It went about the way I expected. Jim Dave is a Yalie, a lawyer, and a debate team guy. So I expected him to come over smooth rather than ranting that everyone with darker skin than a paper bag should be deported and women should wear electrified collars to stop them from leaving the yard.
Vance “won” in the sense he’s a better debater and he mostly avoided stepping on his own dick. But Walz didn’t blow it by any means, and none of this matters anyway. At this point it’s going to come down to what a few thousand of the most ill-informed voters in 7 or 8 states decide to do.
The guy who runs the @dick_nixon account on twitter referred to Vance as a "Bircher with a smooth face" who was setting himself up for 2028 rather than debating Walz. I think that's right.
He's hoping the MAGA coalition holds together until then and holds onto the party. Haley will be the choice of the never-Trump cowards, and DeSantis and Abbott will want the MAGA base for themselves. Root for injuries, lawsuits, and criminal charges.
Yeah, if Trump loses 2028 is going to be...interesting. There will be a real struggle to wrest the GOP away from Trumpism, but I think it will be a lost cause. Millions of conservatives are really enjoying participating in politics as if they were WWE fans, and I don't see their lust for bread and circuses evaporating anytime soon. It's also important to note that the vast majority of Trump supporters aren't the elderly but roughly Gen X: 45 to 65 year olds. They are going to be around for a while.
There's Trumpism, and there's Trump. Trump is the Bondo holding Trumpism together as a "movement". With Trump "gone", whatever that looks like, can a thug like DeSantis or Abbott pick up and hold enough of Trump's base to become an equivalent power broker in the party? Vance will offer himself as the unity candidate who can carry on Trumpism while being "a man we can do business with" for the never-Trump wing, a mix of Haley/Christie and Abbot/DeSantis, something for everyone. But the base will decide, because they are the true power in the Republican party. Who will they pick? No man knows the hour or manner of his coming, as Yogi Berra used to say about the playoffs.
Bwahahaha. Like there would be elections if Trump wins. The only thing keeping him out of prison is dying in bed as Dictator, er, um, President of the United States.
Hell, Orange Shitgibbon has already said as much "If you elect me in 2024, there won't be any more elections, we'll take care of that". Now the nimrods in the mainstream chortled and said, "aw, what a joker". I take Trump at his word. That will be the last election. JD Vance may well be the appointed successor (I think Don Jr. is more likely) but it is just that: "appointed".
But in uplifting news, liberals are buying more guns than ever before by a large margin. Good, good....oops, sorry, went Palpatine again.
He is 100% hoping exactly that. Have you seen Trump lately? It looks like his makeup is being applied by someone whose prior experience was as a mortician's cosmetologist.
If god forbid Trump wins, Jim Dave's daily thought bubble will be "soon....soon."
Oh, I don't know. Clogged arteries have a good shot at it. And as an amphetamine addict, Trump could easily overdo it at his age. Or MAGA Republicans can take Marksmanship training (as a qualified instructor I will cheerfully devote my time, gratis) maybe they can hit the broad side of a fat ass orange barn.
No, no, the deadpool on Drooling J. Trump is a varied and interesting collection.
From exposure to a real world situation, not necessarily Vance's cohort, I'm not so sure all the Republican Ivy grads were admitted on academic grounds. Apparently, Ivies drop their standards to ~0 for vets. And there was the legacy admission of GW Bush.
Being Republican POS, I'm not going waste my time doping out which may have been admitted on academic standards.
I'm going to add this morning that John Q. Public seems to disagree with the pundit class, who have almost uniformly been waxing lyrical about how Jim Dave became Vice President last night. Seems most people view the debate as more or less of a tie, and Walz saw his favorability go UP after the debate. People have formed their own opinions about Walz over the last two months, and they see him as an unshakably nice guy.
Boy, J D sure does like his common sense! Good ol' American Heartland common sense! Salt of the Earth common sense! We don't need perfessers and sy-en-tists to tell us about things! Just good COMMON SENSE.
Yes, the good old common sense of high muckity-muck pundits who, just because they're pundits, can tell you just what to think on everything from nuclear proliferation (for!) to housing policy (against!) to the latest Netflix sensation (trans commie propaganda!) When will some smart-aleck candidate run against our damned punditocracy?
Is it "common sense"? — or "I'm not quite sure of my evidence to make this claim, & if I gave you that evidence, would it make you think I was a horrible person?" sense?
Vance "won" in the sense that it was a draw. Walz's inherent decency served him poorly. DON'T nod in agreement, even if you agree. POUNCE on the opponent's bullshit. Walz seemed concerned to convince the audience of his true positions. That's a mistake. This is not a debate. It's a WWE showdown. Mock, deride, and disprove the opponent, and end with some virtuous cliches and talking points. Walz should have "won" more, but it doesn't matter. Now Harris and co. have Vance evading the question of who won in 2020. No harm, no foul. Onward and upward.
"Now Harris and co. have Vance evading the question of who won in 2020."
For a slick guy, he sure was clumsy and obvious during that moment. Walz lost an opportunity to emphasize what Vance had just done. But as you say, it can be used against Vance going forward.
"I'm focused on the future" seems like something a guy might say if his wife catches him cheating. "Why you gotta focus on the PAST, huh? I'm not fuckin' your sister RIGHT NOW, am I?"
How could he emphasize it more? Walz registered genuine shock at that answer and called it out more than once. Should he have delivered a Leapin' Larry Shane head kick?
He did again in his final statement. Again, he wasn't talking to us. We're in the bag. As Louie Prima said, "homeleebablezeebelebabelahomelebabelezeebelebop, but I need a majority".
Was there any way for Walz to "win"? What would that look like? Being an amoral well-educated thug, Vance was always gonna deliver his lies with panache, not MAGA spittle. He (and his handlers) knew who the audience were, and he delivered the purreed version of Common Sense and Eggs Cost More and illegals stealing your homes and jobs. No eating pets or Night of the Long Sporks, but let ICE "do their job", let's not bicker over what that job is. Walz was never gonna get a Perry Mason moment where Vance breaks down in tears, Vance is not capable of it. He (and the moderators, I liked where one of them said "thank you for explaining the legal process" to his bullshit about some magical Kamala form to fill out that grants illegals a house, job, and food stamps) called Vance's bullshit, including his refusal to say that Trump lost the 2020 election. Was Walz supposed to deliver a Bobo Brazil head butt?
Also, the commentators who grade these things like a high school debate tournament drive me nuts. Listen, nerds, nobody cares about how many debating points you scored. We have to put up with some bullshit like theater criticism, simply because there’s a performance aspect to politics and you have to be able to sell your positions to an audience. But no normal people give a crap about an academic forensics competition.
Especially when you think about the tiny minority who's still in play, who are in play because they don't give a shit about politics and will roll out of bed on Nov. 5, stumble to the polls and vote based on what the price of gas was THAT MORNING.
As an Iowan, I was screaming at my neighbor to the north, Tim Walz, to stop being so fucking nice! Why did he have to agree with Vance on so much? Gah.
Because, while Vance was lying his ass off, the actual words were reasonable. You can only scream "you lying fuck, you're lying about everything" so many times before the novelty wears off. Neither one of them were talking to their base, they were talking to the Great Wad, those independent voters who watch these puppet shows to "learn about the candidates". They were both desperately trying to sound "reasonable" because they and their handlers know that's what those voters want to hear.
As your neighbor to the northwest, one who is familiar with Iowa convenience stores, there’s a joke to be made about JD Vance naming his favorite couch “Kum & Go.”
As I just said on Bluesky, although I'm at work and didn't watch the debate, I am disappointed in the reactions I'm reading. Walz is the guy who pointed out how WEIRD these people are and I thought the Harris campaign recruited him to be on the attack. And with today's news in Israel, you're going to see both campaigns argue over who will kick Iran's ass harder and who do you think the idiots in this country will choose for that?
I saw somewhere else that Walz made the point that in perilous times like these, maybe not a good idea to elect a 78-year-old ranting about crowd sizes.
Meanwhile that very same guy 78-year-old guy was saying, ostensibly about Pete Rose, that he's dead and it's a shame and to remedy it he commands immediate installation in the Hall of Fame, saying "Do it now, before his funeral!” which sounds to me like he's really really worried about his own mortality, but maybe that's just me recognizing yet again a projection pattern...
In any movie where a family or town is getting fucked over by big business, the lead corporate lawyer is always a clever liar in an expensive suit. A soulless unfeeling sociopath.
And the worst of it is, the townsfolk being screwed by this particular slick corporate lawyer WANT to be screwed by a slick corporate lawyer because they think he'll protect them from what they've been told is really dangerous, like the cat-eating immigrants and the child-molesting trans folk and the Hollywood elites that churn out liberal humanist propaganda about how families and towns are being fucked over by slick lawyers in expensive suits rather than by demonic rootless cosmopolitans as all the best authorities from Compact and City Journal to your local preachers (all in the pockets of those slick lawyers) have been insisting ad nauseum for years. It's what you expect from a nation for whom politics, rather than a platform for reasoned deliberation about public affairs, has become the ultimate horror show.
As for us? Class liquidation looms, brothers and sisters...
Coincidentally, the Distraught Billionaires opened for Prince Regent Donaldo the 3rd on his triumphant return to Tour Trumpus during the interregnum, just before the damn thing collapsed under its own lack of connection to physical reality.
Cairo, Illinois and the rest of Little Fucking Egypt wouldn't be so bad off if they weren't so fucking bigoted, but that's a different story for a different day.
I loved Vance's touting of using "federal government land" to build housing. Yeah, the Badlands and the Great Stinking Desert and Cobalt Bomb Testing Site are prime development properties just needing that magic Trump touch.
Also too: J D wants to make the several states into "laboratories" for health care, among other things? Wow, Jim, go fuck yourself. We're talking about human lives.
"Health care has never been REALLY exploited for all its potential! When people die, alla their health problems magically go away! We need to build on that model!"
We watched 2 guys who listened to their handlers and delivered their messages. I loved that on one question to Vance he followed the Harris playbook and ignored the question to deliver his bio. Walz did that too whe he got a gotcha question about being at Tienniman Sqare, so Both Sides! I've seen lots of complaints about Walz being agreeable and talking about agreeing about winning and losing, but that was more consultant talk. The great Wad of American voters just want Mom and Dad to stop fighting, and frankly a Republican party willing to admit they lose elections once in a while would be a huge step up from where we are now. Despite the hunger for a Final Battle on the plains of Armageddon we're going to be dealing with this shit until the cleansing fire of a global depression clarifies things for the "independent voter", just like 1932.
My wife said "don't let me like Vance". I tried to explain about the mechanics of debate societies and rhetoric to explain what he was doing, but when they got to abortion she was all "fuck this guy". This was the poster cchild of debates that changed nobody's mind.
Vance did worse than people are gonna say. He had to force every topic through a weird sieve. He did better than most people would have, but it was forced — the substance, not the delivery.
Take the question re: child care. The mod quoted Trump to him. (That notable quote where Trump veered at once into nonsense about raking in money from tariffs.) Vance chose to explain what the doddering imbecile supposedly meant re: child care. Once translated it's a shitty point not worth the time.
"Empowering" the police and border patrol came up 2-3 times. Clear enough to fascists.
His material on censorship was clumsily delivered, and likely meaningless outside the MAGA-sphere.
Vance's closing statement was poor. He claimed they hadn't talked about energy (they had), then wasted some time on his way to kitchen table issues. He sounded like a lawyer playing a serious human who cares. He lost my attention, which isn't easy in this context. Walz's closer was superior.
God, I dread the blog trolling tomorrow. What I'm seeing is people wanting some kind of Grand Melee where the "debaters" put on some kind of work where chairs and fake punches get thrown, culminatjng in some "you're damn right I ordered the Code Red" moment. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. Walz and Vance did what they were told to do, because the goal for both of them was to not fuck up, for 2 very different definitions of "fuck up". Vance appeared sane, and Walz did not frighten the children. Walz called out his lies, and Vance did not give a fuck. Did you expect America's Dad to grab a Louisville Slugger and go after ol JD?
I was asleep before it even started, then at 9 I woke and watched highlights of the day's Champions League preliminary round, then eventually remembered the debate thingy around 9:30 and figured out how to turn it on just in time for the ritual decommissioning of the microphones when JD would not
FFS, it's VP candidates, not POTUS candidates where one's FPOTUS, the other current VP. So who cares about policy questions since their potential influence on policy, I mean, please.
As for fact checking and general journalistic action, with O'Donnell involved, no one who's familiar with her should have expected anything.
Which is to say, I missed the debate and IMO missed nothing.
If elected or otherwise restored to office, Vance doesn’t do anything beyond maybe helping Trump with a grift with Thiel (or vice versa) unless Trump dies.
Maybe more relevantly, can’t see any debate shedding any more light on Vance than shedded by his acts.
Lasted to the first break: couldn't listen to Vance any more last night...still not sure why we're supposed to hold Walz accountable for the Tien an min massacre.
In my 4 AM rewatch:
The last five minutes where Vance tried to claim Donnie transferred power peacefully we're probably the most consequential, and the moderator slapdown on "they aren't illegal Hatians" a fine bit...
It went about the way I expected. Jim Dave is a Yalie, a lawyer, and a debate team guy. So I expected him to come over smooth rather than ranting that everyone with darker skin than a paper bag should be deported and women should wear electrified collars to stop them from leaving the yard.
Vance “won” in the sense he’s a better debater and he mostly avoided stepping on his own dick. But Walz didn’t blow it by any means, and none of this matters anyway. At this point it’s going to come down to what a few thousand of the most ill-informed voters in 7 or 8 states decide to do.
Yeah, Walz trying to punch his way through Fascist Jello is not going to look good to the Great Uninformed, but he has to try it anyway.
The guy who runs the @dick_nixon account on twitter referred to Vance as a "Bircher with a smooth face" who was setting himself up for 2028 rather than debating Walz. I think that's right.
He's hoping the MAGA coalition holds together until then and holds onto the party. Haley will be the choice of the never-Trump cowards, and DeSantis and Abbott will want the MAGA base for themselves. Root for injuries, lawsuits, and criminal charges.
Well, maybe if I were an ambulance-chaser...
Yeah, if Trump loses 2028 is going to be...interesting. There will be a real struggle to wrest the GOP away from Trumpism, but I think it will be a lost cause. Millions of conservatives are really enjoying participating in politics as if they were WWE fans, and I don't see their lust for bread and circuses evaporating anytime soon. It's also important to note that the vast majority of Trump supporters aren't the elderly but roughly Gen X: 45 to 65 year olds. They are going to be around for a while.
There's Trumpism, and there's Trump. Trump is the Bondo holding Trumpism together as a "movement". With Trump "gone", whatever that looks like, can a thug like DeSantis or Abbott pick up and hold enough of Trump's base to become an equivalent power broker in the party? Vance will offer himself as the unity candidate who can carry on Trumpism while being "a man we can do business with" for the never-Trump wing, a mix of Haley/Christie and Abbot/DeSantis, something for everyone. But the base will decide, because they are the true power in the Republican party. Who will they pick? No man knows the hour or manner of his coming, as Yogi Berra used to say about the playoffs.
Bwahahaha. Like there would be elections if Trump wins. The only thing keeping him out of prison is dying in bed as Dictator, er, um, President of the United States.
Hell, Orange Shitgibbon has already said as much "If you elect me in 2024, there won't be any more elections, we'll take care of that". Now the nimrods in the mainstream chortled and said, "aw, what a joker". I take Trump at his word. That will be the last election. JD Vance may well be the appointed successor (I think Don Jr. is more likely) but it is just that: "appointed".
But in uplifting news, liberals are buying more guns than ever before by a large margin. Good, good....oops, sorry, went Palpatine again.
He could also be hoping that Trump wins and then drops dead, allowing him to take over without having to earn it.
He is 100% hoping exactly that. Have you seen Trump lately? It looks like his makeup is being applied by someone whose prior experience was as a mortician's cosmetologist.
If god forbid Trump wins, Jim Dave's daily thought bubble will be "soon....soon."
It's just a matter of who dies first. Whether through hanging or chronic syphilis.
Oh, I don't know. Clogged arteries have a good shot at it. And as an amphetamine addict, Trump could easily overdo it at his age. Or MAGA Republicans can take Marksmanship training (as a qualified instructor I will cheerfully devote my time, gratis) maybe they can hit the broad side of a fat ass orange barn.
No, no, the deadpool on Drooling J. Trump is a varied and interesting collection.
Ah, the Ivy...
From exposure to a real world situation, not necessarily Vance's cohort, I'm not so sure all the Republican Ivy grads were admitted on academic grounds. Apparently, Ivies drop their standards to ~0 for vets. And there was the legacy admission of GW Bush.
Being Republican POS, I'm not going waste my time doping out which may have been admitted on academic standards.
I'm going to add this morning that John Q. Public seems to disagree with the pundit class, who have almost uniformly been waxing lyrical about how Jim Dave became Vice President last night. Seems most people view the debate as more or less of a tie, and Walz saw his favorability go UP after the debate. People have formed their own opinions about Walz over the last two months, and they see him as an unshakably nice guy.
Boy, J D sure does like his common sense! Good ol' American Heartland common sense! Salt of the Earth common sense! We don't need perfessers and sy-en-tists to tell us about things! Just good COMMON SENSE.
Common sense is what tells you the Earth is flat.
THIS. Sarah Palin used to invoke "common sense" and I used to think the same thing: so the Earth is flat? Got it.
Yes, the good old common sense of high muckity-muck pundits who, just because they're pundits, can tell you just what to think on everything from nuclear proliferation (for!) to housing policy (against!) to the latest Netflix sensation (trans commie propaganda!) When will some smart-aleck candidate run against our damned punditocracy?
Make America Gonzo Again!
Is it "common sense"? — or "I'm not quite sure of my evidence to make this claim, & if I gave you that evidence, would it make you think I was a horrible person?" sense?
They're always too sure of their evidence not to make that claim.
Vance "won" in the sense that it was a draw. Walz's inherent decency served him poorly. DON'T nod in agreement, even if you agree. POUNCE on the opponent's bullshit. Walz seemed concerned to convince the audience of his true positions. That's a mistake. This is not a debate. It's a WWE showdown. Mock, deride, and disprove the opponent, and end with some virtuous cliches and talking points. Walz should have "won" more, but it doesn't matter. Now Harris and co. have Vance evading the question of who won in 2020. No harm, no foul. Onward and upward.
"Now Harris and co. have Vance evading the question of who won in 2020."
For a slick guy, he sure was clumsy and obvious during that moment. Walz lost an opportunity to emphasize what Vance had just done. But as you say, it can be used against Vance going forward.
"I'm focused on the future" seems like something a guy might say if his wife catches him cheating. "Why you gotta focus on the PAST, huh? I'm not fuckin' your sister RIGHT NOW, am I?"
Hearted, but oof.
Homer Simpson: Oh Marge, stop living in the past!
How could he emphasize it more? Walz registered genuine shock at that answer and called it out more than once. Should he have delivered a Leapin' Larry Shane head kick?
You may be right. I thought he only called it out once, and not forcefully enough. He registered shock, yes.
He did again in his final statement. Again, he wasn't talking to us. We're in the bag. As Louie Prima said, "homeleebablezeebelebabelahomelebabelezeebelebop, but I need a majority".
Louie needed Yogi for translations.
The answer is always Leapin' Larry Shane head kick
Was there any way for Walz to "win"? What would that look like? Being an amoral well-educated thug, Vance was always gonna deliver his lies with panache, not MAGA spittle. He (and his handlers) knew who the audience were, and he delivered the purreed version of Common Sense and Eggs Cost More and illegals stealing your homes and jobs. No eating pets or Night of the Long Sporks, but let ICE "do their job", let's not bicker over what that job is. Walz was never gonna get a Perry Mason moment where Vance breaks down in tears, Vance is not capable of it. He (and the moderators, I liked where one of them said "thank you for explaining the legal process" to his bullshit about some magical Kamala form to fill out that grants illegals a house, job, and food stamps) called Vance's bullshit, including his refusal to say that Trump lost the 2020 election. Was Walz supposed to deliver a Bobo Brazil head butt?
Yes.
"Bobo Brazil head butt" sounds even better than the first attack so double yes
Also, the commentators who grade these things like a high school debate tournament drive me nuts. Listen, nerds, nobody cares about how many debating points you scored. We have to put up with some bullshit like theater criticism, simply because there’s a performance aspect to politics and you have to be able to sell your positions to an audience. But no normal people give a crap about an academic forensics competition.
Especially when you think about the tiny minority who's still in play, who are in play because they don't give a shit about politics and will roll out of bed on Nov. 5, stumble to the polls and vote based on what the price of gas was THAT MORNING.
I'm with Talia Lavin. I'm worried sick.
As an Iowan, I was screaming at my neighbor to the north, Tim Walz, to stop being so fucking nice! Why did he have to agree with Vance on so much? Gah.
Because, while Vance was lying his ass off, the actual words were reasonable. You can only scream "you lying fuck, you're lying about everything" so many times before the novelty wears off. Neither one of them were talking to their base, they were talking to the Great Wad, those independent voters who watch these puppet shows to "learn about the candidates". They were both desperately trying to sound "reasonable" because they and their handlers know that's what those voters want to hear.
"it's our Wad and we're here to speak to it!"
That’s why I was hoping Walz would use the Reagan tactic: a sad shrug and “There he goes again….”, etc.
As your neighbor to the northwest, one who is familiar with Iowa convenience stores, there’s a joke to be made about JD Vance naming his favorite couch “Kum & Go.”
I prefer Casey's. They have The Best pizza. Lol
Vance: "What President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020."
That's like saying that Hitler liked Germans and Germany very much.
"Look, all Comrade Stalin is saying is that there are problems with the Kulaks."
Look, all I'm sayin' is that there are problems with the Americans, is all I'm sayin'.
As I just said on Bluesky, although I'm at work and didn't watch the debate, I am disappointed in the reactions I'm reading. Walz is the guy who pointed out how WEIRD these people are and I thought the Harris campaign recruited him to be on the attack. And with today's news in Israel, you're going to see both campaigns argue over who will kick Iran's ass harder and who do you think the idiots in this country will choose for that?
I saw somewhere else that Walz made the point that in perilous times like these, maybe not a good idea to elect a 78-year-old ranting about crowd sizes.
Meanwhile that very same guy 78-year-old guy was saying, ostensibly about Pete Rose, that he's dead and it's a shame and to remedy it he commands immediate installation in the Hall of Fame, saying "Do it now, before his funeral!” which sounds to me like he's really really worried about his own mortality, but maybe that's just me recognizing yet again a projection pattern...
Really goin' for the "geezer enraged by change who can't remember where his Social Security comes from" vote.
He wants us to believe that the very first pardon as 47 would be before the Baseball Hall of Fame...
Oo. Planting the seed.
Just like Trump to focus on the issues that really matter.
Game recognize game.
Safe bet…
In any movie where a family or town is getting fucked over by big business, the lead corporate lawyer is always a clever liar in an expensive suit. A soulless unfeeling sociopath.
That was Vance tonight
Professional Liar Performs Satisfactorily in Lying Exhibition
Liar On Paper, Liar On TV, Liar In Congress
He lies a lot, is what we're sayin'.
And hopefully, post election, Outliar.
And the worst of it is, the townsfolk being screwed by this particular slick corporate lawyer WANT to be screwed by a slick corporate lawyer because they think he'll protect them from what they've been told is really dangerous, like the cat-eating immigrants and the child-molesting trans folk and the Hollywood elites that churn out liberal humanist propaganda about how families and towns are being fucked over by slick lawyers in expensive suits rather than by demonic rootless cosmopolitans as all the best authorities from Compact and City Journal to your local preachers (all in the pockets of those slick lawyers) have been insisting ad nauseum for years. It's what you expect from a nation for whom politics, rather than a platform for reasoned deliberation about public affairs, has become the ultimate horror show.
As for us? Class liquidation looms, brothers and sisters...
I WANNA live next to Love Canal and smoke myself to death in PEACE!
If we don't go along with this Republican plan, think how much WORSE the Democrats will make it with their higher taxes on billionaires.
Coincidentally, the Distraught Billionaires opened for Prince Regent Donaldo the 3rd on his triumphant return to Tour Trumpus during the interregnum, just before the damn thing collapsed under its own lack of connection to physical reality.
Did I mention that last time I went to Niagara Falls, I stayed in a motel abutting the Love Canal Forbidden Zone?
"They ask about the pledge to build three million new homes and why that wouldn’t just drive prices up."
Yeah, if you increase the supply of something, the price should... hold on, I've got a call from Adam Smith on Line 1.
These fuckknobs will readily contradict themselves to try and score cheap debate points.
Also, that increasing housing prices is a sign of a growing city rather than a dying city is a Truth That Cannot Be Spoken.
"Yeah, let's elect a guy who can make housing prices go DOWN instead of UP! That'll be GREAT!" Sure, move to Cairo, Illinois and see how you like it.
Cairo, Illinois and the rest of Little Fucking Egypt wouldn't be so bad off if they weren't so fucking bigoted, but that's a different story for a different day.
Yeah. I just picked it as a random example of places where you don't have to wait in line at the DMV.
I loved Vance's touting of using "federal government land" to build housing. Yeah, the Badlands and the Great Stinking Desert and Cobalt Bomb Testing Site are prime development properties just needing that magic Trump touch.
Well, it worked in 1870, didn't it?
The Conestoga wagon manufacturers ain't got enough subsidies already?
Until all the people trying to eke out an existence farming in a desert said "Fuck this!" and moved to California.
…to farm in the desert…
You got me there, what the fuck do I know about farming?
Oh, but don’t you know rain follows the plow? (Back then, they really believed that shit.
Rain-makers, maybe...
The federal lands left are the stuff the suckers wouldn't take for free.
CIVILIZATION, HOOOOO!
Gittcher unseen hand offa me!
Also too: J D wants to make the several states into "laboratories" for health care, among other things? Wow, Jim, go fuck yourself. We're talking about human lives.
Spoken like someone with a lifetime, gold-plated Congressional health care plan. What's not covered will be covered by his owner, Der Blutgraf.
"Health care has never been REALLY exploited for all its potential! When people die, alla their health problems magically go away! We need to build on that model!"
Needed to be delivered with a German accent. Next up, the housing possibilities offered by some of our deeper mineshafts!
Wherein real estate interests disprove the First Law Of Holes.
We watched 2 guys who listened to their handlers and delivered their messages. I loved that on one question to Vance he followed the Harris playbook and ignored the question to deliver his bio. Walz did that too whe he got a gotcha question about being at Tienniman Sqare, so Both Sides! I've seen lots of complaints about Walz being agreeable and talking about agreeing about winning and losing, but that was more consultant talk. The great Wad of American voters just want Mom and Dad to stop fighting, and frankly a Republican party willing to admit they lose elections once in a while would be a huge step up from where we are now. Despite the hunger for a Final Battle on the plains of Armageddon we're going to be dealing with this shit until the cleansing fire of a global depression clarifies things for the "independent voter", just like 1932.
My wife said "don't let me like Vance". I tried to explain about the mechanics of debate societies and rhetoric to explain what he was doing, but when they got to abortion she was all "fuck this guy". This was the poster cchild of debates that changed nobody's mind.
Vance did worse than people are gonna say. He had to force every topic through a weird sieve. He did better than most people would have, but it was forced — the substance, not the delivery.
Take the question re: child care. The mod quoted Trump to him. (That notable quote where Trump veered at once into nonsense about raking in money from tariffs.) Vance chose to explain what the doddering imbecile supposedly meant re: child care. Once translated it's a shitty point not worth the time.
"Empowering" the police and border patrol came up 2-3 times. Clear enough to fascists.
His material on censorship was clumsily delivered, and likely meaningless outside the MAGA-sphere.
Vance's closing statement was poor. He claimed they hadn't talked about energy (they had), then wasted some time on his way to kitchen table issues. He sounded like a lawyer playing a serious human who cares. He lost my attention, which isn't easy in this context. Walz's closer was superior.
God, I dread the blog trolling tomorrow. What I'm seeing is people wanting some kind of Grand Melee where the "debaters" put on some kind of work where chairs and fake punches get thrown, culminatjng in some "you're damn right I ordered the Code Red" moment. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. Walz and Vance did what they were told to do, because the goal for both of them was to not fuck up, for 2 very different definitions of "fuck up". Vance appeared sane, and Walz did not frighten the children. Walz called out his lies, and Vance did not give a fuck. Did you expect America's Dad to grab a Louisville Slugger and go after ol JD?
I wanted him to run over Vance with his '79 International.
Look, all we want is an episode of The West Wing, is that asking too much?
Thank you for what’s probably the most accurate account of a debate I couldn’t bear to watch. All the love.
I was asleep before it even started, then at 9 I woke and watched highlights of the day's Champions League preliminary round, then eventually remembered the debate thingy around 9:30 and figured out how to turn it on just in time for the ritual decommissioning of the microphones when JD would not
Shut
The
Fuck
Up.
FFS, it's VP candidates, not POTUS candidates where one's FPOTUS, the other current VP. So who cares about policy questions since their potential influence on policy, I mean, please.
As for fact checking and general journalistic action, with O'Donnell involved, no one who's familiar with her should have expected anything.
Which is to say, I missed the debate and IMO missed nothing.
All true, but voting for Trump kinda means voting for Vance for POTUS because Trump is old and enfeebled.
If elected or otherwise restored to office, Vance doesn’t do anything beyond maybe helping Trump with a grift with Thiel (or vice versa) unless Trump dies.
Maybe more relevantly, can’t see any debate shedding any more light on Vance than shedded by his acts.
Maybe it all matters for the uninformed…
"unless Trump dies"
This is a VERY large "unless."
Lasted to the first break: couldn't listen to Vance any more last night...still not sure why we're supposed to hold Walz accountable for the Tien an min massacre.
In my 4 AM rewatch:
The last five minutes where Vance tried to claim Donnie transferred power peacefully we're probably the most consequential, and the moderator slapdown on "they aren't illegal Hatians" a fine bit...
CBS talking head: "For the record, Haitians in Springfield are there legally"
Jefferson Davis Vance: "Wah! You said you wouldn't do that! Wah!"
CBS talking head: "OK snowflake"