Quote :

"10. Jake tapper cherry picked questions to candidates who are known for that issue turning the debate into a repeat of the few things weve heard for years "

I thought he did a good job controlling the debate, and playing the candidates off each other, but the questions ask were ridiculously weak sauce.

Nothing about AI/automation, very little said about inequality and what was said was more trickle-down nonsense, nothing about black lives matter, no mention of the Ahmed situation, no response to Fiorinas completely fact-less rant against planned parenthood.

They once again oversaturated trump with questions. 538 was live-tweeting fact checks which was good. The talking points on immigration are completely flawed, they don't match the current reality of immigration, but they're acting like the problem is as bad as it was in 2000. If they were trying to grow the republican party, they aren't going to do it saying the things they said last night.

Jeb seems hopelessly inarticulate too. I get not everyone can speak well, but he can't explain why he speaks spanish? He fumbled around pretty badly there. He still fumbles when asked about his brother, and a few other questions.

It will be interesting to see how the DNC debates shake out. I expect the same rehashing of talking points, but maybe the talking points will actually be based in reality?

[Edited on September 17, 2015 at 11:53 AM. Reason : ]

9/17/2015 11:49:44 AM

There is no doubt the GOP wants the state of perpetual warfare to keep on going. I laughed when Jeb said his brother kept us safe. I guess 9/11 doesn't count? Oh and how about making things exponentially worse by invading Iraq?

9/17/2015 12:10:32 PM

^ W definitely made mistakes, but no major terror attack after 9/11? Yes Iraq was turmoil for a while but after the troop surge was relatively calm. Certainly not mass genocides like we have seen the past couple years with ISIS

9/17/2015 1:36:01 PM

yeah, W kept us safe...until 9/11.

Quote :

"Yes Iraq was is still turmoil "

9/17/2015 2:03:20 PM

^^ The Iraq war was a HUGE mistake. Many people knew this beforehand (including apparently Ben Carson, Trump, and Paul), but if you can't admit this with the benefit of hindsight, you're deluding yourself.

How "relative stability" or Iraq is your metric, Iraq was more stable before we preemptively invaded. If ISIS massacres are your metric, IS didn't even exist before the Iraq war (IS was created by ousted Iraqi leaders in fact). Iran, perhaps motivated by being called "Evil" by Bush, was able to wind up its nuclear weapons infrastructure under Bush.

[Edited on September 17, 2015 at 2:23 PM. Reason : ]

9/17/2015 2:22:49 PM

Quote :

"Yes Iraq was turmoil for a while but after the troop surge was relatively calm. Certainly not mass genocides like we have seen the past couple years with ISIS"

Holy dumb.

9/17/2015 4:10:54 PM

Quote :

"Yes Iraq was turmoil for a while but after the troop surge was relatively calm."

Is this a joke?

Perhaps you overlooked the organization called ISIS that has taken over half the country and goes around massacring folks, razing cities, and destroying historical artifacts

9/17/2015 7:07:55 PM

9/17/2015 7:41:40 PM

State sponsored terror like flight 655?

9/17/2015 11:36:17 PM

Can someone link me to the video that Carly Fiorina referred to showing "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."

9/18/2015 2:50:38 AM

This is just painful to watch. Idiocracy in action:

https://www.facebook.com/cnn/videos/10154061749001509/

9/18/2015 3:38:20 AM

^ just for comparison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRq6Y4NmB6U

9/18/2015 10:56:41 AM

I feel like that's the moment McCain realized he lost the election.

9/18/2015 11:00:04 AM

Quote :

"Can someone link me to the video that Carly Fiorina referred to showing "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."

no, it doesn't exist at all

9/18/2015 11:37:18 AM

Quote :

"ABC’s George Stephanopoulos gave the Republican candidate a chance to clarify, asking yesterday, “[A]nalysts who have watched all 12 plus hours say the scene you describe … actually isn’t in those tapes. Did you misspeak?” Fiorina, caught telling an obvious falsehood, replied, “No, I didn’t misspeak.” Even though the images she described don’t exist, Fiorina went on to tell the ABC host, “I have seen those images.”"

9/18/2015 12:10:31 PM

Saw this on Facebook today, didn't know where else to post it. It brings the lolz.

Quote :

"Recently, Ann Coulter tweeted an interesting question during the GOP debates: "How many f---ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?" Thanks for asking Ann. I've been busy trying to figure out how many 'f---ing Jews' there are. If you're defining 'f---ing Jews' as those Jews who have been sexually active in the last month, the Kinsey Institute indicates that about half of all Americans are sexually active (that includes all genders, ages, etc.) Assuming Jewish people are equal to the average American in libido, that would be 3.25 million sexually active Jews (half of 6.5 million). So that's 3.25 f---ing Jews. BUT if she meant, how many Jews were actually f---ing at the time she tweeted, that's a smaller number. According to a 2001 survey, the average American married couple has sex 132 times a year. According to a Canadian study, average coitus lasts 5-7 minutes. So let's round it off at 6. So that's 1/240th of the day every three days or so, which means 1/720th of the time is spent having sex. SO...divide 3.25 million by 720 and you get... 4,513 f---ing Jews. There's your answer, Ann! 4,513 f---ing Jews in the United States at any one time. (NOTE: This is an estimate and my statistics and/or math may be very off. So if anyone has better statistics then please let me know. I want to be as accurate as Trump is about autism, if not more so!)"

9/18/2015 12:43:01 PM

Quote :

"Quote : "Yes Iraq was turmoil for a while but after the troop surge was relatively calm. Certainly not mass genocides like we have seen the past couple years with ISIS" Holy dumb."

Wut? I was talking about during the Iraq war. Yes in hindsight the Iraq war was a mistake, certainly now what we know was faulty/misconstrued intel. Yes the war caused instability. But that's where the caveat of mistakes were made. The Iraqi army was dismantled, infrastructure destroyed, etc. If post invasion things were handled differently then who knows.

But I was specifically referring to the troop surge to take Faluja. After that happened, things were relatively calm. ISIS didnt blow up until Syria became a shit show. Now its a cluster and far worse now that there are no US troops there.

9/18/2015 2:15:54 PM

9/19/2015 1:23:42 PM

Quote :

"I feel like that's the moment McCain realized he lost the election. "

nope. it was when he suspended his campaign because of the financial crisis (also to postpone a debate with Obama).

9/19/2015 1:32:52 PM

9/19/2015 1:55:51 PM

Fuck, Tyler

9/19/2015 6:25:35 PM

So the Republican front runner won't acknowledge Obama is not a Kenyan Muslim, and the #2 guy says we shouldnt have a muslim president because it's inherently unamerican.

9/20/2015 11:02:42 PM

He probably doesn't want to alienate the voters who think he's a Muslim. But should you address all ludicrous claims? Should Obama have wasted his time defending the fact that he isn't a Muslim?

[Edited on September 20, 2015 at 11:24 PM. Reason : not that he's a Christian like he / his proponents claim. Probably an agnostic.]

9/20/2015 11:15:58 PM

what time was wasted?

9/21/2015 12:05:56 AM

huh?

9/21/2015 12:08:23 AM

yep

9/21/2015 12:14:35 AM

Didn't it take Obama like 6 months or more to finally produce his birth certificate? Probably because it was a bullshit claim by birthers that someone with such a busy schedule as the POTUS shouldn't have to waste his time addressing in the first place. So not sure what you're questioning here.

9/21/2015 12:21:09 AM

no, it didn't

what time was ever wasted "defending the fact that he isn't a Muslim"?

9/21/2015 12:41:33 AM

So if someone claims he's a space alien, he should take even a few seconds to address and deny that claim?

9/21/2015 12:45:00 AM

by saying no?

how much time does that take?

9/21/2015 12:48:57 AM

Not long. But the POTUS is gonna be criticized and talked about more than just about anybody else. Therefore, there will be a ton of bullshit stories, claims, hell even tweets by nobodies. Why the hell would he address them all?

And iirc, he or his staff tried to say "Obama isn't a Muslim, and he was born in the US"

But only after months of it actually becoming a story, did he bother to produce his birth certificate and actually address it.

Because he has much, much more important stuff to focus on.

[Edited on September 21, 2015 at 12:57 AM. Reason : .]

9/21/2015 12:55:42 AM

because enough people with big enough platforms started stating it as fact?

which undermines a whole hell of a lot, especially if the wrong person hears it from a source they find reputable

at which point it could become potentially dangerous

9/21/2015 1:01:29 AM

Exactly, which is why he/his team waited until it was a "big deal" before they addressed it. When whoever first mentioned it in an editorial or blog post, it wasn't worth spending any time on it.

And since they resolved the issue, why would Trump address it? Aside from the fact that I mentioned that he doesn't want to alienate the moronic voters who still believe it. Trump not acknowledging it is a combination of not confirming the truth to the dumb voters whose votes he wants/needs, as well as it not evening being an issue worthy of addressing.

9/21/2015 1:05:47 AM

Quote :

"But should you address all ludicrous claims?"

He didn't address it because he probably still thinks that Obama is a Muslim and/or was not born in America. Pay special attention to the words he used to defend himself on Twitter:

Quote :

"“Am I morally obligated to defend the president every time somebody says something bad or controversial about him? I don’t think so!”"

Quote :

"“If someone made a nasty or controversial statement about me to the president, do you really think he would come to my rescue? No chance!”"

Quote :

"“If I would have challenged the man, the media would have accused me of interfering with that man’s right of free speech. A no win situation!”"

What that idiot audience member said was not bad/controversial/nasty, just plain lies and falsehoods. You bet if someone said to Obama that Trump is not a US citizen, Obama would correct the moron. And a to the 3rd Tweet... doesn't even deserve a rebuttal.

LOL at this:

Quote :

"Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said that the room was noisy and that Trump had trouble hearing the question. But the questioner was speaking into a microphone, and his remarks could be heard clearly by several journalists sitting near the back of the gymnasium."

9/21/2015 2:22:42 AM

Quote :

"You bet if someone said to Obama that Trump is not a US citizen, Obama would correct the moron"

You sure about that? I doubt he'd waste his time even responding.

Maybe I'm making a more philosophical stance on not responding to bullshit at all, not giving dumb stuff any credence or time in the first place. I hadn't read any of the tweets because I don't carefully follow this soap opera, but I think the first tweet (#1 of the 3 in a row) pretty much sums up my stance.

[Edited on September 21, 2015 at 2:31 AM. Reason : Mr. President, someone on TWW said something untrue, we should spend time addressing it!]

9/21/2015 2:30:27 AM

Quote :

"You sure about that? I doubt he'd waste his time even responding. Maybe I'm making a more philosophical stance on not responding to bullshit at all, not giving dumb stuff any credence or time in the first place."

But the point is that Trump DID respond to the question, but totally glossed over the lies uttered by the fool. As I said, those are lies Trump himself believes in, or at least did until recently. That's the reason he did not correct him. McCain did, didn't he? Because that's the right thing to do.

Quote :

"Mr. President, someone on TWW said something untrue, we should spend time addressing it!"

Come on, now you are just being silly, and using the [I don't know the name] fallacy. We are talking about live presidential debates here, not something someone said online that is unrelated in any way to the candidates.

9/21/2015 4:03:07 AM

I know all of you are too young to remember the '08 Democratic primary, but Mrs. Clinton dabbled in a little Obama Kenyan muslim fearmongering herself back then. You can now direct your outrage accordingly.

9/21/2015 9:05:02 AM

^ I am one of the oldest ones here

I didn't pay much attention to the election then. So what did she say? Can you please quote?

9/21/2015 9:19:48 AM

Her 2008 60 Minutes interview. "There's nothing to base that on... as far as I know." Point is, she didn't come out and definitely shoot down even the implication Obama was anything but a God fearing, American loving Christian which is the basis for the current outrage du jour aimed at Mr. Trump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHFREDHB-nQ

9/21/2015 10:31:07 AM

I didn't watch the video, but saying "There's nothing to base that on... as far as I know" is not "Obama Kenyan Muslim fearmongering"

9/21/2015 11:07:52 AM

Clinton's team did a fair amount of low key race baiting in 2008 by implying that Hillary was the "safer" candidate, implying that Obama was more likely to be the target of assassination attempts and therefore was too risky.

9/21/2015 11:12:35 AM

it was Clinton supporters who started the birth certificate shit, you can argue that Clinton herself didn't know about it, but it was started by email chains by her supporters

http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/was-hillary-clinton-the-original-birther/


[Edited on September 21, 2015 at 11:39 AM. Reason : started by people like Shrike]

9/21/2015 11:30:27 AM

^^ got a link?

[Edited on September 21, 2015 at 11:46 AM. Reason : ^ i don't think that's something that actually needs to be "argued"]

9/21/2015 11:45:08 AM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/12/obama-camps-memo-on-clint_n_81205.html
http://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2008/03/axelrod-clinton-campaign-has-insidious-pattern-on-race-other-attacks-006919
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/group-tell-clinton-to-stop-race-baiting/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/racial-tensions-roil-democratic-race/
etc...

9/21/2015 11:52:00 AM

I'm not seeing much substance there.

And I don't see any allusions to potential assassination attempts either but perhaps I missed it.

9/21/2015 12:05:36 PM

9/21/2015 12:33:03 PM

Quote :

"I know all of you are too young to remember the '08 Democratic primary, but Mrs. Clinton dabbled in a little Obama Kenyan muslim fearmongering herself back then. You can now direct your outrage accordingly. "

This isn't a secret, and helped cost her the nomination.

Saying and believing nutty, racist things seems the key to boost your numbers in the Republican party.

9/21/2015 1:15:10 PM

Walker is dropping out according to the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/09/21/scott-walker-said-to-be-quitting-presidential-race/?smid=tw-share&_r=0

9/21/2015 4:27:09 PM

^ But Gilmore, Santorum, and Pataki are still holding on!

Who's going to get the coveted Walker endorsement?

9/21/2015 4:36:57 PM

He's out so early.

9/21/2015 4:47:36 PM