{"id":3893,"date":"2016-02-17T09:24:55","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T15:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=3893"},"modified":"2016-02-17T09:24:55","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T15:24:55","slug":"planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html","title":{"rendered":"“Planned Parenthood does great work” and other things heard at the Saturday night debate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I did watch the debate on Saturday, you see \u2014 and even tweeted as a form of live-blogging\/taking notes. \u00a0But my Sunday consisted of church, trying to do some cleaning of my parents\u2019 house (the fridge! \u00a0oh, the fridge!), taking them to a matinee concert (the DSO\u2019s tickets are a bargain compared to Chicago\u2019s symphony), cooking dinner, and playing Hearts with the family. \u00a0In any case, I still want to share my thoughts with you \u2014 the bottom line of which is, \u201cI can\u2019t believe people still support Trump after what he said!\u201d but there are other bits here too.<\/p>\n

The debate started with the usual explanation of how the process works \u2014 allotted time, how candidate and audience are notified, etc. \u2014 and my first wish was that, next time around, they\u2019d just say, \u201cafter your allotted time is over, your microphone will be cut off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right out the gate, the moderator asked the candidates their opinion on a successor to Scalia. \u00a0Kasich gave a rambly answer which both called for Obama to nominate a bipartisanly popular nominee, and also to not nominate anyone. \u00a0Rubio said it\u2019s been 80 years since a lame-duck president appointed a SCOTUS justice. \u00a0(Strictly speaking, the 80 years is applicable to cases where the Senate is held by the opposite party, and excludes Reagan\u2019s nomination\/the Senate confirmation of Kennedy because the process started the prior June with borking Bork.) \u00a0Cruz must have said something similar because the moderator tried to pull a Candy Crowly and claim that he was wrong, and Cruz didn\u2019t hesitate to pull out enough specifics to counter the moderator\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

Carson is asked a question, and before he proceeds to give a fairly lame answer, he starts in again with his passive-aggressive \u201cthank you for including me in the debate.\u201d \u00a0By the way, here\u2019s a bit of trivia on Ben Carson and Detroit: \u00a0on the way from the highway to Orchestra Hall, you pass by Ben Carson High School. \u00a0He is (or was) a genuine hometown hero.<\/p>\n

And then \u2014 one of the big moments of the debate \u2014 I don\u2019t remember the question, but Trump again starts into \u201cI was the only one to oppose the Iraq war; I knew it was a bad idea from the start.\u201d \u00a0And then \u201cGeorge W Bush is responsible for 9\/11\u201d \u2014 OK, that\u2019s not a direct quote from Trump, but that\u2019s my tweet at the time. \u00a0I was shocked that, to a Republican crowd, he took the very Democratic mentality of blaming Bush for 9\/11. \u00a0I have never<\/em> heard a Republican make that claim before! \u00a0I\u2019m not sure if this is a matter of tone-deafness, and thinking this is an angle to attack Bush with, or if he genuinely believes it and it just demonstrates that he has no true partisan affiliation other than the Trump Party.<\/p>\n

The moderator started in with some questions pushing candidates their promises:<\/p>\n

To Trump: \u00a0\u201chow will \u00a0you fund your promises?\u201d \u00a0The answer: \u00a0magic beans. \u00a0OK, actually he claims we\u2019ll \u201cget jobs back from China,\u201d and \u201csave Social Security\u201d by \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 fighting waste, fraud, and abuse.<\/p>\n

To Cruz: \u00a0\u201chow can you be sure a VAT will reduce, not increase taxes?\u201d \u00a0\u2014 that is, addressing the concern that once you\u2019ve introduced a wholly new way for the government to collect money, the government will be happy to increase rates on both forms of taxation, rather than keeping the lowered rates on income tax that were meant to be the gain from applying the VAT. \u00a0Answer: \u00a0magic beans. \u00a0Well, actually, he doesn\u2019t address this issue, but just repeats his usual claim that the VAT + a flat 10% income tax will spur economy growth.<\/p>\n

To Rubio: \u00a0What do you have to say about the fact that your highest tax bracket, 35%, is higher than the highest rates of any of your opponents with tax plan proposals? \u00a0Rubio launches off into his proposal for high tax credits for parents, and alludes to his \u201cparent penalty\u201d concept<\/a>, though it wouldn\u2019t really make sense to a listener who didn\u2019t know his plan.<\/p>\n

The debate turns to immigration. \u00a0Trump repeats that he\u2019ll build a wall. \u00a0Rubio is asked \u201chow do you define amnesty?\u201d which allows him to repeat his rationalization that \u201camnesty means forgiveness without consequence\u201d but that his plan offers \u201cforgiveness with a consequence\u201d because there\u2019ll be a fine. \u00a0You buy that? \u00a0 Cruz calls Gang of 8 the Rubio-Schumer plan, and Rubio\u2019s retort is, basically, \u201cwaaah, you did it too,\u201d which sounds a bit petulant. \u00a0Bush is asked to affirm his \u201cact of love\u201d statement, which he does, and asks us to \u201cshow respect\u201d for them. \u00a0Kasich supports legalization PLUS a guest-worker program (whoa! \u00a0I thought we\u2019d abandoned that!<\/a>). \u00a0And Ben Carson asks us to go to BenCarson.com to read his immigration plan.<\/p>\n

A few more bits:<\/p>\n

On Planned Parenthood funding, Trump is asked about his prior support, and he says, \u201cPlanned Parenthood does wonderful things\u201d \u2014 again, I can\u2019t believe he said this and his supporters don\u2019t care! \u00a0And yet that seems to be the case, judging by Trump supporters posting on Facebook groups, saying Cruz is \u201csmearing him\u201d for citing these statements.<\/p>\n

Rubio repeated his newly-favored line that Americans don\u2019t trust the government to enfoce immigration law until they see it implemented, so that he is now a convert to Enforcement First (though never mentioning that the enforcement doesn\u2019t include any deportations). \u00a0It\u2019s unfortunate that he doesn\u2019t comprehend<\/a> that this mistrust extends to him, and that no matter how many times he repeats that line, he still has to reach out more genuinely to potential supporters for whom his immigration stand is a deal-breaker.<\/p>\n

So there you have it. \u00a0Did you watch? \u00a0What did you think?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I did watch the debate on Saturday, you see \u2014 and even tweeted as a form of live-blogging\/taking notes. \u00a0But my Sunday consisted of church, trying to do some cleaning of my parents\u2019 house (the fridge! \u00a0oh, the fridge!), taking them to a matinee concert (the DSO\u2019s tickets are a bargain compared to Chicago\u2019s symphony), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[322],"class_list":["post-3893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gop-debate"],"yoast_head":"\n"Planned Parenthood does great work" and other things heard at the Saturday night debate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I did watch the debate on Saturday, you see -- and even tweeted as a form of live-blogging\/taking notes. \u00a0But my Sunday consisted of church, trying to do\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Planned Parenthood does great work" and other things heard at the Saturday night debate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I did watch the debate on Saturday, you see -- and even tweeted as a form of live-blogging\/taking notes. \u00a0But my Sunday consisted of church, trying to do\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-17T15:24:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html\",\"name\":\"\\\"Planned Parenthood does great work\\\" and other things heard at the Saturday night debate\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-02-17T15:24:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-02-17T15:24:55+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\"},\"description\":\"I did watch the debate on Saturday, you see -- and even tweeted as a form of live-blogging\/taking notes. \u00a0But my Sunday consisted of church, trying to do\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"“Planned Parenthood does great work” and other things heard at the Saturday night debate\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jane the Actuary\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"Planned Parenthood does great work\" and other things heard at the Saturday night debate","description":"I did watch the debate on Saturday, you see -- and even tweeted as a form of live-blogging\/taking notes. \u00a0But my Sunday consisted of church, trying to do","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"Planned Parenthood does great work\" and other things heard at the Saturday night debate","og_description":"I did watch the debate on Saturday, you see -- and even tweeted as a form of live-blogging\/taking notes. \u00a0But my Sunday consisted of church, trying to do","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html","og_site_name":"Jane the Actuary","article_published_time":"2016-02-17T15:24:55+00:00","author":"Jane the Actuary","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jane the Actuary","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html","name":"\"Planned Parenthood does great work\" and other things heard at the Saturday night debate","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-02-17T15:24:55+00:00","dateModified":"2016-02-17T15:24:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a"},"description":"I did watch the debate on Saturday, you see -- and even tweeted as a form of live-blogging\/taking notes. \u00a0But my Sunday consisted of church, trying to do","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/02\/planned-parenthood-does-great-work-and-other-things-heard-at-the-saturday-night-debate.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“Planned Parenthood does great work” and other things heard at the Saturday night debate"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/","name":"Jane the Actuary","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a","name":"Jane the Actuary","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jane the Actuary"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}