1822

CNN’ post-debate headline: “FIORINA FACES DOWN TRUMP”

Fox News’ post-debate headline: “GOP rivals try to ding Trump at debate — front-runner hits back”

This debate won’t hurt Trump.

Edit: More evidence - http://time.com/4037510/poll-second-republican-presidential-debate/
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/09/republican_presidential_debate_who_won_vote_in_our_poll.html

1823

I watched this debate. I missed the first one. I thought Trump did really well in this one. I mean, he even got both medical doctors on the stage to agree with his position on vaccines. Isn’t that amazing? And perfectly emblematic of the difference between how Trump seems to take a stand and sticks to it, while the others always try to equivocate and they soften their position because they don’t want to appear confrontational.

“Senator X, Senator Y says your plan to do this was ridiculous”.
“Well, I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that, blah blah, I’m changing the topic”
“Senator Y, would you like to respond?”
“Well, I didn’t mean it like that, blah blah, I’m changing the topic too, because I don’t want to be confrontational in front of someone because I’m a politician.”

It was like that the whole night, except with Trump, who stood firm with his criticisms and his views, it was actually kind of refreshing, even if I disagree with his views.

The vaccine thing was hilarious. So he says essentially he’s saying even if they get vaccines, they shouldn’t be getting so many, so fast. And both Ben Carson and Rand Paul end up agreeing that they shouldn’t be getting too many vaccines so fast. With Trump up there saying “See? That’s all I was saying too”.

1824

And this is the point where I go from disliking the guy for all his bluster and buffonish ignorance to straight up ‘fuck that guy’. I have a son under 2, I take that shit personally. Any, ANY oxygen to the moronic ‘vaccines are dangerous’ argument I can not find funny, I’m straight up furious.

It is why, despite actually largely agreeing with Rand when it came to his non hawkishness I wouldn’t want him elected either. He has definitely done more than a little courting towards the ignorant anti-vax groups.

1825

‘Republicans to break rank with party leaders in call for climate change action’:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/17/republican-congress-climate-change-action-rebellion

1826

Defending his brother’s record as president at CNN’s Republican presidential debate, Jeb Bush had a simple answer: “He kept us safe.”

Wrong.

1827

Honestly, I’m starting to think that Trump is perhaps just paying folks to vote in those online polls.

1828

I went online and voted for Trump. Why? Because he annoys the GOP establishment more than Bill Clinton ever did. It’s hilarious. I love seeing them squirm.

I’m not even sure he’d be as terrible as most of the other GOPs running. I don’t really think he believes everything he says. He knows how to play to a crowd.

1829

I got a chuckle out of one of the top comments on CSPAN’s question of who won the Republican debate - “Bernie Sanders”

1830

Congratulations and helping to drive the system down further into the gutter.

Why is Trump worse? Because he is literally a con artist. Not figuratively. Literally.

1831

This article is definitely worth reading. Fiorina strikes me as a perfect b-school grad: poised, confident, assured, arrogant, and often completely full of balogna. She’s definitely good at parroting information and sounding like she knows what she’s talking about, but scratching beneath the surface reveals that there’s not much depth there.

Of course, what differentiates her from the rest of the crowd is that she’s poised and confident. Assured, arrogant, and full of shit seems to be a universal for the R candidates.

1832

Con artist or corporate puppet, so many choices.

1833

It’s an online poll, not an actual vote. Last cycle Herman Cain topped the polling for awhile. I’m not feeling a lot of personal responsibility here, unless you want to disparage me for voting for Obama when the vote actually counted. For that I’m guilty as charged!

1834

It’s pretty much universal for the democratic candidates too.

1835

Yeah, I kinda have to agree there.

1836

It’s not really that they all actually don’t know anything. It’s more than the job of being a politician means being full of shit. Even guys like Sanders.

Voters are not prepared to understand all of the issues. That’s part of the reason we vote for representatives. It’s not really feasible for a politician, even if they understand an issue completely, to actually speak truthfully about it… basically no matter what the issue is. Because the truth is complex, and scary sounding, and hard to understand, and probably uses big words. Trying to deal with the details doesn’t tend to play well. It doesn’t get you elected.

Messages get you elected.

1837

I honestly haven’t been following the D primary (at all). It doesn’t surprise me if that’s the case.

1838

Vox fact-checks Carly Fiorina’s vivid descriptions of the Planned Parenthood video.

Carly Fiorina gave a harrowing description of the Planned Parenthood sting videos at Wednesday’s Republican debate, challenging Barack Obama to watch “a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.”

Fiorina is wrong: Nobody watching the Planned Parenthood tapes would see those things. I know, because I recently watched all 12 hours of footage.

The videos were produced by the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group that argues Planned Parenthood has profited from procuring fetal tissue for researchers. The videos do show Planned Parenthood officials discussing fetal tissue, sometimes in ways that are callous and jarring. But there is no moment where Planned Parenthood discusses procuring fetal tissue for profit, nor is there the scene that Fiorina describes.

Of course, it’s completely false.

Unsurprisingly, Fiorina doubles down.

“There’s a lot of commentary about these tapes being doctored,” Fiorina said in an interview with George Stephanolous. “In fact,that’s what the mainstream media keeps talking about is the tapes and their origin. Rest assured, I have seen the images I talked about last night. Rest assured, human lives are being harvested.”

1839

The WaPo had a decent writeup on the debate aftermath.

1840

There is a substantial difference between framing a message around incomplete or even misleading “facts” and completely denying reality.

The later is what has become prevalent with GOP politics since Obama’s election: It’s not “politics as usual.”
Call it asymmetrical polarization or epistemic closure or complete bullshit, but don’t label it as “both sides are doing it.”
They are not.

1841