Horrifying

How much more horrifying can these guys get? Really. I watched enough of the latest R debate to see, yet again, how far the Republican party has fallen, and to wonder what's become of us as a nation.

Donald Trump would bring back waterboarding "and much worse." Why? What evidence is there that it accomplished anything when the Cheney/Bush administration used it? Why, when experts, including people involved in those war crimes, have said it provided false information (which is, after all, its time-tested purpose: false confessions) and that legal methods of interrogation are much more effective?

Ted Cruz, among his many lies, claimed that waterboarding doesn't meet the widely accepted definition of torture, which, he deceitfully claimed, requires organ failure! (That's based on a memo cooked up by a Cheneyophile, universally condemned by rational humans.)

If there was a positive proposal for any issue we face, I missed it. Rubio got locked into a bizarre looping of his favorite applause line, claiming Obama is deliberately ruining the country. It revealed him to be what I've always thought: a pre-programmed empty suit, nicely cut, but empty. Which raises the question, who picked him as their stalking horse? Who's behind him pulling the strings, or moving his lips with a hand up his, you know? Sheldon Adelson just tossed a bunch of money at him; but someone stood him up first.

By contrast, the NPR debate between Hillary and Bernie was substantive, getting fairly deep into actual issues. Unlike that other display, there were no deliberate lies calculated to get applause and approval from mindless followers. A little pie in the sky, maybe; but proposals based on reality.

However...

I don't love either of the two. Without reservation I'll vote for whoever wins the nod; the consequences of any of those awful R candidates -- Kasich, the "moderate" one included -- winning the White House with an R-majority Congress are just too awful to contemplate. Still, neither Clinton nor Sanders gives me the emotional boost I got from Barack Obama. I got really tired of watching Bernie finger the air when he wanted to talk. Hillary had her best night, I'd say; her competence and depth isn't in question. But there's too much history of hedging her bets. Triangulation, one might call it. Still, I'm pretty sure Rs would much rather run against Bernie than her. I agree with pretty much everything Sanders says, though.

Tough call, other than that thing about imagining Cruz or Trump or Rubio at the helm. It'd be the end of everything important to everyone but the 1%. Maybe 5 or 6%.