Dream Team?

[Gerry Clinchy]

Gerry, you're quoting yourself. That's not ther way PP is supposed to work. JD

I tried to quote Marvin and include what he was responding to, since it needed both to make sense ... obviously that didn't quite work as planned

[mudminnow]

I still like John Thune from SoDak....and for newcomers I am liking Trey Gowdy from SoCarolina, he is relentless and wont give up, I like Issa from California too..Rand Paul show promise..still way too early to be wasting time ...I think after the mid terms we will see who is positioning themselves as contenders

Noooo! I am from trey gowdy's district and am not happy with him at all. He is becoming a rank in file republican just like inglis ( who I am very well acquainted with, like and respect but would not vote for) who he replaced because he was goin to be different. He talks a big game but has been caving.

Paul/Amash 2016. Vs Clinton/some other guy

[Marvin S]

I tried to quote Marvin and include what he was responding to, since it needed both to make sense ... obviously that didn't quite work as planned

Gerry I understood even if the resident snark did not .

[Gerry Clinchy]

Speaking of Michigan ... a friend just told me that a large company there laid off 2400 employees in mid-January ... even highly skilled people like engineers. He couldn't remember the name of the company.

[huntinman]

Speaking of Michigan ... a friend just told me that a large company there laid off 2400 employees in mid-January ... even highly skilled people like engineers. He couldn't remember the name of the company.

Hemlock Semiconductor... They are 90% complete on a plant in our town here. Just laid off 75 % of the work force and the plant never even opened... The make the crystals for solar panels... Killed by the Chinese flooding the market... Built the plant here mostly with private funds... Did get state and local tax breaks.

Parent company based in Michigan...

[charly_t]

I know that I have mentioned it before but........."American Made" may not mean what it used to but I have a relative who works for a company who decided to have parts manufactured in another ( overseas ) country. Guess what parts don't fit and are not made well. Bottom line does not always support getting it from a country with cheap wages.

Bought a Futon a few years back.....American made. We like it and it has stood up under grandchildren working it over. If they are still in business I would sure buy from them again ( company in Verona MS I believe ). Best part is family who have visited and had to sleep on it tell me it is very comfortable. I can vouch for napping use.

[Gerry Clinchy]

Ted Cruz ... I went to look this up since it was mentioned earlier:

Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where his parents, Eleanor Darragh and Rafael Cruz, were working in the oil business.^[8][9] His father, in 1957 during the Cuban Revolution, was a Cuban immigrant to the United States.^[10] His mother, an American, was reared in Delaware, in a family of Irish and Italian descent.^[9][11] Cruz's family returned to the U.S. when he was four years old.^[10]

So, yes, he was born in Canada, but his mother is an American. Does that make him eligible for the Presidency?

I remember the issue on Obama was that his mother had to be a certain age for him to be considered American, if he was born on foreign soil. Also recall that same issue was raised with McCain, that he had not been born in the US. But I think there is something about "born" citizenship being conferred on the offspring of an American citizen, no matter where they are born.

Figure Eric Johnson to be the one who might know the answer to this?

[Gerry Clinchy]

From the Wikipedia on Ted Cruz:
National Review just had a piece on Ted Cruz ... even people like Mitch McConnell seem to be on his side, even though Cruz is bucking the "establishment"

Interesting, too

Cruz earned his Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University and his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, an executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.^[13] While at Princeton, he competed for the American Whig-Cliosophic Society's Debate Panel as one of North America's top-ranked parliamentary debaters, winning the top speaker award at both the 1992 U.S. National Debating Championship and the 1992North American Debating Championship.^[14] In 1992, he was named Speaker of the Year and Team of the Year (with his debate partner, David Panton) by the American Parliamentary Debate Association.^[14] In 1991 he and his partner came in second to Austan Goolsbeeand partner David Gray. Cruz was also a semi-finalist at the 1995 World Universities Debating Championship.^[15]

And, he probably has a pretty good handle on the U.S. Constitution

Cruz served as a law clerk to William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States, and J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.^[16] Cruz was the first Hispanic ever to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States.^[17]Cruz has authored more than 80 United States Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments, including nine before the United States Supreme Court.^[13]
In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz assembled a coalition of thirty-one states in defense of the principle that theSecond Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms.^[18] Cruz also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In addition to his victory in Heller, Cruz has successfully defended the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitolgrounds, the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools and the 2003 Texas redistricting plan.^[19]
Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt by the International Court of Justice to re-open the criminal convictions of 51 murderers on death row throughout the United States.^[13]

Cruz was born and spent the first four years of his life in Calgary before his parents returned to Houston. His father was jailed and tortured by the Fulgencio Batista regime and fought for Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution^[38] but "didn't know Castro was a Communist" and later became a staunch critic of Castro when "the rebel leader took control and began seizing private property and suppressing dissent."^[39] Rafael Cruz moved to Austin in 1957 to study at the University of Texas. He spoke no English and had $100 sewn into his underwear.^[40] The elder Cruz worked his way through school as a dishwasher making 50 cents an hour. Cruz’s mother, who was from Delaware, was the first person in her family to attend college. She earned a degree in mathematics from Rice Universityin Houston in the 1950s, working summers at Foley’s and Shell. Cruz has said, "I'm Cuban, Irish, and Italian, and yet somehow I ended up Southern Baptist."^[41]

Cruz and his wife, Heidi Nelson Cruz, have two daughters, Caroline Camille and Catherine Christiane. Cruz met his wife while working on the George W. Bush presidential campaign of 2000. Cruz's wife is currently head of the Southwest Region in the Investment Management Division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and previously worked in the White House for Condoleezza Rice and in New York as aninvestment banker.^[42][43]

Honors and awards

• "America's Leading Lawyers for Business," Chambers USA (2009 & 2010)
• "50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America," National Law Journal (2008)
• "25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century," Texas Lawyer (2010)
• "20 Young Hispanic Americans on the Rise," Newsweek (1999)
• Traphagen Distinguished Alumnus, Harvard Law School

If he were to debate Obama, I'd be putting my money on Cruz.

[Jason Glavich]

Myself as President
Bill Clinton As my Vice
GySgt Lee Ermey as my public affairs guy(Jay Carney replacment)
Jim Cramer as Fed
Gen Mattis as Defense Sec
Kai the hatchet wielding surfer hero as my head of my secret service detail
Ted Nugent as Head of CIA

lol

[Jason Glavich]

Hemlock Semiconductor... They are 90% complete on a plant in our town here. Just laid off 75 % of the work force and the plant never even opened... The make the crystals for solar panels... Killed by the Chinese flooding the market... Built the plant here mostly with private funds... Did get state and local tax breaks.

Parent company based in Michigan...

Advance thin film and get out of the dark ages of PV and dump the crystal process. If Ford cars still only had the tech advancment of the Model T the other companies would have ran it out of business as well. Advance or fail is the point.