2024 Presidential Election: Second Presidential Debate (for Trump)
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
ABC News network hosts a presidential debate this evening beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET. It’s the first time Kamala Harris meets Donald Trump but it’s Trump’s second presidential debate. Will he do any more than Gish gallop like he did against Joe Biden?
Major news outlets don’t seem to care how badly Trump did last time. They were far too focused on their “But Biden is Old” agenda to focus on Trump’s bullshit. All his lies should have been noted in real time for the benefit of the public but apparently informing the public is not the job of corporate-owned major news outlets.
Marcy’s already spelled out the case: at 92% of the election season, Trump has used up most of his campaign already. Harris is less than half way and has plenty of room to run circles around a stultifying campaign dependent on outrage cycles and old ratfucking tricks.
And in spite of Trump having burned so much of his campaign promulgating crap which does nothing to lift the American public and everything to save his ass from prosecution and jail if he should win, major news media outlets insist on putting all the pressure on the seated vice president who has already been engaged in much of the work she’d do if elected. They’re pretending she’s wet behind the ears.
Here’s what I see from out here in the cheap seats: Donald Trump lost already.
He lost my dad.
My 90-year-old dad, a veteran who lives in Florida, has always voted Republican. ALWAYS. He has already told us several weeks ago he’s going to vote for Harris
When asked why he explained in his usual economic fashion: “I can’t vote for a felon.”
This decision has been an evolution. You see, two years ago when the FBI served a warrant on Mar-a-Lago for the presidential records including classified materials, I asked my dad what he thought.
He tsk-tsked, shook his head and said, “Sloppy. He’s sloppy.”
Last year dad wouldn’t talk about Trump at all, just shook his head.
This year he’s blunt about it. Trump is a felon.
The doubt began for my father with the presidential records scandal in no small part because Dad worked SIGINT in the Navy. We’ve had a few interesting discussions about intelligence but even now, though more than 65 years has passed, my dad is still closed mouthed about what he did. He took an oath and he’s kept it.
Donald Trump did not.
Furthermore, he cheated in 2016 to get elected. All his bullshit claiming Democrats are cheating is projection, because he cheated on his wife and then he cheated the state of New York and the American public to hide that he cheated in order to win the election.
It took my pops a while to break through the lifelong conditioning that he should vote for a Republican for president.
It only took Trump being outed as a felonious cheating loser.
He remains one no matter what happens tonight.
~ ~ ~
This thread is dedicated to this evening’s debate. Please stay on topic, thanks.
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Thank you.
Oh my fucking god he’s doubling down on tariffs. What a moron.
He’s telling the public he’s going to increase their taxes. He’s either too stupid to understand how tariffs work or he’s counting on the public to be stupid about tariffs..
https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/lawrence-the-media-is-trying-and-failing-to-cure-themselves-of-sane-washing-trump-218950213932
Don’t go there about the pandemic, buddy. You are responsible for the termination of the early warning system Obama put in place so that we’d be able to respond proactively to a pandemic threat.
He officially has a degree in economics. How TF does he NOT have a clue about tariffs? (I only took Econ 101, and I know more than he does.)
This is what you get when your daddy buys your degree for you.
He also lied about his degree. It wasn’t from the Wharton School of Finance. It was from a separate real estate finance program at Penn.
Did he say “my daddy only gave me 1/4 of that,” only $100 million and bailed me out with $1 million chip purchase when I was about to lose a casino.
Neatly avoided discussing how that all ended. I wish Harris would have asked, Did your casino go bankrupt?
Lawrence O’Donnell laid this out well the other night. A high schooler knows more about tariffs than Donald Trump.
The foreign country does not pay them. US consumers pay them. The importer pays the levied tariff, but passes it along up the chain until it reaches the ultimate consumer. That’s why tariffs are analogous to sales taxes.
But, here, Donald Trump repeats the lie that they are not a sales tax and that China will pay them. LMAO.
After all his debate prep, he still doesn’t know what a tariff is.
His brain is stuck and they can’t get it to reboot.
Not only is his brain stuck, but so is the rage in his face.
Terrible, terrible start for Harris. She did not answer the first question. She should be defending the current economy. Instead she is running from it.
She seems a bit nervous, but she also seems to be getting under Trump’s skin, obviously intentional.
[Edit: if Trump doesn’t respond directly to the moderator’s questions, why should Harris?]
It wasn’t great but ABC’s question holds the White House responsible for both corporate greed and Congress’s inability to deal with both the greed and the supply chain factors which are a big chunk of the economic challenge.
I get that she wanted to pivot to her proposals for middle-class tax credits/deductions, but I would’ve preferred that she used about 1/4 of her time to talk about the current economy and the remaining 3/4 to the work that needs to be done. Having said that, she was nervous and getting her sea legs.
She not only got better, but Trump got worse, a lot worse. When he started calling her a Marxist I knew he was going to be crushed but even I was surprised with the Springfield OH stupidity! It was the most one-sided debate in my lifetime, by far.
KH seems a little nervous and dry mouthed
The question about ‘better off’ was evaded by both
KH gave a coherent policy response to the issue of the economic policy moving forward.
Trump mentioned Tariffs and descended into unhinged fairly quickly
In the follow up questions Harris started to get into her stride.
Every time Trump starts his fearmongering about immigrants, I think, Lee Atwater and Willie Horton.
That’s the ratfucking playbook they can’t reject because it’s about all they have.
Harris needles hm into descending even further on ratfucking. With the jibe about nonsense at his rallies
Trump is losing it a descends into dog eating conspiracies
Harris laughs at him she is winning now
Trump doubles down on dog eating after good fact check
We won’t watch at our house. Every time that doddering old criminal opens his mouth it makes my skin crawl. I can’t even listen to clips of that whiny draft dodger. I have to wait for transcripts, and almost all of them are indecipherable.
It’s easier to watch on the cave wall, so thanks in advance, everyone.
Thank you for this perfect description; I share your reaction to Trump every time he opens his mouth.
Plus, since he lies non-stop, I will not waste my time with anything he says. It pegs my don’t-care meter.
“People are absolutely dying because of what they’ve done.”
You mean like the three-plus thousand who died in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria because Trump did dick for prep and response besides throwing paper towels?
Harris visibly trying not to laugh when Trump calls her, and her father a Marxist.
Harris talking about abortion and bodily autonomy like this, this is what America needs to hear. She’s hitting him hard.
[edit: yeah, she really got under Trump’s skin with that one… he’s now ranting about student loans and Biden hanging out at the beach…]
Good that Trump fact checked on ‘execution’
Harris is making an excellent case on the Roe v Wade issues
And called him a liar at a strategic moment in a telling way, linked to a fact
Trump just calls her a liar willy nilly.
The fact check on Vance comment was well made and not well rebuffed by Trump.
And yet, after Trump is told by a moderator that no state authorizes “abortion” after birth – that’s infanticide, murder – he doubles down on it twice, insisting they do.
Violating my rule, i turned on the debate to tape it and heard that doddering old criminal lie about chip manufacture. Bone ignorant dolt doesn’t realize that US capitalists sent the chip manufacturing know-how and capitaloverseas, and that the CHIPS Act is the only thing we’ve ever done to make this better.
Yup. CHIPS Act signed by Joe Biden two years ago, a protective action not taken by Trump.
You lasted 11 minutes, Ed.
I figured it would take you at least 15 minutes to get sucked in.
Harris says Trump is running on a problem — I think this could be better stated as Trump making problems and running on them.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH CROWDSIZE HE WENT THERE
She trolled him good about the rallies and now he’s ranting about America being a failing country, and how people in Springfield “are eating the pets of the people who live there”.
The Donald is looking a little unhinged, here…
From The Washington Post’s live reactions:
I’d just like to know what Springfield’s actual population is now. The city had more than 80,000 people in 1960 and was down to 60,000 people by 2010, but then it only dropped to 58,000 by 2020. Is it now 78,000 because of the 20,000 Haitian immigrants that reportedly moved there over the past five years? Or did those 20,000 replace other people who left? For that matter, Springfield’s own website says it’s “impossible to provide an exact number” but estimates that 12,000-15,000 immigrants currently live in Clark County. That’s not just Haitian immigrants, that’s not just recent immigrants, and that’s not just Springfield. The county’s total population as of 2020 was 136,000, or more than twice that of the county seat. I have no doubt that, as noted in a PBS story to which Marcy Wheeler linked on Twitter earlier today, the addition of so many immigrants has put a strain on some services (the mayor says they need more translators and ESL teachers). But less than 15,000 out of 136,000 is much more manageable than 20,000 out of 58,000.
Davis is doing a much better job at moderating than anyone in many years.
ditto this
Ditto Ditto
And judiciously fact checking
And allowing Trump to hang himself with his inept attempts to double down. No need for moderator to argue the point further coz clear that Trump is just shamelessly wrong.
Yes, it’s remarkably like an actual moderated debate.
If magats have been listening to Hannity lately, there’s going to be a big decline in visitors to Disney attractions.
What an unhinged idiot, shouting at the clouds.
Harris is doing just fine.
He’s also shouting at the moderators.
He’s trying to shout over the huge cheering crowd at the Center, and the millions lined outside all the way to Jersey that couldn’t get in.
From Tim Walz, via the Guardian live blog a minute ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/sep/10/harris-trump-presidential-debate-updates?page=with:block-66e106df8f08766de018b889#block-66e106df8f08766de018b889
He fired so many people. Sooo many. Why so many?
He’s trying to marginalize the books former staffers wrote. What’s in the books, motherfucker?
Folks need to read H.R. McMaster’s latest book, At War With Ourselves because whew. Trump is a complete hack at management. (ref: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/27/books/review/at-war-with-ourselves-hr-mcmaster.html)
He’s going to weaponization – hope she goes to Project 2025 and his intention of doing what he is projecting.
Congrats to Elon and JD for getting the Springfield pet massacre pogrom-bait onto national TV.
I’m amazed we’re 45 minutes into this, talking about economy, inflation, oil production, and nobody has mentioned yet one of the largest causes of inflation and high oil prices: Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Largest cause of inflation is price gouging.
Corporate profits, CEO pay, Investor returns.
Plus, oil/gasoline prices ALWAYS spike right before a presidential election. Almost as if the petro industry favors the GOP for some reason…
re-funnydivasays, September 11, 2024 at 1:01 pm
Why are oil/gasoline prices on a “gambling” market?
What is the basis for the price of oil being in the $60s today vs $90s a few months ago or $120 a few years ago?
Not that there is much logic in prices of stock of corporations on the markets, but at least they may follow a corporation’s profitability.
T “I’m talking now do you remember that”
KH “You’re lying”
Oh right, poor Ashli Babbitt, harmlessly beating on the Capitol doors trying to force her way in with the rest of the insurrectionists intent on halting the certification of the vote and punish VP Pence and Speaker Pelosi.
*eye roll*
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/capitol-shooting-that-led-to-ashli-babbitt-s-death-captured-on-video-99180613572
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Babbitt fucked around and found out. Trump doesn’t want to accept the truth that he was responsible for her death.
And now shamelessness on the big lie weaving in the illegal immigration into the narrative.
Agin good fact checking on “loss by a whisker”
MODERATOR DAVE: I watched those videos and it didn’t seem sarcastic to me.
On J6 he has gone full loony
Rant about Ashli Babbit
Shameless
And Shameless deflection
And factchecked for his deflection.
Moderators are much better than the last time.
With the added bonus of two women telling him he’s objectively wrong is clearly knocking him off his rocker
Yes. Much better than any I can recall, though to be fair, moderators pre-2016 never had to deal with someone lying to their faces with every other sentence.
A noun, a verb, immigrants.
Exactly. That’s all he has.
And whatever drugs he’s on causing the dry eye problem and the jaw grinding.
Yes, something is making him different than normal. Dry mouth, lisping, mumbling, and yet calmer than normal. Must be an interesting cocktail.
One of my BFs is here watching while I moderate — they’re totally squicked out by the weird long eye blink Trump does when he’s not yapping like a mad King Charles spaniel.
The cocktail is the vision of being behind bars while claiming innocence of the crimes.
Was Ronny Jackson on his flight? He had very specific claims (projections) about what Biden was going to take for the prior debate to sharpen his mind…
From Panama!
“Nation is dying,” he says.
We have an economy which is the envy of the world right now but sure, we’re dead. Jesus he is just a bag of hyperbolic wind.
Apocalyptic talk plays well with people who believe in an actual apocalypse. Even when Trump was in office, his debate with Biden was about how bad the country would become. Truly depressing
One harkens back to Trump’s inaugural address 1/20/17, so aptly described by GWB as “some weird shit.”
That too was about connecting with the certain kind of religious fanatics that want the apocalypse to hurry up and arrive.
Even more than usual, the faction that always accuses their opponents of “hating America” is the one that says the worst things about America. How they aren’t called out on this more often is beyond me.
Bat shit fricking crazy…..yes Kamala call it out – confused and delirous.
Delicious.
CNBC liveblog header right now, top of their webpage: “Presidential debate live updates: Trump goes off script with false conspiracy, claims ‘They’re eating the dogs’”
If a GOP nominee is losing the business folks at CNBC . . .
Never in Kamala’s boldest plans could she have banked on Trump rattling nonsense about pets getting kidnapped and eaten by evil immigrants. People are going to (correctly) run with that all the way through November.
Especially when the only guy (recently) in the race who has actually been credibly accused of eating a dog is none other than RFK Jr., who dropped out and endorsed Trump!
It’s a whole new low for the truism “every accusation a confession”!
How about “They’re giving illegal immigrants in prison transgender operations!”? WTAF?
Yes, but Kamala should have hit him hard on that. After his cats and dogs rant she should have said to the camera: “Old man in front of his computer who can’t tell fact from fiction” (or similar). An easy punch she could have thrown, but didn’t. She missed a lot of opportunities. Also, it seemed to me that Trump had more speaking time overall – he seemed to take more rebuttals than she did. And too often she would answer the question asked by the moderator, rather than point out his craziness. Many have trouble seeing him for what he is, just point it out like the kid in the fairytale. So many of his rants had easy take downs and I was dismayed that she didn’t do so.
To be fair though, she also took time to make her policy points as well as trashing his insanity.
Once the AI-generated Trump/cat memes sprung up and CFTFG reposted one, I suspect the psychologist(s) or otherwise expert persons on her team knew there was a good chance Trump’s primary process would take the debate to Springfield, so-to-speak.
Can’t believe Trump is obsessing about people eating pets. I suppose it’s a way to make those he accuses of it of being so degraded, they deserve no civil rights, only incarceration and punishment, if not death, without due process.
Just don’t talk about people who shoot up schools becuz konztitooshun.
Harris makes a great speech on the instability of Trump and the possibility of illegally messing with the vote, and how world leaders are appalled by J6
Trump goes straight to Orban loves me !!!
*eye roll*
It was smart of her to turn and say to Trump that world leaders think he’s a joke. That really got under his skin.
Now she’s doing it again, throwing Trump’s “well known” love of dictators, and past statements praising Putin and Kim Jong Un right in his face. “because its so clear they can manipulate you, with flattery …”
She’s on the attack in a way Biden could never have been, and it’s great, just what the Democrats needed.
And her attacks are well timed, thoughtful and coherent.
Trumps attacks are scattershots and whining
McMaster wrote in his book about stopping a handwritten mash note Trump attempted to send to Putin the week of the Skripal novichok attack.
Sure looks like this was the last straw that got McMaster fired.
And it was TFG who started with the “world leaders are all laughing at her/you/them”. He totally went there first.
When Trump went on and on about how Orban says all these wonderful things about him, I wish Harris would have come back with something like, “When you apply for a job you try to get the best references you can. Look who Trump has chosen — President Orban, an autocrat who has (lists some of his horrible acts). That’s the best reference he can come up with.”
T : I commit to breaking the Logan Act as President elect!!!
It’s all a junior high school popularity contest for Donald Trump. He’s the bestest and brightest, and wins every fair contest. His cheating at golf is the least thing he cheats at.
Trump is so fragile and demented, no wonder foreign leaders like Xi, Putin, and Orban can twist him around their finger with nothing but a few kind words, a biscuit, and a scratch behind the ear.
thesmokies
September 10, 2024 at 10:08 pm
Re Harris should have said
“Look who Trump has chosen — President Orban, an autocrat who has (lists some of his horrible acts). That’s the best reference he can come up with.”
That’s the quiet part very much best left unsaid:
Orban is the leader of a NATO ally — trashing him in a presidential debate to score points, by a VP who has advanced her diplomatic credentials and skills particularly regarding NATO and the Ukrainian war, would have been an utterly horrible error of judgement.
1000%. A joke, easy to manipulate and a fool, easily confused. She has nailed him. Now NATO….gee, tell us what NATO stands for dude.
Okay, Trump finally raises Ukraine, when he’s supposed to be explaining how he would get Netanyahu and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire deal.
Wow. Trump is now explaining his grand plan to end the Ukraine war.
The truth is that Trump’s plan is to hand Russia a huge victory.
Trump refuses, a 2nd time, to answer “Yes” to whether he wants Ukraine to win the war.
Though i doubt it will happen, I truly dream of the day we find out what Russia has on him to say (and not say) some of the things he does that aren’t just awful but also awful politics
Putin, if you’re listening: stand back and stand by.
Donny sure isn’t talking to anyone but those who’ve drunk his Kool-Aid. He’s got nothing, so he’s treating this as a campaign event and spouting his canned talking points.
That was my recurring thought. He gets away with this stuff in his rallies in front of a marginal audience. But he repeated more crazy conspiracy theories on national TV with all the networks sending out by broadcast, cable and streaming apps.
First Debate: “The Greatest Hits of Donald Trump”
Second Debate: “The Greatest Hits of Donald Trump, Again”
Harris invited Americans to go to a Trump rally, and then he obliged her by providing a free sample.
It’s like being in a bar and having to listen to some pushy loudmouth who’s 6 beers into the evening.
Fourteen. Plus a few shots of Jack.
Meanwhile, the bartender is pulling yet one more beer, thinking to himself “Maybe he’ll pass out after this one.”
And sadly for everyone else in the bar, the bartender is wrong.
Hundred percent. He’s always reminded me of some of the elderly barflies who would come over to our table when I was in my twenties, and spending time in bars with beers, spouting nonsense at you under the guise of wising you kids up to the ways of the world.
She is like a chigger – getting under his skin – making some real pain. You go girl !!! Weak and a disgrace.
Well, I first heard that word at around 5, uttered by a shady uncle. I misheard it as N, the heinousness of which I had just recently learned.
Mom told me she wouldn’t be surprised to hear Uncle Shady use that word, but he actually was talking about chiggers just then. And she certainly didn’t need to say it was still heinous.
It seems like the demented, old man is getting to double up on his rants yelling about immigrant “criminals”. Dominating the mic time. I wish Ms.Harris would point out that if that’s the case, then he was a total failure when he was President. Nearly his entire platform was building a beautiful wall and ending immigration. His wall failed, so why trust him again.
Absolutely. Build-a-wall-to-fix-immigration should be used as a cudgel to beat Trump (and his supporters) that Trump’s ‘fixes’ don’t work … unless he’s snorting them. Or have I confused him with his son. No, it’s both.
Harris started a little slow. But over the course of this debate she has come across as reasonable. Meanwhile, Trump has shown himself to be an angry, spluttering, rambling old man. He actually doubled down on the “illegal immigrants are eating your pets” thing.
If voters are paying attention to this debate, this election should not be close. If it remains close after this, I’m really concerned about what that says about our electorate.
There is a sizable portion of the population that would literally put a dog in office if it could use it’s paw to sign off on appointing anti abortion judges to the court. Brace for disappointment
And there is another sizable portion of the population that would like to see the federal government do noting more than deliver mail, build roads, and maintain a military – and have taken the odd strategy of attempting to kneecap government so they can point at it and say “it doesn’t work”.
At this point, they don’t even seem like they want the feds to do 2 of those 3… they’d happily privatize the mail service (they proved that during the leadup to the 2020 election) and the national highway administration (like every other federal agency)… So to me seems like they just want the feds to be the military and the anti-abortion police and then a right-wing judiciary to rubber-stamp everything they do to control women, immigrants, african-americans, etc. And to collect taxes from the poor to give to the rich. Truly just to be a police state basically.
How can we elect a dog if they’re all being eaten?!? /s
It will be a nail-biter. You should be concerned about what that says about the electorate, and that should be translating into action now to do your part to make sure that she wins. And furthermore, that democrats rather than election-deniers win all up and down the ballot, including at your local schools (I don’t mean just specifically the previous poster, I mean you, me, everybody we know.)
The leaders of every nation in the EU + Britain would like a word about Trump’s lies about them not helping out Ukraine. Maybe even several words, though most of them would not be suitable for television.
Harris has burnished her foreign policy credentials on rallying allies to the Ukrainian cause.
She has made an excellent case for herself here.
And Trump is reducing to whining.
From the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and their Ukraine Aid Tracker:
European support from Jan 24, 2022 – June 30, 2024: 110.2B Euros, with another 77B allocated but not yet spent
US Support over the same time: 75.1B Euros, with another 23.3B allocated but not yet spent.
I turned to my mother and said “And he wonders why the NATO countries hate him.”
Donny is schooling Kamala on manners? What a hoot.
He’s all punishment, all the time, everywhere, for everyone.
Except for himself. Special treatment required.
He might enjoy Putin giving him a spanking.
Hard to see how anyone but a dyed-in-the-wool MAGA-head perceives the man’s performance as anything other than deranged. But I guess there are a lot of them, and maybe I’m wearing blinders of my own?
That’s exactly where I am.
There was never any doubt that *I* would think she had won, but I have no idea how this comes across to independents/Republicans.
MAGA: “IT WAS RIGGED! They fact-checked President Trump!”
Harris started a little slow. But over the course of this debate she has come across as reasonable. Meanwhile, Trump has shown himself to be an angry, spluttering, rambling old man. He actually doubled down on the “illegal immigrants are eating your pets” thing.
If voters are paying attention to this debate, this election should not be close. If it remains close after this, I’m really concerned about what that says about our electorate.
Yes. Unfortunately, it probably won’t move the needle more than a point or two. But this is a case where I would *love* to be proved wrong.
A point or two could be what makes the difference in November, so there’s that.
Yes.
If we start with the reasonable assumption that there is about a 5% range of possible play in the outcome, “small” 1 or 2 point shifts are _20_ or _40_% shifts within the range of plausibly foreseeable outcomes — not small at all.
I know nussink about Project 2025. Excuse me, sir, your winnings.
LOL I like how somebody felt compelled to insert into the Wikipedia page for Trump’s Agenda 47 page that it shouldn’t be confused with Project 2025.
Interesting how much Agenda 47 and Project 2025 share in common, though.
Side-by-side comparison would be revealing. …maybe a job for chatGPT?
Here’s a chart I found on Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1efjyw2/donald_trumps_policies_compared_with_project_2025/
Which is a basic outline comparison
Thanks for that. I knew I’d seen it (might even have shared it quite a while ago on Mastodon) but I couldn’t remember when/how/where I’d seen such a chart.
There’s no daylight between Trump’s proposed policies and Project 2025, and Trump can’t say he knows nothing about those policies because he did a video for each one of the Agenda 47 policy line items, published to his website.
And while claiming he knows nothing about it, he also claims to not agree with parts of it. How can he disagree with what he doesn’t know?
I would love it if props were allowed like photos. Harris needs to whip out a photo of best buddies Trump and Putin at Helsinki.
That’s a great picture… it almost looks like DT has a collar + leash around his neck and Putin is pulling him onto the dias.
He is leashed & collared—but being made of Kompromat, they leash & collar are invisible.
I’d love to see the moderators not simply quote what one of the candidates said, but play the video of them speaking and ask for a response.
The answer to the question about Trump recently saying he lost by a whisker in 2020 would have been very different if the video was played instead of simply quoting the words. “I was being sarcastic” would not have flown at all if the tape had been played.
I could not figure out how to post the photo of TFG and Puking shaking hands while sitting in chairs. Trump reaching over to pukin, palm up and pukin shaking palm down. The body language is clearly indicating who’s on top and who’s on bottom.
Harris hit him hard over Afghanistan, and Trump sounds pretty defensive in his response.
[but his verbal attacks are not being fact-checked much by the moderators.]
According to media reports Trump spoke for 9 minutes more than Harris. That, and repeatedly calling him “President Trump” are why I’m hard pressed to praise the moderators, even with their occasional fact-check.
Nine minutes of ranting may not go into the asset column.
I thought the same. I am offended every time I hear it
He is not the president. It is used by his supporters to de-legitimize the Biden’s presidency.They could have called him Former President Trump. I suspect they did so to present a facade, at least, to their treating him with respect. Former presidents are not presidents accept in referral to the past, regardless of precedence. The news media needs to stop.
Here presentation on Afghanistan was excellent.
It was a good start, and this may have been limited by the time she had available. I also wanted her to remind America that it was Convict-1 who closed all but one base, drew down the troops to ~2500 and left no plan for the rest of the withdrawal with a firm date of 01 May 2021. Biden was able to get it extended but the price of reneging on that deal would be blood because 2500 is not enough in the sandbox for force protection, etc.
She would then point out that much more than 13 were killed in Afghanistan in the 18 months (23 from June 30 2019 to January 20 2021) contradicting Convict-1 who said there were no losses in country.
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/9/8/2268797/-US-Service-Members-Killed-in-Afghanistan-Under-Donald-Trump.
Yeah, I thought the same thing. But if you only have a limited amount of time, I think emphasizing that Trump was kissing Taliban ass for that entire negotiation is probably the best move.
Here we go on race.
YEAH. I KNOW. I AM SHOCKED THEY WENT THERE.
BF sang “Free to be you and me” after Trump said “She can be whatever she wants to be.”
“I want to thank you for letting me be myself, again”
Put down any sharp objects, Rayne.
Surprisingly, I didn’t need to use my knives and chain saw this evening. Kudos to ABC!!
Trump riffing about how the current administration has been the most divisive ever, is pretty rich. Harris is doing a great job tarring him with that brush.
And Trump concludes with an unhinged meandering rant talking over moderator.
Harris clearly won this section, with a message of social unity, and deploring Trump’s longtime strategy to stoke and exploit divisions with lies and calumnies
I was horrified by his Central Park 5 answer, because what he showed with it is that he still thinks they’re guilty, still thinks they should be executed and has sneering contempt for the entire legal system for daring to disagree with him. That action alone seriously amplifies her statements about Trump not respecting the rule of law.
I know it’s not over, but brandy seems in order now.
Kudos to the moderators, overall.
Except for the mic issue. Seems he got more time rather than cutting his mic. Maybe someone kept score.
I agree. He also was allowed to ramble past the 2 min. Her mic was cut immediately.
As I posted above, moderators let Trump speak for 9 minutes more than Harris. He forced his rebuttal time over and over.
The times were
T 42:52
H 37:36
Diff 5:16
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/10/politics/speaking-times-harris-trump-debate-dg/index.html
Harris didn’t alway use her full 2 minutes
Trump responded to multiple fact checks
Maybe in that time difference he did more self inflicted wounds.
I think that worked out well for Harris. She could stand there looking bemused while Trump spewed more idiocy. I’m fine with him babbling on.
Was there even one question which he kind-of sort-of won on? I can’t think of a single one.
“I have concepts of a plan”
Isn’t that the same line he used when the banks asked him about his plan for repaying their loans to avoid bankruptcy?
Yes, but like the banks, no one is allowed to see his “concepts of a plan.” They are so valuable, everyone would try to steal and copy them. Rather like how Trump uses copyrighted music without permission.
I was hoping she’d tie his healthcare plan (scuse me, concepts of… ) to his perpetually-delayed infrastructure weeks.
He’ll have a big beautiful health care plan in two weeks ;)
It was a far cry from the ‘I have a plan to replace Obamacare on Day 1’ claim in 2016, and not only does he have merely ‘concepts’ being worked on by the ‘best people’ (cue the “top men” scene at the end of Indiana Jones), he also admitted there were things that could be retained from Obamacare and the delay is due to the need to study it fully.
On a related subject, has anyone seen his taxes?
Trump’s knowledge of the Logan Act is…unprecedented. He’ll settle Putin’s war in Ukraine after his election and before he takes office.
Harris was right. Trump will, as he’s already promised, give Putin whatever he wants. Giving him Ukraine would be the appetizer in a twelve course meal.
There was not even a pretence that some diplomatic solution could be brokered by hinting at establishing peace talks looking at complex historical issues.
It all comes down to Putin’s got Nukes watch out for WW3! What a shithead.
Yeah, you wanna talk about starting World War III, telling every nutty country with nukes that America will stand back because of them WILL do it.
He also made Turkey a member of the nuclear club.
*dying*
Whale, bear, dog…what’s the difference?
Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV…delicious!
He stopped off to have a bite to eat
Some people just need to identify as big game hunters…(especially Trump’s kids)
[/s]
Brilliant snark. Perfect illustration.
Trump and Vance aren’t talking about cultural necessity or preferences in choosing food. They are creating and reinforcing a sense of an outrageous other, who is beyond the pale of tolerance, acceptance, and equality. Their play comes straight from the fascist playbook.
I’ve traveled a fraction of the miles of Anthony Bourdain. Unlike the post-apocalyptic hero in the Book of Eli, I haven’t eaten cat. But I have eaten dog, camel’s knuckles and pig ear (gristly cartilage), cold sliced duck stomach, fried scorpions, sea cucumber, and a lot of things I couldn’t name. (I prefer the camel’s knuckles to haggis.) The poor learn to eat whatever the rich ignore. It has nothing to do with civil rights or social acceptance or equality.
Once upon a time – 19th century and earlier – lobsters were food for the poor.
Think of giblet gravy and chicken-liver dishes. Or any other organ meat dishes…
My grandmother sometimes made fried corn-meal mush. (The fancy version is polenta, but that came along after she stopped cooking.)
Oysters, too, were once ‘poor man’s food.’
Wasn’t it nice of the rich assholes to let the poor die figuring out the proper way to prepare lobster (for those who don’t know, not cooking lobster properly can be fatal) and then stealing it for themselves?
I remember when the Vietnamese refugees came to San Jose and similar stories were circulating here about disappearing ducks from the parks. Completely bogus and FWIW Little Saigon is still thriving here in Silicon Valley.
I once had to defend a man charged with attempting to steal a Canada Goose from a lake in Epping Forest, whose defense was that he was simply trying to cuddle it because it looked cold.
The only person I knew who ever stole ducks from parks for food was White.
Pig ear is delicious. Can’t say about the rest of ’em though.
Indeed, hunger and poverty makes for necessities. One of our local “delicacies” is smalahove, which is literally (half of) a sheep’s head. The eyes are considered to be the best part.
Kalleh pacheh – sheep’s head and feet. My parents had it, at a special dinner at the Persian restaurant the frequented. (The owners had just gotten citizenship, and my parents had sponsored them.) Yes, the meat around the eyes is supposed to bet the best part.
Peasants in France also ate sheep’s brains, cerveau de mouton. Probably much less on the menu after the BSE event in Britain.
Fish heads are popular, especially the cheek muscles, as are chicken brains and chicken foot soup.
Gee, I wonder what risks you run when you eat some ‘unusual’ things? Well, you do increase your chances of picking up a parasitic infection.
[Pro tip from a friend who has traveled extensively (more that 60 different countries): When you visit places where food standards aren’t up to what you have at home, stick to being a vegetarian. It’s not fool proof, but it is much safer. And don’t walk around barefooted.]
“Don’t eat the meat, and keep your shoes on.”
Sure sounds like sage advice from an expert traveller, Hikaak!
The advice about sticking to vegetables seems culturally biased. It should at least say, cooked veggies. It ignores what’s often used for fertilizer in overburdened soils tilled by the poor – raw excrement, often human.
But, yes, keep your shoes on. You never know what parasites are about, flatworm parasites among them.
Tapper : “Trump was like a 4Chan thread come to life”
When challenging trump and allies on the Big Lie, I would like those who challenge them present the big trifecta — court cases (which were mentioned), the fact that ALL 50 state election leaders, most of them republican, said there was no significant election fraud, and that Trump’s own commission reported that they found no such evidence.
Former President Trump spent a bit too much time talking about world war three for my comfort level. That, along with his anger issues and hero worship of “tough guys” like Orban and Putin is not a good combination.
Yeah, I’m struggling to come up with a list of things Trump talked about that DIDN’T make my skin crawl.
From the Guardian’s live blog a minute ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/sep/10/harris-trump-presidential-debate-updates?page=with:block-66e1038d8f089d7307cf85a1#block-66e1038d8f089d7307cf85a1
Harris won that debate. Not even close.
Trump is an angry desperate man and it showed. He was afraid to even look at her.
THUMBS DOWN to moderators for allowing Trump to interrupt several times. Instead of cutting him off they gave him the mic.
My take on that was a little different. I thought they did a pretty good job on time keeping and fact checking, and Trump harmed himself by doubling down and over talking. I thought it wasn’t so much that he was allowed to get away with things, but that they quickly reasserted control when he showed himself up. Trump made himself look foolish, and the moderators did their job without squabbling with him.
No. His time was up and his mic was off. Rules are rules. He got away with it about 4 times but when Harris tried it once they shut her down.
I, too, was disappointed when they cut Harris off after letting Trump ramble on so many times. On the up side: they didn’t do Trump any favors, they just passed the rope.
I agree that rules are rules, but Harris was able to talk about policies early in the debate, so this was Obama “please proceed, governor” territory. When we’re actually doing a debate, enforcing the rules matters more than when we’re doing whatever the heck we were doing this week.
There’s nothing that Harris could have said to help people think about four more years with Trump, that would have been worth cutting off “they’re eating cats, they’re eating dogs”. I haven’t seen a debate summary that didn’t include that line, and JD Vance’s report of immigrants eating dogs and cats isn’t on my top 1000 list of things that I’m thinking about as a 2024 voter.
What’s truly the most bizarre is how little Trump even attempts to reckon with how absolutely distant he is from his base. He accuses two gun owners of being gun grabbers when he’s never owned a gun and could probably count on one hand the number of times he’s fired one. He rattles on about eating dogs when he’s notoriously bad with animals. He talks about complacency with foreign powers when by those same laws his numerous overseas companies have “capitulated” a dozen ways. But the worst part is, it won’t matter. In a form of dramatic irony, the man who spent his life taking advantage of others has been reduced to a mere tool by fundies and vulture capitalists alike. And he’s just about so far gone he’ll never truly know that.
You don’t remember when one of the gun shops gave Trump a gun as a gift, and the state of New York started looking into it because as a convicted felon (out on bail, no less), owning a firearm is illegal?
Trump owns/owned 3 guns.
“Police sources told the New York Times that the former president turned two guns over after he was charged in the criminal case in April last year and his licence was suspended.
A third firearm was reportedly transferred to Florida, though it remains unclear whether it is still in his possession.”
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2qq1pply22o
(Everything you said was spot-on tho, he is SUCH a tool and his narcissism will never let him accept that, let alone acknowledge it!)
I’m surprised that Trump’s creepy smile isn’t a meme. It’s kind of Grinch-like.
It’s more a smug patronizing grin than a smile. Perfect for a joyless lump who only wants people to think he’s really funny, if your idea of comedy is middle school sarcasm.
The “debate” went far better than I expected, due, in part to the moderators who did some occasional fact-checking on Trump, as well as challenges to some of his wildest claims.
It was as fair and balanced as one could wish when one candidate is a raving lunatic and the other is rational, beautiful, joyful and honest.
Nevertheless, the people who worship at Trump’s altar of madness will vote for him because he echoes their prejudices. The rest of the voters who are ready to move on into the difficult future ahead of us will vote for Kamala Harris and pray that she gets the Congress she deserves and needs to press forward with her agenda. ABC did an excellent job.
Taylor Swift has just endorsed Harris!!!!
And she signed “Childless cat lady”.
I couldn’t name a single one of her songs, but I think she handles fame and fortune just fine.
Trump looked paler and paler,
Knowing he was a debate failure,
Again and again,
Harris bludgeoned him, then,
Came the timely endorsement from Taylor!
Someone thinks Harris won
https://www.instagram.com/p/C_wtAOKOW1z/
Perhaps the sight of seeing another person, not to mention a woman of color, courageously stand up to a bully and tell the world the emperor is naked inspired her.
It’s about time. You have to stand up to bullies if you expect to win.
I believe she once sang about that.
OMG SO MUCH YES!!! I was thinking about her adversary in that song being Donald Trump earlier this week. If “I endorse Harris” includes “and Harris can play Mean at her rallies”, my life as a TSwift fan will be complete.
It’s also relevant that she was very recently seen hanging out with another Chiefs WAG who has been painted, fairly or not i don’t know, as a strong Trump supporter. And that a few crackpots had started circulating on Xitter that meant she was going to sit this one out. The timing was undoubtedly planned, but the plan did become a bit more important this week.
To hell with research. Does anyone have extra Trump voodoo dolls?
I’m afraid we’re gonna have to keep making our own. Anyone with extras who isn’t sticking pins in them 24/7 isn’t our friend.
Self-described childless Cat Lady, Taylor Swift, heartily endorses Harris//Walz.
You beat me to it. It was a brilliant post with brilliant timing. And it made things all the more brutal that Melania wasn’t there to even pretend to offer human warmth as they would have walked off the stage. Trump comes across as bitter, deranged, and alone.
Within minutes, Taylor Swift’s endorsement had a million likes.
Celebrity endorsements may play only to fans who already like one candidate or another, but Swift’s may be different. She’s also likely to get more people to register and vote, and possibly contribute. That makes a difference.
Add one more: she’s also likely to get folks to actually get out and vote.
GOTV is that last big battle of every campaign. You can be persuasive as all get out, but if you don’t get folks to cast their ballot, you lose. Bigly.
Even before 2018 when she endorsed her first major candidate, she’s been a big GOTV supporter. She will put her money where her mouth is. Imagine a “Gift with Swift” matching campaign to voter mobilization efforts.
52 minutes later, it’s over 3 million.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1833708267597386157
Clip of Walz getting the news and reacting live during interview with Maddow
Needless to say Trumpers on CNN trying to wrest something from the debacle
David Urban goes to “The debate was unfair, moderators had their thumb on the scale, and repeatedly challenged Trump answers and didn’t challenge Harris once”
The obvious answer to that is:
Trump should not have uttered batshit lies, requiring fact checking and Harris managed to avoid that pitfall quite easily.
Yes, but it was oh so amazing to see that total Trump shill Scott Jennings just sit there dejected and admit Harris just crushed him. Wow. Never thought I’d see that
He said that Trump won the argument on the economy (and another topic I forget which), which I don’t think was a fair analysis but seeing the Trumpers looking sick made my evening. Jennings I find particularly sly odious and offensive.
Yeah, but he also said “you gotta make your jump shots” and that Trump didn’t do that. His basic message was don’t blame the ref
I hope this performance emboldens waffling fence-sitting R’s to abandon Trump.
It’s clear…the Emperor has no clothes.
They didn’t mute his mic. At first I was annoyed, then remembered Harris wanted them unmuted.
Their mikes were inconsistently muted.
Yeah, that. The inconsistency was worse than unmuted.
I must have yelled several times MUTE THE MIC during the latter portion of the debate.
Another debate challenge issued by Harris
I saw that, and there is no way whatsoever that Convict-1’s campaign will let him on stage with Harris without a whole host of restrictions on her that she will never agree to. Perceived grievance is all he has now that he got beaten by a girl (which has to cut him to the quick) and Harris points out correctly that America is tired of it.
The 60 cases for the election wasn’t lost by Convict-1’s 2020 campaign due to ‘standing’ but the repeated refusal to provide the actual evidence of fraud and/or his lawyers refusing to claim fraud under penalty of perjury.
As far as I know the 9/11 memorial in NYC is a place where the campaigns seem to be behaving themselves but Convict-1 called into a radio show with the usual schtick.
The VP debate will likely not happen. Walz has shown himself to be very good at appropriate zingers in his own right and would stomp Vance on stage. There is no way the GOP campaign handlers would risk another beatdown like last night.
Ordinarily I’d agree with this, but I find myself asking “but what else do they have?”
Their campaign ought to be DEEP in Hail Mary yardage, and Trump’s not going to execute anything like a Hail Mary pass – not only because he doesn’t have the skill to throw one, but because if he hands off to JD Vance, the camera cuts away to JD Vance, and that would be physically painful for Trump.
I wonder what African/Americans and Hispanic/Americans saw and heard. Do they see the arrogance and presumed privilege to lie that makes them distrust white people? Do they see a father in the Republican nominee? Or a doddering grandfather that has to be patronized by never allowed to put the family at risk?
The largest Haitian-American community is in FL with about 2.2% of the population. Between DeSantis, Scott, Rubio, Gaetz and … the GOP polling lead has shrunk into the realm where FL could very well be in play for POTUS and the Senate. So, of course Vance doubles down on the rhetoric.
Dale: doing a fact check Trump lied 30+ times
KH: 1 false claim
re worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression (though it was since the Great Recession, so it may have been a mistake)
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/09/10/politics/fact-check-debate-trump-harris
I hope I remembered to put in the same email I used for my last comment, about 3 years ago…
Long time lurker, just popped in to say thank you to Marcy, Rayne, Ed, and all the OG regular commenters.
I’ve followed all things Marcy Wheeler for years now. I’m just a regular person. Thank you so much for this blog and the work you have all put into it. It has helped me stay sane over the past eight + years.
Being able to come to this blog to read everyone’s contributions has helped me hold onto hope through all of the insanity. In addition to the impeccable and important writing, research, and analysis, I am also grateful for all the puns, poems, trash talk, and inventive humour. Thank you to Marcy for the necessary and uplifting potty mouth that is always well placed and deserved. Thank you to Rayne too. Anyways,that’s all, I will go back to lurking.
I will probably come back to say hi if Kamala pulls through, though. <3
[FYI – not the same email you used, the previous one was with a privacy-sensitive provider. Nice to see you! /~Rayne]
Trump now in the ABC spin room and commentator repeating “why are you in the spin room if you thought you won the debate”.
Trump, Rubio, and Vance with the same tired old lies. “10 million illegal immigrants under Biden” that was 10 million encounters under Biden of which millions resulted in explusion. The Trump GOP attack on women’s rights to medical care when having an miscarriage, to do IVF, to getting a early abortion. Anyone voting GOP anywhere on the ballot owns this. Now Florida is raiding women’s health advocates homes and the Missouri SoS is trying to take the referendum off the ballot.
MO SOS lost in court today and is now ordered to put referendum back on ballot. From Marc Elias:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9lFFAmtM3A
“I will do it before even becoming president…”
Ominous Logan Act premonition?
Or after I’m president, which he is.
The point about his confessed criminality is that he promised to do it before he became president.
Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris. Love it!!!
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/10/nx-s1-5107976/taylor-swift-instagram-endorse-kamala-harris
Harris owned the stage
She’s turned the page
against Trump’s rage
and his fascist stone age
I actually applauded during VP Harris’s closing statement. Long, long I’ve been waiting to hear that (paraphrasing wildly here) We, The People, are who THEY work for.
Then, on top of that, she says the one question she’s asked those witnesses and victims she’s helped throughout her career is “Are you OK?” (can we get that on a t-shirt too?)
That statement alone is inspiring and will echo and resound in my mentals for some time to come. Well done.
It made me, a 60-year-old becoming-cynical Marxist, cry … it’s what I ask undergraduate and graduate students – first – when they come to talk to me about a problem and the amazement and appreciation that changes their faces when they realize that someone actually cares? Priceless. And so easy to do – pass it on.
“Trump won the checkers game!”
–Fox News reporting Harris winning 3D chess tournament
Convicted Felon Rapist was afraid to even look at Harris. He’s terrified of strong powerful Black women smarter than him.
I’m sure he was coached to not look at her because if he had, he would have seen her smiling and mocking expressions and would have had a complete meltdown. Get out the defribrillator or men in white coats.
The NY Times has swapped its embarassing heading “Fierce Exchanges Over Country’s Future Dominate Debate” to “Harris Puts Trump on Defensive in Fierce Debate” which almost exactly repeats the Washington Post’s weak headline “Harris Keeps Trump on Defensive”
You think the editors for the Times and Post were listening to the same GOP consultants doing damage control when they wrote that?
This is like writing a headline “Usain Bolt, Rivals All Run Hard in Olympic 100 Meter Dash” or “Bears Struggled to Defeat Patriots in Super Bowl XX”
Thanks for flagging this. When I saw that initial NYT headline, I laughed out loud – perhaps it is the apotheosis of both-sidesism?
Times also apparently thinks it’s notable that a former prosecutor owns a gun. It’s almost like they have no idea how the real world works!
I was busy being stunned at the NYT “fact-check” of the debate. They said Trump’s transgender-operations-on-immigrants-in-prisons point needed context. NEEDS CONTEXT? Here’s the context; it’s a bald-faced lie.
Indeed, the NYT’s coverage of transgender issues is so bad it sparked a mini-revolt in the newsroom.
Meanwhile, it seems like the weave needs a re-touch.
If you mean the hairdo and not the word salad, it looked to me as if he’s sending some strands back from right to left, now. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Bronzer was perfect, tho.
Under the lights, his tonsure sure showed up pink.
Funniest line of the night: “I’m right because Ingraham and Hannity and Fox said I am!”
Who knew Trump was a comedian.
Also re-immigrants eating pets, “the people on the television say…”
Reply to #comment-1069548 – Steve Bev September 11, 2024 at 12:40 am
Yep. Spot on.
Too many what-she-should-have-saids don’t allow for the diversity of POV’s that need to be catered to when a Presidential candidate (and indeed President) makes a statement. If you’re busy making lists of arguments Harris should have said, you’re already in her camp. There are other people out there with other priorities that need to hear other things or, crucially, will take offense at something that seems good to most people already on Harris’s side.
Thank you.
I think you are correct to generalise the point. There are always points where you might be able to land further blows, but it is a mistake to try and chase every possible scoring point. It is much better to make conscious controlled choices to enable you to dominate the narrative in a controlled and measured way. Sometimes you want your audience to make for themselves conclusions adverse to the opponent, following the logic of the narrative you’ve laid out.
She comprehensively dismantled him, and achieved all of the goals of the positive messaging strategy that she and the campaign team would have set for themselves.
If she had responded to all his bovine excrement there would have been no airtime for her own message.
Drudge Report:
[Picture of Trump] The End
Fox News:
Fox News voter panel says Harris won debate
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-voter-panel-says-harris-won-debate
Quite a bit of what that Fox panel had to say was not helpful to KH though.
The very substantial majority, including all the black people seem to accept the Trumpian narrative that KH is not really black. This was elaborated upon at length by one black woman
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/voter-slams-harris-race-baiting-fear-mongering-during-debate.amp
Which is all very disappointing to say the least.
Agreed.
Indeed, a conservative black American parrots whatever Fox “opinion” hosts spew, along with the Fox narrative.
I was highlighting the overall consensus of the panel – Trump lost the debate.
Oh my comment was not intended to convey any criticism , and I apologise for creating any such impression.
The point you properly highlighted is an important one, because it obviously undermines Trump’s bogus claim to the contrary
Unlike Joe Biden, Convict-1 will not drop out of the race for a couple of reasons. First, his candidate status truly is the only reason he is not in pretrial detention or serving time. For a germaphobe like him Riker’s Island would be a temporary stopover to Bellevue when he freaks out.
Second, the hijacking of the RNC funding has limited his financial exposure to the legal fees, court judgements and other fiscal consequences of bad behavior. Even with the court monitor of TrumpOrg (retired judge Barbara Jones) there is a whole lot hidden about the money, starting with the taxes promised back in 2015. Given what we already have seen in the public record I would be hard-pressed to believe there is nothing to see there for a prosecutor. It would also preserve his image of wealth as long as he can hide behind the campaign IMHO.
Third, Convict-1 is a publicity hound and dropping out would consign him permanently to the newspaper pages used to wrap fish or line the birdcage and irrelevance is something Convict-1 fears.
Fourth, as a practical issue I am pretty certain we have passed several state deadlines for ballot printing and even if the GOP were able to do a cage-match convention to revise their ticket, they would not get the names on the ballot. Besides, after the abject surrender to Convict-1, what GOP politico could step in now with any sort of credibility while still holding the MAGA base? I don’t see any.
Short of a catastrophic health problem, Trump exiting the race is a non-issue.
Also, his narcissism would NEVER allow him to step down. That would require him to choose NOT to be the centre of attention anymore.
My dad also worked in SIGINT but in the Army. He was trained as a Russian linguist at DOD’s foreign language institute in Monterey, CA. 9hrs/day, 6 days a week for 9 months. He too was tight lipped on telling me what he did, despite years of me asking, though I know he was stationed in Turkey and Hokkaido at “listening posts” and he did once say he could never travel to Russia. He was a lifelong D and got his PhD in political theory post Army and worked for William Perry at one point. He passed before Trump showed up on the political scene. There are a lot of things I wish I could talk to him about, one of them being the travesty that is Trump.
I would like to be a fly on the wall of the room where that conversation takes place (if it ever does or still can).
I dropped by to share Charlie Pierce’s take: “That was an encounter between an actual potential president of the United States and a rampaging, crazy, drunk uncle yelling about Doberman au poivre.”
I was stationed in Sinop Turkey 69-70. For 30 years that was all I said. Now I say we provided long-lines comms for an NSA unit. A secret is a secret forever, just like everything every client told me.
Marcy and Nicole should be an absolute riot Friday. I am very thankful for the education Marcy and the commentators have provided me. Sometimes the legal complexities are way over my head, but I am learning the language.
We don’t know the scale and depth of Trump’s plan to steal this election by illegal means
The concept of the plan: get the Supremes to declare him the winner.
VP Harris should decline to debate Trump again, citing humiliating him again as she did on Tuesday, would be elder abuse.
That one’s got wheels, I think.