Huckabee Zeroes in on Government Waste

AJ+: Young Swedes React To U.S. Democratic Presidential Debate

C'mon AJ+, surely you could have found a few fascists even in Sverige ?

Wonders...What reason might Al Jazeera's backers have to encourage a Sanders presidency ?...Feel the Bern !

RT Trolls the Republican Debate

Some brilliant assholery here from the former Russia Today.  Love Matthews at 1'05.

The Big Boy Debates

G-d, those two debates could not have been more different.  Though, Kasich's unexpectedly strong performance aside, everyone behaved much as one might have expected, especially the more openly fascistic and theocratic candidates.  But, the main takeaway:

Bret Baier: Is there anyone on stage...who is unwilling tonight, to pledge your support to the eventual nominee of the Republican party, and pledge to not run an independent campaign against that person ?

{Donald Trump raises his hand}{Crowd boos}

Baier: Mister Trump...to be clear, you're standing on a Republican primary debate-stage, the place where the RNC will give the nominee the nod, and that experts say an independent run would almost certainly hand the race over to Democrats, and, likely, another Clinton.  You can't say tonight that you can make that pledge ?

Donald Trump: I cannot say, I have to respect the person that, if it's not me, the person that wins.  If I do win, and I'm leading by quite a bit, uh that's what I wanna do.  I can totally make that pledge if I'm the nominee, I will pledge I will not run as an independent, but...I'm y'know talkin' about a lot of leverage.  We wanna win, and we will win, but I wanna win as the Republican...I wanna run as the Republican nominee.

Baier: So tonight, you can't say, if another one of these...

{Rand Paul interrupts, heckles Trump}

Baier: ...Just to be clear, you can't make the...you're not gonna make the pledge tonight ?

Trump: I will not make the pledge at this time.

{Crowd claps/cheers}{Crowd boos}

Image: John Minchillo/AP

Links for Huckabee's comments & Trump's: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw8mwLZljz4&t=3m19s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRiy4YAwXlM

Overcompensating

Lindsey Graham, the only one of these clowns that should have even remotely been considered as a serious candidate for the Republican nomination, looked and sounded quite sad to be up there in the kiddie-debates with his fellow losers.  But, what the hell is he trying to accomplish with these promises of endless war ?  We get it already, you're super-duper serious about foreign-policy because your answer to every problem is always Bomb, Bomb, Bomb !, and if the bombs don't work, send in the soldiers.  It's almost as if he's trying to compensate for...something; Who knows what ?

I guess some people out there were quite impressed with Carly Fiorina's performance (low expectations ?).  I'll say this for her: She wasn't standing on a box to make herself look taller.*


* Okay, those shoes may have slight heels, though I can't tell for sure.  She still comes across a hell of a lot more comfortable in her skin than Lindsey.

Just...Really ?

Wasn't intending to post anything else re: the debates, but just WTF is this from the Independent ?  I thought maybe someone would be harping on about the lack of handshakes for Farage (which did seem petty to me), but this ?  On the front page ?

So, the three female leaders on stage hugged apparently, not that I noticed.  If you want to read something into that as in say the three female leaders celebrating the historicity of the event, then sure, great.  It is cool to see more women coming to the fore in British politics.  But what, somehow Ed was crushed by not being invited to join the hug ?  And this is somehow symbolic of a crushing defeat for Ed in a debate in which the consensus seems to be that he at least met if not exceeded expectations ?  While the other contender to actually be prime minister didn't show up ?

Hey Matt Dathan, would you have hugged Ed on that stage ?  Didn't think so.  Think Nicola et al. would have hugged you in Ed's place ?  Didn't think so.  Is this significant of anything what-so-the-fuck-ever ?  Didn't think so.

Were you desperate to come up with some unique angle on the debate so you could get paid by the Independent and couldn't manage any better than this ?  Ah...thought so.

Debate !

Is it just me, or is there not something really weird about seeing Ed on stage, debating the leaders of the nationalist parties (& Greens), while Nick & Dave are nowhere in sight ?  Not sure if the optics are good or bad for Labour, just strange and oddly unbalanced.


Update: And the Telegraph phones in their pre-scripted responses to the debate.

Uh, no.

That Cameron & Miliband Debate

Was going to go looking for a picture of Ed Miliband, from the bacon sandwich incident perhaps, but no look, here's the Guardian's headline for this story.  Yes, that Guardian.

The man on the right, you may recognise as David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative party, and the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  The man on the left is the leader of the (for-now) main opposition party, Labour.  In defence of the Guardian editors who chose this picture, it's actually pretty typical of how he looks, and if anything he arguably sounds worse.  Why one might ask if you were the man on the right, would you be afraid to debate the man on the left...on television no less.  Not a rhetorical question; I genuinely don't get it.  Is Ed really that scary, that daunting a debater ?  These are both very intelligent man, but one was born to be a media personality, and one was not.  And if we're honest, sadly, personality and presence probably count a lot more in television debates for the average voter than the actual issues being debated.

For fun, let's go ahead (below the fold) and see what Google returns for images of these two men.