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There’s a flurry of chatter this morning to the effect that Ted Cruz may have released classified information in last night’s Republican debate. Marco Rubio hinted at that in the debate itself when he said he would be more careful than Cruz in not releasing classified national security information in a nationally televised debate. Now Sen. Burr (R), the chair of the Senate intelligence committee says that his staff will be looking into whether Cruz did in fact cross the line.
This was a good debate, in as much as a number of the candidates were either on their game or more on their game than they’ve been in previous debates. Jeb Bush was more spirited and didn’t let Donald Trump slap him around quite as badly as he did in previous debates. In their own ways, Trump and Cruz did well too. Rubio was roughly how he’s been in earlier debates but several opponents landed real punches on him on issues like immigration.
10:33 PM: I guess the word cloud of this debate has Rubio and Schumer joined as one word.
10:35 PM: So if I understood that right, Ben Carson thinks we should resettle Syrian refugees in Kurdistan?
11:01 PM: So basically Chris Christie was commander-in-chief of New Jersey for seven years.
9:44 PM: “With Jeb’s attitude we will never be great again.”
9:53 PM: “We’ve got a phobia about boots on the ground.”
9:58 PM: Reality check: ISIS controls a decreasing area of territory in Iraq and Syria. It has a limited presence in Libya. It is not ruling territory all over the world or even all over the Middle East.
10:08 PM: The funny thing about Trump is that he has these moments of total clarity and total logic. Like on Syria, you can’t do everything at once. You have to fight ISIS. You can’t be involved on both sides of a civil war at the same time.
10:11 PM: “Time to punch the Russians in the nose.”
10:12 PM: I see little discussion of how a no-fly zone in Syria means telling the Russians to stop their bombing missions or we’ll shoot their planes down.
10:14 PM: “I think if you’re in favor of World War III you have you’re candidate.” Pretty much.
10:19 PM: “I’m at 42 and you’re at 3.”
9:15 PM: Watching Rubio on the split screen as Cruz is calling him a liar, he looks weak, uncertain.
9:17 PM: The mix of hyperbole, fear, demands for people to be more afraid is simply crazy. You get used to it if you watch this campaign day in and day out. But it’s worth stepping back and just recognizing that. We’re not in World War III. ISIS will not destroy America. ISIS is not the most sophisticated terrorist group in history.
9:25 PM: Let’s absorb this. If you have one or two people operating independently, self-radicalized, operating as lone-wolves, it’s going to be hard to find every single person like that. This is obvious. It is worth saying this so that we can avoid being totally stupid.
9:30 PM: Also notable, US Attorneys prosecute counter-terrorism cases. But they’re not heads of counter-terrorism in a state like Chris Christie pretends.
9:32 PM: Not sure Ted Cruz understands what ‘carpet bomb’ means.
8:42 PM: It seems like a real disservice to have Kasich and Paul and probably Bush and Christie and Fiorina in this debate.
8:48 PM: Big headline tonight is that Facebook sent a truck around the country to collect videos?
8:53 PM: Under Christie, there will be no bomb hoaxes.
8:56 PM: People feel “left out and out of place in their own country.”
9:01 PM: Cell phones with ISIS flags on them.
9:02 PM: I’ve had a post I’ve been working on for a while about this. But it’s nuts that people are granting to ISIS that is a “caliphate.” It’s cedes a huge advantage to ISIS and grants something that extremely few Muslims do.
9:05 PM: Notable that none of the candidates are willing to say that Trump’s Muslim ban idea is wrong.
9:07 PM: So Cruz totally dodged the question. No one is willing to really disagree with Trump’s Muslim ban.
9:10 PM: For all the outrageousness of the claims of the other candidates, none seems as focused as Christie on trying to make sure everyone is absolutely as scared as possible.
Full coverage of tonight’s GOP presidential debate beginning at 6:30 p.m. ET at TPMLivewire.
Pretty much everything people hate about internet commenters is on steroids at FoxNation. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that one commenter went so far with his threats toward employees of a Planned Parenthood partner that the feds have stepped in and arrested the guy.