Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

Reality always lies in wait for 
 Democrats.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

In my day, never was longer.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Fight Night, the Undercard

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Fight Night, the Undercard

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Truth to tell, I’m having trouble ginning up any enthusiasm for tonight’s event. Tim Walz will be charmingly avuncular, JD Vance will spew an angry stream of lies & bullsh*t, and the betting will be on whether Walz uses his Teacher Voice and what bodily function(s) Vance loses control over if (when) he does.

Per Politico:

… When is the debate?
The debate will kick off on Tuesday, Oct. 1 at 9 p.m. ET. and run for 90 minutes with two four-minute commercial breaks.

Where is the debate?
CBS is holding the debate at their CBS Broadcast Center in New York City…

How can I watch the debate?
CBS will broadcast and livestream the debate on all platforms where CBS News 24/7 and Paramount+ are available. It will also be made available to simulcast, according to the network.

A livestream of the debate will be available at POLITICO.com.

What are the debate rules?
Vance and Walz will have two minutes to answer a question, two minutes to respond to the other’s answer, and then one minute for a rebuttal.

Their microphones will be hot for the duration of the debate — unlike Trump’s debates with Harris and President Joe Biden this year, when a candidate was muted during their opponent’s turn to speak — but CBS reserves the right to mute them, the network said Friday.

Each candidate will have two minutes for their closing statement. Vance won the Thursday coin toss to determine the order for closing statements, CBS said, and opted to go last to get the final word. There will be no opening statements…

Will there be more debates?
It doesn’t look that way. Vice presidential candidates typically only debate once before an election, though Vance challenged Walz to a second debate earlier in September that never materialized.

Trump has declined to participate in a second debate with Harris, after the vice president challenged him to a rematch. Harris said “we owe it to the voters” to hold another debate after her strong performance during their face-off earlier this month, but Trump rebutted that “it’s too late,” arguing that his June debate with Biden already made two debates for him — the norm for presidential debates during most elections — and the fact that early voting has already started in some states.


Oooooh, new infotainment gimmick!

… Moderation is an art, not a science. But CBS News, host of Tuesday’s vice-presidential matchup between Senator JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz, is using technology to try something new.

A QR code — the checkerboard-like, black-and-white box that can be scanned by a smartphone — will appear onscreen for long stretches of the CBS telecast. Viewers who scan the code will be directed to the CBS News website, where a squad of about 20 CBS journalists will post fact-checks of the candidates’ remarks in real time.

The code will appear only on CBS; viewers who tune in on a different channel will not see it. (Nearly every major network will simulcast the debate, starting at 9 p.m. Eastern.) But it is a novel approach to guide viewers, already accustomed to watching TV while hovering over a smartphone or laptop, to supplemental journalistic material elsewhere…

CBS said the moderators — Norah O’Donnell, the anchor of “CBS Evening News,” and Margaret Brennan, who hosts “Face the Nation” — would primarily focus on encouraging exchanges between the candidates and enforcing the ground rules, rather than fact-checking.

Mr. Trump and his allies fumed after the ABC debate, personally targeting the network’s moderators — Linsey Davis and David Muir — for the four times that they clarified falsehoods that Mr. Trump had uttered from the lectern. CBS appears intent on making Mr. Vance and Mr. Walz the stars on Tuesday, rather than the network or its on-air talent…

Reader Interactions

132Comments

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    That Rachel Maddow segment on Vance last night….the man is a sociopath and a menace and should never be Vice President 😡

  5. 5.

    Butch

    Seems to me that, if you have to scan a QR code to see it, not many people are going to view the fact check.  (I don’t own a cell phone so couldn’t view it if I wanted to.)  I think the CBS decision that the moderators won’t fact check is cowardice.

  6. 6.

    Doug R

    Coach Walz has been a Master Sergeant, a coach and a school cafeteria supervisor.
    I think he can handle unruly kids. Question is will the campaign let him?
    Judging by how Harris took apart the orange baby, I have hopes.

  7. 7.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: I just saw that clip…he is a psycho.

    The things that these deeply unfulfilled nihilist creeps say, the things they wish for so earnestly – it all needs a lot more exposure.  More sunlight, to drive these roaches back into their holes.

    The republic is working well enough for the rest of us, JD, you nutcase.  You and your bros just want to burn it all down because you’re not special anymore.  You have to share – omg, the horror!

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    Related: the great advantage that Walz has tonight is that JD’s going to have his audience of one (trumpov) in his mind with every answer, which will make him sound like a complete nut.

    Meanwhile, Walz just has to be Walz (which we all have to admit, is a pretty good gig =)

    *just thought of one more advantage for Walz: everything JD has ever said about women/mothers + everything JD has ever said about destroying the very government he wants to run.

  9. 9.

    Falling Diphthong

    I’m with Torrian Gray. Walz just needs to be normal. This is the equivalent of that line about how in 2572 each candidate for president must debate a madman; no one remembers from whence this tradition arises.

    He doesn’t need to fact check every one of the stream of lies coming at him in real time, and Harris has demonstrated that refusing to rise to the bait, and instead pivoting to what you want to talk about, is the more effective strategy.

    Is anyone even bothering to have a panel of “undecided” voters who will feign that their vote comes down to which vice presidential candidate seems to offer more nuanced policy details tonight? The vice presidential debate is a chance to demonstrate that your guy can hold it together.

    I don’t think that mocking Vance’s crowd size is going to cause him to have an unhinged meltdown. So just be normal and check the box.

  10. 10.

    jonas

    Mr. Trump and his allies fumed after the ABC debate, personally targeting the network’s moderators — Linsey Davis and David Muir — for the four times that they clarified falsehoods that Mr. Trump had uttered from the lectern. CBS appears intent on making Mr. Vance and Mr. Walz the stars on Tuesday, rather than the network or its on-air talent


    Well that’s an interesting little tell there, isn’t it? Correcting falsehoods in real time is the journalist making the story “about them” rather than the candidate? Really? So just let them talk and the “voters will decide”, eh?

    These people are beyond redemption.

  12. 12.

    Eolirin

    I kinda wish this was a townhall. I think that’d be a much more comfortable set up for Walz. But I also imagine there’s no way Vance would have gone for that.

    I also think there’s a decent chance Vance pulls a Romney, and straight up 180s on all the unpopular positions.

  13. 13.

    Falling Diphthong

    @Jeffro: Good point re audience of one.

    Perhaps Walz mocking Trump’s crowd size–and bored people leaving–is the way to go? Vance will need to provide a full-throated defense of the crowd size.

  16. 16.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: I assume we’ll have a Carter celebration thread later today.

    In case we don’t, a quip from bluesky:

    I’m not saying that Jimmy Carter became physically immortal like a Fallout ghoul when he helped fix the Chalk River reactor meltdown but I don’t think we can rule it out yet either

  17. 17.

    UncleEbeneezer

    One upside of debating Vance not Trump, is that Vance tends to stay on topic for longer so you don’t get the sheer volume of lies to counter.  Vance actually says several sentences that are more or less on topic, or at least on one topic.  Whereas Trump just spews a Gish Gallop of bullshit making it impossible to effectively address anything.  So Walz should be able to counter Vance’s bullshit much easier.  I don’t know whether he will be in attack dog mode or “there you go again/wierd” mockery.  But I trust that the campaign has a plan to keep its’ momentum.  Debates (especially VP) rarely make a huge difference either way.

  19. 19.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Ken: Now I’m imagining Jimmy Carter as a wandering Ghoul building houses in the Fallout post-nuclear wasteland. That would be such a Fallout thing to do, if only their world hadn’t diverged from ours thirty years before Carter was elected.

  20. 20.

    Jackie

    @rikyrah:

    Happy Birthday, President Carter đŸ„ł 🎆

    100 years old young! 🎉🎂😎

    Fixed for positivity 😊

    May President Carter’s Day be filled with love and happiness! (And a few well-earned naps😊)

  21. 21.

    Hoodie

    @UncleEbeneezer: Frum (who apparently knows Vance pretty well) says that he’s brittle and does not take criticism well, signs of a certain lack of self esteem.  This is why his reactions to difficult questions often include an inordinate amount of whining about being unfairly attacked.  I  imagine Walz would prefer to deal with that type of insecure adolescent personality using a Socratic dialogue where he leads Vance into a series of logical cul-de-sacs that will get him angry and reactive.  However, that would seem to be difficult to do in a debate where the questions are controlled by the moderators.  However, if you were looking for someone smart enough to come up with a scheme to achieve a result like that, Walz’s debate coach Pete Buttagieg would be good choice, and Walz is probably very coachable.

  22. 22.

    cmorenc

    @UncleEbeneezer:

     Debates (especially VP) rarely make a huge difference either way.

    The debate between Biden and Sarah Palin may not have crucially altered the trajectory of the 2008 election, but McCain needed someting to help change it.  The VP debate definitely undermined McCain’s efforts to gain traction against Obama because it was so glaringly obvious what a poor, unqualified choice he had made of VP running mate.

  23. 23.

    Wapiti

    Vance’s first* act as a US Senator was joining the Senate Republicans refusing to convict Donald Trump for the January 6th coup attempt. I hope Walz gets a chance to tie Vance firmly to Trump – Vance will not rein in Trump one bit.

    * Was it really the first act? I dunno.

  25. 25.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Jeffro: I saw the segment last night while cooking dinner and note when Vance was talking with the guy with the weird (Cousin It?) beard about (basically) ridding society of everything he found objectionable, Cousin It asked, “how you going to do that
it’s everywhere”, no dawning on either of them that their ideas of how things should be in this 21st century are the minority view and outliers. There was zero concept of different strokes for different folks, live and let live, mind your own damn business.

  26. 26.

    Jackie

    @cmorenc: That is my hope, too! If this buffoon is TCFG’s choice for VP, what will his Cabinet look like?

    We KNOW, but Normies might have questions.

  27. 27.

    kindness

    I’m going to opt for the Cliff Notes version of the debate after it’s over.  Vance is similar to Trump in that if I had to listen to them, uninterrupted for any period of time, I would no doubt burst important blood vessels.

  28. 28.

    hells littlest angel

    Tim Walz will be Mr. Charm,  JP Mandel will make an obnoxious ass of himself, and I will be delighted.

  34. 34.

    bbleh

    Seems like the Standard Narrative is that Vance will be performing as much for the Audience Of One (plus whisperers, eg Junior) as for everybody else and hence predictably will spew a stream of inflammatory BS, and that he won’t be as easily baited or as obviously stupid as the Orange Guy so in that sense a tougher opponent, and the question is whether, and if so when and how, Walz will challenge the spew.

    The question I have is, will Walz and people accept that frame, which effectively cedes the agenda to Vance?  Will he be a combination of background Nice plus perhaps an occasional spanking?  Certainly that’s one possibility, and arguably not a bad strategy, but they might also have a few tricks up their sleeves, eg a sharp attack on Vance right out of the gate.

    (Of course then the MSM would complain that they had to rewrite parts of their already-canned stories.  But it would still be entertaining.)

  35. 35.

    BR

    @Another Scott:

    I wrote here a week ago that my gut said that Bibi wanted to draw Iran in and if he did so it’d be a political mistake (and a humanitarian disaster, but what does he care about that). He wants to hurt Biden/Harris, but Iran is a powerful country and does not draw much sympathy from the left in the US or have much of a domestic constituency in swing states who will rush to defend it. An Iran-Israel war is bad for the region but not politically as bad as if he had just continued to kill innocent Palestinian civilians.

  37. 37.

    Trivia Man

    “He’s not a lawyer- debater type”

    That’s fine, this isn’t a ‘debate’ in the normal sense of the word. It is much more like a photo op with talking than it is a debate.

    I did some HS debates and later judged low level tournaments. Competitive debate has rules, traditions, expectations
much like tennis, football, or hockey. This is much more about presenting an image and storing up soundbites for ads.

  39. 39.

    stinger

    @Doug R: ​
     

    Coach Walz has been a Master Sergeant, a coach and a school cafeteria supervisor.

    He’s also been a candidate for the U.S. House and for the governor of a state. During his primaries and general campaigns, he probably had to debate opponents. I suspect he’s got this.

  40. 40.

    hells littlest angel

    @bbleh:he won’t be as easily baited or as obviously stupid as the Orange Guy

     

    Vance can be baited with a compliment. And while he may be less obviously stupid, he will be obviously a lot of other things, like petulant, obnoxious and hateful.

  41. 41.

    ArchTeryx

    I dunno what to think. Normally, I’d go with the CW in the remaining blogosphere and say that a VP debate is little more than a circus without the bread, entertainment only. But this year, debates seem to be taking an outsized role in importance. I dunno what this debate will bring. Hopefully nothing bad.

    I had a question for the Jackals in general, but it can wait until later if need be.

  42. 42.

    Trivia Man

    My #1 hope tonight is to hammer on “Donald is O L D and this dude is almost  certain to be president sooner rather than later. Do any of you want that?”

  43. 43.

    Hoodie

    @bbleh: Walz may use a strategy similar to that used by Harris.  Mostly talk about the issues, but periodically lay out some bait for Vance in areas where he may be emotionally vulnerable, such as his association with Project 2025, Peter Thiel and/or the silly incel/Curtis Yarvin and the Masters of the Universe podcasts.  Harris triggered Trump using his obsession with his popularity, e.g., all the stuff about crowd sizes.   Vance’s weak spot is probably his legitimacy, i.e., that he is just a nobody propped up by people like Thiel and Trump, a chubby suburban Ohio kid who doesn’t really know who he is and, thus, has no core. The contrast would be that Walz has actually achieved things (e.g., built young men and women in his roles as sergeant major, coach and teacher), while Vance is a hapless phoney who is simply used by more powerful actors for their own purposes.  Vance will probably be more disciplined than Trump and not as easily provoked, but he does show some signs of being brittle on certain subjects.

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    @Falling Diphthong: Perhaps Walz mocking Trump’s crowd size–and bored people leaving–is the way to go?

    I think there’s a very good chance that Walz will take shots at trump (his debate flameout, shrinking crowd sizes, his “hour of violence”) all night long.

     

    @SatanicPanic: Will Walz say the word weird?

    ya think? ;)

  46. 46.

    Jeffro

    @Sure Lurkalot: There was zero concept of different strokes for different folks, live and let live, mind your own damn business.

    Right??

    Just straight up “rule or ruin” psycho shit from these clowns.

  47. 47.

    Kosh III

    @dmsilev:Just ask not-Vice-President Lloyd Bentsen.

    Not a good example, Bentsen mopped the floor with Quayle with his “You’re no Jack Kennedy.”

  48. 48.

    TBone

    I hope Tim Walz brings a big sandwich from Primanti Bros. as an offering to hand off at the handshake 😆

  52. 52.

    Kosh III

    I want Walz very early on to call Sen. Couchfrak a LIAR and reference his admission he lied about Haitians+cats to get attention. And when notahillbilly lies again Walz should use Pres Rayguns line: “there he goes again.”

  53. 53.

    Hoodie

    @Jeffro: That might put Vance in his worst light as apologist/lackey, as those things are basically indefensible.  Odds are he will do nothing that can be interpreted as disloyal to Trump.   I can see why Trump likes him, he apparently has no fucking soul.  Mike Pence did have some principles.

  55. 55.

    Elizabelle

    Has Subaru Diane been around?  Worried about her.

    And, someone mentioned they’d seen Miss Bianca, but I never do.  Where does she hang out?

    Good morning, jackals.  A bit out of it today because had a delicious latte way too late in the day (but needed it for driving on a rainy night) …  alarm went off early so I could take my car in for service (in the pouring rain), and then I realized “hey, it’s the first.”  Appointment is tomorrow.

    That is how this day is going.

  57. 57.

    cain

    Vance is gonna try the stolen valor thing and probably bring up dogs. He is definitely planning personal attacks.

  60. 60.

    Melancholy Jaques

    I hate these “debates” and long for the day when they are no longer part of presidential campaigns. They are not debates, they aren’t even the kinda sorta adversarial joint press conferences that seem to be the media’s idea of what should happen. We should not continue to decide who will be better at governing by which one can put on the more entertaining TV performance under such stupid circumstances.

    Media: We are going to ask you questions, but you can lie or you can not answer at all. It’s all okay with us.

    Normie Voters: We will decide who we want to be president by watching 90 minutes of TV in which the candidates’ clothing, smiles, sighs, tone of voice, and facial expressions are all that matters.

    Candidates: We will participate in this circus because the media will punish us if we refuse

    Rant over. Return to normal programming.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    @BR: This could end up like the Iranian response to Israel’s strike on Iran’s Damascus Consulate last April. That time, Iran launched a wave of missiles and drones at an army base in the Golan Heights and an airbase in the Negev desert. The one Israeli casualty was a Bedouin girl seriously injured when missile debris crashed through her family’s roof.

    Israel then shot a missile at an Iranian anti-air missile battery near Isfahan and both parties left it at that.

    Iran is under a lot of pressure now to “help” Hezbollah out, but they also know that Israel would like an excuse to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The missile battery Israel attacked in April guards a uranium enrichment facility, and that was a message. So Iran is wary of triggering an all-out war and may “pull” its punches again.

  64. 64.

    Matt McIrvin

    @cain: I figure it’ll mostly be about how Helene is Biden and Harris’s Katrina, and Walz needs to counter with which party voted to cut emergency services and what Project 2025 says about them and the National Weather Service. Project 2025 is easier to pin to Vance than Trump since there are direct connections.

  65. 65.

    narya

    @rikyrah: I watched that–it’s horrifying. And waaaaaay too many (white) people just don’t believe them; they either don’t know about it, or they roll their eyes, thinking (a) it probably won’t happen and (b) if it does, THEY will be fine.

  66. 66.

    Hungry Joe

    “No fact-checking” means “We are just going to sit here and read off the questions our staff prepared for us.” Any one of us could do that. Even I could do that.

    Whoops 
 no, I couldn’t. Padres/Braves playoff game will be on. Priorities.

  68. 68.

    Kay

    I hope Walz can get a word in about Vance’s fake nonprofit. Tim Ryan called him out on it in the Ohio senate debate but a national audience hasn’t heard about it yet.

    Just gross. He raised money, supposedly for helping opiate addicts, and he and his gross scammy wife frittered it away on payments to cronies and themselves. She was a VERY fancy lawyer at this time and probably making a nice salary and he was cashing in on his dumb book – they still robbed addicts.

    Just disgusting people. Thieves.

  69. 69.

    ArchTeryx

    @TBone: I’ve had Primanti Bros. before on my many visits to Pittsburgh. A few of their things are overpriced, IMHO, like with any tourist restaurant, but most of their sandwiches are to die for. I miss them.

  71. 71.

    Bill Arnold

    @rikyrah:

    the man is a sociopath and a menace and should never be Vice President

    A vote for Trump for POTUS is a vote for JD Vance for POTUS. The odds are high that JD Vance would ascend to the rank of POTUS – Mr. Trump’s brain is not in good shape, and I am fairly sure that Vance/Thiel(/Putin?) are plotting a 25th Amendment solution. (Two clauses are options, if one is sufficiently ruthless.)
    ETA didn’t watch Maddow. If she said this or something similar, good.

  72. 72.

    ArchTeryx

    @TBone: I’m an honorary childless cat lady too – we have an FIV+ orange rescue cat called Grant. Dumb as a post, sweet as the winter nights are long. He came here terrified out of his skin, 2 weeks later he was strutting around like he owned the place. 5 people to give him pettins and attention. We took the cat out of hell and put him in feline heaven. Pretty much the only bad thing he has to deal with are claw-clippings, medications and the vet – lots. (FIV needs constant treatment). But they’re just momentary blips. then he’s back to his happy-go-lucky self.

    The question was more… do I contribute to this place? People have noticed more folks turning up missing, and it made me wonder… if I really made any impression. I’m hardly one of the core commenters here, but I am trying to show my face more. The community once came together for me when it looked like I’d be thrown off my medical care to die in 2017. I want to give back to it

    Someone has to be the weirdo furry amongst the jackals, and remind folks that most of us furry types aren’t at all bad – we’re the good kind of weird.

  73. 73.

    BR

    @Kay:

    You’ve said Vance is a good debater, and having seen him lie like the best GOP talking heads on Sunday shows I believe it.

    If Walz gets into a who lied game with Vance, how do people come away with an understanding of who’s telling the truth? Because Vance is for sure going to try to paint Walz as a fabulist over basically nothing (nat guard retirement, IVF, DUI, etc.).

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    Biden’s Gaza policy has been a total failure. They haven’t met a single one of their objectives and it’s a human rights disaster. Netanyahu is actually more popular now than when the Biden team told us he was on his way out.

    To continue to stubbornly insist on staying the course is just insane. This is going to be his foreign policy legacy. He’s like LBJ at this point. Good domestic policy, catastrophic foreign policy. He should have listened to the five Democratic Senators who had the spine to call it out as a failure in January. They also get caught in a lie about it nearly weekly. None of them have any credibility at all.

  75. 75.

    TBone

    @ArchTeryx: they are delish! We have a Primanti’s in State College. But what I truly miss are the Bobbie hoagies from Capriotti’s.  Voted the Greatest Sandwich in America.

    https://youtu.be/7x3gTI6iccY

    No lies told!  But it’s gotta be on a roll made in Philly or it’s an imposter.  And NOT lunch meat – it’s hand carved roasted turkey that Mrs. Capriotti used to roast at the store back in the day before they franchised

  76. 76.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: I just watched that…wow. Someone should ask Vance if he agrees with his friend Yarvin that Americans need to “get over their dictator phobia” in order to change their government.

  77. 77.

    TBone

    @ArchTeryx: YOU ARE AN IRREPLACEABLE PART OF THIS COMMUNITY and we’d miss your contributions! 💜 Thank you for sharing about your feline adventures too!

  78. 78.

    ArchTeryx

    @Kay: To be fair, Gaza is an absolute black hole when it comes to policy. What foreign policy COULD their be that would result  a winner in an election season? Trump gets elected, he’ll just join Bibi in bombing Gaza back to the Stone Age. I understand the frustration of the kids that care about this as an issue, but there is so much bad faith out there I hear Gaza come up and just wince.

  79. 79.

    ArchTeryx

    @TBone: A good Philly hoagie is to die for, too. Only think I’ve had that approaches it are Chicago Italian Beef subs, and that’s pure nostalgia on my part. My father used to always share one with me.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    If Republicans were a real opposition Party with serious people the Biden team would be in real trouble on Gaza. They simply have not told the truth, over and over and over. The only reason it isn’t an issue is Republicans are low quality clowns who do no work at all and their fundamentalist religious base forbids them from looking at reality re: Gaza and now Lebanon.

  81. 81.

    JML

    It’s not a debate, it’s as Dan Rather used to say a “Joint Appearance”. Unless one of them really shits the bed it will mean little to nothing. the most important aspect of this will be who controls the media cycle for the next 2-3 days, which is all the time the media and the public will an attention span for, at best. (I expect it to be shorter in this case, because the narcissistic shit-gibbon won’t be able to handle having someone on his campaign getting attention that isn’t him and will throw an unhinged tantrum about something to get back into the news.)

    I hope vance does poop his pants or something, but I’m not betting on it.

  83. 83.

    Dave

    @Kay: What’s I do find interesting is that his Gaza policy does seem like one of the few areas where it comes to governing that he does show his age.  In that his perspective is ossified and he seems unwilling to break from the current direction. Have this personal hypothesis that he was shown some ugly pictures and video from October 7th and that hit him on an emotional and sentimental level that makes it even more difficult to consider alternatives.

    Now to be fair I’m not sure there is an obvious political alternative in fact I’m quite confident there isn’t and that my little hypothesis is entirely head cannon but he does seem a lot more rigid regarding Gaza than in other areas.  Doesn’t help that foreign policy blob almost certainly encourages the status quo.

    I don’t focus on it for unfortunately practical reasons but your point does stand.

  84. 84.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @TBone: Trying to understand how he could do this, effectively override the US Supreme Taliban I mean Court. Is it because he based his decision on the Georgia State Constitution, so it doesn’t matter what they claim about the US Constitution?

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @ArchTeryx:

    The dishonesty was optional. Blinken and Co lied to the public over and over. Talk about “bad faith”. Their assurances were bullshit when they made them and they knew it.

    The fact is the much maligned and hated protestors were right. It’s a gd disaster in every imagineable way.

  89. 89.

    TBone

    @Jeffro: 💙😊

    I make them the day after Thanksgiving and add my homemade cole slaw instead of mayo. Hubby will bring some rolls home from his trip to DelCo so my Bobbies taste authentic.

  90. 90.

    BR

    @Kay: ​

    Biden’s Middle East policy has been a total failure. But I take issue with comparing it LBJ — I think we have lost a sense of scale in the modern era because we have instant information. Hundreds of thousands of Americans were drafted and wounded or killed in Vietnam not to mention many millions of people in Southeast Asia at the direct hand of the US. I wasn’t alive then but knowing many Vietnam vets it was a whole different scale of thing. That’s not the scale or directness we’re talking about today.

  91. 91.

    Jeffro

    @TBone: that’s a good swap!

    I’m a barbarian, so half the time, I’d have Capriotti’s add lettuce and tomato. 0_0

    I may have to make these at home sometime soon…

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @p.a.:

    Netanyahu is making the exact same argument he made when he was selling invading Iraq. I feel like I’m in some insane groundhog day scenario, where this crazed warmonger is bamboozling the exact same people with the exact same argument. Joe Biden fell for this AGAIN? JFC.

    They can’t be this stupid so they must be lying about their real objectives. No one “pursues peace” like this. It’s insane.

  93. 93.

    TBone

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: It will be shot down on appeal BUT now we have his inimitable language and razor sharp reasoning with which to keep punching back. And yes, for those of us fortunate enough to live in states with strong privacy clauses in our state Constitutions, that is a master stroke of genius gambit.

    Throw it right back in eyes of the states’ rights morons.

  95. 95.

    eclare

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    That is what Lisa Rubin said on Morning Joe.  The judge based his decision on the Georgia constitution’s definition of liberty.  Next up, probably, an appeal to the Georgia supreme court.

  96. 96.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: I’ve been reading about that feud. Virginia Mercury has covered it and I bet Cardinal News has too. It’s wild seeing Republicans who are “ride or die” for Bob Good of all people. I bet those folks are a lot of fun at parties!

    I’m not sure 5th Democrats can cash in on Republican disarray this year. But that seat could be within reach by the end of the decade so this is a good start.

  98. 98.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    Hey there! Nice of you to worry, but I’m fine. I just mostly don’t see threads until they’re many hours old, and whatever I might have commented at that point is either irrelevant, or has been said much better by others. And I’m so busy preparing, teaching, and/or taking online classes that I simply don’t spend as much time here as I used to.

    Thank you so much for asking, though. I truly appreciate it.

  100. 100.

    TBone

    @frosty: by reaching across that divide, we strengthen the nation!  Subbies is a fun nickname I haven’t heard before and it gives a tip of the hat to the word hoagies!

  101. 101.

    ArchTeryx

    @eclare: And that’s where it is going to end, one way or another. The Supremes have no jurisdiction over decisions about state constitutional law, and even the Sinister Six have stayed out of those areas… for the most part. Bush vs. Gore was a far, far more blatant violation of the separation of powers.

  102. 102.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid: I’m not sure the Dems can cash in either, but it’s pretty clear that the GOP here is split almost straight down the middle, while the Dems here are straight-ticket blue all the way.

    It wouldn’t take much of an “f.u. McGuire” vote from Good’s fans (barf) in order to flip the district.  Keep those fingers crossed!

  103. 103.

    Geminid

    @Dave: It wasn’t just Biden seeing those pictures. People in most countries saw the gruesome videos from the October 7 massacres, on that very day. Many of the gunmen wore Go-Pro cameras to record the slaughter, and the video was all over the internet for hours before it was taken down.

  104. 104.

    Kay

    @Dave:

    I think they went wrong when they decided Palestinians weren’t actual human beings. All the rest of the bad decisions flowed from there. Arab Americans weren’t wrong when they said they could tell Joe Biden and his team think they are lesser human beings – less valuable than Israelis. It’s irrational – a bigoted bias- and it led to irrational decisions that were not in the best interest of the United States.

    But my biggest beef is with the fucking LYING. They came out for WEEKS and told the public they were opposed to invading Lebanon and that is not true. They were doing and saying the exact opposite behind closed doors. The lying was a choice. I hope none of them work in a public trust position again. They violated our trust.

  105. 105.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Eugene Vindman in the 7th. He’s a decent candidate with a strong national fundraising network, but Abigail Spanberger won last time by only 4 points, and I’m not counting that chicken until it’s hatched.

    I’m excited by the Democrat in the 10th CD, State Senator Suhas Subramanyam. He’s a 37- year old Obama White House alumnus and a volunteer firefighter/EMT. I’m sad about Rep. Wexton, though.

  106. 106.

    Dave

    @Kay: Oh yeah I despise the lying the reason I look for an explanation regarding Biden is that from at least his time in the Obama administration and forward he’s shown a refreshing skepticism to the foreign policy blob’s zeitgeist with the Gaza situation being the one glaring notable exception.

  109. 109.

    Kay

    We have this “community concert” series in the small town where I live. I have an elderly friend, a widow, who asks me to go with her although she knows I don’t like musicals. So there’s one tonight and she emailed me to remind me and wrote “you can bring something to read” – OMG, am I that whiny? Also, I can’t, because it’s dark in there :)

  111. 111.

    cain

    @ArchTeryx:

    I’ve been commenting on this blog since 2003 or something like that when blogfather was still a Republican.

    I am still not a main commentator.. I don’t think if stopped commenting for a week people will ask where I am. And I don’t really care. It’s not a cult 😃

    Whether I provide value or not is immaterial as long as I’m getting the dopamine hit I get every day reading and commenting.

    ETA oooh yeah, 111! Or !!! !

  112. 112.

    Kosh III

    I am concerned that Israel will nuke Iran and Gaza as their final solution to obtaining living room.

    Apartheid Israel refuses to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.  The US ignores the refusal of Apartheid Israel but has spent years hammering the vile Iranian government over it’s alleged attempts to develop nukes.
    “A plague o’ both your houses!”

  115. 115.

    Geminid

    @cain: Iran is being ridiculed as a “Paper Tiger” all over the Middle East. They’ve sunk a lot of resources and prestige into their “Axis of Resistance” project and Hezbollah is its most powerful proxy. Iran has provided training, financial support and well over 100,000 missiles to Hezbollah, and Hezbollah would not have jumped into this war on behalf of Hamas without Iranian approval.

    One commonly accepted reason Iran armed Hezbollah so extravagantly is that Hezbollah was to deter Israel from attacking Iran, more particularly its nuclear program. Now that it’s Hezbollah being attacked the Iranian regime will lose a lot of respect among Arabs if they don’t stand by their ally, and that could have material consequences.

  116. 116.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Kay: To continue to stubbornly insist on staying the course is just insane. This is going to be his foreign policy legacy. He’s like LBJ at this point. Good domestic policy, catastrophic foreign policy.

    Well, certainly, we can count on his successor to change this policy… riiiiiggghhhht…?

  117. 117.

    cain

    @Geminid:

    Thanks for the explanation. Strange bedfellows since Hamas is Sunni and they generally don’t give two fucks for Shiites.

  118. 118.

    Geminid

    @Kosh III: There is nothing “alleged” about Iran’s nuclear program. IEAE monitors report that Iran has enough 60% enriched Uranium now to produce a dozen or more bombs. They’ve got the centrifuge capacity to turn this into weapons grade material in less than one month. Iran’s government says the program is for peaceful purposes only, but no knowledgeble person believes this and no government does either.

    Now it’s true that some Americans think that Iran should have nuclear weapons in order to counter-balance Israel’s. But that’s an easy belief to hold when you live 5,000 miles away from the conflict zone.

  119. 119.

    Geminid

    @cain: Iran has made the war against Israel the overarching principle of the its Axis of Resistance. Hamas is willing to be exploited to that end because they hope Iran can make them the preeminent leader of the Palestinian cause. That was a big factor behind their assault on October 7, and it conditions their strategy in the ceasefire negotiations.

  120. 120.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Geminid: I remember when ISIS/ISIL/whoever was distributing videos of them beheading hostages, one of my coworkers told me I needed to watch the video, and my instinctive reaction was “no I don’t, I already know what that video depicts, I have a choice whether to induce in myself the emotional reaction that the people who put it out clearly wanted me to have.”

    Because their whole thing was “eliminating the greyzone”, doing things that drew hatred, pushing everyone to greater conflict so they could be the biggest badasses in the world.

  121. 121.

    Jacel

    @cain: Yes, since 2003 is also how I’ve been coming here and occasionally commenting and contributing funds. I first heard of Balloon Juice in a discussion (at Pandagon?) of what conservative blogs were worth reading, and John Cole was recommended as (then) being supportive of the Iraq war but being honest and informative when sharing his on-the-ground experience from the previous war.

  122. 122.

    Geminid

    @Matt McIrvin: I would not recommend watching those videos to anyone. But I think it’s important that people know they exist if only to understand the rage Israelis felt when they saw them.

    And some people here believe that attack never happened, or was greatly exaggerated by Israel. My landlord told me that and for all I know he believes it now. He still supports Biden and Harris, but either they are lying about the attack or my friend has been lied to by anti-Zionists in his life.

  123. 123.

    Dan B

    I just heard from a good friend whose sister lives in Minnesota that the sister has seen Walz deftly take down Republicans.  I’m looking forward to it.

  124. 124.

    way2blue

    I’d like to see Tim Waltz employ some version of the Reagan’s quip:  ‘There you go again…  ‘.  And perhaps the flip side—’Amazing, JD just said something truthful…  ‘.

    Rather than bog down in trying to debate JD’s BS—since it flows out of his mouth in nonstop torrents.

  125. 125.

    Geminid

    @Dan B: I’m not surprised to hear this about Tim Walz. That man is deeper than he shows.

    I think another advantage Walz has is that he’s comfortable in his own skin, whereas J.D. Vance is not even sure who J.D. Vance really is.

  126. 126.

    TBone

    @cain: I specifically asked ArchTeryx what their question was, the reply to me is in response to my direct question. I drew them out when they said they’d wait for some other time to pose a question.

    I don’t see how that critique makes anyone a winner.

  127. 127.

    artem1s

    @Ken: best response yet

    per that article Jimmy Carter has been in hospice care since February
2023

    Odds are good that he’s building another hospice center in his downtime.

    Happy Birthday Jimmy!

  128. 128.

    artem1s

    Let’s be real here. The MSM will be throwing shit at the walls to see what sticks no matter what happens tonight. Walz has some habits that will be fodder for them to pick over. He touches his face a lot. He sweats. These are things that get called out as signs someone is nervous or unprepared. Regular debate club advise is you should never touch your face, tug on your cloths or move in any way. Be a giant Ken Doll. Don’t muss your perfect coif or pick at your nails.
    If Walz is nervous about anything, I’d imagine this might be it. If his prep team is smart they will tell him to rely on his military training to keep him from squirming too much.
    Our job is to ignore the MSM’s bullshit. Ignore all post debate chatter. Don’t take the bait and start Xhitting the bed the moment he misspeaks or doesn’t have the perfect comeback for when JV lands a punch.

  129. 129.

    Msb

    Happy birthday, Jimmy.

    The only person (so far) to make the US presidency a stepping-stone to higher things.

  130. 130.

    xephyr

    Glad Vance won the coin flip and goes last. This way I (and a lot of others) can shut it down as soon as Walz is done with his closing statement.

  131. 131.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @TBone: I love that we’re not community property, and that not even commanders of the hand maids take can force us to incubate

    glee

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