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 Still Not Feeling the Bern

Last time I watched a Democratic debate two of the candidates dropped out of the race immediately after the debate.  Come to think of it, Jim Webb may have dropped out during the debate.  I've heard about debates happening since then, but the DNC did a pretty good job of keeping them secret.  I heard one of them was on the moon and you could only watch it with a telescope.  Hillary 2016!

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, they seem to be choosing between Cruz and Trump.  That's as bad as it could be.  If we elect one of them, it's not like he'll be President for a few weeks and we can all have a good laugh and move on.  We'd be stuck with him for four years.  We have nuclear weapons.  Lots of them.  It's a bad situation.

So, the Democrats really need to get their act together.  I still have concerns about Sanders in a general election, and the Clinton campaign is predictably collapsing.  I can't figure out what's wrong with the Clinton campaign except to say that they're just bad at being in a race.  Also, Martin O'Malley is a person who exists.  I thought O'Malley could at least get enough support to maybe drop out and make an impact with an endorsement.  Even that seems like a long shot now.  Things are bleak, is what I'm saying.

8:53PM: Tonight's debate is in South Carolina where Bernie Sanders is, let's be honest, just way too Jewish for those people.  Clinton leads by approximately 109 percent in South Carolina polls.  I assume Debbie Wasserman Schultz is spending these last few minutes offering Sanders increasing amounts of money to just go back to Vermont and eat some ice cream.

8:57PM: Sounds like Bernie has recently changed his position on guns, or at least some part of the gun debate.  That's fine.  I was never under the impression that any of these people could actually do something about guns if elected, I was more concerned about Bernie's position on guns being inconsistent with everything else he believes.  I still have that concern.

9:00PM: Tonight's debate is being moderated by Lester Holt and Andrea Mitchell.  Color me underwhelmed.  To be fair, I can't really think of anyone at NBC who I would trust to not be completely in the tank for Hillary.  I think they still feel bad about 2008.  Obama was just so cool though.

9:02PM: Apparently we'll have questions from "the YouTube community" throughout the debate.  Oh goodie.  Glad to see NBC can't even come up with two hours of their own questions.

9:03PM: Hillary thinks Martin Luther King Jr. was pretty great.  Leave it to Hillary to take controversial positions.  She's a real maverick.

9:04PM: Bernie also thinks Dr. King was super.  African-American voters do not think Bernie is super.  I don't really understand that.  It can't just be that he's old and white.  Hillary is almost as old, and incredibly white.  Like, translucently white.

9:05PM: O'Malley is a fan of Dr. King too.  His actual name is Martin, so I guess he wins this round?

9:07PM: Bernie's top three priorities would be universal health care, $15/hr minimum wage and infrastructure spending to create jobs.  Hillary's are essentially the same, but she added equal pay for equal work.  Both of them want to bring the country together.

9:09PM: O'Malley fit like five things into his first priority.  He threw in support for unions and immigration reform.  Then he talked about climate change.  Marty's top three priorities are roughly 13 different things.  He said everything that a Democrat has even been for.

9:10PM: Bernie just called Clinton's attacks on him about guns disingenuous.  Clinton came back by reciting Bernie's record on gun votes.  He looks genuinely embarrassed, which again raises my concerns about his motivation on this issue.

9:14PM: Hey Marty, do you want to take everyone's guns?  O'Malley says he's never met a self-respecting deer hunter who needed an automatic weapon to down a deer.  Marty also says he agrees with Bernie and Hillary, they've both been inconsistent on guns.  Zing! You've just been O'Malleyed!

9:17PM: Hillary says we need to end the systemic racism in our criminal justice system.  She added "some of that shit was signed into law by my husband, but what can I say, I married a dumbass...you get it ladies".  OK I made that second part up.

9:19PM: Bernie is employing the Trump argument of quoting polls he's leading.  Sanders is confident that African-American voters will come around when they become familiar with his record.  That could be true. He is kind of running out of time though.

9:20PM: O'Malley was the only person to actually say "black lives matter".  I feel like that should count for something, but I have a sense that it won't.

9:21PM: Holt says we're going to hear from "some of the most prominent voices on YouTube".  Prominent voices on YouTube?  What?  I'm interested to see what cats would ask Presidential candidates.

9:23PM: Sanders just said "if a police officer breaks the law, like any other public official, they should be held accountable".  Is it just me, or did he subtly motion towards Hillary as he said "like any other public official"?  Maybe it's just me.

9:25PM: We've been talking about heroin I think.  I don't know, I got distracted by a fire truck outside my building.  Bernie said something about pharmaceutical companies taking some responsibility for the drugs they're producing.  I'm for that.

9:31PM: Clinton says the Democratic party worked since Harry Truman to get the Affordable Care Act passed.  I'm not sure that's exactly what Harry had in mind, but OK.  The question was does Bernie want to destroy Obamacare.  Hillary didn't answer that question, which Bernie quickly pointed out.

9:33PM: Bernie, as we all know, is for universal health care.  He wants to provide health care for everyone and get rid of private insurance.  This is a simple question.  Do you want a candidate who's for universal public health care or do you want a candidate who's for subsidizing private health care?  It's a simple question.  I don't know what Hillary is arguing about.  Bernie's a socialist.  He wants universal health care.  It's the one thing everyone knows about him.

9:36PM: Hillary's argument seems to be that Bernie's goal of universal health care would force us to start from scratch and give up the gains made by the Affordable Care Act.  That's a fair point.  Hillary is basically saying we'll never have the votes for universal health care.

9:39PM: Bernie says we need to have guts and he brought up the influence of money on politics.  This is pragmatism vs. idealism and it's a pretty fun debate but neither of them appear to be having any fun.  Maybe (seriously) this is why Trump is doing so well.  He seems to be having a blast.  Yeah, he's angry, but he's happy to be angry.  These two look like they're getting side by side colonoscopies.  Also, I think Martin O'Malley is still here but I can't really be sure.

9:43PM: Oh, there's Marty, unsuccessfully trying to break the Sanders filibuster.  When he finally got to talk, he quoted Frederick Douglass and everyone clapped but still nobody voted for him.

9;45PM: Some fucking douchebag from YouTube just asked how these people are going to engage his generation.  Hillary talked about how young people value their independence and autonomy.  Wrong.  I work with college students.  They're the least independent and autonomous people you could ever meet.  Who's next?  Oh, apparently nobody, only Hillary gets to answer that question.  Awesome job NBC.

9:52PM: Bernie says "I don't get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs".  Ouch.  We all understand Bernie would be roughly a trillion times tougher on Wall St. than Hillary, right?  If you want Wall St. to be better regulated, you're voting for Bernie.  We really shouldn't have to spend a lot of time of this.

9:54PM: Hillary just called Dodd-Frank a "regulatory scheme".  I have a feeling you'll be hearing that sound bite in a Ted Cruz commercial this fall.  Where is Elizabeth Warren right now?  Why won't she run?  Is she busy?  Can't somebody else do whatever it is she's doing right now?

9:56PM: O'Malley is making snide remarks every time Hillary pauses.  It's pretty funny.

9:57PM: Marty says he's for a modern version of Glass-Steagall and Hillary isn't.  That appears to be true.  Hillary responded by saying O'Malley took Wall St. money in the past.  Yes, yes, everyone's a whore.

9:59PM: In case you didn't know who Bernie was talking about when he brought up Goldman Sachs speaking fees a few minutes ago, he was talking about Hillary Clinton.

10:01PM: How will Bernie pay for all his fun socialism?  Taxes on Wall St. speculation.  I think Bernie believes he has adequately explained himself now, but I don't think most people understand Bernie's plan anymore than they did two minutes ago.

10:04PM: Solid explanation of something from Bernie.  Yes, he would raise middle class taxes to pay for medicare for all, but those same people wouldn't have to pay $10,000 in private health insurance premiums anymore.  My employer does pay a nice sum for my health insurance, but if Bernie got rid of those premiums, I don't feel super confident that my employer would gladly just hand that money over to me.

10:07PM: Another YouTube question.  This one had cartoons.  Journalism!

10:09PM: Bernie wants to move our energy system away from fossil fuels.

10:10PM: Marty invited the other two to join him in pledging to have a 100% clean energy electrical grid by 2050.  Lester decided to go to a commercial instead of letting them answer.

10:13PM: Chuck Todd is now talking to the camera for some reason.  Since when do debates have halftime?

10:16PM: Andrea asked Bernie if it's now time to re-open a US embassy in Tehran.  Personally, I would love to see Argo 2.

10:19PM: Hillary's three point plan for Syria doesn't include ground forces.  Marty has a three point plan for lunch tomorrow, but honestly, two of the points are just two different kinds of cheese and I'm not sure that really counts.

10:20PM: Bernie showed some restraint by not actually staring directly at Hillary while talking about the mistakes of Iraq.

10:21PM: Marty says Governors have led us to victory in two world wars.  George W. Bush was a Governor too.  There may be a hole in Marty's argument.

10:23PM: Bernie, once again, pointed out that he strongly opposed the Iraq war.  He added "UNLIKE SOME OTHER HILLARY CLINTONS WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS".  OK he didn't, but maybe he should have.

10:27PM: We all agree Assad is bad.  Bernie seems to be advocating for a one problem at a time approach, saying we should work with anyone who wants to destroy ISIS because that has to come first.  I feel like that's one of those things you say before you become President and realize the actual scope of the mess over there.

10:29PM: Hillary just said something about advancing your security and your values.  No, no to the second thing.  We tried that.  Not everyone wants our values.  Values are things that you value.  You can't tell other countries what they're supposed to value and you certainly can't bomb them into sharing your values.  We've learned nothing.

10:31PM: Marty says the government should have to get a warrant no matter what door they want to come through.  Some people in the audience applauded very loudly and I'm pretty sure Rand Paul was one of them.

10:33PM: Bernie says private companies and the government know where you are at this very moment.  Hi private companies!  Would you like to send me some money or something?

10:38PM: Even though all night nobody else ever got to follow up on the last question after a break, Hillary gets 30 seconds to make a point about what they were talking about before the break.  O'Malley asked if he could also have 30 seconds.  The moderators seemed very reluctant but Marty got his 30 seconds in and used it to say bad things about Trump.

10:41PM: Would Bill Clinton have a real policy role in Hillary's White House, or just a kitchen table role?  She says he'd advise her on the economy.  Weird question, OK answer.

10:43PM: Goldman Sachs will not have a Treasury Secretary in Bernie's cabinet.  Well that should fix it.

10:44PM: Bernie says Bill Clinton's actions (I assume we're talking about the intern banging) were deplorable but that's not what he's here to talk about.  That whole section was about Bill Clinton.  That was weird.

10:49PM: Lester asked them if there's anything they wanted to say tonight that they didn't get a chance to say.  He started with O'Malley and everyone laughed.  Poor Marty.  He took his 60 seconds to talk about immigration, Puerto Rico, Honduras and El Salvador.  Maybe Marty is struggling because he's not great at staying on message.

10:51PM: Hillary took her time to talk about Flint, Michigan.  She just kicked the shit out of the Governor of Michigan, and rightfully so.  Bernie said he also called for the Governor's resignation.

10:53PM: Bernie also took his time to talk about money in politics.

I guess that's it.  I could name like 10 Democrats I like more than any of these three.  Booker/Warren 2016!