Debatable: Blah, blah, blah. The Republicans debated in Houston last night.

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz tried to make Donald Trump bleed, at times resulting in the candidates shouting over each other in a cacophony of accusations and denials. Blah, blah, blah. The insults flew. Trump said to the two men on either side of him, “This guy’s a choke artist and this guy’s a liar.”

Cruz had said earlier in the day “The time for the clowns and the acrobats and the dancing bears has passed,” but then he got out there with the clowns, acrobats, and bears.

Rubio accused Trump of hiring illegal workers. “If he builds the wall the way he built Trump Tower he’ll be using illegal labor to do it.” He also said that if Trump hadn’t inherited money he’d be selling watches in the street.

Trump hit Cruz for failing to mention big loans in his campaign finance reporting and said, “I get along with everybody, you get along with nobody.”

Rubio may have had his strongest performance and Super Tuesday will reveal what he gets from it.

Trump still fails to explain how he would throw 11 million illegal immigrants out of the country, what it would cost, and how he would get Mexico to pay $12 billion to build a border wall. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox told Fusion’s Jorge Ramos yesterday, “I’m not going to pay for that fucking wall.”

With the exception of gentle John Kasich, the professional Republicans have turned on Trump, hoping he’ll leave the room. Sen. Lindsay Graham said on CNN yesterday, “I think Donald Trump will be the gold standard for stupid Republican candidates,” accidentally admitting that there’s more than one.

Rubio is aiming at Trump’s head. He said this morning, “A con artist is about to take over the Republican Party.”

And what was that giant hotdog on the CNN backdrop?

Nation: Three people died and 14 were wounded in a shooting spree in Hesston, Kan. The gunman drove through two towns shooting out the window of his car and ended up killing three people at the lawnmower equipment company where he worked. Police say they killed the gunman after he fired at them.

World: The US and China agreed to place tighter economic sanctions on North Korea to try to convince the Hermit Kingdom to curtail its nuclear weapons development. North Korea recently claimed it had tested a hydrogen bomb. It’s a step forward in US/China relations, which are a little strained over Chinese territorial grabs in the South China Sea.

Failing Grade: The University of Missouri has fired Melissa Click, the associate professor caught on videotape angrily calling for “some muscle” to rid her of a meddlesome student journalist at a campus protest last fall. A second video showed the PHD spewing obscenities at police officers during the Columbus Day parade.

A statement from the university said that while Click has a right to free speech, “Dr. Click was not entitled to interfere with the rights of others, to confront members of law enforcement, or to encourage potential physical intimidation against a student.”

Status Labs, the PR company representing Click, said she would have no comment.

Anger Management: A good many American voters are angry and determined not to take it any more. It’s been a surprise to professional politicians that Donald Trump is the beneficiary of much of the anger and frustration out there. Jeb Lund writes in The Guardian, “There are millions of miserable people in America who know exactly who engineered the shattering of their worlds, and Trump isn’t one of those people.”

Lund says beltway politicians and journalists have had a hard time appreciating the depth of anger over lost homes and jobs, underemployment, and non-functioning government. He writes, “Anger has a clarity all its own. It renders most detail extraneous, and it animates like nothing else. It is not to be underestimated, and, at this point, we will probably have to wait until November to find out if it truly has been.”

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