Mitt Romney: Obama must wage war on the Islamic State, not merely harass it

The West must stop the insanity of welcoming hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East without knowing who exactly they are. Women, children and the elderly, perhaps, but not thousands upon thousands of single young men.

Only America can lead this war, and that leadership means being willing to devote whatever resources are required to win — even boots on the ground. We have the best-equipped and most dedicated military for good reason. The president must stop trying to placate his political base by saying what he won’t do and tell Americans what he will do.

We must do what it takes.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Thursday that it was "inappropriate" for his campaign manager to joke about considering his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate, MSNBC reported.

Earlier this week, Sanders' campaign manager had said that they were "willing to consider' Clinton as a running
“Look, she'd make a great vice president. We're willing to give her more credit than Obama did," Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver had said. "We're willing to consider her for vice president. We'll give her serious consideration. We'll even interview her.”

But Sanders walked back the comment to MSNBC.

“You know, I think that every campaign has statements come out which are inappropriate. That was inappropriate,” Sanders said, adding that he had "a lot of respect" for Clinton.

There were obviously many factors that contributed to California’s evolution into the deep-blue state it is today, from demographics to the culture war. But none of those things come close to the damage that then-Governor Pete Wilson did to the longterm interest of the California Republican Party in 1994, when he scapegoated Latino immigrants as the cause of all the state’s woes.

Wilson was running for re-election, and as part of his campaign to distract from the economic failure of his first term and increase turnout among his base, he ran on a platform promising to crack down on undocumented workers, and enthusiastically supported the infamous Prop 187, which set up a statewide system designed to deny any kind of benefits to undocumented workers, including K-12 education and all forms of health care.

(He also supported a constitutional amendment to repeal birthright citizenship, currently guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.)

Here’s the famous “they keep coming” ad the Wilson campaign ran that year:


.....Wilson’s California Republicans are now a rump party of angry, white Tea Partyers and a handful professional operatives. It’s a very sad motley group compared to the political juggernaut that produced Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

There used to be an old saying “As California goes, so goes the nation” meaning that California was the modern, forward thinking laboratory of democracy which started the trends that everyone else would soon follow. If that holds true in this case of this Latino bashing, the Republicans are in for a long road back from the debacle of 2016.

DES MOINES, IOWA — Gail Klearman should be a perfect target for Bernie Sanders.

The 56-year-old legal aid attorney caucused for Barack Obama in 2008, and her politics put her more in line with Sanders than with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Her children, she said, "feel the Bern."

But Klearman plans to caucus for Clinton in February.

"I think she has a better chance of winning, and I really want to see a Democrat as president," Klearman said after listening to Sanders speak at a Jewish Federation forum in Waukee on Sunday. "I think Americans fear socialism, even though the things that Sen. Sanders is talking about — apparently I agree with him on more issues than I do with Hillary. But not by a whole lot."

The question of whether America is ready to elect its first socialist president is one of two major concerns about Sanders that Iowans raised in interviews with Vox at a half-dozen of his events this past weekend. The other is whether he could govern effectively. Together, they represent the main challenge to Sanders's viability: Even some of the Democrats who think he's on point aren't at all sure he's their best pick to win the presidency or to run Washington.

"Bernie does not say anything I don't like," said John Ross, 76, who came to see Sanders on the stump at the Latino Heritage Festival here on Saturday. "My concern is him being able to win the support he needs in Congress."

DES MOINES, IOWA — Gail Klearman should be a perfect target for Bernie Sanders.

The 56-year-old legal aid attorney caucused for Barack Obama in 2008, and her politics put her more in line with Sanders than with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Her children, she said, "feel the Bern."

But Klearman plans to caucus for Clinton in February.

"I think she has a better chance of winning, and I really want to see a Democrat as president," Klearman said after listening to Sanders speak at a Jewish Federation forum in Waukee on Sunday. "I think Americans fear socialism, even though the things that Sen. Sanders is talking about — apparently I agree with him on more issues than I do with Hillary. But not by a whole lot."

The question of whether America is ready to elect its first socialist president is one of two major concerns about Sanders that Iowans raised in interviews with Vox at a half-dozen of his events this past weekend. The other is whether he could govern effectively. Together, they represent the main challenge to Sanders's viability: Even some of the Democrats who think he's on point aren't at all sure he's their best pick to win the presidency or to run Washington.

"Bernie does not say anything I don't like," said John Ross, 76, who came to see Sanders on the stump at the Latino Heritage Festival here on Saturday. "My concern is him being able to win the support he needs in Congress."

Iowa political insiders say Gov. Bobby Jindal will soon give up on his presidential bid, Politico reports.

"He's become desperate," an Iowa Republican told the website. "He's taken to attacking Trump (we know how that worked out for Perry and Walker) and has nothing going on here in Iowa."

Another insider said Jindal had too much competition on "the hard inside right lane." In the last year in Louisiana, the governor has taken a strict conservative stance on taxes and education.