This posting from Time had me LMAO!  Here are some of the highlights… and some of the better comments posted….

“0 minutes. Presidential debates come and go. But tonight’s GOP debate, the fourth in a series too numerous to bear, is a special treat. “We are all gathered under the wings of Air Force One,” says NBC’s Brian Williams, referring to the great phallus of American presidential might that sits in the hangar at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. No setting could be more appropriate. The camera soaks it in–all 153-feet of Reagan’s retired plane.”

“1 minute. The imagery has clearly affected the candidates. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, for instance, looks great. His jaw is squarer, his chest more puffed out, his tan deeper than he has ever been before. Wait. Scratch that. Pawlenty has been replaced on the stage by Texas Gov. Rick Perry who gets the first question, which is essentially: Why does your state suck so bad, with the lowest high school graduation rates, the eighth highest poverty rate, and more people working for minimum wage than anywhere else?”

“2 minutes. Perry, not fazed at all, keeps John Wayne cool, and does the proper thing: He attacks Obama. “Americans are focused on the right issue, and that is, who on this stage can get America working? Because we know for a fact the resident of the White House cannot.” Then he gets into a stats debate with Williams. Perry says that Texas created 1 million jobs while America lost 2.5 million. Williams says most of those jobs paid badly. Perry says 95% paid above minimum wage.”

[Just as I would have expected of our politicians now, just like Pavlov’s dog… attack, attack, then attack again.]

“6 minutes. Desperate now to get something going, Williams tries to pit Romney against Perry directly. He asks Romney, who has been a career candidate for the last five years, if there is something wrong with being a career politician like Perry. Romney bunts, saying private sector experience is better. Then Perry swings away at Romney. “While he had a good private sector record, his public sector record did not match that,” Perry says. “As a matter of fact, we created more jobs in the last three months in Texas than he created in four years in Massachusetts.”

[Is this per capita?  If not, well… there’s a bit of difference in population between Texas and Massachusetts…  I love it.  Whenever I see a state politician boast about their numbers in comparison to another state, I never see or hear them say ‘per capita.’  Anyone else ever notice this?]

“8 minutes. This is the kind of fight Williams clearly wanted, but he inexplicably tries to ask pizza magnate Herman Cain the next question. “Listen,” says Romney, interrupting. “Wait a second. States are different. Texas is a great state. Texas has zero income tax. Texas has a right to work state, a Republican legislature, a Republican Supreme Court. Texas has a lot of oil and gas in the ground. Those are wonderful things, but Governor Perry doesn’t believe that he created those things. If he tried to say that, well, it would be like Al Gore saying he invented the Internet.” Kazaam. The crowd explodes with applause. The comeback was unexpected, funny, tough. Reagan’s plane just grew a foot longer.”

“10 minutes. But there is no need to get too excited too soon. This is going to be a long debate. So the next questions go to former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and the former pizza company CEO. Santorum talks about how much stuff he has accomplished. Then Cain dips into the zany basket and begins to talk about his 9-9-9 plan, which calls for taxing corporate income, personal income and retail sales at 9% because, “If 10% is good enough for God, 9% ought to be good enough for the fellow government.” This is a reference to a song by the country music novelty singer Ray Stevens called “If 10% Is Good Enough For Jesus (It Ought to Be Enough for Uncle Sam).” Really.”

[Seriously???  Did Cain really say this????????  Nothing like bringing your religious beliefs into my/our government….  Goodbye, Cain.  Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.]

“13 minutes. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann is asked by Williams to bash federal regulations. Which she does, with special emphasis on ObamaCare and the fact that she has five biological kids and 23 foster kids.”

[Ho-hum… Hey, Michele… Will Angelina Jolie be your running mate?  You can compare kiddie stories…]

“15 minutes. Texas Rep. Ron Paul is asked about regulations, and he says that government drug safety regulations are written by drug company lobbyists. So he wants to get rid of government regulations to let the marketplace regulate drugs. In other words, cut out the middle man.”

[Really?  I thought this was so we can pay $5/pill for a prescription we NOW pay $0.50 for – and put the profit in your pocket…]

“18 minutes. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich gets a chance to talk. After advertising newt.org, he says that the fact that Obama does not come to the Reagan library to seek advice from the novelty-country-song-quoting former Pizza CEO Cain “tells you that this is a President so committed to class warfare and so committed to bureaucratic socialism that he can’t possibly be effective in jobs.” Once again: Not making this up.”

“23 minutes. Bachmann is so eager to join the scrum that she calls out “John, John,” and is ignored by Harris, who goes to Huntsman, who talks again about how he is better than Romney and Perry. Nobody minds. No response.”

“29 minutes. Santorum is asked to describe how his Catholic faith informs his desire to help the poor. He talks about his role in welfare reform in the 1990s, using the third person. “No one did more to work on poverty issues than Rick Santorum,” he says.”

[And who’s opinion?  God?  Oh, yours.]

“32 minutes. In a response on the same topic, Perry uses the word “anglo” to describe white people. With his Texas drawl, the word sounds sort of dirty and exciting, like moonshine or rodeo.”

“34 minutes. Bachmann says, again, that when she becomes President she will get gas back down to $1.79 a gallon, which everyone knows is impossible without another global economic collapse. But Bachmann tends to do best when she is boldly proposing impossible things. At the last debate, her pitch was about how the best thing the U.S. could do was refuse to raise the debt ceiling, thereby forcing a massive, sudden contraction in federal spending as the country teetered on the brink of recession.”

[LMAO!!!!!  I can NOT stop laughing at that one!!!!!!  Michele, someone slipped a Mickey in your water.  And YOU point fingers at Obama for broken campaign promises?  You just set yourself up for one of the BIGGEST broken campaign promises in history!]

“36 minutes. Paul says he would like to get rid of the minimum wage, attacks Perry for having written a letter supporting Hillary Clinton’s health care reforms, and tries to out-Bachmann Michele Bachmann. “I do want to address the subject of $2 oil or gasoline, because I can do it much better than that. I can get you a gallon of gasoline for a dime,” he says. “You can buy a gallon of gasoline today for a silver dime. A silver dime is worth $3.50. It’s all about inflation and too many regulations.” After putting the letter in context, Perry fires back, saying Paul once wrote a letter criticizing Ronald Reagan. Paul puts his letter in context. Both come off looking trivial and small.”

[Get rid of minimum wage?  Of COURSE you would like that… puts more profit in the corporations (and your) pockets.]

“39 minutes. The first break. We are not yet half way done with the debate.”

“43 minutes. We’re back, and Williams and Harris are standing on the stage. They introduce a video montage praising Nancy Reagan, who is seated in the audience. The montage is set to The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony. Luckily for the Reagan legacy, the montage drops the song before Richard Ashcroft sings “You’re a slave to money and then you die,” or “Well I never prayed,” or “I can’t change, I can’t change, I can’t change.” That would have just been weird next to old footage of Nancy Reagan telling kids to “Just say no.”

[EXCELLENT choice of music… our GOP Candidates… a Bittersweet Symphony… gotta love that one.  I am playing this now in your honor.]

“47 minutes. After a long ovation for Nancy, the debate resumes. Perry is asked about Social Security, and his answer is worth quoting at length, because it will likely haunt him. “People who are on Social Security today, men and women who are receiving those benefits today, are individuals at my age that are in line pretty quick to get them, they don’t need to worry about anything. But I think the Republican candidates are talking about ways to transition this program. And it is a monstrous lie, it is a Ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today, you’re paying into a program that’s going to be there. Anybody that’s for the status quo with Social Security today is involved with a monstrous lie to our kids, and it’s not right.”

[At this point, I am inserting an excerpt from The Washington Post.]

“Perhaps the governor does not know the dictionary definition of a Ponzi scheme. Here’s what Merriam-Webster says: “An investment swindle in which some early investors are paid off with money put up by later ones in order to encourage more and bigger risks.”

“This is a frequent mistake politicians make when talking about Social Security. It is not an investment vehicle; it is intended to provide income security as well disability and life insurance. Just more than 60 percent of the 54 million beneficiaries are retired workers; the rest are disabled workers, dependents or survivors.”

“Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, which means that payments collected today are immediately used to pay benefits. Until recently, more payments were collected than were needed for benefits. So Social Security loaned the money to the U.S. government, which used it for other things. In exchange, Social Security received interest-bearing Treasury securities. The value of those bonds is now about $2.6 trillion. (We have written about this at length.)”

“In any case, Perry is wrong to label Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes ultimately go bust and everyone (except possibly early investors) generally loses their money. Social Security faces a long-term funding issue, but one that most experts say is manageable. After all, the Social Security actuary says that Social Security’s shortfall is 0.7 percent of the gross domestic product over the next 75 years.”

[Back to Time’s post.]

“58 minutes. Debates tend not to age well. As in the past, everything starts to get weird at about the hour mark, and that’s what happens now. Gingrich gets the ball rolling by saying that he helped design the Department of Homeland Security to withstand “three nuclear events in one morning.” This image is jarring.”

[Here we are back using scare tactics again…  Let’s scare the country into voting for you.]

“59 minutes. But not as jarring as what Paul says next about TSA agents at the airport: “Sometimes they’re accused of all kinds of sexual activities on the way they maul people at the airport.” Nice.”

[No comment.  I am still speechless he actually said this.]

“63 minutes. Huntsman tries to restore sanity to the conversation, trying to pivot like Romney just did to the stuff people actually care about. “While all these other issues are important, let’s not lose sight, folks, of the bottom line here,” he says. “We’ve got to get back in the game as a country. We’ve got to make this economy work.”

[You think?  How about working TOGETHER and stop the damn finger-pointing and blame game.]

[At this point, the debate rather fizzles out.  They continue about border-control, which you may view on the site’s full posting.  But one more comment…]

“104 minutes. Perry is asked about the 234 death row inmates who have been killed while he has been governor, more than any other governor in modern times. As the question is asked, the crowd applauds the number, which pretty much validates Perry’s tough justice position. “I think Americans understand justice,” says Perry, suddenly regaining his footing.”

[That’s it.  Let’s just fry them all.  Please, do NOT get me started on our completely messed up Judicial System… that’s a whole other ball o’ wax.]

“109 minutes. “The campaigns have notified us we’re actually a few minutes over the time we were allotted for tonight, and so our questioning will have to come to an end,” Williams says. One more shot of Reagan’s big plane, still impressive despite the night’s proceedings. And we are done.”

[But I am not done laughing my ass off LMAO LMAO LMAO….]

You may read the entire transcript on NY Times site here.

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