Liveblogging The Second Presidential Debate

7:53 – ah, so Trump decided to make an issue of Bill Clinton’s sex life of 30 years ago. “Mommy, Billy started it first!” is a very adult debating strategy. Very presidential and mature. 

8:04 – they chose people who haven’t made up their mind yet. Do they even have minds if they can’t reach a decision at this late stage? What is their misfortune?

8:06 – the first question is funny, given the circumstances. Yes, Trump is modeling very appropriate behavior for youth. Especially the youth whose life goal is to end up incarcerated.

8:10 – Anderson Cooper goes straight for the video. Trump repeats words “locker room” like they are a magical eraser of reality.  

8:17 – Trump is trying to defend himself with some really bizarre, stumbling stories. 

8:19 – who is the brain-damaged freak who applauded Trump?

8:24 – I’m almost feeling sorry for the wobbly old man. Almost. 

8:26 – we are back to emails? Seriously? Wake me up after this is over. 

8:29 – Cooper is at least trying to keep Trump from interrupting.

8:31 – why is Trump hovering behind Hillary when she talks? Is he that desperate to be on camera?

8:38 – “Yes, Islamophobia is bad,” Trump says. This would be comical if it weren’t so offensive. 

8:51 – the question about whether politicians can have public and personal positions is so infantile that I’m ashamed I heard it. 

8:54 – “She’s raising taxes on the middle class, you can look at me, she’s raising taxes.” What does any of this mean? Is he altogether with us? 

9:00 – why does he keep bringing up Sanders? Bernie endorsed Hillary and is campaigning with her, or hasn’t Trump heard?

9:07 – “Russia is new and we are tired and old and exhausted in terms of nuclear.” I need an interpreter. 

9:08 – “Assad is killing ISIS and Russia is killing ISIS and Iran is killing ISIS.” WTF does this mean?

9:09 – Trump publicly snubbed Pence. Fun!

9:11 – “Why can’t they just go secretively?” The fellow is so stupid. 

9:22 – another dig at this mysterious Blumenthal whom Trump seems to be obsessed with. 

9:26 – Hillary’s vision of what the Supreme Court should be like is so beautiful. I love her. 

9:34 – Hillary is so smart and light on her feet. She came up with the perfect response to the very hard question of what’s positive about Trump. I love her even more. 

Anti-Greek

Things are always more complex than they seem. Everybody blamed Germany for squeezing Greece so hard, but nobody noticed that for years Greece was the door into the EU for every bandit and crook in the world. All you needed to do was rent an apartment in Greece (which you can do for $250 a month, so it’s easily affordable to every crook), and you could have your EU papers. At first, Greece required that these crooks lived in Greece for 180 days to get their papers but then canceled this requirement. The flood of horrible, completely criminal folks from places like Russia that was gushing into the EU from Greece was driving everybody in the EU nuts. Which contributed to the anti-Greek sentiment.

Justice by TV

Making a Murderer has set a very bad precedent of manipulating the public opinion to support murderers of women. A documentary came out recently that glorifies the vicious murderer Amanda Knox. Just like the film that manipulates facts and edits reality to present Steven Avery as innocent, the Knox documentary is shameless in its rewriting of Knox’s story. 

As we have seen in the bizarre obsession with the “real name” of Elena Ferrante, most people are incapable of noticing the difference between reality and a fictional narrative. If it’s written in a book or especially if it’s shown on TV, it’s got to be true. It doesn’t seem to occur to many viewers how easy it is to edit a story in absolutely any direction that the filmmaker wants. 

Knox is already running free and Avery has every chance of being released. Justice by TV is a very dangerous thing. 

The Non-Scandal

So this is why the topic of idiot Assange has been revived! It turns out that excerpts from Hillary’s super-duper top secret speeches have been released. I missed this story completely. 

Of course, the speeches proved to be as boring as anything. Hillary is in favor of universal health care, sheesh, what a scandal. Who could have guessed? And she’s for green energy? Wow, such a shocker. 

I can’t believe how much time was wasted on this non-issue during the primaries.