VRWC lap dog Rubio

[boutons_deux]

How Marco Rubio Became the Plutocrats’ Favorite Candidate (and Why We Should Be Scared)

Rubio got the backing of yet another mega-donor last week. Here's why he's so attractive to the richest of the rich.

Now it must be noted that so far Rubio has not shown any real strength with voters. He’s still mired down with the pack, usually somewhere around 3rd, 4th or 5th place. By comparison with Bush he’s holding his own, but in the field still dominated by the outsider weirdos, he doesn’t seem to be registering all that effectively in the polls. But there is one group of GOP voters who have been dazzled by him for a while: the billionaires.

He seduced one mega-donor by the name of Norman Braman, a wealthy South Florida car dealer, early on. (Yes, car dealers now become billionaires — amazing what your millions can do when they’re allowed to make money for you.) Braman came out for Rubio before he’d even announced saying, “I just think he’s the candidate of today and tomorrow, and he’s the only one, the only candidate that has come up with specific proposals dealing with the issues facing this nation. Read his book and you’ll see.” Braman hasn’t shared exactly what proposals and what issues to which he’s referring, but the fact that he’s is known as an”eclectic” donor, offering financial support to both Democrats and Republicans over the years, told the party that Rubio had fully shed his early doctrinaire Tea Party image (which had been fraying for some time) to become the kind of establishment candidate who could win the general election.

But Braman isn’t the only octogenarian billionaire who finds Rubio’s smooth charm alluring:

Since entering the Senate in 2011, Rubio has met privately with the mogul on a half-dozen occasions. In recent months, he‘s been calling Adelson about once every two weeks, providing him with meticulous updates on his nascent campaign. During a recent trip to New York City, Rubio took time out of his busy schedule to speak by phone with the megadonor.

Rubio was amongst those who traveled to Las Vegas to kiss the gambling magnate’s ring and by all reports was very impressive. It’s been rumored for some time that Adelson was ready to back him but it’s rumored that it’s about to become a formal arrangement.

In Adelson’s case there is no mystery as to what he wants. All you have to do is look at Rubio’s positions on the issues that are important to Adelson to know how hard he’s worked to get that endorsement:

Adelson, who spent $100 million on the 2012 campaign and could easily match that figure in 2016, has told friends that he views the Florida senator, whose hawkish defense views and unwavering support for Israel align with his own, as a fresh face who is “the future of the Republican Party.”

Also too, Rubio can be counted upon to be unwaveringly hostile to unions and help Adelson with any pesky legal problems he might have with his unusual gambling issues. Adelson is worth something like 27 billion dollars so he can afford to be generous.

Rubio has also performed like a prized Lipizzaner stallion at the various Koch-fest auditions. Last spring, Ken Vogel of Politico reported, “in an informal straw poll of some conference donors, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida came out ahead of four other would-be GOP presidential candidates who had been invited, according to an attendee familiar with the results.” This past summer, he was also said to be a big winner at the Koch Summit, “delighting” big donors as he stood sweating in the California sun railing against the EPA in the middle of an epic drought. What’s not to like?

The Kochs haven’t formally endorsed anyone but their network is highly valuable to any candidate and Rubio has the inside track.

But bagging the “vulture” fund kingpen Singer, one of the biggest old bulls of the billionaire herd was a real coup. Singer is the man Fortune magazine described as “a passionate defender of the 1%” who is “determined to put a candidate who shares his views back in the White House.” They were talking about Mitt Romney, the candidate he backed in 2012, but it’s fair to assume that he hasn’t changed his mind. Unlike most of the billionaire mega-donors, Singer is very systematic about his advocacy. He chooses the candidate he believes will be most beneficial to him personally. Obviously, he thinks Marco can deliver the goods.

This article from Hedgeclippers.org, via Down with Tyranny, spells out Singers methodical approach to buying the government for his own benefit:

Perhaps not surprisingly, recipients of Paul Singer’s cash have gone to bat for him on various legislative issues. Recently, twelve members of Congress signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, urging him to side with Singer’s hedge fund in their battle to extract profits from Argentina. The signatories of that letter received a combined $200,000 from Singer and his connected PACs.


Singer has already committed himself to a couple of Super PACs bankrolled by hedge fund billionaires like himself to take down Hillary Clinton

A collection of top GOP operatives, financed by prominent Republican donors, is launching two new groups to take aim at Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

The groups—Future45, a super PAC, and 45Committee, an issue-advocacy organization—will be bankrolled by some of the biggest donors to Republican candidates and causes, including hedge-fund billionaires

Ken Griffin and Paul Singer and

the family of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts.

Ron Weiser, a former finance chairman at the Republican National Committee, will serve as chairman of Future45, heading up the group’s fundraising efforts…

The groups say their goal is to complement work already being done by outside organizations that back Republican candidates, including American Crossroads, America Rising and en ies founded by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

These billionaires don’t need to coordinate. They all think alike.


http://www.alternet.org/election-201...ter1045127&t=6

[boutons_deux]

David Brooks Perpetuates the Marco Rubio Myth

​So, we looked out the backdoor of the Café this morning, and there was this Irish setter there, licking his balls in deep contemplation.

His collar bore a nameplate.

It read, "Moral Hazard: If Found, Please Return Me Anywhere Except To The Young Fogies Club, New York City, USA."

He was idly dozing atop a copy of ​The New York Times.​

Of all the candidates, Rubio has done the most to harvest the work of Reform Conservatism, which has been sweeping through the think tank world.

In a year in which many candidates are all marketing, Rubio is a balance of marketing and product.

If Ryan and Rubio do emerge as the party's two leaders, it will be the wonkiest leadership team in our lifetime.

That's a good thing.

​We brought him out some leftover beef stew. Then, we all went sweeping through the think-tank world. We found 85 cents in the cushions of the sofa.​

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics...-rubio-reform/

[boutons_deux]

Rubio Is Lying About Hillary Lying

The Republican candidate’s claims about Hillary Clinton and Benghazi fall apart under scrutiny.

Here’s how Rubio described her testimony:

She admitted she had sent emails to her family, saying, ‘Hey, this attack on Benghazi was caused by al-Qaida–like elements.’ She spent over a week telling the families of those victims and the American people that it was because of the video. … It was the week she got exposed as a liar.

The next morning, during a round of interviews, Rubio doubled down. On CNN, he said Clinton had been “exposed as lying about Benghazi. And it’s going to be a major issue in this election.” On CBS, he repeated:

I said Hillary Clinton lied about Benghazi. There’s no doubt about that, Charlie. I mean, there are emails in which she was talking to her family, and she was telling them that there was an attack on that consulate that was due to a terrorist attack by al-Qaida elements—and then she was going around the country, talking to the families of the victims and to the American people, and saying, “No, no. This is because of some video that someone produced that led to a spontaneous uprising.” She absolutely lied about it.

Notice Rubio’s conviction. Clinton didn’t just say something inaccurate or dubious—there’s “no doubt” that she “absolutely lied.” But it isn’t Clinton who’s lying. It’s Rubio.

Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s scrupulous fact checker, has also debunked false statements Rubio made about CIA intelligence and assessments given shortly after the attack. But Rubio’s core allegation against Clinton is that she went “around the country” and “in front of the press for over a week,” telling “the American people” that the attack was “because of some video that someone produced that led to a spontaneous uprising.”

On right-wing websites, you’ll find plenty of affirmation for this myth. National Review,Red State, Townhall.com, the Daily Caller, and other outlets agree that Clinton “blamed the ‘awful Internet video’ for the massacre,” told “the American public that the anti-Islam video was what caused the attack,” and “was the author of the lie about what caused the attack.” But when you click their links and study their evidence, the case falls apart.

Townhall.com presents video recordings of Clinton’s remarks after the attack. One recording is led, “Hillary Clinton Blames Youtube Video for Benghazi Terrorist Attack.” But the recording doesn’t show that. Instead, it shows Clinton addressing “the video circulating on the Internet that has led to these protests in a number of countries.” And that’s true: According to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Benghazi attack coincided with “approximately 40 protests around the globe against U.S. embassies and consulates in response to an inflammatory film.”

Another video on Townhall.com shows Clinton saying: “We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.”

Two years ago, when Clinton testified before Congress, Republican senators acknowledged that in delivering those two sentences, she was distinguishing the “heavy assault” in Benghazi from the protests at embassies elsewhere.

The “post in Benghazi,” after all, wasn’t an embassy. Now the right is trying to conflate the two sentences.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...ton_lying.html

Repugs', Fox's, conservatives' main values for politicians are lying and slander, esp about Hillary and Benghazi, so Rubio is automatically their boy.

Benghazi!

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio Said He Wants to Have a Beer With Malala – an Underage Muslim


What's next, a ham sandwich with Netanyahu?

http://www.alternet.org/election-201...ter1045239&t=2

[boutons_deux]

Billionaire Acquires Rubio Pending Physical

NEW YORK — In the biggest free-agency acquisition of the 2016 Presidential contest, the billionaire investor Paul Singer has acquired Florida senator Marco Rubio for a rumored eight-figure sum, pending a physical.

Just hours after the deal was inked, Rubio was flown by private jet to Singer’s training facility in East Hampton, where the senator will submit to a series of gruelling drills before the deal is finalized.

“We are making a four-year deal with Marco, with an option for another four,” an associate of Singer’s said. “

We like what we’ve seen of him on tape, but we want to be sure that he has what it takes to go the distance.”

According to those familiar with Singer’s physical workouts for political candidates, Rubio will submit to a number of demanding tests, in which the billionaire will bark commands and the senator will be measured for his reaction times and accuracy.

“You have to be in peak condition for these workouts,” the associate said. “Jeb got totally winded.”

Arriving at Singer’s training camp, Rubio said he was “excited and honored” to be a part of the Singer organization.

“I talked to a lot of other billionaires,” he told reporters.

“Sheldon Adelson, and the Koch brothers, of course.

But at the end of the day Mr. Singer’s scheme was the best fit. I’m looking forward to earning every dollar he paid for me.”

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borow...nding-physical

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio’s Immigration Reversal Is Complete: He Promises To Deport Dreamers

A long, long time ago, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) got on the Senate floor and made a heartwarming speech about giving millions of undo ented immigrants the chance at a pathway to citizenship before casting a decisive vote on a comprehensive immigration reform bill that he helped craft. As many bills do in a contentious, bicameral Congress, the bill died. Wounded from defeat, Rubio retreated from his own bill, stating that he’s learned his lesson, sharply tipping his support instead towards improving border security measures and piecemeal legislation.

Now as a Republican presidential contender in a field dominated by candidates supporting mass deportation and the end to birthright citizenship (currently a cons utional right granted to kids born on U.S. soil), Rubio wants it known that he will end the only protection that some undo ented immigrants have — the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which was created through executive action in 2012 by President Obama. The executive action has since granted temporary deportation relief and work authorization to as many as 680,000 undo ented immigrants brought to the country as children.

During a Young Professionals event in Manchester, New Hampshire, Rubio said that he would eventually end the DACA program, even if Congress didn’t act on a permanent legislative fix, according to at least two reporters, MSNBC’s Benjy Sarlin and The Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui.


Benjy Sarlin
✔@BenjySarlin

Rubio made clear just now that he will eventually end DACA -- even if congress doesn't pass DREAM Act or other protections for them
12:58 PM - 4 Nov 2015


Sabrina Siddiqui
✔@SabrinaSiddiqui

Rubio says he will eventually end DACA even if Congress doesn't pass immigration reform under his watch.
12:58 PM - 4 Nov 2015 · Goffstown, NH, United States

Just a day before, Rubio told Univision host Jorge Ramos that he wouldn’t “immediately revoke” the DACA program, but that “I hope it will end because of some reform to the immigration laws,” pointing to a permanent legislative fix. Rubio said at the time that he couldn’t support DACA’s expansion known as the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), which would have covered undo ented parents of legal residents and U.S. citizens. The DAPA program is currently held up through a temporary injunction issued by a Texas judge.

In the past, Rubio championed for undo ented immigrants to have a voice, including calling undo ented youths brought to the country at a young age “real people” in 2012. But since abandoning his own comprehensive immigration bill, he’s said that he’s become “realistic on immigration,” saying that border security is the “only way forward.”
The DACA program has benefited at least 27,225 immigrants in Rubio’s home state of Florida.

http://thinkprogress.org/immigration...co-rubio-daca/


"reform to the immigration laws," Ryan has vowed NEVER to pass immigration reform (it's the Repugs' eternal campaigning scam to rouse the racist, xenophobic rabble)

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio spent lavishly on a GOP credit card, but some transactions are still secret

It has become legend in Florida political circles, a missing chapter in Marco Rubio’s convoluted financial story: two years of credit-card transactions from his time in the state House, when he and other Republican leaders freely spent party money.

Details about the spending, which included repairs for Rubio’s family minivan, emerged in his 2010 U.S. Senate race. But voters got only half the story because the candidate refused to disclose additional records.

Now, Sen. Rubio’s past is under fresh scrutiny as he emerges as a top presidential prospect. During last week’s debate, he deflected questions about his financial discipline — most recently, he liquidated a retirement account — but those questions will only intensify.

“For years, I’ve been hearing that his credit cards are a disaster,” Donald Trump said Tuesday during a news conference in New York City.

The Tampa Bay Times asked Rubio’s team for the records in June and again in early October.

A top strategist, Todd Harris, said Tuesday they would be released soon, possibly within the month, but declined to answer questions about what they might contain.

As speaker of the Florida House, Rubio was one of about a half-dozen lawmakers given Republican Party of Florida credit cards. During the Senate race, the Times/Herald obtained Rubio’s statements from 2006 and 2007 showing that he routinely charged personal expenses, from a $10.50 movie ticket to a four-day, $10,000 family reunion.

In those two years, he charged about $110,000, and he said he sent about $16,000 to American Express to cover personal expenses, though the expenses were never detailed. In a 2012 memoir, he wrote, “From January of 2005 until October of 2008, I charged about $160,000 in party-authorized expenses.”

Rubio defended use of the card: The minivan, he said, was damaged by a valet at a political function, and the party paid $1,000, half the insurance deductible. Items that were personal were paid directly to American Express, he said, though records show that did not happen on a monthly basis. After reporting by the Times/Herald, Rubio did pay the Republican Party of Florida $2,400 for plane flights he double-billed to state taxpayers and the party.

as questions grew about Republican spending in general — the party chairman, Jim Greer, would serve time in prison
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/poli...#storylink=cpy

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/poli...e42769035.html

grifters, frauds, embezzlers, self-enriching greedy assholes, egomaniacal self-branding, that's why politicians run for office. Rubio seems to be near the bottom of the barrel.

[boutons_deux]

as always with Repugs, bad is good, down is up, black is white

Rubio Says His Financial History Is A Good Thing

Rubio replied: “I think it would be good for this country to have a president that knows what it’s like to owe money in student loans, like I once did — someone who grew up paycheck to paycheck.”

But wait a second, don’t we already have a president like that? The stuff Rubio said just there actually sounds like a good description of Barack Obama.

In fact, the current president was not able to pay off his student loans until 2004, when he signed a $1.9 million book deal for what would later become The Audacity of Hope.

This should all sound very familiar to Rubio, who finally paid off his own student loan debt with the proceeds of his book An American Son.

Rubio also pivoted away from getting attacked by Donald Trump, by changing the subject to that of Hillary Clinton.

“And that’s why I look forward to that debate with Hillary Clinton,” he said. “How is she going to say that I don’t understand the plight of people that are struggling in America — when I myself, through my parents and our upbringing, lived it?”

Of course, it’s Donald Trump who is currently talking about Rubio’s finances — not Hillary Clinton.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/rubio-sa..._frequency_six

Rubio sounds as tone deaf and as stupid as the Shrub bros.

[boutons_deux]

in typical Repug "alternate universe that denies science (mathmatics)" news

The Math on Rubionomics Is Way, Way Crazier Than You Think

How would Rubio’s plan fit into the overall federal budget? One way to consider the scale of this plan is to look at the overall federal budget.

Over the next decade, Washington is projected to collect $41.6 trillion in revenue under current policies.

Rubio would reduce that to about $30 trillion.

Rubio proposes to increase the defense budget — but, for the sake of generosity, let us assume he merely keeps the budget at the current levels he decries as “setting ourselves up for danger.”

He likewise promises not to touch benefits for current or near-retirees, leaving those programs unavailable for cuts over that time.

According to figures from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, expenditures on defense, Medicare, Social Security, and mandatory interest payments on the national debt will total $30.7 trillion over that period — and that’s without accounting for any other functions of the federal government at all.

So Medicaid, veterans’ health insurance, transportation, border security, and education, not to mention the entire federal anti-poverty budget other than Medicare and Social Security, would have to go.

Oh, and Rubio has also called for an amendment to the Cons ution requiring a balanced budget every year.

Oh, one more thing: Among the Republican presidential candidates, Rubio is widely considered to be a moderate on fiscal issues.

The clarity with which we can now examine Rubio’s plan, juxtaposed against recent events, provides a sense of the ongoing relationship between the Republican Party and economic reality. It remains deeply hostile.

The Republican Party’s commitment to regressive, debt-financed tax cuts as its central domestic policy goal dates back to the 1970s, when Jack Kemp and William Roth first proposed large-scale income-tax cuts, which became the basis for Ronald Reagan’s 1981 program.

At the time, there was at least theoretical justification to cut the top rate, which stood at 70 percent. Subsequent events have not been so kind.

The Reagan-era recovery benefited from a bounce-back from a Fed-induced recession that crushed the inflation of the 1970s, but it did not see an increase in the underlying growth rate.

Events since then have looked worse and worse for the anti-tax cause.

Bill Clinton raised the top tax rate to 39.6 percent and, confounding unanimous conservative predictions that a recession would ensue, enjoyed an economic boom.

George W. Bush cut taxes and, in spite of conservative certainty that faster growth would follow, the economy instead grew tepidly before collapsing in a worldwide meltdown after the housing bubble popped.

When Obama opposed extending the portion of those tax cuts that applied to income over $250,000, conservatives insisted it would harm growth. Instead, economic growth has accelerated.

In 2012, Mitt Romney promised that, if elected, by the end of his first term he would bring the unemployment rate down to 6 percent. With 15 months left to go, that unemployment rate now stands at 5 percent.

The recovery from 2008 may not be as fast as anybody would like, but it is faster than the recovery in any other country that endured the financial crisis.

What factual analysis of these events in any way suggests that a return to regressive, debt-financed tax cutting is the tonic the economy needs?

Romney’s insistence that Obama’s policies have smothered economic growth remains the major premise of the Republican economic strategy.

Rubio and the entire GOP field promise not just to enact another huge round of tax cuts, but also to repeal Obama’s regulations on Wall Street and carbon emissions and — of course! — to build the Keystone Pipeline (which credible analyses project to create 10,000 jobs a year, a monthly rounding-error-size amount, for two years, after which 35 jobs a year would remain).

But a “credible analysis” — that is, one employed by mainstream economists in either academia or the macroeconomic forecasting profession — is one that almost by definition carries no weight among Republican policymakers.

The party’s “mainstream” economic thinking now lies at a point far beyond what used to be considered its fringe. It is a party that has lost all contact with reality, and continues to drift farther and farther over the horizon.

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-set-top-box-future-20151109-story.html

[boutons_deux]

He's A Real Nowhere Man

10 Reasons Marco Rubio Would Lose in a General Election

A look at Rubio's resume reveals some gaping holes and inconsistencies.

1. Rubio’s list of accomplishments doesn’t include anything that can be seen, heard or touched in the actual world. Unless there’s a broad conspiracy in the media to hide Rubio’s many and monumental accomplishments, the campaign dynamics will soon reveal that there’s not much there, even on Rubio’s own campaign website: “As a U.S. Senator, Marco has led a bold offensive to ins ute innovative, conservative ideas to address these fundamental issues and to restore hope in the American Dream.” Not the kinds of concrete verbs and measureable achievements one would advise a recent college grad to put on his resume, much less a candidate for president. Noting Rubio's anemic record, Ted Cruz backers recently released a funny ad that asks, “Can anyone think of ANYTHING Marco Rubio’s ever done? Anything at all?”


2. Between a Tea Party rock and a Latino hard place is no place for a serious candidate to be.Like the GOP, Marco Rubio finds himself trapped between two diametrically opposed forces that will loom even larger this election season: anti-immigrant, anti-Latino Tea Party activists and Latino voters. This quagmire already got Rubio into problems during his bid to gain the VP spot in 2012. Activists on both sides hammered him for adopting positions they felt were too close to the other, a situation that shows signs of getting even worse.

3. Rubio’s immigrant story will sink in a sea of national scrutiny. The self-described "son of exiles,” Rubio has centered his campaign narrative around the story of his immigrant parents, whom he said, “came to America following Fidel Castro’s takeover.”

Unless history books are altered to reflect thatCastro’s revolution actually took place before his parents arrived in the U.S. on May 27, 1956 — a full two and a half years before the Cuban revolution took place—the boat of Rubio’s phony immigration story will sink under the national scrutiny the general election will surely bring.

4. Tea Party Troubles will leave the GOP's — and Rubio's — tent in tatters. The fight brewing between Rubio and Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz reflects the core division that splits the party and that will burn the tent down by the end of the 2016 election. While Cruz continues to walk the talk of a die-hard Tea Partier, Rubio launched his successful bid to become Florida's junior senator of the Tea Party only to adopt the more "moderate" tones and policy positions of his former mentor-turned-frenemy, Jeb Bush. This alienated the Tea Party base to the point where they are publicly attacking Rubio as a “sellout” on immigration and other issues, funding billboards denouncing “The Rubio-Obama Immigration Plan. Amnesty.” Though Rubio has since renounced previous positions on comprehensive immigration reform and other issues, many in the Tea Party base are supporting Cruz, who wasted no time highlighting these differences during Tuesday's debate.

5. Rubio is even out-of-step with most Cuban voters. The majority (51%) of Cuban voters in the U.S. support President Obama’s normalization of relations with Cuba, a majority that will continue to grow as younger Cuban voters move toward ending the embargo and other issues of the bygone era Rubio caters to.

6. Rubio won’t deliver anything near the almost 50% of the Latino vote the GOP needs to win the presidential race. Conventional political wisdom used to say that to win the presidency, a GOP candidate needed to win at least 40% of the Latino vote. Recent research now suggests that major demographic changes—growth of Latino voter base, aging white voter base, etc.—require a GOP candidate to secure at least 47% of the Latino vote. But Rubio's positions on many issues are far to the right of most Latinos: he recently came out in favor of deporting DREAMers, the Latino students fighting for legal status, and is confused on comprehensive immigration reform. Those stands are guaranteed to revive shouts of "No Somos Rubios" (“We’re not Rubios” and “We’re not white") heard from Latinos across the country during the last presidential election.

7. The GOP slugfest will leave the candidate bloodied and vulnerable. Rubio’s rise has already given way to increased and intensified attacks from Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and other candidates. By the time Rubio—or any other candidate—takes center stage against the Democratic opponent, he or she will look like the Walking Dead of U.S. politics.

8. Rubio can’t even balance his own checkbook. As Rubio waxes rhapsodic about his tax plan and other right-wing economic ideas of the “New American Century," reports of his disastrous personal finances will continue to dog him.Revelations of the fiasco have forced him to respond by calling himself an "average guy with debt." In his 2012 memoir, he confesses to suffering from a “lack of bookkeeping skills” and an “imperfect accounting system.” While such statements may engender sympathy from some voters, others may reject economic ideas that will further impoverish the average American and have difficulty identifying with an "average guy" who still managed to buy himself an $80,000 luxury speed boat. Rubio's calls for a balanced budget amendment under these conditions will be fun to watch.

9. Rubio may not even deliver Florida. Electoral dynamics in Rubio’s home state have turned Florida into a tossup state in 2016. Changing demographics, a history of highly contested elections and the rise of the non-Republican Florida Latino voter means that Rubio, who has only had to prove his statewide election muster once, may not even deliver his home state.

10. Rubio will lose the beisbol vote. Rubio's continued stubborn opposition to ending the U.S. embargo of Cuba puts him squarely against discussions initiated since the Obama administration announced its normalization of relations with the island. These discussions include finding new ways for Cuban baseball players, most of whom must enter the U.S. via human trafficking networks, to play in the Major Leagues. Denying the country’s favorite sport talent will not sound very inviting when America’s favorite pastime ramps up just before the election season ends.

http://www.alternet.org/election-201...ter1045713&t=2

[Pelicans78]

Rubio is nothing but a schill. He's so vulnerable to special interests and he constantly panders to them with his rhetoric. He's nothing but a neo-con mouthpiece.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Why is boutox still using the tagline from Hillary's failed health care effort in Bill's first term? Is this a brand new conspiracy?

[boutons_deux]

Why is boutox still using the tagline from Hillary's failed health care effort in Bill's first term? Is this a brand new conspiracy?

tagline? I don't know no steenkin tagline, and I didn't set it.

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio can’t outrun his past: The political miscalculation that still could doom his White House hopes

Pundits are now hailing Rubio as the favorite to overtake Donald Trump. There's just one big problem

Rubio’s youthful errors are far more damning, at least as far as Republican base voters are concerned: He was a member of the Gang of Eight, a group of Senators so villainous that they actually got together and hammered out a Comprehensive Immigration reform bill, which included — dare I even say it — a path to citizenship for undo ented workers.

And Rubio wasn’t just a passive participant. The other members loved him so much he was charged with recruiting his fellow Republicans to the cause. This Washington Post article from last April examined his involvement with the gang in detail:

Rubio’s parents were born in Cuba, and he spoke movingly about their experience as immigrants. But Rubio was also beloved by the very sort of small-government conservatives who had blocked immigration reform in the past. With a foot in both those worlds, Rubio held enormous leverage, even with the veteran senators.

That was clear in one meeting, described by four lobbyists in the room, where the GOP senators were being asked to agree to more “guest workers” in the bill. Without more of these temporary immigrants, the lobbyists said, some low-skill jobs would go unfilled. McCain, they said, suggested an answer. Couldn’t the children of illegal immigrants do those jobs?

Rubio, the son of immigrants, spoke up. “He says, ‘Pardon me, Senator, but I have to say that the children of those illegal immigrants will be doctors and lawyers,’ ”one lobbyist recalled. “In my mind, I was like, ‘Thank God somebody said it.’ Because nobody else could say that to McCain.” […] “People would talk, talk, talk. And he’d say, ‘I can’t sell that.’ And that would be it,” one Democratic staffer recalled. If Rubio said that conservatives wouldn’t go for a particular idea, the group believed him.

He was the chief salesman in the conservative media as well. He went on every talk radio show and even appeared one Sunday morning on all five political shows. He went on Telemundo and Univision and made his pitch in Spanish too. But the right wing radio hosts were having none of it and they turned on him hard. He found himself in the middle of a typical conservative media conspiracy feedback loop with bogus charges that the bill contained “amnesty phones” and car subsidies and in the end he quietly voted for the bill and then dropped out of the gang forever, hoping that nobody would remember his role in it.

Rubio and his team are clearly prepared to respond to attacks from his rivals on known vulnerabilities (such as his personal financial scandals and his history with the Gang of Eight) with a flurry of do ents and a barrage of facts. (Back in the day we would call this dazzling them with B.S.)

It’s a standard damage control technique which seems to work well on gullible journalists but is unlikely to placate the hardcore right which is already very su ious of him. Indeed, Rubio may have done something more damaging to his cause than he realizes. He may have just waved Cruz into the so-called establishment lane. Social media was all atwitter last night with talk of the Texas Senator being a more savvy politician than he’s been given credit for. It’s doubtful that was the Rubio campaign’s intention.

Stay tuned. Marco and Ted’s excellent adventure is just beginning.

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/13/marc...e_house_hopes/

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio Hires Culture Warrior Eric Teetsel as Faith Outreach Director

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/conten...reach-director

[boutons_deux]

Marco Rubio: 9/11 terror attacks were part of God’s plan for the universe

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio thinks the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the recent massacre in Paris were part of God’s plan.
Speaking at a campaign rally last Monday in Iowa, the Florida senator said Christians should never be afraid because God was in control of the universe,

“We are biblically ordered not to be afraid,” Rubio said. “You know why? Because God is telling us that no matter what happens, ‘It is part of my plan. I will give you the strength to endure it whether you like it or not.'”

Rubio noted that he had previously been asked why God would allow terrorist attacks to happen.

“Where was God on 9/11? Where was God in Paris?” he recalled being asked.

“I said, ‘where God always is — on the throne in Heaven,'”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/marc...e+Raw+Story%29

damn, you Repugs really find some nutcases, emotionally, intellectually re ed, for President.

[101A]

Marco Rubio: 9/11 terror attacks were part of God’s plan for the universe

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio thinks the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the recent massacre in Paris were part of God’s plan.
Speaking at a campaign rally last Monday in Iowa, the Florida senator said Christians should never be afraid because God was in control of the universe,

“We are biblically ordered not to be afraid,” Rubio said. “You know why? Because God is telling us that no matter what happens, ‘It is part of my plan. I will give you the strength to endure it whether you like it or not.'”

Rubio noted that he had previously been asked why God would allow terrorist attacks to happen.

“Where was God on 9/11? Where was God in Paris?” he recalled being asked.

“I said, ‘where God always is — on the throne in Heaven,'”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/marc...e+Raw+Story%29

damn, you Repugs really find some nutcases, emotionally, intellectually re ed, for President.

What is a legitimate answer to that question for a Christian, B?

[TeyshaBlue]

lols...Good luck with that.

[boutons_deux]

What is a legitimate answer to that question for a Christian, B?

which question? where was God on 9/11?

There are many possible answers for many Christians. Childish, irrational, corrupt, so-called Christian politicians give Rubio's silly, childish, pandering answer.

Christians who have fitted their faith and Bible into its proper role in relation to rationality, science, intellectualism might have said "God wasn't involved in 9/11, it was purely Made In (BigOil) America"

(Wahhabi OBL said he attacked because USA/BigOil's army boots were defiling his Saudi Arabia's sacred sands)

I ask how many Christians that morning were telling themselves "this is what God wants? all is good, all is God"

And how many Christians answered with Christ's "turn the other cheek", instead of opting for OT vengeance and getting suckered by a much smarter opponent into a murderous, destructive unwinnable war?

As always, so-called Christians dig around in their Bible, and in their own and/or their preachers' personal Biblical interpretations (VERY flexible, that) to select whatever they want that "feels" good at the moment, no matter how irrational, inconsistent, stupid, ignorant.

btw, killing the planet to suicidal inhabitability with industrial pollution is also part of God's plan, right? Repent, End Times be a comin' y'all (so let's make as much money as possible. It's God's plan)

So don't believe in, don't bother with global warming. It's all part of God's plan, right?

BigCorp has so suckered, even created and co-opted American "Christianity" to fit "godly" BigCorp's profit objectives.

So, you feelin lucky today? TB

[rmt]

Well, boutons, which way do you want it? Do you want politicians to put their religion first (turn the other cheek) or to put the Cons ution first (protect/defend the nation)?

[boutons_deux]

Well, boutons, which way do you want it? Do you want politicians to put their religion first (turn the other cheek) or to put the Cons ution first (protect/defend the nation)?

I don't want any religious fanatic, Bible humper (aka science denier), Christian Taliban in power, anywhere.

protecting/defending the nation wasn't anywhere near the top priorities of the Cons ution.

That paranoia has been induced in you suckers by the greedy, predatory, self-enriching MIC.

[101A]

which question? where was God on 9/11?

Christians who have fitted their faith and Bible into its proper role in relation to rationality, science, intellectualism might have said "God wasn't involved in 9/11, it was purely Made In (BigOil) America"

The question was not where God wasn't - it was "where WAS God."

[rmt]

What about the Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc? Or do you want only atheists in government? Do you want a religious test for government officials?

[boutons_deux]

The question was not where God wasn't - it was "where WAS God."

that assumes there is a God, for which no proof, no evidence exists. He's A Real Nowhere Man

[101A]

that assumes there is a God, for which no proof, no evidence exists. He's A Real Nowhere Man

But Rubio is a Christian. By definition, he believes in (assumes there is a) God.