I'll second that with the fact that if we are not necessarily back-stopping them, they might suddenly figure out how to get along. Israel is kind of the exception, we own that one, we dropped them in the middle of a viper pit and told them to figure it out. They obviously have just as much ancestral claim as anyone else does to the land, and it probably works better if they have a homeland anyway. It has to be somewhere, why not there. They are basically smaller than Sacramento County in California, they do an admirable job, but they need considerable help. At the same time though, they are a fantastic trade partner and they are really our only 'all-weather' friend in the Middle East. I don't have a problem making whatever weapons they need available to them.

I agree, I'm tired of being made to feel like I'm evil for thinking the way I do. I'm not "evil" for thinking everyone needs to pull their own weight. If you have 2 people in the cart for every 1 person pulling the damn cart, that doesn't work very well, the math doesn't work, that's where we are right now and why we went from about $7 trillion in debt to $21 trillion in less than 8 years.

Listening to Hillary defending loser-trade deals has been Hilarious. If you are losing money on the damn thing, why bother continuing? F-it.

If you are in business, and you are buying widgets for $10 that you are only selling for $9.... you don't keep doing it. You cut your damn losses and move on to something that works.

Warfare has changed. What we really need is STAR WARS defense against incoming missiles, rather than constant wars against countries where we get nothing (like Iraq and Afghanistan), and supporting countries in Europe like Germany, and countries in the middle east like Israel. They need to make peace with their neighbors or handle their defense themselves.

Trump says the things that we have been secretly thinking anyway. Finally, we are freed of political correctness and can accept our own thoughts. He just says whats on his mind, and it doesnt come out politically correct, but its out there to be thought about. Sometimes Trump says things that sound outlandish, but after thinking about them for a few weeks, they appear not so outlandish after all. The comments about keeping muslim immigrants OUT until we figure out how to distringuish the violent ones from the peaceful ones for example. The stopping of illegal immigration if we want to have a country with borders. The dumping of common core federal education standards. The stopping of non-beneficial trade deals. The making our country great AGAIN (Hillary says its great already, but I have been around long enough to know that its fallen a lot during my lifetime)

I dont believe the polls when it comes to Trump or anyone else really. Polls are not data, because it depends so much on HOW you ask the questions and WHO you ask. It will be what it will be in the end, however.
When it comes to campaign contributions, Trump is providing them, so he isnt beholden to outside contributors. Cruz and Kasich are bought and paid for from what information I can get. Cruz's wife works for Goldman for gods sake . From what Sanders says, his contributions are all small ones so he is an "outsider" too. I didnt say Cruz is running a sub par campaign, but its obviously not working to defeat Trump, despite his totally negative campaign to defeat Trump (negative campaigning is a big turn off- means they cant convince me to vote FOR them, but resort to tearing down the other guys). To that extent, Cruz IS running a sub-par campaign. Kasich is doing better on that account most of the time, but has lately resorted to dumping on Trump too.

Regarding NATO... I'm going to stand on the fact that we can have a larger standing army of our own a hell of a lot cheaper than supporting all of these foreign militaries.

The next gen Air Force "B-3" out for R&D to Northrup right now requires the ability to strike any OCONUS location within 6 hours from a Continental US base without landing and return.

We don't need the forward bases anymore, we haven't for years.

If we do not elect a known Constitutionalist, a person with a history of standing for rule of law - no matter what, we are most likely done. http://4thestatemedia.com/?p=430

Amen Brother. Do I love the guy? No. But right now I am far more willing to shake-up the status quo and put a lot of piglets suckling on the taxpayers out of work. I'm strong on defense, but I agree 100% with the guy, WW2 has been over for quite a while, South Korea, Japan, Germany, France, etc., can figure out how to contribute to their own defense costs. The 'keystone cops' in Brussels running around chasing their tails for 2 months are just more evidence of the fact that cutting the umbilical cord is needed more now than ever.

I was astounded that the most they can figure out how to come up with were 234 soldiers to deploy to their streets. That's it. That's the total sum of their national defense capability minus NATO (aka American) involvement. This is ridiculous.

"What seems to be coming out is the the winner of our popularity contests (presidential elections) is due more to the campaign managers than the candidates, and the amount of money the backers provide."

I don't know if you're aware of this, but your positions are all over the map. In one thread you are criticizing everyone but Donald Trump for soliciting funds and in the next you're pointing out that they are a huge determining factor in the race. As to the campaign managers, the political pundits pointed to Trump's loss in Iowa being due to his lack of a campaign there and the superiority of Cruz'. In fact, you won't hear anyone criticizing Cruz' campaign effectiveness anywhere. Where you got the notion that somehow Cruz is running a sub-par campaign is beyond me. Trump, however, has been content to simply do nothing but appear on TV shows and the odd rally - except when he's too emotionally involved and refuses to attend a debate.

"Cruz would do no better than McCain"

Speculation belied by every political insider I've listened to and every poll out there currently. It's one thing to present one's opinion, but to keep insisting that it is fact in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is a sign not of logic, but of emotion-driven decision-making.

With that statement, making education and healthcare number 2 and 3 automatically disqualifies him...the only valid purpose for government is for protection of our rights and our boarders.

I have been watching CNN's series on the race to the white house. What seems to be coming out is the the winner of our popularity contests (presidential elections) is due more to the campaign managers than the candidates, and the amount of money the backers provide. Hillary spends more and has killer campaign people. Cruz would do no better than McCain, who was pretty lame.

The more they display their hatred for Trump (or sanders for that matter), the more they are exposing their real agendas. Makes me want Trump more than ever.

1- definitely my opinion and I would add that its an emotional reaction which I was bringing out as a possible reason his contemporaries dont like him.
#2 If elected, Cruz would be the commander in chief of the military. Why would he even get in the middle of the gay-straight thing at this point. He should say the military should pick the people that will do the job- and Cruz would pick the military leaders who will carry that out efficiently. I am NOT in the military, but I would estimate there are a lot of gay people currently in it who are doing a great job. You dont have to be some testosterone laced bully to fix electronics on a plane, or other such jobs. If you are in infantry, yeah- your job is to kill the enemy any way you can, and it should be.
#3- I dont like the whole idea of taking from me and giving to others. But, if there is going to be any backtracking from that in terms of quantity, I think "deal making" is the only way it will happen. Maybe Trump can get taxes lowered a bit, and make up the difference by getting rid of entrenched bureaucracies. I dont expect Trump to be a john galt in this society at this time.
#4- I agree that there arent enough repubs to make a difference as long as the dems
have control.
#5- As to the borders, I have to say that if you want to have a country, you have to have borders. As to the hispanics coming here, our problem is making through regulation impediments to hiring US workers in the first place . IN the second place, we should give guest worker permits and NOT give guest workers freebies or minimum wages either. Thirdly, the mass immigration has pretty much stopped anyway as those jobs go to china and other countries.

As to muslims, I look at their book where they want to kill infidels, and it turns me against them. If someone believes in Islam, that means they believe in that part of it (or it says in the book THEY should be killed). Crazy ass religion if you ask me. I dont want anything to do with them. As to letting them in to the country, I certainly would support a ban until at least we figure out how to separate the radicalized ones from the ones who arent out to kill me for not believing.

I only look at what the current polls report. They have Cruz beating Hillary in a one-on-one and destroying Bernie. Trump beats Bernie, but gets walloped by Clinton.

If you believe the polls.

If you want someone to explain the vote differentiation between Cruz and Trump, I would first point out that in the 2008 election year, the critical point was when Rudy Guiliani dropped out. That left McCain (a centrist/RINO) and two "evangelicals" in Romney and Huckabee. Huckabee stayed in the race even though he had no chance at all of winning simply to spoil Romney's candidacy (he even admitted it). Huckabee split one side of the GOP votes and we ended up with the centrist McCain who got clobbered in the generals - just like the polls predicted. (Those same polls also said Romney would have defeated Obama the first time around, but who knows).

In this election the Republicans started with sixteen candidates. That's a huge amount of voter dispersion to contend against. And it's a well-known fact that name recognition in politics is the single biggest factor to election. Trump has 100% name recognition. If you look at the polls, however, Cruz' popularity has grown right along with his name recognition. Trump's popularity is stagnant because people have already formed their opinions of him. Only Hillary Clinton comes close to Trump in name recognition. So Trump has already got all the voters he is going to get nationally. Ted Cruz still has the chance to persuade voters to vote for him, and his recent successes show he is closing the gap rapidly now that it is effectively a two-person race.

Trump is basically a mob boss. Mobs, of course, prosper under socialism; he'll want more of it.

That's a lot of people with a lot to lose that happen to be the drivers of NGO's, PACs, SuperPACs, labor groups, special interests, lobbyists, and government employee unions.

Yes! Thank you!

You will find no argument from me on any of your points. As I said, method of delivery is a different issue, but it probably needs to be in the business.

Regulation is where things run amok, if things only happen by legislation, enough people weigh-in on the debate and there are checks & balances to keep some of that at bay. Regulation happens in smoke-filled rooms away from public scrutiny.

1. Your opinion of course.
#2. When Obama forced the issue he ignored the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs. You can paint this as a religious issue if you want, but the reality is that the armed forces themselves didn't want open homosexuality any more than they want women in combat units. What they concluded is that it would deleteriously affect unit integrity and camaraderie, which are critical in real-world situations.
As to his "bible thumping", again, show me where he advocates policy decisions based on religion. Otherwise you are allowing your irrational fears to drive your decision-making.
#3. That seems quite a departure from your original position.
#4. Excuse me, but there weren't nearly enough Republicans voting against these things - that is my point. The only three Senators willing to do anything were Mike Lee, Rand Paul, ... and Ted Cruz.

#5. "We dont need another preacher like... They all appeal to emotions "

Say WHAT? This is PRECISELY how "The Donald" is getting all his support! Is his border strategy really all that logical? Of course not! It's provocative rhetoric in the extreme! What about his comments on Muslims coming to the United States? Good grief! To claim that Trump has gained his popular position based on logic is a complete farce! He is ginning up the passions to get people emotionally invested in him - just like Obama did.

precisely. they are probably working for the government doing inefficient useless work too

Personally, I think one of the biggest problems with government is that by nature its very inefficient. Its a monopoly, its run by political correctness, and decides things by mob rule. The bigger it gets, the worse it gets. I suspect that a small schoolhouse in a rural town gives better education even if its run by a town government- just because the people there would be more involved in it and are thinking of the kids.

We should be analyzing all government activities in terms of what good we get for the amount they take from us. Governments seem to get a get-out-of-jail card when it comes to accountability. They always excuse inefficiency by saying they need MORE money. If you are spending what you have inefficiently, I dont see how giving more money improves efficiency...

Pretty much every person living in Northern Virginia or Southern Maryland was doing "just fine" during the recession. They don't want that apple cart turned over.

Here are the ten richest counties by per capita income:

County Name
Median Household Income Estimate for 2013
Loudoun County, VA $117,680 (Fairfax area)
Falls Church city, VA $117,452 (DC/Fairfax)
Los Alamos County, NM $110,930 (Sandia National Labs)
Fairfax County, VA $110,658 (Fairfax)
Howard County, MD $108,503 (Baltimore/DC)
Hunterdon County, NJ $107,203
Douglas County, CO $105,192
Arlington County, VA $101,533 (DC)
Morris County, NJ $99,950
Montgomery County, MD $97,873 (Baltimore/Northern Virginia)

You got it !! I would love to sit in the oval office and watch Trump deal with the political nonsense that underlings would give him. I want him to do mass firings of incompetent bureaucrats and replace them with smart people who can actually run a government efficiently.

No wonder Trump is under so much hatred- there are a lot of inefficient bureaucrats who enjoy the status quo, and he would get rid of them. I think 4 years of Trump would be good for the country.

Election today is really an abortion. Why would anyone spend millions to get a $400,000 job? Its because getting elected offers big payoffs in terms of political favors. Its sick, and I agree with Sanders that these donations are bad for us all. Means you have no chance to get elected if you dont spend millions to get airtime and buy commercials so the media likes you.
I would go for a constitutional amendment that forbids a transfer of one person's wealth (against their will) to another. PERIOD. No political favors, no lobbyists, no need for big political contributions.