Regardless of whether he wins the Republican primary, makes an independent run, or bows out of the 2012 presidential race altogether, this aspect of Ron Paul’s future is indisputable: Come January 2013, he will no longer be a member of the House of Representatives.

Last July, the 12-term Republican representative from Texas, deep in his third bid to gain the Oval Office, announced that he was not standing for re-election.

Paul will leave behind a big pair of shoes to fill when it comes to being an indefatigable champion of reducing the size, scope, and spending of the federal government. No politician over the past several decades has been more outspoken and consistent in his views—and votes—for smaller government.

Even a cursory look at the budget plans being hawked by the three other Republican presidential contenders and by Barack Obama shows just how rare Paul’s politics really are.

Who can take Paul’s place in the House of Representatives? The 2010 midterms flooded the lower chamber with 94 new members, many of them supported by Tea Party factions. The ideal candidate to take up Paul’s libertarian message would oppose the government picking market winners and bailing out market losers; militarization at home and abroad; and economic and social engineering of all stripes.

CONTINUED at Reason. Written by Mike Riggs.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I was late watching this debate, as I had to check the replay. Unfortunately, I wasn’t home and I was unable to take serious notes on it. I was at my boss’ house due to it being the annual national sales meeting for my real job and between the alcohol and festivities, this thing was hard to watch in any serious sort of manner. I regret not being able to give it my full attention but the whiskey and wine were flowing, the girls were distracting to say the least and the copious amounts of food transplanted from several of the world’s most exotic regions somehow took precedence over watching the most recent episode of ‘Three Tyrants and a Wizard’. I do apologize as I have been trying to chronicle every damn one of these things but there are just so many, seven this month alone, and turning down a chance to literally spend the night at a party thrown at the mansion of the Indian version of Caligula is incredibly hard to pass up. Bourbon soaked tits are better to stare at than three dudes arguing over their dicks and the fourth shaking his head because America’s fallen so far that we’re literally having a debate about three dicks.

Now I did go back and read the transcripts from the debate and I did watch Ron Paul’s highlights – the only important parts, as the other three’s highlights would’ve put me to sleep in my hungover stupor. If it wasn’t for my boss’ brother handing me a Bloody Mary when I walked through the office door this morning, I’d probably be curled up in a ball under my desk hiding from the flickering power-draining headache-inducing fluorescent lights over my head. Needless to say, I am not a Bloody Mary fan by any stretch of the word, as it just conjures up the thought of drinking vodka with some ketchup spilled in it, but that fucking cocktail hit the spot today and I’m about 70 percent recovered from guest-starring in the Bollywood version of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’.

I know I’m rambling about my drunken escapades and that might disinterest you, as you came to this article to experience my certain style of critique on these things, so for that I’m sorry. I will do my best to give you the rundown of the debate, as I saw it between nude champagne showers and Chilean sea bass dodgeball.

So I’m just going to go down the line and analyze the candidates one-by-one starting with Rick Santorum. He started by talking about illegal immigration, border fences and telling the story about his immigrant family for the umpteenth time. He got into it with Ron Paul on foreign policy and failed miserably as he tried to cover up the fact that he’s a goddamned idiot on the affairs of Central and South America. I’ll write more on this when I get to Ron Paul, who owned Santorum like a twenty dollar prostitute. Santorum goes on to bitch about Fannie and Freddie and in turn blasts Newt and Mitt for playing personal politics and distracting everyone from discussing the real issues. On the subject of space, Santorum said that America is a frontier country and space is the next frontier to conquer. He calls for the private sector to be more involved with NASA but doesn’t fully support government being out of it. On health care he goes on and on about how awesome he is for trying to create health savings accounts. If you were so awesome, you would’ve got it done pal! He then gets into a health care argument with Romney that is neither interesting or worth writing about but what the hell, I’ll give you the nutshell version. Basically it went something like this:

Rick Santorum: “Fuck Romneycare”
Mitt Romney: “But it was only at the state level Ricky Baby!”
Rick Santorum: “I don’t care Mitt! You’re a bitch and you gave Obama the blueprints to evil!”
Mitt Romney: “Ricky Baby, you’re so silly!”
Rick Santorum: “Jesus Bible! No health care for the gays!”

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich spent most of their time arguing about who was a bigger bastard while both looked like big bastards. Mittens talked about “self-deportation” again. If these guys believe in such a thing as an effective way of handling a situation, can we get them to believe in “self-governance”? If they trust those illegal immigrants to leave on their own accord after sneaking in here in an effort just to come back in a way that is much more difficult, they’ve got to believe that we’re all capable of managing every other aspect of our lives? I mean, they are putting blind faith into something so farfetched that they’ve got to be down with just saying “fuck it” and letting us run our own shit, right?

On the immigration subject, Newt says that Romney is the most anti-immigrant candidate out of the four. Romney gets all pissy and pulls his two Latino cards. The first he pulls is Marco Rubio, the Cuban American senator that came to his defense on immigration. The second card Mitt pulled was Mexico, as his father was born there. I was born in a hospital bro, that doesn’t make me a doctor!

Romney and Gingrich argue about immigration for awhile and then they argue about Fannie and Freddie and who is the biggest crook. Newt, once he gets away from the lame feud for a minute, goes on some tangent about making a moon base. Newt later said that Jacksonville was going to get big pimpin’ because the Panama Canal was widening and would bring them more boat traffic. Shortly after that we were treated to a Santorum-Gingrich-Romney three-way which was like stumbling upon a middle-aged homosexual version of Cinemax at three in the morning. It was a bitch and rant fuck fest that no one in their right mind needed to see, unless of course you’re into middle-aged gay men. If you are, I mean absolutely no disrespect. Do ya thang homegirl!

Fuck all these queens, let’s get to Ron Paul, the only adult in the room. On immigration, he says that if we had a working healthy economy we wouldn’t be so worried about the immigration issue as we’d be looking for workers to fill jobs. He adds that the way we are handling our borders is actually harming our economy. He points out that we don’t have the right amount of resources on the border and that we should pay more attention to our border instead of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

On the Latin America issue, Ron Paul says, “Free trade is the answer.” He throws in the fact that we’d be a lot better off if we practiced free trade with Cuba. He adds that he doesn’t like the idea that America thinks that they can go down to Central and South America and try to dictate which kind of leaders they need down there, as it is none of our business. He says that the best way to influence other nations isn’t by telling them what to do, it is by practicing friendship and free trade. Paul then references Santorum who said that we have to stand up for these nations. Paul explains that standing up for nations often times comes with us imposing ourselves on the people of these countries while picking their dictators, undermining their government and sending them a lot of money. He warns that this sort of tactic always backfires and the people we are “supporting” end up hating us. Ron Paul calls Rick Santorum’s ideas on foreign policy the “bully way”. Paul adds that he knows a better to way to work with people other than using force. Santorum shakes his head, mumbles some stupid crap and then changes his tampon while wiping his bitch tears. Checkmate Paul!

Ron Paul is asked if Mitt and Newt should return the money they’ve made off of Fannie and Freddie and he responds to thunderous applause when he says, “That subject doesn’t interest me a lot.” Paul says that Fannie and Freddie should have been auctioned off right after the crash came. He said that if it was sold, the problem would’ve been “cleansed” by now. Ron Paul says that he’s been trying to prevent this stuff which is why we need to end the Federal Reserve.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asks says that Ron Paul, if elected, would be the oldest president ever. He asks Paul if he would make his medical records public to show the people that he is healthy. Blitzer basically wants to paint Ron Paul as a geezer who could croak tomorrow and I find the question to be repugnant, just as I found it distasteful when the same issue was brought up with Ronald Reagan years ago. Paul said that he’ll prove how healthy he is by delivering an open challenge to all the other candidates to face him in a 25 mile bike ride in the heat of Texas. Ron Paul face-palmed the shit out of Wolf Blitzer and the other candidates with that answer. He also took a shot at Wolf himself when he jokingly pointed out that there are laws against age discrimination and that Blitzer should be careful. Wolf, after getting bitchslapped, tries to cover up the stupid question by asking the other candidates if they’d release theirs. What a tool.

On space spending, Ron Paul says that he would only approve funding on stuff that fits under defense. He says that going to the Moon and Mars is fantastic but that it could be done better by the private sector if their hands weren’t tied. Ron Paul then takes a shot at Newt, saying that he has stretched the truth with all his “balanced budget” claims from the days when he was Speaker of the House. Ron Paul is taking solid shots backed by facts and there is nothing that can be done about it when he brings these guys a dose of the truth. Strangely, Newt Gingrich was very polite and gracious to Ron Paul all night and gave him props for his ideas in several areas.

In the end, the debate was lightyears better than the NBC debate a few days prior. CNN does the best job, in my opinion, and I’ve watched every single one of these debates. Kudos to Wolf for rocking the house, even with a few prickish questions. Ron Paul owned the motherfucker, Santorum did decent if you are into his religio-fascist bullshit while Newt and Mitt looked like a few bickering Tinas arguing over the last pack of Lee Press-On Nails at K-Mart.

And that’s all I got because I immediately returned to my whiskey-scented orgy on the south lawn.

Grading Scale:
Grade A+: Ron Paul
Grade C-: Rick Santorum
Grade D+: Newt Gingrich
Grade D: Mitt Romney

*Best debate moment in recent memory:

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Let me start by saying that even though I’ve referred to other debates as the worst, this one definitely took the cake and showed us just how godawful these things can be. This debate came to us from Tampa, Florida and was hosted by NBC. Brian Williams was the moderator and he was a shitty one at that. To start, there were no intros and the audience was not allowed to participate in any way. This means that the crowd could not applaud, boo or get fired up like they have in most previous debates. While I understand that this is done to speed up the process and fit in more quality time with the candidates, it creates bad television and boring debates, especially when the candidates argue incessantly for long periods of time and the moderator is too chicken shit to break it up and stick to his own rules regarding time. My biggest regret about watching this goddamned thing is that I only had one beer in the whole fucking house. I was also too lethargic from a 20 oz. New York strip to get up and mix a stronger drink. At least the ecstasy I got from my giant piece of premium American red meat kept me from losing my shit and going completely insane throughout this episode of ‘Three Statists and a Constitutionalist’.

So we start with Newt Gingrich being asked to respond to Mitt Romney recently calling him “erratic” and a “failed leader”. Woohoo! Here we go already starting with the personal attacks over policy issues. Gingrich immediately dropped several Reagan references and was shocked that he didn’t get any applause. Oh yes, the crowd must stay silent or be forced to stare into the droopy eyes of Brian Williams who has been known to turn people into hipster liberals with just a quick glare. This didn’t bode well for Newt as he was waiting for the crowd to react to his empty one-liners. Gingrich said he was like Reagan, who ignored Carter and went on to win the election. Really Newt? You’re ignoring the attacks against you? Funny, because every show I’ve seen you on, you’ve just gone on and on about all the attacks against you.

Gingrich is immediately given a second question, as Williams asks him how he has changed since being Speaker of the House. Gingrich says that as Speaker he had four consecutive balanced budgets, which he says is unheard of. He also brags about how many jobs he created and how he reformed welfare. This is also funny because in a recent interview he took the Romney approach and said government doesn’t create jobs the private sector does. So which is it Newt?

Brian Williams then directs his attention to Mitt and I can already tell that Paul and Santorum are probably going to get the shaft on time this round. Romney is asked if he is electable, which is a dumb fucking question. It’s a dumb question when anyone is asked this, really. Romney talks about how he saved the Olympics and created tons of businesses. He doesn’t actually answer the question he just runs through his already well-known yet well-rehersed talking points. He then switches to attacks on Gingrich and disses him for talking bad about the Paul Ryan Plan and for aligning with Nancy Pelosi on several occasions.

Newt Gingrich says that he isn’t going to spend the entire evening “chasing Mitt’s misinformation.” Yes he will, just keep reading. Gingrich says that the American people need a discussion on how the candidates are going to beat Obama and that they need to move passed the bullshit. Romney jumps in and points out that 88 percent of the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against Newt, which caused him to resign from his position in disgrace. Mitt also points out that Newt’s approval rating when he left Congress was 18 percent. Romney then takes a stiff shot at Gingrich when he says that we can’t retake the White House if the person leading the fight was in the pocket of Freddie Mac. This fight then goes on forever and Brian Williams just lets them duke it out regardless of time restraints and the fact that there are other candidates who haven’t even talked yet. Gingrich tries to explain how he left Congress, which is all bullshit and just leads to him arguing with Romney over who has the most inaccurate attack ads. I thought you were ignoring the attacks and weren’t going to spend the evening “chasing Mitt’s misinformation”? Can we please discuss the real issues?!

Rick Santorum finally gets asked a question and as much as I loathe the guy, I’m glad to see him at this point. Of course he is asked to comment on the Romney-Gingrich spat because Brian Williams wants the two feuding idiots to be front and center to help discredit the GOP as a whole. Santorum rambles some nonsense about painting a positive vision for the country and adds that he creates a real contrast to Mitt and Newt. Um, not really homeboy unless you’re referring to the religio-fascist part. Santorum then claims to “..have a track record of being a strong conservative.” Well that depends on what your definition of a conservative is, as it varies greatly from candidate to candidate.

Brian Williams then takes a shot at Santorum and says that he lost his seat in the Senate by 18 percent. This was of course after Santorum bragged about winning the seat in a liberal state. Santorum responds to the criticism by saying that the Republican governor in Pennsylvania lost worse than he did that same year. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Santorum also physically crouched down when he was rambling incoherently and actually said the word “crouch down”. Thanks for the visual buddy.

Finally Ron Paul gets brought into this thing! Williams reminds us that Paul once said that he never visualized himself as winning the nomination so why does he think he can win now. Paul says that he doesn’t sit around and dream about being in the White House like everyone else on stage. He points out that, according to polls, when he is put head-to-head with Obama he has a better chance at beating him than anyone else in the GOP. Paul also clues the masses into the fact that Iowa was just a straw poll and the real winner hasn’t yet been decided, as it will be the person who acquires the most delegates. He’s asked if he will run third party because every goddamned moderator has to seemingly ask this question. Once again, Ron Paul says that he has no intentions to do so. He is then asked if he would ever support Newt. Paul gives Gingrich props on his stance with the Federal Reserve and the gold standard but adds that he needs to change his stance on foreign policy. Newt responds by giving Paul some props on economic issues.

They then get into the boring topic of Mitt Romney’s tax returns which just shifts all the attention back to Tweedledum and Tweedledumber – that being Romney and Gingrich, you can choose which is which. Romney says that his income tax info will show how he made profits and rewards. He then goes on to claim that he’ll drop corporate tax rates while reshaping the entire tax code in an effort to simplify it. Gingrich jumps in and channels Mitt’s dad, who released a dozen years worth of tax information. Newt then says something about a Hong Kong tax model. This guy’s always pulling obscure shit from other countries. Romney jumps back in and says he and his father disagreed on many things and unlike his dad, he will only release a few years worth of his personal tax data. Romney then goes on to say that he inherited nothing and made his own mark in the world. He name drops Staples, Sports Authority and Steel Dynamics as ten minutes have passed without mentioning them. Truthfully, I think everything Mitt says is a pre-recorded statement and he just moves his lips to the words.

The mic in this rap battle is then passed back over to Santorum. He takes a shot at Newt and Mitt when he says that they claim to support capitalism but how can they make that claim when they supported the bailouts. Santorum says that we should have allowed these moronic financial institutions go through bankruptcy. What some people might not know though is that Rick Santorum wasn’t in office at the time of the bailouts so he couldn’t vote on TARP; so it is easy for him to say he didn’t support it. When looking a little deeper however, Rick Santorum did support the bailout of the airline industry. So would he have really rejected TARP? Based off of the $15 billion dollar airline bailout and his past voting record with other things, Santorum looks to be a pro-TARP motherfucker. Lucky for him he lost his seat in the Senate and didn’t get stuck with TARP on his record.

Newt is asked about more criticism from Mitt, who apparently claimed Gingrich “peddled influence” with Freddie Mac. Why couldn’t this be addressed the first time in this very same debate when Newt was asked to comment on Mitt’s criticisms? Time wasting bullshit! Newt said he never “peddled influence” and added that Romney’s approach about the Freddie Mac situation is nasty. Gingrich claims that he never lobbied for them and actually says that he brought in experts to teach his staff how to not lobby. Sorry, I just find that laughable. Romney quickly lashes back at Gingrich saying that Freddie Mac doesn’t pay “historians” as much as they paid Newt. Romney also points out that Gingrich was pushing GSEs every chance he got, which is a form of lobbying. Newt said he only made $35,000 per year, which is a lie. Why do people like either of these shady bastards? Aren’t Americans sick of criminals in power?

The Mitt-Newt show goes on for a long time as these two duke it out with no buzzer going off and Brian Williams sitting quiet – wasting our precious fucking time on this bitch fight. Williams, after minutes of this nonsense finally cuts in to stop it but only because NBC has to go to commercial break. Brian Williams has the spine of a squid.

After the commercial break, the issue of the housing crisis comes up. Santorum is the first person asked to address it. He claims that he saw the crisis on the horizon and tried to stop it. Yep asshole but you were about a decade behind Ron Paul on seeing it. Santorum, while explaining his fallacious knowledge on the subject, actually utters the phrase: “Let capitalism work.” Hilarious! This guy doesn’t know what capitalism is! Santorum immediately follows up his pro-capitalism line by saying that the government needs to step in and help the people who have lost their houses. Here we go with the doublespeak! Santorum continues by saying that people need the freedom to get out from under these houses and get relief. Really dude? Just “let capitalism work”?

On the same issue, Paul is asked if the government owes the people anything. Paul says that they owe the people a free market and sound money. He says that the interest rates were kept too low for far too long. Ron Paul says that he introduced legislation to help prevent the housing bubble from bursting years before it actually did. He declares that the bubble and the consequences of these actions were easy to spot but no one in Washington did. Paul says that the government needs to get out of the way. He then closes by saying that the Federal Reserve dumped so much debt on the taxpayers after wiping the slate clean with banks and corporations they bailed out.

Brian Williams, who apparently wants to suck Mitt’s dick, gives us another Mitt-Newt session when he brings them in on the housing issue. Romney says that the government has to help the people they fucked but immediately after that says that the government has to get out of it. Which is it bro? Gingrich says we need to repeal Dodd-Frank as it would improve the economy overnight. He says that the bill led big banks to get bigger. Newt is asked if the financial system is overregulated, which just proves how stupid Brian Williams is. Romney jumps back in to monopolize more time and says that the markets need regulation to work. What? What happened to capitalism? He then adds that we need up-to-date regulation not that old shitty regulation.

Williams, who wants to keep Romney in the spotlight, switches the subject and asks him about opening up Cuba. Mitt actually says that he’d be glad if Fidel Castro died and went to see his maker.. WTF?! Romney says we can’t talk about opening up Cuba but we need to support those in the country who want freedom. Okay, so how are we supporting them by contributing to making their economy shit? Why do you think that it is so easy for Castro to convince his people that America is bad? This is why! Romney wants to help Cubans by punishing them and not “giving in”.

Gingrich adds to Romney’s “glad when Castro’s dead” comment by saying that he won’t meet his maker but that he’ll essentially go to Hell. Newt starts talking about a “Cuban Spring”. He says that we need to reach out to younger Cubans who want freedom. Of course he, like Mitt, wants to do this without working with them in a productive and positive way. These guys must believe in magic.

When the discussion shifts back over to Ron Paul, he says that he has a lot to teach these guys on foreign policy. Ron Paul calls Newt and Mitt’s tactics “isolationist”. Funny watching Ron flip the script when every idiot out there calls him an “isolationist” as the idiots don’t really get what it means. Paul points out that the Cold War is over and the Cuban Missile Crisis was 50 years ago. He adds that we prop up Castro with our sanctions and embargo as it helps him stay in power by gaining support through pointing the finger of blame at the United States. Paul reminds the candidates that we used to talk to the Soviets and currently talk to the Chinese while we’ve had major problems with both. He even adds that we went in and talked to the Vietnamese after the disastrous Vietnam War. He says that we are living in the dark age if we are going to refuse to talk to Cuba.

Santorum, who apparently ignored Paul’s great insight, calls for us to use sanctions against Cuba until the Castro brothers die. He says that for right now we have to keep the current policy active and we shouldn’t embrace Cuba until the dictators are dead. Santorum then goes on a dumb tangent about how Cuba works directly with jihadists. Here we go with the fear mongering!

On Iran, Romney says we need to build a super strong military to scare the fuck out of everyone. Gingirch says that we are a country that likes peace and stability. Apparently he means between all the wars he wants to bring forth. Gingrich adds that he feels that we should defend the freedom of the sea. He then shares his thoughts on Obama, saying that Iran keeps testing us because our president is weak. Ron Paul gets in the Iran talk and says that our blockade of Iran’s strait is an act of war and tells us to imagine if the roles were reversed. Paul points out that Iran needs the Strait of Hormuz as much as we do. He warns us all that we have too many wars and the thought of invading Iran is ridiculous as we don’t have any money.

Santorum is asked how he would attack Iran when they have such a large target list. Santorum doesn’t answer that, he immediately goes right into the fear mongering he is so good at. He says that if Iran gets a nuke, the whole world will change. He then says that Obama’s Iran policy is a failure and feels that no one in power is serious about the Iranian threat. He then claims that Iran’s leadership is the equivalent to having a country ran by Al-Qaeda. He hammers the point that it is reckless to not try and stop Iran from building a nuke. He then flips the script and starts rambling about manufacturing and energy in Florida.

The candidates are then asked why it is okay for them to court voters in Spanish while they are all in favor of English as a national language. Gingrich says that the common bond that unites a country is one language. He says that there will be 300-400 languages used in the U.S. very soon so we need to unify the people with just one. Romney agrees with Newt before rambling about Massachusetts teachers teaching in other languages. Ron Paul steps in and says that we need to have one language at the national level but adds that if states want ballots in Spanish, such as Florida, it is their right to do so. Paul says that you can make English the official federal language without interfering in what the states want to do.

On illegal immigration, Newt says that the children of illegals should be allowed to join the military so they can go off and die for his senseless wars. Romney says he would not sign the DREAM Act in its current form but he would if it included military service. Romney then goes on a weird rant that illegals should “self-deport” themselves, go back to their country of origin and apply for legal citizenship. Santorum, who didn’t think the “self-deportation” comments were obscure, says that people have been self-deporting for awhile now due to our shitty economy. Santorum keeps referring to illegal immigrants as “they” as if they are something other than individuals.

Newt is asked about sugar and goes on to ramble about sugar types. Romney, who gets a bunch of money from Florida sugar farmers, says that we need to kill sugar subsidies. He then goes on a rant about homes in Florida, diverting his attention away from sugar. Romney says that too many homes in Florida are underwater. OMG! Global warming is drowning us! Oh.. wait.. that was a figure of speech.

Ron Paul is asked some dumb question about saving the Everglades and then we go to a commercial break. Why couldn’t they ask that dummy Santorum about the Everglades? He’s a snake, he’d have more invested in the issue. We also get Williams asking abut the Terry Schiavo case, which happened years ago and has nothing to do with anything that is going on right now. Gingrich and Paul address it but it is just a time-waster.

Romney is asked if space is a priority. He says “yes” but adds that Obama doesn’t have a real vision for NASA and because of that, Florida is suffering. Actually dude, I live in Florida and I’m doing okay, so don’t speak for me. Mitt says that the right mission for NASA needs to be determined by the president. Um.. I thought you were a capitalist guy? Romney then adds that NASA shouldn’t be solely funded by the government but that it should be funded by a collaborative effort of the military and companies that have ties and can benefit from the institutions work.

Keeping with Romney, he is asked what he’s done to promote conservatism. Mitt gives the stupidest answer when he says that he has created a family and worked in the private sector. Really, that’s your answer? Gingrich is then brought in and asked to comment on Mitt and replies with, “I don’t want to spend my time commenting on Mitt.” Well what the fuck was he doing the first half of this goddamned debate?! Santorum jumps in and rants and whines about a bunch of shit regarding Gingrich and Romney not being as conservative as he is.

Brian Williams then asks Ron Paul if Gingrich and Romney are insufficiently conservative. Why didn’t Williams ask if Santorum was? Ron Paul says that it all depends on what your definition of conservative is. He points out that conservatives have lost their way completely and asks how can a person be conservative when they’ll cut food stamps but won’t stop wasteful spending overseas. He adds that you can’t have smaller government if you keep creating all these wars. He also adds that you can’t promote personal liberty and then try to legislate all the crap that the GOP wants.

Mittens says that he has a solid conservative record, just look at it. Okay dickbag. He then diverts and brags about how Ted Kennedy had to take a loan out on his house to beat him in the governor’s race back in the 90′s. Yeah, he still beat you dude. He finishes his soulless rambling by saying he will repeal Obamacare and leave health care up to the states.

Gingrich is asked about his numbers being on the rise and what scares him the most about possibly becoming president. He just says that the next president will face enormous problems. No shit cuntpickle! He then warns that there are too many huge special interest groups working against the country and only for their own benefit. Somehow he expects to defeat that. This ends the debate, twenty minutes early and Brian Williams introduces NBC’s crack staff to analyze the debate for the remainder of the time. I turn off the TV.

God this shit was awful.

Grading Scale:
Grade B: Ron Paul
Grade D+: Newt Gingrich
Grade D: Rick Santorum
Grade D-: Mitt Romney

*Written by Rob Rimes.

You’ll have to excuse me, I barely got any sleep and had to wake up early as fuck on a Sunday morning to watch this goddamned debate. This probably won’t be my best written debate critique but I have a duty to fulfill and must see to it that I keep moving forward and continue to cover these shit shows. It’s just hard to get motivated when sitting through these awful things. Apart from Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, the rest of these assholes are the same and frankly, I’m over it. But whatever, we’ve still got a little while left on this journey but hopefully after New Hampshire, a few more people will fall off and narrow this race down to just a few candidates.

So here we go, just twelve hours or so after the last debate and we’re off on another one. This debate was essentially a special episode of NBC’s Sunday morning news program ‘Meet The Press’. And just like that show, it was hosted by David Gregory, a man who looks like the love child of the Joker and a gremlin. Nothing was more annoying on a Sunday morning, when I should be sleeping off a hangover instead of watching this shit, than having to sit through the first fifteen minutes of this crap. Why? Well, the entire first portion of this debate was about Mitt Romney, as gremlin ass David Gregory wasted a quarter of an hour asking the candidates about the former Massachusetts governor. Jesus, where’s my damn bourbon!

Well, one good thing that I did notice was that Ron Paul was finally at a center podium! At least NBC isn’t afraid to show that Dr. Paul is a frontrunner. So I do have to give them credit for that. Shit, it must be tearing at Rick Santorum. He’s so pissed he gave his feathery baby mullet and extra bit of fluff this morning.

Anyway, Gingrich was the first to be asked about Romney’s record. Newt diverts the question and calls himself a Reagan conservative and says that he is more likely to succeed against Obama than Mitt, who Newt calls “timid”. Newt drops another Reagan reference and then another! He can’t just leave Reagan’s ghost alone, he has to continue to align himself with the 40th president because he knows that he is the hero to most Republicans. The truth is, Newt is NOT a Reagan conservative and at this point, if you can’t see why he isn’t, then you haven’t been paying attention.

Mitt Romney rebuttals by going on and on about his record and success at creating jobs in Massachusetts. He then talks about all the conservative leaders who have endorsed him. Santorum is pulled in and asked the same question as Newt. Then this all goes back and forth between Romney, Santorum and Gingrich for fifteen minutes. This entire section of the debate was pointless. Finally, David Gregory brings Ron Paul into this discussion and Paul says that this entire debate thus far has been “superficial”. Dr. Paul just slams Gregory and NBC for subjecting us to this, which causes Gregory to admit that Paul’s right and thus, the debate gets away from the time-wasting bullshit.

Jon Huntsman comes out and says that he was criticized at the previous night’s debate for putting his country first. Huntsman is of course referring to when Romney basically tried to make him look like a traitor for being Ambassador to China under Barack Obama. Romney says that working under Obama doesn’t truly represent a conservative stance. Huntsman cuts right in and says that the nation is divided because of statements like Mitt Romney’s. The room erupts into applause and cheers, in what was the greatest moment Jon Huntsman has had at any debate. In fact, the response was so good for Huntsman and so bad for Romney, after this exchange, that I would be shocked if there wasn’t a major number shift in the New Hampshire polls leading up to their elections.

Jon Huntsman is asked to name three areas where Americans would feel some pain over major spending cuts. Jon Huntsman immediately pimps the Paul Ryan Plan and says that the best thing about it is that there aren’t any sacred cows. He then goes on to say that defense spending shouldn’t be based off of a percentage of our GDP. He says that it would be determined realistically by looking at what we’re doing, what we need and eliminate all the waste.

Santorum is posed with the same question.He says that he won’t burden future generations with the Social Security problem. He also says that tax on labor makes us uncompetitive. He promises to take welfare and food stamps out of the federal government and return that power to the states. Santorum refers to all these entitlements as “dependency programs”.

Gingrich is asked about the negative comments he made last year in regards to the Paul Ryan Plan. Newt basically brushes it off, as he has already addressed the issue several times and now supports the plan. What he does say is that there needs to be a transition towards a Medicare program that makes sense.

Perry makes a joke and everyone laughs. I missed what he said as I accidentally spilled Chex Mix all over my couch and was frantically trying to clean up the mess; I’m paranoid of bugs. Rick Perry goes on to say that we need to create an environment that brings jobs and gives people their dignity back. He says that he did this in Texas and makes a case as to why he would be the best guy to do it for the whole country.

Rick Santorum comes back in and says that people often tell him that they want the same healthcare program that members of Congress have. Santorum agrees with those people and said that they should be allowed the same choices as Washington’s elite. Okay, so is he for socialized medicine then? Sounds like he wants to replace Obamacare or restructure Obamacare with something that reflects the same insurance plan members of Congress have.

Mitt Romney says that the right course for America is to not raise taxes. He adds that the reason why the government always wants to bring in more tax revenue is because they need to pay for their massive size. Mitt says that we need to shrink the size of government and claims that he has a plan that can reduce it’s size. He goes for the cheap pop from the New Hampshire crowd when he says that the first thing to do to stop over-spending is to kill Obamacare.

Jon Huntsman re-enters the debate and tells us that he put a tax reform proposal on the table that was endorsed by the Wall Street Journal. He says that we have to get rid of all the legislative loopholes and eliminate corporate welfare and subsidies. The crowd is being really receptive to Huntsman this debate.

Gingrich is asked about the personal attacks on him by Harry Reid. Apparently Reid said that if Newt became president, he would do everything in his power to make sure that he was just a one-term president. Gingrich cooly responds that the opposition always wants you to be a one-term president. He doesn’t cite this as an example but he’s right. Hell, nearly every single GOP candidate has said repeatedly that their mission is “..to make Obama a one-term president.” Hell, Michele Bachmann used to scream out this mantra again and again. Gingrich then goes on to cite Reagan again. He also gives Huntsman props for standing up to Romney earlier when he talked about putting partisan bullshit to the side and putting the country first. Newt says that people of goodwill can talk about the problems and work through them. He says that there is always time to fight and bicker later. He reminds us of how well he and Bill Clinton worked together in the 1990′s.

Romney jumps in to defend himself and says that he can work well with others. He talks about how the legislature in Massachusetts was 85 percent Democrat and regardless of that, they all worked well together. He talks about how the Democrats put their trust in him and allowed him to cut spending any way he saw fit. He claims that even though the state was full of Democrats, he cut taxes 19 times.

Ron Paul is asked about argument versus accomplishment or more precisely rhetoric over action. He is asked how he thinks he can get Congress to work with him when so few of his proposals have actually gone before Congress and only one has become a law. Ron Paul says that that shows how disgusting the politicians are and how sick Washington is because his policies work for the people as they are constitutional and promote individual rights, property rights and attack spending. He then says that he wants to first start by bringing our budget back down to the levels that it was at in 2006.

Rick Santorum is asked a question but, being the rotten bag of dicks that he is, ignores it and uses his time to attack Dr. Paul. He says that Paul has accomplished nothing and that he has proven that he is unsuccessful at working with anyone. Right, and everything Santorum has accomplished has been very strong liberal policies that somehow make him, and his supporters, believe that he is a conservative. Santorum goes on to say that Paul’s foreign policy will leave America vulnerable. Yep and Santorum’s foreign policy will murder innocent people and destroy their economy through sanctions and the cost of rebuilding the mess we leave them with. Not to mention the fact that it’ll just manufacture more hatred towards the United States. He concludes by saying that the things Republicans like about Paul, he can’t accomplish, and the thing they don’t like, he can accomplish and those things will put us in harms way. Santorum runs out of time and then tells the moderators that they have to give him more time to answer the question he ignored. This guy is such a fucking prick.

Defending himself, Ron Paul says that we can’t get involved in all these pointless attempts at nation building. He also adds that we can’t afford to have all these bases everywhere. Ron Paul warns us about our horrific monetary policy. He then answers Santorum’s claims that he has no influence by telling everyone that he has changed the rhetoric in this country. He has educated people on the tyranny of the Federal Reserve and made dissatisfaction with that agency go mainstream. He says that most Americans now favor an audit of the Fed and they want more transparency.

They go back to Santorum to answer the question that he ignored and he just babbles a bunch of crap. Huntsman then jumps in and brings up “trust deficits” again. He also brings up his strong desire for congressional term limits.

Rick Perry is asked about leadership and the crowd laughs. He is then asked about how he would buck his party and make decisions that might not be popular with the GOP establishment. Perry says the biggest problem with the country is Congress’ out of control spending. Referring to a few unnamed people on stage, he says that those who voted to raise the debt limit are a part of the problem. Perry, like Huntsman, calls for term limits for Congress but he also calls for them to be cut down to part-time so that they would all have to get real jobs like the rest of us. So, does Perry have a regular job?

Jon Huntsman gets on energy and says that we have to stop favoring oil over other resources. He tells us that we need more diversity and that we need to treat oil in the same way we treated broadcasting. He says that we have to break up the oil monopolies or else we will never truly have energy independence.

Ron Paul is asked about his stance on oil and energy subsidies. He responds by telling the moderators that subsidies are bad economic and moral policy as it takes government force to transfer money from one group to another, which can cause great harm in the long run. Ron Paul says that when the dollar is manipulated it drives prices up elsewhere, especially in regards to energy.

Mitt Romney starts talking a bunch of shit. He says that we have massive overhead because there are too many government problems. No shit dickweed, did you just figure that out? He is then asked about his pro-gay comments from some random magazine that was published in 1994. In that interview, Mitt said that he would stand up for gay rights. Mitt responds by saying that he doesn’t discriminate and that he had a gay person in his cabinet while he was governor. He says that he has always promoted a stance that wasn’t discriminatory in the hiring process or anywhere else. The moderator asks Mitt, “When was the last time you stood up for gay rights.” Mitt quickly snaps back, “Right now!”

The topic of defending gays is then brought up to Santorum. This bigoted fuck says that all people should be treated with respect and dignity but he is against gays trying to write or change laws. Yep asshole, sounds like respect and dignity to me. He is then asked how he would treat a son that came out to him as gay. He says that he would love him the same. Yeah, except he probably wouldn’t let his hypothetical gay son vote during major family decisions.

They go to Rick Perry and he just rambles about wrangling steer and wrestling illegal aliens before handing them free tuition checks. Mitt also has a ramble session but says unions suck and we need federal “right to work” legislation. He goes on to say that unions have too much political power and points to the unions for government employees as being one of the worst examples of political corruption. Santorum jumps back in to get his two cents on unions into the debate. He admits that he didn’t vote for Pennsylvania to be a “right to work” state but he supports it nationally. Uh.. does he not know how this works?

Newt Gingrich blames Barack Obama’s policy for killing jobs and raising gas prices. This lead in is just another opportunity for him to rant about how he is the second coming of Ronald Reagan again! Newt, who has always been a good debater is now carrying himself like Michele Bachmann, who was synonymous for continually repeating catchphrases over and over. I don’t see how this continued talk of how he is Reagan-esque is going to help him. His strategy has always worked well in debates and he doesn’t need to hold onto this cheap talking point.

Mitt Romney blames Obama for the slow economics recovery but doesn’t blame him for the recession itself. He adds that business owners feel like they are under attack from the Obama administration due to his shitty policies. He then goes on a tangent about clean air or something. He finishes up by calling for a real effort at tapping into our natural gas resources. Scientists have recently come out and said there is a lot less natural gas than these politicians claim. This is something I should probably look more into. Continuing the energy talk, Newt explains how radical and incompetent the EPA is. He gives a bunch of examples of how they suck and concludes by saying that he plans to replace the EPA with a different environmental agency.

Rick Perry is asked about John McCain’s comments where he recently praised Obama by saying that on foreign policy he reflected our Founding Fathers. Mr. Texas didn’t agree with McCain’s comments and he pointed out that Obama is a socialist and is therefore incompatible with the Founding Fathers. Really? Because on foreign policy, Obama and Perry don’t really differ all that much. Perry then rants about how Obama needs to respect the 10th Amendment.

Due to the fact that he has had very liberal policies, Santorum is asked if he has advanced socialism. He doesn’t really answer the question and goes on to describe all the things he’s done to reform the health care industry. The moderator gets flustered because Santorum is beating around the bush. Ricky Boy explains that he and the moderator aren’t communicating well. He says that his record proves that he is anti-socialist. You sure about that homeboy?

One of the idiot moderators asks Ron Paul what people are entitled to get from the government, as if people should expect the government to give them hand outs galore. Paul smacks this dickhead down and says that entitlements are not a right. He goes on to say that he hates the term “gay rights” because that puts people into a group. He says we’re not groups we’re all individuals and then says that it is individual rights that we have to protect. He says that we must think in terms of individuals and not groups and then warns that we can’t expect one group to be forced to have to give to another group.

Being that they are in New Hampshire, Jon Huntsman is asked what “Live Free or Die” means to him. He says that it is a motto that people from New Hampshire take very seriously. He says that they also take leadership very seriously and leadership is about unifying people, not vilifying groups and attacking them. Huntsman then goes on another rant about the “trust deficit”.

Rick Santorum is asked why he thinks that we need to worry about Iran when we survived the Cold War, as Russia had thousand upon thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at us. They also cite the fact that North Korea, who hates us, is also armed with nukes but Santorum doesn’t think we should invade them. Rick says that Iran is an Islamic theocracy and they are willing to die to kill us, so that is the major difference. Santorum needs to learn about Iran and its people.

Gingrich is asked about the fact that he has been vocally opposed to all the attack ads coming out against him but now he is releasing attack ads too. The moderators challenge Newt’s consistency. He says that he is consistent because his attack ads are “fact based” unlike all the ads from other candidates. Oh, what a crock of shit! This honey badger really has thin skin and a mouth full of bullshit to hide it! Gingrich then gets fired up and tells Romney to come out and say that his attack ads are “untrue”. Mitt says that he didn’t make the ads and by law he can’t direct them, they are made by all of his PACs. Mitt says that if the ads have anything that is wrong, that material should be taken out. However Romney immediately starts going through every single point in the ads and says that each one is true. Newt can’t dispute it, he just looks like a whiney fool and tucks his tail between his legs. Romney literally owned Newt! That just leaves one to wonder, what the hell has happened to our beloved honey badger? He’s gone from super-debater to being a guy that just babbles, repeats catchphrases and cowers at the sight of a fancy haircut!

To close out the debate, Rick Santorum goes on to talk about the book he wrote. Fuck you asshole, I’ve written two and am nearly done with my third! Plus mine don’t suck. And that’s pretty much it, other than Ron Paul talking about how he will always preach the gospel of liberty. This debate was pretty poor overall and most of these people still look like the weak douches they are. Paul did pretty good but not as good as last night. Huntsman did really well! In fact, the people of New Hampshire were cheering him many times throughout the debate. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jon Huntsman surges in the polls after this showing.

Grading Scale:
Grade A-: Jon Huntsman
Grade B: Ron Paul
Grade C: Mitt Romney
Grade D: Newt Gingrich
Grade D: Rick Perry
Grade F: Rick Santorum

*Written by Rob Rimes.

This is the first debate after voting has officially started. It is also the first of two New Hampshire debates, the second one being just twelve hours later at nine in the morning. I’m already dreading waking up that early on a Sunday to watch it. I guess my typical Saturday night must be put on hold so I can type up this debate critique and prepare for tomorrow’s early morning rap battle between six whiteboys.

Anyway, this debate started with your typical intro, which was actually nice and fair to everyone involved in the debate. That’s not something I can say about myself because I am about to let the douchebags have it, as I always do. As with every ABC debate, we are stuck dealing with Diane Sawyer, who is a really feminine looking fellow, as well as George Stephanopoulos. There is also some dude named Josh sitting at the table this time. Everyone is announced and there are no cheers or boos so either the crowd is boring as fuck or ABC decided to get all Mussolini about the rules. They’ve also brought out that red light, yellow light, green light timer thing again, which is just fucking stupid. Have a real fucking timer people, colors are confusing. Besides, what if one of the candidates are color blind? You liberal shitcocks didn’t think of that did you? You wouldn’t want to be insensitive would you?

Now with this debate, I’m going to just write about the key moments. The reason for this is because this debate was literally a mess. It was easily the worst one yet and even though I’ve said it before, this one was plagued with amateurish technical issues and the questions, format and refereeing were so poor that this was like a free-for-all 12 and under night at CiCi’s Pizza Buffet. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the cable channels, with smaller budgets, put together better debates than the major networks. ABC sucks mule cock because this damn thing was almost unintelligible and to top that off, it ended twenty minutes early!

So of course, the first question goes to Mitt Romney. Although ABC sits on the left and the candidates are supposed to sit on the right, there is an obvious bias towards Romney in this debate. Reason being, at the end of the day, ABC and Mitt Romney are both progressives. It’s also worth noting the Rick Santorum is now standing at one of the center podiums. That’s bullshit! He isn’t one of the top two frontrunners. He didn’t win Iowa and in New Hampshire he is polling 4th out of 6! The guy polling second is Ron Paul but god forbid they put him center stage with Romney.

So Mitt is asked about job growth. He says that he is optimistic and that the current growth is great but he then points out that Obama is going to take credit for it when in reality he had nothing to do with it. In fact, Romney goes on a tangent about how Obama’s policies have made the situation worse and made the road to recovery that much harder.

Rick Santorum is questioned next and all he does is ramble about how great he is and all the great things he has done. Yep, he’s fantastic! In fact, I just wrote an article about this moron and his moronic policies (read it here). Ricky Boy warns that Iran is the most pressing issue of the day. No it isn’t, unless you are an Islamophobic warmonger that can’t pull their finger off the trigger. He tells us that we need to strengthen our ties with our allies and we need to throw our weight around with our enemies. Santorum then takes a shot at Mitt and says that we don’t need a CEO as commander-in-chief. Apparently Santorum isn’t worried about jobs and the economy. He just thinks that the president needs to be a military man above everything else. Well Santorum, you are neither a CEO or a military man, so go fuck yourself.

Mitt Romney responds by saying that people who spend their life in Washington, like Santorum, don’t understand how a CEO or a business owner could be a real leader. Mitt says that his experience is in real leadership. Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney then go back and forth about records and other boring shit I’ve covered in the other seven dozen debates. Mitt ends the exchange by going on and on about all the jobs he’s created; he claims that the 90,000 jobs at Staples were part of what he helped start.

Jon Huntsman is asked about Mitt’s record and he immediately goes in to say that it is fair for the country to dig into any of their records because everyone’s is quite extensive and will most likely have something questionable in it. Huntsman points out though that the candidates need to realize that in their current position, they have to expect their record to be picked apart, analyzed and scrutinized. He then finishes by touting his economic successes in Utah.

Ron Paul and Rick Santorum got into it, which was great. It started when Paul was asked about his attack ads against Santorum and he started to defend them but was immediately interrupted by the buzzer. Then Santorum cut in and yelled at Paul that he was lying. Fuck, Santorum is such a whiney wimpy bitch with extremely thin skin. Paul goes on to explain Santorum’s shitty record but the buzzer continues to malfunction in the background. It’s like ABC is just trying to throw Paul off. Whatever, I’m not going to get all conspiratorial about it.

Santorum, who is just acting like a pissed off pussy, says that the group Dr. Paul cites that labeled him “corrupt” is a liberal attack group and that Dr. Paul should be ashamed for even bringing it up. Aw, poor baby. Santorum then tries to go on and defend his big government waste and just fails miserably at convincing anyone. He just talks about how great he is and how his garbage policies have saved America. He then fallaciously attacks Ron Paul on earmarks. Really? Did he not hear Dr. Paul’s answer to this last debate? Maybe if he’d shut up and listen to someone else for a change then he wouldn’t be such a self-centered egomaniacal asswipe.

Shaking his head, Paul makes it clear that he has always voted against big spending. He goes on to explain that Santorum is a big government conservative and no matter how he tries to explain himself it doesn’t matter. He’s a statist and that’s all there is to it. Santorum snaps back saying that his record is good, which is by far the most laughable thing in this entire debate. He then disses Paul’s libertarianism and says that he isn’t like Paul because he doesn’t vote against everything. He says that as if it’s a bad thing! Santorum is a fucking cry baby dork dick pissant that was seriously about to break out in tears or have a meltdown if Paul kept pushing him on the truth. The moderators stepped in and saved us from full Santorum meltdown, which was the stupidest thing they could have done! Fucking ABC! Just when Icarus was getting too close to the sun, you you handed him a fucking parachute!

Rick Perry, who is still in this race somehow, points to Paul and Santorum and says that Washington insiders are a problem and since he’s not an insider, he’s the man for the job. Yeah, you’re a Bilderberger dude; you can’t get much more “insider” than that. Stephanopoulos asks Perry to clarify if he is calling Ron Paul an “insider” and Perry says yes and then goes on a rant that ends with him calling Ron Paul a “hypocrite”.

Cutting in, Huntsman says that we just witnessed a bunch of insider “goobly goop”. He then reminds us again that he did a bunch of amazing stuff that helped take Utah to the moon. Huntsman says that the United States has a “trust deficit”. This is becoming his “999″. He then says that “everyone knows that Congress needs term limits”. No dude, everyone doesn’t know that. In fact, I’m undecided about it. It’s something I need to do more research on. On paper it sounds good but you can’t just go off of that.

Crazy ass Diane Sawyer turns to Mitt Romney, who gets confused because Sawyer forgot to ask him a question! God, ABC sucks! Mitt goes on to say anyone up there would be better than Obama. He then rambles a bunch of gibberish and I can’t follow what he’s saying. I just hear something about a “dangerous world” and “shrunken military”.

We then get to the next good fight of the night and this time it is between Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich. Newt is asked about Paul’s “chicken hawk” comments which refer to Newt being so pro-war yet never having served his country as a soldier. Newt responds to this by talking about how his dad was in the military and that he was an army brat. He tells some story and then tries to convince us all that he “gets it”. Great, are they going to start making former Army brats generals now?

Ron Paul is asked if he would use that phrase again to describe Newt. He says yes and then he goes on to defend all the youngsters that are being pulled into war by non-military leaders who have never served a day in their lives. Ron Paul reminds the other candidates that the Constitution has rules and that all these wars break those rules. He doesn’t like it when leaders who have never experienced war send our kids off to die over some bullshit.

Newt rebuttals by saying, “Ron Paul has a long history of saying things that are inaccurate or false”. Shit, I just spit my soda across the room.. hahahahahaha! Did Newt really say that?! Yes he did! Jesus Newt, you talk more bullshit than most of these people combined and you’re going to try and call the only honest man on stage a liar? Really? Newt closes by saying that he resents Paul’s comments and the fact that he slurs people. Newt really can’t stand personal attacks by other politicians. In fact, he was on Fox News this past week urging Mitt Romney to pull his attack ads off the air. Naturally, Mitt just laughed at him. Ron Paul comes back at Newt and says that when he was drafted he had a wife and two kids and he still went. Ron Paul, believe it or not people, is the real experienced military candidate.

Ron Paul is then asked about the racist newsletter issue again and he is asked to explain it for the umpteenth time. Paul says that he did not write it and says that looking at something he didn’t do 20 years ago is distracting from what’s important in the world right now. He adds that the moderators need to ask him what he will do to work against racism. He goes on to talk about how the drug war hurts minorities because they are treated much worse than whites when hit with the law. He also points out that minorities suffer more in war due to how they are treated. He promises to end this sort of racial tyranny.

Mitt is asked if states have the right to ban contraception, which just kicks off a really weird five minute block of strangeness starring Mr. Romney. First of all, Santorum rudely cuts in and mumbles something because he is an attention-starved whore. Mitt says that he would oppose any ban to contraception. He is asked if states wanting to ban it is Constitutional. Mitt immediately looks confused and tells the moderators to ask “the constitutionalist” Ron Paul. So Mitt doesn’t know and he’s looking for  Dr. Paul to bail him out. He then diverts the discussion and goes into a rant about the Supreme Court but George Stephanopoulos asks Mitt to answer the question again. Once again, he cannot answer it and brushes it off by saying that no state wants to ban contraception so why is this being brought up. Stephanopoulos asks Mitt a third time and this time the crowd boos, they’re over it.

Ron Paul while discussing the Constitution says that the 4th Amendment is clear and that you can’t just go into people’s houses and disrupt their lives. He talks about how thew PATRIOT Act is unconstitutional which causes America’s favorite shit stain Rick Santorum to chime in that the PATRIOT Act does not violate the 4th Amendment. Apparently Mr. Santorum has never read the fucking thing. He then throws in that he wants to turnover Roe v. Wade.

The topic shifts over to gay marriage. Gingrich says that marriage is exclusive to a man and a woman but regardless of that, we don’t have to make gays miserable. He says that we need to clearly define it. Okay, so where’s the part about not making gays miserable? Huntsman says that civil unions are fair and that his marriage and his family aren’t threatened by civil unions. Huntsman says that recognizing a civil union between gays and lesbians “brings dignity to their relationships” and he feels that it is “absolutely appropriate”. Santorum on same sex adoption says that it is a state issue. He says that marriage is a federal issue however. Huh? He says that you can’t get married in one state and not have it recognized in another, so therefore it has to be defined at a federal level. Okay, so if a gay couple has a kid in California but then they go to Nevada, is the child magically not theirs then? This logic makes no sense. Plus, if marriage is defined at the federal level, then doesn’t that eliminate gay marriage across the board and thus eliminate a married gay couple from adopting a child, even at the state level? On gays, Mitt Romney says that everyone has the right to form long-term relationships but that doesn’t mean that they have to call it marriage. He says that gays could have some sort of “contractual relationship”. Aw, how sweet!

Ron Paul starts to talk and is immediately interrupted, not sure if it was Romney or Santorum but whoever it is should shut the fuck up. These idiots are so afraid of this guy that they can’t even let him get out a sentence. Paul says that we need drastic changes in foreign policy and monetary policy. He adds that there has been no real talk about cutting spending in this debate. Well, no shit Dr. Paul, you’re on progressive ass ABC with a bunch of progressive ass neo-con RINOs and Jon Huntsman. Paul does point out that the “cuts” to military spending that everyone is bitching about is really just an end to future increases.

Joining the military discussion, Huntsman says that it is time to bring the boys home. He says that our occupation of Afghanistan is not to fight an insurgency but that it is to nation build and it’s time to end it. Huntsman warns that civil war is around the corner in Afghanistan and he doesn’t want to stick around and endanger our troops any longer.

Newt jumps in to say that we’re asking the wrong questions about Afghanistan. He claims that Afghanistan is one piece of a larger puzzle. Gingrich goes on to point fingers at Pakistan, Iran, Syria and pretty much everywhere else that doesn’t have Christianity as their state religion. Newt’s solution? Bomb him some motherfuckers!

Santorum says that America is soft and can be pushed around too easily. He blames Obama’s handling of Iraq as to why we are so soft. He then gets mad at Huntsman for wanting to leave Afghanistan and goes on an angry rant about “RADICAL ISLAM! RADICAL ISLAM! RADICAL ISLAM!” He then gives the fucking spiel about how they hate us so we have to murder them. He obviously can’t wrap his fucking peanut brain around the fact that maybe they hate us because we are bombing the shit out of them and setting up bases in their backyards!

Super-fucking-genius Rick Perry jumps right in and says that he would send troops right back into Iraq. He then drunkenly rambles about treasure and blood money. Perry claims that Iran will move into Iraq. Wait, didn’t all these guys, like a month ago, say that Iran would move in the second we left? Okay, so where are they? None of them really care about solving this problem. In fact, Newt says that if you want to stop Iran coming into Iraq, you just have to go stop Iran at the source. For the uninformed, that means he wants to flatten their country.

Ron Paul is asked about his questionable foreign policy and how he expects to win when that is seemingly his Achilles’ heel. Ron Paul says that the president is the commander-in-chief not a king. He says that we need to go to war the right way and not the way that we have been for the last 50 years.He points to all the countries that we are in and how many of our leaders now want to bomb so many others. Ron Paul tells us that we need to change our ways. He then tells a story about how just this week, the Navy rescued some Iranians from pirates and how those sort of actions are what we need to be doing to build relationships with other countries. He warns against throwing around sanctions and threatening aggression. He says that our actions push those that we perceive as enemies into the arms of China, which is bad for all of us.

Rick Santorum then comes on and explains that the Iranian people want to be liberated and that they have taken to the streets and protested against the current regime. He says that Obama missed an opportunity by doing nothing. Of course, even though he knows there are innocent people who want freedom, Santorum’s answer is to sanction them to death and then bomb them if they’re still alive.

The next topic is jobs and truthfully, every dickhead on stage just talks about how Obama sucks and how they have created trillions of jobs in the private sector, yada yada yawn. Santorum does go on some long-winded sanctimonious speech about spending cuts. Funny, considering the douche only knows how to spend. Honestly, I can’t listen to this fucking prick anymore so when he comes on, I’m just going to put my earbuds in and listen to Morse code because at least that’s more exciting.

Ron Paul is asked to give a realistic vision of what he feels would be a great America. He says that people need to understand economics, not of the Keynesian variety obviously, and that they need to learn about bubbles and how they break. Ron Paul says that we are in the midst of a really big economic correction. He talks about how the Republican Party used to stand for real cuts but that they don’t any longer. He continues by saying that we need to stop bailing people out and we need to truly understand the business cycle.

The debate moves over to Huntsman and he warns against putting tariffs on China. He says that we need to sit down with China and work through our trade issues. Mitt Romney jumps in and takes a cheap shot at Huntsman by pointing out that he worked for Obama as Ambassador to China. Well no shit asshole, that’s why he knows so much about China! Maybe you should STFU and listen to him, eh? Nope, Romney goes on to talk about how China manipulates our money and sends us computer viruses. First of all Mittens, WE manipulate our fucking money! Romney says that he won’t talk about how we need to get along with China. He says that they need to play by the rules and not kill our jobs. All I can think of right now is that ‘South Park’ episode where the town rednecks repeatedly yelled “They took errrrrr jobs!” Huntsman says that Romney is just using easy talk to get easy applause and says that his ideas will create a real trade war. Romney essentially says that he is willing to call China’s bluff.

We come back from our final break and the moderators ask some stupid fucking question I won’t even address here. I’m tired of time wasted on dumb shit that doesn’t move the debate forward. I guess it doesn’t matter though because they end the debate twenty minutes early and that’s that.

This debate was horrible. End of fucking story.

Grading Scale:
Grade A: Ron Paul
Grade B-: Jon Huntsman
Grade D+: Newt Gingrich
Grade D: Mitt Romney
Grade D-: Rick Perry
Grade F: Rick Santorum

*Written by Rob Rimes.

The first debate of December brought us something unique. Mike Huckabee, former presidential candidate and host of the aptly named Huckabee on Fox News, decided to host a two hour forum for all the presidential candidates. Well, that is except Gary Johnson, who no ones seems to invite to anything anymore, even though he is a complete bad ass and could run circles around every candidate not named Ron Paul. Herman Cain was not a part of the debate as he tapped out of the presidential race earlier in the day because some fucking vampire bitches were trying to dine on his pizza sauce blood. Also, Jon Huntsman decided not to take Mr. Huckabee’s invitation and sat this debate out because he’s not big on theatrics and lesser debates that aren’t going to influence anyone, one way or the other. Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum were all present however.

The format itself differed from previous debates, as each candidate was given their own time on stage to answer the moderators without their competition in the room. Each candidate was given equal time, or so Mike Huckabee claimed but the time allotted did seem pretty balanced. Also, the candidates were asked not to mention and especially not to bash any of the other candidates. This forum was for them to explain their stance on the issues without interruption from bickering rivals trying to steal away as much time as possible. It is also worth noting that there was no audience, as the Huckster didn’t want his Huckamaniacs at home to be influenced by cheers, jeers and what he hates most.. queers.

Mike Huckabee was pretty much just the host, as he did not actually moderate the debate. The duties of moderator were handled by three state attorney generals. They were Pam Bondi from my home state of Florida, Ken Cuccinelli of Virginia and Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma. The moderators did a pretty good job and asked some pretty decent questions to most of the participants.

As unique as this forum was, I didn’t feel like it really benefitted anyone to take part in it. It was pretty cut and dry and if you don’t know where these people stand at this point, you probably didn’t bother enough to watch this anyway. All it did for me was solidify Rick Santorum’s religious intolerance, Newt’s magical way with dictation, Bachmann’s crazy antics, Mitt Romney’s hair as a force to be reckoned with, Rick Perry’s presence as a poor man’s Dubya and proof that neocons and RINOs will never “get” that crazy Ron Paul guy. However, let me give you the rundown of what happened nonetheless.

The first person put under the hot interrogation lamp was former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who last debate pissed off conservatives with his humanitarian policy in dealing with illegal aliens. Honey Badger doesn’t give a shit however and anyone trying to ruffle his feathers about it is going to get nut-stomped, simple as that! Funny enough, the first question given to Gingrich asks him to explain his controversial illegal immigration policy. Newtie Bootie explains, for the umpteenth time in just under a week, that he is only proposing that we need to not toss out illegals that have been here for a long time and have established their life here. I totally feel that and I agree that we shouldn’t be tossing out aliens that have been here for a quarter of a century that have contributed to our country. People need to get past the bullshit that all illegal aliens are milking the system. Yes, many are but that is a welfare issue and should be addressed as such, as far as I am concerned. It’s the welfare system that is a major magnet for those people.

When the subject of courts comes up, Newt says that he trusts a jury more than he trusts a bureaucrat and then touts how important it is to have a jury of your peers to avoid corruption and unjust decisions by those in power. Yet, he is a big fan of abandoning this stance when it comes to terrorists, whether legit or potential domestic threats. Ignoring the Constitution, as most conservatives do on this, Newt has no problem with military tribunals and unending detainment of criminals deemed threats to the United States. With the NDAA just passing in the Senate, this line is blurred even more and American citizens can potentially be given the same treatment, if they are deemed a “threat”. The criteria to deem someone a “threat” is very broad and essentially could be used to paint anyone a threat. Let me also point out that the right to a fair trial isn’t something that just refers to American citizens, it actually applies to everyone that commits a crime. There is nothing in the Constitution that points to different treatment for foreigners or even terrorists in war time or peace.

Newt is then asked about the problems in the medical industry. He says that back when he was speaker, the conservatives saw how bad Hillarycare was and therefore he truly understands how bad Obamacare is, especially the individual mandate portion of the bill.

When pressed about a television commercial he filmed with Nancy Pelosi, Gingrich referred to the incident as “the dumbest thing he ever did.” I guess infidelity isn’t as bad when you think about it. He goes on to talk about how he wants the 10th Amendment to be enforced. He also says that he will introduce a balanced budget amendment. Citing his time as the leader in the House of Representatives, he boasts about how he controlled spending and balanced a budget in the 1990′s. He takes a shot at the Tea Party when he says that you can’t change things at the scale that they want and that you have to essentially find a happy medium. Yeah dude, what’s the happy medium? Newt also points out that Medicaid and education should be state issues, not federal ones. He believes that education controlled at a state level would give the power back to parents in regards to their children’s schooling. Newt calls for shrinking Washington and growing citizen control over the government. He says that he wants to establish an environmental solutions agency to replace the EPA.

Rick Santorum finds himself center stage in the chair, as I don’t wait eagerly for his first question. I actually take a quick second to center myself and calm my nerves before having to deal with his complete and utter stupidity spritzed with his special brand of religious fascism. You don’t believe me? Well, the first question he is asked is if the PATRIOT Act runs over American citizens. This fucking shitcock says, “No”! He then goes on to explain, in his completely ignorant and idiotic way that before 9/11 we weren’t dealing with terror (yes we were you fucking moron) and that we need the tools created by the PATRIOT Act to help us find and nail the evil bastards. Well, Rick Santorum is still walking around, so his theory holds no weight since he is an evil bastard that the PATRIOT Act must not have nailed. Rick Santorum agrees with the tyrannous acts that Abraham Lincoln used to prevent the South from seceding, a right that was protected by the Constitution mind you! So in Santorum’s little fucking shit world, it is okay for the president to completely abuse his power in an effort to force his subjects to do whatever he wants, regardless of their rights.

Santorum is asked if the government should dictate family values. He responds by saying that the government undermines family values but “yes” they should dictate them regardless. Racquetball Ass Juice then goes on a rant about how welfare undermines families and even though there is some truth to that, no one with their wits about them is even really listening to this wannabe tyrant anymore. Santorum then tells some long ass pointless story about some group in Tennessee that helps promote marriage. Coming from Santorum, that translates to “protects marriage from those filthy gays!” Anyway, he talked about a bunch of other shit but I missed it as I had to Listerine the fuck out of my mouth because more than two minutes of this guy makes me vomit. I can guess what was said though, “Rant. Rant. Jesus. Rant. Evil Fags. Rant. Rant. Abortion. Control. Power. Rant. Rant. Fascism. Rant. Christ. Rant. Values. Rant. Morals. Rant. Rant. Sanctity. Rant. Waterboarding. Torture. Bombs. Rant. Hallelujah!”

Oops Perry was up next, which is an improvement over Santorum, even though that isn’t saying much. As flat out dumb as Rick Perry is, at least he is entertaining and his comedic timing is worth all the gold in El Dorado. He is first asked about his craziness in wanting to use all sorts of executive orders to force his will on the American people. He doesn’t really give a real answer to the question the concerned moderators asked and instead just panders with empty bullshit and gives them all props. Dude, you can’t bullshit these moderators and the American people like you can a six-year-old child. “Hey look at this Beanie Baby wiggle!” Nope, that won’t work dude.

The question is essentially posed to Perry again and he ignores it to go on a rant about energy, which just annoys the moderators who have to tell him to make his points because his time is limited. Perry goes on to say that “right to work” laws are state issues and that he is a big 10th Amendment guy, well if you don’t count all the times he wants to abuse his executive power. Perry then gets distracted and starts pandering to Huckabee, who isn’t even moderating the debate. Perry is like an SNL character and while he thinks we’re laughing with him, well you know.

Rick Perry says that people moved to Texas because he’s a hell of a guy. He claims that he is the best candidate for border security because he’s the one who has been dealing with it the most the last decade. Yep, he’s been turning a blind eye to it while handing out Texans’ tax dollars to illegal aliens so that they can go to college for free, while the sons and daughters of the taxpayers get stuck with monstrous student loan debt. Rick Perry brags about how asshole Sheriff Joe Arpaio supports him. That’s like saying, “Hey guys, Mussolini’s ghost gave me the thumbs up!” Perry goes on to promise that he will have the border locked tight within 12 months. He also supports states wanting to sue the federal government for standing in the way of real border security.

The moderators ask Perry if the federal government should play a role in education. Perry says that it is the states’ job to handle education because locals will not allow their schools to fail. Perry also suggests getting rid of government assistance on school lunch and other things. Texas Rick says that we need to get rid of the Department of Education.

When it comes to the Supreme Court, Governor Perry wants strict constructionists as judges. While talking about the court room, he keeps pronouncing “legislators” as “ledge-ooh-slay-tores”. Perry then rambles on and on about strict constructionists. Rambles, pandering and diverting aside, Perry does much better in this sort of setting without other candidates to compete with over airtime. He seems more confident, even with his butchery of the English language and apparent OCD.

Bat Shit Bachmann takes the stage with a big ass smile or snarl, I’m not really sure. It just looks like she bit into a really sour lemon. I think she may have been in pain or had botox done five minutes prior. Either way, her crazy eyes were drilling holes into the moderators as she waited for her first question. If there is ever a Michele Bachmann biopic, they had better cast Jennifer Coolidge in the lead role.

On to her madness!

Bachmann immediately goes on a rant about how evil Obama is and how evil Obamacare is and I am immediately pulled into eye-rolling boredom. She calls Obamacare a “social engineering playground”. She also says that Obama has demonstrated how far a president’s abuse of power can go. Using her usual dose of fear-mongering, she warns that this election cycle is the only time that we can elect someone to kill Obamacare.

On the subject of her stupid stance on illegal immigration, Bachmann is asked about how she will pay for the billions it will cost to deport illegals under her “ship them the fuck out” promise. Bachmann says that the cost of allowing them to stay in America is greater than the cost of rounding them all up like the fucking Stasi and forcing them into concentration-like FEMA camps until they can be deported or gassed. Yeah, because they won’t just come right fucking back or anything. Bachmann better have some magic beans that can grow an impenetrable wall because if she doesn’t, these people will be right back. That is, after they cut through whatever wall Bachmann might build like a goddamned can of tuna. Bachmann says, “We have to uphold the law of the land!” Yeah lady, isn’t Obamacare the “law of the land” now? You’re not for upholding that. You’re bat shit logic is flawed.

Bachmann then goes on and on about the fact that she supports tort reform. However, she wants it at a federal level, which means that this self-described “constitutional conservative” is completely ignoring the 10th Amendment. Fuck, I’m so sick of the hypocrisy that these candidates ooze out of their pores.

Bachmann supports the elimination of the Department of Education and cites her seven-quintillion foster kids as some sort of example that is hard to follow. She wants to abolish the EPA because they have “become a government to themselves and they change history almost everyday.” Huh? Please elaborate. Wait, never mind.. please don’t.

Bachmann says that we need to send the power back to the states. Wait, hold the fuck up! You just shitted on the Constitution, especially the 10th Amendment which gives the states the right to make their own laws not covered in the Constitution. Bachmann is a fucking idiot that only supports something when it benefits her: typical religiously intolerant corrupt know-it-all Bible-thumper’s stance. Hungry Hungry Hippo-crite! Bachmann has constitutional schizophrenia. She can shove her stance on the PATRIOT Act up her ass as well. I’m done analyzing this mountain succubus.

Finally some goddamned sanity comes into the room when we get back from commercial break and Ron Paul is sitting in the chair previously occupied by a string of dumb asses. Paul is asked what are the three primary domestic responsibilities of government. He responds to the moderators by telling them that sound currency, secure borders and enforcing the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, should be the top three. He points out that the Constitution is the law.

Ron Paul is asked what his alternative to the PATRIOT Act would be, which is obviously a bit of a gotcha question, as stupid of a question that it is. Dr. Paul says that the PATRIOT Act would’ve never passed had they called it what it really is “the Repeal of the 4th Amendment.” He also says that you can’t pass laws to prevent all crime and violence. He goes back to the example he’s used before that you can’t have a cop in every house in an effort to prevent child abuse. Paul points out that there is nothing in the Constitution about a national police force or about the federal government dealing with acts of violence in this way. Paul warns against having federal policemen.

Answering a series of quick questions, Ron Paul says that we should be checking our borders and knowing who is coming in and it is something he will work on. He also says that these police state laws (like the PATRIOT Act) won’t make us any safer. More laws against the people here wont save us from psychos elsewhere. On crony capitalism, Paul states that it is wrong when people write the regulations for their own industries because it causes corruption and keeps the winners on top by eliminating competition unfairly. On the Medicare and Medicaid programs, Paul says that the Constitution says nothing about giving us these sorts of entitlements. To save the country, we have to be serious about cuts and Ron Paul plans to cut one trillion dollars in his first year as president. Paul warns that you can’t quit all these entitlements cold turkey, so he has programs he will set up to transition us out from under them. Ron Paul also ads that the United Nations and NATO should not have the power and influence over the United States that they do. When asked what one book he would recommend for every American to read, Ron Paul replied with “The Law” by Frédéric Bastiat.

The final candidate and obviously Mikey Huck’s main event is Mitt Romney. Nope, it’s not obvious who the brass at Fox News want in power. Romney starts by kissing major moderator and Huckabizzle ass. When asked questions, he answers in a way that is just professionally political in that it doesn’t really answer anything. He just talks about stuff without committing to an ideal. Romney plays his typical game of pandering to the voter base but doesn’t truly commit to any of it.

When Romney was asked about Obama claiming that Romneycare was the model for Obamacare he says that Obama never called him to see what worked and what didn’t. So does that excuse the similarities and the fact that Romney did provide the model for a bill he supposedly hates? What would Romney have said to Obama? Would he have helped him craft a different version or would he have told him it’s a bad idea? I mean, when pressed, Romney admits that there were mistakes made with Romneycare but he still supports it. Romney actually says that he had hoped that his plan would bring down the cost of healthcare but in the end it didn’t. Yet, he still claims that he fucking likes it? So he likes failing?! Un-fucking-believable!

On education, Romney says he supports No Child Left Behind. God, why would any conservative vote for this guy?! Oh yeah, the last two GOP presidential primary winners were Bush and McCain. Romney says that No Child Left Behind was Bush’s way of telling unions to stop fucking up public education. Yeah bro, that worked out real well.

On welfare, Romney says that he will examine programs for the poor. He also states that welfare programs need to be left up to the states. On the subject of the Supreme Court, like Perry, he says he will only appoint strict constructionists. Romney believes that states need to put in place “right to work” laws and he wouldn’t oppose getting rid of all federal labor laws. Romney wants to return power to the states. And that is basically it for Mr. Mittens.

The candidates are all given time to make some final statements but I can’t stomach anymore and I turn off the television. Sure, I’d like to hear Ron Paul’s thoughts but I’ve got just about every policy point of his Xeroxed into my brain. I just couldn’t sit through all the mentally vacant ass clowns to get to Dr. Paul. I also didn’t really care about listening to Mike Huckabee’s post-game wrap-up as he is just going to pimp Mittens and Newtie and find some way to discredit Ron Paul. In the end, this debate was about as fun as using a power drill on one’s own head.

Grading Scale:
Grade A-: Ron Paul
Grade C: Newt Gingrich
Grade D+: Rick Perry
Grade D: Mitt Romney
Grade F: Michele Bachmann
Grade F-: Rick Santorum
Grade I: Jon Huntsman
Grade I: Gary Johnson