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, repe ive, 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 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 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 uva plot development.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...er-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 .

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 .

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]

[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]

en things you should know about Marco Rubio:

1. 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."
2. He denies human beings are responsible for climate change.
3. 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.
4. He wants to freeze federal spending at 2008 levels for everything except defense.
5. He wants a permanent U.S. presence in Iraq, and would end the nuclear deal with Iran.
6. He wants to repeal Obamacare.
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 undo ented immigrants, and now firmly anti-legalization.
8. He’s fibbed about his personal history – saying his parents were Cuban exiles although they left Cuba before the revolution.
9. 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.
10. 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/pho...571637/?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?

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.

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, 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:

“[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 – 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.

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 in headlines yesterday morning. Many compared it to Rick Perry’s epic memory lapse; others equated Rubio’s performance with Dan Quayle’s troubles in 1988.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-s...d=sm_fb_maddow

[boutons_deux]

Foxification (definition: ing 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...ublican_party/

[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 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 cir stances 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 at udes of the American mainstream, that would almost certainly be more difficult than he expects.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-s...d=sm_fb_maddow

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

[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 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,” which seems more than fair under the cir stances.

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-s...d=sm_fb_maddow

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

ing 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), 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-repe ion-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 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…

[rmt]

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

https://www.numbersusa.com/news/engi...s-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 in which he mindlessly attacked 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:

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 repe ious lapse.

You can watch the clip here. 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, “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” that would “give him a generational edge” in the presidential race. Salon added 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 ans” 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-s...d=sm_fb_maddow

Rubotio is ing fried, -for-brains stupid. Thanks, Florida!

[boutons_deux]

coal bear as good as ever

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

[Dirk Oneanddoneski]

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