Television is Donald Trump's home turf.
Showing posts with label Ben Carson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ben Carson. Show all posts
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Huge flipflop tonight by Ben Carson on oil subsidies and ethanol
Said he was wrong to propose taking away oil subsidies to support others, never mentioning he originally meant Iowans and their ethanol back in April. Now he's supposedly against helping any industry.
So Carson finally gets ahead in the polls in Iowa pledging to boost ethanol at big oil's expense and then throws Iowa under the bus.
Breathtaking. The guy's a liberal at heart.
Ben Carson used tissue from aborted fetuses in medical research
Politico had all the gory details of Ben Carson's very complicated anti-abortion position here in August.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Big mistake: Donald Trump says he's 100% in favor of ethanol
The Donald, quoted here on September 22nd:
'Trump said that he supports the RFS at Iowa’s Faith and Freedom Forum, “I am totally in favor of ethanol, 100 percent.” This is the first time Trump gave his stance on the topic publicly.'
So far this only amounts to Trump supporting the current Renewable Fuel Standard signed into law by George W. Bush in 2005, but that's still bad policy. Ethanol is inefficient as a fuel, bad for engines and does zero to reduce carbon emissions. It diverts corn from animal feed, driving up the cost of food supplies from beef, pork and poultry, and from corn added to other products. Ethanol also makes it more lucrative to put more and more land into corn production than would otherwise be the case, potentially stressing the environment.
Arguably Ben Carson's success in Iowa over Trump in part has to do with Carson's pledge to push for 30% ethanol fuel blends, a tripling of the current standard.
The crony capitalism involved with ethanol is YUGE, making Iowa more important politically than it otherwise would be were it not for federal gasoline dictates:
"Iowa produces nearly one-third of the nation’s ethanol and nearly half of Iowa’s corn goes into ethanol production, according to the Iowa Corn Growers Association.
"Iowa’s renewable fuels industry, which includes biodiesel production, supports 47,000 jobs and accounts for $5 billion of the state’s gross domestic product, according to the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association."
That's about 3.2% of 2014 Iowa GDP.
Nebraska estimates Iowa production capacity at 25% of the nation's capability, ahead of Nebraska in second at 13%. Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana and South Dakota round out the top six, who all exceed the 1 billion gallon level of capacity per year. At 10.8 billion gallons of available capacity, the top six states produce almost as much as they can at 10.6 billion gallons, over 70% of total national production.
A number of the current crop of Republicans running for president is more or less opposed to ethanol:
"Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former New York Gov. George Pataki and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio have all expressed interest in eliminating or phasing out the ethanol mandate that requires a certain percentage of ethanol in transportation fuel."
Trump's position may reflect a conviction that he generally needs to be supportive of ethanol in these states to win them in the general election even though it appears Carson has outbid him in the primary season.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Trump doesn't get why Carson is ahead in Iowa citing religion when it's support for ethanol giving Carson the leg up
Trump, quoted here:
'“I love Iowa, and I honestly believe those polls are wrong,” he said. “I’m a Presbyterian, I’m a great Christian.”'
Forty percent of Iowa corn gets diverted to ethanol production, without which food prices would drop as feed prices normalize. All of which would mean harder times for Iowans.
Carson wants to add ethanol infrastructure and increase its share in gasoline to 30% instead of the current 10%:
'“Therefore, I would probably be in favor of taking that $4 billion a year we spend on oil subsidies and using that in new fueling stations" for 30 percent ethanol blends, he added.'
If Trump were smart he would exploit the unpopularity of ethanol with the American people revealed in polling to marginalize Carson nationally on the issue, but that will never sway Iowa voters tied to ethanol for their livelihood, sort of like preaching against gambling in Vegas.
Trump can afford to lose Iowa, and probably will.
He should move on.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
For the record Ben Carson has been a Republican for less than a year, Trump a conflicted Republican for 17 years
Story here.
Obviously Ben Carson has not been a conviction politician.
Donald Trump registered as a Republican in New York in 1987 (under Reagan), 2009 (under Obama) and 2012 (under Obama). In 1999 (under Clinton) he had switched to the Independence Party, in 2001 (under Bush) to the Democrat Party, and in 2011 (under Obama) he affiliated with no one, according to this source.
So that's seventeen years (12 + 2 + 3) as a Republican, two as an Independence Party member, eight as a Democrat, and one year unaffiliated.
Obviously Donald Trump is a conflicted Republican, but can't possibly be described as an Obama Democrat, if anything just an anti-Bush Democrat.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Trump's lead in first is actually up 35% in the last USAT/Suffolk poll
When you compare Trump's performance in the last USA Today/Suffolk poll to the previous one by USA Today/Suffolk in July, he's actually up by 6 points in first place, going from 17% to 23%, or up 35%.
Since the July poll, Bush, Huckabee, Paul, Christie, Santorum, Perry and Walker (who are both out now) have all together given up 22 points to Fiorina, Carson, Kasich, Graham, Rubio and Trump, on top of 11 additional points added to those front runners from fewer undecideds in September.
In the averages in yellow, note that Trump has improved his overall lead in first by 1.2 points, or almost 21%.
In the USA Today poll, Trump's lead in first has gone from +3 to +10, up 233%.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Zogby poll on September 20th had Trump out front with 33%
Reported here at Forbes:
Trump 33%
Carson 13%
Bush 9%
Fiorina 7%
Cruz 5%
Rubio 4%
Paul 4%
Kasich 4%
Christie 3%
Walker 2%
Huckabee 2%
Ipsos/Reuters poll of core political approval as of September 24th has Trump in the lead with 30%
Seen here:
"After the Wednesday Republican debate, Donald Trump continues to hold the support of 30% of Republicans in our tracking poll, down 5% from last week. Ben Carson remains in 2nd at 18% among Republicans. Jeb Bush is in 3rd with 10%. Carly Fiorina has made significant gains, currently at 8% among Republicans, up from 2% before the debate."
Sunday, September 27, 2015
NBC/WSJ poll pulls Trump back to earth, still first in Real Clear Politics poll average with 23.4%, 6.4 ahead of Carson
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| Trump in the middle of summer was +4 in the NBC/WSJ poll |
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| Trump starts autumn at +1 in the NBC/WSJ poll |
Trump's poll average hasn't changed much in the last eight weeks, indicating he's stopped persuading people to join him, while the average spread of his lead has dropped by 39% in the interim. This is because support is firming for candidates below him.
While the names have changed in second and third, the level of support has improved for the person in second by 33% and remained more or less the same for the person in third over the period. Ben Carson is the most benefited, going from fifth to second, even as Fiorina rocketed up 1060% to take third, replacing Walker who dropped out.
Similarly the persons occupying fourth and fifth have improved their levels of support on average by 42%, but their names have changed, too. Marco Rubio in fourth has improved his support by 85% over the period, but Jeb Bush is the most hurt, going from second to fifth.
Ted Cruz is notably stuck in sixth in both snapshots, with the same average of support. He's persuading no one, either, except maybe so-called values voters to shift their votes around, unaware that they are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The endorsement of Ted Cruz by so-called values voters means little, except for Ben Carson and Donald Trump
From the story at The Hill, here:
Sen. Ted Cruz won the Values Voter Summit straw poll for the third year in a row on Saturday, a strong showing of support from evangelical voters for his 2016 presidential bid. The firebrand Texas senator won a whopping 35 percent in the poll of summit-goers, ahead of runner-up Ben Carson’s 18 percent. That margin is significantly wider than last year, where he edged out Carson by just 5 percentage points. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (Ark.) took third with 14 percent, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) with 13 percent. Real estate magnate Donald Trump finished a distant fifth with 5 percent.
So "values voters" have finally figured out one thing: Ben Carson's values may be traditional, but they are rooted in a crackpot religion which was born of a failed prediction of the end of the world in 1844.
Now if they could only figure that out about their own religion.
What's happening here is that the evangelical base is clearly choosing a Southern Baptist over a Seventh-day Adventist, and distancing itself dramatically from the mainline Protestant in the race, Donald Trump.
Meanwhile Ted Cruz isn't going to be the nominee, not as long as he garners just 27% of the support enjoyed by the frontrunner.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Ben Carson shifts a little, allows a Muslim who forswears Sharia could be president
Ben Carson, quoted here:
"If they embrace our Constitution and are willing to place that above their religious beliefs, I have no problem with that. ... I think anybody, regardless of their religion, if they are willing to embrace the values and principles of America and our Constitution and subject their beliefs to the Constitution, I have no problem with that at all. And that's perfectly reasonable."
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Someone should ask Ben Carson to swear to place the Constitution above the writings of Ellen G. White
Ben Carson, quoted here:
BEN CARSON: Now if someone has a Muslim background and they are willing to reject those anti-democratic] tenets [of some Islamic theocracies] and will swear to place our Constitution above their religion, then of course they will be considered infidels and heretics, but I would be quite willing to support them...
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