Word Slinger Files Republican Presidential Picks As of Today:

My picks up to now with information I have up to now:

First off, I need to clarify that I am not a Republican, so I have no party loyalty to the Republican party and will never hesitate to throw the party under a bus. That said, I ID myself as more of a Constitutional conservative and the Republican party tends usually to have a better pick of candidates that lean that way. Also, my main focus is on religious liberty...and I have stated many times over the years that I dislike politics as a general rule....but will deal with it when it encroaches on religious freedom..  So, I look for the candidates who I think are most apt and able to address and protect that. Followed by illegal immigration, abortion, and the economy.

1) Ted Cruz  His knowledge of constitutional law and issues is impressive.And he is concerned about religious freedom. He would make a great addition to the Supreme Court some day.....or, if not elected president,   attorney general.

2) Mike Huckabee  He has moved up in my interest since the last debate, particularly because of the Kim Davis issue. I see him as a long shot, but he polls OK for a long shot candidate. Huckabee rocks on religious freedom

3) Donald Trump. He is a wild card and still an anomaly. The Republican Party needs someone to kick that shoddy foundation they have laid underneath them. He mentioned the vaccine issues in the debate last night, and issues with autism..which even Ben Carson agreed with...in spite of the fact that Megyn Kelly says vaccines are a settled issue scientifically.

4) Rick Santorum. For his stand on religious freedom, abortion, etc. I thought he did a good job of defending his positions in the earlier CNN debate.

 5) Bobby Jindal. I had high hopes he would be a good candidate, particular in the area of religious freedom. His campaign has not taken off yet...and it may not.


 6) Ben Carson. Very likable and smart guy. Soft spoken, but I think he gets his points across better that way. I am a bit confused on some of the issues with him like minimum wage and immigration. His inclusion, though, for immigrants to come and do jobs Americans don't want to do just wreaks so close to the Democrat philosophy of immigration support as cheap labor. Democrat party was pro slavery in 1800s, Still pro-slavery to be pro-immigration and justify it by claiming we can use Mexicans as cheap labor force. So if that's a position he will stick to, then he will being sliding to the bottom of this list very soon.

7) Rand Paul. I think he is very Libertarianesque which is not entirely bad. I am not for marijuana legalization for recreational purposes, but I do agree with him that it should be left to the states to decide. I have no problem with medical usage. Here in Mississippi we have an attempt to get a marijuana initative on the ballot--which it looks like it will fail to get enough people to sign their petition, but I really dislike the way its being promoted. They are pushing it under the guise of being used for medical purposes. and underplaying the fact that they want it for recreational use.  In debates, Paul has tried too hard to go after Trump or even Christie and it, with maybe once exception, blows up in his face.

8) Marco Rubio. He is getting better at verbalizing his positions.

9) Chris Christie. I would not have ever expected to put him higher than Jeb Bush, but his performance at the debate was actually pretty good. I still don't see him as "conservative" but more time will tell.
When he started to explain what female he would like on the $10 bill, it sounded like he was going to nominate Morticia Addams.

10). Carly Fiorina. I don't have all the "like" for her that other people see. She has flip flopped a several issues, including religious freedom, and sometimes it seems like she says what she says depending on who she is talking to. Carly Fiorina is very wrong on  her understanding of the 14th amendment and seems OK with judicial tyranny.

Jeb smoked what??

11) Jeb Bush. Much better performance in last nights debate  I still see him as playing both sides of the issue on immigration. He is, as Trump mentioned, pro-Common Core. He also does not have a great pro-life record in spite of what he tried to say last night.

12) Scott Walker  His performance can be summed up with this: Oh, was he there?

13) John Kasich. In his opening intro, Shorter Kasich: I am Ronald Reagan. Umm. no.

14) Lindsey Graham. "In my world, Hispanics are Americans" --Lindsey Graham. What can be said about Graham that hasn't been said about a bad case of influenza. I would say Lindsey Graham is dead to me, but that would be an upgrade to the status I already held about him.

15) George Pataki .  "just give them all legal status" --George Pataki on immigration. George Pataki plays the Reagan card right out of the gate. Dead to me starting with his position on religious freedom. His last name is still fun to say, though. (Try saying "President Pataki" 5 times very fast. ) 

16) Jim Gilmore. Gilmore who?? CNN excluded him from the debate.

I think the debate at CNN was much better than the charade that Fox news tried to pass off as a debate last month. This one actually had exchanges between the candidates. The few that Fox had were in spite of Fox and not because of it,. Jake Tapper was clearly gunning fro Trump and for a few moments he kind of morphed into Megyn Jelly.

A quick word on the polls, a practice which is central to modern analyses of political races. I believe that polls are far more scientifically unreliable than they are generally made out to be, and think that wild inductions are not the safest way to go. Talking to 200 people and deciding what 200 million are thinking is . . . risky. --Doug Wilson

Misleading Information: Marijuana decreases risk of lung cancer

"Marijuana decreases risk" is a bit misleading. It is also an example of one of the reasons I dislike the "pro-marijuana"   promotions, though I hold no position at this point as to whether it should be legalized or not. 

Smell the Truth, a marijuana advocacy group, reported a couple days ago:

• As more and more Americans consider the pros and cons of cannabis legalization, many points are worth repeating, and chief among them: cannabis actually decreases the risk of lung cancer.

It uses as one of its sources the results of a research effort by Donald Tashman:

• LA Weekly managed to quote one of the nation’s leading pulmonologists, Dr. Donald Tashkin. The professor emeritus of medicine at UCLA once sought to prove pot causes lung cancer, but the evidence forced him to conclude the opposite.

However, when the Tashman findings were originally reported, it stated:

• The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer. The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.  [Washington Post]
  

So marijuana, in and of itself, does not decrease any lung cancer risk. But, it is less of a risk then using regular tobacco cigarettes according to  what the original Tashman report said. So don't go seeking out marijuana thinking it will decrease your chances of getting lung cancer.

Tashman did say this at one point:

• "We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."  [Washington Post]

But there was never any information divulged which  showed that to be true.

Wikipedia notes Tashman with this summary:

• In 2006, he was in charge of a large case-control study on marijuana and the risk of cancer. Contrary to his group's expectations, the study found no increase in lung cancer risk even among heavy users of marijuana