THE SMACKDOWN AT HOFSTRA

[Joe Guy]

It looked to me like the only preparation that Trump did was to snort a few lines of coke before the debate. Other than that it was Trump as usual...

[Econoline]

[BoSoxGal]

Daily Mail has an article about 6 undecided voters who watched the debate in a North Carolina hotel room as part of a focus group; apparently there was audible/visible reaction, including gasping, to his admission that he doesn't pay taxes and that makes him smart. Four were convinced to vote for Hillary after the 90 minutes, one was strongly leaning that way and one was still undecided.

That's hopeful, anyway.

eta: Honest Americans pay taxes. Sure you look to maximize deductions, but most hardworking honest Americans don't look to evade taxation. It's an obligation of the citizenry. He makes the rest of us look like chumps by saying he's smarter for evading taxation. Clinton's campaign needs to use that bit for an ad and start playing it. A lot.

[Econoline]

Here's the beginning of a very good essay on just how scary Trump's foreign policy positions are:

The debate showed just how scary a Commander in Chief Donald Trump would be
Updated by Zack Beauchamp , Yochi Dreazen and Jennifer Williams | Sep 27, 2016, 12:59a

America just got its first real look at Commander in Chief Donald Trump. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

The signal moment came late in the debate. Hillary Clinton accused Trump of being “very dismissive” of American alliances, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance that obligates the United States to defend all other members if any of them is attacked. Trump responded by saying, “I'm all for NATO.”

And then he kept talking:

• Just to go down the list, we defend Japan. We defend Germany. We defend South Korea, we defend Saudi Arabia. We defend countries. They do not pay us what they should be paying us, because we are providing tremendous service and losing a fortune. We lose on everything. I say who makes these? We lose on everything. What I said, it's very possible that if they don't pay a fair share, because this isn't 40 years ago where we could do what we're doing. We can't defend Japan, a behemoth selling us cars by the millions.

The first issue here is basic coherence. The NATO agreement isn’t “we’ll defend them if they pay enough.” It’s that we’ll defend them as long as the treaty exists. Trump’s position is that he’s for NATO but also against it. He seemed to have literally no understanding that he just flagrantly contradicted himself on the most important alliance agreement in the world.

But even more fundamentally, Trump doesn’t realize how dangerous his policy is. The core purpose of NATO is to deter an attack on NATO members by a stronger power, most notably Russia. The basic idea is that Russia wouldn’t want to risk a war with the United States and other NATO powers, so it wouldn’t invade even small NATO countries like Estonia.

This entire system only works if Russia believes the United States is unconditionally committed to the NATO alliance. Trump, by suggesting he’s maybe kinda sorta not into NATO, is undermining this — making it more likely that Russia might risk invading an American ally, and hence more likely that the US could be actually drawn into a shooting war with Russia.

Much press coverage of the debate will focus heavily on the number of times Trump interrupted Clinton, the apparent laughter in the debate hall when the GOP nominee praised his own temperament, and Clinton’s harsh denunciation of Trump for spreading a “racist lie” by falsely asserting that President Obama wasn’t born in the US.

Trump’s foreign policy views might not get as much attention, but they should. Many of the things the self-proclaimed billionaire has said he would do on the domestic front — from slashing taxes to repealing Obamacare to deporting millions of undocumented immigrants — would require congressional approval or could at least in theory be blocked by the Supreme Court.

When it comes to his powers as commander in chief, by contrast, a President Trump would be largely free to act without constraint. Trump would be able to ramp up the war against ISIS without going to Congress and could effectively lift the existing sanctions on Russia on his own.

But throughout the debate, Trump repeated old lies (opposing the Iraq War before it started), advocated measures that would have been illegal to carry out (seizing Iraq’s oil), and seemed to simultaneously say that he wouldn’t mount a nuclear first strike against an American enemy and that he didn’t want to take that option off the table.

More broadly, he offered a clear illustration of his core foreign policy belief: All issues should be seen as business transactions, with a Trump administration choosing which allies to support — and which enemies to confront — based solely on its assessment of the economic costs and benefits.

Trump also refused to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite the US intelligence community’s near-unanimous belief that Moscow hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee in an effort to embarrass Clinton and harm her electoral prospects. The cyberattack, Trump said, could just as easily have been carried out by China or by “someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”

These types of answers are familiar to anyone who followed the Republican primaries. What this latest debate showed, though, is that Trump has learned nothing — that he hasn’t even bothered to develop a better or more sophisticated view of foreign policy, despite being one election away from the most powerful office in the world.

If this was a commander in chief test, Trump failed.

The above is only about a third of the essay; the whole thing is well worth reading. The last two sentences are also worth quoting, and worth thinking about: "The problem isn’t that Trump failed to articulate a coherent worldview or lay down clear signposts for how he would govern as commander in chief. The problem is that he did."

http://www.vox.com/2016/9/27/13068420/t ... cy-hofstra

[Econoline]

[Lord Jim]

Many of the things the self-proclaimed billionaire has said he would do on the domestic front — from slashing taxes to repealing Obamacare to deporting millions of undocumented immigrants — would require congressional approval or could at least in theory be blocked by the Supreme Court.

When it comes to his powers as commander in chief, by contrast, a President Trump would be largely free to act without constraint.

That's a point I've been making for a long time...

And it's why on a very long list of things I find completely unacceptable about Donald Trump, it's the prospect of him as C-i-C that I find the most unacceptable...and the scariest...

And it's also why in the large group of prominent Republican former government officials that have come out against Trump, so many of them are from the defense, intelligence, and foreign policy spheres...

[wesw]

I scored the debate as a draw.

disappointing but not deciding.

just for your info...,

Hillary has been speedballing between valium and coke for months now....

...no substitute for real stamina, but it s all she s got.

too long doing that and you are liable to fall out on the street one muggy new York morning.....

[Guinevere]

I am so proud of my candidate, I am so proud that I have continued to work and support her. She rocked it Monday night. I was anxious and worried but when she strode out onto that stage in that red suit with a big smile on her face, I knew she was going to be fine. Only one candidate looked Presidential, and it was the woman.

For the first time in my life I saw a candidate who looks like me, sounds like me, dresses like me, has boobs, and hips, and a butt like me, take the stage to debate for the Presidency. It was an incredible moment. Never before has that happened. Think about that gentlemen, think about what you take for granted.

Yep, I'm proud.

[Big RR]

Hillary did much better than I expected Monday, so I can understand your feelings Guin. She spoke in a deliberate, conversational tone and cemented the perception that she is the better candidate. If I can think of one thing she should avoid in the future, however, it is her tendency to respond to Trump's BS. Sometimes it is justified and/or necessary, but mostly it just distracts from the points she is trying to make. Now she clearly didn't do it anywhere near as much as Trump did, but I personally found it disconcerting (and even annoying at times). IMHO, in a debate (even a bastardized one such as this) you should not elevate your opponent by letting him/her call the tune.

[Scooter]

not even wes would degrade himself to attempt to smear lipstick on that pig.

I scored the debate as a draw.

Once again, my tendency to overestimate people has proved me wrong, he was willing to degrade himself.

And this:

Hillary has been speedballing between valium and coke for months now....

Obviously the Trump campaign is pretty desperate if the instructions going to the deluded foot soldiers are to paint Clinton as a drug addict.

[Bicycle Bill]

I scored the debate as a draw.

disappointing but not deciding.

just for your info...,

Hillary has been speedballing between valium and coke for months now....

...no substitute for real stamina, but it s all she s got.

too long doing that and you are liable to fall out on the street one muggy new York morning.....

A statement like that is treading very closely along the line that separates free speech and expression of one's opinion from libel or slander.
Citation?  Verification?  Any kind of 'proof' at all from a reputable and verifiable unbiased source?

-"BB"-

[Lord Jim]

wesw wrote:
I scored the debate as a draw.

The fact that a true believing hardcore Trump Kool Aid guzzler like wes is willing to go so far as to call the debate a "draw" shows just how badly Trump well and truly fucked up...

Sure, it's like scoring The Battle Of The Little Big Horn a "draw", but you have to consider the perspective and grasp of reality of the person doing the scoring...


At least he's not trying to claim that General Custer won...

[Big RR]

BB--as I understand these actions, because Hillary is a public figure any libel/slander action would have to show actual malice on the part of wesw in making/repeating the statement. Truth would be a defense to libel or slander allegations, but even false statements can be made against public figures absent the requisite malice.

[Scooter]

That wes has repeatedly shown malice toward Clinton should be obvious.

[Bicycle Bill]

In a way, Jim, Custer *DID* win.  One hundred and forty years after the ill-fated excursion to the Little Big Horn, people still remember and know who he is/was.  Other than the shaman Tatanka Lyotanka (Sitting Bull, who wasn't even there) and Tashunka Witko (Crazy Horse, who was), does anyone remember any of the other victorious war chiefs?

For that matter, how about the officer who took over what was left of Custer's command and eventually exacted such a horrific revenge at Wounded Knee and White Clay Creek?

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

That wes has repeatedly shown malice toward Clinton should be obvious.

well, perhaps then it could be shown; although I don't think it's actual malice toward her as much as a hatred of a caricature of her presented by many in the republican party. Whether that would be sufficient for a libel/slander action, I do not know.

[Lord Jim]

I think she'd be hard put to show any damages from wes' opinions...

[Big RR]

[wesw]

I don t receive instructions , scoot, I send them....



....and Hillary s higher than a Russian racehorse....

[RayThom]

... Hillary has been speedballing between valium and coke for months now....

... A statement like that is treading very closely along the line that separates free speech and expression of one's opinion from libel or slander... Citation?  Verification?  Any kind of 'proof' at all from a reputable and verifiable unbiased source?

Trump and Clinton are public figures. Ergo, the bar is set very high for anyone to be accused of slander and/or libel against them in a court of law. Conversely, both Howard Dean and Stephen Colbert directly addressed Trump's "obvious" coke snorting at this debate.

Check out Colbert's comments from his show Monday night (Start at 3:30):