Or is there another reason why ABC did this hit piece on the eve of the first debate ?

'Wanting to be famous': How Vivek Ramaswamy sought podcast stardom prior to White House run - ABC News (go.com)

Ramaswamy pitched himself as a candidate who could make serious waves in the Republican primary at the meeting. When met with some skepticism, Ramaswamy argued that his candidacy could also dissuade Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis from entering the race, according to a source who was on the call. In the lead-up to his announcement, Ramaswamy would tell several other conservative activists that he believed that if he ran, it could stop DeSantis from running or impact his viability as a candidate if he did enter the race, sources said.


Ah yes ;those unnamed sources .

Vivek wanted name recognition He wanted to be famous.
Vivek wanted to launch a podcast after his deal with Daily Wire went south.
Vivek wants to derail DeSantis so he can be Trump's VP or have another job in a Trump administration.

Here's what I think

ABC wants to stir the hornet's nest. ABC wants and infight among the Repub contenders to weaken them . The ultimate goal is the have the Dem candidate run against an indicted Trump who has to divide his time between running for President and staying out of jail.

Vivek has been rising up in the polls so he becomes the latest threat to take down. What better way to slay 2 dragons by instigating a fight between Vivek and DeSantis?

you can tell that the rest of the field is worried about Vivek. Pence and Halley think it is a good idea to shout him down .

Vivek demonstrates how to raise your hand DeSantis raised his hands like he has a wrist injury. The rest are part of the war party ;not much different than Clueless Joe.


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F4QxpymW...jpg&name=small

His best answer of the night

True privilege is not based on the color of your skin. It’s being raised in a stable family with two parents with a focus on education and a faith in God. That’s the ultimate “privilege.” As President, it’ll be my job to make sure we help every kid in this country be able to enjoy that same privilege, too.

I did not hear one question about the most important and least covered story of the day. That being the BRICS meeting where they are seriously considering ending the dollar as the world reserve currency.

I thought they all missed the opportunity on Ukrainian funding to point out that we DON'T HAVE THE MONEY! All in all, other that AH and the ND guy, I would be good with any of them relative to who we have now. The debates will be better once the field gets narrowed down.

I was surprised at the attention focused on VR. It probably gave him instant credibility.

Pence did not come across well other than the time when the all pretty much supported him for his actions on 1/6. His proposal for a national ban on abortion after fifteen weeks (when the unborn child is thought to be able to feel pain) was really weak. Is it OK to kill someone now as long as the person does not feel pain? What??

Haley, Scott, and DeSantis all seemed to be quite competent as did Christie.

That dude from ND with the torn Achilles tendon sounded good Probably because he was doped up with pain killers. He got the abortion issue right (Dobbs decision gave it to the states )

Nikki ridiculed Vivek about foreign policy experience and then defended Quid's policies. But she was right in calling out Trump and the Repubs for reckless spending . Her 'I am woman hear me roar ' act was over the top.

Scott was too subdued . He needed to be more aggressive to be heard .

Christie is two faced. He is in 'get Trump' mode because he thinks Trump dissed him.

If there was a winner it was either Vivek or DeSantis . They both survived the many barbs thrown at them Barbs ? It was more like monkeys throwing feces.


The moderators were a joke ;the format is a joke .You are right that the field needs to be narrowed down . They have to act like jack asses to get attention .But even so ;the idea that someone can give a 1 minute answer to questions that take more than a minute to ask is unfair to the candidates .



It was not right that Larry Elder was excluded after he satisfied the so called criteria. The issues he speaks about are just as important as the rest . Sad to say ; it would be fair to charge the RNC with allowing 1 token Black candidate from the establishment to represent diversity .

Quote:

---

I thought they all missed the opportunity on Ukrainian funding to point out that we DON'T HAVE THE MONEY!

---

Yes Vivek came closest saying the money is better spent on the border.

He was also the only one to say that the climate change issue is largely a hoax He was also the only one who called for wholesale dismantle of the Leviathan.

Pence simultaneously attacked Trump and took credit for the accomplishments.

VR's best response was his reference to the current cultural darkness resting over much of America. Pence's sunshine response about our current problems being merely a failure of leadership was far removed from reality. Might add that VR's point about fatherless families was a good one as well. The incessant drumbeat about how the feds can fix education in America was ridiculous as well as their promises to end the crime wave. There is only so much the feds can/should do and no surplus money at all to fund new initiatives. There were no really innovative ideas put forward from anyone other than VR and a few that wanted to do away with the Dept. of Ed.

I just finished watching it again. Vivek looked like a happy warrior even as he took one arrow after another . He is a rookie (Pence) ;ChatGPS (Christie) ,a foreign policy amateur who would throw Israel and Taiwan under the bus after he sells out Ukraine(Nikki's bizzarro accusation considering that he made it a point of saying that Ukraine has us taking our eyes off of the real threat ...China).

DeSantis who I thought did well ;still looked like a sour puss in comparison. He also fell into the bad habit of spouting his resume like Pence and Christie did too often. If you have to regurgitate your resume then it means it did not have an impact. DeSantis did a great job in Fla and everyone knows it . The question is what next ?

Vivek was the only one that had fresh ideas. The rest could've been from the Bush era GOP or in some cases the Ike era.

Vivek p*ssed them all off by saying they were bought and sold "Supe Pac puppets " He hit the mark when he said more people have died from climate policy than climate change .

He is fresh with bold ideas He calls them MAGA 2.0 . He had a pre-debate workout and did not bust his leg doing it.

Vivek Ramaswamy on X: "Three hours of solid debate prep this morning. 🇺🇸 https://t.co/luY1k3m0wN" / X (twitter.com)

Quote:

---

He hit the mark when he said more people have died from climate policy than climate change .

---

Yeah. I thought that was a good line as well, but his reference to CC being a "hoax" was over the top. A hoax would imply many thousands of climate scientists working together to put forward a narrative they know to be wrong. That's extreme, but it is certainly being over sold and used by the political class (our greatest enemy) for their own purposes just like Covid was.

What surprised me was that there were no name tags or place cards showing the name of each person debating. It would have very helpful to anyone who was noting questions and responses on a chart (and keeping score) for later discussion and review. (And I'm betting many Republicans couldn't name all the debaters.)

Republicans would generally know them. Even at that, they were all introduced at the beginning and their names were spoken repeatedly by the mods, so I don't see how that could have been an issue. The only one new to me was the ND gov. Christie, VR, DeSantis, Scott, Haley, and Pence would all be well known by sight. The Ark. gov I know about since they are a neighbor to us, but he doesn't really seem to have genuine national recognition.

The part that interests me a lot is whether or not Trump helped himself by staying out. I tend to think it was something of a negative, but then he is not a good debater so he might have decided to minimize the negatives.

Trump could not be there . He was getting his mug shot in GA today.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tomder55

Trump could not be there . He was getting his mug shot in GA today.

---

Hasn't happened yet.

(He cudda been to both events -- and back to Bedminster for supper.)

Trump mugshot released in Georgia elections case: Live updates (cnbc.com)

https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/imag...h=523&vtcrop=y

What's he trying to look like?

Oh the hypocrisy of the liberal dems bringing charges against Trump when we have a sitting pres who is guilty of far more serious offenses. And especially when it is now clear that federal agencies colluded to give Biden an advantage in the 20 election.

At least Biden doesn't lie about his weight. Hmm, wonder what else Trump lies about.

it is insane that a local Yokel prosecutor can charge him . He is already charged federally . What happened to the supremacy clause? Will he now be charged in Arizona and every other state where he disputed the results ? What nonsense !

Quote:

---

At least Biden doesn't lie about his weight.

---

So he lied about being in on a influence peddling scheme with his son, but you take comfort in thinking he doesn't lie about his weight??? Well...OK then.

The charges being filed against Trump by these liberal dem prosecutors are ridiculous.

To help out with the candidates not generally recognized ; the one on one leg was North Dakota Guv. Doug Burgam

Before becoming Guv he created Great Plains software and sold it to Microsoft for over $1 billion He then won the ND Guv election in a landslide.

The other one was former 3 times elected Arkansas Guv Asa Hutchinson

Before he was Guv he served 3 terms in the House of Reps ; and was appointed by GWBush to head the DEA and later to lead to the Border and Transportation Security Directorate of the new DHS .

He is a graduate of Greenville SC's Bob Jones University .

It was sad, to me at least, to see that virtually no one took a really principled stand for the lives of the unborn. I think it was Burgum who pointed to the tenth amendment as a prohibition against the feds having an abortion standard for the entire nation. Completely absent from the conversation was the fifth amendment which states that no person shall be deprived of, "life, liberty, or property" without due process of law. They all loudly proclaimed their commitment to life, but that was about as far as it went other than proposing a 15 week ban which would allow the vast majority of abortions to continue.

It all makes Trump a little more attractive to me.

There were 2 authentic drain the swamp candidates (maybe 3 if you include DeSantis) ..... Vivek and Burgam .

On abortion only Vivek and Burgam got it right that abortion as a policy has to remain a state power issue (not discussed would be an amendment ban on abortion which would then make it a federal issue.)

The problem with other's like Scott Nikki and Pence is that if a law is passed by Congress ;it can be reversed by the next Congress . As long as it is an unsettled issue by the people ,the only way to deal with it is on a state by state basis. SCOTUSfinally got it right.

As previously mentioned by j . No one adequately addressed the elephant in the room ..... the out of control national debt.

Election integrity was largely brushed over . Given what happened to Trump yesterday that should be a bigger issue,

Big government censorship was not a topic (but they managed to get a question in about UFOs ) A couple mentioned the weaponization of the DOJ but none was bold enough to say that knowing what we now know about the Biden Crime family ;the 1st Trump impeachment was completely unwarranted

Quote:

---

an amendment ban on abortion

---

Both the fifth and fourteenth amendments state that a person's life cannot be taken without due process of law. I think SCOTUS completely blew it. They should have followed the pretty clear reading of those two amendments. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of unborn children every year still perish. The people don't get to decide that a person's life can be arbitrarily ended. In leaving it to the states, it becomes certain that some states will allow abortion up to the moment of birth.

Quote:

---

No one adequately addressed the elephant in the room ..... the out of control national debt.

---

I think Haley did and also correctly pointed out that Scott, Pence and DeSantis were both implicated in it as former/current members of Congress. Hutchinson as well, for that matter.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jlisenbe

In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of unborn children every year still perish.

---

And what are your plans for them once they have been born? Far too many will be physically and mentally handicapped, and/or born into bad situations too numrous to list.

Quote:

---

The people don't get to decide that a person's life can be arbitrarily ended.

---

Nor do they get to overrule the mother (or father if the mother is unable to decide).

She addressed it by pointing fingers without giving a plan to deal with it .


The funny thing is that the left believes the 14th amendment due process is satisfied because of the invented right of privacy ;aka substantive rights which are not explicitly listed in the Constitution aka as ‘unenumerated rights’ .

Dobbs may have reversed that but it will take many other decisions . Certainly Clarence Thomas said they should scrutinize past substantive rights cases like Griswald ;Lawrence ;and Obergefell .

Quote:

---

And what are your plans for them once they have been born? Far too many will be physically and mentally handicapped, and/or born into bad situations too numrous to list.

---

So after a child is born, if it is mentally/physically handicapped, or born into a bad situation, would you be OK with killing it then? If not, then how is an 8 month old fetus different from a child that's been born for a month? And please don't use the, "If it's not breathing, then it has no soul," excuse. That has been repeatedly shown to be a poor approach.

Quote:

---

Nor do they get to overrule the mother

---

Well of course they do. It's done all the time. The mother cannot sell a kidney or a cornea, even though those actually ARE a part of her body. The mother cannot use her body for prostitution. The mother cannot announce she is going to kill her body without expecting someone to "overrule" that decision. A mother cannot kill her 3 month old because it cried too much. You really should know these things.

What are my plans for them after they are born? You're really asking that question? What is the plan now for children who are born? What's been the plan for the past thousands of years?

Quote:

---

She addressed it by pointing fingers without giving a plan to deal with it .

---

Fair enough statement. I think that's going to be a painful process. A good start might be to cut all federal departments by 5% but insist that the work must still get done by increasing efficiency, cutting redtape, and working harder. Got an employee not on board with that? Show them the door. They can be part of the 5%.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jlisenbe

So after a child is born, if it is mentally/physically handicapped, or born into a bad situation, would you be OK with killing it then?

---

Who will adopt it?

Quote:

---

how is an 8 month old fetus different from a child that's been born for a month?

---

First, the fetus takes the breath of life. Second, then the fetus becomes a living soul.

forgot to add rights found in " penumbras, formed by emanations."(Griswald) The dumbest phrase ever written by a SCOTUS judge.

Penumbra is the space of partial illumination between the perfect shadow on all sides and the full light .
Emanations is a cosmological theory which asserts that all things "flow" from an underlying principle or reality aka God

Quote:

---

Who will adopt it?

---

Who adopts them now? I know that you think you are being clever in suggesting that unborn children should be killed to help us escape the sometimes uncomfortable dilemma of what to do with a young child that his/her foolish, irresponsible mother does not want. Sorry...won't work.

Quote:

---

First, the fetus takes the breath of life. Second, then the fetus becomes a living soul.

---

A completely foolish position for which there is no support at all. And no, it is not supported in Genesis at all. Not even close. It's just a silly assertion that makes no sense at all. But if you think it does, then by all means put forward your case.

Quote:

---

forgot to add rights found in " penumbras, formed by emanations."(Griswald) The dumbest phrase ever written by a SCOTUS judge.

---

Also known as just making it up as you go along. It's interesting that in an appeal to the fifth amendment, the liberals cooked up a right to privacy, named nowhere in the amendment, and completely overlooked the right to life which IS found in the amendment.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jlisenbe

Who adopts them now?

---

No one.

Quote:

---

A completely foolish position for which there is no support at all. And no, it is not supported in Genesis at all. Not even close.

---

Genesis:
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Mankind wasn't a living soul until that first breath was taken.

Who adopts them now?

Quote:

---

No one.

---

Oh please. That is just a completely foolish response. There is a SHORTAGE of children to adopt, not a surplus. You really shouldn't comment on this if you don't know that.

Quote:

---

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

---

The correct translation is that Adam became a living being. In other words, he was not alive at all, being formed of dust, but when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, he became alive. That is true of no other human (Did God breathe the breath of life into Eve?) since no fetus can be said to be dead in the womb. And babies actually do breathe fluid in the womb. It's known as fetal breathing movements, so even if that position made sense, breathing is already taking place in the womb. Even worse for your case, many babies are born not breathing and must receive treatment in order to start. So are they dead and not a living soul when they are born not breathing at birth?

https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Genesis%202%3A7

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jlisenbe

Who adopts them now?Oh please. That is just a completely foolish response. There is a SHORTAGE of children to adopt, not a surplus.

---

A shortage of normal, unblemished ones.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jlisenbe

Who adopts them now?Oh please. That is just a completely foolish response. There is a SHORTAGE of children to adopt, not a surplus.

---

Hardly. Kids are fostered but aren't necessarily adopted. Please provide adoption stats and documentation.

Quote:

---

A shortage of normal, unblemished ones.

---

Well now you're changing your tune. I don't think even what you're saying now is accurate, but support it if you can. We can discuss it.

Quote:

---

Hardly. Kids are fostered but aren't necessarily adopted. Please provide adoption stats and documentation

---

Please note that when asked to provide support for my statements, I am readily willing and able to do so. You could learn something from that.

Quote:

---

While it is difficult to find an exact, accurate number to answer this question, Some sources estimate that there are about 2 million couples currently waiting to adopt in the United States — which means there are as many as 36 waiting families for every one child who is placed for adoption. Based on this couples waiting to adopt statistic, many couples are waiting to adopt.

---

https://www.americanadoptions.com/pr...ptive_families

https://www.lifenews.com/2012/05/17/...over-adoption/

https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2021/...ns/6705998002/

Do you need more???

Quote:

---

Tucked into a footnote for that statement was a telling citation from a 2008 CDC report that found "nearly 1 million women were seeking to adopt children in 2002 (i.e., they were in demand for a child), whereas the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent."

---

https://www.salon.com/2022/05/03/ado...han-it-sounds/

Why are those couples waiting? Waiting for a normal child to adopt?

Only certain children are placed for adoption.

From
U.S. ADOPTION & FOSTER CARE STATISTICS
https://www.ccainstitute.org/resourc...ptive%20family.

• On any given day, over 391,000 children are living in the U.S. foster care system and the number has been rising. Over 113,000 of these children are eligible for adoption and they will wait, on average, almost three years for an adoptive family.
• 53% of the children and youth who left foster care were reunited with their families or living with a relative; 25% were adopted.
• More than 48,000 youth in U.S. foster care live in institutions, group homes, and other environments, instead of with a family.

Your ridiculous, unsupported speculation does not serve you well. A simple, "Gosh, turns out I was wrong," would be much more appropriate.

The couples are waiting, as any person with eyes to read could have found out in ten minutes, because there are FAR MORE couples wanting to adopt than children available. But I guess you will continue on with your "Kill them," approach since you don't like the the truth. Sad.

Quote:

---

• On any given day, over 391,000 children are living in the U.S. foster care system and the number has been rising.

---

• Most children in foster care are there temporarily until they can be returned to their families.
  Quote:

  ---

  Over 113,000 of these children are eligible for adoption and they will wait, on average, almost three years for an adoptive family.

  ---

  Thank you for validating the fact that they do get adopted.
• Quote:

  ---

  53% of the children and youth who left foster care were reunited with their families or living with a relative; 25% were adopted.

  ---

  Which is exactly what I stated above. Do you even bother to read your own articles??? At any rate, it was very nice of you to link an article that supported by case. Thank you!

You are horribly incorrect. I've toured foster-care group homes/institutions and have seen the kids that aren't adopted.

Your own article supports my position. The argument is over. Your usual approach of, "Oh, I've seen thus and such," won't work now anymore than the last time you've tried it.

Read. Learn. Please.

As I previously noted --

53% [only half!!!] of the children and youth who left foster care were reunited with their families or living with a relative; [only] 25% were adopted.

So? How does that show that there is a surplus of children needing adoption to support your position of killing unborn children? There was "only" 25% adopted because the others are largely returned to their families. Is that bad??