The GOP establishment badly wants a neocon/billionaire super friendly tax cuts. Seems like all of the useless clowns are rushing to endorse the robot. I hope Trump's voters aren't fooled by this bullshit.
Carson, Bush, Kasich need to quit their campaigns after SC...I mean suspend. Then I have to imagine the top 3 are going to clamor for these guys support.
It might be the other way around at this point. As unpopular as Bush is with the GOP electorate this year nobody doubts that he's a moderate Republican. I think Rubio might be the person I'd pressure to bow out if he gets 15% in SC. He's as conservative as Cruz, maybe more conservative, and once you have Bush and Kasich dropping out you essentially have two conservatives, one establishment and one outsider plus a total wildcard in Trump as the only options. I think the GOP needs to have a moderate in there somewhere if they want to avoid getting blown out in the general election. It's possible that Rubio can beat Hillary, as polls have suggested, but the more he shows of himself the more the experience issue is going to come into play and he could just get blown off the stage in the debates once the nominees are decided. If he was showing really well in the GOP primaries this wouldn't be as big an issue, but clearly he's not connecting well with GOP voters at this point. Those debates in the fall aren't going to be red meat thrown to the GOP voter base. They're going to be for everybody to evaluate the candidates and it will be easy for Rubio to come across as both too conservative and too inexperienced to get the moderate vote. Bush isn't a great candidate for the year and neither is Kasich but either one of them will be able to keep the debates going forward from becoming a self-immolating "I'm more conservative than you are" contest that will only hurt the eventual nominee in the fall.
Carson and Kasich might run out of funds and quit but not Jeb!. Jeb! has plenty of dough and support of nutjobs like Lindsey Graham.
So there's a big wall all around the vatican and the Pope comes out and says anyone talking about building walls instead of bridges isn't christian. I'm not religious and I don't support Trump but this Pope guy is an asshole. I do support a wall.
Not to mention that religion and politics should go their own separate ways. I wonder if someone made a big $$$ contribution to the Vatican for the Pope to add his two cents to the US presidential race.
Speaking of Jeb...Not trying to make fun of him or anything, but doesn't it seem like he suffers from a mild form of Autism? Someone mentioned that to me and it was like a light bulb went off in my head. He lacks proper judgment, takes blatant and direct bullying jabs from Trump, carries toy turtles with him, asks for praise. There is a sense of child like attributes to the guy. Literally read that somewhere, not sure if it was on this board and I was blown away.
Kasich has Home Depot owner Langone's support. I haven't heard anything about lacking funds. Plus he's probably in it until Ohio's primary on 3/15 at the earliest. Which he has a great shot win, winner take all, 66 delegates. Here's a National Review analysis just from today. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431515/john-kasich-next-moves-2016-republican-primary
As I have said before I think Kasich is the wild card in this race since he's lowest in the asshole factor (ok, he's not just lowest but isn't really one), and sounds most reasonable on foreign policy, which used to be a big concern in the GOP. I have not understood the Rubio campaign for some time despite many thinking he might win the establishment backing. Meanwhile Bush is losing despite big money and big name recognition. I don't see the scenario how he wins this thing. Jeb right now is in Kasich's way, but there is a plausible scenario for him to get the nomination, however unlikely at this point.
What about Kasich's foreign policy seems most reasonable to you? The part where he thinks it's time to "punch russia in the nose"?
or this John Kasich calls for no-fly zone, ground troops in Syria The only reasonable thing about Kasich is that he refrains from namecalling and vicious attacks on his opponents. As soon as he starts talking about various issues, the reasonable part goes out the window in an instant.
Who is the Pope speaking too and as an advocate for? Catholics and Christians in general. You see illegal Mexican immigrants as illegal Mexican immigrants but the Pope sees them as likely Catholics. He sees many Americans advocating a wall as Catholics and Christians as well. He's just telling Catholics and Christians not to build walls against each other but to build bridges instead. He's doing his job exactly as he is supposed too. It's like the definition of what the Pope is put on earth to do.
Kasich has zero chance of getting the nomination. He's not getting any traction in the primaries and he isn't connected the way Bush is to the GOP establishment. I think the wrong Neo-con is running this year. The GOP establishment should have spent the last two years setting Condoleeza Rice up to run.
The problem with the business of saying he is "calling for a no-fly zone" is the implication is that he is calling for a no-fly zone throughout Syria. Here instead is how he described it in December to the Council on Foreign Relations: "We must create safe havens protected by no-fly zones in Syria. I first called for no-fly zones early last month to relieve the suffering of Syrian refuges and reduce their need to travel to Europe. The sanctuary should be located on the Turkish and Jordanian borders. And our Jordanian and Kurdish allies could provide protection for them on the ground, while the United States provides protection from the air. Somebody asked me in regard to Russia if they were to fly into a no-fly zone. I guess an amateur would answer it one way: If they flew in the first time, I’d probably let them fly out. If they flew in the second time, there wouldn’t be any plane leaving the no-fly zone." The to my mind rather clear implication is that the zone in question would be one rather limited in size, enough for refugees to gather in. Best would be to set it up in negotiation with Russia and Syria, but if truly limited it could be imposed as a worst case. The problem with doing nothing is that exacerbates the refugee problem, which in turn is causing a crisis for our EU allies. Would Russia take measures to continue the refugee crisis in order to put more pressure on the EU? Well, they are doing exactly that right now at no real cost to them. So I tend to doubt it. Here's more of the speech to the Council: http://www.cfr.org/united-states/conversation-john-kasich/p37304 To be clear I hardly agree with all he says. I just meant relative to the other truly awful GOP candidates on foreign policy, he sounds most reasonable.
Read the National Review article. You may still feel the same, but I think it is an exaggeration to say he has zero chance.
Vatican City is 110 acres of land in the middle of the city of Rome. It has 872 residents. The walls that surround it are a vestige of an earlier time, built in the 1400's when it was not unusual for Rome to be besieged by various factions looking to take the city. They were built to withstand cannon fire at a time when a military conquest of the Papal States seemed quite possible. Note that the wall around the sovereign state of Vatican City was a wall around a fortress at the center of the Papal States built for the protection of the Papacy at the time it was created. That wall only became a wall around a sovereign state when Mussolini made Vatican City a sovereign state in 1929 to give the Papacy back a home after it had lost all the Papal States over the centuries. What I'm saying here is that the wall around Vatican City is the same thing as the wall around Buckingham Palace. It's only accidentally a wall around a sovereign state.
