Conservative Blogger
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Milwaukee scorecard: Why Trump, Carson and Fox Business won the night
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| Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business, plus Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker |
Donald Trump didn’t dominate the Milwaukee debate. In fact, he disappeared for long stretches.
Ben Carson didn’t loom large over the debate either, though he was more energetic than in his previous low-key outings.
Yet they were the night’s winners, and here’s why.
In pure debating terms, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were the best orators on the stage. Rubio in particular had his second strong performance in a row. The two Cuban-American senators seem to be emerging as the top contenders of the “establishment” wing—though both would hate the phrase—to square off against Trump and Carson or fill the vacuum if they eventually fade.
But with such a sizable lead in the Republican contest, The Donald and the doctor did nothing to damage themselves—or change the dynamics of the race.
And the policy-laden questions from the moderators—Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business, plus Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker—kept the two-hour session from veering out of control or turning into a night of media-bashing.
Trump was restrained and didn’t hurl any of his patented insults. He behaved more like a conventional candidate, and didn’t try to elbow his way into the discussion, as some of his rivals did. This was by design, as he later admitted to Cavuto. When you’re leading the polls, you don’t need to pick fights. And he was comfortable holding forth on such issues as trade and immigration.
Carson did what he had to do with one answer to Cavuto’s question about the wave of media attacks on his biography. He didn’t show his anger at the press, as he did last week in a news conference and combative CNN interview. Carson said he had no problem being vetted but did have a problem being lied about—and then pivoted to his view that the press has given Hillary Clinton a soft ride on Benghazi.
With that surgical precision, the neurosurgeon may have closed the book on the credibility questions, unless there are damaging new revelations. After flawed or overhyped stories by Politico, CNN and the Wall Street Journal, he has emerged largely intact—and is raising money against the media
Carly Fiorina was solid, and yet seems to have dissipated the momentum she gained after her breakout performance in the CNN debate. Rand Paul had his strongest debate of the year, but he is far back in the pack. John Kasich repeatedly interrupted--challenging Trump on immigration, for instance—but seemed to scold his party in a way that sounded a discordant note. Kasich’s brand is to be a truth-teller, but such folks aren’t always popular.
And what about Jeb Bush? He was more focused and forceful, and looked more comfortable, than in any of the three earlier debates. He undoubtedly reassured some nervous donors. But Bush still has to climb out of the deep hole he has dug for himself.
As for the moderators, they did exactly what they had advertised: ask substantive questions and not make it about them. It was a huge stylistic contrast from CNBC’s train-wreck debate.
The debate got wonky at times as they drilled down into tax plans, the Fed and the IMF. Some critics say it was a bit dull; so be it. But the media critics who say the anchors were tossing softballs miss the point.
Prodding politicians to flesh out their plans is not as exciting as asking confrontational questions or comparing them to comic-book characters. Cavuto and Bartiromo followed up at times, pressing for specifics, but they were hemmed in to some degree by the decision to allow 90-second answers and 60-second rebuttals, which gave the debate a weightier feel.
The audience seemed interested, with 13.5 million tuning in for the prime-time debate, just under CNBC’s 14 million (the 8-year-old FBN reaches 11 million fewer homes than its rival). The figure is, of course, the highest in the channel's history.
No debate is perfect. But there’s got to be a sweet spot between haranguing the candidates and rolling over for them.
Trump touts controversial Eisenhower program as deportation model
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| Bill O'Reilly |
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| Donald Trump |
The program, known as known as "Operation Wetback," was a complicated undertaking largely viewed by historians as a dark moment in America's past. It also coincided with a guest worker program that provided legal status to hundreds of thousands of largely Mexican farm workers.
Fox News' Bill O'Reilly confronted Trump about his support for the program Wednesday night on "The O'Reilly Factor."
"Believe me when I tell you, Mr. Trump, that was brutal what they did to those people to kick them back [across the border]," O'Reilly said. "I mean, the stuff they did was really brutal."
"I've heard it both ways. I've heard good reports, I've heard bad reports," Trump responded. "We would do it in a very humane way." The real estate billionaire also refused to refer to the program by its name, which is now widely considered a racial slur against Mexicans, saying "I don't like the term at all."
Trump touted the approach as a virtue of Eisenhower-era program in Tuesday night's debate.
"Moved 1.5 million illegal immigrants out of this country, moved them just beyond the border. They came back. Moved them again beyond the border, they came back. Didn't like it," Trump said. "Moved them way south. They never came back."
"He's only got part of the story," Mae Ngai, a professor of history at Columbia University, told the Associated Press.
The 1954 initiative was aimed at apprehending and deporting agricultural workers who had crossed the border illegally looking for work.
According to a summary of the project from the Texas State Historical Association, the United States Border Patrol "aided by municipal, county, state, and federal authorities, as well as the military, began a quasi-military operation of search and seizure of all unauthorized immigrants."
The project, Ngai said, began with 750 immigration officers and border control agents, who used jeeps, trucks, buses and airplanes to apprehend migrants nationwide, including in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. They apprehended 3,000 people a day and 170,000 during its first three months.
Critics of the program say the conditions for those the agents apprehended were anything but humane. Many of the apprehended migrants were transported in crowded buses and dumped on the other side of the border in a manner some at the time equated with the treatment of livestock.
In one incident, Ngai said, 88 apprehended Mexicans died of sunstroke after being subjected to 112-degree heat. The number would have been higher had the Red Cross not intervened.
Some of those apprehended were sent deep into the interior of Mexico to prevent re-entry by train or cargo ship, where conditions drew the attention of federal regulators.
One congressional investigation likened a transport ship that was the site of a riot to an "eighteenth century slave ship" and a "penal hell ship."
Trump also leaves out of his advocacy for the Eisenhower-era approach the fact the program was developed to complement a guest-worker program that began in the 1940s and was aimed at allowing Mexican farmworkers to enter the country and work in the U.S. legally.
Hundreds of thousands of farm workers did so, and the deportation effort was conceived as a way to pressure employers into using the guest worker program.
"It was like a carrot and a stick," Ngai said.
While Trump has put the number of deportations at 1.5 million, most accounts suggest the numbers are far fewer, because they included those who chose to leave the country voluntarily as well as people who returned after being deported and were deported again.
Trump has yet to lay out precisely how he would track down those living in the country illegally, or how he would determine who are "the good ones" that he would allow to return. Both John Kasich, Ohio's governor, and Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, rejected Trump's plan on Tuesday night as unrealistic and cruel.
"To send them back, 500,000 a month, is just not, not possible," Bush said. "And it's not embracing American values. And it would tear communities apart. And it would send a signal that we're not the kind of country that I know America is."
‘The biggest sham’: Sheriffs fume at mass release of 6,000 federal inmates
Local sheriffs across America are voicing concern for the safety of the citizens they've sworn to protect after the biggest one-time release of federal inmates in U.S. history -- though advocates of criminal justice reform maintain the release is being handled responsibly.
The 6,112 inmates were released from federal prison at the beginning of November in response to a decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission to reduce sentences for most drug trafficking offenses and apply them retroactively. It coincides with a broader and bipartisan push for rethinking federal sentencing.
But the mass release raises immediate practical questions about how the ex-inmates can adjust.
“There's no transition here, there's no safety net. This is the biggest sham they are trying to sell the American people,” Sheriff Paul Babeu of Arizona's Pinal County told FoxNews.com.
“On average these criminals have been in federal prison for nine years -- you don’t have to be a sheriff to realize that a felon after nine years in jail isn’t going to be adding value to the community. A third are illegals and felons so they can’t work. What do we think they are going to do?” said Babeu, also a congressional candidate.
The government is in fact trying to guide the transition for many. The Justice Department says 77 percent of exiting inmates are already in half-way houses or home confinement.
But local law enforcement officers have deep reservations, as the initiative ramps up quickly.
The November inmates are the first of approximately 46,000 who may have their cases reviewed. Of those released in the first round, the Department of Justice says 1,764 were to be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation proceedings.
Sheriffs on the border front-lines were skeptical of the deportation claim.
“The promise is they’re going to be turned over to ICE and deported. Anyone who thinks there’s any likelihood of them leaving the U.S. … think again,” Babeu said, before saying the president should be held responsible for any crimes committed by those released.
Other sheriffs also challenged the claim that those being released are not a risk to communities.
“If [the Obama administration is] not capable of making honest and prudent decisions in securing our borders, how can we trust them to make the right decision on the release of prisoners who may return to a life of crime?” Sheriff Harold Eavenson of Rockwall County, Texas, told FoxNews.com.
'I’d be amazed if the 6,000 ... being released are non-violent.'While the average number of inmates being released to any one state is 80, Texas is slated to receive 597 inmates.
- Sheriff Harold Eavenson
The inmates in question had been incarcerated on drug offenses, but the severity of the cases ranged broadly. An Associated Press review last month found while many were low-level drug dealers, some had prior convictions for robbery or were involved in moving serious drugs like cocaine and heroin. WGME in Maine also reported that the group includes a former "drug kingpin" previously listed as one of "America's Most Wanted," after his 20-year sentence was reduced.
“For them to tell me or tell citizens that they’re going to do a good job and these inmates are non-violent, when in many instances drug crimes, drug purchasing, drug trafficking are related to other, violent crimes – I’d be amazed if the 6,000 ... being released are non-violent,” Eavenson said.
A Justice Department official told reporters at an October briefing that the DOJ was conscious of public safety when granting each inmate early release, adding that every prisoner who applied under these new guidelines underwent a public safety assessment. The DOJ says that the reductions were not automatic, and that as of October, judges denied approximately 26 percent of total petitions.
RELATED VIDEO: Will release of thousands of inmates lead to more crime?
Advocates for criminal justice reform disagreed with the sheriffs, saying the Sentencing Commission handled the release very well from a public safety standpoint.
“I am sure many of the 6,000 prisoners would have loved to be able to leave prison as soon as their amended sentences were complete. But the Commission delayed implementation for a year so that as many inmates as possible could get to halfway houses, complete re-entry programs, and begin job searches before actually being released,” Kevin Ring, director of strategic initiatives at Families Against Mandatory Minimums, told FoxNews.com.
“Tens of thousands of inmates leave federal and state prisons every week and so there is no reason to be particularly worried about this group. Anyone who says otherwise is appealing to the public’s worst fears,” Ring said.
However, the executive director of the National Sheriff’s Association, which represents the more than 3,000 sheriffs across the country, says the feeling of unease is widespread and often has to do with the Obama administration’s attitude toward law enforcement.
“I think it’s a larger feeling of unease related to a lack of a plan as it relates to criminal justice, criminal reform and criminal release and I think that’s what you’re really sensing here,” Jonathan Thompson told FoxNews.com. “There are many sheriffs feeling as though the administration will go through the motions of asking the questions but really not care what the opinion or expert advice of law enforcement is.”
Intel on 'two-hour timer' uncovered in Russian jet crash investigation
Investigators analyzing the deadly crash of a Russian jet in Egypt uncovered intelligence about a “a two-hour timer,” though it is not clear whether the reference came from intercepted communications between known terrorist operatives, or physical evidence, a source familiar with the investigation told Fox News.
A separate source, also not authorized to speak on the record, said that based on the facts so far, one of the working theories is that a bomb was planted at or near the fuel line or where it attaches to the engine, with the fuel burning off the explosive. This theory would explain the apparent lack of residue immediately found, the source says.
Fox News was told both scenarios point to an "airport insider."
"If proven accurate, if ISIS did put a bomb on this aircraft which I believe to be true, it's a new chapter with respect to ISIS," Texas Republican Rep. Mike McCaul told Fox News. McCaul -- who receives regular briefings -- cannot discuss classified information, but said the Obama administration has consistently underestimated ISIS by emphasizing its focus on gaining territory, rather than expanding its reach to global plots.
"We always assumed Al Qaeda had this capability but now if ISIS has this capability, the threat to American airlines as well and our homeland, I think is very significant."
These new data points explain why investigators are interviewing ground crews and those with access to the departure lounge, as well as reviewing surveillance camera video. The review of surveillance images was first reported by ABC News.
The jet crashed in the Sinai Peninsula shortly after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh en route to St. Petersburg on Oct. 31. The crash killed all 224 people on board, most of them Russian tourists returning home.
The Defense Department was asked Tuesday whether C-4, an explosive provided to the Iraqi military by the U.S., had been obtained by ISIS.
"We don't have any reason to believe that any U.S. munitions were involved in whatever transpired with the crash itself," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. "We're still waiting for the investigation to run its course."
A third data point that goes to the airport insider theory is that ISIS has claimed responsibility, though it has been reluctant to explain how it brought down the jet, leaving the airport mole in place.
The U.S. government and the intelligence community continue to emphasize that no firm conclusions have been reached about the cause of the explosion and crash.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
US Marine Corps celebrates 240th anniversary
The U.S. Marine Corps, which formed less than a year before America declared its independence, celebrated its 240th birthday Tuesday.
The Marine Corps was established after a decree from the Second Continental Congress called for "two Battalions of Marines" that would fight for independence on land and at sea.
At least 250,000 Marines have joined since the attacks of September 11th, following the slogan, "The Few, The Proud."
A celebration was held on the USS San Antonio at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia. Col. Bradford Gering used a sword to cut a cake.
Secretary of State John Kerry was there, and said it was "a great day" for the Corps.
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