Debate Open Thread

Delaware RightFeel free to give your opinions of the presidential debate.

40 Comments on "Debate Open Thread"

  1. Meyer says:

    I’m drunk. Been taking too many shots. 😉

  2. Frank Knotts says:

    I gave up trying to take notes. He says nothing, she says nothing new.

  3. fightingbluehen says:

    Trump just said “your President” to Hillary. He probably meant “your boss”, but the press aren’t going to see it that way. Plenty of ammunition has been provided for the pundits against Trump tonight.

  4. Frank Knotts says:

    I have a great idea. The moderator should have a button to kill the microphone when he won’t shut up.

  5. Frank Knotts says:

    Okay, everyone run to your biased corners and talk about how both of them won, and how they just took the other one apart. No winner, especially not the citizens.
    At the end, the Clintons took the front of the stage, the Trumps left.

  6. fightingbluehen says:

    The fact that Hillary directed people to her campaign website for fact checking was pretty laughable.

  7. Frank Knotts says:

    He’s on with Hannity getting his stroke on.

  8. kavips says:

    Tomorrow will be an embarrassing day to be a Republican.

    Time for all state and local candidates to cut ties with the national party and run on their own agenda, not his…

  9. Pat Fish says:

    Since so many people ask me, why yes I did watch the debates last night.

    I think Hillary did a great job, frankly, much better than I thought she would. Mostly I thought there would be yet another medical event of some sort, perhaps a coughing spell, perhaps a fainting, maybe some rolling of the eyes.

    She did blink a lot; everyone noticed that. But she looked good, she was vibrant and seemed healthy and she spoke well.

    Donald Trump did very well too and I am to understand he is leading as the winner in the debate. Well I think Trump won but mostly because I did not agree with a word Hillary said, especially that bit about raising taxes on the “rich”.

    Folks, these people think you and I are the rich.

    All in all I think it went well.

  10. fightingbluehen says:

    Trump wasn’t prepared. For instance, when Hillary was deflecting the blame for the rise of ISIS away from the current administration and onto Bush and the Iraq war; all that Trump had to do was point out that Biden was spiking the football over the success of the Obama administrations handling of Iraq.

  11. mouse says:

    I want to hear more about Rosie O’Donnell in the presidential debates

  12. Rick says:

    Television is a visual medium. How a candidate is perceived based upon visual projection may be more important than the answer to a particular question. The projection is subliminal, and the response is subconscious. In this respect- and I believe the most important respect- Clinton annihilated Trump.

    The split screen allowed viewers to not only see the candidate(s) respond to the question, but also showed the opponent’s countenence in response to the response. NBC, being thoroughly in the tank for Clinton, knew from observing Trump’s incessant gesticulating and exaggerated facial contortions during the GOP primary debates that he would repeat the performance during this debate, and he obligingly followed the script. As Hillary looked poised and presidential, Trump looked flustered and intemperate. These visual clues, subliminally delivered, are more important than answers to questions that we already know the candidate’s answer to.

    Luckily for Trump, this was the first debate. He has plenty of time to learn from his mistakes. The eighty or ninety percent of the electorate who watched the debate but have already made up their minds were not swayed one way or the other. The key demographic is the undecided, moderate, independent or whatever one cares to call them. They are up for grabs, and Hillary, at the very least, looked more “presidential.” Not because of any of her (or Trump’s) answers, but because she decisively won the image battle.

    I would be interested in the reaction of people who listened on the radio.

  13. fightingbluehen says:

    I listened to half the debate on the radio and Trumps sniffling was more apparent. First thing I noticed from the split screen was that the image of Hillary appeared larger and took up more room in the screen than Trump’s.

  14. mouse says:

    Does it not bother you that he has no concern for or command of pertinent issues? That his responses are slogans without any thought out details? That his rudeness would be an unprecedented disaster?

  15. fightingbluehen says:

    “Does it not bother you that he has no concern for or command of pertinent issues? That his responses are slogans without any thought out details? That his rudeness would be an unprecedented disaster?”

    @mouse: I don’t think rudeness is a factor. Trump is going to be the Builder- in- Chief and actually fix our neglected infrastructure while Hillary’s documented war hawk ways will get us yet into even more confrontations.

    As far as having command of pertinent issues; well, I guess that depends on what you think are the pertinent issues….Do you think that our southern boarder being a virtual sieve is a pertinent issue?…Do you think the fact that the incidents of people being killed in the name of Islam are becoming so frequent now in our own country that the media doesn’t even treat it like a primary story anymore?…..Do you believe that an ever increasing violent and lawless society is a pertinent issue?

    Maybe you believe that guns are the primary issue. Let me ask you this, mouse……At what point in the regression of weaponry do you stop blaming the inanimate object and blame the individual ? Bows and arrows? A knife? A stick?

    It’s a sad state of affairs when people believe that the only way to stop us from killing each other, is to take away the means to do so.

  16. mouse says:

    I think we have an issue with too many illegals because business interests (mostly conservative Republican) like to hire cheap exploitable labor. If we cracked down on those who hire illegals, there wouldn’t be this obsessive illegal immigrant/ absurd wall issue to obsess on. The fact that people obsess on the illegals and not the cause of them being here strikes me as being very disingenuous and a cover for racist resentment which in my view feeds the lower middle class conservative cohort.

    Yes, terrorism and violence worries me greatly. It strikes at the core of civil society.

    Unbridled access to any gun with any clip by anyone at any time does concern me. But most of my friends and relatives here are paranoid prepper gun nuts obsessed with someone from somewhere who is going to take their guns, so I don’t put much concern energy into the issue.

    The obsession with Islam and refugees concerns me because it’s overblown causing people to obsess on the inane and ignore substantive issues like jobs, renewable energy, infrastructure (we need funding) education, social security and medicare funding etc.

  17. Rick says:

    No, the biggest issue facing America is Obama’s birthplace.

    E-mails threatening U.S. security?

    Watching a U.S. Ambassador and several operatives die in Benghazi?

    And then lying about a video being responsible?

    Deposing Quadaffi and handing Libya to iSIS?

    Deposing Mubarak and handing Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhood?

    Drawing a “line in the sand” in Syria- and then handing it over to Russia?

    A cozy pay-to-play relationship with Arab oligarchs?

    Nothing to see there. Let’s talk about BO’s birth certificate.

  18. mouse says:

    Trump has focused the discussion on some important issues, but his solution of lowering tax rates on the super rich is a bad joke and largely what caused the debt we’re in along with mindless endless wars. We need to tax the super rich to rebuild the nation and tax them again if they take jobs away for child labor in China. The FBI needs to go after the trillions the immoral super rich hide in tax havens. These parasitic assholes already pay the very low 15% capital gains rates minus their bogus deductions for an effective tax rate in single digits while the middle class starves for crumbs.The super rich are destroying the nation while people obsess on some minority women getting SNAP food benefits for her kids. It’s crazy in my view

  19. mouse says:

    Or get everyone riled up about bathroom policy and sexual issues. Diversions.

  20. mouse says:

    Deposing Quadaffi seems like a big mistake. I don’t understand why we didn’t take out Assad in Syria but the Middle east is a tribal mess with lots of violent nutcases. I would prefer to be out of there all together. The relationaship with the Arabs especially Saudia Arabia is dangerous and not in our interests. Agree with most of that. Egypt is more complicated.

  21. Fish Bites says:

    “Luckily for Trump, this was the first debate. He has plenty of time to learn from his mistakes.”

    His “mistakes” proceed directly from his character. I doubt that his basic personality is going to change in a week and a half.

    As far as “plenty of time” goes, absentee ballot and early voting has already begun in a number of states. The voting has already started.

    “Let me ask you this, mouse……At what point in the regression of weaponry do you stop blaming the inanimate object and blame the individual ?”

    Trump has made it clear that he would prefer a system in which the police go about randomly confiscating guns from people whom he says the police don’t think should have them. That makes no sense on several levels. Yes, bows and arrows and knives can harm people. But there is no way that some nut with bows and arrows or a knife is going to walk into a night club and kill 49 people simply by pointing an instrument and repeatedly twitching his finger.

    The most recent mass shootings, incidentally, were carried about in Houston: by a lawyer upset over his firm falling apart and wearing a Nazi uniform, and in Seattle: by a 20 year old going after his ex-girlfriend’s family, who obtained the weapons from his stepfather’s gun collection despite his stepfather certifying to a court that he had no weapons in the house after a previous arrest for assault.

    As far as immigration controls go, neither instance would have been affected. Arcan Cetan was the nine year old child of a Turkish woman who had married his quite white and quite Christian stepfather. If minor children of persons who marry US citizens are going to be barred entry, or if you are going to go all out and bar US citizens from marrying foreigners and having them come here, then that is going to be a tough sell. There is no “vetting” of a nine year old child which would have come to the conclusion that eleven years later he would steal dad’s guns and go shoot people.

  22. Fish Bites says:

    When Reagan tried to bomb Qaddafi and missed, was that a mistake?

  23. waterpirate says:

    @FBH let’s not forget Obama’s “shovel ready projects to get us moving”. Why is Trump any different? More empty rhetoric imho. This years choice is “worse and worser” you can decide for yourselves who is who.

  24. Rick says:

    When Reagan tried to bomb Qaddafi and missed, was that a mistake?

    Was what a “mistake?” The bombing or the miss?

    Either way, the circumstances were very different in the 80’s than today. Perhaps the U.S. had someone whom they felt would be positioned to seize power upon Qaddafi’s death.

    As Secretary of State, shouldn’t Hillary have given thought to the chain of succession in Libya? In these days of Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood, couldn’t she foresee the possibility of a terrorist organization waiting in the wings to assert control?

  25. Fish Bites says:

    Qaddafi was going down with us or without us.

    But, yes, “the circumstances were very different in the 80’s than today.” They sure were. Reagan’s bumbling led to the Lebanon embassy being blown up – twice – with the additional loss of 240 Marines, and nobody was ever hung out to dry for that.

  26. Mike says:

    There were two things about Trump that stood out for me:

    He is the GOP candidate at a time when many of us still believe the national debt is a major crisis for the country, and yet almost never even brings up actual plans to reduce out of control government spending, or even that it is a priority of his. He talks more about building infrastructure and “boosting” (that sounds to me like code for gov. investment) the economy than limiting government.

    He has just amazing verbal diarrhea. It took him about 90 seconds to go from a question about a serious topic (supporting the Iraq War) to just ranting “nobody ever calls Sean Hannity” about 6 times in a row as if his synapses had suddenly begun misfiring. This kind of thing may seem funny and entertaining on one level, but man these are tough times internationally – I can’t help but wonder if this tendency to just spew out whatever random thoughts come to mind are going to get him (and us) in trouble.

  27. delacrat says:

    “As Secretary of State, shouldn’t Hillary have given thought to the chain of succession in Libya?” – rick

    By all accounts, Libya under Qaddafi was a functioning and prosperous society, Killary should have given that some thought.

  28. fightingbluehen says:

    ….and how about the way she reacted; it’s psychotic ? There is nothing she can say to explain this behavior. We need to see a campaign commercial with this video featuring in it to show the disconnect of these sociopathic elites.

    Also, if you listen to the very end of the video, the reporter asks her if “it”, (Qaddafi’s death), had anything to do with her visit. Hillary said:” No…I’m sure it did”……What the hell does that even mean anyway?
    ,

  29. fightingbluehen says:

    I’m serious people. Someone needs to get hold of Rob Arlett and his kid, and start feeding them this kind of ammunition. I mean, she just admitted on video camera that her visit had something to do with Gaddafi being taken out. That’s something that she’s never officially admitted to.

  30. Fish Bites says:

    Meanwhile, today’s school shooter….

    Jesse Osborne, 14, home schooled and given a gun and smoke grenades by his mother Tiffin Osborne.

    Danged Mooslims

  31. Rick says:

    By all accounts, Libya under Qaddafi was a functioning and prosperous society…

    This is true. And it was true under the Shah in Iran, Mubarak in Egypt (although not so prosperous), and Iraq under Hussein.

    It is an unpleasant fact that many despotic regimes in the Middle East were stable. In our rush to “liberate” oppressed people, we unintentionally usher-in chaos, and open the door for terrorists to exert political hegemony. Bush, Obama- and Clinton- are guilty of this mindset.

    And this is why Trump’s assertion that “we are being led by stupid people” rings true.

    The Middle East has been in turmoil for centuries. When will we learn that what goes on there is none of our business? Let’s defend Americans, not Arabs.

  32. mouse says:

    We defend the oil monopoly mafia’s supply routes in the middle east and the oil despots who fund terrorist and wealthy merchants of death

  33. delacrat says:

    “…we unintentionally usher-in chaos,” – rick

    Nah …….it’s all intentional

  34. Fish Bites says:

    “The Middle East has been in turmoil for centuries.”

    By that measure, so has Europe.

    Please name the recent century in which Europe was characterized by some sort of peaceful bliss. Certainly not the 20th. Certainly not the 19th. The people of Europe have been fighting one another for quite a number of centuries.

    Please identify the most recent century of your choice which was characterized by the absence of war in Europe.

  35. Frank Knotts says:

    And the further you go back the more religion played a role.

  36. Fish Bites says:

    Incidentally, with the agreement between Colombia and the FARC, this week marked the first time in ages without an active war in the Americas.

    But I really want to know when this Pax Europa flourished for the last dozen centuries. Apparently, Charlemagne evicted the Moors and it’s been rainbows and unicorns ever since. But only if you simply ignore the rest of European history from that point on.

    What has been the longest stretch of US history in which we were not fighting a war? We have fought the Indians, the French, the English twice, the Canadians burned the White House, the Mexicans, each other, the Spanish, the Germans twice, the Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, assorted Caribbean and Latin adventures, Serbs, Afghanis, and Iraqis.

    Yes, people have had wars for centuries in every continent and region. This notion that it is peculiar to the Middle East proceeds from the assumption that the inhabitants of that region are somehow innately different from human beings generally.

  37. Fish Bites says:

    So, Rick, while we are waiting for you to explain how the Middle East has somehow been characterized by more historical “turmoil” than Europe, let’s have a look at your next line:

    “When will we learn that what goes on there is none of our business?”

    When we no longer are critically dependent on petroleum.

  38. fightingbluehen says:

    I guess different times in history have marked the ability for all people and cultures to exhibit violent or cruel behavior, but at this particular time there are places that exhibit these behaviors right now.
    There are places where publicly executing homosexuals in cruel and sadistic fashions, or burning children alive, or drowning people in cages is regionally acceptable. Do you think this would happen in the western society today or do you think this is a regional phenomena?

    Do you think it would be acceptable in the US to boil dogs and cats alive while they cry out in pain so as to show that they are fresh before skinning , or do you agree that this is a regional thing.

  39. fightingbluehen says:

    Yeah, that’s what I thought.

  40. delacrat says:

    …drowning people in cages is regionally acceptable. Do you think this would happen in the western society today or do you think this is a regional phenomena?” – frightenedbluehen

    Western society today thinks water torture(“boarding”) is regionally acceptable.

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