The Republican CNN Town Hall told via text

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Here is the deal: Mandatory minimum sentences take any power away from the judge. If someone commits a drug crime they get whatever sentence the federal law says. Opponents of minimums say that this ends up putting drug addicts or users in jail for long amounts of time, costing taxpayers a ton of money, and it doesn’t do anything to reduce drug crime.

They guarantee that sentences are uniform throughout the country, so that a crime committed in one state is equal to others. The public is protected because while the offender is in prison, there is one less threat to the public in that community. Minimums deters anyone from using or selling drugs because they know how long their sentence can be.

Here are some great reads on this issue: This one from the perspective of a judge argues against mandatory minimums. If you are curious about where most Americans stand on this issue, check this out. And here is a great video from Vice about this where they go inside a prison:

The good news:

1. Unemployment is now at 5.5% from its peak of 10% in late 2009
2. All of the jobs lost during the recession have been recovered + 2 million additional jobs
3. The federal deficit has shrunk from 12.1% of GDP in 2009 to just 2.4% in 2014
4. The US economy grew at 2.4% last year, (including 5% in Q3 of 2014) the highest growth rate since the beginning of The Great Recession.

The bad news:

Average wages still have not grown since the 80s and the true unemployment rate is higher because there are a lot of workers who dropped out of the workforce altogether who aren’t counted in the current number.

Here is the ad:

You probably have heard that oil prices have dropped like a rock. The reason for that is simple economics: There is too much oil in the world meaning supply has outpaced demand, making oil cheaper. Big oil countries are trying to fix that problem.

To stop oil prices from dropping, Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to cap oil production, cutting off some of the supply so that demand catches up. But there are two problems with that.

1. In 2001 there was an oil deal to cap production that Russia agreed to, but then never actually cut their production soooo they are not super trustworthy.
2. The bigger problem is that most of the increase in oil supply has come from Iran. They say they are not down with capping their oil production since the country is just getting back on track economically after years of economic sanctions. Classic Iran.

Iran’s main motivation for accepting the nuclear deal with the U.S. was to make it easier for them to produce and export oil. So when they are now being asked by these other countries to cap their oil production, they see nothing in it for them.

Cruz’s claim that Rubio promised to uphold Obama’s executive action on immigration was rated half true.

His claim that Trump wants to nominate his sister for Supreme Court and she is a hardcore pro-abortion liberal is mostly false.

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