In 538's summary of the GOP debate, I was struck by this item:

In his closing statement, Ben Carson said that since the debate had started, 200 abortions had been performed. That stat caught our ear. Turns out, he’s right. In 2011, according to the Guttmacher Institute, the abortion rate in the U.S. was 121 per hour, or 242 over the course of the debate.

According to the CDC, there were 730,322 legal abortions in the U.S in 2011. That breaks down to about 83 per hour, or close to 170 for the two-hour debate.

In last night's attempt by Murdoch and Ailes to clear the brush around Marco Rubio, the boy candidate who doesn't know which end of a screw driver is the handle flashed hard working Americans with the Full Welder, and believe me it wasn't pretty. I have spent the last week with a friend and neighbor putting up fence and welding farm gates, and I can tell you that Rubio's glib, uninformed, contrived comments about welders, philosophers and wages are worth about the price of two cow pies. The canned junk speech which Rubio has been spouting all week---comparing welders to college philosophy majors---is an insult to workers as well as to those who have worked hard to earn a college degree and are spending a big chunk of their income paying down student loans.

Part 2:  Political Convenience.

In the first democratic debate of 2015 Hillary Clinton Claimed ‘I have been very consistent over the course of my entire life ’ and that she has ‘always fought for the same values and principles’.  This is simply not true.  Hillary has a history of taking positions of political convenience.

If you want to start a fight, ask a bunch of Americans whether 9/11 was a conspiracy. Most will say no. If you then note that 19-20 people working together is by definition a conspiracy, they'll get pissed and say they thought you meant "government conspiracy". Which is not what they thought, since we don't know what individual gov workers from the FAA or INS or FBI might have helped the hijackers, eg who let them through the airport with boxcutters or who helped them scope out security. What they really mean is "not a HIGH government conspiracy" or some coordinated renegade group of spooks, no Ollie North and gang.

It is fairly easy to understand Bernie Sanders. After all, he's barely changed his positions for decades, he still personally prefers to avoid getting personal (especially about himself), and he's proudly a self-proclaimed Independent Democratic Socialist. Since there isn't a Democratic Socialist Party, technically he's a registered Independent running for president on the Democratic ticket with a Democratic Socialist agenda. But he's Bernie, and it's the Democratic party, so one plus one equals two and a half when it comes to a Revolution.

If you put a ripe banana to my head and threatened to smash it unless I picked one Republican candidate to vote for, I'd pick Kasich, governor of Ohio. Maybe it's  because I grew up in Ohio before it was populated with Palin fanatics and I still have memories of how life was when folks were reticent to demean others for their behavior, there were high paying jobs in the mills, the speed limit was 55 and the homecoming girls wore Saddle Oxfords. I don't like Kasich's religious bigotry nor the Republican agenda. But Kasich wouldn't allow Texas to secede nor invade Egypt. He is a sane hard nose conservative who wouldn't destroy the economy. As far as politics and policies go, he is the least unsavory Republican candidate, in my opinion.