Cut Mics, Expensive Curtains, ‘Offensively Stupid’ Questions — GOP Debate Falls FlatKEK

Reagan Reese

September 28, 2023 12:26 AM ET

The second GOP presidential debate was dominated by candidates and moderators bickering and talking over one another, while viewers criticized the hosts for asking “offensively stupid” questions rather than focusing on substance that Republicans care about.

The debate, hosted by Fox Business and Univision, an American Spanish-language network, and located at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, featured seven of the GOP Presidential candidates. Early in the evening, candidates attacked rising star Vivek Ramaswamy, emphasized the border crisis and called out former President Donald Trump for skipping yet another debate while working to manage questions from moderators that some called “idiotic” and “disrespectful.”

But one theme that persisted was dissatisfaction with the moderators, whose questions ranged from pressing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis about allegedly racist slavery curriculum to asking former Vice President Mike Pence about hate crimes against gay people.

The debate wasmoderated by Fox Business host Stuart Varney and Fox News Channel host Dana Perino, as well as Univision anchor Ilia Calderón, who each tried unsuccessfully to enforce time limits and keep the candidates from cutting each other off.

After Republican North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum tried to ask the moderators to return to a question about artificial intelligence,Perino threatened to cut the candidate’s micif he kept the debate from moving forward.

“I am the only person on the stage that has a career in technology,” Burgum interjected.

“Sir, we’ll have to cut your mic, and I don’t want to do that. I don’t,” Perino responded.

The debate often focused around one leading candidate not on the stage, former President Donald Trump. The frontrunner opted to head to Detroit, Michigan, to address striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) a day after President Joe Biden visited the picket line to show his solidarity with workers who are demanding around a 40% raise and a shorter work week.

As of Wednesday, Trump led all GOP presidential candidates at 54% with DeSantis the next closest at nearly 14%, according to FiveThirtyEight.

“He should be on this stage tonight,” DeSantis said, taking his first of several explicit hits at Trump throughout the night. “He owes it to you to defend his record where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt. That set the stage for the inflation we have now.”

When asked about how he would win over pro-choice voters, DeSantis took a shot at Trump, who recently came under fire after he called Florida’s six-week abortion ban a “terrible mistake” in an NBC News interview.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie did not hesitate to call out Trump for skipping the second debate, using a question posed by Fox News Dana Perino about who should be “voted” out of the race to suggest that the former president no longer deserves to run. The question was called “disrespectful” by DeSantis before Christie began his response.

Throughout the debate, GOP Presidentialcandidates continued to turn unrelated questions back to the immigration crisisin an effort to highlight how they would secure the border.

Former South Carolina Governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley called for the U.S. to abandon practices of “catch and release” instead of encouraging the country to “catch and deport” migrants coming through the southern border.

“Only when we fix the immigration system, only when we get the borders secure should we ever put any more money into this,” Haley said, referencing the potential government shutdown on Saturday.

Touting his priority to secure the border, DeSantis gave an anecdote about his time in California ahead of the debate, recalling how he and his wife had met and chatted with residents of the state who had been mugged as crime continues to rise in sanctuary cities.

Ramaswamy, who surged into the spotlight during the first presidential debate, was attacked throughout the night by his competitors. Most notably, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Pence poked fun at the young businessman’s connection to China.

“I’m glad Vivek pulled out of his business deal in 2018 in China,” Pence said. “That must have been about the time he decided to start voting in presidential elections.”

Scott also took aim at Haley, criticizing her for increasing the gas tax while governor and for purchasing $50,000 dollars worth of curtains as ambassador.

An hour into the event, prominent conservative commentatorMegyn Kelly summed it up with one question: “Is this an MSNBC debate?”..

https://dailycaller.com/2023/09/28/republican-primary-debate-recap-ramaswamy-desantis-haley-california/

28 Sep, 2023 16:52

NATO country to get ‘pro-Russian’ government – polls

Robert Fico has vowed to cut off Slovakia’s aid to Ukraine if elected

Robert Fico’s Slovak Social Democracy is set to emerge as the largest party in a snap election on Saturday. Fico has called for a ceasefire in Ukraine and promised that not “a single round” of ammunition would be sent to Kiev if he were prime minister.

Fico’s party is currently leading with 20% of the vote, according to an aggregate of recent polls compiled by Politico. The pro-Western Progressive Slovakia party is in second place with 18%, while the Voice – Social Democracy party, a potential coalition partner for Fico’s Slovak Social Democracy is in third place with 13%. No other faction is polling above single digits.

The prospect of a Fico-led government has already set alarm bells ringing in the EU, where officials in Brussels fear he could veto future military aid to Ukraine and vote against additional anti-Russia sanctions packages.

Fico was Slovak prime minister from 2006 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2018. He was forced to resign after one of his assistants was linked to the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak. Slovakia is currently run by a government of unelected technocrats, which along with the previous liberal cabinet has given significant military support to Kiev.

Slovakia has sent Ukraine armored personnel carriers, howitzers, and its entire fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets. Fico has publicly condemned the EU’s sanctions on Russia, and blamed the conflict in Ukraine on “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists [who] started murdering Russian citizens in Donetsk and Lugansk” in 2014.

“We are a peaceful country,” he declared at a rally last week, adding: “we will not send a single round [of ammunition] to Ukraine.”

“They will have to sit down anyway and find an agreement,” he said of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. “Russia will never leave Crimea, never leave the territories that it controls.”

With Fico promising an about-face on Slovakia’s pro-Ukraine policy, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warned on Thursday that the US is preparing to meddle in Saturday’s election. “The US State Department sent instructions to several of its European allies to conduct targeted work with local political and business circles,” the SVR stated, noting thatWashington has sanctioned the use of bribery, blackmail, and threats to prevent Fico from winning.

Should Progressive Slovakia leader Michal Simecka emerge victorious, theSVR claimed that he has already been instructed by the US to form a “cabinet completely loyal to Washington.”

(So interfering with elections is their specialty)

https://www.rt.com/news/583726-slovakia-pro-russian-leader/

28 Sep, 2023 16:42

Ukrainian fighters break humanitarian truce

Kiev’s forces opened fire on Russian troops despite having previously agreed to a temporary ceasefire, an RT correspondent has reported

Russian and Ukrainian forces near the city of Kremennaya in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic managed to establish a temporary humanitarian truce, only to see it broken by the Ukrainian side, RT correspondent Murad Gazdiev reported on Wednesday.

Writing on Telegram, Gazdiev said thatbrigade leaders from both sides agreed to a ceasefire that would last from 9am to 7pm to allow both forces to collect the bodiesof the dead that had been left in neutral ground.

Gazdiev reported that hostilities did in fact cease initially. However, Ukrainian troops then began dragging trees and logs to their trenches and fortifying their positions.Approximately 40 minutes later, as soon as Russian evacuation groups moved out, the Ukrainian forces, sitting in their fortified trenches, opened fire using howitzers and mortars.

The results of the incident have not been disclosed, but other reports from the area on Wednesday suggested that a group of Ukrainian troops had later surrendered to Russian forces.

War reporter Mikhail Andronik shared videos purporting to show a Ukrainian soldier coming out onto a road bearing a light cloth. That was after he contacted the Russian side using an open radio channel. Soon after, two other fighters also came out and surrendered their weapons, as well as several crates of ammunition. One of the weapons, according to the correspondent, was a Western machine gun.

Another report by retired LPR lieutenant colonel Andrey Marochko also claimed the Ukrainian military near Svatovo-Kremennaya had requested an emergency evacuation using air ambulances from the area. The military expert suggested that the actions of the Ukrainian forces indicated they were trying to evacuate a wounded high-ranking supervisor or a senior commanding officer.

The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to confirm or deny the reports. However, in its daily update on Wednesday, it stated that Kiev’s forces had lost a total of up to 55 servicemen, two armored fighting vehicles, two cars, as well as two howitzers in the Krasnoliman direction.

https://www.rt.com/russia/583728-ukraine-violates-humanitarian-truce/