Home » Tonight’s the first Democratic debate

Comments

Tonight’s the first Democratic debate — 57 Comments

  1. Actually, I am going to watch–have a couple of cold ones getting ready in the fridge, and a large stock of popcorn–because its wise to “know your enemy.”

    Moreover, I hope and suspect that instead of being a “snoozer,” this is going to turn into a train wreck, as a bunch of E-list ankle biters try to tear each other down while, simultaneously, seeing who can offer the largest, most expansive list of bribes to the electorate.

    And if Trump decides to rain on their parade, to snipe, and to throw a few rhetorical bombs real time?

    Well, who could ask for anything more?

    Modern day “bread and circuses” at the same time, baby!

  2. I should go out and buy a cheap bottle of Scotch. No sense in wasting very good Scotch on the cheap seat.

  3. The only way I’d subject myself to a roomful of democrats trying to out-pander each other is if someone gave me the Clockwork Orange treatment. So that’s a no.

  4. I won’t watch, and I’m counting on Snow on Pine to tell me just how awful it is. 🙂

  5. More seriously, I’m not going to give much of my attention to the Democrats until they sort out who their nominee will be, or at least until they narrow the field.

  6. Watching is above my pay grade, but I am curious to see if Trump gets off some good zingers.

  7. I would have to stay up till 3AM, so no I won’t watch. Besides, we had temperature over 100 today, So I’m looking forward to a cool night’s sleep.

  8. …I have a life. Well, enough of a life not to want to waste any on that particular desultory clown show. So, no.

    Note: I don’t pay especial attention to the monkey throwing feces when I go to the zoo, either. Just sayin’.

  9. A la Rosie’s 100,000 concentration camps–

    Obviously a moment of reflection to consider an issue is not Rosie’s MO.

    If there were, indeed, 100,000 such concentration camps–presumably scattered around the country–with local construction companies involved in their construction, and lots of guards from the local towns working at them, etc., wouldn’t there be a lot of potential blabbers?

    How come such blabbers aren’t shooting off their mouths all over the place?

    As well, wouldn’t a lot of people–a whole lot of people–have come across one of these 100,000 concentration camps by accident, and got on the Internet to shout the news, or even told their local TV station, newspaper, or the MSM?

    Think, Rosie, Think!

  10. I’d rather watch baseball; Bryce Harper has better hair than any of the Dem dudes or dames.

  11. I don’t plan on it. I don’t much see the point in caring about the 2020 race this early in the game.

  12. “I hope and suspect that instead of being a “snoozer,” this is going to turn into a train wreck, as a bunch of E-list ankle biters try to tear each other down while, simultaneously, seeing who can offer the largest, most expansive list of bribes to the electorate.” Snow on Pine

    That is IMO, a perfect synopsis of the likely evening.

    I’m doubtful however that I could keep from vomiting if exposed to that many seditious, self-promoting traitors.

  13. I plan to see only the tweets by Trump and Scott Adams.

    Why waste neural connections on garbage. I can get their talking points from Juan Williams when I watch The Five.

    They have nothing positive to say about the US or any program that makes this country better. All they want is a new electorate, since the current one is so full of deplorables.

  14. I will watch. I’m fascinated by how the progs do their thing. I don’t expect to learn much, but if it turns into a train wreck, it could be entertaining. I guess Snow on Pine and I are similar in our tastes in political theatre.

  15. Do you plan to watch?

    Like drinking Dr. Pepper or eating Brussels sprouts. Only done as a penance.

  16. No, I probably won’t watch it. My opinion on the relative performances isn’t going to be important even to me. What will be important is how the media portray the participant’s performance. In the first debate, there are only two important candidates- Beta and Pocahontas. The media really, really want Warren, so I imagine they will go out their way to proclaim her victorious, even if she falls over dead before the first question is asked. Hers is going to be a really, really low hurdle to get over.

  17. Hi John Fisher,

    Yes, Babylon 5 was an excellent series. One of my favorites as well.

  18. Well I’m watching and in the first 20 minutes no one is saying anything different from the other. So far, they’re all little clones of each other. Debate? No, just a crowded echo chamber.

  19. Don’t you want to see the people who might very well ruin your life? And get an idea of how they will swindle their way into power? Some Maker’s Mark will make it all a little more palatable.

  20. The media really, really want Warren…

    Yancey Ward: Agreed. Warren is being groomed for an early lead to shake out the clowns, while Biden and Sanders wither away.

    Don’t you love farce?
    My fault, I fear
    I thought that you’d want what I want
    Sorry, my dear!

    But where are the clowns
    Send in the clowns
    Don’t bother, they’re here

    –Stephen Sondheim

  21. Went about as expected. They all have great plans to rectify every problem in America. They just neglect to say where the money is going to come from. All their plans will just magically happen because they are “right” and reflect “our values.” No money required.

    My Governor, Jay Inslee, managed to prove that he is a True Believer in AGW. (They all call it climate change, but for them, it is really all about warming and human use of fossil fuels.) When he was doing his bit about climate change you could sense that he is completely bonkers over the issue. His eyes were those of a mad man on a mission to save the world for his grand children. He’s convinced himself that only he can do it. If he has ever done any actual research on the issue, it’s not apparent.

    I was surprised that Congressman Delaney (A former businessman.) turned out to be the most sensible one of the bunch. But even he has bought into climate change and a form of Medicare for all.

    I agree that the MSM seems to favor Warren. She’s a woman, she’s an extreme lefty, and she has “plans.” The only thing she lacks is Native American heritage, but they have forgiven her for that.

    It was not entertaining. In fact, it motivated me even more than I am – to work to defeat these nattering nabobs of magical non-solutions.

  22. Snow on Pine on June 26, 2019 at 3:51 pm said:
    A la Rosie’s 100,000 concentration camps–

    Obviously a moment of reflection to consider an issue is not Rosie’s MO.
    * * *
    If Trump was, in fact, running concentration camps of the variety she suggests, then she would be in one.

  23. PS Jemison and her ilk seem to be far more likely to open up real concentration camps than Trump & Co.
    https://www.thenewneo.com/2019/06/26/n-k-jemisons-utopia-breaking-those-eggs/#comment-2440516

    Geoffrey Britain on June 26, 2019 at 11:45 pm said:
    It’s that Jemison’s monstrous POV is becoming increasingly acceptable on the left that is disturbing. Just as “an idea whose time has come is unstoppable”, so too with great historical events.

    Jemison and her ilk imagine that inalienable rights are rescindable, as they are incapable of considering that rights can exist independent of the current consensus of opinion. It’s likely to be a fatal shock when they discover that, here in America they are not rescindable.

    Let’s hope they are not rescindable; we are fast approaching having a majority that either believes that they are, or doesn’t know they exist.

  24. Kate et al—watched this panderpalooza so you didn’t have to, and it was a pretty dull affair, by candidates who—it is well to keep in mind—were, most of them, likely millionaires.

    Strangely enough, Biden’s name was not uttered even once—not by the questioners, and not by the candidates–I’m assuming this was by agreement.

    There were the usual far Left promises of free health care for all, abortion for all—including for “transgenders.”

    You had Elizabeth Warren and others thundering about how the eeevil “one tenth of one percent” need to be taxed more and more heavily, and big corporations broken up.

    (I wonder what an honest accounting would show were these candidates major sources of contributions? Could it possibly be that they might be the wealthy—those that they claim to want to tax very heavily, and the very same “big corporations”—that they claim to want to “break up?” How likely is that to actually happen, do you think?)

    There were proposals to “decriminalize” illegals sneaking across our borders i.e. no borders at all—the U.S. to just become a free, all you can eat buffet, there for the entire world to “come and get it” at.

    And dancing around the subject—some talk of gun “registration,” but not outright calling for gun confiscation— and talk of decriminalizing marijuana.

    Not a lot of talk, though, about how all of these giveaways were going to be paid for, except by taxing the ultra rich.

    Unfortunately, as a little simple comparison of the amounts of money these massive giveaways would cost vs. the amount of wealth of the entire wealthy class will demonstrate, even if you confiscated all of the wealthy’s wealth—everything they owned, it probably wouldn’t pay for even a year or two of the cost of such programs, if that.

    So, who is really going to pay for all of these giveaways?

    We are, taxpayers are, and not just the wealthy taxpayers, all taxpayers, who now comprise less than 50% of the citizens of this country, but who pay all of the taxes, because today 50% or more of our citizens pay no federal tax at all.

    Warren, I note, is very good at seeming to be emotionally upset by whatever supposed “injustice” she is screeching about.

    Annoyingly, phony hispanic “Beto” kept speaking in Spanish.

    And, of course, there was the ritual screeching about Climate Change, and how if we don’t immediately transfer our wealth and the control over our lives and the economy to those who know far better than us on the Left, the world will end in just a few short years.

    Only two candidates mentioned that, unless Democrats re-engaged with the center of the country and white working class voters, they probably couldn’t win, but this viewpoint seemed to be of no interest to the moderators, or to the other candidates.

    The only candidate who sounded even remotely sane was—by comparison with all the other candidates—what passes for a old timey centrist, former Representative John Delaney, who kept saying that he was for policies that worked, not ones that might sound good, but were impractical and would not work.

    All in all, though, a pretty predictable and dismal performance.

  25. Watched a little. Warren strikes me as the one least able to connect in a personal way. She’s cold.
    As someone else mentions, Delaney seemed most sensible.

  26. A two-fer on concentration camps and crazy Democrats.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/06/25/reporter-asks-ocasio-cortez-if-planned-parenthood-is-a-concentration-camp-for-unborn-babies/

    The queen of mega hyperbole had the tables turned on her in a major fashion. An online video shows Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez surrounded by reporters when she’s asked if Planned Parenthood can be likened to a concentration camp for the unborn.

    Ocasio-Cortez, like most card-carrying liberals, supports the Planned Parenthood abortion mill while pretending to be concerned about children when it comes to allowing illegal aliens into the United States.

    She recently mocked pro-life laws – you know, the ones actually saving the lives of children – by claiming: “If these male GOP elected officials could get pregnant, there would be free abortion nationwide.”

    The Democrat also retweeted Barbra Streisand saying, “If male politicians could get pregnant, there would be as many Planned Parenthood clinics as there are Post Offices.”

    Why would she want so many places that kill unborn babies to pop up across the country? We thought she cared about the children.

  27. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/06/sanders-panders.php

    “It will be interesting to see whether, in tonight’s debate, any of the other candidates call Sanders out for his utterly impractical giveaways, which could be financed only by fairy dust or, perhaps, modern monetary theory. Which, come to think of it, is about the same thing.” – John Hinderaker

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/06/26/bernie-sanders-says-it-is-not-appropriate-to-deport-illegals-who-break-the-law/

    That’s breaking some law aside from the breaking of our immigration laws in coming here illegally in the first place.

  28. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/06/your-guide-to-the-democratic-debates-drinking-game-rules.php

    P.S. See also John Podhoretz here on the debates, especially this:

    The only way these debates will matter is if they are exciting. And the only way to ensure that people keep watching them as the months pass, and thereby create a sense that the Democratic Party is full of life, is if these first debates reward their interest with fireworks.

    It’s the shmendricks who need to set the debate hall on fire — you know, the ones you’ve never heard of, like the governors of Climatechangiana and Potsmokia and the House members from Whereverdude and Freestuffistan.

  29. Thanks to those who watched! What a sacrifice you made.

    Delaney may sound like the only sane one, but will sanity sell in the voting booth? With Democrats in there, not likely.

  30. By the end I was actually laughing…it truly was a clown show. It also helped that on my phone I was following the live blog by the Townhallers, some great humor there. My favorite moment was the lead up question on climate change where the moderator talked about how Miami is being “inundated and flooded by the rising sea”. Yep, I was watching how the waves kept breaking on the candidate’s ankles. Tonight should be just as entertaining. The problem is that one must keep in mind these people are actually serious.

  31. Delaney also warned that pocketbook issues were what the people he talked to in over 400 stops were concerned with–jobs, immigration, schools, etc.–and that Impeachment was far, far down the list.

    But with the baying of the Democrat Red Guards in the background, none of the other candidates seemed to want to take notice.

  32. There was also a great deal of lying about the current condition of our economy, which was supposedly “failing” everyone except the very rich.

  33. I’m entirely with you, Neo. Crappola. In film there’s something called Walla: Human jabber for “fill” as background in crowds, restaurants, etc, etc. Walla-Walla- Waaaallllaaaa…!!

    Trump’s Tweety response was perfect, for once: “BORING!!”

    ‘Nuff said… I was in bed with Greg Iles’ newest, “Cemetery Road”.

  34. I had no intentions of watching the debates… I watched the MST3k episode where they riffed “The Horror of Party Beach”, a Z-grade horror movie from the early 60s.

    I’m sure it was far more edifying watching a town be terrified by monsters that looked like rejected McDonaldland characters from the era of Sid and Marty Krofft.

    The commentary here, however, is always worth checking… and not just Neo herself, but also her posse of commenters, who provide as much good insight and thoughtfulness as she does. It’s one thing to provide a great blog, which thenewneo.com definitely is, but it’s another when the discussions are just as good. Along with Eric Raymond (computer software pioneer and libertarian) and John Wright (brilliant SF author and enthusiastic Catholic convert), Neo doesn’t just run a blog, she’s created a community.

    And I promise, I haven’t been paid to say this. 😉

  35. The best summary of the event belongs to Frank Bullitt: “Every candidate lined up in Wednesday’s debate is living in a fantasy world where they are convinced their decrees can yield a utopia just because they say so.”

  36. “Every candidate lined up in Wednesday’s debate is living in a fantasy world where they are convinced their decrees can yield a utopia just because they say so.”

    Well, Obama did it first, and it worked for him!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>