California Democrats have centered around a handful of Republican challengers they hope to tar with Donald Trump’s brush. 

Assemblymen Dante Acosta, R-San Bernardino, David Hadley, R-Torrance and Marc Steinorth, R-Redlands, Assemblywoman Young Kim, R-Fullerton, and state Senate candidate Mike Antonovich have all been hit with the attack, which aims to send them packing by exploiting Trump’s historic unpopularity in-state. “Trump is extraordinarily unpopular in California, even for a Republican in the famously liberal state. Nearly seven in 10 California voters view Trump unfavorably, according to a Field Poll conducted last month. More than half said they hold a ‘very unfavorable’ view of him,” the San Jose Mercury News reported. 

“California Democrats in those races are using a strategy their party has employed in congressional and other contests across the country — spending millions of dollars to link Republican candidates to their party’s nominee for president, even in races where GOP lawmakers have refused to back Trump.”

The Republican nominee has still managed to maintain a hard core of support. But it has been increasingly likely to draw headlines that do little to flatter the candidate. “Supporters of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump staged a protest Tuesday outside the Los Angeles office of attorney Gloria Allred, who represents Summer Zervos — the Huntington Beach woman who claims she was a victim of unwanted sexual advances by Trump,” as the Mercury News noted separately. “Allred and Zervos made headlines Friday when the contestant on Season 5 of ‘The Apprentice’ said during a news conference that Trump kissed and groped her after she approached him about a position in his business empire.”

A state lost

Although the Trump campaign made hay early in the election season by playing up California’s struggles with unlawful immigration, and both the candidate and his team often intimated that they could put the deep-blue state in play with their unconventional approach and populist message, Trump’s stumbles approaching the electoral finish line have put West Coast voters far out of reach. “The controversial GOP candidate’s support has fallen to 30 percent, below the current low-water mark held by George H.W. Bush, who got 33 percent of the popular vote in California in a three-way contest in 1992,” according to ABC 10 News.

“While both presidential front-runners have lost support in the past 17 days, according to a SurveyUSA pre-election tracking poll conducted for KABC-TV in Los Angeles, KPIX-TV San Francisco, KGTV-TV San Diego, and KFSN-TV Fresno, Hillary Clinton’s lead over Trump remains steady at 26 percentage points.” 

But in a reminder that Democrats have not fully addressed voters’ frustrations, Clinton and Trump both dropped three points, while the undecided vote doubled, the station reported.

Team of rivals

Meanwhile, the main target of Trump’s intraparty battles, House Speaker Paul Ryan, has not given up on the Golden State as a critical place to seek and show support. “The Wisconsin representative arrives in California next Thursday and will hold 12 events in seven cities over two days,” the Los Angeles Times noted. “Ryan is expected to campaign with Reps. Jeff Denham, David Valadao and Steve Knight, as well as Scott Jones, who is challenging Rep. Ami Bera. He will also hold events benefiting Team Ryan, a joint fundraising committee.”

“Ryan was already a prodigious fundraiser, raising nearly $50 million this year and transferring more than half to help congressional candidates. But he is barnstorming the nation in the lead-up to the November election. This month alone, Ryan has held more than 65 events in 17 states.”

Despite Ryan’s appeal to sitting Republican representatives in California, the national mood among the GOP has appeared to turn against him amid Trump’s attacks. In a recent Bloomberg poll, for instance, “46 percent of all voters have a negative view of Ryan, and only 37 percent favorable, a drop from earlier surveys this year. More striking, when asked who represents their view of the party, Republicans by 51 percent to 33 percent prefer Trump over Ryan.”

A case can be made that former House government oversight committee chairman Darrell Issa, the eight-term Vista Republican and wealthy tech tycoon, may even be an underdog to former Marine Col. Doug Applegate, his Democratic opponent, based on June primary results and the likelihood of a stronger Democratic turnout in November.

Issa, 62, represents the state’s 49th Congressional District. It spans from Del Mar to Dana Point, with the largest chunk of voters in Oceanside and Carlsbad, and is perceived as Republican territory. In 2014, Issa coasted to re-election with 60 percent of the vote against an unknown, poorly funded Democrat.

But in the June 8 primary, Issa won only 51 percent of the vote. Former Marine Col. Doug Applegate won 45 percent, with an independent candidate running as a marijuana advocate pulling the remaining votes. In the San Diego County vote — about 65 percent of the district — Issa only won 49 percent to 48 percent.

Issa downplayed the result, saying turnout was unusually strong in Democratic precincts for a primary. 

Quirky Republicans on San Diego coast

However, Issa is vulnerable on other grounds as well. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, is a good fit for his east San Diego County district with his social and religious conservatism. But such GOP candidates don’t play well on the wealthy coast, where social conservatism isn’t as important to many Republican voters as being simultaneously pro-business and good on the environment. Moderate Republicans such as San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and longtime county Supervisor Ron Roberts fit this mold.  

This unorthodoxy may be why Issa’s use of the government oversight committee to go after the Obama administration on many issues may have provided red meat for Republican candidates across the nation, but didn’t appear to resonate as well in the 49th district. It has seen a decrease of 10,000 registered GOPers since 2012.

Meanwhile, in Applegate, local Democrats have a candidate who hits a San Diego County sweet spot. The county has more active and retired military residents than any other county in the U.S. and his background as both a military lawyer and command officer is sure to play well. Camp Pendleton, the giant Marines base, is the largest employer in the 49th district.

The contrast with Applegate’s history and Issa’s tumultuous, brief stint in the Army is ready-made for attack ads. Among other issues, he was accused of car theft by a fellow soldier.

Applegate, 62, has  lived in north San Diego County since 1981.

Despite his pluses, some GOP strategists downplay Applegate’s chances. Nearly 40 percent of the district’s registered voters are Republican, with 31 percent Democrats and 24 percent decline-to-state. Only 13 percent of district voters are Latinos, the group most likely to be upset with Issa’s increasingly enthusiastic support for Trump.

Issa’s net worth is the highest in Congress — a minimum of $299 million, according to official documents. He will not be outspent by Applegate.

But strange things have happened in presidential elections in San Diego County local races. In 2012, President Obama’s coattails lifted Rep. Bob Filner to victory in the San Diego mayor’s race despite ample evidence that Filner was a loose cannon with an anger problem and a vengeful streak. Filner resigned in 2014 after being accused by more than 20 women of improper advances and of allegedly trading administrative approvals for favors from developers.

But Applegate doesn’t have such baggage, and his emergence has such Issa critics as Daily Kos overjoyed.

Reps. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, and David Valadao, R-Hanford, expressed confidence that they can secure a vote on the so-called ENLIST Act, which has been stalled in committee for months. The Act, as the Los Angeles Times reported, “would allow people brought to the United States illegally as children before 2011 to become lawful alien residents if they complete a term of military service.”

Although Denham and Valadao, the Times added, rank “among the most outspoken members of their party pushing for comprehensive immigration overhaul,” their focus on ENLIST reflected a broader unwillingness among House Republicans to tackle the issue this election season — whether in pieces or as a whole.

Running out the clock

The hands-off position was freshly cemented by newly elected House Speaker Paul Ryan. To help secure the backing of the House Freedom Caucus, which has depicted comprehensive immigration reform as a concoction of big business and big government, “Ryan pledged he would not move an immigration reform overhaul to the floor unless it was backed by a majority of House Republicans,” as The Hill recalled.

Ryan, The Hill noted, “was loosely involved with talks about immigration reform in the House in 2013. At the time, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers was working to put together a comprehensive immigration overhaul. Ryan wasn’t part of the core group, but did have conversations with its members.” Leading Republicans have sometimes been burned by their support for that effort. Sen. Marco Rubio, for instance, has had to pivot away in order to shore up his right flank and seize an advantage against main primary season rival Gov. Jeb Bush.

Balance and blame

Ryan, for his part, did not disavow outright his preference for a so-called “pathway” to citizenship for many unlawful and undocumented immigrants. But in recent remarks on the CBS program Meet the Press, he tried to indicate that he actually preferred a path to “legal status” instead of outright citizenship, as the Associated Press noted:

“Legal status versus citizenship is an important distinction, partly because only citizenship confers the right to vote. His office said Ryan supports ‘earned legal status,’ noting that this could eventually lead to citizenship through existing channels.”

At the same time, Ryan blamed president Obama for his reluctance to proceed with immigration legislation. “Look, I think it would be a ridiculous notion to try and work on an issue like this with a president we simply cannot trust on this issue,” he said. “He tried to go it alone, circumventing the legislative process with his executive orders, so that is not in the cards.”

The response from the White House was swift. Press Secretary Josh Earnest “accused new House Speaker Paul Ryan of ‘pandering to the extreme right wing’ of his party on immigration,” the Associated Press reported, labeling his comments “preposterous.”

Bicoastal politics

Although the testy rhetoric suggested little room for lawmakers to maneuver, California Republicans like Denham and Valadao have taken advantage of unusual personal circumstances to pursue their agenda. Hispanics make up a significant percentage of voters in both representatives’ districts, as the Hill observed, while both currently lean Republican, the Cook Political Report determined.

In other words, although their districts remained competitive heading into 2016, both lawmakers boasted enough support at home to seek to expand their vote by sticking their neck out politically in Washington. Of late, California has racked up numerous and generous programs for unlawful immigrants. Measures passed this year, the AP noted, “to help immigrants in the U.S. illegally by improving their access to health care, opposing discrimination and enabling more people to apply for legal status. One measure aims to help immigrant crime victims apply for federal government visas.”

Then conservative groups attacked the bipartisan budget agreement between Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., which the full Congress just passed. It cuts benefits for veterans and raises fees related to air travel. And Boehner lost his patience with the more conservative wing.

Boehner lashed out at the groups over the course of two days. Boehner said he thought outside conservative groups “have lost all credibility” and that he does not care what they do.

He later explained his outburst against the groups, saying, “Yesterday, when the criticism was coming, frankly I thought it was my job and my obligation to stand up for conservatives here in the Congress who want more deficit reduction, to stand up for the work that Chairman Ryan did.”

Boehner’s outburst wasn’t impotent. Despite opposition from outside conservative groups, the two-year budget deal passed the House 332 to 94. A majority of the Republican conference voted yes. It was a significant test of Boehner’s resolve against the more ideologically pure elements of his party. But the bet paid off.

Control

No political win, however, exists in a vacuum.  Liberal activists — and even conservative moderates — immediately begin to suggest that Boehner’s move against the conservative elements of his party was the preface to Boehner reasserting establishment control over the legislative agenda.  Many have predicted that Boehner’s move was a signal that he was now willing to move immigration reform.

A California-based immigration reform activist, who spoke to CalWatchdog.com on the condition of anonymity to be more candid, said that Boehner’s recent behavior was “heart-warming” and seemed “honest.”

The activist, who has been involved in lobbying California Congressmen to push for reform, added, “It makes you think, ‘OK, maybe [Boehner will] play ball.’”

But he cautioned that, while activists are optimistic, they’re not blindly so. He expects that major immigration reform won’t be able to pass until 2015, at the earliest. It’s difficult to pass major legislation in an election year, he explained, and it makes more strategic sense (from the Republican point of view) to wait.

Republicans, who are at a politically advantageous position because of the trouble associated with the rollout of Obamacare, reasonably expect to pick up seats in the midterms. They could feasibly control the Senate — though that will be no easy task — by January 2015. So why would they pass immigration reform when they’re almost certain to pick up seats and enter a stronger bargaining position? The answer is simple: They wouldn’t.

So, yes, Speaker Boehner has changed his tune. But that doesn’t mean he’ll change his strategy just yet.

Sequester We Hardly Knew Ye

The great irony of the Republican decision to bust the budget sequester is that barely two months ago, congressional roles were reversed.  The Democrats insisted on funding the government according to existing law.  The Republicans sought one simple change: that the individual insurance mandate under Obamacare be delayed for one year.  They were trying to spare the American people the Obamacare disaster that is now unfolding, but to no avail.  The American people sided overwhelmingly with the Democrats on the principle that the government should be funded according to current law without any side issues.

Why wasn’t that principle applied just two months later? Republicans were in the ideal position to hold the budget line simply by insisting on enforcing current law.  Instead, the House Republican leadership pushed through a two-year budget that will allow the federal government to spend an additional $63 billion more than current law allows – money that our country does not have.

Some of the discussion has focused on how much of the spending spree will be paid with higher taxes.  The answer is, “all of it.”  Once government spends a dollar, it has already decided to tax that dollar – the only questions that remain are who gets the bill and when.

Sixty-three billion dollars of new spending – and therefore new taxes in some form – is not a small amount of money.  It averages about $570 of added burdens for every family in America.

Not so, say supporters.  Over the next ten years, fee increases and spending reforms will pay for all of this, with $22 billion to spare for debt reduction.  The claim is a practical application of the economic principles of J. Wellington Wimpy:  “I will gladly pay you $22 billion in deficit reduction ten years from now for $63 billion in new spending today.”

The lie is given to this promise within the measure itself.  A major part of the alleged long-term deficit reduction is the assurance that after a two year spending binge, Congress will not only enforce the sequester but will even extend it for an extra two years in 2022 and 2023.  Pardon my skepticism.  We are required to believe that in the future, Congress will magically summon the fiscal discipline that has eluded it in the present.

A side deal called the “Doc Fix” offers more reason for doubt.  The “Doc Fix” has become an annual ritual arising from a previous budget deal that promised long term savings, except that Congress votes every year to ignore it (oops there goes another $8.7 billion).

True, discretionary spending will be less than the House budgets of 2011 and 2012, but this is a sleight-of-hand. Those budgets were unified packages of reforms that saved most on the mandatory side of the ledger and must be viewed in their totality -– not picking and choosing which parts to compare and which to ignore.

Finally, we are told that there are not enough votes in the House to support current-law spending.  There’s one way to find out: put a clean measure on the floor and see where the votes are.  That’s essentially how the impasse was resolved two months ago.

The sequester provided less than a third of the deficit reduction that Standard and Poors warned would have been necessary to maintain our triple-A credit rating, which is why many conservatives opposed it.  But it was at least a step in the right direction. It was an agreement that Congress made with itself, and given the political realities of a divided government, it became the only viable instrument to keep spending under some modicum of control. The busting of that limit now calls into question any promises of future fiscal restraint.

Perhaps the most stinging indictment of the budget deal comes from former Reagan budget director David Stockman. Under Stockman’s guidance, the Reagan administration reduced both spending and the deficit as a percentage of GDP, produced a period of prolonged economic expansion and won the cold war.   His verdict is chilling: “It’s a joke and betrayal. It’s the final surrender of the House Republican leadership to Beltway politics and kicking the can and ignoring the budget monster that’s hurtling down the road.”

The new Congressional budget is a mistake at a time when we can’t afford many more mistakes.  The path of least resistance, even if paved with good intentions, is not a path America can afford to travel any longer.

McClintock is a better writer than a heck of a lot of journalists. How do I know he wrote this himself? I hosted a talk-radio show for two years. He was one of the very few people I ever interviewed (Victor Davis Hanson was another) whose responses were always like cogent mini-essays. Thesis. Supporting evidence. Factual poke at opponent’s counterargument. Restate thesis.

He writes like he talks.

But Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., just cooked up a budget deal that begs the question: Why Republicans? Here are the specifics on the budget “cuts”:

“Mr. Ryan, at a joint news conference with Sen. Patty Murray, Washington Democrat, said the spending plan calls for reducing the deficit by $23 billion over 10 years without raising taxes.”

That’s a reduction of $2.3 billion a year, assuming a future Congress doesn’t reverse it. Which is out of a federal budget estimated to spend $3.8 trillion. So the “cuts” are less than 1 percent. Not increasing taxes is fine. But a future Congress could reverse that, and increase taxes.

More:

“The Wisconsin Republican, the House’s chief budget writer, said the deal would reverse about $65 billion in previously agreed-upon automatic spending cuts to the military and other government programs.“

So, spending also will rise by $6.5 billion a year. Of course, in Congress Math, an automatic rise is not a rise, only reversing a “cut.”

But if we use regular math and subtract the $2.3 billion in apparent cuts from the $6.5 billion in increases, we get $4.1 billion in increases every year.

President Obama praised the Ryan-Murray proposal:

“Earlier this year, I called on Congress to work together on a balanced approach to a budget that grows our economy faster and creates more jobs — not through aimless, reckless spending cuts that harm our economy now, but by making sure we can afford to invest in the things that have always grown our economy and strengthened our middle class. Today’s bipartisan budget agreement is a good first step.”

Is he serious about “aimless, reckless spending cuts”? Too bad he didn’t spend any time in the military — I spent four years in the U.S. Army — he would have seen waste beyond his wildest dreams. Shaving a couple billion of Pentagon bloat wouldn’t damage defending the country at all, and actually would improve it by helping put the country on a sounder financial footing.

In the background of this debate remains the nagging of Prof. Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University, who tallies the federal government’s unfunded liabilities — for Social Security, Medicare, federal pensions, military pension and medical care, etc. — at $222 trillion.

Paul Ryan, of course, is running for president. Although it’s hard to see how the Tea Party favorite will maintain that position by crafting a budget deal attractive to the president that Ryan, as a vice presidential candidate last year, opposed.

For Republican voters, it’s another case of their leaders selling them out.

Why Republicans?

By John Seiler

Since their drubbing in last November’s election, Republicans have been taking a lot of criticism about their polices, especially for California. We’ve done a good bit of it on our site.

But Democrats also need to rethink their positions. A good example of how Democrats think is Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor of the New York Times, the Democrats’ party newspaper. He writes:

“The Republicans have hit a sour spot in politics — they are 180 degrees opposed to what most Americans want on just about any issue you care to name.

“Remember, for instance, how the American people rejected the Romney/Ryan ticket, and in particular Paul Ryan’s budget? Today Mr. Ryan released a remarkably similar budget. It even has the same Orwellian title: “The Path to Prosperity.”

“The Ryan budget, which will become the official G.O.P. budget just as soon as the Republican majority in the House gets a chance to vote on it, gives nice big tax breaks to the wealthy. At the same time, it would turn Medicare into a voucher system, gut Medicaid by turning it into a block grant to the states, give states the ability to kick people off food stamps and repeal most of health care reform. (Except the Medicare savings, which Mr. Ryan has added to his deficit-reduction proposal.)”

Orwellian? It’s true that Ryan’s numbers are a fantasy. But so are almost all politicians’ numbers. According to Dictionary.com, the real definition of Orwellian is:

“of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or resembling the literary work of George Orwell or the totalitarian future described in his antiutopian novel, ‘1984.’”

That is, Orwellian lies are of a special kind as in those from “1984”: war = peace, freedom = slavery. Merely crafting a fantasy budget that won’t be enacted anyway doesn’t reach that level, but rather is a mundane reality of politics, like politicians breaking campaign promises.

But talking about fantasies, let’s parse the rest of Rosenthal’s piece.

“The Ryan budget, which will become the official G.O.P. budget just as soon as the Republican majority in the House gets a chance to vote on it, gives nice big tax breaks to the wealthy.”

I won’t say that’s Orwellian, but it is misleading. His link is to an analysis by Matthew Yglesias that someone making $70,000 a year might see a tax increase under Ryan’s plan, which establishes two tax rates of 25 percent and 10 percent. We’ll have to see the details on that one.

But one thing is for sure: their beloved President Obama, joined by the Republican leadership in Congress, on Jan. 1 jacked up taxes 2 percent on 77 percent of Americans. Someone making $70,000 a year saw his taxes rise $1,400 a year.

Punishing investors

As to rich people, Rosenthal doesn’t point out that they’re the major investors in our country. Take money from them, and there’s less money for investment in business and jobs creation. Eventually, many rich folks also get sick of paying taxes and leave for other, freer countries.

Rosenthal:

“At the same time, it would turn Medicare into a voucher system”

Well, the system is going broke. According to economist Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University, the real budget problem is not the federal debt of $16 trillion. It’s the federal unfunded liabilities of $222 trillion. It’s an incredible number and amounts to more than $700,000 owed by each American, including children. That’s more than $2.8 million owed by each family of four.

So what’s Rosenthal’s response? Ridicule. Ryan’s proposal to reform Medicare, which is the major component of the $222 trillion in liabilities, won’t  help much. But it’s at least worth talking about.

A voucher system for Medicare would turn it into something like Food Stamps. When you qualify for Food Stamps, called CalFresh here, you don’t work through an elaborate bureaucracy to get your cheeseburgers. They just fill up your EBT card with around $225 a month of the taxpayers’ money for each person in your family, then you go to the local grocery or convenience store and use the card like a credit card.

I don’t know if Ryan’s Medicare voucher system would work, and the details are crucial; but it’s worth looking into. The key with vouchers is that you can generate at least a little competition, which keeps prices down.

Medicaid

Rosenthal says Ryan wants to:

“gut Medicaid by turning it into a block grant to the states.”

I don’t know how much contact an elitist like Rosenthal has with poor people stuck in the Medicaid system (Medi-Cal in California), but it’s a complicated bureaucracy. I’ve helped poor friends of mine navigate the system. Although I’m not in the medical field, I am in the policy field and know a lot about government. So I help my friends “push the system,” as I call it.

Letting the states run Medicaid might get rid of some of the bureaucracy and allow the states to start innovations to save money.

Rosenthal on Ryan:

“give states the ability to kick people off food stamps.”

Well, way too many people are on food stamps, 46 million at last count. Maybe Rosenthal doesn’t know it, but food stamps are not run for the benefit of the poor, but to funnel money to Big Agriculture. That’s why food stamps are not run by the Department of Health and Human Services, but by the Department of Agriculture.

Rosenthal on Ryan:

“repeal most of health care reform.”

He means Obamacare, the massively expensive new socialized medicine scheme that’s going to bankrupt American medicine. Right in Rosenthal’s own New York Times, former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin wrote of Obamacare:

“Removing the unrealistic annual Medicare savings ($463 billion) and the stolen annual revenues from Social Security and long-term care insurance ($123 billion), and adding in the annual spending that so far is not accounted for ($114 billion) quickly generates additional deficits of $562 billion in the first 10 years.”

In another recent column, Rosenthal wrote:

“In his Monday morning column, Greg Sargent of the Washington Post wondered rhetorically whether we had actually had an election last November, since the Republicans are still putting forward the ideas that voters rejected in 2012. Representative Paul Ryan, who was on the G.O.P.’s losing presidential ticket, is about to issue yet another draconian budget plan that would start the process of killing Medicaid and turning Medicare into a voucher program.

“Sunday night, Roll Call published an interview with John Boehner, in which the speaker of the house answered Mr. Sargent’s question — we did have an election and the Republicans are oblivious to its results.”

It’s Rosenthal himself who is oblivous — to the words of the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 7 reads:

“All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives….”

Given that revenue is the key to any budget, that means the key part of the budget “shall originate” in the House. The House was won by majority Republicans, not Democrats. So Ryan is right to advance his budget based on who was elected to the House, not the White House.

Conclusion

As I mentioned, Ryan’s plan also is deficient. It doesn’t cut nearly enough. But the voters put him, not President Obama, in charge of the budget committee of the House, which originates revenue bills, and therefore budgets.

Given how influential Rosenthal and the Times are among Democrats, these are the talking points we’ll be hearing for months. But their points are pulled from thin air.

The country really is going broke. Raising taxes further on “the rich” only will drive more of them from the country; or if they stay, will deny the productive private sector the benefit of rich people’s investments in business and jobs creation.

Republicans still need to keep looking for a new vision. So do Democrats.

By John Seiler

The evidence keeps rushing in that the U.S. and California economies have stagnated for about 15 years. Obviusly, there are bright spots, such Apple, Google and the other Silicon Valley nerd factories.

But for anyone with IQ < 180, there has been no “growth,” only fake booms and real busts. Some numbers appear to be up, such as the stock market or housing prices; but those numbers don’t take into account inflation.

The following chart does factor inflation. It shows that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is in the same position it was in the late 1990s. That is, there’s been no improvement. Total stagnation.

No wonder middle-class families feel squeezed. They have been squeezed. They work hard and save, but interest rates are near zero. They work harder, and their “incomes” rise, but so do taxes. If they run small businesses, federal, state and local regulations keep getting tougher and more costly. The Federal Reserve Board keeps debasing the currency through the inflation called QE3.

The middle class are rats on a treadmill.

Both parties are to blame. Republicans and Democrats pretty much have split power in Congress and the White House the past 15 years. Third party alternatives are kept out of power by a system rigged by the two major parties.

In Thursday’s VP “debate,” here were the “solutions” of the two candidates:

Democrat Joe Biden: Increase taxes and spending even more.

Republican Paul Ryan: Cut spending by increasing defense spending to defend West Germany from the Soviet Union, both of which countries don’t exist any more.

It doesn’t add up and it hasn’t added up for 15 years.

In California, things are even worse because our state suffers intensified chapters of the major parties: Democrats who hanker to be Kim Jong Un and feckless Republicans just wanting to cash in, while blabbing small-government rhetoric to fool the Tea Party.

By John Seiler

I watch debates differently. I look for how each candidate upholds the U.S. Constitution, which each has taken an oath to “preserve, protect and defend.”

In the vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, here’s how many times the Constitution was mentioned: zero.

I listened closely, then checked the transcript.

Same thing for the Bill of Rights: no mentions. The closest either candidate got was Ryan saying, “We should always stand up for peace, for democracy, for individual rights” — and, no doubt if Biden hadn’t kept butting in, Ryan would have added truth, justice, the American Way, baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.

This is more proof that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are moribund documents. They act only as a structure in which the politicians operate: the presidency, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the government bureaus (most of them unconstitutional; all of them doing unconstitutional acts). Inside the structure, the Constitution is completely ignored. Anything goes.

It’s good to know that the government, at all levels, is lawless.

Katy Grimes: I couldn’t decide if Vice Presidential incumbent Joe Biden was manic during the VP debate last evening, or just being condescending and rude to intimidate challenger Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Rude, condescending, and just weird, Biden interrupted Ryan 82 times, while Ryan remained respectful and polite; it was a stark contrast. Joe’s OPD came shining through. Obnoxious Personality Disorder is not an official personality disorder, but it should be, especially after last night’s debate.

Biden’s smirks, laughs, eye rolls, huffing and puffing, only made him look like a petulant child, instead of the “statesman” he prefers to be called. Even veteran FOX journalist Chris Wallace said after the debate that in his years of watching debates, since the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, he had never seen anyone behave so disrespectfully or contemptuously as Biden.

After the bounce that the GOP got from the Romney-Obama Presidential debate, the expectations placed on Biden were high; he had to bring home a win for Obama-Biden.

But that did not happen. Even the CNN and Associated Press polls called the debate for Ryan last evening.

While moderator Martha Raddatz offered solid questions, she did not maintain control of Biden. She even interrupted Ryan many times, often just as he was making a point.

Ryan handled pointed questions on foreign policy, surprising many, and handed Biden his tush on taxes and the economy with numbers and facts.

Libya

The debate opened with Raddatz asking Biden if the terrorist attack on Libya and the murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was a huge blunder. “It was a pre-planned assault by heavily armed men. Wasn’t this a massive intelligence failure Vice President Biden?” Raddatz asked about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, where Stevens was brutally murdered.

Biden dodged the question and launched into his own speech about how great the President is.

But Ryan answered the question and said that  Stevens had been denied sufficient security by Obama administration officials. “It took the President two weeks to acknowledge that this was a terrorist attack,” Ryan said.

“With all due respect, that’s a bunch of malarkey. Not a single thing he said is accurate,” Biden snarled.

Raddatz told Biden to “be specific.”

Biden retorted that Ryan cut the embassy security budget, and then launched again into how great Obama has been on security.

Economy

Biden said that the economic recovery America is enjoying would proceed if Republicans “get out of the way.” Ryan deftly pointed out that the Democrats had complete control of Congress and the White House when Obama and Biden took over in 2009-10. “He had his chances. He made his choices,” Ryan said, and “this is where we are at.”

Obamacare

The debate moved to Obamacare allowing to Ryan bring up the unelected panel which would make important health decisions and ultimately what the future of health care would look like. Biden laughed again, and said that Sarah Palin had already argued the death panels with him in the last debate.

Foot-in-mouth-syndrome

Out of the blue, Biden brought up Romney’s campaign comment when he said that 47 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax, see themselves as victims, and take no responsibility for their own lives.

“It’s about time they take responsibility” instead of signing pledges to avoid raising taxes, Biden said about Romney, Ryan and the Republicans. And somewhere during the debate, Biden brought up Grover Norquist and his “no-tax” pledge.

“This is a man who gave 30 percent of his income to charity, more than the two of us combined,” Ryan retorted. “Mitt Romney’s a good man. He cares about 100 percent of Americans in this country. And with respect to that quote, I think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don’t come out of your mouth the right way.”

Ryan finally succeeded in wiping the smirk off Biden’s face, but only temporarily.

Medicare

Ryan said Obama’s health care plan will take $716 billion from Medicare, as well as create a new board that could have the power to deny care to the elderly patients who need it.

Democrats “haven’t put a credible solution on the table,” Ryan said. “They’ll tell you about vouchers. They’ll say all these things to try to scare people.”

In a throw-granny-off-the-cliff moment, Biden retorted that Ryan had authored two proposals in which seniors would be given government payments that might not cover all of their care. And he said that the Romney-Ryan plan would never achieve the savings they claimed.

It was clear that without a strong record to run on, both Obama and Biden are on the  attack, and Ryan let them know that he knows their plan. Quoting Barack Obama from 2008 when he was on the campaign trail, Ryan said that their strategy is obvious: “If you don’t have a good record to run on, you paint your opponent as someone to run from.”

It’s exactly what Obama and Biden are doing, and why they steer clear from their four years in charge, and spend much more of their time on-the-attack. This debate was more evidence of the strategy. Thankfully, it’s over.

Politico has the debate transcript.