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This early Weekend Open Thread addresses on tonight’s final presidential debate. Your thoughts are welcome — especially because I haven’t actually written it yet and may not do so until tomorrow morning!
Doctored screenshot of the debate (though the expressions were not edited behind the overall use of a “note paper” filter and coloring the whole thing neutral purple. We had a whole lot of Trump’s flapping his mouth ceaselessly and Biden just having to endure it.
Some observations, in no special order:
(1) What struck me most about the debate is how Trump kept on pushing past the time limits for a given question to produce yet another unrelated sound bite attack on Biden, causing Biden to demand a chance to reply, causing Trump to demand his own chance to reply, which after being granted 10-15 seconds went far longer and brought up yet more unrelated talking points, until Biden seemed to inwardly shrug and let that round of exchanges end.
(2) Biden only once or twice approached using the magic word that could have turned Trump into a tub of butter: “credibility.” Why won’t people use a vaccine approved by the Trump Administration? Because he has no credibility. Why can’t we believe his now literally impossible prediction that we’ll have a vaccine improved before the end of the year? Because he has no credibility. Why don’t we believe him about Putin, or Burisma, or China? Because he has no credibility.
(3) Related to that, Trump struck me once again as a shamelessly lying hard-pressure salesman, like William H. Macy selling undercoating in the movie Fargo.
(4) How Biden either failed or chose not to rebut with all of the attacks on Hunter Biden by throwing Trump’s three oldest children back in his face — “you know who DID make money in China? Ivanka!” — is either an astounding missed opportunity or an astounding act of self-control, and most likely both.
(5) Biden has to stop repeating (or characterizing) what Trump has said or would be saying, followed by a “Come on!” I don’t think that post-Boomers will get it — but maybe I’m wrong. In any event, it gives Trump the possibility to show ads with clips of him saying some inane to insane thing — when he was actually characterizing Trump’s position.
(6) The funniest exchange was when Biden sarcastically referred to Trump as “Abraham Lincoln here” after Trump said that he’d done more for Blacks than anyone since maybe Honest Abe. Trump’s reply was along the lines of “oh, now he thinks I’m Lincoln?” This raises the horrifying possibility that Trump truly things that Elizabeth Warren really is Pocahontas.
(7) I don’t know if Trump actually made any headway with his “Biden’s been in government for 47 years, why didn’t he solve these problems?” Biden finally came up with a smart rejoinder for why he (and Obama) couldn’t solve everything during the previous administration: they had a Republican Congress. I would have liked to see Biden starting slack-jawed and asking “do you really still not know how the government works?”
Much more after I’ve done some more reading — and probably some sleeping. This is your Weekend Open Thread. You know the rules, so just talk right over us when you violate them.
Debate commentary goes here!
This link should take you to the New York Times fact-check, which is devastating.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/22/us/fact-check-debate-trump-biden
*Dr. D., Good assessment of the debate. Whenever The Trumpster had no answer to any issue….he would bring up “What did you do in 47 years?” Joe should have said eloquently: “Hey, I got re-elected for helping my constituents!” Let that bomb drop and step back from the vehicle. The Trumpster loves to use false naratives and false information. “His Halley’s Comet” arguments are disgraceful. Change the subject and hope…that no one will notice…? Oh well, we will know the results of this trial….by the 6th or 8th of November.
Here’s the link to 538.com’s live-blog of the debate, highly worth reading:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/final-presidential-debate-live/
*Watched Wasserman from the Cook Report today on C-Span. Prognosis: A very good possibility that the Dems could take the Senate, a bigger advantage in the House and
the Presidency. Strong letter to follow. Well, it is just a couple of weeks to go and find out the results of that trial. We shall see. Ding Hao, Joe, Jill and Kamala! If you never knew what Ding Hao means……it is from a WWII Movie entitled: “Go for Broke!:
*Was thinking that the press has not been following the Oxycodin Epidemic much since this election cycle. The Suicide rates are up, the Drug Conflict issues are up, and our Anxiety levels are up with all this chaos in our environment. We might remind those that Big Pharma Started this process in 1955, with a drug called Miltown which was followed by Miltown 2, Librium, Valium, Xanax and Prozac ……all in all do not get, take or use these or their variants without going deeply on the web into the Side Effects and consequences of taking any of these. But remember: “We are just people that play Doctors on TV!”
An alert to our neighbors in and near Irvine (as even those who are not directly in danger may be smelling smoke):
“The Orchard Hills Irvine Community is under mandatory evacuation now in Irvine, California in OC and not in a safe place with gusts of up to 96 mph, according to the Orange County Fire Authority. Flames have jumped the 241 Toll Road & 60,000 residents need to flee. Please let your family & friends know if they live in this area which is covered in smoke & embers beginning to burn some backyards there! To report and read news, use #SantiagoFire2020”
*The Smoke is intense….
And, another fire — originally the Green River fire (near where the Anaheim Hills cemetery is proposed), but now renamed the Blue Ridge fire — is burning from the border of Corona and Yorba Linda and — if the winds keep pushing west — moving into the eastern unincorporated Brea area. Out here in the toe hills of far western Brea, at the La Habra border, we’ll be on the lookout for embers coming from the south slope of the Puente Hills.
There was also a small bush fire — which I’d originally misread as a “brush fire” — in Fullerton. (Not near Coyote Hills.) Don’t mess with us like that, Fullerton!
We simply don’t have the means (nor, unless the Puente Hills ignite, the proximity) to cover the two fires now raging in Orange County. But our friends at the Voice of OC do — and are as usual are doing an excellent job.
Here’s a good story to begin with — https://voiceofoc.org/2020/10/silverado-canyon-and-blue-ridge-fires-in-photos-day-one/ — and once you’re there poke around for more. And if you are a person of means, please DO make a contribution to them so they can keep up their efforts. With the Register behind a paywall, they’re OC’s best free source for news (with a *few* possible exceptions that we provide.)