On MSNBC, Chris Mathews asked Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, who was his favorite world leader. He was silent. Asked again, any country, any continent, he couldn’t think of one. Johnson said, “I’m having another Aleppo moment.”
Sad. Why is this man running for President?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
No, I do not think that it is not Aleppo moment, but it is rather too much marijuana that makes a brain to think about Hugh Hefner mansion with lots of bunnies. Is it a good guess for person who uses marijuana and also promotes its legalized usage in state-wide? Back2basic
LikeLike
Sorry for an awkward expression. I must be overwhelmed with the unqualified leadership like Donald Trump, Green Party leader, and Libertarian Party leader who love shortcut and people’s gullibility.
I should write:
1) I think that it is not Aleppo…
2) or I do not think it is an Aleppo…
LikeLike
Chris Matthews was rude, harrassing Johnson, pressuring him to answer. Johnson could have ignored the question and said he wanted to talk about important issues facing our nation. What difference does it make who his favorite world leader is? Absolutely none. Let the man collect, recover from being treated so rude under pressure, and talk about the real issues facing the U.S.A. This is a very important time in U.S. history, and a very important election. And, I don’t care who endorses whom. I’m responsible to do my own research and vote for the welfare of our nation. These are times that try men’s souls.
LikeLike
Johnson is too ill informed to run for president
Next time, ask him to spell CAT
LikeLike
The sad part is that the American people are willing to accept these people and their destructive platforms as legitimate. Trump and Johnson are two sides of the same dark worldview.
LikeLike
Incredibly, Johnson seems utterly clueless.
LikeLiked by 1 person
All too true, and very few people know about the origins of Libertarianism. Few understand that it is a pro-corporate, anti-government ideology born out of greed, the refusal to be accountable to anybody, and an overwhelming sense of entitlement. The european progenitors of Libertarian thought imagined themselves a superior class obligated and entitled, indeed obligated to rule over the unwashed masses. http://www.alternet.org/visions/true-history-libertarianism-america-phony-ideology-promote-corporate-agenda-0
LikeLike
Now it is a bunch of pot smoking video gamers wiping Cheetoes crumbs on their ragged Britney Spears concert t-shirts.
LikeLike
So who is Johnson ?
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/gary-johnson-donors-are-right-wing-funders
LikeLike
Too much weed.
LikeLike
He also said that the future of k-12 education was on-line learning such as the Kahn academy. Apparently he doesn’t know about the failure of virtual charter schools. I can just imagine Kindergartners sitting at their little cubicles watching computer screens all day.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
LikeLike
As well intentioned as you might think the Libertarians are, they are social Darwinists.
LikeLike
His silence sounds more like a Sarah Palin than an Aleppo moment. Maybe the guy is a “shallow Hal.” All the more reason to not vote for this shallow thinker.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very similar to Palin’s answer on what she reads.
LikeLike
I had no idea this gang was so mainstream. My hopes of getting any spotlight on Washington U for their prominent role in turning the public schools of st. Louis into two districts of 10,500 charter students,, 70 percent black, and 14 thousand non charters 90 percent black are kind of shot.
In 2015, the St. Louis Public Schools district issued 2,023 suspensions to students in kindergarten through third grade.
Black students make up 83.5 percent of its K-3 population. White students make up 11.4 percent.
None of the suspensions went to white children. Vice president of state school board Michael Jones offers this:
Let’s be clear there is no educational crisis in Missouri or St Louis. There is an educational crisis for black children in Missouri and St. Louis, and race and class are major mediating factors in determining what we do or don’t do about it.
“We know what would have been best educationally for these kids — we always know what the best thing to do is. What we lack is the moral courage and political will to do it,” said Jones, of the state Board of Education. “If we had treated the civil rights movement the way we’ve treated the education of black children, we’d still be drinking out of colored drinking fountains.”
Johnson does not have much to offer regarding education—which would be an improvement over Bill Gates. Still, he is white enough that Washington U should let him in on the debates…
LikeLike
Why has there been so little noise to nail down or publicize what Hillary has said about backing away from some of the excesses of the reform movement? Is it just why do anything that would take votes away from her? Why get the genuinely clueless Trump supporters all fired up about his charters and vouchers will make our schools great again. Mum seems to be the word.
LikeLike
We have seen intense lobbying efforts on the part of the reformers when their cash cows and influence are threatened, so remaining vague and silent is a good call on her part. The reformers have no allegiance to anyone who does not support their cause and would gladly, blindly throw their support behind Trump to advance their overall agenda. They have already made a decisive but invisible move away from the claim that choice etc. is a civil rights issue and they can close the race/achievement gaps etc. That would play right into the Trump/Alt right narrative if they decided to go that route with their sales pitches. They would be shameless and not hesitate to sell segregation as a plus to those historically and currently burdened by that legacy
LikeLike
For those of you commenting about too much weed: Horse manure.
Personally, I think his self-deprecating humour in this situation is good.
Were I to be asked that inane question, and indeed it is very inane-but what else should I expect from Matthews and the lame stream media, I wouldn’t be able to come up with an instantaneous answer that would do justice to what it means to be a “world leader”. I’d be answering with a question or two: What do you mean by “world leader”? In what category? Why are you asking me such stupidly inane questions that have little to no bearing on anything?
LikeLike
It definitely was an absolutely asinine question.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Why was it asinine to ask a presidential candidate which world leader he admires? Turns out Gary Johnson couldn’t think of any world leader. None. Tells us how ill-informed he is.
LikeLike
If the question was designed to show how ill-informed Gary Johnson was, then it was arguably a brilliant question, although the point would have been more emphatic if Matthews had just asked him if he could name one world leader. If the question is taken seriously, I think it’s actually a very difficult question. I’m not running for president and I don’t have advisers working to make sure I have intelligent-sounding-yet-noncontroversial answers to every conceivable question, but I’m not sure how I would have answered that question on the spot. In any event, Chris Matthews’s tone, and the way he breezed right past Johnson’s response, did not suggest to me that Matthews was trying either to demonstrate Johnson’s ignorance or provoke a thoughtful response. It sounded more like Matthews considered it as a kind of lightning-round, get-to-know-you trivia question, like “Yankees or Red Sox?”
LikeLike
If really we want to use a format like this to judge how well-informed candidates are, they all should be forced to go on Jeopardy. I know I’d watch it.
LikeLike
Personally, I wish Johnson and the libertarian cult would take a horse manure bath and create their own libertarian dystopia on some remote uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean. I am enjoying seeing the libertarian party leader self-destruct. Considering what he wants to do to the country, his humiliation is richly deserved.
LikeLike
While certain aspects of libertarianism can seem attractive, using Randian writings to base one’s thoughts is insane. Libertarianism is a dog eat dog philosophy in my view.
LikeLike
Duane, Rand is the least of it, a mere wannabe. A celebrated, self contradicted dilettante. http://www.alternet.org/visions/true-history-libertarianism-america-phony-ideology-promote-corporate-agenda-0
LikeLike
Jon,
Thanks for the link! Will get to it in a bit!
LikeLike
Jon,
Interesting history. Thanks for the link!
Duane
LikeLike
At least he didn’t say his favorite world leader is Mr. Aleppo.
LikeLiked by 1 person
me gusta
LikeLike
To señor Swacker:
Would it be an inane question to ask you that who is your favorite world philosopher or educator?
It is real “horse manure” to promote unrestricted usage of weed as medical treatment without doctor’s prescription, ay,ay,ay,ay…
The worst abuse is that drug dealers makes cookie and candy out of weed to lure UNSUPERVISED teenagers INTO ADDICTION.
It is enough burdened from being squeezed with low wages, long working hours, and being single parent, people do not need to worry about their children becoming addicted to marijuana. May
LikeLike
May,
Yes, those types of questions are inane for a number of reasons. I’ve never liked the “What is your favorite. . . .? as I just don’t think along those lines. For example I read an article on the differences in reading and comprehending in using paper versus screen in American Scientific (Mind?) and the librarian asked me “What is your favorite part?” I said “I don’t have a favorite part, the whole thing is my favorite part”. “But, but you must have a favorite part”. “NO!, I don’t have a favorite part.” But you have to!” “NO!! No I don’t”
I find the “favorite” meme to be quite trite or as I said inane because it forces someone to choose, perhaps something that the person, like me, doesn’t want to do. And for Matthews to ask the question that he did implies to me that he is attempting a “gotcha” moment. Perhaps that is not the case. But I find “favorites” to be a very discriminatory meme, that denies the nuances of daily life.
I have not promoted unrestricted usage, those are your words, May, not mine. It is an arguing technique that I find to be appalling. Please point to where “I promoted the usage”. I just said horse manure to the folks who hinted that Johnson was “stoned” during the interview. But allow me to explain a little about marijuana if I may:
Now, as far as the usage of marijuana, I thoroughly disagree with your analysis. I’ve smoked the evil weed since I was 14 and can attest that for me alcohol is 100 times worse a drug. THC is not addicting in the way alcohol is, nor is it physically addicting in the medical usage of that term. Folks can function quite well with using THC whereas alcohol literally makes people stupid, incoherent, and dangerous.
Again an anecdote. I went to HS with a highly recruited football player who ended up being one of the first players to play at a major college level as a freshman-I believe 1973 was the first year NCAA rules allowed it. Both in HS and in college (we went to both together). Now at parties, if we could get to R. with a little marijuana before he drank to much he’d be as mellow as could be. But if he didn’t smoke and only drank, well, let’s just say that almost always the cops were called because of his belligerence due to the alcohol. Are there some for whom THC doesn’t work or badly affects them, of course, tis the nature of being.
I know more than a handful of us “older” folk who make THC edibles for their usage, the usage by the way for pain, during chemo, etc. . . all without a doc’s orders-it’s illegal here in the Show Me State mainly to not have to smoke it.
LikeLike
And the issue here is not even whether weed is “good” or “bad.” First of all, it does have legitimate medical uses. Second, the problems you are describing, May, are more due to the fact that it is illegal, not that it exists. Marijuana is not without its potential dangers, but by far the biggest danger is that it is illegal. This creates a black market around marijuana, thus allowing shady cartels and drug dealers to secretly endanger unsuspecting victims with products that we don’t quite know what they are.
If marijuana were legal, we could study it more (scientifically), it would be regulated better, and shady cartels and drug dealers would be out of their jobs.
By the way, I despise Gary Johnson almost as much as I despise Hillary and Donald.
And I don’t smoke marijuana.
LikeLike
Sorry, this one was way much easier than Aleppo question. And he simply blew it. That’s a guy running as an independent. I am still gasped.
LikeLike
Honestly, i am grateful for Johnson. I know folks that are lifelong Republicans that can’t stomach voting for Clinton who are supporting him.
LikeLike
Voting for Johnson or any libertarian is the equivalent of voting against your best own interests. Libertarians want to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA and any social programs that help the poor and the working class (the 99%).
LikeLike
I am not saying he has my support for his policies, but he is drawing a lot of Republicans in swing states who are protesting Trump. In Florida for example, he’s got 3-8% of the vote and those aren’t folks that are going to vote for Cinton or Stein. I am certain his supporters know he has no chance.
LikeLike
Sorry Sarah, now I get your point. I hope Johnson sucks up GOP voters who would have voted for Trump. However, Stein is drawing progressives who would have voted for Bernie. It’s all up in the air.
LikeLike
Joe
Stein is only drawing 1% of the vote in theory Johnson should be drawing votes from Trump . It is hard to see how Bernie supporters could flock to Johnson. Saying some millennials are voting for Johnson is another story. Not all millennials are progressive.
Hillary’s problem is getting millennials and minorities out to vote. . Most older progressives are going to hold their nose and vote for her.
LikeLike
There’s Godwin’s law and then there’s Provolone’s law: in the course of an online discussion someone will inevitably bring up the proposition that the person being discussed has the earliest signs of dementia or Alzheimers. Gary Johnson. He might as well drop out because he’s become a joke and a punchline. Politicians are always being asked questions that they can’t answer for any number of reasons; a good politician knows how to HM (horse manure) his way out of the question. Ayn Rand is spinning in her crypt. Good.
LikeLike
The real question is why is anyone voting for people who are totally unqualified to be the leader of our country? This goes for the Trumpster as well.
I watched the Chris Matthews interview live. This was a softball question. It wasn’t a “gotcha.” He was trying to be friendly. If Hillary loses because of these lightweight other candidates taking just enough votes away from her (please remember 2000), it will be the young people, the poor people, the women, the minorities trump has demonized
over and over and over who will suffer the most. But we will all suffer for we will have legitimized a sick person and his sick ideas to be leader of this great country.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I disagree, generally. Matthews likes to ask a question, then interrupt with another question before they can finish responding. It is almost like his mind is telling him….”they are going to not screw this one up, so I will make them shut up and answer something else. He does this almost every night. I do agree it was a soft question, but almost any answer would have given him the immediate opportunity to find fault with his choice. They joke about Aleppo, but the reality is that he has a much more realistic conception of what is going on in Syria than Trump, and a great argument to make with the well informed Hillary
LikeLike
“If Hillary loses because of . . . who will suffer the most.”
Ay ay ay! Any votes for Johnson will take votes from the Trumpster and not the sHillary. As it is the number of those votes are so small as to be inconsequential. Yeah, I know the mantra of “all votes count”. It’s a nice platitude but not reality.
I’ve never seen such paranoia from a candidate’s supporters as this year’s Clinton supporters-Henny Pennys almost all of them. Be careful ye Henny Pennys, the sky may fall on you, but it won’t on the rest of us as we have confidence that this country can weather any idiot that gets elected to the presidency. Hell, it survived 8 years of Georgie the Least.
LikeLike
These Clinton supporters-Henny Pennys inspire me. I might not vote for Hillary, as is my present intent, or Johnson. I will simply write in Ralph Nader if they don’t shut up about this stuff pretty soon.
LikeLike
Because anyone can run for president and Johnson is a libertarian. That means he had to be anointed by the Koch brothers. For instance, Warren G. Harding is ranked by both liberals and conservatives as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. How did Harding get elected?
It’s more difficult to become a teacher than run for president.
To run for president you have to a a natural born citizen of the United States and be 35 years old. You don’t have to be a high school or college graduate, literate, etc. Twelve U.S. Presidents did not graduate from college.
To become a public school teacher: “General requirements for teaching credentials include obtaining your Bachelor’s degree and completing a teacher education program. All 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico require their teachers be licensed to teach in public schools.”
https://teach.com/how-to-become-a-teacher/teaching-credential/
LikeLike
If I were asked questions on national TV, I would likely forget my own name, so I feel really, really sorry for Gary Johnson.
LikeLike
To Sarah5565 – if we knew only potential Trump supporters were voting for Johnson as you stated, that would be excellent. , especially in Florida, especially after the Newsweek expose on trump’s potentially illegal business dealings with Cuba. I just would rather see those votes go to Hillary, plain and simple.
LikeLike
Jeannie,
There is nothing that I know of that would indicate that a libertarian leaning voter would vote for Clinton considering she is the ultimate in the status quo establishment politician. She represents big money and big gubmint to those folks. If not voting for Johnson they would be voting for the Trumpster, even though he likes to portray himself as a big money guy, one can easily suspect that his wealth is a Potemkin wealth.
How Clinton supporters twist a Johnson vote as a lost Clinton vote is beyond my thinking.
LikeLike
I hope you are right. Not sure all voters know as much as you know about this.
LikeLike
I’m just going by what I hear friends and acquaintances say. Not very scientific polling, eh! But if you think about what libertarians endorse, Clinton is about the last person they would vote for.
I believe Clinton will win in a landslide. But then again I never ever thought that Reagan could ever beat Carter, so as a presidential political prognosticator my record is less than sparkling!!
LikeLike
All I have to say is that don’t blame me if Trump wins. This will be a disaster of major proportions. Have you not been listening to what this man has been saying over the past years? This is not Henny Penny the sky is falling, this is reality, Trump would do untold damage to this country that would linger on for years. That’s not a minor thing and it can be avoided by voting for the only other viable candidate, HRC. There was a difference between Gore and Bush, Humphrey and Nixon but at the time many said that there was no difference, they’re all crooked.
From Huffingtonpost: “The Green Party, for example, hasn’t elected so much as a member of Congress, much less fielded a credible Presidential candidate, and their organization does no actual environmental work. Greenpeace helps the environment more in any given week than the Green Party has in its entire existence, a problem common to third parties generally.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/clay-shirky/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-protest-vote_b_11391710.html?
But there have been plenty of de facto libertarians, running as GOPers, who are/were in the senate and the house.
LikeLike
If we cannot recognize Trump as the second coming of Hitler, we will never recognize the second-coming of Hitler. This new biography of Hitler makes it clear –Trump is utterly Hitler-esque:
LikeLike
Long story short, Trump is a foul, vile creature but also irrelevant when it comes to policy and ideology. Those things may be found in both the Republican party platform which he had little if any hand in writing, and in the ideologies of those who silently are behind him. Pence being a heartbeat away from the presidency is far more problematic to me. Trump will remain what he is now if elected, a figurehead, a pitch man and a distraction. The danger he himself poses is the continued promotion of the alt right ethos of racism and otherizing hate against multiple groups who have historically been on the receiving end of that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/09/26/these-charts-show-exactly-how-racist-and-radical-the-alt-right-has-gotten-this-year/
LikeLike
Nothing serves the interests of oligarchs and plutocrats like a population divided against itself by anger and fear.
LikeLike
I think he’s more than just a distraction. From the article I linked to:
Hitler “was often described as an egomaniac who ‘only loved himself’ –a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization…and ‘characteristic fondness for superlatives”. He was known for “bottomless mendacity”. Politicians “suffered from the delusion that…they could ‘fence Hitler in'” once elected. “Hitler, it became obvious, could not be tamed –he needed only five months to consolidate power….The independent press was banned or suppressed….Hitler made it clear ‘that his government was going to do away with all norms of separation of powers and rule of law.”
LikeLike
Gary Johnson not only opposes public schools, but is funded by the Fossil Fools, including the notorious Koch brothers: Meet Gary Johnson’s Money Men, Led by the Koch Brothers – Truthdig
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/meet_gary_johnsons_money_men_led_by_the_despicable_koch_brothers_20160929
LikeLike
Is it true that the Chicago Tribune and Detroit Press have endorsed him? Didn’t the same two papers endorse increasing the number of charter schools?
LikeLike
Hi Señor Swacker and Ed Detective:
I am sorry to late response to both of you.
First of all, everything has two sides of the effect: good and bad. Secondly, personality, character, and a strong will of an experienced or wise person will help or hurt the marijuana user.
Let’s take coffee as an example. Coffee is good for many aspects, but over drinking will cause an addition. Similarly, eating meat is good for protein, but over eating meat will cause sickness.
In short, marijuana is definitely an addicted substance. This causes drug Lords and cartels to grow marijuana to make profit out of users’ addiction. In other word, we should never promote and legalize any additive substance, including chemical in all snacks like potato chip, and pop drink.
I understand what both of your expressions are about. I only hope that both of you will think of the teenagers and poor young workers who love to try out marijuana for party due to its legitimate consumption. Gradually, these teenagers and poor young workers will be addicted and go further in illegal substance, like cocaine,…
Could you envision the society where young people are with marijuana addiction? That is how dangerous it would be for legalized marijuana. May
LikeLike