) that Republicans get in line behind the senator, Rubio is positioned to consolidate more support, picking up voters and contributors who were on board with candidates like Jeb Bush.

But the conventional wisdom surrounding his latest loss overlooks something important: Rubio lost a primary he should have won.

Consider:


* Rubio enjoyed the enthusiastic backing of nearly the entire South Carolina GOP establishment which endorsed him, cut ads for him, and aggressively hit the campaign trail on his behalf.

* One of his high-profile supports in the state, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), boasted (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-sc-the-gop-contest-looks-more-and-more-like-a-three-man-race/2016/02/18/8ae338ae-d660-11e5-9823-02b905009f99_story.html) last week that Rubio had a credible shot at winning the primary.

* Team Rubio itself, a month earlier, said it expected a victory in South Carolina.

* Rubio and his super PAC invested heavily (http://morningconsult.com/2016/02/marco-rubio-ted-cruz-donald-trump-jeb-bush-gop-race/) in the state – outspending every other Republican except Team Jeb.

* Rubio paid (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-02-17/rubio-and-allies-made-big-investment-in-south-carolina-insiders-filings-show) “more than $1.1 million to South Carolina operatives and political consultants, more than triple the amount of all his opponents combined.”

And despite all of this, Rubio nevertheless lost by double digits – to a first-time candidate who spent the week leading up to the primary saying bizarre things, and who has nothing in common with the state’s Southern, evangelical population.

A variety of adjectives come to mind. “Triumphant” and “impressive” aren’t among them.

Sooner or later, to sustain the perception of viability, Rubio will need to win somewhere.

And it’s not unreasonable to ask … if Rubio can’t win here, with most of the state’s Republican apparatus supporting him, where can he?

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/marco-rubios-latest-loss-hard-overlook?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

A generation later, Rubio flubs ‘Morning in America’

Marco Rubio’s new television ad is generating a fair amount of attention, but not for reasons his campaign will like. In the opening moments of the minute-long “morning in America” spot, viewers see a boat crossing a harbor – which wouldn’t be especially interesting except for the fact that it’s a Canadian harbor (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/new-rubio-morning-america-ad-apparently-uses-stock-footage-canada).

And while that’s obviously amusing, it’s not the only reason to pay attention to the ad.

The “morning in America” reference, of course, is not accidental. It’s a phrase many Americans, especially Republicans, will probably recognize as a signature theme of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign. Remember this ad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU-IBF8nwSY) from 32 years ago? For those who can’t watch clips online,here’s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_in_America) the script:

“It’s morning again in America. Today more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country’s history. With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly 2,000 families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years. This afternoon 6,500 young men and women will be married, and with inflation at less than half of what it was just four years ago, they can look forward with confidence to the future. It’s morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?”


And now, consider the message of Rubio’s version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp80DfHgJ8k) of the same ad. Note it’s mirror-image parallels.

“It’s morning again in America. Today, more men and women are out of work than ever before in our nation’s history. People pay more in taxes than they will for food, housing, and clothing combined. Nearly 20 trillion in debt for the next generation, double what it was just eight years ago. This afternoon, almost 6,000 men and women will be married, and with growing threats and growing government, they’ll look forward with worry to the future. It’s morning again in America and under the leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton our country is more vulnerable, divided, and diminished than ever before. Why would we ever want for more years, again, of that?”


Maybe the whole “morning” metaphor was a little too subtle for Marco Rubio.

The point of Reagan’s “morning in America” was optimism. “Mornings,” as a metaphor, are about new beginnings, fresh starts, and the hopes that come with a new day and new possibilities. It’s why the Republican icon made it the theme of his re-election campaign – he wanted people to feel good about the country.

Our dreams aren’t dying; they’re just getting started. It’s not the end of an American promise; it’s the beginning.

Rubio’s ad keeps saying “it’s morning again in America,” except the Florida senator doesn’t seem to understand that he’s using “morning” incorrectly.

To hear Rubio tell it, the United States is on the verge of a dystopian nightmare as our country descends into a hellhole. :lol

Rubio’s “morning” isn’t about new beginnings and new possibilities; it’s about waking up, opening the window shade, and feeling as miserable and pessimistic as possible. :lol

It’s as if the senator got confused, and thought “morning” and “twilight” were effectively the same thing.

This is, however, part of a pattern. For months, Rubio’s polls were stagnant when he tried to run a positive, optimistic campaign, so he decided to scrap his message and adopt Trump’s script as his own. As of a couple of months ago, Rubio began telling the public the United States is “in decline (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/meet-marco-rubio-donald-trumps-echo)” the American dream is “dying (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/meet-marco-rubio-donald-trumps-echo).”

This new commercial is a continuation of the theme. Rubio is selling crushing pessimism with a smile, assuming people won’t pay attention to the fact that he’s not pitching Reagan’s message; he’s offering the literal opposite.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/generation-later-rubio-flubs-morning-america?cid=sm_fb_maddow
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/generation-later-rubio-flubs-morning-america?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

Rubio turns energy policy over to oilman donor, doesn’t even blush

http://grist.org/climate-energy/rubio-turns-energy-policy-over-to-oilman-donor-doesnt-even-blush/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feedgrist

Rubotio is such cheap little puta, turning tricks for anybody's dinero.

[Reck]

Kasich and Carson need to drop out ASAP.

It's hurting Rubio big time. They're costing him votes.

12% would be on the table tonight if not for them.

[ducks]

Rubio needs to get out
He keeps lossing

[spurraider21]

Kasich and Carson need to drop out ASAP.

It's hurting Rubio big time. They're costing him votes.

12% would be on the table tonight if not for them.
Kasich is taking votes from Rubio, Carson is taking votes from Trump because they both fall under the bullshit "outsider" category

https://i.gyazo.com/476757268483cee9ee1696b996f56762.png

[InRareForm]

If Cruz drops out... does trump get a net gain of voters?

If rubio drops out.. does trump get more net gain of voters?

[spurraider21]

yeah cruz voters make no sense :lol... they support cruz because he's "the most conservative" but then trump is their 2nd option?

rubio needs kasich to bow out and carson to stay in. cruz is fucked unless rubio drops out prematurely

[ElNono]

IMO, Carson takes evangelical votes from Cruz... the longer he stays, the more fucked up Cruz is... especially now that Rubio is getting Jeb's votes

[spurraider21]

IMO, Carson takes evangelical votes from Cruz... the longer he stays, the more fucked up Cruz is... especially now that Rubio is getting Jeb's votes
trump is beating cruz with evangelicals anyway... which is basically gg

[ElNono]

trump is beating cruz with evangelicals anyway... which is basically gg

Yeah. IMO, Rubio is the only guy with any shot at making this a two horse race, but he needs to do a lot better than this. That's why that extra 4%, 5% from Kasich would help him solidify the 2nd spot and try to gain some momentum...

[boutons_deux]

NV

1. trump 46% 12 d

2. rubotio 23% 5 d

3. cruz 20% 5 d

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=nv%20caucus%20results&eob=m.059_c/R/2/short/m.059_c/

Go Bernie!

[spurraider21]

at this point it looks like its gna be hillary barring an indictment :lol

[rmt]

yeah cruz voters make no sense :lol... they support cruz because he's "the most conservative" but then trump is their 2nd option?

rubio needs kasich to bow out and carson to stay in. cruz is fucked unless rubio drops out prematurely

Both are considered "outsiders."

[spurraider21]

Both are considered "outsiders."
http://groundsforappeal.ihookitup.com/files/2010/11/palin-mavrick2.gif

[boutons_deux]

This is ordinarily about the time pundits start telling the public how impressive Marco Rubio’s triumphant second-place showing really was. And while I don’t doubt some will make a valiant effort to put a pro-Rubio spin on the Nevada results, his latest failure is almost certainly the most devastating to date.

Indeed, Rubio was supposed to win the Nevada caucuses. Consider:

* Rubio lived in Nevada and he still has many extended family members in the state.

* Rubio invested heavily in the state, running far more ads than any other Republican, seeing it as a real opportunity for a key victory.

* Rubio enjoyed the support of Nevada’s Republican governor, Republican senator, two of the state’s three Republican congressmen, and the editorial board of Nevada’s largest newspaper. Among GOP lawmakers in the state legislature, Rubio received more than double (https://twitter.com/bshor/status/702191640887230464) the number of endorsements than his next closest rival.

* As recently as December, Nevada was described as Rubio’s “firewall (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428823/marco-rubio-nevada-caucuses-ted-cruz)” – the state he could count on winning, even if all else fails. :lol

It’s against this backdrop that Rubio lost by 22 points. Nevada has 16 counties, and Rubio fell short in each of them. :lol

The Florida senator’s communications director last night applauded (https://twitter.com/AlexConant/status/702371428612628480) Rubio’s “strong finish in Nevada.” :lol

It’s hard to imagine even the most sycophantic supporter actually believing this.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/nevada-trump-cruises-22-point-win-over-rubio?cid=sm_fb_maddow

strong finishED. :lol

[ducks]

Yeah Rubio blames others that are in the race but u add Cruz and his his u might beat trump
Man up and admit u lost
Your poor work ethic in Washington cost u and not attending 60 percent of your foreign affair meetings when u are on the board

[rmt]

Yeah Rubio blames others that are in the race but u add Cruz and his his u might beat trump
Man up and admit u lost
Your poor work ethic in Washington cost u and not attending 60 percent of your foreign affair meetings when u are on the board

I won't forgetting that he's sponsoring the I-squared bill that may almost quadruple the number of H1-B visas when it's time for Florida.

[hater]

Rubio sucks as bad as Jeb tbh :lmao

christie completely obliterated him with 2 sentences :lol

this is too easy for The Donald :lol

[boutons_deux]

Rubio backers still can’t find his successes

The first sign of trouble, oddly enough, came from Rick Santorum. Shortly after the failed presidential candidate endorsed Marco Rubio, Santrorum was asked on MSNBC to name even one accomplishment from the Florida senator’s record. Santorum made a valiant effort, but he couldn’t think of anything (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/high-profile-backer-cant-name-any-rubio-accomplishments).

“I guess it’s hard to say there are accomplishments.” Santorum conceded a few days before the New Hampshire primary.

Two weeks later, another notable Rubio backer, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) was asked the same question. Inhofe pointed to a military spending bill the Florida senator voted for – which didn’t make any sense since Rubio didn’t show up for work (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-backers-still-struggling-find-his-accomplishments) when the Senate passed the bill in question.

And yesterday, as Politico reported (http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/marco-rubio-cresent-hardy-accomplishments-219729), it happened yet again.

One of Marco Rubio’s newest congressional endorsers struggled to point to one specific thing he has seen over the course of the last year from the Florida senator that, as MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts asked, “demonstrates presidential character.” Not only that, but he also called some of the Rubio’s past actions “frustrating.”

It would have been bad enough for Rep. Cresent Hardy (R-Nev.), who endorsed Rubio ahead of this week’s Nevada caucuses, to come up empty when defending the Floridian’s record. But during hisMSNBC appearance (http://www.msnbc.com/thomas-roberts/watch/will-rubio-unify-gop-630382147516?cid=sm_tw_msnbc), the congressman added, “As far as [Rubio’s] policies in the past, I know that he’s done some things that even have been a little frustrating for an individual like myself at times.”

Hardy did applaud the “Gang of Eight” immigration reform package, which is the one thing Rubio actually worked on, but which Rubio soon after abandoned in order to appeal to the Republican Party’s far-right base.

In other words, we saw yet another one of Rubio’s congressional supporters come up empty when trying to explain why their preferred candidate deserves a promotion to the world’s most powerful office.

John Kasich’s campaign, hoping to exploit Rubio’s recent failures at the ballot box, was quick to highlight (https://twitter.com/TeamJohnKasich/status/702530703636996096?ref_src=twsrc^tfw) the interview. “It’s weird to send surrogates out without them being able to list one achievement but at least they are being honest,”


http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-backers-still-cant-find-his-successes?cid=sm_fb_maddow

Rubotio thinks he can become President with talking points, exagerrations, lies.

Of course, that Rubotio hasn't actaully governed for shit endears him to Repugs who hate government, refuse to govern.

[Aztecfan03]

Kasich is taking votes from Rubio, Carson is taking votes from Trump because they both fall under the bullshit "outsider" category

https://i.gyazo.com/476757268483cee9ee1696b996f56762.png

looks like the best shot is to unite behind cruz.

[Aztecfan03]

yeah cruz voters make no sense :lol... they support cruz because he's "the most conservative" but then trump is their 2nd option?

rubio needs kasich to bow out and carson to stay in. cruz is fucked unless rubio drops out prematurely

it's because they are both seen as outsiders to the establishment. The only thing is Trump is so outside, he is all the way in left field.

[rmt]

looks like the best shot is to unite behind cruz.

But the establishment hates Cruz more than Trump. They feel they can negotiate with Trump more.

[hater]

Trump leading Rubio in NewCuba (florida) 40-20 :lmao

his own home state :lol

[Nbadan]

http://i66.tinypic.com/axg1vo.jpg


Looks like Marco Rubio has some ‘splaining to do. More and more rumors are surfacing out of Florida that he had an ongoing affair with a DC lobbyist named Amber Stoner. This allegedly occurred while he wase serving as the Speaker of the Florida State House of Representatives. He used an American Express credit card from the Florida Republican Party to pay for AT LEAST 17 separate trips for the two of them. They seemed to end up in the very same place frequently. I’ve heard these rumors for some time now and usually where there is smoke, there is fire with this sort of thing. The records in question are publicly searchable on The Florida Times-Union website. People are asking why a lobbyist would be traveling using his credit card and why a number of those trips were to resort locations

Read more: http://rightwingnews.com/republicans/breaking-damning-affair-scandal-erupts-for-gop-candidate/

......'there are 17 trips by this Amber Stoner on Rubio's credit charges within this database....

[Reck]

http://i66.tinypic.com/axg1vo.jpg



Read more: http://rightwingnews.com/republicans/breaking-damning-affair-scandal-erupts-for-gop-candidate/

......'there are 17 trips by this Amber Stoner on Rubio's credit charges within this database....

Dont blame him. Red head looks very fuckable.

[boutons_deux]

10 Things You Need to Know About Marco Rubio

He's also enjoyed a cozy relationship (http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/rubiobovo-consulting-web) with state Rep. Esteban Bovo, who's a lobbyist by day, and Bovo's wife, also a lobbyist, who ended up on a couple of air trips with Rubio that were charged to that GOP credit card. Another young health care lobbyist, Amber Stoner, also shows up (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/26/1058793/-Marco-Rubio-s-financial-problems-updated-) as a recipient of 10 paid flights with Rubio on his Republican Amex.

It goes deeper, but trying to untangle Rubio's lobbyist and dark-money connections is like trying to flowchart Whitewater and Iran-Contra while eating spaghetti with chopsticks outside, at night, in the middle of a hurricane.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/04/ten-things-you-need-know-about-marco-rubio

Senator Marco Rubio has been having some problems with his personal finances (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/marco-rubio-vp-gop-candidates-florida-primary_n_1233480.html) which could present a problem for him in a vice presidential vetting process.

Rubio owes far more on his $384,000 Miami home than it is worth, and at times has had difficulty paying his mortgage.He bought the home in 2005 for $550,000 with a $495,000 mortgage. He soon had it appraised for $735,000 and took out a second mortgage for $135,000.

In 2008, despite earning a declared $400,000 - including his $300,000 salary from the Miami law firm Broad and Cassel - Rubio failed to make a payment on his home for several months, according to Florida campaign finance disclosures.
During the same period he did not make payments on a $100,000-plus student loan from his days at the University of Miami, the disclosures said.


Apparently he also got in some trouble for using a credit card issued by the Florida Republican Party for personal reasons, and had to pay them back. How can you earn $400,000 a year and still be unable to pay your mortgage and student loans? Where was all the money going? I hope someone will do a little more looking into that question as it could be, at the very least, quite a bit of fun to read.
Feel free to conjecture below.

Updated: Well, this started as an idle post out of a newspaper story, but a tiny bit of looking around finds a few questions. There appear to be some suggestions out there that he may have had a relationship (of what kind I do not know) with a health care lobbyist, Amber Stoner.

Here's a question for Marco Rubio (http://www.pensitoreview.com/2010/10/05/fl-sen-heres-a-question-for-marco-rubio-about-lobbyist-amber-stone/) - his credit cards had at least 10 charges for flights under Amber Stoner's name (image here (http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/09/30/just-what-is-going-on-here-between-marco-rubio-healthcare-lobbyist-amber-stoner/))

She checks in (http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/foursquare-tallahassee-mayors-you-may-not-know) at his office on Foursquare a lot

Did he help (http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/09/30/the-mystery-of-marco-rubio-healthcare-lobbyist-amber-stoner-part-2/) buy her a house?

So - that is what the rumor mill seems to be saying. I have no idea whether there is anything to it or whether it is related to his financial issues.

12:26 PM PT (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/26/1058793/-Marco-Rubios-financial-problems-(updated)#20120126122629): You can see the charges on his credit card here:

http://news.jacksonville.com/... (http://news.jacksonville.com/db/gopexpenses/index.php?action=details&cid=18)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/26/1058793/-Marco-Rubio-s-financial-problems-updated-


Marco Rubio Remains A Star, But Financial Problems Could Keep Him From Vice Presidency

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/marco-rubio-vp-gop-candidates-florida-primary_n_1233480.html

[DMX7]

Trump isn't just going to take what Rubio did to him last night. Get ready for him to start attacking Rubio as a nervous sweater... if things really get heated (and they most certainly will :lol ) then Trump may even start going after Rubio's financial difficulties.

[Reck]

Trump isn't just going to take what Rubio did to him last night. Get ready for him to start attacking Rubio as a nervous sweater... if things really get heated (and they most certainly will :lol ) then Trump may even start going after Rubio's financial difficulties.

Now that would be ironic.

It would backfire in a few ways. 1, who do you think is supporting him? The poor. Him saying Rubio is a poor son of a bitch only makes Rubio look like he's at the same standard and level as the average joe.

And 2, Trump is a proud dude. With the ways he's dodging releasing his taxes he's not about to poke the bear. He's always saying how rich he is. if the reason he's delaying it its because he's not as rich, that's an embarrassment for him.

[DMX7]

Now that would be ironic.

It would backfire in a few ways. 1, who do you think is supporting him? The poor. Him saying Rubio is a poor son of a bitch only makes Rubio look like he's at the same standard and level as the average joe.

And 2, Trump is a proud dude. With the ways he's dodging releasing his taxes he's not about to poke the bear. He's always saying how rich he is. if the reason he's delaying it its because he's not as rich, that's an embarrassment for him.

He doesn't play by the rules of common sense. :lol

[Dirk Oneanddoneski]

Word out of Miami is Rubio is a faggot on the down low but he wasn't too down low about it back in the 90s:wow

http://i.imgur.com/YecSu1K.jpg

http://radaronline.com/celebrity-news/marco-rubio-past-gay-clubs-parties-arrest/

[hater]

he's done. Hail Trump

no wonder I found it odd that he talked about playing Volleyball and liking electronic music :lol

[boutons_deux]

Rubio is really stupid, but that's all Repugs do, play the martyred victims of whatever

Despite media’s ‘crush,’ Rubio sees bizarre conspiracy

In media and political circles, it’s known as the “Full Ginsburg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Ginsburg).” It’s when one notable public figure appears on all five major Sunday morning shows on the same day, and it’s usually reserved for policymakers at the center of major breakthroughs.

It came as something of a surprise, then, when Marco Rubio celebrated his fifth-place finish in the New Hampshire primary by pulling off the Full Ginsburg.

Then seven days later, following his double-digit loss in the South Carolina primary, Rubio pulled off the Full Ginsburg again, receiving and accepting five more Sunday-show invitations.

When was the last time someone had back-to-back Full Ginsburgs? Never. Rubio, once hailed as “the Republican savior” on the cover of Time magazine, received a media reward that no American has ever received.

Had the Florida senator actually won those primaries, the media’s adulation might have been easier to understand, but remember, Rubio made 10 appearances over two Sundays after embarrassing defeats.

The reason for this special treatment is one of those things the political world tends not to talk about, though Slate’s Jamelle Bouie recently acknowledged (https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/701234133733867520) what usually goes unsaid: “[T]he media has a huge crush” on Marco Rubio.

With this in mind, it came as something of a surprise to see Rubio on CBS this morning, complaining about an elaborate media conspiracy – to help Donald Trump. The Washington Post’s Greg Sargentflagged (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/02/26/rubio-my-disastrous-failure-to-stop-trump-is-the-medias-fault/) this bizarre quote:


“The media’s pumping [Trump] up as some sort of unstoppable force…. Unfortunately he’s being pumped up because many in the media with a bias know that he’ll be easy to beat in a general election.”


In a separate ABC interview this morning – the conspiracy is so vast, news organizations keep putting Rubio on television so he can share his conspiracy theory – the senator said (http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/marco-rubio-donald-trump-con-artist-219843) the media is “holding back” its Trump criticism in order to hurt Republicans in the fall.
“It’s important for Republicans and conservatives to be aware of what is happening,” he added.

So, from Rubio’s perspective, the same news organizations that have shown him levels of affection that border on creepy are actually conspiring in secret against him. It’s all part of an elaborate media ruse to help Trump defeat Rubio in order to help Democrats.

Remember, thanks to media hype, we’re supposed to think Rubio’s the smart one in the 2016 field. :lol

The senator’s conspiracy theory is so crazy, it’s unsettling that he repeated it out loud on national television.

Keep in mind that last night, as part of the network’s debate coverage, CNN told viewers that Rubio has “new momentum (https://twitter.com/frankrichny/status/703029650860204033).” The network made the claim before the debate, on the heels of Rubio losing the Nevada caucuses – which he expected to win – by 22 points.

This, a week after Politico published a lengthy report (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/marco-rubio-south-carolina-219310) on Rubio’s campaign in South Carolina – the headline read, “Rubio surges back to electrify South Carolina” – that read as if his campaign aides had written it themselves.

This, nearly a month after pundits and reporters eagerly pretended Rubio’s third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses was actually a triumphant victory.

Greg Sargent recently noted (https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/693165966453252097) that media figures are “making it absurdly obvious that they want to be able to say Rubio is rising,” prompting MSNBC’s Chris Hayes to respond (http://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/693166369249083392), “It’s like watching parents attempt to will their toddler into doing a difficult task.” :lol

To be sure, this isn’t unprecedented. We can probably all think of election cycles in which the media obviously adores a candidate (John McCain in 2000, for example) and obviously scorns another (Al Gore in 2000, for example). It certainly seems as if the “crush” on Rubio is real, but he’s not the first to enjoy such affections.

Rubio is, however, the first candidate in recent memory who benefits from the media’s overt fondness, but who nevertheless believes the media is engaged in a conspiracy to help one of his rivals, in order to help one of his other rivals.

Such paranoia says something unsettling about the presidential hopeful’s perspective.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/despite-medias-crush-rubio-sees-bizarre-conspiracy?cid=sm_fb_maddow

ALL the Repugs are bat fucking shit crazy, ignorant, stupid.

[boutons_deux]

10 Reasons Marco Rubio Is No Moderate

Marco Rubio is being positioned as a moderate alternative to Ted Cruz or Donald Trump. Baloney. His positions are extreme right.

Consider these 10 facts about Rubio:

1. Rubio wants to repeal Obama’s executive order to expand background checks and close gun sale loopholes.

2. When asked about closing down mosques, Rubio said he wants to shutdown “any place radicals are inspired.”

3. He denies humans are responsible for climate change.

4. His tax plan gives the top 1 percent over $200,000 in tax cuts every year. That’s as bad as Donald Trump’s tax plan.

5. He wants to cut $4.3 trillion in spending, including funds from Medicare and other programs, essentially freeze federal spending at 2008 levels for everything except the Pentagon.

6. He wants a permanent U.S. presence in Iraq, and would end the nuclear deal with Iran, putting us on a path to war.

7. We have no way to know where he is on immigration because he’s flip-flopped — first working on legislation to regularize citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and now firmly anti-legalization.

8. He wants to repeal Obamacare.

9. He’s against a woman’s right to choose, even in cases of rape and incest.

10. Although elected to the Senate as a Tea Party favorite, he’s now the establishment’s favorite Republican. Among his donors are hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer and the executives and PACs of Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Koch Industries.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/video_here_are_10_reasons_that_show_marco_rubio_is _no_moderate_20160229?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+Truthdig+Truthdig%253A+Dril ling+Beneath+the+Headlines

[Pelicans78]

Bouton, you have no clue about Rubio.

He's not a real candidate. He's a propped up clown by establishment Republicans to help them win the Hispanic vote and allow them to get cheap foreign labor. They give him a script which he reads over and over which he is why he appears robotic. He doesn't believe anything he says. Unfortunately most voters see thru his rhetoric which is why he will be irrelevant as a candidate after tomorrow night.

[boutons_deux]

Bouton, you have no clue about Rubio.

:lol you'r full of shit

[Pelicans78]

:lol you'r full of shit

No you are sitting behind you're computer 24/7. Rubio is not some real candidate who believes in what's he campaigning. He's been reading a script for years in hopes for the GOP to win the Hispanic vote. If you don't believe that, then you take him more seriously than you need to. He's been propped up by special interest groups. He's shaky at times during speeches and debates because he's having to stay within the script he receives even though he doesn't believe half the stuff he talks about it.

[boutons_deux]

I don't take ANY of the Repug candidates seriously. The Repug KLOWN KAR, financed by billionaires, artificial "candidates" with no real appeal, not one of them, or ANY Repugs, have any interest in governing.

[Pelicans78]

I don't take ANY of the Repug candidates seriously. The Repug KLOWN KAR, financed by billionaires, artificial "candidates" with no real appeal, not one of them, or ANY Repugs, have any interest in governing.

Of course your usual response. To be fair, Hillary fits in that mold but you have no choice to support her at this point. Your guy Sanders has little chance.

[boutons_deux]

The ‘Neocon Dream Team’ picks a Republican favorite

take a look at Mother Jones’ latest reporting (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/marco-rubio-announces-his-neocon-dream-team) on Marco Rubio and his “Neocon Dream Team.”

Among the 18 members of Rubio’s new “National Security Advisory Council,” which his campaign announced on Monday, are Elliott Abrams, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush who’s best known for lying to Congress about the Reagan administration’s role in the Iran-Contra scandal; Eliot Cohen, a historian, Iraq war supporter, and lawyer at the State Department during the Bush administration; Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security during Bush’s second term; and Michael Mukasey, a Bush administration attorney general.

Abrams and Cohen were members of the Project for a New American Century, an early-2000s group of neconservatives who pushed for big increases in defense spending, more American military intervention abroad, regime change in Iraq, and other policies that became Bush administration staples.


Keep in mind, when Rubio first arrived on Capitol Hill, he wasn’t exactly eager to be seen as a neoconservative hawk. In 2012, the Floridian said (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/12/cruz-rubio-gop-foreign-policy.html#), “I don’t want to come across as some sort of saber-rattling person.”

But a common thread tying together much of Rubio’s career is his willingness to embrace far-right ideas if he thinks it’ll help advance his ambitions. In 2016, the senator sees neocons in need of a standard-bearer, so Rubio has decided to be pick up that torch and espouse an aggressive foreign policy that would likely involve several new U.S. wars (http://www.vox.com/2016/2/20/11067932/rubio-worse-than-trump).

Naturally, then, when it came time for Rubio to unveil his “National Security Advisory Council,” it’s filled with familiar names associated with a failed policy.

This tells us quite a bit about the senator’s candidacy, but it also sheds some light on the shamelessness of those who contributed to the Bush/Cheney catastrophes. I’m reminded again of a James Fallows piece (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/the-past-is-never-dead-bill-faulkner-said-but-what-did-he-know/372887/) from a couple of years ago.

We all make mistakes. But we are talking about people in public life – writers, politicians, academics – who got the biggest strategic call in many decades completely wrong. Wrong as a matter of analysis, wrong as a matter of planning, wrong as a matter of execution, wrong in conceiving American interests in the broadest sense.

None of these people did that intentionally, and many of them have honestly reflected and learned. But we now live with (and many, many people have died because of) the consequences of their gross misjudgments a dozen years ago. In the circumstances, they might have the decency to shut the hell up on this particular topic for a while.


Except, lacking decency, many of these folks have not only ruled out shutting up, they’ve decided to declare themselves credible policy leaders, ready to help advise another Republican president on matters of national security and foreign policy.

What could possibly go wrong?

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-neocon-dream-team-picks-republican-favorite?cid=sm_fb_maddow

And of course, the neocons will be satisfied with neocon Hillary.

[boutons_deux]

Some Rubio advisers say get out before Florida

A battle is being waged within Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/20/us/marco-rubio-fast-facts/)'s campaign about whether he should even remain in the Republican presidential race ahead of his home state primary on March 15 (http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/29/politics/2016-presidential-primaries-and-caucuses-fast-facts/), sources say.

Rubio himself is "bullish" on his odds of winning the critical primary, despite some advisers who are less hopeful and believe a loss there would damage him politically in both the short- and long-term.

Publicly, the campaign is maintaining they are still a contender in this race, touting a Sunday win in Puerto Rico's primary (http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/06/politics/puerto-rico-maine-results/index.html) that delivered Rubio 23 delegates. But privately, the campaign is having a debate about whether he should remain in the mix -- even for his home state of Florida's primary.

"He doesn't want to get killed in his home state," one source familiar with the discussions said, noting "a poor showing would be a risk and hurt his political future."

Alex Conant, Rubio's communication director, said the report of such an internal debate is "100% false."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/politics/marco-rubio-campaign-weighs-getting-out/index.html

If Rubotio gets clobbered in FL, he may not get elected again, but he's such a slimeball he should do OK lobbying.

[Chinook]

9. He’s against a woman’s right to choose, even in cases of rape and incest.

I know this is off-topic, but this thread sucks anyway. Abortion was a big issue in the 2012 elections, and people kept trying to pin Republicans down on their exceptions. I never got why they kept saying "victims of (rape and) incest". Like how are you a victim of incest? Did you schtoop your brother? All right, so you're not a victim of anything. You had consensual intercourse and don't deserve special status. If it's illegal, both should go to jail. Did your uncle force himself on you? Then you were raped, and that's already covered.

Incidentally, that whole abortion witch hunt that happened that year was really messed up. Sure you had stupid guys like Aiken who deserved to get canned. But things like what Mourdock said is just being consistent, and most of the people vilifying him seem more ignorant than he was.

[DMX7]

“In terms of things that have to do with personal stuff, yeah, at the end of the day it’s not something I’m entirely proud of. My kids were embarrassed by it, and if I had to do it again I wouldn’t,” he said during an MSNBC town hall.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/rubio-says-hes-not-entirely-proud-personal-attacks-against-trump

[rmt]

There's no reason for Trump (if he is nominated) to offer Rubio VP. I see Cruz as VP more and more now for the sake of party unity. To me, Kasich is the best fit - personality wise with gubernatorial and congressional experience.

[boutons_deux]

"Cruz as VP more and more now for the sake of party unity."

:lol Krazy Kruz won't unify the Repug establishment that loathes him. :lol

[DMX7]

There's no reason for Trump (if he is nominated) to offer Rubio VP. I see Cruz as VP more and more now for the sake of party unity. To me, Kasich is the best fit - personality wise with gubernatorial and congressional experience.

they hate cruz... they just hate him slightly less than Trump.

[rmt]

I don't mean the establishment. I mean Cruz's voters. If Trump gets the nomination, he needs to extend the olive branch to Cruz's voters or they'll stay home. Asking him to be VP is one way to get his voters back. I shouldn't have used the term "party unity."

[MultiTroll]

Did the Oil Pigs / Establishment Repugs get to Rubio?

Rubio Flip-Flops on Climate Change
http://www.newser.com/story/186874/rubio-flip-flops-on-climate-change.html

[Reck]

Rubio and Kasich brokered a deal it seems. Rubio told his based voters to actually vote for Kasich in Ohio instead of himself. :lmao

[spurraider21]

"Cruz as VP more and more now for the sake of party unity."

:lol Krazy Kruz won't unify the Repug establishment that loathes him. :lol



are you going to vote for Krazy Klinton in the general election if she gets the nom?

[Mitch]

Rubio and Kasich brokered a deal it seems. Rubio told his based voters to actually vote for Kasich in Ohio instead of himself. :lmao

Brokered is a key word here :lol

GOP might have decided to push them on the same ticket and give them the nomination in a brokered convention.

[rmt]

Rubio is the only one who is suggesting that his fans in Ohio vote for Kasich. Both Cruz and Kasich ask their followers to vote for them everywhere.

[Splits]

708674789943218177

:lol that look on his face

[Nbadan]

Former Florida Allies Assert on the Record That Rubio Is a Lazy, Devious Little Twerp
Source: Slate


It is widely anticipated that Marco Rubio is going to get shellacked on his home turf in Tuesday's Florida presidential primary. A very unsympathetic Friday profile in the Tampa Bay Times suggests that part of the reason this is so is that Rubio's entire career has consisted of sweet-talking influential individuals into giving him big opportunities only to drop those individuals like hot rocks when another better thing comes along. The idea is that now, when he needs home-state support more than ever, Rubio has no one on the ground to rely on; a number of past allies in fact went on the record to tell the Times exactly how little they like lil' Marco and how bad he is at actually doing the jobs he's chosen for. In other words, all the people he stepped on on the way up are ready to kick him in the groin on his way down, or however that aphorism goes.

Among the highlights:

* He "landed one of 12 highly desired spots" on a post-9/11 Florida Legislature security committee only to miss six out of its 15 meetings.

* Mike Fasano, a former Florida House majority leader, chose Rubio as one of his whips but says he showed up so rarely to strategy meetings that asking "Where's Rep. Rubio?" became a running joke.

Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/14/marco_rubio_lazy_underhanded_say_ex_florida_friend s.html

[boutons_deux]

Rubotio is the ideal Repug candidate for MISgovernance, NONgovernance.

[boutons_deux]

The Republican Party’s Chosen One exits stage right

It’s difficult to remember a candidate who enjoyed the kind of advantages Rubio had, but who ended up failing so spectacularly.

The Florida senator was adored and celebrated by his party’s establishment.

Pundits not only fawned over him, they practically ordered Republican primary voters to support him.

What he lacked in accomplishments and qualifications he made up for through charm, money, and well-delivered right-wing rhetoric.

But Rubio’s castle was made of sand, washed away effortlessly by one obnoxious wave.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-republican-partys-chosen-one-exits-stage-right?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

Former Florida Allies Assert on the Record That Rubio Is a Lazy, Devious Little Twerp

A very unsympathetic Friday profile in theTampa Bay Times (http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/rise-and-stall-the-political-trajectory-of-marco-rubio/2268968) suggests that part of the reason this is so is that Rubio's entire career has consisted of sweet-talking influential individuals into giving him big opportunities only to drop those individuals like hot rocks when another better thing comes along.

The idea is that now, when he needs home-state support more than ever, Rubio has no one on the ground to rely on; a number of past allies in fact went on the record to tell the Times exactly how little they like lil' Marco and how bad he is at actually doing the jobs he's chosen for. In other words, all the people he stepped on on the way up are ready to kick him in the groin on his way down, or however that aphorism goes.

Among the highlights:



Rubio left his first-ever elected position, on the West Miami City Commission, after one year to run for the Florida House.
He "landed one of 12 highly desired spots" on a post-9/11 Florida Legislature security committee only to miss six out of its 15 meetings.
Mike Fasano, a former Florida House majority leader, chose Rubio as one of his whips but says he showed up so rarely to strategy meetings that asking "Where's Rep. Rubio?" became a running joke.
Hialeah mayor and GOP "kingmaker" Raúl Martinez, one of the first people Rubio spoke to about becoming speaker of the Florida House, now says he "wouldn't support [Rubio] for dog catcher" because of a broken promise related to school funding.
Tony DiMatteo, a Florida Republican who conducted straw polls that gave Rubio's U.S. Senate campaign a crucial early PR boost, says Rubio failed to follow through on his promise to help DiMatteo become party chairman. DiMatteo has already cast a ballot for Trump.
A South Florida activist named Joyce Kaufman says Rubio's "lying" and "betrayal"—namely, having run for Senate as a Tea Party hard-liner and then co-sponsored the Gang of Eight immigration bill in Congress—has "cost him greatly."
Rubio actually bailed so early on the Gang of Eight bill that he didn't show up for the news conference when it passed the Senate. John McCain, a fellow Gang of Eight member, was reportedly disgusted by his public hedging on the bill.
A fundraising committee that Rubio set up in Florida to ostensibly help other candidates raised $386,000 but only gave out $4,000. The Times says a similar pattern pertained with a PAC Rubio set up when once he got to the U.S. Senate: "As he had years earlier while angling for House speaker, Rubio used much of the money for himself—giving less than $1 to candidates out of every $20 spent, according to an analysis by National Journal."


Pretty much every politician screws some people over;

Rubio's problem at this point seems to be that he's got so few current allies that none of the people from his past are afraid of saying publicly that they think he's the worst.

Also, this has been reported before, but Marco Rubio had a 2.1 grade point average in high school. 2.1! That's terrible.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/14/marco_rubio_lazy_underhanded_say_ex_florida_friend s.html

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/rise-and-stall-the-political-trajectory-of-marco-rubio/2268968

:lol

[rmt]

Former Florida Allies Assert on the Record That Rubio Is a Lazy, Devious Little Twerp

A very unsympathetic Friday profile in theTampa Bay Times (http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/rise-and-stall-the-political-trajectory-of-marco-rubio/2268968) suggests that part of the reason this is so is that Rubio's entire career has consisted of sweet-talking influential individuals into giving him big opportunities only to drop those individuals like hot rocks when another better thing comes along.

The idea is that now, when he needs home-state support more than ever, Rubio has no one on the ground to rely on; a number of past allies in fact went on the record to tell the Times exactly how little they like lil' Marco and how bad he is at actually doing the jobs he's chosen for. In other words, all the people he stepped on on the way up are ready to kick him in the groin on his way down, or however that aphorism goes.

Among the highlights:



Rubio left his first-ever elected position, on the West Miami City Commission, after one year to run for the Florida House.
He "landed one of 12 highly desired spots" on a post-9/11 Florida Legislature security committee only to miss six out of its 15 meetings.
Mike Fasano, a former Florida House majority leader, chose Rubio as one of his whips but says he showed up so rarely to strategy meetings that asking "Where's Rep. Rubio?" became a running joke.
Hialeah mayor and GOP "kingmaker" Raúl Martinez, one of the first people Rubio spoke to about becoming speaker of the Florida House, now says he "wouldn't support [Rubio] for dog catcher" because of a broken promise related to school funding.
Tony DiMatteo, a Florida Republican who conducted straw polls that gave Rubio's U.S. Senate campaign a crucial early PR boost, says Rubio failed to follow through on his promise to help DiMatteo become party chairman. DiMatteo has already cast a ballot for Trump.
A South Florida activist named Joyce Kaufman says Rubio's "lying" and "betrayal"—namely, having run for Senate as a Tea Party hard-liner and then co-sponsored the Gang of Eight immigration bill in Congress—has "cost him greatly."
Rubio actually bailed so early on the Gang of Eight bill that he didn't show up for the news conference when it passed the Senate. John McCain, a fellow Gang of Eight member, was reportedly disgusted by his public hedging on the bill.
A fundraising committee that Rubio set up in Florida to ostensibly help other candidates raised $386,000 but only gave out $4,000. The Times says a similar pattern pertained with a PAC Rubio set up when once he got to the U.S. Senate: "As he had years earlier while angling for House speaker, Rubio used much of the money for himself—giving less than $1 to candidates out of every $20 spent, according to an analysis by National Journal."


Pretty much every politician screws some people over;

Rubio's problem at this point seems to be that he's got so few current allies that none of the people from his past are afraid of saying publicly that they think he's the worst.

Also, this has been reported before, but Marco Rubio had a 2.1 grade point average in high school. 2.1! That's terrible.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/14/marco_rubio_lazy_underhanded_say_ex_florida_friend s.html

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/rise-and-stall-the-political-trajectory-of-marco-rubio/2268968

:lol

What was his college GPA - that (and LSAT) is what entry into law school is based on.

He needs to put in the time and serve more - too ambitious - climbed too high TOO FAST - has no real accomplishments. Bad luck - this isn't the year for an insider. He should try for Florida governor (year after next?), serve 8 years and try for president again.

[DMX7]

Was the University of Florida an open-admissions college at the time? How do you get into a flagship state school with a 2.1 GPA? AA for Cuban-Americans?

[baseline bum]

Was the University of Florida an open-admissions college at the time? How do you get into a flagship state school with a 2.1 GPA? AA for Cuban-Americans?

He went to a community college first.

[rmt]

Was the University of Florida an open-admissions college at the time? How do you get into a flagship state school with a 2.1 GPA? AA for Cuban-Americans?

Probably transfer from community college. UF was not the picky, selective institution it is now.

[DMX7]

He did go to a CC first according to Wikipedia.

[boutons_deux]

Will party trump principle for Marco Rubio?

Ten days ago, facing media speculation about his future, Rubio sounded annoyed. “I have only said like 10,000 times I will be a private citizen in January,” the senator said (https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/732401466066014209?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) on Twitter. Yesterday, however, instead of sticking to his position, the Floridian seemed to open the door a crack. Bloomberg Politicsreported (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-05-26/rubio-under-gop-pressure-opens-door-a-bit-to-seeking-new-term):


Now, Rubio – who said he would not stand for Senate re-election when he announced his failed presidential bid – said it is “unlikely” he will change his mind before the Florida filing deadline on June 24. The state’s primary will be held Aug. 30.

“This is just something that happened today or what have you. For me, I need time to even talk to anybody about it, but my sense of it is nothing has changed in my thinking,” he told reporters at the Capitol.



That may not sound like much of a shift, but let’s not overlook recent history.

Rubio, in a rare display of integrity, publicly promised when launching his presidential campaign that it was White House or bust.

After his candidacy failed, the Republican repeatedly said, in no uncertain terms (http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/03/what-now-marco-rubio/474297/), that he’s looking forward to being a private citizen in the new year. Rubio became irritated by any suggestions to the contrary.

And yet, yesterday, his answer to the same question was far from categorical, which as he must have realized, renewed speculation about whether the Florida senator is willing to break his promise.

Complicating matters, this was arguably the second most controversial thing Rubio said yesterday. This Washington Post report (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/26/marco-rubio-wants-to-be-helpful-to-trump-plans-to-attend-gop-convention/) was almost hard to believe.


Reversing months of comments to the contrary, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) now says he plans to attend the Republican National Convention and will release his delegates to vote for the presumed party nominee, Donald Trump.
Rubio once warned that nominating Trump would “fracture the Republican Party” and faulted the business magnate for stoking violence at his rallies.

But in a CNN interview on Thursday, Rubio said he’s attending the GOP convention in Cleveland because “I want to be helpful. I don’t want to be harmful, because I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president.”


http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/will-party-trump-principle-marco-rubio?cid=sm_fb_maddow

[InRareForm]

Haha how much money did rubio pocket for the endorsement

[Reck]

Marco has turned into Christie .2 lap dog.

He was on CNN yesterday morning giving Trump one of the most displayful sloppie blowjobs in TV history. This guy has no self esteem left.

[Mitch]

Marco has turned into Christie .2 lap dog.

He was on CNN yesterday morning giving Trump one of the most displayful sloppie blowjobs in TV history. This guy has no self esteem left.

That's your boy, Reck. He "apologized" to Trump :lmao

[Reck]

That's your boy, Reck. He "apologized" to Trump :lmao

You guys should make up your minds already. Am I a Hillary guy or a Rubio guy. Cant be both son. :lol

[Mitch]

You guys should make up your minds already. Am I a Hillary guy or a Rubio guy. Cant be both son. :lol

Sure it can, you supported both :lol

[Reck]

Sure it can, you supported both :lol

I never did.

Or you know, you can try to prove where I did. I'll wait.

[Mitch]

I never did.

Or you know, you can try to prove where I did. I'll wait.

You were pretty much in Rubio's corner on the debate thread, tbh

Pretty sure you said few times you thought Hillary was the best candidate remaining.

[Reck]

You were pretty much in Rubio's corner on the debate thread, tbh

Pretty sure you said few times you thought Hillary was the best candidate remaining.

Wrong on both accounts.

[Mitch]

Wrong on both accounts.

:lol You kept exaggerating how Rubio was shitting on Trump at the debates and said Rubio was the best choice on the republican field before Florida.

Tbh, are you really going to deny that you said Hillary was the best of the mainstream candidates? I dunno if you're a Jill Stein guy :lol

[Reck]

:lol You kept exaggerating how Rubio was shitting on Trump at the debates and said Rubio was the best choice on the republican field before Florida.

Tbh, are you really going to deny that you said Hillary was the best of the mainstream candidates? I dunno if you're a Jill Stein guy :lol

I said a few nice things about Jeb, too. Was I a supporter of him too? Nice logic.

I dont want anything to do with the shitstain republican party. I do remember saying I thought Rubio was the most common sense guy out of all of them in the debates but that hardly makes me a supporter.

As far as Hillary, I've never committed to her. I didn't even vote in the New York Primaries. I've never said she was the best choice either. Like ever.

[Mitch]

I said a few nice things about Jeb, too. Was I a supporter of him too? Nice logic.

I dont want anything to do with the shitstain republican party. I do remember saying I thought Rubio was the most common sense guy out of all of them in the debates but that hardly makes me a supporter.

As far as Hillary, I've never committed to her. I didn't even vote in the New York Primaries. I've never said she was the best choice either. Like ever.

Alright, no candidate then.

Then join me in voting for Trump, Reck :lol


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oiu501YlkgA

[Reck]

Alright, no candidate then.

Then join me in voting for Trump, Reck :lol


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oiu501YlkgA

What happened with Bernie? I thought you were a supporter of his? I will take my shoe laces over Trump.

[Mitch]

What happened with Bernie? I thought you were a supporter of his? I will take my shoe laces over Trump.

I'm a realist, Reck. Bernie can't win unless he pulled out with over 75% of California, I got no hopes outside of Hillary getting an indictment. I like some of Trump's stances on trade, military intervention, diplomacy (fucking stop acting like we're in cold war with russia) and gutting unnecessary federal regulation. Not my ideal candidate, but fuck if I want Hillary and her pandering, lying, corrupt ass.

[boutons_deux]

Rubio is a dickless slimeball. Watch him reverse his "vows" yet again and run for office.

[boutons_deux]

Rubio breaks his word, decides to seek re-election

After his national campaign failed miserably, Rubio heard the speculation about him possibly breaking his word, and he dismissed the chatter as an irritating distraction. Just five weeks ago, the senator, annoyed by Beltway scuttlebutt, said on Twitter (https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/732401466066014209?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw), “I have only said like 10,000 times I will be a private citizen in January.”



But the political pressure started soon after. Republican officials, facing the prospect of a Democratic Senate, began urging Rubio to break his word. According to the Washington Post, he’s going to do exactly that (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/06/22/marco-rubio-will-seek-senate-re-election-reversing-pledge-not-to-run/).

Sen. Marco Rubio will announce Wednesday he will seek re-election to the Senate, reversing a pledge he made a year ago to either assume the presidency or return to private life in Florida, instantly transforming an already competitive race and improving the chances that Republicans can maintain the Senate majority.


This reversal will surprise no one; the far-right senator has been telegraphing the move for weeks. It was largely a matter of when, not if, Rubio would go back on his promise to the public.

But that doesn’t make the reversal any less ridiculous.

Part of this story seems to be widely misunderstood by pundits. As Rubio started sending signals about doing what he vowed not to do, much of the chatter focused on the Floridian’s record of missing votes, blowing off committee hearings, and generally refusing to take his professional responsibilities seriously.

And while all of that was true, it’s also an incomplete look at the picture.

The problem wasn’t just Rubio’s reluctance to do his job; it was also his argument, made repeatedly on the presidential campaign trail, that his job didn’t matter.

Rubio argued over and over again that Senate work is dumb and pointless, and it just didn’t matter if he showed up for work or not.

The Washington Post recently published a good piece (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/06/16/daily-202-marco-rubio-flip-flops-on-hating-the-senate/57623c38981b92a22d0c5d0e/) on this:


The 45-year-old has heretofore made no secret of his distaste for the world’s greatest deliberative body. His friends have said he “hates” the job.

Rubio himself was unapologetic about missing more votes than any other senator during his failed presidential campaign, often complaining about how “frustrating” it is to serve as a member of Congress. […]

When Donald Trump attacked him for missing votes at a debate in California last September, Rubio replied: “I am leaving the Senate, I’m not running for reelection, and I’m running for president because I know this: unless we have the right president, we cannot make America fulfill its potential…. If we keep electing the same people, nothing is going to change. … And you’re right, I have missed some votes, and I’ll tell you why, Mr. Trump. Because in my years in the Senate, I’ve figured out very quickly that the political establishment in Washington, D.C., in both political parties is completely out of touch with the lives of our people.”

He said in various other interviews that the missed votes were “not a big deal” and that many were “inconsequential.”

Stephen Colbert recently joked on his show,

“To Rubio, the Senate is a useless hunk of bureaucratic sewage and … he might be running for re-election.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-breaks-his-word-decides-seek-re-election?cid=sm_fb_maddow