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The debate’s tonight

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a thread to discuss it. I probably won’t be watching the debate in real time; too agitated.

Comments

The debate’s tonight — 124 Comments

  4. Tonight I’d love to see Trump doing the Good Big Daddy. He’s got that gear, though I don’t see it as much as I’d like.

    Here’s a beautiful animated tweet he released several years ago, based on a commencement address he gave in 2017.
    ___________________________________

    Treat the word “impossible” as nothing more than motivation. Relish the opportunity to be an outsider. Embrace that label. Being an outsider is fine, embrace the label, because it’s the outsiders who change the world and who make a real and lasting difference. The more that a broken system tells you that you’re wrong, the more certain you should be that you must keep pushing ahead, you must keep pushing forward. And always have the courage to be yourself.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/trump-tweets-out-animated-video-showing-himself-dance-1.4036417

  6. I hope some of you in the western time zones will watch and post your impressions here.

    I’ll be following live blogs at, probably, Red State and Hot Air, if they’re available. PJ Media does one, but I find that’s often more snark and less information in real time. That is, I’ll look at them until I fall asleep.

  7. I’m a chess player, so for the ultimate high-stakes one-on-one competition I think of the Spassky-Fischer World Chess Championship in 1972.

    Fischer was the upstart young American challenger against the vast Soviet chess machine. He had played 1. e4 (Pawn to King Four) on the first move nearly always. Spassky didn’t even consider the possibility that Fischer would deviate.

    But in Game 6 Fischer played 1. c4, catching Spassky and the rest of the world by surprise. Fischer won the game, giving him a decisive lead, which he rode to victory.

    My point being that Harris has been preparing (with a Trump actor) for the Trump we’ve known from previous debates.

    What if Trump pulls a Bobby Fischer on them?

  9. It occurs to me that the moderators / questioners will act true to form and manage to *not* ask of Harris a few questions that really need to be asked.

    (I know, I know, no earth-shaking insight here. Please bear with me. — M J R)

    If that comes to pass, then later in the “debate”, I’d *love* it if Trump, in response to one of the questioners’ questions, could answer it very briefly, not go into details that most viewers don’t need to hear anyway, and then turn to the Vice President and say . . .

    “I’m going to use the remainder of my time to ask a question [or questions] of the Vice President that really needs [need] to asked and — and answered.”

    He could then reel off maybe only one or two or three such, and then he could invite the Vice President to use her time to respond to those questions.

  10. I read the opening sentence of this post as “Here’s a threat to discuss it.” That fits my attitude. I haven’t watched one of these sideshows in many years and don’t plan to start now. Just can’t take it. I will be checking around, here and other places, for reactions, though.

  11. M J R:

    Trump is a 6’4″ male; Harris is a 5’4″ female. I’m sure Trump understands this is a different dynamic. He can’t charge at her like the bull elephant that he is.

    That’s the trap the Harris people hope to lure him into.

    I think Trump is smarter. I think he is going to step back and lure her into speaking more.

    Give her enough rope…

  12. My neighbor and I were discussing the debate. He said he wouldn’t be watching, and then added that she would get the questions prior to the debate.
    I figured she would back out. But I do think they will provide her with the questions beforehand. Because, ” well I haven’t been to Europe either” – Harris when posed with a question why she hadn’t been to the Border.

  13. Lately I’m reading Simenon’s Inspector Maigret crime novels. For strong drink Maigret prefers calvados, a French brandy based on apple cider from Normandy.

    I splurged on a nice bottle a few days ago. Tonight I’ll be drinking it neat with the debate, Stephen Green style. Well, maybe not full Stephen Green. You never want to go full Stephen Green.

    It’s smooth and tasty, different from brandy.

  15. My links:

    –Fox News, “WATCH LIVE: Trump, Harris face off at the ABC News Presidential Debate”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IGd0BrrXoI

    –PJMedia, “LIVE Blog: The Trump/Harris Debate We’ve All Been Waiting For”
    https://pjmedia.com/liveblog/2024/09/10/live-blog-the-trumpharris-debate-weve-all-been-waiting-for-n12

    I like the snark. I appreciate the drinks advice.

    Stephen Green is going with “Johnny Walker Red in remembrance of Winston Churchill, who was not the prime villain of WWII.”

  16. The thing is … Trump has momentum and coherent policies. He doesn’t have to win this debate, while Harris does.

    All Trump has to do is not overreach and not appear as Bad Orange Man Brute.

    Let Kamala flail around.

    Well, showtime!

  19. Fairly even right now. Harris using her memorized statements. Trump staying focused on camera, while she smirks at him.

  21. Kamal is off and running with lies such as Trump’s Project 2025 platform and a Trump sales tax costing middle class families $4K/year. Then she immediately follows by calling Trump a liar.

  23. Is anyone else having trouble getting on to the Professor’s site…I fear they’re having a….what’s it called DDOS issue?

    Ok…nevermind…maybe just tons of traffic & slowed their servers…? What do I know? 😉

  24. The $4K/year may well be true IF you simplistically assume that the sourcing mix of products will remain the same and don’t consider the dynamics of production moving to the US and being cost-reduced through better automation…AND if you don’t offset it with the additional income that Americans will gain by increased employment.

    Unfortunately, it’s hard to explain these points in 30-second spots or 2-minute debate windows

  25. She’s going into a canned statement on the border. He took her bait on rallies, he should have ignored it.

  26. @ huxley

    He doesn’t have to win this debate, while Harris does.

    I disagree. She just needs to hold her own, and she has up to this point.
    Decided to watch Fox new live.

    Trump talking about immigrants eating people’s pets – Kamala laughed but not cackled.

    Both are doing OK…holding their own.

  28. Trump hammering her on Venezuela criminals here…big plus for Trump.

    Kamala hammers him back – Trump is a criminal…big plus for Kamala.

  29. I disagree. She just needs to hold her own, and she is up to this point..

    Karmi:

    Harris is polling several points lower than Clinton and Biden at this point in the campaign. Her honeymoon is over. Trump’s chances are going up,

    How does Harris win by holding her own?

  32. Trump is more combative than I would like.

    But he just played the “I’m talking now” card on Kamala. 🙂

  34. ABC now attacking Trump on J6…finally showing their bias. Giving Harris a big opening.

    Now she brings up the lie of Charlottesville

    More ABC bias on Trump claiming 2020 election. They were good up until now. He’s debating Harris and the moderator now. Terrible

  38. OMG…ABC now totally on Harris side in the last 10 minutes. Giving her every opening. This is getting absurd. Trump should call them out now.

  39. Huxley “Trump may surprise us tonight with his control.”

    Trump is what he is, and has been for 78 years. There are no surprises.

  41. ABC is giving them both a fair chance…

    She is clearly holding her own.

    Him recently talking about tossing opponents in court/jail is haunting him. Kamala hammering him on it…

  42. huxley , I have a bottle of Calvados that i bought at Bracourt Manor, your know “Band of Brothers” fame. Went there on a tour, met the present Farmer, his Father was there at the time. This bottle was brought up from his cellar, had dust and cobwebs on it. Don’t know how old it is, but there is not bar code or listing of chem make up. Yes, it is very very smooth.
    Enjoy yours.
    I just had a G&T on the back Patio. Very nice out.

  44. Karmi, you are living in a fantasy world if you think ABC is being fair and about Iran not getting tons of money from Biden and Harris

  46. physicsguy – your TDS is showing. OK…maybe ABC was slightly SLIGHTLY towards Harris, but barely noticeable.

    Iran was not broke…I said nothing about Harris or Obama giving Iran money. Trump was lying about Iran being broke under him…

    OK its back…

  47. I have a bottle of Calvados that i bought at Bracourt Manor,

    SHIREHOME:

    Tres cool!

    Yes, the French say cool. 🙂

  48. There’s broke and there’s having enough to get by on, or having enough to get by on plus having a few hundred billion fun money.

  50. Trump yelling about Ukraine…avoiding answering question—TWICE. He is either lying or doesn’t understand that war.

    Harris is winning this issue BIG TIME…she’s good.

  52. huxley – Wasting time on internet memes about pet-eating, refusing to admit that he lost in 2020, insisting that J6 was peaceful, taking the bait on his rallies.

    Maybe that’s more controlled that Trump normally is, but its a low bar.

  55. Every time Harris says “duhMAAHcracy,” an illegal alien eats a kitten.

    –Stephen Green

    Aww… 🙂

  56. ABC just threw Harris the race issue. Yeah, they’re real fair.

    Harris is holding her own. Playing totally on emotion. Will probably get a big bump from the debate. She’ll then retreat to the basement.

  57. I;m disappointed with Trump tonight. He is getting ramped up over trivial things and wasting good openings to gain ground. She didn’t answer the first question (better today or 4 years ago?) except by inference by saying all the things she would do to make things better. He did not either, and he should have and pushed her to answer “yes or no”, He keeps falling back to ranting “better and stronger” He seems bent on self-destruction. I will vote for him anyway.

  59. OK…ain’t going to watch anymore. She did an amazing job. It was a good and fair debate, IMHO.

    Will call it a Tie – and let others hash it out from here…

  60. Will probably get a big bump from the debate.

    physicsguy:

    We’ll see. She may stanch the bleeding for now.

    Americans are still looking at their pocketbooks and the border.

  62. Just scrolled X through back a half-hour and the vitriol aimed at ABC and its “moderators” by dozens of conservative commentators is kinda overwhelming. Sounds like a butchery of the office of conducting an impartial debate. I haven’t seen even a second of the event yet though, so can’t say this is true. I can say that opinions appear fairly uniform in their outrage and disgust.

  63. Trump not helping himself and Camela shamelessly lying . Trump looking personality defensive and falling into the same trap he should know he should avoid. So far this is looking like a win for Camela as long as she doesn’t giggle.
    Wishing Desantis were here.

  64. Trump doing well turning the climate change question into the corruption of the administration vis-a-vis China.

    Not a bad night for either one. Trump did miss some obvious openings, but he’s Trump. Harris controlled and totally misrepresenting herself as a moderate, patriotic person. We’ll see if the BS works

  65. It was OK for me.

    Maybe Trump would have done better to smile more and let Harris explain her policies to her detriment. He didn’t go Slow Joe on her.

    But I think Trump did good enough. While Harris didn’t do a Slow Joe Biden, I don’t think she convinced anyone who wasn’t already convinced.

    I doubt there will be another debate. Back to retail politics.

  66. I listened to the debate on the radio.
    It seemed like Harris has the same Hollywood image-makers that Obama used; they do a pretty good job of putting lipstick on pigs.

  67. And Taylor Swift has just endorsed the Democratic ticket. If Trump didn’t have a bad night before, he does now.

  70. As Walter Kirn observes, Trump has been set up with a pincer movement between Kamala and the moderators, getting prosecuted by the moderator who then delivers layups for Kamela to dunk. Trump getting fact-checked and being forced to defend things from 4-8 years ago, meanwhile few references to the past 4 years for Kamala to defend.

  71. I doubt it will have much impact come voting day.

    Harris did well. If a voting viewer was unsure, but willing to give her a chance her performance tonight could swing such a voter. Harris set some obvious traps to get Trump riled up and Trump fell for some of them.

    Trump was more focused than I’ve ever seen him in a debate. His follow-ups and rebuttals were generally very good, and effective. He stated far too many hyperbolic statements that will make for bad sound bites for DNC ammunition.

    The moderators were awful. Completely embarrassing. The big loser tonight was network news. ABC and the announcers will be pilloried. I’ve never seen such prolonged, one sided bias. And that definitely helped Harris. Harris made many false statements and the moderators never corrected her and at least twice they fed her ammunition to counter attack something Trump had said.

    As I wrote, Harris succeeded in getting Trump angry, but the unfair, three on one attacks would have been hard for anyone to withstand without getting mad. Trump remained fairly focused, for Trump.

    Trump did make some very positive statements that working Americans should react well to.

    If someone was seeing both of them for the first time tonight I think that person would come away thinking Donald Trump was willing to fight to protect Americans and will be a strong redoubt against foreign adversaries and Kamala Harris is a caring, loving woman who will work to enact policies to help Americans and will unify, rather than divide.

    Again, I doubt it will affect polls or voting much, but who knows?

  72. I thought it was hilarious when the moderators brought up the subject of race, attacking Trump, and Harris claimed that she did not want race to be an issue.

    I guess the Kamala Harris I saw play the race card against Joe Biden in the DNC debate was a different Kamala Harris.

  73. Preamble: I do not like Kamala Harris and I do not like the ideology of her and her ilk.

    I’d like to comment on the visuals:
    Trump was angry and red-faced. Harris was calm and reasonable-sounding.

    (I know, a substantial part of her reasonableness had to do with the (knowing) lies she was telling. But in terms of the visuals, Harris was calm and reasonable-sounding. Low Information Voters are not very good at distinguishing between reality and lies.)

    I want the Trump-Vance ticket to prevail, * but on the visuals *, upon which a lot of people base their judgments, whether or not they’re conscious of that, Harris won.

    (sez mee)

    Now, the only people who “count” in a sense are the swing voters in the swing states. To what extent will they base their votes the visuals?

  74. M J R
    Wrt your last graf….absolutely.

    It could be just me, but Trump grates on me once he gets past “Hello”.
    So perhaps I am more negative about his performance than others in terms of how well he sold his candidacy.

  75. • Was reading the comments at Powerline and thought this commentor captured what I and many others think:

    “Ultimately, reality overtakes fantasy, delusion, and hallucination. Trump had a bad night, assisted by having to debate three opponents rather than one. But there’s a a more compelling reality: open borders, unaffordable housing, life paycheck to paycheck, and chaos overseas.

    Debates are about aesthetics. Voting is about your life. It won’t make a difference—to people who fear for their well-being, aesthetics walks, bad economies talk.”

    • Also thought RTF @ 11:45 had some good observations, especially his lead.

    • Lastly, I did not think that Trump had a bad night because he conveyed that he understands the fear – and shares the fear (what he has in common with the “common man” & that he is fighting for the “common man”). Looking forward to the next debate.

  77. From the little I saw, Harris looked well-prepared. She was lying, but she didn’t falter or get flustered. Trump didn’t do badly, but he missed openings to attack or rebut Harris.

    The idea that Harris only needed to hold her own to win, actually makes sense to me, whatever the polls are saying. Harris needed not to crumple or collapse, and the media would turn the night into a victory for her. Harris was, from what I saw, on the offensive and giving her preprogrammed lines. Trump had to defend himself. He needed to be more agile and pivot and think faster. Was he getting jabs in when I wasn’t watching? I don’t know. But elections aren’t won in debates (usually). Harris wasn’t going to knock out Trump and Trump wasn’t going to knock out Harris. All Harris had to do was not collapse, and she lives on to fight another day, and that she did.

  78. I managed to watch a lot of the debate. Harris continually lied through her teeth, the moderators were biased, and Trump was terrible.
    She outperformed.
    Luckily there is time to go, but this wasn’t the winner many of us hoped it would be.

  79. When Harris was bloviating about the importance of the borders of the Ukraine and about sovereignty, Trump missed an opportunity to say some thing like, “Kamala cares so much about the borders of the Ukraine and it’s sovereignty, but when it’s our border and our sovereignty here in the U.S. she couldn’t care less.”

    And when she accused him of being “angry,” he should have retorted, “damn right I’m angry, I left you a world without a major invasion and war going on, low inflation, an economy rebounding from COVID, robust job growth, energy Independence, the stock market reaching all time highs, and peaceful cities, and you and Joe managed to screw it all up. ”

    I noticed that, at one point, Harris just stopped herself from addressing Trump by calling him by some curse word like “this bastard,” or some such.

    I think that Harris, with the help of the thoroughly biased ABC moderators, did a lot better than I expected her to.

  80. Gosh, did you folks all watch the same debate?!?!
    Reactions truly are in the eye of the beholder.
    I didn’t see it live; had our last “social” of the season tonight.

    @ James Sisco > “..and then added that she would get the questions prior to the debate.”

    Satire headline harvested at Not the Bee:
    https://notthebee.com/article/bee-forum-news-hunter-biden-solves-national-debt-crisis-by-paying-his-back-taxes
    Harris Complains She Only Received Questions In Advance Of Debate And Not The Answers @dontslowtheearth

    And the Bee nailed it earlier Tuesday:
    https://babylonbee.com/news/moderators-call-timeout-to-huddle-and-discuss-strategy-with-kamala

  81. Whenever Harris started off by saying “we know”–as if what she is saying is a fact, which everyone agrees on–what follows next is usually a lie.

    Trump was also right that early on Harris identified as being Asian, even acknowledged this as her ethnicity on a TV show but, then, when it became useful politically to be “black,” all of a sudden her Indian heritage was put on the back burner, not usually talked about, and she now identified as being Black.

  83. Last night I called the debate a Tie. Harris lost me at her J6 comments, and lost the Win with her Climate Change comments. However, after a night sleeping on it, and upon reflection this morning – Harris was Presidential, sharp, knowledgeable, constantly on the offense, and this Pic sums up last nights Debate, IMHO:

    Harris takes over

    The Pic is from the Daily Mail article: Body language expert reveals moment Kamala ‘took over’ the debate with Trump and vice president’s ‘coupe de grace’

    Don’t normally watch Debates, but wanted to avoid the biased reviews from both the Left & Right, and decided to watch it myself.

    Both Candidates did their share of lying. A lot of crying from the Right about ABC’s moderators being “unfair” and “biased” and “Trump was having to debate three people” but I saw only the slightest hint of bias, and could’ve been wrong about that.

    Harris didn’t need help.

    Harris won the Debate, but both did a good job. Does winning the Debate translate to winning the presidential election? I dunno…guess that will depend on the undecided voters.

    I don’t support most of the Democratic party’s agenda. I don’t like Trump’s stance on the Russian/Ukraine war. I will be Down-ballot Voting – as no party affiliation (NPA) voter in Florida – and voting for Republican candidates…

  84. I’m hearing clips on the radio now. Harris’s nasal, quavering, often sarcastic voice doesn’t make a good impression. I wonder if this is like the story of the Kennedy-Nixon debates when those who watched the debates and those who listened had different impressions about who won. That story’s supposedly been “debunked,” but so much of what’s been “debunked” hasn’t been, that the story just might be true.

    John Hinderaker of Powerlineblog didn’t watch the debate, but he rushed online with his family’s verdict that Trump lost. Is this a case of people focusing on Trump because of his “star quality” and giving Harris a passing grade for not breaking up into mad cackling? Grading debates is an expectation game, and this time expectations were higher for Trump than in earlier debates.

  85. Karmi – I complete endorse the idea that TDS goes both ways. The ability of Trump supporters to rationalize literally anything is absolutely a form of derangement.

    That said, I do not think that physicguy suffers from any sort of derangement. (My apologies to physicguy if my endorsement causes him to take flak here.)

    I do want to rebut physicguy’s 9:39 PM post by pointing out that Trump really did suggest terminating the Constitution. Here’s the text of his Truth Social post from 2022:

    “A massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination for all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

    Full context here: https://archive.ph/u0vZk

    The best lipstick that you can put on that pig is that he didn’t directly call for terminating all of the Constitution, he only obliquely suggested terminating some unspecified articles of the Constitution. That is what we call a distinction without a difference.

  86. Further to terminating the Constitution – Trump says so much ridiculous nonsense, and is accused of saying so much more ridiculous nonsense that it can be difficult to keep track of which ridiculous things he actually said and which ones were fabricated or exaggerated by his enemies.

  87. If you liked pernicious liars you’ll like her, youve fallen for every hoax cc so no surprise

  88. Looks to me Trump was clumsily attempting to articulate that the fraud he believes the Democrat machine perpetrated in the election had itself terminated (“allows”) the Constitutional framework, a fait accompli. Far far from the proposition you make bauxite, that Trump is proposing or can be assumed to be proposing to overthrow or eviscerate the Constitution. And seriously, in the actual context of longstanding Democrat Constitutional lipservice while acting with faithlessness toward the principles of the American Constitutional order, who is surprised, apart from the rubes?

  89. So now that iran has enough weapons grade uranium thanks to biden you will see how foolish you were

    Now israel may have to fire off their nukes to defend themselves

  90. So after sleeping on it and watching the entire debate, this morning I will say Trump lost. He missed so many opportunities that if he had remained more calm he might have taken advantage. For example, when she brought up the tired old 2 state solution, he could have said that there is no 2 state solution as Iran et al want only 1 state, and that means the eradication of Israel. He did hint at it when he said if she is eleccted Israel will be gone in 2 years, but in his usual unfortunate garbled way. I fear the result of this debate.

    Back to Karmi and Bauxite: how anyone would consider the debate fair is beyond me. Ask yourself how many times the moderators challenged and fact checked Trump vs Harris. The answer is many times to zero. They were OK for the first 20 minutes or so, then they let loose with continuous challenges to Trump, and softballs to Harris. No wonder she looked good; it was 3 against 1. But Trump missed the chance when David Whatshisname challenged him to retort about not having to debate just Harris but the moderators also. By not doing that he let the exposure of what they were doing slip by.

    “A massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination for all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” ”

    Bauxite, can you read?? It’s obvious from this statement that Trump is saying the election fraud perpetrated by the Ds essentially terminates the Constitution itself. He is NOT saying he is going to terminate the Constitution.

    Sheeesh!!

  92. @ physicsguy – great points.

    I didn’t see the Debate as overly unfair to Trump, but what I am seeing elsewhere this morning is the GOP’s constant complaining about the world being unfair to them, how they are cheated at every turn, etc.

    That’s developing into a M.O. or look of a party of sore losers and/or whiners, IMHO. Not the look that the GOP should continue building on—after some 4 years of it.

    Just my 2-cents…

  93. physicguy and sdferr, yes, I can read. I think your interpretations and willingness to twist language to exonerate Trump are an example of rationalizing literally anything.

    Trump, technically, said that terminating unspecified clauses of the Constitution was permitted or allowed because of the conduct of the 2020 election.

    It seems to me as though you want to read that to mean that the purported fraudsters in 2020 were allowed to terminate the Constitution. Even giving you every benefit of the doubt, I just can’t see how that is a remotely reasonable interpretation of the language that he used. Immediately before the sentence I quoted, Trump suggested that the results of the 2020 election be thrown out and he be declared the rightful winner or that a new election be held. Remember that he said this in December of 2022, two full years after the 2020 election.

    So Trump proposed:

    – Throwing out the election results two years after the fact and declaring him the winner; or
    – Holding a new election, two years after the fact.

    Doing either of those things would require terminating “rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” In the very next sentence, Trump posits that it is permissible to terminate “rules regulations, and articles, even those in the Constitution” because of the way the 2020 election was conducted. It is abundantly clear that he was suggesting terminating the “rules, regulations, and articles . . .” to justify his suggestions from the previous sentence.

    I’m sorry. Even given Trump’s notoriously poor command of the English language, I don’t see any other reasonable way of reading those two sentences. You might be able to argue that he was not serious, but I don’t see any reasonable argument that he did not call for terminating at least parts of the Constitution.

    Here’s the full language again: https://archive.ph/u0vZk

  94. Shes gonna burn this country and you say how nice the match covers are

    When she dissolves the bill of rights with this court she has packed you’ll still be sputtering about jan 6th or after she surrenders to iran or china or both

  95. Karmi,

    Yes, we whine and complain. And as I have stated before, I don’t have a good idea of how to break through the media fortress that the left has built. If we had a media even less than half way as biased as it is, this election would not even be close. The biggest threat to “our democracy” is the media (by which I mean not only the classic MSM, but much of the social media, META, etc) at this point in time.

    Again, I wish I had a solution, and I would guess so do a lot of the GOP and conservatives. It seems an intractable problem.

  96. Miguel cervantes – the die is already cast. The GOP primary voters, in their abundant foolishness, have selected Trump as the nominee for the third cycle in a row. His impending loss was baked into the cake back in the early spring. What Harris is going to do, she will do. The only remaining issue is what we are going to do about it.

    Part of what we need to do is acknowledge that a large reason for the recent failures of the right is that we on the right have frittered away the last decade repeatedly trying to justify the ravings of an unreconstructed nutjob.

  97. Not “because” of the conduct, but in the actual conduct preceeding. A simple, massive, unconstitutional act. And as such, an unjust fait accompli. What is the just corrective for such conduct? What, when the barest constitutional provisions extant have been either simply ignored or in many cases arbitraily overridden? This neither is nor can be an easy question to answer given the presumption of the framers that such an act would not occur nor be allowed to occur. The Constitution is silent beyond its limits, yet the question of justice hangs there. If Trump proposes correctives, are we necessarily to assume there are no due process means to address the issue? Why? I see no bar to Congressional action to take up the matter. Popular determination, one way or another, either pro or con, can certainly influence Congress to act to correct the wrong, or, act to leave it standing. And, I suppose, has indeed precisely to this effect. Hence, a completely divided nation: one portion acting unjustly and getting away with these acts, and the other portion having been wronged and forced to accept their humiliation. But the Constitutional order itself? Looks like a splat to me.

  98. sdferr – We don’t have to “assume” anything. We simply read the documents, which include no provisions for throwing out an election two years after the fact or holding a new presidential election two years into the term of the sitting president.

    Go through the enumerated powers of Congress in the Constitution. There is nothing that gives Congress the power to abrogate the certified results of an election that took place two years ago or hold another election.

    Face it. Trump suggested terminating the Constitution. He believed that he was completely justified in doing so because of the 2020 election, but that doesn’t change the fact that he did it.

  99. I only watched the first hour, but I found Trump to be rambling & repetitive, to the point that I wondered whether he had been coached at all, or whether he just rejected advice and went with the riffing that seems natural to him — a style much better suited for his rallies than a debate. His conversational thought process must involve a lot of bing bing bings, making it difficult to compress his verbal output in the limited time allowed.

    Harris seemed both smooth & cunning — but dishonest. She tended to speak in memorized paragraphs, avoiding her usual word salads. So she ended up with a more polished and disciplined presence, one that maybe helped undo the poor image she has created thus far.

  100. People cannot prioritize what matters and what doesnt the dems did this in the vp debate in 2008 biden was speaking nonesense and palin the facts but they pretended she was the ignorant one

    We kicked hezbollah out of lebanon how well did that age

  101. No. Trump suggests the Constitution has already been terminated in the fraud. He seeks justice. Where is that to be found? In an appeal to open the fraud to exposure, then to either use that exposure to delineate the actual legitimate votes cast, rejecting the fraudulent votes, and declare a proper outcome, or, in extremis declare the fraud irrecoverable and legislate another election. Which, by the way, if held barring fraud, he may well lose! Now these theoretical Congressional acts would still be subject to Presidential signature or veto, so not bloody likely in the absence of very powerful proofs of fraud in the first instance, proofs we should assume would be required to sway public opinion to such an extent as to demand Congressional action and the President’s signature. Again, a doubtful, highly dubious possibility. Still, not an overthrow of the old girl herself, indeed very far from that.

  102. I’m hearing clips on the radio now. Harris’s nasal, quavering, often sarcastic voice doesn’t make a good impression. — Abraxas

    It may be just me, but I did think that Kamala’s speaking voice in the debate sounded very nasal and condescending. Sarcastic as well.

    Thinking back to Hillary vs Trump, I recall repeated thinking that Hillary was a thoroughly unlikeable candidate. That could have been just me, but I’m relatively sure now it wasn’t.

    Trump didn’t exactly score high on the warm and friendly scale either.

  103. President lost the event last night because even we are talking about style rather than substance. But don’t call it a debate. In many instances the ABC operatives included Kamala’s answer in the question they posed to Trump. Rather than asking questions that would force discussions of how the candidates would govern, they spent much of the time on issues they felt would hurt Trump.

    President Trump did seem to be under stress– rather than the more relaxed style he has shown in interviews, speeches and questioning by even hostile press during the last several months. There is no doubt if President Trump loses the election, the federal government will double down on the remaining federal charges. The left wants to put Trump in jail as a warning to any national populist as to what they will face if they challenge the existing order. The leviathan is still strong. What Trump-Vance are attempting to do in reducing the size and scope of government if elected is an existential threat to their administrative state and those who benefit from the status quo. Who is hurt? American and its citizens.

    That has been the modus operandi of the media for years now– talking about the irrelevant.
    Who has a plan to reinvigorate the economy and help us build out of our looming debt crisis? Trump.
    Who has promised more government largess which will only increase the level of debt and reliance on the government to sustain the economy. Harris.

    Strip out style points and who thinks Kamala is qualified to be the President.

    President Trump guided the United States through four years putting in place policies that has real wage gains for the working class, began creating a durable peace in the ME, helped Ukraine with military hardware that Obama refused to provide, started a process to create reciprocal trade agreements that benefited our industries.

    I heard a Democrat operative this morning say Biden signed an EO and border crossing were at a level lower than during the Trump years. When challenged as to why Biden didn’t do it three years ago, the response ignored the three years of record illegal crossings and just responded “well, he did it now.” How can that be considered in any way a policy.

  104. sdferr – As Rush Limbaugh used to say regularly – words mean things.

    Trump supporters are like Humpty Dumpty. To them, Trump’s words mean precisely what they would prefer them to mean, nothing more and nothing less.

    In about two months when you’re trying to get your head around why Trump lost, again, remember that most people who aren’t already committed Trump supporters actually use the accepted meaning of words and context and don’t construe everything to avoid admitting Trump’s faults.

  105. she focused on the irrelevant things, and the significant things, she ignore the afghan withdrawal, inflation spike et al, but you be you, when the next terror attack comes not if, and the blood price is in the tens of thousands and she uses that to confiscate your firearms and silence your speech, you will be
    still be screaming about mean tweets,

  106. Besides throwing out a whole bucket of “glittering generalities,” and platitudes, ol’ Kamala also proposed a whole lot of new bribes–$50,000 for small business startups, $6,000 for new parents, $25,000 for new home buyers.

    Where, exactly, is this largesse supposed to come from? Why, from out of our pockets and household budgets, of course.

    No doubt this will very likely be money added to the multi Trillion dollar public debt which the Biden Administration and Democrats have run up so high that it is now so great as to be virtually unpayable.

    Moreover, since their earlier reckless spending has precipitated the inflation we are all experiencing, this inflation with it’s rising interest rates means that the astronomical amount the government has to pay for mandatory “interest on the public debt” has dramatically increased, taking a chunk out of the already declining amount of money the government will have left over for the “discretionary spending,” which actually pays for our entire government to run, for the the military, R & D, etc.

  107. Brian E:

    There is no doubt if President Trump loses the election, the federal government will double down on the remaining federal charges.

    Don’t be so sure about that.

    Remember, Trump & his radical MAGA supporters were probably the first to start calling for imprisonment of one’s political opponents – ‘lock her up’, and chants of ‘lock her up, lock her up’ at rallies and such in ref to Clinton.

    Later, he went to Ukraine and wanted them to rat out Biden—give him Biden’s head on a platter.

    Might be wrong, but I saw something in Harris last night that is not remotely connected to the likes of Biden. Saw it again in news about Harris & Trump meeting briefly at some event after the debate w/ Trump, and him appearing to say ‘you did a good job’.

    Harris may actually want to get this lawfare and such against Trump outta and away from her administration, if she wins.

  108. It isn’t hilarious your malevolently uncharitable misinterpretations always end in the same place bauxite, if you were intending to make some cosmic jest. Spinning twaddle is just your gift, I guess. But are the wrongs thrown against the Americans here left in the lurch simply too hard to see? Not so hard, perhaps, when one isn’t prejudicially disposed to ignore them.

  109. sdferr So “malevolently uncharible misinterpretation” means failing to twist context, grammar, and vocabulary in the manner most favorable to Trump?

    Again, words mean things.

  111. Karmi – I doubt very much that they will stop. For one, I don’t think they will be able to stop. They see the effort to jail Trump as a righteous crusade. For another, keeping the GOP’s focus on Trump for another year or two is in their political interest. It will also distract from what they intend to do in Congress if they win majorities.

  112. It cannot be a fair debate when the “moderator” provides the questions for one of the debaters prior to the debate, and when they never factcheck that same one debater.

  113. The triumphal glee from bauxite and karmi makes it pretty clear who they want to win this election regardless of any FUD they may spout.

  114. FOAF:

    It should be no surprise. Both Bauxite and Karmi have made it clear long ago how anti-Trump they are.

    From you I learned a new acronym today: FUD.

  115. Karmi, Harris will go after Trump hammer and tongs, and any supporter of his at a higher level too. Hatred does not stop

  116. Karmi:

    Kamala has until this moment gone along with the extremely dangerous charade of these show trials. Whether or not she pulls back if elected is almost irrelevant, and at this point is anyone’s guess. But she has been fully onboard so far and not said a word against any of these persecutions of a political opponent. And persecutions they are, indeed a very serious form of election interference. She’s been on the “he’s a felon!” bandwagon, using that crap to her own advantage.

    If she is elected, the left might – accent on the “might” – decide they’ve done enough to destroy Trump and go ahead to concentrate on consolidating their forever-power. But that has no bearing on the disgusting and dangerous nature of what they’ve done so far. And of course, they may decide instead to go right ahead and grind Trump and his family to dust. Neither thing would surprise me.

    The fact that you don’t see the horrific nature of all of this is telling, and in particular it’s telling because of your opinion of the criminal justice system.

  117. $50,000 for small business start ups? Ri-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ght…

    That certainly comes from someone who has no idea what is involved in starting one’s own business….

    Well…

    1) The SBA can only think in terms of a physical small business with a building and customers coming in. NOT in terms of a consulting business, or a small business with low overhead. And fifty grand is peanuts for someone wanting to start up, oh, say, a restaurant.

    2) But let’s just say I get their bribe, er, break of $50,000 dollars, to start up my own consulting business. The regulations that ALREADY exist hamstring small businesses will eat that up in no time.

    3) And then the additional taxes on my small business will make that money irrelevant. Because they are certainly going to increase taxes GINORMOUSLY to be able to hand out that candy.

    4) I looked into starting up my own consulting business, and after the costs of software, professional associations dues, the cost burden imposed by what is necessary to comply with regulations and taxes is the BIGGEST expense. By far.

    5) I would rather see regulations cut back and a reduction in taxes than get fifty grand towards starting my own business.

  118. Triumphal glee? This is a catastrophe. It is the most painful and least satisfying “I told you so” that could possibly be imagined.

    My reaction to all of this is not glee, but white hot anger that the GOP primary voters have placed us in this situation again. How many times does the GOP have to touch the stove before figuring out that it is hot?

  119. }}} production moving to the US and being cost-reduced through better automation…AND if you don’t offset it with the additional income that Americans will gain by increased employment.

    You can’t get that both ways. If production moves to the USA and is fully automated, the number of jobs increased as a result will be small — mostly maintenance techs for the robots an entry level “hit the red button!” jobs. And it it’s not fully roboticized and increases employment then it will make those things notably more expensive.

    While I like many of Trumps attitudes, I don’t think his protectionist tendencies are at all well-founded in any valid school of economic thought. They are exceptionally popular because most people are, thanks to schools, economic dunderheads.

    The REAL fact is, all significant future economic grown and expansion will come in the IP & Services sector.

    In the 1880s, fully 80% of the workforce was in the agricultural sector. Now only 2-5% is involved in that arena.

    WHAT should we do about all those lost FARM jobs!?!? Gasp! Gasp! Gasp!

    The manufacturing sector is going the exact same direction, with the end result being about 2-5% of the US workforce involved in manufacturing, with robots doing the same thing mechanization did in the ag sector. Fighting this is just a variant on NeoLuddism, and is totally foolish. There is no real money in the manufacturing sector any longer. The only reason manufacturing is done overseas is that foreign labor is borderline cheaper than building and maintaining robots. We could switch over to robots right now with little harm to our economic wellbeing.

    Plus, as a side benefit, it helps raise other economies to industrial economies, from which they gain wealth of their own to use to move forwards.

  120. }}} Shes gonna burn this country and you say how nice the match covers are

    When she dissolves the bill of rights with this court she has packed you’ll still be sputtering about jan 6th or after she surrenders to iran or china or both

    Yup. That’s pretty much a spot-on assessment of what happens if the Dems get in charge for another 4 years.

    The Dems are working to destroy this nation, in every way possible. They seek to destroy the value of the IP which has enriched us for the last century via bad acting corporate officers, and they have already destroyed the trust in our institutions which held the country together against all other challenges. We no longer have faith in ANY of our institutions — the FBI, Congress, The Presidency, Elections, and pretty much almost every other institution is, faith-wise to the US Citizenry, in the toilet.

    All thanks to Democrats. Much of our military is getting replaced based on Woke DIE factors over experience and competence. And, TBH, one of the main reasons the USA remains feared has everything to do with that competence and experience. And, when you have a Foreign Policy as consistently ephed up as we do, it’s not good to have a military on the decline.

    SMH. We are in the waning days of the Roman Empire. The barbarians are at the gates. And the Democrats are welcoming them in.

    }}} For another, keeping the GOP’s focus on Trump for another year or two is in their political interest. It will also distract from what they intend to do in Congress if they win majorities

    LOLZ. The Dems are, actually, rather stupid. Their machinations have led to the likely fiscal collapse of the Federal government — probably when they have to prop up Cali after IT fails.

    So, IF there is no civil war as a result of Trump losing — not something I would place any money against — then there will certainly be a civil war when the collapse happens.

    And this will be the end of the Nation… which is how the real runners of this mess want things to be.

  121. OBloodyHell,

    I’ve thought about creating a model of taxes vs. tariffs, but just to get the conversation going, what does more harm to a company producing goods in the US– a tariff on goods imported into the US or raising the corporate income tax significantly above the rest of countries producing similar goods?

    Which will make exporting the American goods more expensive?

    Without the numbers, I would still say the higher corporate tax would do more damage, making the American companies products less competitive overseas and more expensive to American consumers.

    There are advantages to NOT using robots for certain types of production. Not all manufacturing jobs can come back, but essential industries need to.

    While Trump has floated the idea of using tariffs more generally to raise taxes (which could be offset by lower taxes in other areas), but mostly I’ve heard him articulate using tariffs to force countries to reduce tariffs on our goods. I think I’ve read we are the least protectionist country of the industrial countries.

  122. “Lock her up” about Hillary came from the fact that she had indeed committed crimes that other people were getting prosecuted for. But since Comey said the agency did not find “clear evidence that Clinton intended to violate the law,” therefore he decided not to forward what they did find to any prosecutor.

    How often are we told that “Ignorance of the law is not a defense.” And she is a LAWYER! She had been in the government for years, and she certainly understood what she was doing as indeed against the law. “Lock her up” had a hell of a lot less to do with going after a political foe that the crazy stuff being done towards Trump. New York State Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against Donald Trump is a Bill of Attainder, and a violation of the Constitution. The law that allowed E. Jean Carroll to go after Trump was effectively another Bill of Attainder, and was passed with Trump in mind.

  123. I watched the debate via the Taibbi & Kirn Mystery Science Theater drinking show. Which means that I heard their running commentary on the debate.

    As I said, I always think that Trump debates poorly. But in this case, individual performances aside, I think it was clear, to objective viewers, that the moderators were squarely on Kamala’s side. I hear today that, years ago, the head of ABC made the introductions between Kamala and her future husband – so they are more than casually-acquainted. That taints the soup a little, doesn’t it? Or do we favor passes, for the anointed? I don’t think we should, that’s part of our problem these days….

    Kamala has a selection of personality modes that she assumes for public appearances (political). One is the giggling airhead that is pandering to the lady audiences, mostly – ‘just us girls’. One is the steely-eyed prosecutor, the tough hard-as-nails broad with street smartz. One is the semi-bored, above-it-all, too-cool-for-school chick. The latter two is who we mostly got last night, I think.

    But her voice and her persona is grating and false, contrived to me – as a certain Trump voter, I wasn’t watching her with any room for new input and I know I’m biased. An independent voter, watching her carefully, willing to go either way? I would tend to give them credit for intelligence and curiosity, first. And having said that, I think such a voter would (a) see the setup with the moderators and understand its unfairness, and (b) be turned off by Kamala’s pretense. It’s hard to vote for somebody that’s being phony, when you’re an independent-minded person. And that’s one thing Kamala has always been.

    Discarding the rhetoric:
    What did Trump accomplish during his four years as President, and under what conditions?
    What has Harris done during her four years as Vice President, and under what conditions?

    Results matter, because they are the immediate, irrefutable feedback that consumers face every single day, as they peer into their wallet and ponder their options, and consider the conditions that have been brought about by their leaders.

  124. neo: FUD stands for “fear, uncertainty, doubt”. I probably did not use it quite correctly but the broader sense is obfuscation and misdirection. Which we continued to get from bauxite telling us how sad he is to be so intellectually superior to Republican primary voters.

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