Tag: debate

Asking the Hard Questions

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I watched Tucker Carlson’s interview of Mike Pence in Iowa.  It was extremely hard to watch.  In fact, I turned it off more than a few times because it was just too painful to watch this man say one stupid thing after another.  But stupid doesn’t really capture it.  It was as if he were lying and yet unaware of just how poorly he was lying.  When he talked about the 2020 election, he said that the voting irregularities would have had no impact on the outcome of the election.  And then he claimed that changes that have been instituted have strengthened election integrity.  I refuse to believe he’s that stupid.  I think he’s just lying and when he makes his case that’s exactly what it seems to be, a very poor liar.  When Tucker presses him on the various weak points in his story it’s like a little kid who has been caught doing something wrong and you ask him about it and you can almost see the wheels turning as he makes up a pathetic story that is patently absurd.

And then came the coup de grace.  While Pence is complaining about Joe Biden not getting Abrams tanks to Ukraine fast enough, Tucker asks whether with all the terrible problems that now plague our country; crime, drugs, violence, inflation; shouldn’t Pence be more worried about those things than Ukraine’s access to more American weapons.  And Pence’s answer was, “It’s not my concern, it’s not my concern.”  Now he tried to bury this answer by claiming that as president he’d handle both domestic and foreign policy issues simultaneously.  But all that anyone will ever remember is that he said that crime and homelessness and suicide and fentanyl overdoses and inflation were not his concern.

Well, Mike Pence will never be the Republican candidate for president.  My question is, with his breathtakingly awful communication skills, how was he ever a successful politician?  I’m aware that being vice president doesn’t require much in the way of talent.  But he did manage to become the governor of Indiana.  Is the bar that low in Indiana that a man without any discernible rhetorical abilities could become governor?  I’m going to give Pence the benefit of the doubt and that he used to be a very honest man and that in Indiana an honest man can accomplish a lot.  And that what we see now is what happens when a simple man is thrown into the cesspool that is Washington DC and tries to swim with the rats there.  Inevitably he gets eaten alive.

I watched Tucker’s interviews with the other candidates too.  Asa Hutchinson was equally hopeless as Carlson hammered him over his veto of a ban on pediatric transitioning and also on his tepid response to closing the southern border to drugs and illegal immigration.  So, what I see is that Tucker is acting as the voice of the normal Americans who are fed up with the GOP establishment candidates.  What he is doing is preventing the candidates from giving their lame rah-rah speeches and instead addressing the very painful fact that they don’t have solutions for the most pressing problems in America today.  In fact, he exposes the fact that they want to make believe that these problems don’t exist.  Or if they aren’t allowed to ignore them, then they just handwave them away as, “We’ll put our top men on that.”

Mike Pence is hopeless.  Asa Hutchinson is hopeless.  Nikki Haley is hopeless.  But even the candidates who make some sense like DeSantis and Trump can’t answer the most important question, “What are we gonna do if and probably when the Democrats steal the election in 2024?  That’s what we should be talking about with the men who want to be president.  And they should be talking to the red state governors about the contingencies that they should already be putting in place.  We’ve been occupied for over three years now by a rogue regime.  Enormous damage has already been done.  Taking concrete steps to begin reversing the damage and protecting people is long overdue.

So, good for Tucker for asking some hard questions.  But I think the harder questions remain to be answered.  That’s the debate that still needs to take place.  Maybe Tucker can work on that.

Tucker’s New Gig

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I saw this article about Tucker Carlson “floating the idea of hosting a Republican primary forum.”  And I thought about all the ways such an idea could go right and wrong.  But what I thought would be much more productive would be for him to assemble a panel of those on the Right who aren’t fake and allow them to speak to us about what they can and can’t do to make things better; straight talk.

Think about it.  Carlson knows all these people.  He knows who the phonies are, people like Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley and Mike Pence.  He knows things about the power structure in Washington that we don’t.  He could easily get all of the candidates with the possible exception of Donald Trump to accept an invitation.  And without a doubt he could come up with an agenda that would be illuminating for both the attendees and the public.

I’d say this could be a series of discussions where the first few episodes should completely steer clear of the 2024 election.  Instead, what is needed is an honest discussion of all the things that are pushing the country down the dark road it’s on.  Congressmen and senators could talk honestly about the barriers that prevent honest change from happening.  They could talk candidly about the way lobbyists control the direction and specifics of legislation.  Past officeholders from the executive branch could shine a light on exactly who runs the federal bureaucracy.  And I mean name names.  And they could provide suggestions on how that mess could be repaired.  The ultimate coup would be if Carlson could convince Trump to speak candidly about the way that the federal government stonewalled his attempts to enact his various policy directives.  Then he could give his ideas on how this interference could be prevented in the future.

And even more important, I’d like to see a bunch of Republican governors sitting down together; Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Bill Lee, even a waffler like Kristi Noem could be there.  They truly are the most powerful office holders on our side.  Carlson could ask them to speak to the problems they face and also what things they see as opportunities.  And he could ask them how they plan to help their constituents escape the effects of federal government interference in their lives.  And how they plan to coordinate their efforts.

I wouldn’t be surprised if most of these officeholders refused to get involved in such a project.  Even politicians who aren’t out and out crooks like McConnell and Graham don’t want to stick their necks out and get put under the spotlight.  After all, speaking the truth is treason in Washington D.C.  But with so much of the Republican electorate now solidly red-pilled to what’s really going on in Washington it is in the interest of these politicians to convince their constituencies that they aren’t just part of the problem.  Because a lot of people are coming to the conclusion that voting in Republicans is a useless activity.  If that idea gets too ingrained even red state senators and congressmen may find themselves out on their ears.

So, this is just a lot of hot air.  But Carlson could provide a public service (and make an enormous amount of money) if he can convince some of these conservative lawmakers to push back the curtain and let us know the ugly truth about our government.  The truth is a remarkably valuable commodity.  Providing the gory details to the American public would be a public service of enormous consequence.

Think of it as one of those livestream podcasts where the viewers get to ask questions.  Carlson could take the top five questions based on number of questioners and at the end of the show have his guests answer them.

And I guess he should host a 2024 debate show.  I’d be interested in his questions and his refereeing of the candidates.  It would be hell of a lot better than what the mainstream media does every four years.

22OCT2020 – Post Debate Note

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Well, it wasn’t what I hoped it would be.  First off the moderator wasn’t more than normally biased.  She slanted all the questions of course but there was even some questions that Biden didn’t like.  And President Trump was actually given close to the chance that Biden got to talk.  And President Trump was allowed to say a good deal about Hunter and the Chinese, Russian and Ukrainian deals.  I think on balance President Trump got the best of it.  He did a good job and made his points.  All good stuff.

But it was no fun.  There were no shouting matches or crying moderators.  All just too normal and boring.  Oh well.

The Hunter Biden Debate

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On Thursday President Trump is scheduled to debate Creepy Uncle Joe Biden for the final time.  The Democrats, or more specifically, the part of their organization that runs the debates, has decided that during each candidate’s assigned speaking period they will mute the microphone of his opponent.  Now that’s interesting.  It’s got me thinking, when Toobin thought his microphone was on mute he exposed himself and performed unspeakable acts.  Might not Joe Biden do the same?  And if the moderator reacts to it will Joe just say, “Oh come on man I heard you liked me.”

Another thought I had was this.  If the moderator hears President Trump spilling the beans on Joe Biden’s various crimes might not she be tempted to mute him even though it’s his turn?  I think this might happen.  I’ve got to confess I’m really looking forward to this event.  I think it will be hilarious and possibly amazing.  The previous debate was wonderfully bizarre and based on the set up of the Hunter Biden expose earlier this week I expect the President to unload on this guy with both barrels.

But what everyone wants to know is what else is on the hard drive.  Up till now it’s been pretty straight forward.  But what if they’ve held back some really crazy stuff for the debate and it gets debuted there?  I don’t have any information to that effect but knowing what a showman Trump has always been I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he unleashes a bombshell.

So now you understand why, from my point of view, tomorrow night’s debate is so fascinating.  For all I know Trump has staged things so that Creepy Uncle Joe will be taken directly into custody as he exits the stage.  I mean between Joe and Hunter nothing like this has existed since Tiberius Caesar took Caligula under his wing and showed him how it was done.

But let’s assume instead that nothing like that is going to happen.  This will still be the first Presidential Election Debate within the modern era where one of the candidates and probably actually both candidates will accuse the other of being a criminal, a liar and a traitor right on the stage.  You can’t ask for more drama than that.

Now that our politics will never go back to the mealy-mouthed days of Mitt Romney we at least can look forward to candidates calling each other horrible things out loud and uncovering the dirt that’s always been there but has been hidden from sight by the mutual consent of both parties to shield them from the wrath of the voters should their countless acts of graft and corruption ever be uncovered.  But of course, I’m forgetting, that would require the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute these crimes.  Sort of like investigating the Hunter Biden hard drive that they’ve had in their possession for nine months and did nothing about.  Silly me.

Anyway, tomorrow’s event is must see tv.  Joe will be hopped up on Ritalin and I guess there is some risk that his eyes will start bleeding again and his head might explode.  But that is a risk I am willing to take.  It is my patriotic duty to sit there and laugh uproariously right through every historic moment and then later on play back the best parts for even more laughs.  I should dig out my old copy of I Claudius and re-watch the scenes with Caligula so I’ll have something to compare Hunter to when I do a separate post on him.  Stay tuned.

Jason Whitlock over at OutKick Speaks the Hard Truth About Antifa and BLM

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Jason Whitlock is a black sports writer.  He’s gone on his own after working for FoxNews and I think ESPN.  He says what he thinks and doesn’t care about sacred cows of any color.  He’s saved me a buch of time talking about the debate and what was covered up about the riots.  Jason has some good insights.  And he’s unafraid of the outrage he causes.  Good for him.

Chris Wallace, American Media Fiddle During Debate As BLM, Antifa Burn Our Country

 

 

 

29SEP2020 – First Presidential Debate – A Review

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The first thing that should be said is that even though Chris Wallace is a lefty creep, he is probably going to be the least offensive of the moderators we can expect during the rest of the debates.  The ones going forward will probably be women from NPR and CNN that will whine and screech about every woman’s issue imaginable.

The format was supposed to be six segments with sometimes more than one question in each segment.  Each candidate was supposed to get two minutes without interruption to answer the question.  Well that didn’t happen.  The President interrupted early and he interrupted often.  But to be fair the lies that Biden was telling deserved to be refuted.  And several of the topics were slanted obviously against the President.

The questions that I remember were about:

  • The Supreme Court Pick
  • COVID
  • The Economy
  • Black Voters
  • Law and Order
  • President Trump’s Tax Returns
  • Climate Change
  • The President’s Ending of Anti-American Indoctrination in the American Government Offices
  • Mail-In Ballots

I would say that the President got the best of the arguments about The Supreme Court Pick, Black Voters, Law and Order, Tax Returns, Climate Change, Anti-American Indoctrination and Mail-In Ballots.  But that leaves COVID and the Economy that weren’t as clear cut.  Biden hammered away at COVID with all he had.  President Trump made his case but that round was more like a tie.  And since that’s a very important issue that needs to be improved on in the next debate.  On the economy both Biden and Wallace exaggerated the economic situation at the end of the Obama administration.  And Biden downplayed how well the economy has recovered after the initial COVID shutdown.  I want to give the President a slight edge on the Economy segment.  So overall I’ll say President Trump won the debate.  And above and beyond the stated topics, the President was able to raise the question of the culpability of Obama and Biden in the Russia-gate scandal and he hammered Biden on Hunter Biden’s activities in the Ukraine and China.

On a personal note I find it nauseating that the moderators still slant the whole proceeding clearly to the Left.  It’s good to see the President stood up for himself and zinged Biden left and right.  Some of my favorite moments were:

  • When Biden said the President was unintelligent and President Trump came back and said that Biden was at the bottom of his class in college and lately couldn’t even remember the name of the town, he was in.
  • When Biden criticized President Trump’s large rallies, the President mocked him saying the Biden rallies typically had about three people attending because no one wanted to attend something so boring.

So, to sum up what I saw:

  • Biden has to be credited with not being brain dead.  Whether chemically enhanced or just reinvigorated he only looked frail not demented.
  • The President vigorously defended himself on all fronts and jabbed Biden on all his weak points.
  • The moderators are going to be nakedly biased for Biden in their questions and their attitudes.
  • The President is going to have to come up with a more coherent COVID story that attacks the Dems for their linkage to China, their ineffective handling of protecting the elderly in the states they govern and the damage their extended lockdowns are doing to people and the economy.

First Debate – Quick First Impressions

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Biden was coherent, so I guess the meds are working.  Toward the end he did seem to get a little rattled but not much.  Wallace was biased in favor of Biden but not nearly as blatantly as I expected.

Trump was in rare form.  He was interrupting Biden constantly and taking digs and shots at him left and right.  It was very entertaining.  Biden made up a lot of stuff as expected.  I think the President did what we expected him to do.  Biden held his own.

I think his most effective jabs were about Biden’s record for black Americans.  He talked about the crime bill and he talked about his own release from prison actions.

When it got down to the rioting Wallace protected Biden by stopping the debate before it could all be said.

And finally there were some good digs at Hunter Biden.  Very funny.

I’ll give the President the edge on this one but it was relatively evenly matched.

What to Expect When President Trump Squares Off Against Chris Wallace at the First Presidential Debate

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Chris Wallace, the lefty shill from Fox News will moderate the first debate, which is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 29 in Cleveland.  Whether Joe Biden shows up either corporeally or even as a hologram, the real debate will take place between the President and Wallace, the lefty Media’s hatchet-man du jour.  I expect the first question he’ll address to Joe Biden will be a yes or no question, “Do you agree that President Trump is criminally responsible for all COVID deaths?”  Joe may flub this question by thinking it’s about him or by mistaking the term COVID for some kind of video-sharing service but either way it will be up to President Trump to slap Wallace around for most of the night in order to be declared the winner by the viewing public.

And I think he will.  President Trump is a savvy media personality and he knows that Wallace is there to try and swing the election for Biden.  And since Biden at this point is about as intellectually capable as a flat worm with its head cut off it’s up to Wallace to do the dirty work.  And he will.  He will go right to the COVID issue and try to portray every death as a crime that the President is responsible for.  But let’s face it, Wallace isn’t all that convincing a liar.  He always has that smug grin on his face and he always seems to be overreaching with his accusations and innuendoes.  I expect the President to drill down into Wallace’s accusations and push back very hard.  I hope the President calls him a liar and a lefty shill because that is exactly what Wallace is.  Chris Wallace is a poor man’s version of the commie that his father was.  Mike Wallace had gained credibility based on his long association with the news industry’s icons of yesteryear like Walter Cronkite and his work on the old television news series Biography and 60 Minutes.  But his son hasn’t got the gravitas that the elder Wallace had or his sonorous voice.  Chris’s voice is more of a nasal honk that annoys a lot of listeners.  I confess I will be disappointed if Wallace doesn’t get knocked around in these exchanges.  He really needs a good smackdown performed on him.

Now looking at the Biden component of the event, I am curious to see if his handlers try to use an ear piece to feed answer to Slow Joe.  That would be fun to watch.  Maybe we can pick up the signs that he is listening to an audio message.  I wonder if the Secret Service has the capability to jam radio transmissions around the people they are protecting.  And I wonder if the White House will have any kind of surveillance that picks up that kind of thing going on.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if after the debate an audio recording of someone prompting Joe were uncovered?  Well, I shouldn’t be too greedy.  I’ll settle to just watch and listen as Joe does his Biden act and eventually starts umming and uhhing at the end of every sentence he attempts to make.

And who knows, maybe they’ve loaded Joe up with pep pills to cut through the fog and he won’t embarrass himself.  But as long as the President goes on the attack about the substance of Biden’s long and undistinguished record in government it will be enough to carry the night.

So, sure I’ll be watching.  It could turn out to be a lot of fun.  I just hope Joe doesn’t get flustered and wanders off into the crowd.  He’d be bound to start sniffing hair and rubbing shoulders and even I have limits on what I’ll watch on tv.

update:

The comments section on Chris Muir’s Day by Day cartoon today (9/24/2020) has a lively discussion on the ins and outs of the debate.

Easy Company.

 

The 2020 General Election Debates

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If the world we live in today resembled the way it was even a year or two ago I would have had a series of humor posts trying to create my satirical/farcical take on what a Trump/Biden or Pence/Harris debate would be.  But it’s no longer possible to write satire or even farce.  No sooner would I commit to paper some absurd outrage by Biden or Harris than one of them would blow it away with something much crazier.  It is impossible to parody these people.  They are living cartoons, or in Biden’s case, almost living.  If I had him walk on stage and start playing with his ear wax, he’d do me one better and start picking his nose.  If I had Harris breaking into tears and accusing the moderator of verbal assault, she’d one up me by grabbing a gun from her secret service agent and start blasting away at him.  After all, if the mayors of all large cities now routinely condone looting, arson and even murder by certain constituencies then a VP candidate going postal on a debate stage would be hardly a misdemeanor and unworthy of even a passing report in the daily papers and tv news.  So instead of parody let’s just think about what these debates will be.

With respect to the presidential debates, the Trump camp is primarily concerned about the venue and the moderators.  And with good reason.  The history of US presidential debates is an unbroken succession of far-left moderators serving up softball puff questions to the Democrat candidate and asking the Republican candidate whether he is still beating his wife.  Sensibly, President Trump has announced that he will require some representation on the moderator panel by conservative journalists in every debate.  But what if they refuse?  If the Trump camp stands their ground on this point I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden used this as an excuse to skip the debates altogether.  And this is actually a pretty reasonable position for them.  Anyone who has listened to some of Biden’s most recent interviews is acutely aware that Sleepy Joe has lost more than just a little bit off of his fastball.  In fact, he can’t even manage a one bouncer to the plate.  It’s more like a slow dribbler.  I’m thinking that even if President Trump agrees to all the conditions the Democrats demand, that Joe might still opt out.  Because even if the questions were slanted in the extreme, President Trump would still get his message across and Biden would at best, stutter out almost incomprehensible non-sequiturs and at worst drool on himself.  It will be fascinating to see how that negotiation proceeds.

With respect to a Pence/Harris debate, this would be an entirely different situation.  Mike Pence is not a pugnacious orator like the President.  He is a polite soft-spoken gentleman who would not attack a woman in a debate.  He will be at a distinct disadvantage against the histrionic and emotional Harris.  I can remember during her debate performances in the primaries, she would work herself up into an almost hysterical state that looked like she was about to burst into tears.  I could see this unnerving Pence if he were not studied in deflecting this tactic.  Honestly, I think it is critical that the White House team have Pence work through a number of drills to be familiar with the techniques needed to defuse Harris’s emotional style.

Another thing that I think will be key for both sets of debates is to use the support that both Biden and Harris have given to the BLM movement as weapons against them.  And this should begin way before the debates in commercials that include both audio and video of the candidates siding with the rioters against the police.  This is the strongest argument in favor of President Trump and against the Democrats.  It should be used as a club wherever and whenever possible.  The impact in the battleground states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania will be enormous.  And it is just possible it will have an impact in some blue states.  It has long been assumed that Oregon and Washington are completely out of reach for Republicans forever.  But after what has been going on in Seattle and Portland I wonder if that is still true.  Putting resources into testing the waters there might be money well spent.  And there is definitely a case to be made for Colorado and New Mexico.

Much is still unclear as to how the debates will play out this election season but as in 2016 the debates are a definite strong suit for President Trump and seeing him stacked up against the remnants of Joe Biden would be a wonderful opportunity to show America just how unprepared Biden is at this point to perform the most critical job on earth.

Notes on the Fourth Democrat Debate – Liarwatha Buries the Competition

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I tuned into about forty-five minutes of the fourth debate tonight.  Fauxcahantas smoked her cracked brain competition.  And she did it with a populist message that will resonate a lot more with the general public than the goofball bleating of her fellow liars.  Granted she’s just as dishonest and dangerous to the health and wealth of this country but she can at least sound coherent when she describes the globalist corporate madness that has bankrupted this nation.  She will be dangerous in the general election.

Creepy Uncle Joe gaffed his way through a number of talking points that in a way was impressive.  He combined short term memory failures with a certain folksy glibness that’s almost remarkable.  And based on the incoherence of the other mental midgets around him it was somewhat entertaining.

Bernie was his old irascible self.  He did not appear weak or ill or confused.  He gave of his best and that best is the promise of more and more socialism until even Stalin would say uncle.  One thing he was vehement about was that billionaires are going to get it in the neck.  Billionaire Tom Steyer agreed and promised to tax himself out of existence.

And all of the rest of the dwarves agreed.  Now if they could guarantee that Amazon, Facebook and Twitter were at the front of that line I think I could come around to agreeing to that campaign plank.  But honestly, I’d much prefer we just broke up those lefty monopolies altogether.

When healthcare was being discussed Harris and Spartacus reminded us that pro-life legislature was curtailing the activities of Planned Parenthood and she claimed that meant women of color would die.  She never mentioned that it might mean a lot of babies of color might live.  But there was nobody there who cared about that.

Pete Butt actually said a few sensible things.  When the talk about bringing jobs back from Mexico had Fauxcahantas and Beto waxing poetic Mayor Pete reminded everybody that President Trump was elected in part because he said he would do something about lost jobs that everybody else said were gone forever.  Honesty at a Democratic Primary Debate?  Well he claims he’s very religious, maybe that was a Gay Christian Hail Mary Pass.  Might get him to three percent.

Andrew Yang says he’ll give everyone a thousand bucks a month to quit the jobs they don’t like.  Tulsi Gabbard acted worried and empathetic about everything.  Damned if I can remember what Amy Klobuchar and Julián Castro said.  I doubt even they know or care.

So, my take away from this debate is that Granny Clampett is a dangerous opponent in the general election.  She has decent debate skills and she will spout a populist message that has many attractive points.  Luckily, she has a track record of lying about her intentions.  And that is where I think she needs to be attacked.  Fauxcahantas and Liarwatha are the perfect names to use when attacking her on the screen.  Her use of deceit for personal gain is documented and is sure to alienate the minority vote that she will so desperately need in the general election.

President Trump, invite Massachusetts journalist Howie Carr up to the White House and let him give you his fifty favorite Fake Indian stories and then pick the best of the best for the 2020 campaign commercials.  That should be about right.