'Penetrate the Internet,' and other strange ideas from last night's Republican debate

[Commentary] Dec 15's Republican debate is over, and we're now a safe enough distance to look back. The debate was nominally focused on national security, which means we heard discussion on shutting down the Internet, monitoring the Internet, warrants -- or lack of them -- for Internet-connected phones, and shouting about who wants to expand the Patriot Act the most. Here's a brief look at the highlights.

Trump made the suggestion that the United States "should be able to penetrate the Internet." "These are terrible people in ISIS, not masterminds. And we have to change it from every standpoint. But we should be using our brilliant people, our most brilliant minds to figure a way that ISIS cannot use the Internet. And then on second, we should be able to penetrate the Internet and find out exactly where ISIS is and everything about ISIS. And we can do that if we use our good people." It's unclear what, exactly, he meant by that. But nearly as bizarre was Gov John Kasich (R-OH) picking up the same language. "We need to be able to penetrate these people when they are involved in these plots and these plans. And we have to give the local authorities the ability to penetrate, to disrupt. That's what we need to do."