Monday, September 26, 2016

Debate & Switch Open Thread

Free-for-all time. Talk about the debate, or something more pleasant if you're avoiding the most momentous sporting event in the history of Citizens United.

Suggested drinking game: take an extremely tiny slug whenever somebody utters one of the following words, phrases or sounds: bipartisan, reach across the aisle, terror, lie, cheat, steal, God-given, godforsaken, invest, tough/hard choices, commander-in-chief, yuge, bigly, cough.

Personally, I'm still trying to recover from the top-trending mawkish photo of the week and the accompanying blather from media stenographers who believe that "bipartisan" is actually a positive instead of a negative.

Don't Worry, Honey, Nobody's Gonna Prosecute Anybody for War Crimes

12 comments:

Karen Garcia said...

My drinking word names were kind of duds, except maybe for "terror." I should have included "the cyber, the cyber!" and most importantly, "sniff." Trump was as full of snot as he was with his bullshit. I kept imagining him recycling it like he recycles "Make America Great Again" as an answer to every question. He actually made Hillary look healthy and reasonable, even tho she is neither.

All in all, a terrible waste of two hours, when you include the inane commentary from the pundits at the end.

Unknown said...

What an adorable war criminal!

Chris said...

I only saw the last half hour, and my impression was that we are going to be in a permanent state of war either way. It's so depressing.

Kat said...

I watched baseball. I refuse to watch any of these "debates". I did, however, catch this truly vomit inducing priorities USA ad on tv this morning:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/295638-pro-clinton-pac-ad-features-reagan
Reagan!

anyhoo... the NYT has truly outdone itself with the breathless and over the top debate coverage. What a joke. The biggest joke is that this comes under the heading of "politics". Like there has to be some special "politics" section. It's ALL politics-- everything in the paper.
The comments are flying in on the f****** debates, and meanwhile the story on the fired Wells Fargo employees (the ones fired for not engaging in fraud, not the sacrificial lambs fired later) has 28 comments.
To get an idea of how great a job the paper does informing here is the usual "boycott/move your money"
We, the consumers are not powerless in this scandal.
If we were all to end our financial relationship with this bank, all banks would take notice. After this malfeasance was discovered, 5,300 low level employees were fired.

No dimwit- prosecutions and a big fat class action suit that actually gets to go to trial are what might make banks take notice. Without criminal convictions, someone is waiting in the wings to take Wells Fargo's place.

Karen Garcia said...

Kat,

It's always advisable to avoid the Times like the plague after staged political events like conventions and debates. And how about the irony of those liberal Dems holding their convention in the Wells Fargo Arena!

I guess the media will go into collective withdrawal after Election Day. What on earth will there be to talk about? Oh, I know: the rising stars who will run for president in 2020.

It finally dawned on me what Trump reminded me of last night: a snorting rhinoceros in a cage, his hooves pawing the ground under cover of the podium. The guy finally snapped on live TV. Will his performance turn off his fans? Probably not.

Let's Go Mets!

Jay–Ottawa said...

Rhinoceros? Did I hear someone say rhinoceros? Much more logic expected from that old play than in last night's debate.


Logician: If you take six paws from the two cats, how many paws are left to each cat?

Old Gentleman: We could have one cat with 6 paws and one cat with no paws at all.

Logician: In that case, one cat would be especially privileged.

Old Gentleman: And one under-privileged cat deprived of all paws.

[then again]

Daisy: … perhaps it is we who need saving. Perhaps we are the abnormal ones.

Rhinoceros, Eugene Ionesco

Meredith NYC said...

on Cspan---very interesting video tonight --UK leader of labor party, Jeremy Corbyn's fiery! keynote speech---with actual policy content--- at Labor's annual conference in Liverpool---see the faces of the thousands of supporters for liberal policies. I can't detect any cynicism.

It's a party that looks organized, and isn't just Tory-lite, like our Dems are often Gop-lite. Can they win? Of course nothing is perfect but at least they aren't dependent on the wealthy to run for office. So they're 'freed up'.

But have many of the same problems as the US.

Also Frank Bruni's satire on Sympathy for Trumpf is really hits the nail. It's the funniest column on Trump by anyone. Bruni assumes the persona of a poor nyt columnist, just trying to crank out a column, but everything is rigged against him, in the paranoid parlance of Trumpf.

I guess Bruni's past dinners with Trump gave him the authentic sounding lingo.

Meredith NYC said...

Though I’m avoiding Trump news, I’d like to see what Robt Reich has to say to Newt Gingrich on this debate:

Cspan, Thursday, 7pm.
Munk Debate---Focuses on Donald Trump's Candidacy in 2016
1 hour, 30 minutes
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and syndicated talk show host Laura Ingraham debate former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and former Governor Jennifer Granholm in the semi-annual Munk Debate. The debate’s topic is Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2016.

Jay–Ottawa said...

"What happens when domestic terrorism, disposability, and social death become the new signposts and defining features of a society?"

That's just a sample of Paul Giroux's paragraph of questions leading off a long essay just posted on CounterPunch. (Heavy duty stuff with 20 footnotes.) The answer to the above question, I suspect, is the life we're living.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/30/thinking-dangerously-in-the-age-of-normalized-ignorance/

It is legal, starting this year, for people who once went first and last (and apparently only) to the New York Times for news and opinion––and real estate bargains starting at only $2 million + ––to reassess, diversify and reprioritize their line up of news sources and opinion. (Sorry, I begin to use big verbs like that every time I come away from reading Giroux.) His prose may lack wings because it's so heavy with ideas expressed in old-fashioned academic terminology. Because the essay is found on CounterPunch, it must be worth the trouble. CounterPunch: the op-ed page for people fed up with the op-ed page of a certain daily in New York City.

Meredith NYC said...

Newt vs Reich!
The Munk Debate from Canada is on cspan2 now 7pm, Friday, repeat 1118pm.

Topic – be it resolved, “ Donald Trump will make American great again.”

The audience poll starts out at only 14% pro, 86% against!
Pro--Gingrich and Ingraham vs Against--Robt Reich and Jennifer Granholm.

The audience will vote at the end to see if anyone changed their mind.

Reich is giving us his usual intelligence and humor from the start.

voice-in-wilderness said...

Great suggested caption. Even with Photoshop, it would be hard to come up with a more incongruous image!

annenigma said...

Breaking News: The AP is set to announce that Hillary Clinton is the winner of the 2016 Presidential election. The announcement is pending approval($) by the Clinton Machine. Stay tuned.