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| "Then I'd tell America to plead the Fifth Amendment." |
In our view, we saw a largely out-of-control contest (nice moderating, Lester!) between a master schemer and a stream-of-thoughter. Hillary wore a robotic smile as she lied and lied with well rehearsed, entirely scripted answers. Trump seemed somewhat unclear on the idea that "answers" should be at least tangentially related to the "questions," lacked anything remotely like specifics, but did not disappoint in the bombast category.
There were multiple opportunities for Trump to utterly destroy Hillary - and he unfortunately missed every one of them. He was like a man at a buffet who had no plate. In the future, he needs to listen harder to what Hillary is actually saying so he can take advantage of her more ludicrous statements.
All of that considered, Hope n' Change still believes it's vitally important to vote against Hillary on election day. Largely unchallenged, she spouted nonsense like Reagan's economic policies being the cause of the 2007 financial crash, Rudy Giuliani's "stop and frisk" policies in New York being ineffective (they dramatically reduced crime), the tremendous "success" of the Iran nuclear deal, the idea that jobs will be magically created by making the evil rich pick up the bill for meaningless "free" college educations, and the implementation of new, draconian training programs to force all police officers to deal with their "implicit racism."
In recent weeks, we've actually seen considerable improvement in Trump's demeanor and rhetoric at rallies, so it's possible that debates simply aren't his thing. For that reason, Hope n' Change isn't devoid of hope - but we are looking forward to more change in Mr. Trump's next debate appearance.
BONUS: MORE FROM THE BIG CHEESE
Just to lighten today's somewhat grumbly mood, here's another old cartoon by Stilton's father. This pretty much captures what happens in the Jarlsberg household every time Hillary opens her mouth...
32 comments:
I call her screech. Her voice is like nails on a chalk board to me.
When Trump needed to respond about his taxes, he could have said: “The federal law allows all of us to arrange our affairs to minimize our tax liability. I employ smart accounts. I don’t take a tax write off for all of my charitable work and unlike you I don’t give 90% to my family’s own foundation. That’s just moving your money from one pocket to another of our own pockets.”
Then his would go into her foundation taking money from the Saudis etc..
On the alleged name calling of women. Trump could say: “I don’t know where you got those rumors but they are out of context. What names did you call all of those women and young girls your husband had affairs with?”
The usual pundits have mostly covered the other topics that he failed to hit her with. I’m surprised that his people didn’t have the responses listed above burned into his brain. I hope he comes up to be on offence the next two times.
You're right on target. Trump had ample opportunities to cream Hillary (no sexual implications intended) and he missed every one of them. He seemed rather lethargic, indifferent, and bewildered. I think he was trying to be polite - but politeness will get you nowhere.
Is it just me, or did it seem like Hillary got twice as much talking time as Trump? Her shrill, penetrating, unbearable voice dominated the entire fiasco....
Hillary said she wanted to raise taxes, and she said that employees should enjoy profit sharing in the companies that they work for, so that sounds like she is planning to take the profit motive out of business for the owners of the businesses while they risk their capital and their homes which they put up as security for loans. That sounds like a good plan for the collapse of business and for new people to not start small business, not that she minds because if she can get all business in the US to be run by a select group of monolithic companies, who contribute to the Clinton Foundation, there are less people to intimidate and to teach the rules to. I was disappointed that Trump did not shine some light on her plans.
Trump said he was polite because Chelsea was there. Hillary wants him to act unpresidentially and to say something he'll regret by being insulting to her or crossing a line, in front of $100 million watchers. So strategically, will Hillary bring Chelsea to the next debates as a shield, or will she have Chelsea watch from home, in which case Trump might feel freer, and he might cross a line, or he might clobber her, or both, so what do you think she will do, and what do you think we should be hoping for?
I'll take "Gouge my eyes out" for $500, Alex.
sHrillary was more than I can take so to atone for it I put on Mrs Rems acrylic nails and scrapped a chalk board for 90 minutes.
Even though it was the cowards way out I think I got the gist of sHrillary performance and message.
@Stilton - I pinched that other bucolic cartoon of your Dad's and added it to my homemade screensaver, which is basically a bunch of images I really like. I hope you don't mind.
Oh, so many missed opportunities, and I could only stand to watch about the first 30 minutes. When Trump proposed lowering the ridiculous corporate tax rate from 35%, pretty much the highest in the world, to 15%, he allowed her to conflate personal and corporate taxes. He gave her the "rich must pay their fair share" schtick without any push back at all. I don't know if there are many undecided voters out there. Who the hell could not have decided who to vote for at this point? But I really want to see him wipe the stage with her horrible foreign policy, vile corruption, and general Beelzebubbleheadedness. Hey, I like that. Kind of German.
Trump refusing to attack such easy targets as Clinton's morals, honesty, and overall criminality sure makes it appear as though he has never intended to actually win this election.
He may already be coerced, blackmailed, or paid off to concede.
The Donald missed uncounted opportunities to get the hag on just about everything. Hopefully his staff will insist on preparing before the next debate.
Thank God I removed everything hard and throwable from the living room. On the other hand, I just about wore the throw pillows out. But at least the TV is still intact, now if only there were something worth watching on it.
@Mike L- If she wins, I'm going to have to borrow one of her Blackberry hammers to beat the snot out of my hearing aids.
@Joseph ET- Yes, yes, yes. Hillary was like an (expletive deleted) metal duck in a shooting gallery but Trump never got off a good shot. Frankly, his obvious failure to prep was an insult to his supporters.
@Jon- It sure seemed to me that Hillary got more time to speak. Could those long, memorized diatribes and monologues really have been only 2 minutes? I don't think so. Then again, time slows to a painful crawl when she's speaking.
@TMay- Excellent point about Hillary's swell new idea to modify capitalism by making businesses give profit sharing to employees. It's hard to think of a more obvious job killer - not to mention a stimulus for companies to go overseas.
Regarding Trump going soft because Chelsea was present, it was a mistake. Chelsea is, at this point, an adult who is actively engaged in the family business of extortion, money laundering, and tax fraud. I thought Trump's statement "I was going to say something unpleasant about your family, but I won't do it" was particularly boneheaded. All that being said, Trump should be able to eviscerate Hillary in front of Chelsea or anyone else solely on legitimate, non-personal criticisms without going "over the line."
@Dr. Strangelove- An excellent choice.
@REM1875- I would have happily skipped it, but I felt duty bound to know what I was talking about here on the blog. Which hopefully won't come as a shock to anyone (grin).
@Popular Front- I'm delighted you grabbed that picture, and my Dad would be delighted too. I love the idea of people enjoying his work instead of the cartoons just gathering dust.
@TrickyRicky- If you only saw the first 30 minutes, you saw the best Trump had to offer (within the context of this debate) - it was all downhill after that. I don't think he has either the debating skills or the attention span to handle 90 minutes.
And yes "Beelzebubbleheadedness" is a wonderful word and you should get a royalty every time it's used.
@Geoff King- I agree that Trump's lack of preparation shows that he still doesn't take this campaign (or the office of President) seriously. I don't actually think he's been paid to take a dive, though I'm not sure how it would have looked different if he had been.
@Graylady- Frankly, the way Trump missed every one of Hillary's vulnerabilities makes me question his claim to be a great deal maker. A real deal maker researches the other party's weaknesses and uses them to improve the deal. There wasn't even a hint of that in Trump's performance.
As far as finding something worth watching on TV, I've been using a Roku streaming device to watch old episodes of Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, and painting with Bob Ross (it's hypnotically soothing). I also enjoy COPS, just to see the good guys win a few.
I don't like Trump, I don't trust him. I abhor Clinton and would trust an angry rattlesnake before trusting her. Given all that, I will vote for Trump because:
As much as the mainstream media hates Trump, if he is elected, they will watch him like hungry hawks. If Clinton is elected, they will willingly only see what she wants them to see.
If Trump screws up, the media will be on him like white on rice (nowdays that's probably racist), while we'll never hear about it if it's Clinton.
The left in this country have been going full bore in attempting to paint Trump as a crazy, thin skinned, temperamental out of control nut job who will launch the nukes on his first day in office. All Trump needed to accomplish in this debate was to convince the undecideds that he was only thin skinned and temperamental since his base already knows this. I believe that at a minimum, he achieved that goal. Of course, the bar was pretty low since all Clinton had to do was not die on stage. All and all a pretty disappointing debate, entertainment wise.
All of the things that Trump has been vilified for were missing. No name calling, no braggadocio etc. etc. He was centered on behaving himself and did a good job. In the process he missed many chances to bring down the vomiting garbage can. You could tell that she was so proud of herself. It made ME want to vomit. Any knowledgeable person watching could see through her. She looked wooden to me, so scripted and self assured. She thoroughly enjoyed all of the innuendos and put downs that SHE did, most of which were thought up by others and fed into her. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go wash my mouth out with Listerine. All I can say now is, "Wait until next time!"
My sixty four dollar question is; what was that which was pulled out from The Hildabeast's podium immediately after the rant-a-thon ended. As soon as HRC and Uncle Donnie started walking up to The Lester a man walked up to her podium and took something out from a lower shelf that looked suspiciously like a thin computer screen. One had to look verrrrry closely to see it. For those who recorded the fiasco it's on the right of the screen.
"You initially supported the war in Iraq"
YOU, Madam, VOTED for it..
Your server was no "mistake" it was intentional (needs to be changed to) no "mistake" it was a FELONY...
Lester MIA: Probably a smart move on his part. By letting Trump ramble on, he spares himself the scorn of his leftist media counterparts.
Trump: One of the secrets of Trump's success over the last year and a half has been the fact that unlike most every other candidate that has been pre-programmed by the political consultant industrial complex, he is unscripted. The downside of being unscripted is that he can also be unfocused, as he certainly was on Monday night. In the 30-minutes I watched, he had numerous opportunities to decimate Hillary with Hillary's help, and missed. Instead, he wasted his ample ammunition by tossing in in the fire instead of aiming. Such a waste, especially for those of us who've been waiting to see Hillary in a forum from which there should have been no escape.
For example, on Hillary's email when she said it was "a mistake" and that she had "taken responsibility" for it, he should have looked into the camera and said: "This was no mistake. There was only one single reason to set up a private server, and that was to evade accountability to Congress and to the people for which she supposedly worked. We will never know exactly what was in those 30,000 emails, which we do know was about more than wedding plans and yoga routines. By saying she's 'taken responsibility' for it, she means that political influence has been imposed upon numerous government agencies, such as the FBI and Justice Department on her personal behalf. Now the reputations of professionals on those departments has been irredeemably besmirched. Hillary's email scandal is a prime example of how we can expect government business to run under another Clinton administration."
When Hillary brought up the "success" of the first Clinton administration, Trump should have simply responded: "If you wish to recreate the success of the '90s, then why have you repudiated almost every single policy of your husband's administration, from NAFTA, to lower capital gains and other taxes, to DOMA? When Bill famously said 'the era of big government is over', did you laugh in disbelief as much as we did?"
How would have Hillary responded to that without self-detonating? We'll never know. Instead, we heard Trump ramble and the liar lie. I quickly tuned out and lamented another wasted half-hour of my life.
@Joseph ET, good call on the "charitable donations" comment. I would have added "You claim you're an advocate of women's and homosexual rights, and yet the bulk of your money is coming from regimes that at best treat women as chattel, and support literally throwing homosexuals off of rooftops."
@TMay, how about the millions of workers who work for companies that are not all that profitable, or for non-profit organizations that are not the Clinton Foundation? Why should they make less money? How fair is that? Can you elaborate Hillary?
Will someone please ask Chelsea what special skills she possesses to make her worth over $15-million by the time she was in her 30s, other than being a Clinton? Will Hillary please tell us how it's fair to take money away from the owners of profitable businesses while Chelsea gets to be wealthier than 99.999% of other millennials for no obvious reason other than biological chance?
You nailed it brother!
I had to stop watching after about half an hour of Shrillary repeating how important it is to tax the rich into submission. You KNOW she does not consider herself subject to that increase in taxes ; it's only for the little people. Kind of like obeying laws. Or maybe by "rich" she means "middle class".
Once or maybe twice, Lester Holt attempted to tell the old bag her time was up, but I swear I saw her give him a "Lester, don't forget who you f**king work for - I can ruin your sorry ass" look and he went silent. Leastways, that's the way I saw it.
Perhaps Trump will learn from this, and actually show up next time using both sides of his brain. Maybe he'll realize, "Shit, I should have rehearsed!" So many missed opportunities! Actually EASIER than shooting fish in a barrel; more like shooting fish in the freezer at WalMart.
Actually, I sort of expect more of the same with the CNN debate, and they'll even make ol' Lester look like he's actually unbiased. Then comes the Fox debate. Might be a whole different story there.... maybe...
Thank you again for your dad's cartoon. He draws how I feel! You do too.
Re: Trump going soft because Chelsea was in the audience...
Chelesa lived with her parents, she undoubtedly has witnessed “unpleasantness” throughout her entire childhood. More than Trump (or we) could ever fathom.
@ Pete Detroit - Perfect!
I understand the frustration you all have of Trump not grabbing the low hanging fruit. I was yelling at the TV telling him what to say. I wanted him to blast her so hard with all the things we're talking about to the point she would seize up. Had he done that, he would have been vilified as being mean to the poor widdle woman. He knew that. I think that explains his restraint at least for the first debate. On the other hand, it could have been a strategy. He knows he has two more opportunities to go for the jugular and could be waiting until the last debate (with Chris Wallace) to go for the arrows in his quiver. The last debate is the one most remembered.
She has blown her full wad. Her campaign is she is a woman (historic), she's been around a long time (supposedly that means experienced), she proposes the tired old Democrat playbook policies of "investing" in everything under the sun to get votes, and make the evil rich pay, and Trump is the devil incarnate and will destroy the universe if elected. What more can she do in two more debates? Recite policy statistics? The same old same old will begin to seem strident (hopefully) to more and more undecideds.
On a personal note, I've not been around commenting lately, as I got a shiny new hip and have been somewhat out of touch. I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on anyone, except the vile old hag.
@chipmunk said "Or maybe by "rich" she means "middle class"."
Whether she means it or not, ultimately it's the "middle class" that ends up paying for Progressive wealth redistribution. The massive wealth of the "megarich" that Hillary says is her target (like her own) will escape almost all taxation, thanks to the armies of lawyers and accountants deployed on their behalf. Ironically, it will be the owners of small and medium-sized businesses (like independent farmers, who the left used to say they loved) who will get ensnared by this. It's relatively easy to organize large paper assets to avoid this sort of wealth attack. It's not easy for people who outright own businesses or farms, which either have to get massively leveraged by debt or liquidated in order to comply.
@Shelly said "Had he done that, he would have been vilified as being mean to the poor widdle woman."
Like that's ever stopped him before? That's his biggest asset. This is a guy who openly calls women "fat slobs". He doesn't care! We've been waiting years to see someone put Hillary in her place, and (IMHO) the single advantage of Trump was that he was the only GOP candidate that I thought had the balls to do it. And he didn't.
That's why I'm back to my theory that Trump was, and still is little more than a foil for the Clinton machine. The outcome of this election was decided over 8 years ago.
@TMay- "Hillary... said that employees should enjoy profit sharing in the companies that they work..."
All employees already share a business's profits. It's called a paycheck.
When employees wish to share more of a business's profits in addition to their paycheck in many cases they can purchase stock in their company/corporation getting dividends and a possible increase of value in the stock. It’s called an investment! Just like most of our IRA’s or other retirement plans. Maybe HRC wants our retirement plans to earn less in favor of the poor employees that only get a paycheck and are too stupid to buy stock.
"Trump seemed somewhat unclear on the idea that 'answers' should be at least tangentially related to the 'questions,'" applies only to actual debates where the moderator is not the principle talent that (it is presumed) everybody came to watch.
Republicans would never get to discuss their positions if that rule were enforced.
Small "r" republicans don't watch the charades, but it is sort of fun listening to the progressives whine about how forbidden topics get brought up anyway.
@Graylady- Good point about the media's relationship to the next president. By definition, the media will not report Hillary's misdeeds.
@Mike Porter- I agree that the bar was low enough in this debate that it might instead be referred to as a trench. I'm seeing a lot of opinion that said Trump scored a victory with voters by only appearing to have trouble thinking and speaking at the same time, rather than full-blown Tourette's syndrome.
@Chef621- Trump skipped the name-calling, but I didn't notice any lack of braggadocio. And I'll not that when Hillary was delivering her poisonous attacks, she did so coolly and dispassionately. That's what Trump needs to do next time - while keeping the attacks professional rather than person. He definitely has lots to work with.
@Fred Ciampi- I'm not sure what it was, though I saw pictures of the podiums (podiae?) under construction, and each had an orange insert about halfway up. Oddly, Trump's was twice as wide as Hillary's. I frankly doubt the use of anything which would be so damning if discovered. There ARE some interesting videos on the web, however, suggesting that Hillary was signalling Lester Holt to come to her for a "zinger" whenever she scratched beside her nose.
@Pete (Detroit)- Can you get your hands on a Trump wig before the next debate...?
@John the Econ- Yes to all of the things we WISH Trump would have said. Regarding the "profit-sharing" nonsense, you make a good point that the next step on the slippery slope would be looking at "fair" profit-sharing in disparate enterprises. Why should a worker be punished for having a job at a non-profit? Why should workers at a failing company enjoy a smaller profit bonus than those at a successful competitor? It's a nightmare plan - though fortunately, one I don't think Hillary would even dream of floating if elected.
Finally, Chelsea is old enough and rich enough (for no reason) that I'm perfectly comfortable calling her as morally flawed as her parents. Oh, her list of offenses isn't as long - but she's young yet.
@BadAssHarley- With a name like yours, are you by any chance a reader of "Wheels on the Road" magazine? Hope n' Change is honored to be the house cartoon in that manly monthly devoted to bikers!
@chipmunk- Hillary doesn't think of herself as "rich" because to her (and many liberals), rich doesn't mean having oodles of money - it means having oodles of money and the wrong politics. Remember that Hillary called herself "dead broke" when she had multiple mansions and million-dollar book deals pending. Rest assured, her tax increases will fall on the middle class because that's where the money is.
@Colby Muenster- I thought Holt was biased, but no more so than I expected...and certainly no more so than Trump should have expected. And I like your analogy of shooting frozen fish at Walmart.
@chef621- I'm sure there will be more of my Dad's stuff coming. Plus, he did a lot of creepy paintings and illustrations, some of which I'll be sharing as we approach Halloween. Perfect for framing and decorating your home!
@SC- Good point: if Chelsea were capable of being embarrassed by her family, she would already have changed her name and moved to the middle of nowhere. At this point, she's just another unindicted co-conspirator.
@Shelly- First and most importantly, glad to have you back and so sorry that you've experience so much pain with the new hip. Is that getting better? Are you doing your exercises? My Mom had hip replacement some years ago, and it was hard on her (though she also had terrible arthritis). I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I wish you a complete recovery!
On matters political, I'll disagree that Trump would have appeared a bully if he'd kept his attacks specific and impersonal. The email server, the Clinton Foundation's skimming of 93% of proceeds away from the charities they claim to support, spurious tax deductions for donating to her own Foundation, her claim that she would "bring jobs to New York" - and there being fewer jobs when she left than when she started. And there's a lot more. He needn't go into the bimbos and BJs and can leave Vince Foster in the grave. He needn't be a bully to simply bring her record to light.
@John the Econ- I don't think it impossible that Trump was a foil of the Clinton machine, but he may be out of their control now. Which is why his kids should be watching their backs so as not to be added to page 12 of the Clinton Body Count list.
@NVRick- Boom! Exactly right.
@Joseph ET- Again, a great observation. Employees are 100% free to share in profits (via stock purchase) if they're also willing to share the risk. Anything else is simply job-killing wealth redistribution.
@Larry Sheldon- A good debater can twist any question around to the point where he/she can then give the answer they want. But Trump is not a good debater. Holt asked him, quite legitimately (and TWICE, in fact) how Trump intended to bring back jobs. Trump never gave a scintilla of an answer, choosing instead to just babble about Detroit being a sad city and China and Mexico stealing our jobs. Frankly, that honked me off. I don't actually believe Trump has a plan to bring back jobs, and his idea of levying significant tariffs on imports would be a body blow to the wide swaths of people who depend on Walmart prices.
I just didn't feel like Trump had actual answers to pretty much anything. He had slogans and catch phrases - and little else.
Rick Wells has a short video showing a teleprompter in Hildebeast's podium.
Verry interesting....
http://rickwells.us/clinton-teleprompter-debate-podium-video/
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