The third presidential debate is a freak show preordained. https://t.co/PLahRN9aXh
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) October 22, 2020
Still a non-neglible chance, IMO, that the Squatter-in-Chief either can’t or won’t step up come 9pm.
I’m too old and my blood pressure is too high to watch this charade, but no doubt there will be plenty of social-media repartee to share afterwards.
For those of you with more stamina, the Verge has the info:
… The debate will air on every major news network and be live-streamed online by a range of channels. On YouTube, you can find debate streams from C-Span, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, and PBS, among others…
[Moderator Kristen] Welker has named the following six issues as the general topics for the debate, to be given roughly 15 minutes each.
– Fighting COVID-19
– American Families
– Race in America
– Climate Change
– National Security
– Leadership
The first debate was widely criticized as unruly and unpleasant, driven in large part by persistent interruptions by Trump. In response, debate organizers will now give candidates two minutes of uninterrupted time to address each of the major topics, during which time their opponent’s microphone will be silenced. The opponent will be able to respond at the close of those questions, and crosstalk will be allowed after the opening statement has been completed.
Side note, FWIW: Edward Snowden has just been granted permanent residency in Russia, so it looks like at least one interested observer doesn’t expect Trump to have pardoning power much longer.
debbie
Or Trump requested a roommate ahead of time.
SoupCatcher
I only care about one thing: Joe Biden is as healthy at the end of the debate as he was at the start.
cain
@debbie:
Lies – we know Trump doesn’t share.
TS (the original)
@debbie:
Edward Snowden – another reason no-one should ever trust Glen Greenwald.
germy
And the president will pivot from that to LAW AND ORDER.
Wallace, the last moderator, actually linked the two topics. Didn’t even wait for Trump to do it.
Baud
I’m against them.
mrmoshpotato
Third debate, Brother Charlie? Did fate mercifully make me accidentally miss one of these piles of orange excrement?
JPL
@SoupCatcher: More likely that trump won’t be. just sayin
germy
@mrmoshpotato: 2nd one was cancelled. It lives in limbo.
Baud
I don’t trust Welker.
Robmassing
I guess Snowden will have to get his pardon from Goldman Sachs
mrmoshpotato
Fixed.
Kay
Sherrod Brown is doing some kind of conference call/zoomy thing at 8 so I’m going to listen to that.
germy
HumboldtBlue
Trump will have To0ny Bobulinski!
Biden is toast.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: I’m sure Dump thinks he won that one and the 1945 World Series.
Cheryl Rofer
@SoupCatcher: Reports from both camps are that the candidates have been tested negative.
Jay
https://revealnews.org/episodes/an-adolescence-seized/
Baud
@germy:
I’m not a normie and even I don’t know who that is.
germy
kindness
Can we please get Greenwald to follow Snowden to Russia? I’m so sick of that guy.
mrmoshpotato
@HumboldtBlue: One of our betters already weighed in. (I wonder if this guy had a reputation to uphold before tonight.)
It’s gonna be bad. Joe should drop out now, obviously.
Another Scott
Mara Liason helpfully tells me that tonight is Donnie’s “last best hope”.**
To the Pain, Joe. To the Pain!!
Cheers,
Scott.
** – Somehow I think she’ll have some other ‘helpful’ advice for Donnie, and brilliant insights for NPR ATC listeners, after tonight as well.
HumboldtBlue
@germy:
I just watched that. What a disgusting woman, she’s lucky she didn’t get a kick to the head.
germy
mrmoshpotato
@kindness:
Before or after we fire Spleenwald into the Sun?
Baud
The CNN promo for the debate was awful. It was as if they were advertising a cage fight.
germy
@Another Scott:
Mara Liason is a republican tool disguised as a tote bagger.
dmsilev
I don’t profess to be any sort of political strategy genius, but I’m not seeing much of a ‘surprise’ in something that you announce hours ahead of time. Not to mention, even as a political junkie, my first reaction is ‘who the fuck is Tony Bobulinski?’.
Kay
germy
@mrmoshpotato:
Jay
https://www.wonkette.com/usps-pulls-all-postal-cops-off-streets-before-election-because-reasons
Baud
Biden probably knows Tony’s whole family and will ask him how cousin Mario is doing.
debbie
@Kay:
Loser Media LLC. That has a nice ring to it.
Baud
@Kay: Animal Planet is already taken.
Immanentize
@kindness: Bolsanaro might make that happen
germy
HumboldtBlue
Trump singing and dancing?
OK, here ya go.
piratedan
@mrmoshpotato: I’d be happy to let Greenwald off the hook, but only after he’s read three pages of why he’s an irredeemable fuckwit with that lede buried mid-paragraph mid-page after he’s paid his outstanding IRS balance and legal judgements against.
germy
@Immanentize:
Bolsanaro was told by Putin to leave Glenn alone.
He stirs up shit from the safety of his gated community and sometimes Tucker’s show while servants pick up dog shit from his compound.
James E Powell
@Baud:
And people wonder why I want these things cancelled forever.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Cage-match News Network?
What CNN trash will be slobbering all over Dump afterwards? Will tonight be the night Dump becomes President, Van Jones?
Immanentize
@germy: That remit has a time stamp.
germy
@dmsilev:
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Van Jones is awful. I hope he doesn’t recover his reputation in the post-Trump era.
jl
If we’re going to have Russian assets among us, I’d prefer Snowden’s mumbled platitudes and chin stroking, to Trump’s antics and crimes. Not sure to what extent Snowden is a Russian asset, I haven’t follow that affair that closely. Might be a deluded self-righteous goofball.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Trump just invited him as a guest, right? Do we know if he accepted? What kind of person would accept Trump’s invitation in the first place, imo?
The Moar You Know
We will never know, and likely the USG doesn’t know, but he must have given them an absolute treasure trove. Russians hate foreigners. Residency is not something lightly done.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Why is that?
mrmoshpotato
@germy: Oh. Shit.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@germy:
@Immanentize:
Speaking of Bolsonaro, I wonder how the Latin Trump is going to react to a potential Biden admin (fingers crossed)
HumboldtBlue
I can’t recall the last time I read an actual magazine, but TIME has decided this election is important.
Jay
@HumboldtBlue:
unfortunately, the Transit KKKops are too busy going after half a dozen fare-jumpers robbing transit of $27.80 in fares every day, to enforce the mask mandates,
spitting is classed as an assault, might even be classed as a hate crime due to the young man being BIPOC,
But as she was retreating, his response was probably not “reasonable use of minimal force”, which is required for a self defence, defence.
NotMax
The shirt is problematic for technical reasons so Dolt 45 will dramatically step away from the lectern to reveal Superman Underoos.
Wolf
For your enjoyment and Van Jones everlasting shame:
Less than an hour after Trump honored the widow of a slain NAVY Seal, the Democratic commentator suggested that the commander in chief had officially begun to look the part.
“He became President of the United States in that moment, period,” said Jones, after the evening’s most emotional point was replayed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
“That was one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics,” Jones added.
This comment has not aged well for him. But is funny as hell as a meme.
Yarrow
@Kay: How is this a “scoop” in any way? It’s been obvious that some version of Trump TV is their next step. Possibly beginning with turning OANN into Trump TV.
japa21
@WaterGirl: You need to ask yourself, “Is there anybody Baud DOES trust?”
randy khan
@Another Scott:
She’s not wrong. It just not much of a hope.
germy
@Jay:
The money they spend on the Transit KKKops, they could make fares free for everyone.
mrmoshpotato
Precisely why I mentioned him.
germy
“Today is the day Van Jones became a journalist.”
Elizabelle
So: Borat is counterprogramming the debate.
LATimes: Amid Giuliani controversy, Borat is hosting a live watch party. What could go wrong?
NotMax
Hm. “Kristen you ignorant slut” is on my official Nashville debate BINGO card.
:)
jl
All your base are belong to the Dutch.
@joshtpm
Trump’s Twitter account hacked after Dutch researcher guessed password
https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1319312818701819905
My Dutch friends periodically remind me of their humble saying ‘If it ain’t Dutch it ain’t worth much’.
Google translate says “Als het niet Nederlands is, is het niet veel waard” So, maybe that saying is only in English. Seems to apply to Dutch hackers, official and unofficial, government, academic and freelance.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
That’s a sitcom about incompatible roommates I am definitely not watching.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Hahaha. Definitely not watching now. Who’s up for some Nosferatu?
HumboldtBlue
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Ask that to Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Covid-Barrett.
germy
@mrmoshpotato:
why bring Rudy Giuliani into this?
jl
@mrmoshpotato: The original or the remake starring Giuliani? In in the original it was the damsel in distress in the bed, in the remake it’s Giuliani, an interesting artistic re-imaging of the piece.
mrmoshpotato
@Wolf: Wasn’t that moment the “Your dead husband knew what he was getting into.” moment? In other words, horrible, heartless and ghoulish.
West of the Rockies
@HumboldtBlue:
I know who Bo Belinski was, but not this Bob person.
Kay
@Yarrow:
It’s a scoop because it says so :)
I was just glad they’re making (other) plans after the election. The conservative grift sector is huge. Plenty of room for the Trumps. They can bleed the marks dry for all I care.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: He retired?
Kent
This debate is going to be all Hunter Biden character assassination. That’s all they got left since ANTIFA and anarchy cities didn’t push the needle last month.
Ultimately I think it’s a poor play for Trump because to make Ukraine stick you have to convince people that Joe Biden is actually corrupt and that he was running a Ukranian influence-peddling and bribery ring out of the office of the Vice President. That just doesn’t remotely comport with anyone’s image of Joe Biden. And his finances are completely transparent. If they actually had any evidence it would have been dragged out a year ago during impeachment.
Trump’s secret Chinese bank account from which he paid more tax to China than to the US is going to be fun to talk about when Trump starts talking about Biden’s corruption in China.
This debate is gonna be lit. I hope Biden has his game face on and is prepped to answer all this bullshit. He has a good team and seriously listens to them so I expect he is.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@jl:
I’ve seen some people saying to be skeptical of that Dutch researcher’s claims; that Twitter is disputing it. Honestly though, wouldn’t surprise me if Trump had such a laughably easy password for his twitter account
Ken
I’m hoping to gain his trust so that I can manage the campaign funds and PACs for the Baud! 2038! run. I have some brilliant innovations in mind.
burnspbesq
@germy:
How very un-Canadian.
That’s probably misdemeanor assault under B.C. law. It’ll be interesting to see how the “I feared for my life cuz she wasn’t wearing a mask” plays out.
Cameron
@Baud: You mean it won’t be? Shit, I’m not gonna bother watching, then.
HumboldtBlue
@mrmoshpotato:
I watched that in 6th grade after-school movie club and thank goodness it was during the afternoon cuz he creeped me the fuck out and I do not like horror movies of any sort.
Great movie though.
NotMax
@Kay
Jared’s already got the motto prepared. “We distort. You comply.”
dmsilev
@jl: The best part about that story was his password: maga2020! I guess 12345 was reserved for the lock on his luggage.
Kay
A person in the county party just called me “I assume we’re just going to listen to Sherrod?”- annoyed.
Yeah, we were all coming on to listen to you. So disappointed.
HeleninEire
Hi all. So generally I don’t watch debates. They’re often cringeworthy without assholes like Trump.
But I’ve had a great day. Was onboarded for a job, that quite frankly fell into my lap (although it’s with the City of NY so the paperwork was mind-boggling).
But..back to the topic. I’m contemplating getting myself a bottle of wine ALL FOR ME. So if you see me in the debate thread later beware….I’ve had a few. ?
HumboldtBlue
@West of the Rockies:
He’s somehow gonna force Biden into a tearful on-air apology and confession about his nefarious dealings with … someone.
That’s all I got.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I’ve seen her covering the White House on the Today show. She too often seems impressed with Trump’s antics.
TS (the original)
@HumboldtBlue:
She was lucky the man she spat on wasn’t a policeman. That could well have had fatal results
Edit: @Jay:
NotMax
@West of the Rockies
Well, he’s no Joe the Plumber.
;)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
Seriously. Where WAS Rudy with that laptop with child pr0n and evidence of Biden’s Ukraine corruption during impeachment? He supposedly had it for over a year, right? This is such a joke
I hope Trump’s mic gets cut off and he keeps going. I think I’ll bust a gut if I hear him faintly screaming in the background
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: So are people just mocking this guest even before the debate starts? I am taking this as mockery and not sincere concern, so please correct me if I’m wrong.
mrmoshpotato
@jl: Louise (bunny ears) disagrees.
WaterGirl
@Baud: hahaha
Baud
@NotMax:
Oh man. The warning signs have always been there, haven’t they?
Benw
There’s a non-zero chance the plan is for Ivanka to wheel a portable amp + mike onto the stage so Trump can talk over Biden, anyway. If that’s true, Jared and Rudy are squabbling over it right now because they can’t get the bluetooth to connect
HumboldtBlue
@Jay:
She earned that shove and again, she’s lucky she didn’t get a kick.
Kay
Someone alert Glenn Greenwald. The information doesn’t want to be freed.
NotMax
@HeleninEire
Yay! Sláinte and l’chaim!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Immanentize:
Is it wrong that I want Bolsonaro to personally see to the violent incarceration and oppression of Greenwald, and for his pleas for relief to the United States and the western world to be ignored because “gosh, Glenn, we don’t want to be neoliberal imperialists. That application of soft power is off limits.”
WaterGirl
@Baud: I voted for Nixon because I was sure that if this Watergate rumor thing were true it would be plastered everywhere, and there was a time that I liked Van Jones.
Bless me father, for I have sinned…
jimmirabob
Why do I get the feeling that tonight will be like watching the obnoxious old drunk guy at the bar trying to pick up suburban housewives at closing time?
Yarrow
@Baud: Agreed. She seems to take their statements and claims at face value and repeat them as fact. I like her less since they’ve promoted her to the weekend Today anchor position.
burnspbesq
@piratedan:
Greenie can go anywhere and do anything, if he survives five minutes in a locked room with Reality Winner.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: I have no idea who any of these people are.
Nina
OK, but what’s up with Mitch Mcconnell’s hands? https://www.themarysue.com/mitch-mcconnells-hands-twitter-speculation/
gene108
@Jay:
The immigration system needs to be rebuilt. Too much inhumanity for next to no gains in any societal metric like safety.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Jesus. I can’t believe you sunk McGovern.
Kent
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): A good smear works best when it is plausible and it is 90% true. Like the Hillary emails thing. She did have a private email server for government business in violation of State Dept. policy, and it was secretive, and it is plausible that she used it for secret government communications, and the Clintons are sort of secretive. The fact that other before and after her have done the same thing isn’t really an answer.
This Ukraine thing just ridiculous. Biden running a pay-to-play bribery scheme in the Ukraine? No one has plausibly even explained what he got paid and what the actual play was….the favor he did in exchange for cash. Best as I can tell, he somehow did some undisclosed favor for Burisma so his son could cash in or something. It’s just all ridiculous.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: I (and I’m sure Rebecca is too) am mocking the fact that Dump is having a seemingly random guy in attendance to try to rattle Biden.
As I said @22, (I wonder if this guy had a reputation to uphold before tonight.)
I don’t have a clue who this guy is, but am assuming he’s an alright guy who got roped into this shitshow.
I am definitely not mocking him. Now the Soviet shitpile mobster manbaby – soon to be 2-time loser of the popular vote…
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
Tony Bobulinski is some former associate of Hunter Biden.
Vinnie Boombatz is Rodney Dangerfield’s doctor.
Baud
@jimmirabob:
How long have you been spying on me?
Yarrow
@Baud: Since Van Jones is buddies with Javanka he can always get a job at Trump TV. He can take his other buddies, Kim Kardashian-West, Kanye, and Tulsi Gabbard with him. Traitors of a feather flock together.
piratedan
@burnspbesq: I’d pay to see that tbh…. greenie has always been one of the most disingenuous bastards out there dealing in bad faith arguments. I would have to admit that I would relish the opportunity to have someone withdraw a pound of flesh from him for his misdeeds.
WaterGirl
@japa21: Me? she asked, meekly? I thought he trusted me.
Dan B
Bannon announces scoop that Christopher Wray will be replaced with Ghouliani.
I feels sad for agents.
Sm*t Cl*de
@The Moar You Know:
Russian residency is being granted with increasing ease, on account of the population decline.
James E Powell
@Kay:
I just want Lesley Stahl to show us every page of that book.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg36PU96U0w
James E Powell
@Kay:
I just want Lesley Stahl to show us every page of that book.
gene108
@Nina:
Phlebotomist had trouble finding a vein to draw blood. Stuck him multiple times. Mitch bruises easily.
That’s my best guess.
Cameron
@zhena gogolia: No, no – I’m pretty sure Bobulinski was a star linebacker at Penn State….or am I thinking of Frederick Douglass?
WaterGirl
@HeleninEire: You fell into a great job in Ireland, too, as I recall. You must be very good at what you do! Nice to see you, by the way.
WaterGirl
@Baud: thanks. and ugh.
HumboldtBlue
@WaterGirl:
It’s definitely mockery. It’s another stupid stunt from the people who make it a daily routine of stepping on their dicks.
James E Powell
@zhena gogolia:
And Baba Booey is an alter ego of Gary Dell’Abate on the Howard Stern show.
Citizen Alan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Didn’t some poor kid get sent to prison for “hacking” Sarah Palin’s account by correctly guessing that “Wasilla” was the answer for “where did you meet your spouse?” Even though in the process, he exposed her as having illegally used private email for government business for government business for which she paid no penalty?
Kent
I want him to try to fly to Russia but then get his visa denied, so that he is like that Tom Hanks movie The Terminal where he is stuck the rest of his live in limbo in a backwater international airport in Ukraine taking sponge baths in the bathroom and sleeping on the airport terminal carpet because he can’t go on or go back.
Baud
@HeleninEire:
Hi!
mrmoshpotato
@HumboldtBlue: You watched Spongebob Squarepants in an after-school movie club in 6th grade? ?
Scene below deck where Nosferatu rises stiff as a board! Ekk!
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: Lovely to see you back.
And yeah. I am no Kristen Welker fan either. She seems … complicit. Plus NBC. Do not trust that network.
Omnes Omnibus
@japa21: Baud trusts me. If that doesn’t give you pause, nothing will.
Kent
As long as you are white and have $$$
WaterGirl
@Baud: My friend Robin Atlas tried to tell me but I just didn’t believe it. We had the punch ballot voting back then and I always thought it might have been better to have stabbed my hand by accident instead of voting for Nixon.
Robin was older than I was, and she always had the best dope.
HumboldtBlue
@burnspbesq:
I think it was self-defense because that nasty woman spit on him and that’s assault and generally people will respond to a physical assault with physical means of their own.
HeleninEire
@NotMax: go raibh maith agat.
Emma from FL
@Kent: The Hillary email thing wasn’t even close to 50% true. She had to use a private email because the security of the government email servers was notoriously shit. She did it on the advice of at least one previous secretary of state. Her server was the ONLY ONE never hacked during the Russian attacks. And she turned over everything to the investigators. AND the jerks never found a damn thing.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Gee, it’s almost like that hard drive doesn’t exist. Again, why was Giuliani sitting on it during impeachment?
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: I’ll mock anyone who signs up for the Trumptanic at this point. No decent person would.
jl
<a href=”#comment-7916929″>@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)</a>:
The researcher claims to have receipts and is showing them off. I don’t know enough to judge.
President Trump’s Twitter accessed by security expert who guessed password ‘maga2020!’
Techcrunch, Zack Whittaker
https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/dutch-hacker-trump-twitter-account-password/
mrmoshpotato
@HeleninEire:
Exception for when Elizabeth Warren slapped Michael Bloomberg all over the DNC debates. :)
jimmirabob
@Baud:
As a young I used to play in R&R bands. I’ve seen it all. Done a lot too.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
At least you got better.
HeleninEire
@WaterGirl: Nice to be here! Yeah. I do very few things well but getting jobs…dunno what I have, if I did I would bottle and sell it. I think the fact that I’m in a niche business helps.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Wow, I had forgotten how greasy looking he was!
Kent
Wow….best and brightest. Over 1/2 million in cash is the eye-opener here. Child porn on 8 different electronic devices? That seems more in profile. About as bright as the woman who carved a backwards B on her face to accuse Obama thugs of disfiguring her, because she did it to herself in the mirror.
Ken
@gene108: I suppose that’s more plausible than post-mortem lividity or necrosis.
burnspbesq
The Chinese bank account is a minefield for Trump. He’s likely to admit to a felony (willful failure to file FBARs, which is what Manafort went down for).
jl
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): IIRC, the thing is a huge pdf of the email texts. No meta data at all, none of the info that you would see in real email files.
And, I am no techie, but the idea of storing emails on huge scanned pdf files seems bizarre. Even assuming there is a hard drive, it probably just has this big pdf sitting on it, and bunch of random stuff.
Would be nice if there were a hard drive, if Trumpsters were in charge of a lot of the mechanics, I doubt they wiped it properly.
HeleninEire
@Baud: HI!!! I’ve been lotsa lurking so I’ve been watching you. Just don’t have much to say.
HumboldtBlue
For those who will eschew watching the debate, here’s David Mamet writing about Patrick O’Brian and it’s nice to know a literary giant like Mamet is just as much as a simpering fan boy as myself.
mrmoshpotato
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Walks to the edge of the stage and starts yelling at the moderator about how he’s being treated so unfairly, unbigly and definitely untremendous.
WaterGirl
@HeleninEire: Speaking of bottles, if the debate gets rally bad I will have to break out a bottle of wine and some potato chips. For some reason, crunching potato chips is helpful when I am stressed.
Kent
Point being, they were able to make the scandal stick because most of the facts were not in dispute, just the context. It was just benign ordinary stuff, not malicious. In the case of Joe Biden taking bribes, NONE of the facts are true. There is not one single thing he has been alleged to have done that is true.
And, of course it still took Comey to seal the deal.
HumboldtBlue
@HeleninEire:
Did you ever find a partner?
Yarrow
@gene108: His lips also look kind of weirdly blue. And his right hand/wrist is swollen. Something ain’t right.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
The Republicans are stringing together three actual facts: Hunter worked for Burisma, Burisma was corrupt, and Joe encouraged Ukraine to fire their chief prosecutor, one of whose jobs was to investigate official corruption. The key problem with the story is with #3. The Republicans are trying to spin that into Joe Biden personally bullying Ukraine into firing their prosecutor to protect Burisma, but
So if Joe Biden was trying to protect Hunter and some kind of nefarious Ukrainian shakedown operation, he went about it exactly ass backward.
Baud
@HeleninEire:
I wish I knew. I would have been on better behavior.
mrmoshpotato
@Benw:
One of those playschool megaphones that can record.
“WRONG!” “SAD!” “LOSER!”
Emma from FL
@Kent: Oh, I agree with you. But it pisses me off and it will piss me off forever into my afterlife what the fucking media did.
HeleninEire
@burnspbesq: Ugh. I remember Manafort’s lawyer’s defense “Oh they are sooo arduous to complete.”
I completed them for the 3 years I was in Ireland. The questions were:
1. What’s your name and address?
2. What’s your bank’s name and address?
3. How much you got?
And they even provided a calculator to convert Euros to USD. Yeah. Super hard.
Raven
Our friends are doing a porch concert on YouTube and Facebook live. It’s old time but we can here it from our screen porch!
Baud
To state the obvious, the world is a better place now that Joy has replaced Tweety.
J R in WV
@burnspbesq:
How about “I feared for my life when she spit on me with her infected mask-free snot!”??
Kent
@Roger Moore: Right, but I guarantee that’s not what Trump is going to say tonight. It’s going to be some weirdo Q-anon conspiracy shit linking Biden, Ukraine, and China into some convoluted child trafficking for profit thing.
You and I know what the actual argument is, but they don’t actually ever lay it out like that because it is so easily laughed at. So they go off in bizarre tangents.
Baud
@Emma from FL:
yo también, hermana.
different-church-lady
@HeleninEire: The Chinese one is much harder, because you have to use chopsticks.
Kent
Enrages me too. I’m just explaining (to myself) why the Hunter Biden thing is NOT Hillary Emailz 2020 and why I think this is a losing play for Trump.
It all depends on people believing that Joe Biden is corrupt. And that’s an incredibly hard sell, for which they have laid no basis.
indycat32
@Yarrow: I think someone destroyed the picture he keeps in his attic.
WaterGirl
@Raven: Are those the two guys you linked to once before?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@germy: In 1900 is that on wax cylinder?
Maybe not, this site tells me the flat gramaphone record was developed by 1893.
frosty
@HeleninEire: @Yarrow: Nice to see you both again, and congratulations on the job, HiE!
different-church-lady
Apparently they’re so desperate now that they’re trafficking photos of devices showing photos of yet other devices showing misspelled messages where supposed-Hunter Biden is telling someone that his father said “NO” to something, and the device in the first photo is a BlackBerry connected to a Russian cell network, and somehow this is a gigantic GOTCHA!
What the everlovin’ hell? Are they actually this crazy?
Raven
@WaterGirl: yes hogeyed man with hawk proof rooster!
WaterGirl
@Raven: Do you have a link? I listened last time and enjoyed them.
jl
@Kent: Seems to me that the whole Biden smear depends on him running an under-the-table freelance political hit job on the Ukrainian prosecutor for money. But that fancy can be debunked in one sentence. HRC’s email and server problems cannot, even if they were not nefarious.
HRC, for some reason I do not understand, hunkered down into a defensive, but also I think passive-aggressive angry, stance over it. That did not help. Biden stands up and says it’s a total lie. So, a difference there.
And Trump has thrown so much BS against the wall to see what might stick, and so publicly, not much credibility in what the Trumpsters say. I guess after the Biden Ukrainian scandal, we’ll investigate the Biden Chinese slush fund scandal, and then the infamous though completely undefined Warren Chinese bribery scandal. Then the Obama spy ring that harassed the Trump campaign. What have I forgotten?
CaseyL
@HeleninEire: Hey, great to hear from you! Best of luck at the new job!
I’m not going to watch the debate. It sounds like it’s going to be a Shitshow to End All Shitshows. Trump is gong to spend the entire time accusing Biden of whatever occurs to his gangrenous imagination. I hope Biden just laughs at him.
WaterGirl
I thought I saw this headline on the Washington Post:
What to know about tonight’s debacle
Only it actually said Debate instead of debacle. I was disappointed.
sanjeevs
@Kent:
All the hallmarks of economic anxiety.
Kathleen
@Baud: The first time I was eligible to vote I voted for McGovern. I was raised to believe Richard Nixon was the devil incarnate. I was sick when he won in 1968.
mrmoshpotato
@James E Powell:
SAME! Oh! Lesley Stahl and Leslie Jones could team up. It would be hilarious.
dmsilev
@different-church-lady:
A survey of the last four or so years suggests ‘yes’.
different-church-lady
@jl: It didn’t help Hillary at all that it actually was a screw up (even though extremely minor).
Whereas the Biden thing is just utterly loony-tunes fabrication.
dmsilev
@WaterGirl:
You know how news orgs pre-write obits for famous people and every once in a while accidentally publish one while the person is still alive? Might be the political news equivalent.
H.E.Wolf
@HeleninEire:
Sláinte!
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: If it turns out this guy knows what he got into, I’ll lead the line to roast him.
Kathleen
@Yarrow: It’s just his rotting putrid innards yearning to break out and be free.
jl
@different-church-lady: Fuzzy pix of Biden walking around with ‘I take bribes’ stamped on his head, with vaguely Kyiv-esque buildings in the background.
Secret video of Obama and Biden walking into a Ukrainian lunch joint, and Biden peels a bill off a billion $ roll of hryvnia for some cheese pancakes and borscht.
The truth will out.
Kay
They’re gonna do a huge (virtual) GOTV in Ohio. Explaining the program. Dry run Sunday. That’s not a lot of time to get ready! :)
Uncle Cosmo
@Another Scott: Mar-a-Liarspawn…
(FTFY)
jl
@different-church-lady: I don’t know that it was definitely a screw up. But having dealt with oddities of institutional IT and security, both public and private, in large organizations, I have my own opinions.
But key issue was, couldn’t be debunked in one sentence. I wish HRC would have said loud and proud “The IT services we inherited from GW were such crap, I had to create my own system. F them and quit lying about it.’ To the news media as well as to the GOP.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: That was my hope! Alas, I looked and found debate instead of debacle.
Has Trump’s team already put out the word that he won tonight?
I was just setting up Tivo to record the debate on C-SPAN and they were saying that Bauer (I presume Bob Bauer) was playing Trump for tonight’s debate and that the Biden campaign is “worried” that even the muted mics won’t help with the disruption Trump will bring. No surprise there.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: How could he not know? You would have to be living under a rock in order to not know.
debbie
OMG. best clip ever!
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: Does Vitner’s ship down to Chambana?
Kay
They have a Wisconsin person on now – it’s already up and running there.
LuciaMia
Pre-debate chatter on CNN. My God, they’re practically giddy! You’d think this was the red carpet before the Oscars.
germy
@burnspbesq:
She didn’t just not wear a mask. She spat at him.
Kent
I never for the life of me understood why Hillary didn’t just go on Leno or something at the start of the whole thing with an example of the clunky stupid State Department blackberry that they wanted her to use and her actual iPhone and they could all have a good laugh trying to use the clunky ancient thing that the *government* issued her and then explain why, like every other damn American, she preferred to do work and personal email on the same phone that actually worked. But that she still did all the top secret shit on the correct phone.
Laughing at yourself is always a good way to diffuse things. I don’t think they ever really came to grips with the notion that emails could cost her the election until it was too late.
debbie
debbie
@germy:
Assault with a deadly weapon.
jl
Grainy video of Joe and Hunter listening to a Ukrainian cover of C.R.E.A.M. That would seal it, and any jury would send the whole US news media to treasonous not covering it enough super jail.
Kent
@LuciaMia: Who the hell watches an hour of pre-debate spin on CNN. Certainly not uninformed and undecided voters.
NotMax
Contemplating outrageous stunts which are not outside the realm of possibility.
Dolt 45 pulls out a piece of paper and a pen and announces he’s, live on-air, signing an Executive Order rescinding Biden’s citizenship.
(Before anyone chimes in, yeah, of course it has no validity. Validity isn’t the point of such stunts.)
Barbara
@Citizen Alan: It’s no joke. Don’t try to do to do this, or if you succeed, step away and don’t go snooping. Worked on a matter where someone went to federal prison after doing exactly that. If some dumbfuck uses 123456 as a password, his stuff is still protected from unauthorized third party access.
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: What’s Trump gonna do, shout across the stage? Throw food? Spit? Can anyone think of one new disruption Trump can pull that doesn’t make him seem even worse than the first debate?
debbie
@different-church-lady:
Throw the podium at the plexiglass panel.
jl
@Kent: HRC had (still has?) a habit of randomly swerving into defensive angry (at least some anti-HRC folks told me they interpret it as angry) hunker on certain issues. I could see no pattern. When she was loud and proud, her popularity could, and did, rise. But at critical moments and on critical issues, she did not do that.
debbie
@different-church-lady:
Moon Biden.
Kay
@debbie:
Good statement. I love “put this country thru another 4 years of hell” as the close.
different-church-lady
@debbie: “Oh and by the way, a thousand people a day are dying and Donald Trump doesn’t care.”
jl
@Kent: Sometimes the paint on the wall dries just too damn fast, and hobbyists need to fill up some time.
Uncle Cosmo
@Baud: Yeah, WTF?? I busted my ass that year knocking on doors for McGovern in fucking Dundalk, fucking Dundalk** that even in 1972 had more DINOs than Jurassisgrassic Park!
** Working-class mostly-white suburb of Baltimore, 1950 population 82,000. Also home.
trnc
@germy:
I haven’t listened to NPR (or any radio) nearly as much as I used to, but Liason was way more willing than most radio personalities to savage DT and go after other republican BS. She seemed like the radio version of Jen Rubin.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: I don’t believe they do. But I have discovered a pretty good chip made by Boulder Canyon, with Coconut Oil and sea salt. Good crunch, salt but not so salty that they are inedible, like some brands.
different-church-lady
People: I said doesn’t make Trump look worse.
dmsilev
@NotMax: The proper response would be straight-up derision. ‘You’re such a fool, you actually think that piece of paper means something.’
WaterGirl
@Baud: I just looked at a Washington Post story that said she is a rising star at NBC. Let’s hope this takes her down a notch.
zhena gogolia
You know what one of their problems is? Hunter Biden is a really cool name.
Barbara
@sanjeevs: The best part is that he will retain no part of that 500K once the feds are through with him.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: I have no idea. I have clue who this dude is. I was just clarifying that we weren’t mocking an innocent man; we were mocking the flailing of the Soviet shitpile mobster conman and his shitbag band of grifters.
trnc
I’d say Murdoch wouldn’t like the direct competition, but I guess it doesn’t matter much, given DT’s and Kush-dog’s ability to run businesses into the ground.
Miss Bianca
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Yeah, it’s wrong.
But if it’s wrong, as the saying goes, I don’t want to be right.//
WaterGirl
@debbie: Is there even plexiglas tonight?
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: Usually there is some around the penalty box.
jl
@trnc: As the election approaches, I hear less talk about not accepting the result, and anti-democratic SCOTUS tricks, and more talk about plans for Trumpster post administration wingnut media grift. I hope that is good sign.
burnspbesq
OT: in the most Apple thing ever, the case for my iPhone 12 has arrived at least a week before the scheduled delivery of the phone.
mrmoshpotato
@LuciaMia:
Are any of them “tucking in” their shirts or just out-in-the-open masturbating?
catclub
@Roger Moore:
Actually, Hunter worked for Burisma because he worked for a high powered law firm, and said HPLF wanted board representation on Burisma.
burnspbesq
@WaterGirl:
Utz Crab Chips?
jl
@dmsilev:
‘ The proper response would be straight-up derision. ‘You’re such a fool, you actually think that piece of paper means something.’ ‘
Biden should just scratch his head and chuckle, shaking his head good naturedly at any such stunts. Good comedy teams know that you never explain the jokes.
Japa21
@WaterGirl: No such thing as too salty.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
TRUE DAT. And I still want MSNBC to give Joy, Nicolle, and Rachel a weekly show of their own (in addition, of course, to their individual daily gigs). The three of them have a rare and wonderful chemistry. They can ditch BriWi. He adds nothing to the ensemble.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Twitter tells me there will be.
debbie
@burnspbesq:
I rarely eat potato chips, but I found myself demolishing a bag of their Russet Chips.
different-church-lady
Dammit, STOP TALKING ABOUT POTATO CHIPS!!
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Is “tucking my shirt in” going to be the new euphemism for masturbating?
WaterGirl
@burnspbesq: Never heard of them.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
Yeah, because whatever convoluted mess QAnon has made out of the basic facts is so much easier to understand and more credible than the stuff about Hunter running a crooked business with Burisma. The real reason the Trumpers are going with the QAnon stuff is because they’re so deeply enmeshed in it that they just don’t recognize how bizarre and incomprehensible it is to people who aren’t obsessive followers.
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: In the future, everyone will be famous for fondling themselves for 15 minutes.
WaterGirl
@Japa21: We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one! I’ve had chips and certainly pretzels where I tried to knock some of the salt off before I ate them.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Well there’s that, anyway. I’m in the “stay in the basement, Joe” camp. :-)
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady:
Haha, you’re on fire.
cwmoss
The sad part of that story is that she was pushed out the side door and not in front of the bus. @burnspbesq:
NotMax
@jl
Or mimic the Home Alone palms-on-cheeks and mouth agape pose, then break into raucous guffaws.
catclub
what if you fondle yourself for 16 minutes? Asking for a friend.
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: Is it still all caps day?
mrmoshpotato
@burnspbesq:
Now you can box up your phone right away. I had my current phone for a couple weeks before my Otterbox arrived. Had to be really careful with it.
different-church-lady
@catclub: Shouldn’t you be asking the friend?
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: DON’T ENCOURAGE HER!
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: I DUN TOLD Y’ALL EVERY DAY IS ALL CAPS DAY!!!
Sure Lurkalot
Like we said, he’s senile and barely sentient.
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
Drop trou and shit on the floor. ETA: sorry I misread that and thought you wanted something that would make him seem worse than the first debate.
Gin & Tonic
@burnspbesq: Ooh. I have to stock up every time I visit my daughter in MD. That, and Duke’s mayo.
mrmoshpotato
@Japa21:
Saltlick Brand Chips “We promise there’s some potato in there.”
zhena gogolia
@mrmoshpotato:
Now that I sit in my office alone all day with only Zoom to keep me company, I’ve become addicted to Pringle’s.
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady: Agreed. Cheese puffs are where it’s at!
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
When I must shop for a replacement keyboard I look only at those which come with or make available software allowing me some control. First thing is always to disable the Caps Lock key. Second is to disable the Windows key. Other alterations beyond those are welcome but optional, IMHO.
Steeplejack
Minty fresh thread upstairs.
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia: PHRASING!
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: Not sure. It unfortunately instantly makes you think of Ghouliani which would be…..errrrr….. counterproductive.
Roger Moore
@catclub:
Those kinds of details don’t matter. If you’re explaining, you’re losing. If the company was crooked, then people will assume the law firm that was tightly enough tied to it to demand board representation was also crooked, especially since a lot of them assume all lawyers are crooked to start with.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I confess Don Quixote has always been on my to-be-read list, and I have only vague memories of a teacher showing us the musical in high school for the good pedagogical reason that she liked it, but I suspect there’s a metaphor somewhere in there for Kimberly Strassel picking up the floppy stick she thinks is lance after Bill Barr, Richard Burr, the guy from Connecticut, Lindsey Graham and even Fox News couldn’t be bothered with it. Look out windmill, here comes a crazy lady.
from the Senate Intel Committee to a paywalled column by someone that even the Murdoch WSJ should be embarrassed by.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Heh. Puff piece: Which brand makes the ideal cheese puff?
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia: What flavor?
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
Except for Baud. It takes way more than 15 minutes of fondling for him to be satisfied.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Haha, “booty”
Kent
He can stalk Biden like he did Hillary and breath covid on him.
Oh wait, you said DOESN’T make him seem worse….
Nope.
CaseyL
@mrmoshpotato: Cheese puffs are evil. EVIL, I say.
(Oh, how I love them. How I wish I had some right now.)
Kent
I tried to read it in the original Spanish when I was in the Peace Corps in Guatemala way back a lifetime ago. I labored maybe a chapter in until my Guatemalan counterpart saw what I was reading and said “are you crazy? Even I can barely get through Cervantes and Spanish is my first language.
So I set it aside and read Cien Anos de Soledad instead, which was a lot easier.
Tenar Arha
@Emma from FL: Yep.
@Kent:
It’s worse than all that. It literally wasn’t wrong because there was NO, NADA, ZERO rules, policies, or regulations regarding the Secretary’s personal &/ not secret emails (in any form) other than the requirement to archive certain official “letters” (thus the additional “scandal” of providing paper copies to the National Archives, which was all that was required) until after Clinton was Sec State.
WORST moment for me was realizing that both Colin Powell & Condoleezza Rice, literally both used free internet email accounts for their correspondence, & they recommended it to their successors!
It was all manufactured scandals from the beginning.
mrmoshpotato
@CaseyL: Yes. But to hell with new Cheetos Paws. They’re too airy and not dense like the Paws of my youth.
Kent
@Tenar Arha: Of course. And don’t forget Pompeo. This was yesterday
https://www.newsweek.com/watchdog-report-says-mike-pompeo-regularly-used-personal-email-while-director-cia-1541163
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Don Quixote is amazing! The first modern novel is VERY modern. and there are great recent translations.
trnc
Something that’s 90% true doesn’t sound like much of a smear.
Hillary had a private server for personal use because she didn’t trust the commodity email servers. Some of the conversations drifted into work discussions, and at least some of those actually included messages like “We shouldn’t discuss this here. Let’s move to the work accounts.”
To me, a lot of trouble could have been avoided if the guy managing her server had tried to verify the calls from the FBI instead of just assuming it was a phishing attempt.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Kay:
How was it? I’m sure he had good things to say.
jl
Serious charge from Trump: IF you are guilty of crimes, then you aren’t innocent. Many people are saying….
I don’t see how Biden can answer that.
tam1MI
Dead thread, but I do have to say that I have a feeling this guy will have no problems getting contributors to a GoFundMe to pay his fine…
The Fat White Duchess
@WaterGirl: Apparently so. Lots of discussion of that on Facebook, with at least one person commenting “because you can’t always go hiking the Appalachian Trail.”
I’m old enough to still prefer “firing the Surgeon General.”