DEBATE, DEMOCRACY, AND DUMB

Saturday night’s debate among the 3 Democratic candidates for president was a far cry from similar GOP events. These 3 said things, substantial things, and while there is plenty of room to disagree, they didn’t demagogue—as several of their Republican counterparts have.

Local media screwed up...I saw several print and broadcast stories that did not mention at what time or channel the debate would air. TV Guide totally messed up...listing this as a Republican debate; sheesh!

And ABC opened with questions about the Sanders breach of voting data, a totally “inside the beltway” topic that doesn’t interest 90% of voters at all, and contributed to the lament that the “media doesn’t understand us” from citizens.  (Soon, however, the debate did get  into “real” issues.)

Congress passed a 2000 page spending and tax cutting program, amid cheers of a new “bi-partisan” atmosphere in Washington.

Meadow Muffins!

Lost in every news story I saw was that the legal deadline to pass these bills, and stop a government shutdown, was last October first—a deadline Congress under either party’s control, has missed for years.  And the “sequester”—that device held up a few months ago as the way to keep the government open—was reversed. Congress still doesn’t have its act together.  And just wait—there will be a slew of stories pointing out the hidden parts of these bills  (no one read them all before passage!) that will give the “special interests” what they wanted, whether the public approved or not.

Don’t get the idea that these people, for all their experience are “the smartest guys in the room.” Defense Secretary Ash Carter had to reveal that he used his private e-mail system for government business—the very thing HRC has been scorched for months for doing...and which may be illegal.

Dumb, Mr. Secretary, D-U-M, dumb!

Meanwhile a poll indicates perhaps we citizens DO get the government we deserve. 30% of Republicans supported bombing the kingdom of Agrabah. 13% said No. 19% of Democrats surveyed wanted to attack Agrabah, 39% opposed.

Agrabah doesn’t exist; it is fictional. As the USA Today report indicated, no one Googled it, which continued a trend of people being polled expressing firm opinions, 20 to 40% of the time, on fictional issues and legislation. The Margin of Error wasn’t given in the story I saw, but was probably very high, maybe 100%.

I'm just sayin'...