Your Vote

Your vote belongs to you.  If you know a strong Trump or Hillary supporter (why either of those things would exist is beyond me, but whatever), they will most likely tell you that you have to vote for their candidate, and any vote that isn't for their candidate is actually for the other person who is terrible, no matter who the vote is actually for.  This is a lie, and an insidious one.  The two major parties don't own your vote.  You own your vote. 

Your job is to use your vote responsibly, but you get to decide what that means.  If I lived in a state where the Presidential election was going to be close, I would suck it up and vote for Hillary.  I wouldn't like it, but I would do it.  That's how I would use my vote.  That doesn't mean that's how you have to use it.  And if you decide to use it differently and Trump somehow wins, that is not your fault.  Ironically, Trump is the fault of the two parties.

Yes, Republican primary voters nominated a future war criminal, and they should be ashamed of themselves.  Unfortunately, Trump voters can't read, so they will never know they should be ashamed unless one of you reads this to them.  And yes, the Republican party spent years cynically creating an environment out of which someone like Trump could crawl, and they should be ashamed too.  Plenty of shame to go around.

The Democrats don't get a pass though.  They had roughly six years to find us a proper successor to Barack Obama.  Did they spend those years introducing us to promising young Democrats we could get excited about?  They did not.  They spent six years clearing the board for Hillary.  The Sanders campaign wasn't some amazing story about the power of the people, it was an indictment of Democratic politics.  The guy who finished second in the Democratic primary race wasn't even a Democrat.  That's not a good thing.  If the Democrats had bothered to attempt nominating anyone other than the least likable person in history, that hypothetical other person (cough cough, Cory Booker, cough cough) would be up by 20 points right now and we wouldn't even have to worry about the great fascist pumpkin.

8:51PM: Brett Baier just told me Trump had chicken for dinner.  I decided to watch on Fox tonight since Chris Wallace is moderating and I'm already kind of regretting it.

8:55PM: I wouldn't blame you if you just watched the Cubs game tonight.

9:00PM: Tonight's debate is in Vegas, which seems like home turf for Trump.  It seems like a pretty good city for groping strangers.

9:03PM: Apparently Trump invited some "controversial guests" again.  What a fucking child he is.  I have to admit that I'm not in the mood for his shit today.

9:05PM: Hillary Clinton is dressed like a storm trooper without the helmet.  Trump's suits never look like they fit right.  Don't rich guys have tailors?

9:06PM: Hillary wants a Supreme Court that will stand up for rights and say no to Citizens United.  She also wants them to stand up to the powerful, which is a worthy, if slightly ironic, aspiration.

9:08PM: Trump started his Supreme Court answer whining about how Ruth Bader Ginsburg insulted him and bragging about how she had to apologize.  Then he said the court needs to protect the 2nd amendment, and the other ones too, whatever they are.

9:10PM: Hillary says she supports the 2nd amendment because she lived in Arkansas and upstate New York.  By that logic she would also support meth and sadness.  I would vote for literally anyone who was willing to say that it's not the 18th century anymore and maybe we don't all need to be armed all the time.

9:13PM: Hillary just accused Trump of being a tool of the gun lobby, which he is.  Trump responded by saying Chicago has terrible gun violence, because anytime Republicans get stuck in their own circular gun logic they escape to Chicago.

9:15PM: Wallace asked Trump if he wants to see the court overturn Roe v Wade.  He refused to actually say he wanted that.  He just said that it would happen automatically because of the justices he would appoint.  That was odd.

9:17PM: Trump appears to have no idea that he's on camera even when he's not talking.  He may not even be aware that the world continues to exist when he's not talking.

9:19PM: Trump is describing late term abortions the way a 4 year old would describe how babies are made.  I never wanted to hear Donald Trump say the word womb, but there it was.

9:19PM: Hillary is making a very simple "the government shouldn't step in the middle of personal decisions" argument about abortion and I think she's doing a great job.  I always think it's weird that the conservatives wound up being the party that thinks the government should make medical decisions for people.

9:21PM: alkdjshfalsdhahjaghafg!!!!!!!!!!! Why are we talking about immigration again?  Apparently Mexicans are bringing heroin to New Hampshire.  Then Trump mentioned the wall.  He hadn't mentioned that in the first two debates.  I was afraid he forgot about it.

9:24PM: Apparently Hillary also supported some version of a boarder wall at some point.  Trump, because he's Trump, is just using this as an example of how he's right and super smart when he should be actually be using it as an example of how she's a panderer with no actual convictions.

9:27PM: Trump says President Obama has deported millions and millions of people.  I don't know if he means that as an insult or a compliment.

9:29PM: Wallace asked Hillary about the wikileaks thing where she talked about open boarders.  She quickly pivoted to how wikileaks is an example of Russian espionage and Donald should renounce Putin and Russia's help immediately.  Trump's response to that somehow got us to radical islamic terrorism.  It's like free form debate jazz.

9:31PM: Clinton just accused Trump of being willing to be a puppet for Putin if he's elected.  Trump responded by saying, repeatedly, "you're the puppet, you're the puppet".  This is rock bottom, right?

9:33PM: Trump refuses to believe that Russia is involved in any hacking, and even though Putin isn't his best friend, he knows Putin has outsmarted the Obama administration and Hillary over and over again.  He's a big Putin fan.

9:35PM: Trump just said "I have 200 generals and admirals, 21 endorsing me".  Wait, what are the other 179 doing?  What does he mean he has them?

9:36PM: Chris Wallace is openly mocking his own inability to control this circus.  I always liked Chris.

9:39PM: Three debates is too many.  They're talking about the economy now and it's like groundhog day, except this time Hillary didn't say trumped up trickle down, which was a good decision.  Trickle down economics is silly enough, you don't need to try to make it sound worse.

9:43PM: Ya know, I've been the first person to say it's not fair for Trump to try to hold Hillary accountable for her husband.  They aren't the same person.  But if she's going to stand there and try to take credit for her husband's handling of the national debt then I guess Bill's fair game.

9:44PM: Every time Trump likes something Wallace says, Trump chimes in to let Wallace know he approves.  Wallace seems genuinely amused.

9:46PM: Trump says India and China (GYNA) are growing faster than us.  Then Hillary accused him of giving jobs to Chinese steel workers instead of American steel workers.  Ouch.

9:49PM: Trump is mouthing words and rolling his eyes while Hillary is comparing their histories.  When he finally got to talk, he said we should run the country like he runs his company.  How many times can a country go bankrupt?

9:52PM: Why would so many different women make up claims about Trump groping them?  Trump has decided that the Clinton campaign put them up to it.  Apparently, the Clinton campaign and Obama are also paying people to start fights at Trump rallies.

9:52PM: And why would these women agree to do this for the Clinton campaign?  For their 10 minutes of fame.  Because every little girl dreams of one day being famous for being groped by Donald Trump.

9:56PM: Trump always says that nobody has more respect for women than he does.  Really?  Nobody?  Not one person in the whole world?  That seems unlikely.  Don't you think we could find even one person, male or female, who wouldn't even joke on a bus about groping women?

9:57PM: Trump really wants you to believe that the Clinton campaign created all these stories about him groping women.  I wonder if he has some of that evidence stuff.

9:59PM: Everything that anyone has ever accused Trump of doing is false, OK?  Is everyone clear on that?

10:00PM: Hillary says she is thrilled to talk about the Clinton Foundation.  I feel like she shouldn't be.  She went on for a little bit about the good things the foundation does and Wallace quickly interrupted her and let Trump talk.  Trump thinks the Clinton Foundation shouldn't take money from countries that push homosexuals off buildings.  If they actually do that in Saudi Arabia, I actually agree with him.  Saudi Arabia is the worst.  If I actually believed Trump really believed what he just said, or even just knew what he was talking about, I'd say points for him.

10:04PM: Did Trump's charity pay for some of his law suits?  Apparently no, they just put up the American flag.  Hillary used the charity discussion to sneak in a jab about tax returns.  Now that Trump has openly talked about committing sexual assault, the whole tax thing seems like not such a big deal.

10:07PM: Wallace asked Trump if he'll accept the election results.  He wouldn't say yes.  He said he'll have to look at it at the time and he doubled down on saying the election is rigged.  Even just letting Hillary run is, apparently, part of the rigging.

10:09PM: Hillary called Trump's answer horrifying, which it definitely is.  Then she ran down a full list of things Trump lost at and immediately claimed were rigged, including when his reality show didn't get an Emmy.  Trump responded by saying he definitely should have gotten that Emmy.

10:11PM: How do we make sure ISIS isn't just replaced by something worse?  That's a pretty good question considering our track record would suggest that it absolutely will be.  Hillary, like most politicians, appears to be in favor of defeating ISIS without sending any troops or doing anything.  I'm not in favor of sending troops, I'm just saying you can't wish ISIS away so we're going to need a better plan than defeating them without any troops.

10:14PM: Trump is all about the element of surprise in war.  Everything would be a sneak attack with Trump.  For the record, when Barack Obama blows up your compound with a drone, I bet that's pretty surprising.

10:16PM: Trump still insists he was against the war in Iraq.  That's just plainly factually inaccurate.  I sometimes wonder if Trump is one of those time travelers who changed the past and now he remembers a different past than the rest of us.

10:18PM: Chris Wallace is openly laughing at this debate that he is moderating.

10:19PM: Chris tried to ask a question about a few of the things Trump lied about in the last debate.  Trump wouldn't even let him finish the question, denied lying about anything, and then went back to blaming Clinton for everything.

10:21PM: Last time the cash we gave Iran could have filled the whole room.  This time the pile of cash was just as big as the stage.  What happened?  Are we just using larger bills?

I'm going to stop here because I just don't care anymore.  I can't imagine being an undecided voter and actually trying to use this debate to make a decision.  This entire election has been a fucking embarrassment.  I started this by saying you should vote for a third party candidate if you want to, but maybe you should just vote for Trump.  Maybe he's the nightmare this country deserves.  I'm going to go watch the Cubs win the world series, and then after that happens Trump can unmake the world.  And when that happens, it'll be our own damn fault.  See you on election night.

Madness

Before we get started, I was 100% wrong about the Vice Presidential debate.  I thought Tim Kaine won.  I didn't think he was great, but I thought he clearly won.  Not one person on TV agreed with me.  Even though Mike Pence spent 90 straight minutes lying, he was super chill about it, and I guess that's all it takes.  So at the end of this, I'm going to tell you who I thought won, and I'm going to be wrong.

Anyway, remember last time when I told you this election was surreal?  Well, I spent most of the day Friday away from TV and not really getting any information.  I got home and there was baseball on and I didn't really get around to watching any news until after midnight.  When I got there, it was absolute madness.  MSNBC and CNN were doing live coverage, after midnight on a Friday, of Donald Trump on tape saying things that weren't even a little bit surprising.  This is a man who bought the Miss Universe pageant and then immediately started fat shaming one of the winners, because even Miss Universe isn't enough of a 10 for Donald Trump.  We can't act surprised when we find out that Donald Trump has no respect for women.  We already knew that, and I'm not sure MSNBC and CNN needed to do hours, literally hours, of after midnight coverage to drive the point home.  Chris Matthews was there.  Does Chris Matthews look to you like a guy who is generally up after midnight?

Having said that, the tape was jarring and upsettingly vulgar.  Listening to a major party Presidential candidate talking about popping some tictacs and sexually assaulting women, even when it isn't surprising, is genuinely unsettling.  It was unclear if he was talking about actual sexual assaults he had committed, or just joking about hypothetical sexual assaults he might commit, but neither of those options seems OK, right?  While I thought CNN and MSNBC went a little overboard, it was definitely a story.  Which is why I was both amused and disgusted to see that Fox News was making no mention of it.  Like, at all.  They were covering a hurricane, and literally nothing else.  There wasn't even anything on the crawl at the bottom of Fox's screen about it.  There has to be someone who can force them to remove the word news from their programming.  Come on, Obama!  Do something useful!

Republicans spent the last two days begging the Trump campaign to just apologize and not make things worse.  Trump responded by holding a quick press conference a little while ago with some women who had accused Bill Clinton of assaulting or harassing them.  Again, we shouldn't be surprised that a man who has no respect for women, and doesn't even really see them as people, would think it makes sense to blame a woman for her husband's philandering, but surprising or not, it is also still pretty unsettling.  

Remember that time when we were kids and we watched the Challenger explode on live TV?  This election has been like that, except it's gone on for a year and a half.  It's been like watching the Challenger explode on live TV for a year and a half.  I hate it.  Everyone hates it.  And we damn well should.  So, let's have a debate.  Yay.

8:53PM: I just flipped over to MSNBC to hear Brian Williams struggling to explain why Bill Clinton sexual assault/harassment accusers were sitting there in attendance at the debate.  Then Rachel Maddow showed us a clip of Trump from 1999 saying that it was a shame that Hillary had to put up with all of the Bill Clinton sex scandal stuff in public.  He went on to call her a "wonderful woman".  Sigh.

8:56PM: Hey, it looks like Anderson Cooper is moderating tonight!  Hey Coop!

8:57PM: There's also a woman named Martha.  Her jacket has at least one too many zippers.  As always, Coop is impeccably dressed.

8:59PM: Chris Matthews is predicting that Trump will point to Bill Clinton, and then to some of the women Trump invited, and say "you raped her, you groped her".  I predict that he will then fail to explain what that has to do with whether or not he or Hillary would make a good President, and somehow nobody will ask him.

9:02PM: I have to at least ask why the Bill Clinton accusers would agree to show up for this.  How could this possibly be a good thing for them?  Is Trump paying them?  

9:04PM: Have I mentioned that I hate town halls?  The people asking questions tonight are undecided voters.  They represent the most clueless people you could possibly find.  Why do they get to play?

9:05PM: Then candidates did not shake hands.  Off to a fantastic start.

9:07PM: Some lady asked them if they thought they were setting a good example for kids.  I wouldn't say either of them really answered.  I guess, if you get to ask the first question at a town hall, the upside is you get to go first, but the downside is whatever you ask, the answer is just going to be whatever opening statement the candidates prepared.

9:10PM: Coop, who is awesome, just told Trump that what was on the tape from Friday was Trump admitting to sexual assault, and he simply asked Trump if he understood that.  Trump responded by saying it was just locker room talk and he's going to knock the hell out of ISIS.  

9:12PM: Coop kept pushing, and he asked Trump is he has ever actually kissed or groped women without consent.  It took Trump quite a while, but he eventually said that he has not.  Coop actually made Trump answer the question.  Only Coop should be allowed to moderate debates.  

9:13PM: Hillary calmly laid out the case for why what we heard on the tape represents who Trump is with regard to how he sees women and made a broader point about Trump being unfit.  I've said this before.  I really like serious, calm, I don't care if you like me Hillary.  If she would just be that person all the time, I would be very happy to vote for her.

9:16PM: Trump asked if he could respond to what Hillary said about him, and Martha gave him some time, but he just sort of rambled about Hillary's Senate campaign and eventually Martha cut him off, and he complained about it being unfair.  

9:17PM: It took Trump roughly 10 minutes to get into how Bill Clinton was abusive to women and Hillary attacked those women viciously.  He also brought up a time when Hillary did the defense for a 41 year old who was accused of raping a 12 year old in Arkansas in the 70s.  I don't know much about that case, but I know that everyone is entitled to a defense, and sometimes young lawyers get stuck providing that defense.  It's a shitty but incredibly necessary job and only a guy like Trump would criticize someone for doing it.

9:21PM: Hillary gave a very good, calm response and ended up with saying Trump owes apologies to lots of people.  Trump's response was basically, I know you are but what am I?  Then he said Hillary didn't beat Bernie Sanders fair and square, and he can't believe Bernie made a deal with the devil and supported her.  Then he promised to have a special prosecutor investigate Hillary if he wins.  Just to be clear, he's openly threatening his opponent with political retribution should he win.  That's a thing that just happened.

9:24PM: Hillary seems maybe 3% rattled right now.  Trump is looking to get her over 50%.  I don't think he's going to get there.  She mostly seems amused by his desperation.

9:25PM: Hillary very simply stated that it's a good thing that someone with Trump's temperament isn't in charge of the law in this country.  Trump responded by saying that if he was she'd be in jail, because Trump has literally no idea how the justice system works.  The yahoos in the audience who support Trump went nuts for his witty one liner.

9:29PM: Trump wants to know why Coop isn't bringing up the emails that we just talked about for ten minutes, and then accused this of being a 1 on 3 debate.  

9:30PM: Health care question.  Oh boy.  Here's the quick answer Democrats should give whenever someone bitches about the Affordable Care Act.  If you already had insurance, the Affordable Care Act wasn't for you.  Not everything is about you, you selfish fuck.  The Affordable Care Act was for the 20 million people who didn't have health care before and do now.  Please go fuck yourself.  Hillary didn't say that.

9:32PM: Trump says Obamacare is a disaster, and it will never work because it is far too expensive health care.  Trump just wants to replace it with something better and much less expensive.  That's such a good idea, why haven't we done that already?  Oh right, because Trump's idea is a hypothetical idea that nobody actually has.

9:34PM: To be fair, Trump got through two minutes on heatlh care without calling Bill Clinton a rapist, so I guess that was a win for him.

9:35PM: Hey, Hillary just kind of gave my go fuck yourself health care answer.  I'm like this close to definitely voting for her right now.  Seriously.

9:36PM: Coop, because, again, he's awesome, is pushing Trump on what his actual plan is.  Like most Republicans, Trump's only idea is to break down the imaginary lines between states to create competition.  This is a dumb idea.  Most people don't go out shopping for health care in a free market.  They just get a job and then someone hands you an envelope telling you what health insurance you have.  The free market doesn't work for everything.

9:38PM: How will Trump work to prevent Muslims from all being lumped in with terrorists.  Apparently, he'll do that by suggesting that all Muslims are partially to blame for terrorism because they all know about it and don't report it.  I don't think that's the right answer.

9:39PM: Trump also said you have to be willing to talk about Islamic terrorism and call it by the right name before you can fight it.  That's not even 1% true.  I don't understand how stupid you have to be to not get that Obama doesn't want to give them the holy war they're so eager for.  Apparently, you have to be at least as stupid as Donald Trump.

9:42PM: Trump said, again, that he was against the Iraq war, which is demonstrably false.  You can ask Sean Hannity if you want, but it's still false.

9:43PM: Martha is trying to get Trump to tell us if he still supports the Muslim ban he proposed a while ago.  He just keeps saying "extreme vetting".  When pushed, he says it slower.  You guys, are we sure we don't want to vote for Trump?  A Trump Presidency would be so entertaining.  He literally mansplains policy points to female reporters when they point out that he isn't making any sense.  

9:45PM: OK, we can't really vote for Trump because it's too dangerous, but can we at least have a sitcom based on a hypothetical Trump Presidency.  Please??  Can't someone please work on that?  Aren't there any funny people who aren't too busy right now?  Rob Lowe had two different shows cancelled at the end of last season.  He could play a hypothetical President Trump. Come on, we can do this.

9:47PM: While I was fantasizing about a President Trump sitcom, Trump was rambling about refugees.  I guess some of them are murderers and Trump would just force them right back into their countries.  What percentage of people from other countries does Trump think are murderers?  Like 80%?

9:49PM: Martha asked Hillary about the Wikileaks thing with her speeches and how she said you have to have a public and a private position.  She basically said she was talking about Lincoln and how you have to manipulate Congress sometimes.  If she had added "because most of Congress is morons", the race for my vote between Hillary and third party candidates would be over.  She didn't though.  Instead, she somehow pivoted to Trump's tax returns.  

9:51PM: Trump literally just said "I know nothing about Russia".  I honestly don't even know what to do with that.

9:52PM: Trump is sniffling a lot again.  He's also unraveling as the debate goes on, a lot like last time.  My best guess is that he snorts Valium before the debates.  It causes him to get the sniffles and wears off as the debate goes on.  Do you have a better theory?

9:54PM: Trump, in an admirable effort to try to talk about policy for a minute, said Hillary is going to raise your taxes and he wants to lower them bigly, or maybe he's saying big league.  He needs to learn more words.  

9:56PM: Hillary says what he said about taxes is not true.  Trump is now randomly wandering the stage while Hillary is talking.  

9:58PM: It sounds like Trump just admitted to not paying personal income taxes.  I guess we don't really need his tax returns anymore.  Trump says Hillary knows people who don't pay taxes either.  They're not running for President though.

10:00PM: Somehow the tax question turned into Trump talking about how Hillary and Obama created ISIS.  I wonder if Trump honestly just hears and sees different things than the rest of us.  Is he Neo?

10:00PM: Now they're arguing about carried interest.  Trump says he wants to get rid of it and Hillary says she's against it too.  Trump, because he doesn't understand how government works, is asking why Hillary didn't just get rid of it when she was a Senator.  Hillary is trying to explain how government works, but if Trump's campaign people can't do it, I don't like her chances.

10:02PM: Why don't these debates have any commercials?  Can you imagine how much GEICO would pay to show us a 30 second gecko commercial right now?  You could fund Trump's whole imaginary health care plan.

10:03PM: The question is, with the State department calling for a war crimes investigation into Syria and Russia for recent events in Aleppo, hasn't the US waited too long to help in Syria?  Coop and Martha are both actual journalists.  How did they get this gig?  I know some social media person actually wrote the question, but Martha picked it instead of some question about how their faith informs their beliefs or whatever.

10:06PM: Trump said we're all tired, exhausted about nuclear.  I have no idea what he was getting at, but if he's already feeling tired and exhausted discussing nuclear weapons, maybe being President isn't really the job for him.

10:08PM: Martha asked Trump about Mike Pence's position on the humanitarian crisis in Syria.  Trump said he and Pence haven't spoken and he disagrees with what Pence said.  Then Trump asked why we can't just sneak attack ISIS leaders.  Martha is now openly arguing with him about his total lack of understanding of military strategy.  Martha is going to get some criticism later for this exchange, but I love it.  She's honestly exasperated but Trump's complete inability to understand or articulate military strategy.  It's like watching a college history professor argue with a 2nd grader.  He's wrong, but way too dumb to know it, and it's killing her a little bit.

10:13PM: Hillary is having a little trouble explaining what she would do differently than Obama, but then she got to arming the Kurds.  Can we please have a plan in the middle east that doesn't involve arming some new random group of people who we don't fully understand?

10:14PM: Trump says he will be a President for all of our people, and he will give people strength.  Now we're talking about trade.  I think it's a shame that nobody in this election defends free trade.  It's a complicated issue, and I'm not saying I'm for free trade, but both sides of the trade debate have valid arguments and I wish we were smart enough to have an election that involved that discussion.

10:17PM: Hillary is talking about her record of public service and work on behalf of underrepresented people.  Hey lady, Trump builds golf courses all over the place that can benefit any CEO, or even most CFOs.  Everybody makes the world better in their own way.

10:20PM: Trump says we have a divided nation like a guy who walks into your living room and takes a dump on your carpet and then says "Hey, what's with all the shit on the carpet?".  That's a joke but now it kind of sounds like something he's probably done.

10:22PM: Question to Trump about his 3AM tweets encouraging people to check out Miss Universe's sex tape.  Apparently that never happened and also Benghazi.  Is there any doubt that Roger Ailes did all of Trump's debate prep this time?

10:24PM: Hillary would appoint justices who have real life experience and haven't just worked in big law firms.  Trump is looking for judges very much in the mold of Justice Scalia, because I didn't already hate him enough.

10:27PM: Trump says the 2nd amendment is totally under siege.  This country is full of idiots with guns.  How much more guns can we possibly have?  This country has more guns than people.  Hillary says she respects the 2nd amendment too.  I don't, for the record.

10:29PM: Some guy with a mustache and a sweater asked about energy policy.  Trump says Hillary wants to put all the miners out of business, and there is a thing called clean coal.  Actually, there really isn't, clean coal is mostly nonsense.  And yes, coal miners are going to have to get new jobs soon, just like bank tellers and those ladies from 50s movies who used to connect phone calls for people. Life moves on sometimes, and it sucks, but that's the way it is.

10:34PM: Some guy just asked if they can name one thing they respect about the other person.  Hillary said she respects Trump's children.  Either she prepared for that question or that was pretty good thinking on her feet.  Something to respect about Donald Trump.  I couldn't have answered that question on the spot. 

10:36PM: I literally can't wait for Trump to answer this question.  I'm just imagining all the things he could say.  I'm so excited.  Trump kind of let me down.  He actually gave her a compliment.  He said she fights hard and doesn't quit or give up.  That could have gone so much better, or worse depending on how you look at it.

I guess that's it.  I think Martha and Coop were the clear winners here.  They were just fantastic.  Between the two candidates, I'd say Hillary won pretty easily because Trump was in full tantrum mode for most of the night.  That probably means the TV people will say Trump won.  See you next time, assuming the third debate happens, which seems pretty up in the air right now.

Pointless

Nothing could be more pointless than this Vice Presidential debate.  Vice Presidents are pointless in general, but this specific election renders them especially futile.  Hillary Clinton has been running for President since she was 5.  Even dead Hillary Clinton wouldn't give up the Presidency.  Tim Kaine has a better chance of being named President of Jupiter than he does of taking over for Hillary Clinton at any point.

The Trump situation seems different at first glance.  I've speculated over the last year that Trump is the kind of guy who would be President for a few months, get bored and frustrated with it and decide he's leaving because Miss Universe isn't going to fat shame herself.  And nothing we've seen from Trump would suggest that he isn't a giant child who is perfectly capable of that kind of move, but I don't know.  First, it's hard to imagine Trump giving up that kind of power.  Second, even if he left after a few months, that's plenty of time for him.  I doubt there would be a government left for Mike Pence to lead by then anyway.

This is a giant waste of everyone's time.  Unfortunately, I've developed a little bit of OCD about blogging debates, so we're going to watch these two jars of mayonnaise argue over which one of them is more tangy.  Or less tangy?  I'm not really sure which one of those is better in this context.

9:02PM: Shep Smith just told me that Donald Trump will be live tweeting throughout the debate.  This election is genuinely surreal.

9:04PM: The moderator tonight is someone from CBS who I have literally never heard of.  Her name is Elaine.  She seems nice.

9:05PM: They're doing the set up where they sit at a desk together with the moderator.  I would love to see Trump attempt this set up.  I feel like he couldn't stay seated for 90 minutes.

9:06PM: Tim Kaine looks and sounds like one of the adults from Sesame Street.  Also, apparently Tim was a missionary at some point, so I'm already not a big fan.

9:08PM: Pence started out by thanking Norwood University for their wonderful hospitality.  Unfortunately, he's at Longwood University.  Not a good start big guy.

9:09PM: Pence started out with the aw shucks I never thought I'd be here routine.  Believe me Mike, lots of people never thought they'd be one month away from Vice President Pence.

9:11PM: Elaine asked Tim why people don't trust Hillary.  Tim responded by explaining why he does trust her, and then trashed Trump for a little bit and threw some shade at Pence for defending Trump.  Tim came out swinging in the most polite way possible.

9:12PM: Elaine asked Pence why people think Trump is such a risky choice.  Mike responded by trashing Hillary for a minute.  Can they not hear Elaine's questions?  What's happening?

9:14PM: Kaine keeps interrupting Pence.  It's like he someone told him to watch last week's debate and then go be as Trumpy as possible.  It's weird, but it may be working.  Mike seems legitimately uncomfortable.

9:17PM: Pence just said he cut unemployment in half in Indiana while Kaine doubled unemployment in Virginia.  It's worth pointing out that Pence became Governor in 2012, in the middle of a recovery, while Kaine was Governor between 2006 and 2010.  You might remember the little economic oopsie we had in 2008.  It's why none of you can ever retire, ever.

9:20PM: Mike is shaking his head sarcastically as Tim accuses him of single-handedly holding off a minimum wage increase in Indiana.  That seems pretty true, so I'm curious to hear what Mike has to say about it.  He said nothing, I guess the head shake was plenty.

9:22PM: Pence just accused Barack Obama of running the economy into a ditch.  Kaine pointed out that Pence's accusation was factually inaccurate.  Pence responded by saying that you can roll out all the numbers you want but people in Scranton know the real story.  Pence is notoriously immune to facts.

9:24PM: Now they're arguing about Trump's taxes.  I have to say I don't care about this issue.  Trump can pay taxes or not pay taxes.  I'm just not really that interested in it.  If he released his tax returns and everything was in good order, would that somehow make him an acceptable candidate?

9:28PM: This is a strange debate.  Pence won't acknowledge facts or his own voting record.

9:30PM: On to cops and guns and stuff.  Kaine wants to focus on community policing, mental health and gun violence.  Tim doesn't want to frisk you.

9:31PM: Pence's uncle was a cop.  He says "police officers are the best of us".  Like, all of them?  100% of them?  That seems overly simplistic.  He went on the say we shouldn't use a broad brush to describe law enforcement.  It's like Mike can't hear himself talk.

9:34PM: Mike's opinions about police shootings are almost too stupid to summarize.  He's using one example of when a black cop shot a black guy to make the argument that police shootings aren't related to any inherent bias in our system.  I can't believe this guy ran a state.

9:38PM: Kaine did a really nice job of summing up this whole section by saying that having a racist in the White House probably won't help the whole racial divide situation.  Pence had no response.

9:39PM: Pence just accused immigrants of driving wages down.  Pence keeps wages down, we just covered that like 15 minutes ago.

9:40PM: Pence just criticized Clinton's basket of deplorables comment.  I wish Kaine would just say she was right and Pence should be ashamed of his campaign.  Tim did not say that.

9:42PM: They're arguing pretty incoherently about immigration now.  All you really need to know about this is, both parties believe immigration is a winning issue for them, and in some ways they're both right.  As such, neither party actually wants to solve the issue.  And they won't.

9:47PM: Kaine said Donald Trump can't start a twitter war with Miss Universe without shooting himself in the foot.  Solid line from Tim, I'm sure it went over really well in practice.  Tim is being really aggressive, you just can't tell because of his face.

9:49PM: Pence says America is less safe today than it was when Barack Obama took office.  Then he talked about 9/11.  I don't know why we keep letting Republicans bring up 9/11 as if some guy they never met was President then.  Why is ISIS 100% Hillary and Obama's fault but 9/11 was just a thing that happened?

9:51PM: How is Mike Pence going to stop home grown terror?  He's going to keep immigrants out.  I'm not sure Mike understands what home grown means.  Elaine was nice enough to point that out for me.

9:53PM: Somehow we're arguing about immigration again, and also Syrian refugees.  I thought Pence was a big Jesus guy.  I'm not an expert on what Jesus would say about refugees, but I don't think it would be "fuck 'em".

9:55PM: Tim is saying alliances and sharing intelligence are really important for fighting terror, and Trump's not really the guy for that.  Pence is pretending Trump never said NATO is obsolete.  He did though.

9:56PM: Elaine is trying to ask them about Syria but now they're arguing about Hillary's emails.  Elaine has zero patience for these guys and I'm a big fan.

9:58PM: Pence just called Putin a small and bullying leader.  Trump's not going to like that.  Then he said we need to rebuild our military, which is absolute nonsense.

9:59PM: Honestly, Pence is so much worse than Trump.  He's coherently lying and distorting reality.  Unlike Trump, you feel like he actually knows better and it's so frustrating.

10:02PM: Kaine was going on for a while about how Trump wasn't supporting troops and first responders on 9/11 if he wasn't paying taxes.  Elaine keeps reminding them that she asked about Syria.

10:04PM: Pence said "we just need American strength".  That really couldn't be a better summary of Republican foreign policy.  We don't need plans or allies or all that smarty pants bullshit, just strength.

10:05PM: Tim just suggested that Trump is a "fool or maniac".  Pence said that's below even Tim and Hillary.  Has Mike met his running mate?  Because that seems pretty accurate.

10:07PM: Kaine pointed out that every time he asks Mike to defend Trump's positions and statements, Mike passes on the opportunity.  Mike says he's happy to defend Trump.  He didn't, and hasn't yet, but he swears it's coming.  Editorial note from later...it never did.

10:11PM: It's telling that Mike thinks Tim is insulting him when Tim simply repeats things that Trump has said.  "How dare you bring up things I've said" would be an excellent Trump campaign slogan.

10:14PM: Hillary's love of canned zingers has rubbed off on Tim and it's not enjoyable.  Mike is wisely pointing them out and trying to get Tim off his game.

10:17PM: How would Mike Pence deal with North Korea's nuclear weapons program?  He'd criticize Barack Obama and then start talking about the Clinton Foundation.  Take that Kim Jong Whatever!

10:20PM: Kaine just compared Trump's organization to an octopus.  Wrong Timmy!  Octopuses are smart.

10:21PM: We should let Elaine kick both of these guys in the balls at the end of the debate.

10:21PM: Would Tim Kaine take preemptive action if intelligence said North Korea was launching a nuclear weapon?  Shit just got real.  Tim said yes, though he seemed unclear on what kind of preemptive action he'd take.

10:23PM: It's time to talk about social issues, which means it's time for me to remember why I hate Mike Pence so much.

10:24PM: Tim says he doesn't believe the doctrines of any one religion should be mandated for everyone.  It's sad that he actually has to say that out loud, and sadder that Mike will pretend to agree even though he clearly doesn't.

10:26PM: OK my bad.  Mike actually made no effort to pretend he doesn't think his religious beliefs should be imposed on everyone.  Honestly points for Mike, I guess?

10:29PM: Tim Kaine makes an excellent case for pro-life policies.  It was short and rational and honest and made perfect sense.  Solid work by Tim, asking why Pence doesn't trust women to make their own choices.  I have no jokes for this.  Just a really solid minute from Tim on abortion rights.

They're doing a final question about how they'll bring the country together if they win, and I simply don't care so let's wrap this up.  I honestly feel bad for both of these guys.  Tim Kaine's job tonight was to convince people that they should like and trust Hillary Clinton.  Mike Pence's job was to sit there for 90 minutes and pretend Donald Trump isn't a dangerous maniac.  I think both of these guys, even Pence who I honestly fucking hate, deserve gold stars for effort on this one.  Kaine pretty obviously won, but it's not like Pence had anything good to work with.  See you next time.

Karma

This whole election feels like a punishment.  A cruel punishment too.  After eight years of having a smart and decent man in the White House, we're forced to give him back and choose between Pantsuit Nixon and Orange Mussolini.  Is it because we re-elected George W. Bush in 2004?  Come on!  That's so unfair.  We were scared and John Kerry sucked.  Is it because we elected Reagan in 1980?  I agree that was a very punishable offense, but it was so long ago.  I was zero years old at the time.  Why punish us now?  And isn't the damage Reagan did to our economy punishment enough?

Is it something not even related to politics?  Is this punishment for the Kardashians or American Idol or Burger King putting mac and cheese inside Cheetos?  That seems so unfair.  This punishment does not fit those crimes.  Why are the election karma gods so mean?  Why is this happening to us?

Cable news has been pre-gaming all day.  At one point, Fox did two consecutive segments on why it isn't the moderator's job to point out when Trump is lying.  Then Eric Bolling called Hillary's claim that she didn't send any classified emails "the ultimate lie".  Since Eric has no sense of perspective or proportionality, I have no problem asserting that Eric is exactly as bad as Hitler.

Anyway, let's hope the election karma gods agree that Hillary is punishment enough.  I certainly think she is.  Let's hope they're just using Trump as sort of a cautionary tale so they don't have to go through this with us again.  Live, from the 13th floor lounge in Estabrook Hall, or possibly the 8th circle of hell, it's the first debate!!!

8:53PM: Rabinowitz is talking during the final minutes before the debate.  I feel like he'd be a Trump guy.  Rachel Maddow kept criticizing him for talking too long and getting behind schedule.  It was pretty great.

8:55PM: I was going to have an exclusive for the debate tonight.  Gary Johnson was going to be right here in my apartment with me, giving commentary.  Unfortunately, Gary wandered outside like an hour ago to get high and I haven't seen him since.  I don't think he's coming back.

8:56PM: I decided to watch tonight's debate on MSBNC just for fun.  Brian Williams was all over the pre-debate coverage because nobody remembers anything.

8:57PM: I get why we need the crowd to settle down.  We're supposed to be hearing the candidates talk about what kind of President each of them would be.  I don't need 45 minutes of clapping and booing out of a 90 minute debate.  But honestly, if the crowd has to remain completely silent, why are they there?  Why not just have Lester Holt sit in a quiet room with the candidates?  I have so many good ideas.

8:59PM: Brian says we're starting at 9:03:30.  Thanks Brian.  Meanwhile, Rachel was just explaining the rules and they sound pretty loose.  I've heard the campaigns didn't actually sign an agreement about the rules, so this should be really messy.  I don't know much about Lester, but he seems friendly and a little soft-spoken.  I'm not sure he's the guy for this.  I guess we'll see.

9:02PM: Our friends at MSNBC are taking these extra three minutes to make sure we all know that the expectations game leading up to this debate has been totally unfair to Hillary.

9:04PM: Lester says each 15 minute segment will start with the same question to both candidates, and then they'll have two minutes to answer.  After that, roughly 11 minutes of open discussion.  Let's see how that goes.

9:05PM: Hillary is wearing a bright red suit.  She looks ridiculous.  That's not a sexist comment.  If Trump was wearing a bright red suit we'd never stop laughing at him, and rightfully so.  She looks like a tomato.  If Hillary was wearing a black suit, or a grey suit, and someone said she should dress up a little more and she looks boring, that would be a sexist comment.

9:08PM: The first question is about jobs.  Hillary is going through the Democratic laundry list of paid family leave, sicks days, making the wealthy pay their fair share.  Meanwhile, Trump looks less orange than usual, but his hair still looks like cotton candy.

9:09PM: Trump says Mexico is building some of the best plants and America..."not so much".  Then he seemed to indicate that he agrees with Hillary on paid leave, or sick days, or both.  Then he promised tremendous tax cuts (for businesses, don't get excited).  Trump's ability to brag about things he hasn't done yet is actually kind of amazing.

9:11PM: Hillary called Trump's economic plan "Trumped Up Trickle Down".  Hillary needs to focus on doing things she's good at.  Jokes are not one of those things.  Then she took a swipe at Trump borrowing money from his dad to get started.  That one landed clean.  Point to Hillary.

9:13PM: Trump says his father gave him a "very small loan" in 1975.  I think we'd all be pretty surprised by what Trump thinks is a small amount of money.

9:14PM: Trump randomly asked Hillary if it's OK to call her Secretary Clinton.  Then he said he wants her to be very happy.  That was weird.

9:15PM: Trump's proposal for bringing jobs back from Mexico appears to be, essentially, tariffs.  Someone should point out why that is a bad plan, and why it won't work.  Hillary is apparently not that someone, because she wants to talk about other stuff.

9:17PM: Hillary says Donald believes climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.  I have to say I've never heard him say that, but it sounds like something he'd say and it was a funny line.

9:19PM: For all the talk about Trump being different and being an outsider, his economic plan is pretty cookie cutter Republican.  He wants to bring back jobs and create incentives for companies to expand, and he plans to do that through the magic power of tax cuts.

9:21PM: Trump is yelling about how Hillary's husband signed NAFTA.  Instead of saying something like "I'm not my husband, and the first lady doesn't get a vote on signing trade deals", Hillary decided to defend NAFTA.

9:22PM: Trump won't let Hillary finish a sentence.  If only there was some kind of moderator around to reign this in.  Hillary also took a minute to plug her new book.  So far this is bizarre.

9:24PM: Trump keeps saying Lester's name like he made a black friend.  Also, the first 15 minute segment has been something like 19 minutes long.

9:26PM: Now they're literally yelling at each other about fighting ISIS.  Trump said Hillary's been fighting ISIS her entire adult life.  Wait, I thought Barack Obama founded ISIS.  Hillary was already like 63 years old when that happened.  Is that when women become adults in Trump's mind?  I'm so confused.

9:28PM: Trump stopped talking for a minute and Hillary made a really coherent point about building the middle class instead of working from the top down on the economy.  When she was done, Trump, instead of actually waiting for Lester to ask him a question, just started talking and launched into some bizarre attack on the Fed and how they're going to raise interest rates as soon as Obama leaves office.

9:31PM: Lester finally got a question out and it was about Trump's tax returns, which he still won't release.  Trump says he'll release his taxes as soon as the audit is over.  Lester pointed out that the IRS says he can release his tax returns during an audit.  Then Trump said he'll actually release his tax returns when Hillary releases her 33,000 deleted emails.

9:34PM: Hillary says maybe Trump isn't as rich as he says he is, or maybe he's not as charitable as he says he is.  She also said he must be trying to hide something really important, or even terrible.  She's really hitting hard on the something to hide point.  Hillary's poking the bear and trying to get it to attack.

9:37PM:  Trump, interestingly, isn't really saying he doesn't have anything to hide.  He's just saying you don't learn anything from tax returns.  Then he rambled for a minute about being underleveraged and then I think he called us a third world country.  Are we sure he knows what country he's running to be President of?  He doesn't seem to be a big fan of this one.

9:40PM: Hillary has an architect in the audience who built a clubhouse at one of Trump's golf courses and didn't get paid for it.  Trump says maybe he did a bad job.  That's such a con man answer.  Everybody who I stiffed just did bad work.

9:42PM: Trump's essentially arguing that if there's a law that allows him to stiff or short change contractors he's going to take advantage of that and there's nothing wrong with it.  Honestly, this whole election is bizarre.

9:44PM: Lester wants to talk about race.  I'm going to go ahead and say that Trump's handlers are feeling a little apprehensive right now.

9:46PM: Hillary gave a pretty standard liberal answer on race and police and communities, but she also talked about guns, but she didn't really go into it and I kind of wish she had.

9:48PM: Trump said Hillary won't use the words law and order.  She said law at least twice.  Trump also went into his support for stop and frisk as a policy.  Lester pointed out that stop and frisk was deemed unconstitutional, which is true.  Except is Trump's mind, where that's not true and it was just one liberal judge and if DiBlasio wasn't such a pussy he'd appeal and he'd win and then we could do it again.

9:51PM: The face Trump makes whenever someone says the word unconstitutional is the same face a dog makes when you try to give it a command that it hasn't learned yet.  Fascists don't spend a lot of time worrying about constitutionality.

9:54PM: Trump agrees that people on watch lists and no-fly lists shouldn't be able to get guns.  Not that you can enforce that policy without universal background checks, but whatever.

9:57PM: Hillary said crime and murders are still going down since DiBlasio took office.  Trump says she's wrong and murders are up.  Again, if only we had some kind of moderator who could look this stuff up.

10:00PM: Lester asked Trump about the whole birther thing.  Trump said he succeeded where Hillary failed and he got Obama to release his birth certificate.  Lester correctly pointed out that the birth certificate was released in 2011 and Trump kept going with it for five more years.  Trump really didn't answer that part, but he did point out that black people and Obama should be grateful that he got to the bottom of the birther issue.  Seriously, that's a thing that just happened.

10:03PM: Hillary just said Trump has a long history of racist behavior, going back to the 70's.  Trump's general argument seems to be that racism is OK when everyone is doing it.  Hillary was mean to Obama too.  And lots of companies got sued for racial discrimination in the 70's.  Such a good point.  Racism was all the rage back then.  Now he even lets black people into some club he owns.  What a swell guy.

10:07PM: Lester asked them who is responsible for cyber attacks.  Hillary seems to be zeroing in on Russia.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Trump is getting ready to blame China.

10:08PM: I'm sorting drifting in an out at this point.

10:09PM: Trump took the first half of his cyber attack answer time to list a bunch of people who are endorsing him.  Then he said we don't know it's Russia, maybe it was China (points to me) or maybe it was a 400 pound person on their bed.  I suppose we couldn't really expect Trump to get through 90 minutes without some fat shaming.  Also, Trump has a 10 year old son.  Yikes.

10:12PM: Can't one of them just admit that the government is run by people who need to have their grandkids teach them how to use computers and that's why we suck at cyber security?

10:14PM: Trump says we should have taken the oil out of Iraq when we left and then there would be no ISIS.  I'm not an expert on international law, but I'm like 101% sure that's not legal.  Also, how do you take the oil?  It's not just like sitting in a warehouse.  Oil comes from under the ground.  We would have to occupy the country, ya know, forever.  

10:18PM: I got distracted by Trump's insane taking the oil plan and when I drifted back in Trump was declaring NATO obsolete.  Except now it's not obsolete because they're going to deal with terror and Trump is taking credit for that.

10:20PM: Trump and Lester are arguing about whether or not Trump was for the Iraq war.  Trump swears he told Sean Hannity that he was against the Iraq war.  Trump just keeps saying "nobody calls Sean Hannity".  JUST ASK SEAN HANNITY DAMNIT!!!

10:22PM: Trump got a good laugh from the audience when he said he has a much better temperament than Hillary.  The question was why is his judgment better than Hillary's.  His answer was, because it is.

10:23PM: Hillary pointed out that NATO had our back after 9/11.  That's a good point but we've already been through how Trump doesn't really make good on his debts so that's not really an argument that's going to work on him.

10:24PM: Hillary criticized Trump for saying that he'd start a war by blowing Iranians out of the water for taunting us.  Trump didn't say he wouldn't do that, he argued that it wouldn't actually start a war.  I feel like that's a risk we probably shouldn't take.

10:27PM: Apparently we're heading into the last segment.  I thought we had abandoned the schedule a long time ago.

10:29PM: Trump is not a fan of the Iran deal.  It is, apparently, one of the worst deals that any country has ever made.

10:30PM: Hillary had to stop the debate for a second to assure other countries that they shouldn't listen to this maniac and the United States will still honor the agreements we have with them.  We really are hitting rock bottom, aren't we?

10:32PM: Trump keeps insisting that his secret plan to defeat ISIS is fantastic but he's definitely not going to tell us about it because, as he said about an hour ago, Douglas MacArthur would not approve of that.

10:33PM: Lester asked why Trump thinks Hillary doesn't have the look of a President.  Trump claims that he meant she doesn't have the stamina.  Of course, what he actually means is that she's not a 10.  And why would we want some broad who's not a 10 running the country?  Am I right?  Ivanka's a 10 and if you elect me you'll get to see her every day, believe me.

10:36PM: Trump says that many of the things he's said about women were directed as Rosie O'Donnell and everyone agrees that she deserves it and no one feels sorry for her.  Then he said that Hillary isn't being nice to him and he could be very tough to Hillary and her family but he isn't doing that but he could.  That's a killer grown up answer.

Final question.  Will they each accept the final vote as the will of the voters?  Hillary said yes.  Trump rambled for a minute about making America great again, but then said yes.

What a goddamn nightmare.

Are You Not Entertained?

There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.  Donald Trump is one of the most ignorant people you could imagine, but he's not a stupid guy.  Trump is a fascist who's attempting to rise to power by acting like a populist.  It's a very old trick, but it's a smart one because it works sometimes.

Skipping this debate is also not stupid.  There's no downside in this for Trump.  He gets the attention he craves without having to debate the people who are actually trying to beat him.  He gets to watch everyone attack Ted Cruz while he puts on a rival event as a monument to his narcissism and megalomania.  

And there's a stretch goal too.  Trump's supporters only get news from Fox.  Those are his people.  If he can convince his supporters that Fox is just like every other media outlet, with their bias against Trump and his amazing truth telling, then he can inoculate himself against any criticism.  There will be no source of information that can convince his supporters that they should look at other candidates, no matter what he does.  This could be a decent plan.  

Meanwhile Democrats are LOVING this.  I watched MSNBC for most of the hour leading up to the debate.  I would describe the mood on Chris Hayes' show as "Obama election level giddy".  They're watching this one guy, this silly joke of a man, burn down their rival party on national television.  You can see how this would be fun for them.  But listen Democrats.  Trump support is incredibly virulent.  He's like one of those movies where one monkey escapes from a lab and two days later it's only monkeys and zombies and Brad Pitt.  Be careful what you wish for Democrats.  Trump getting nominated seems like an easy win...but what if you lose.  We all still have to live here with the zombie monkeys.

8:57PM: I had to watch Bill O'Reilly read his fan mail while I waited for the debate to start.  It appears Bill mostly writes books about killing people.  That's not weird.

9:00PM: Tonight's debate is being moderated by Fox's A team (which is just Chris Wallace) along with Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly.  Points to Megyn for not eating shit from Trump.  I don't like her haircut, but to be fair, I don't like Bret's head.

9:03PM: Megyn asked Ted about Trump not being there.  Ted, in a stunning display of his superficial charm, said "I"m a maniac, everyone on this stage is fat and ugly and Ben, you're a terrible surgeon.  Now that we've got the Trump stuff out of the way...".  

9:06PM: Rubio called Trump the greatest show on Earth and then immediately started insulting Barack Obama.  Marco seems riled up tonight.  I don't love it.

9:07PM: Everything Jeb says sounds a little pathetic.  Jeb!

9:09PM: More than anyone else, Chris Christie likes to talk directly to the camera.  He has this habit of dramatically turning to the camera mid-answer.  It's pretty unsettling.

9:11PM: Rand just called his dad "the most honest man in politics" in a generation.  He may not be wrong about that.  Baier asked him if Cruz is the intellectual and political heir to Ron Paul.  Rand responded with a low key disdain that was really the correct tone.

9:13PM: Rubio just interrupted a discussion between Ted and Rand about auditing the Fed to tell us that he's going to kill ISIS fighters and keep everyone safe (this was, I guess, a response to Rand's position about bulk data collection).  As usual, Rand is for the government getting a warrant before they can go through your stuff and Marco is for killing terrorists and worrying about your stupid rights later.

9:16PM: Ben has performed lots of surgeries, so obviously he's qualified to be President.  Why is Ben still here?  Everyone knows he's done.  Can't we at least put him at the kiddie table with the other nobodies?

9:18PM: Ted, again, says he'll utterly destroy ISIS.  With talking points I assume.  Ted wants to arm the Kurds.  Please can we just once not arm random people we just heard of in the Middle East?  Please.  Just try it once.  Why is handing out weapons always our move?  Why are we so stupid?  

9:20PM: Ted saw an opportunity to mention Reagan and dove right in.  No mention of that time Reagan sold weapons to Iran though.  Republicans always forget about that.

9:26PM: Wallace tried to get Christie to attack Cruz and Christie took the opportunity to hammer Hillary Clinton for a minute.  Ted argued that he should get his 30 seconds since his name was mentioned, but Wallace correctly pointed out that his name was only mentioned in the question, not in Christie's answer, and completely shut Ted down.  I'm glad Wallace is here.

9:28PM: The crowd booed Wallace for asking Jeb about his brother's quagmires.  Why?  I'm concerned that we let this state have such a big voice in electing our Presidents.  

9:29PM: Cruz is complaining about the questions.  THAT NEVER WORKS.  WHY DON'T ANY OF THESE GUYS NOTICE HOW THAT NEVER WORKS???  I also can't tell if the crowd is for or against Cruz.  They booed after Cruz finished complaining, but it was hard to say whether they were booing his complaining or Wallace's mean questions.

9:31PM: Rand on Syria "should we be bombing both sides of the war?" and then "arming the allies of ISIS will make the situation worse."  Maybe I should just be for Rand.  There's something I don't like about him, but his foreign policy is so much better.  Like, SOOOO much better.

9:34PM: Megyn asked Rubio if his position on dealing with muslim citizens and closing down mosques runs afoul of the first amendment.  Marco responded by saying the word terrorism a lot and being very angry.  I'm souring on Marco.

9:37PM: Christie says Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have made law enforcement the enemy.  I don't agree with the Obama part, but I have to ask about the Hillary part.  Where is he getting that?  She was Secretary of State.  What does that have to do with domestic law enforcement?  

9:39PM: Ben rambled for a while but then he mentioned Teddy Roosevelt.  Bully!

9:40PM: Megyn just asked Kasich about technological back doors for smart phones and Kasich said we really shouldn't talk about that because it needs to be solved in the White House situation room, which he seemed very confident would happen.  Sometimes I feel like Kasich knows lots of secret stuff.  

9:41PM: I've said this before but it's worth another mention.  Kasich is a sneaky hawk.  He seems like a really nice guy and you think "nah, grampa John would never bomb people".  But he would, he'd bomb lots of people.

9:42PM: Jeb is talking about how people died because of the VA.  From the guy whose brother sent those veterans to Iraq for shits and giggles.  It really does bring the problem with Jeb's candidacy into focus.

9:44PM: YouTube question about the relationship between African-American communities and police departments.  Baier wisely threw it to Rand because he's the one guy on the stage who might actually give a shit.

9:48PM: Bret just astutely pointed out that promises to cut waste, fraud and abuse never materialize.  Points to Bret.  

9:49PM: Christie is going to cut Planned Parenthood funding.  Hooray for talking points!

9:49PM: According to a Fox infographic, first amendment repeal is the third most searched repeal topic.  That feels concerning and I'd really rather talk about that instead of more stump speeching about repealing Obamacare.  We get it.  You guys don't like Obama.

9:51PM: I think Bret just called Jeb Senator Bush, so I'm taking his points back.  Jeb is for Puerto Rican statehood.  OK.

9:52PM: Question to Kasich about poison water in Michigan.  John's answer was less than inspiring, but he doesn't really have that passionate anger gear.  I'm fairly certain John wouldn't poison his own citizens.  I wish he would have calmly said the Michigan Governor should resign.

9:54PM: Marco never thought cap and trade was a good idea.  That makes two of us, but I suspect we have different motivations.

10:00PM: Video montage of Marco's flip floppery on amnesty.  Is it so bad that Marco isn't 100% sure about the best way to deal with immigration reform?  That would seem to put him in the category of everybody.  Some of these guys just want to build a giant wall.  At least Marco has been willing to talk about actual ideas.

10:01PM: Jeb just plugged a book he wrote as "affordable for everybody".  I think he was going for self-deprecating, but it came off more like "I know my campaign is over so please buy my book at least".

10:03PM: We're arguing about immigration now.  I couldn't be more tired of this topic.  

10:04PM: Question about how Ted added a poison pill amendment to an immigration bill, then claimed it wasn't a poison pill, then claimed it was.  Yes, Ted is a pathological liar and a monster.  We already knew that.  I did, anyway.

10:06PM: Big applause for Steve King (the terrible Iowa Congressman, not the author).  I can't wait until Tuesday when we don't have to pay attention to Iowa for another four years.

10:08PM: Ted just listed Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin as references.  So yeah.

10:09PM: Marco just said, directly to Ted's face, that Ted's been willing to do or say anything to get votes.  Shots fired.  I like Marco again.  On the other hand, we're still on immigration so I kind of wish one of those shots would hit me in the face.

10:10PM: Christie is going back to his "I hate listening to these guys argue" thing.  I think it's a good move for Chris.  He really ought to be doing better.

10:11PM: People who post nonsense on YouTube are now calling themselves YouTube creators, so that's fun.  YouTube may be the worst thing that's ever happened to us.

10:12PM: Carson was clearly sleeping when Megyn tried to throw the YouTube question to him.  Like me, Carson had apparently forgotten that he was at the debate.  Carson suggested that one out of every ten immigrants could be a terrorist.  That's baseless and dangerous and makes Ben less funny.

10:14PM: Wallace is steering us away from immigration.  Once again, I'm glad he's here.

10:14PM: Question to Ted about how nobody in Congress likes him.  He says people who work for his campaign like him, and so do idiots like Steve King.  So there.

10:16PM: Jeb says he's seen polls where he's beating Hillary pretty regularly.  Those are just polls Jeb takes at family gatherings, and even those are pretty close.

10:17PM: For the record, I think Barack Obama would be a pretty good Supreme Court Justice.  Marco disagrees, but that's mostly because Marco, like way too many people, believes the Supreme Court is a political body.

10:18PM: Marco wants to be clear that Jesus is the only savior.  Ugh.  Then he said "Bernie Sanders would make a good President...of Sweden".  Ha, that was good.  Then he mentioned Benghazi.  Ugh again.  That answer was a real roller coaster for me.

10:20PM: Wallace just asked Christie about the bridge thing.  Is this actually a real thing for people?  I always thought this was the stupidest story.  Do people really care about it?  It makes no sense to me.

10:25PM: I always like Kasich's answer on taking federal money for medicare.  People in Ohio paid federal taxes, then the federal government was like "hey, do you want some of this money back?" and Kasich was like "yes please".  I don't think that makes you a big government guy.

10:27PM: Wallace seems to be on a tear of religious questions.  I'm getting less happy that he's here.  We're talking about Kim Davis now.  Ugh.  Christie's answer was pretty not terrible.  Why couldn't somebody else in her office just do the marriage license?  Seems like a simple enough answer.  I would also suggest she could have just quit if she didn't like her job anymore, but apparently that's not a viable answer.

10:30PM: Marco says Jesus makes us a special nation.  I don't really know what to make of Marco these days.  I really want to be able to vote for him if he winds up running against Hillary, but he's not making it easy.

10:32PM: Abortion always undermines Rand's Libertarianism.  It did the same thing to his dad.  He has to be anti-abortion, being a Republican and all, but saying the government should make that decision for people runs counter to everything he believes.  It's tough being a Libertarian in a party that wants the government to enforce their religious beliefs.

10:36PM: Marco gave us plenty of tough talk about Iran.  Then Kasich chimed in. He's been talking to Belgian diplomats and thinks we can bring the world together.  Is Kasich James Bond?  

10:38PM: Christie starts every answer with a brief explanation of how he's going to make his answer about Hillary Clinton.  I don't like her either, so I'm kind of on board, but it's also kind of annoying and repetitive.

10:43PM: Rand thinks that any CEO who did what Bill Clinton did with an intern would be fired and shunned.  I think Rand may have some rose colored glasses regarding how effectively CEOs are held accountable.  I'm fairly certain Bill wasn't the only CEO touching the interns, especially in the 90's.  

10:46PM: Jeb says Republicans shouldn't be mocking disabled people.  Agreed.

10:46PM: Big applause for the Governor of Iowa, who can't finish a full sentence without shilling for ethanol.  Iowa really is the worst.  Ted's not in the pocket of ethanol because he's too busy being the pocket of oil.  I wouldn't call that a principled position.

10:49PM: Ben says we are blessed with tremendous energy in this country.  That's pretty ironic coming from Ben.

Here come the closing statements:

Rand - He misses doing eye surgery and doesn't like debt.  Then the Rand people went nuts.

Kasich - We can solve problems, and I know this because I'm actually the secret shadow president of the world.

Christie - He mentioned September 11th.  I'm not kidding.  He's like Giuliani in a fat suit.

Jeb! - My band has some CDs for sale in the back if you want to grab one on the way out.

Dr. Ben - Ben recited the preamble to the Constitution, seemingly from memory.  Ben gets an A in 7th grade social studies.

Marco - Something about shining America's light and the 21st century.  He's still better at debating than these other guys.

Ted - Ted frequently brags that he will kill the terrorists.  I wonder if he's planning to do it himself.

I'm really interested to see who wins on Monday.  This should be fascinating.  

I'm Not Voting for Hillary Clinton

You can't make me vote for Hillary Clinton.  I won't do it.  The list of people I would not vote for under any circumstances has on it but one name, and that name is Hillary Clinton.  I don't even care what she says she believes in this time.  I just want her to go away.  Her and Bill are rich, and they've accomplished plenty, why won't they just go away?  Why?

Unfortunately, having only two parties to choose from, this means the Republican primary process takes on extra special significance for me this time around.  No longer are the Republicans just funny TV personalities I can laugh at and then not vote for.  I have to vote for one of these people.  So everybody focus up!  Alright?!?  I'm serious!  Time to take a look at the Republican candidates.  I was worried that the internet wouldn't have enough room on it to list all of them, but internet inventor Al Gore says we're fine.

I've broken the candidates down into three tiers.  Within each tier, I'll try to list the candidates in order from least likely to win to most likely to win.  Seriously now, I have to vote for one of these people, so let's all just pay attention and see if we can find some hope here.

Tier Three
Tier three consists of people who have the same chance at winning the Republican nomination as I do.  I couldn't tell you why they're running, and I couldn't tell you why anyone would bother donating money to them or saying their name when a pollster calls and asks who they might be voting for.  I'll still try to list these people from least likely to most likely, but keep in mind that trying to parse out the varying degrees of absolutely no chance really is splitting hairs.  Pointless, needless hairs.

Jim Gilmore
I don't know who this person is.  I assume he created Gilmore Girls and listen, girls with blue eyes and dark hair is an excellent concept for a TV show.  I wish every show was based around that general theme.  But Gilmore Guy here isn't going to be President.  Sorry.

Carly Fiorina
Being an actual person I've heard of is a good start.  Carly was CEO of Hewlett-Packard for a while, and was apparently terrible at it.  To be fair, taking over a tech company in 1999 was a little like taking over as Brittney Spears' manager in 1999.  You knew it wasn't going to end well, but somebody had to do it. 

Being a former CEO whose claim to fame was lay-offs certainly didn't stop Mitt Romney from winning the Republican nomination.  Mitt, however, was at least a governor at some point.  Carly once ran for the Senate and lost.  I don't think that's going to cut it.  Also, Carly is awful on TV.  Really awful.  If you ever get a chance to see her do an interview on Fox, watch for as long as you can just to see what I'm talking about.  You won't last long.

Lindsey Graham 
I can't figure out what Lindsey Graham is doing.  He always struck me as a guy who was perfectly happy being a career Senator.  I suppose if he and John McCain are ever going to build a blanket fort in the White House, it's up to Lindsey now.  Unfortunately, "John McCain is my best friend" isn't exactly a killer campaign slogan when you're dealing with the Republican base.  They still think McCain ruined Sarah Palin's epic run for the White House.

Bobby Jindal
Take your pick of reasons why Bobby won't win.  How about doing everything but setting his own shirt on fire during a comically awful State of the Union response?  Or how about the fact that he looks and sounds like a little kid pretending to be his dad every time you see him speaking?  Or how about the fact the apparently everyone in Louisiana hates him?  Or how about the fact that nobody will take you seriously if you're a 44 year old man who still calls himself Bobby? 

George Pataki
You probably think I have Pataki ranked a little high, right near the top of the people who have absolutely no chance.  Maybe it's my New York bias, but I don't understand why George isn't doing a little better.  Then again, I haven't actually seen him do anything since I found out he was running for President.  George knows that in order to run for President you have to like, leave your house and stuff, right?

Tier Two
Tier two consists of people who, under the right circumstances, could hypothetically win the nomination.  For a couple of them, those circumstances would mostly involve leading a military coup, or having a deadly virus kill all the other candidates.  Still, I think each of these people has some plausible, if improbable, path to the nomination.

Ben Carson
I know, you think Ben should be higher.  I disagree.  Carson is one of two candidates who are specifically hurt by Donald Trump.  The tea party failed because it became a magnet for everyone in the Republican party who wanted to get angry about everything without actually having to learn about anything.  Carson looked like he might be their guy in 2016, but then Trump came along and boy, talk about being angry without actually learning anything!  The Trump train will wreck eventually, but by the time it does Carson will be lucky to still get his show on Fox, which is really all he wanted in the first place.

Ted Cruz
The other guy Trump is absolutely burying is Ted Cruz, for basically the same reason.  Ever since he got to the Senate Ted Cruz has been the champion of being loud and disagreeable.  Now he takes a firm back seat in that category to Mr. Trump.  Second place in the loud and disagreeable competition is just the first loser.  If Trump disappears more quickly than I expect, his voters will have to go somewhere and Ted still has a platform as a Senator.  Unfortunately for Ted (and fortunately for the rest of us, in this context at least), I don't think Trump is leaving anytime soon and until he does, Ted stays buried.

Rick Perry
Presidents from Texas have a tendency to get us into intractable quagmires overseas.  And with so many potential quagmires available to us currently, I'm confident that Republican voters will recognize that Mr. Perry is not the guy right now.  Also, he's terrible at debating and might actually be a moron.  I'm not a big fan, is I guess what I'm saying. 

Mike Huckabee
I'm a little disappointed in Huck.  Growing up, the priests always told us to love the sinner and hate the sin.  Some of them were better at that than others.  I always thought Mike was pretty good at genuinely not hating the people he believes to be sinners.  Now I'm not so sure. 

Mike's path to the nomination has always been the same.  Rally the social conservatives and stick around long enough to go one on one with the establishment candidate, with enough primaries left to make it a real fight.  This time around, I wonder how much fight the social conservatives have left in them.  They keep losing, in public opinion, in the courts, with former Olympic athletes who they thought were cool.  At some point, some percentage of those folks have to give up and move on to other things.  I don't think there's enough left to take Huck anywhere good, but I guess we'll see.

Donald Trump
I know, I know.  But he's doing so well in the polls! How can you not even have him in the first tier??  Let me ask you an honest question.  Do you really think Donald Trump is going to win the Republican nomination?  I don't.  I think he'll stay in for a while, probably at least into March.  But as other candidates start to drop out, two things will happen. 

First of all, nobody who is supporting any other candidate, except for maybe Cruz and Carson, will come over to Trump when their guy leaves.  Every time someone gets out of the race, everyone else will get some new voters and Trump will stay where he is now.  Secondly, while Trump will probably look pretty good in Thursday's debate with nine other people, eventually he'll wind up on stage with just two or three other people and that's when his real weakness will get exposed.  He's a lightweight.  He doesn't know anything about governing or public policy.  That's fine when you're one of 17 people shouting at the TV cameras, it's less fine when you're on stage trying to debate 2 or 3 people who have spent their lives working in government. 

Trump can't win for the same reason I can't be a famous guitarist.  I think I'd be an awesome famous guitarist!  I'd be so charitable if I was rich and I'd always sign autographs for fans.  I'd always be on tour and I'd play colleges and charity events for free because I'd be rich anyway and you can only spend so much money.  I'd be great at this!  Oh but there's this one thing, I'm terrible at playing the guitar.  Just that one thing, otherwise I'd be great.

Rick Santorum
And now you're wondering how it took me so long to get to Rick.  I've been hard on Rick in the past, and I don't agree with him a lot, but I honestly think he's a solid candidate.  Listen to Rick speak if you ever get the chance.  He talks a lot about the economy, the middle class and jobs.  He hardly ever talks about bestiality anymore.  I don't think Rick's economic plan is any good, but at least he has one, and I think he honestly wants to do good things for working people.  He's pretty genuine on the economic stuff, and I think that'll resonate if he gets a chance.

Rick was also a Senator, and from a state with actual people in it.  He understands how governing works and he has experience in primary debates.  I feel like Rick should be doing better than he is, and I have some expectation that he'll start doing better soon.  I'm not saying I like it, I'm just saying I think Santorum may be more for real than he seems right now, and I'd suggest keeping an eye on him.

Rand Paul
I have to admit to being genuinely interested in Rand at some point.  I've always been a fan of Ron Paul, and I was looking forward to seeing Rand keep up the family tradition of getting booed in Republican primary debates for being somewhat tentative about bombing everything.  Rand is still probably the guy in this field I'd be most likely to vote for, but doesn't it feel like his moment has passed a little bit? 

He really jumped on that whole NSA data collection thing, but it turned out most people didn't really care about that a lot.  And even though Rand is actually more hawkish than his dad, I think most Republicans think he's still someone who wouldn't feature explosions in his foreign policy, and I'm not sure that fits into the current Iran pants-shitting vibe the Republicans currently have going. 

Marco Rubio
All of Marco's avenues seem to be closing.  He lost the tea party people when he decided to support immigration reform and, you know, be Hispanic.  The whole anti-Castro thing doesn't really play outside of Florida.  The most generous description of his State of the Union response would be "not totally awful", which is better than Bobby Jindal's "catastrophic", but still not good. 

Rubio's best path to the nomination is the same as Barack Obama's path in 2008.  It's a pretty good path, but I wonder if this avenue is closing for Marco too.  He's no less new to the national scene than Obama was around this time in 2007, but Republicans got really excited about him and pushed him like Vince McMahon pushing a new wrestler, and now Marco already seems like he's been around for a while.  I think we may already know too much about Rubio for him to play the new guy.  Also, I'm not convinced that anyone from Congress can win this time around.  People really hate Congress.

I seem mostly down on Marco because, like Rand Paul, I think his moment may have passed.  On the other hand, Jimmy Smits won the election on the West Wing, and if anyone is a Republican Matt Santos, it's this guy.

John Kasich
Kasich is the hardest guy on the list to place, because he just got in.  He's a governor, so he's not tainted by being a member of Congress.  He's a swing state governor, and he seems to be a least mildly popular in his state.  He has legitimate experience governing.  Republicans have seemed quietly excited about Kasich for a while now. 

Kasich sort of quietly announced his candidacy right in the middle of Trumpageddon.  Sometimes a bad launch can kill a campaign.  I don't know if that'll happen to Kasich, he seems pretty legit, but it's really hard to say right now.  It looks like he'll probably make Thursday's debate, and I expect he'll do pretty well, and then he should be on his way to the top tier.

Tier One
Tier one candidates are the people who are currently legitimate contenders.  People who I think can win without anything weird happening.  One of these guys would make a really awful President, but the other two would probably be not completely terrifying.

Chris Christie
Maybe I need to give up on Chris.  Maybe this just isn't going to happen.  I'm not ready yet though.  He's the only guy in this field who won't put up with getting bullied by Trump.  His experience as a U.S. Attorney should kill in debates about security.  He's well known and currently a Governor.  The fact that MSNBC still won't stop crying about the George Washington Bridge also leads me to believe that liberals are genuinely afraid of Christie. 

Will social conservatives ever really trust him?  No, but they didn't trust Romney or McCain either and they eventually dealt with it.  Does he need to get his poll numbers up?  Yes he does.  He may not even make the stage on Thursday.  It seems like he's got enough financial backing to hang around for a while, and he should do better once some of the other people start dropping out.  I think he'll get the Rubio people, maybe the Perry people, maybe even the Huckabee people if they don't go to Santorum.  I still think he can win, soon I may be the only one left.

Scott Walker
Walker seems to remind Republicans of Reagan, which is a terrible thing for anyone who actually understands what kind of President Reagan was in real life, but an awesome thing for Scott in the Republican primary.  He's also become the patron saint of union bashing, another killer trait for a Republican.  If I thought Scott Walker was actually a decent candidate, he'd be the clear favorite.  He doesn't really seem like a decent candidate though.  He seems like an empty suit that's been filled with talking points and billionaires' political wishes.  Like I said, he's a lot like Reagan.

Jeb Bush
I think Jeb is still the favorite.  I know his poll numbers never move and he doesn't really seem to do or say much, but consider a few other things.  He's incredibly well-funded, he was a swing state Governor and Republican primary voters don't remember his brother nearly as negatively as the rest of us.  Would it help you to know that his real name is John?  Sounds less silly than Jeb, right?

We have to find out if Jeb actually wants to be President that much.  I'm not 100% sure he does.  I don't know that anyone is especially excited about Jeb, and maybe that's because he doesn't seem too excited about himself.  I'm not looking forward to voting for Jeb, but I think it's the most likely outcome for me.  I mean, how bad can a Bush Presidency be, right?

Epilogue
Oh and one more thing.  Did you notice how I didn't mention Newt Gingrich?  That's because he's not running this time.  If you're looking at all of these people and thinking you don't like any of them, just remember that none of them are Newt Gingrich, and that's pretty great.

Journey to the End of My Sense of Humor

I started blogging almost six years ago for reasons that I don't fully remember.  I could say that I needed a creative outlet, but it's more likely that I just wanted to yell back at the people on the TV and this was the next best thing.  It was my intention to post something two or three times a week, and it went that way for a while.

I found that as I started writing regularly, I started becoming more aware of my inner monologue.  Eventually, after the 2012 election, I got so tired of the voice in my head, and my sense of humor, that I all but abandoned this space.  I needed a break from me, and while that's never entirely possible, I could at least give myself a break from writing, editing and re-writing my thoughts all the time.  I tried to get back here a couple of years ago, but that didn't really take. 

I bought a new car a few months ago.  I'm very impulsive and impatient, especially when it comes to buying stuff.  One day I was just sitting in my apartment getting ready to schedule an oil change for my 11 year old car.  Seriously, my car would have been a sixth grader, and I beat it up pretty good.  I don't think I ever took it to a car wash, and sometime last summer I kicked the clutch pedal the wrong way and just yanked it right out of the car.  I was able to jam it back in, but, not surprisingly, it never really worked as well after that.  Good tip for everyone...ripping things out of your car and then kicking them back into place isn't an awesome way to keep your car in top shape.

Anyway, one day in March I was sitting here thinking about not really wanting to put any more money into my old car.  I went online to research possible new cars.  Now, my grandpa is still alive, and he didn't win World War 2 so I could buy a Toyota or a fucking Volkswagon, so I limited my search to American cars.  I settled on Chevy because, I don't know, my Saturn was a GM car and it turned out pretty good.  About 90 minutes later I was putting a $500 deposit down at a Chevy dealership so Joe, the nice Irish car salesman, could find me a blue Chevy Cruze with a standard transmission.  Joe had a KISS mug on his desk, but I bought a car from him anyway because his hockey equipment was in the car that he let me test drive, so that kind of evened out the whole KISS thing.

Three days after that, I went back to Joe with a large check which I gave him in exchange for a blue Chevy Cruze with a standard transmission.  I didn't like the shade of blue then and I don't like it now, but I wasn't in the mood for red just then so blue was my best choice because the other two choices were white (no) and a fourth color that I honestly don't even remember.  A week later I kept thinking how much I wished I had just gotten a red one.

On the way home with my new car, I stopped in a parking lot to play around with the transmission a little before I got it out on a real road.  I realized that I didn't know how to put the car in reverse, so that started about 7 minutes of panic in a McDonald's parking lot.  What if I never figured out how to make my new car go backwards??  It would be like the Zoolander of cars!  Then I figured it out.

Then I stopped at home for a few minutes before heading back to work for a night meeting.  When I started my new car, for the second time ever, the check engine light went on.  I checked the gas cap and whatever else I could think of.  Luckily, my previous car had a pretty consistent check engine light problem, so I knew what to check, but nothing helped.  I was very unhappy.

I took my new car back to the dealership, and after they checked it out a little, they called me and announced that I needed a new part.  They said I needed to bring it in later in the week to get the new part (which they had to order), then I needed to drive it around for a few days, then I needed to bring it back in again to have it pass inspection with the new part.  This all made me very angry.  I sent Joe a very angry email, which I don't feel bad about because even though this wasn't his fault he's a KISS fan and that is his fault.  I had a very angry conversation with two different people in the maintenance department, which I do sort of feel bad about.

Everyone completely understood why I was very angry, but that didn't really make me less angry.  But eventually,  I realized that being very angry wasn't helping solve my problem, and I decided to stop being very angry.  And when I stopped being very angry, all the car people started trying extra hard to help me, because I wasn't being angry at them anymore.  Since I got my new part, everything about the car has been great.  It even retained its new car smell for like three months.

So back to blogging.  This whole car fiasco reminded me that angry Sean is generally not productive Sean, and that regular Sean is not really a big fan of angry Sean.  I started writing with the main goal of being funny.  I got tired of my own writing, in part, because my tone slowly changed from being funny to being angry, and mean-spirited.  To be fair, you can hardly blame me.  To keep informed on my subject matter, which is politics more than anything else, I watched a lot of cable news.  Here's a quick story about cable news that I think illustrates my point.

Not that long ago, maybe around the same time I bought the car, I tried to watch MSNBC.  I honestly hadn't watched MSNBC at all in like a year because it is so very awful.  While Fox's detachment from reality is often genuinely entertaining, MSNBC's detachment from reality is usually just sad and unsettling.  So I turned on Chris Matthews, a familiar face to ease back in.  Chris, and I swear this is true, was talking about Chris Christie and the George Washington bridge.  A whole segment on it.  Roughly 18 months after the non-scandal happened.  Why?  I watched the whole segment and I honestly couldn't tell you.

Completely unrelated tangent.  I was just adding some tags to this post (Chevrolet, MSNBC, Fox News, etc) and apparently I've never tagged a post with Zoolander before.  How does that happen?  23 year old me would be very disappointed in current me.

Anyway, you can't blame me for getting angry all the time back when I was watching hours of cable news every day.  Honestly, you should be impressed I'm still alive.

I'm at the point now where I either need to start writing here again or I need to come on here, thank the 8-10 people who read most of what I wrote, and give up.  I'm willing to give it one more try.  And this time I can try it without crushing my soul with hours and hours of Fox and MSNBC.  If there's one thing I learned the first time, its that I never learned anything useful watching cable news anyway.

There's an election just starting, with debates and what-not, and plenty of silly sports things about under-inflated balls to talk about.  And maybe sometimes I can just tell funny stories that happened to me in life.  I've heard people find that interesting.  If I can't get back into this now, then maybe it just isn't for me anymore.

First up, a total rundown of the Republican field.  Then a debate on Thursday.  Then we'll see how it's going.  Maybe it'll go a little less angry this time.  Maybe I can get through this whole election without calling anybody a dumbass, and maybe then I can sign off feeling good about how it ended.  Or maybe it doesn't have to end there.  Or maybe I'll write a couple of things next week and realize that I've wrung everything out of the sponge that is my sense of humor already and I don't have anything else useful to say.  We'll see.