Scrutable

Did I really just hear Trump say "you're a number two"?

This debate is a mess.

In a rugby game there's a thing where one side keeps collapsing the scrum, right? Constantly breaking it down and preventing the game from getting anywhere?

This is Trump's debate strategy. Except he's well behind in the polls. He's preventing himself from getting anywhere.

Nobody will watch the next two debates, because Trump keeps collapsing this one. How does that help him?

It is just vaguely possible that Chris Wallace has gained a modicum of control in the last five minutes. You can hear Biden uninterrupted for up to 30 seconds at a time and it makes a massive difference to listenability.

So even Trump's strategy of collapsing the scrum is running into trouble.

I condemn white supremacists.

Wow, that was easy to say. If I can do it, I wonder why the President of the United States can't.

lpm wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:13 am I condemn white supremacists.

Wow, that was easy to say. If I can do it, I wonder why the President of the United States can't.

Well, there's that awful threat from Antifa that professional law enforcement refuses to fix, so even if he asks the Proud Boys to stand by, someone's gotta do the hard work. And no president could be expected to condemn people who are providing important law enforcement services.

Forest Cities?

lpm wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:19 amForest Cities?

Yep. Europeans are all actually Elves who live in treehouses. Didn't you know?

Yes! Climate change!

And Biden has had the chance to repeat "my plan will create thousands of well paying jobs" about eight times.

We've found it dubbed into Spanish on broadcast TV.

dyqik wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:30 am We've found it dubbed into Spanish on broadcast TV.

That must be a hell of a translation job! The cross-talk and half-sentences must be extraordinarily hard.

Also, is the person translating for Trump imitating his excitability?

Squeak wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:35 am

dyqik wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:30 am We've found it dubbed into Spanish on broadcast TV.

That must be a hell of a translation job! The cross-talk and half-sentences must be extraordinarily hard.

Also, is the person translating for Trump imitating his excitability?

Didn't watch long enough to find out

Biden didn't lose anything, that I saw.

Obviously to me, Trump came across as a manic ranting idiot. Biden didn't manage to win anything substantial, except his repetition about jobs for climate action plus his passion about his sons.

lpm wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:43 am Biden didn't lose anything, that I saw.

Obviously to me, Trump came across as a manic ranting idiot. Biden didn't manage to win anything substantial, except his repetition about jobs for climate action plus his passion about his sons.

That's all he needs.

It was very different from the Clinton-Trump debates.

Clinton was far better than Biden. Trump 2016 was much more sane than Trump 2020.

Winning the debates helped Clinton quite significantly in the polls. Hopefully the contemptible hatred pouring out of Trump will hurt him in the polls.

My initial reaction is that Trump damaged himself quite badly. But then we've seen him damage himself many times before.

lpm wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:26 am Yes! Climate change!

And Biden has had the chance to repeat "my plan will create thousands of well paying jobs" about eight times.

Excellent.

dyqik wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 1:38 am I'm watching a Hindi documentary about the history of regional Indian cuisine.

This seems like a much better idea, regardless of whether or not one has any Hindi

I've forced myself to read the BBC coverage. It bears little resemblence to what actually happened. The Guardian coverage is OK.

One thing that's been swamped a bit this morning by the coverage of Trump's racism and interrupting is the $750 tax thing. Trump was put on the spot and lied in general terms, but was kept on the spot and then declared outright and unambigiously that he paid "many millions" in income tax in 2016 and 2017. Remains to be seen if the NY Times can nail this lie before the election.

Another thing being missed is Trump's lie about insulin. He claimed he made insulin "cheaper than water".

It's not only insulin users who know this is a lie, their family and friends do, and it's pretty easy to post your insulin invoices on Facebook proving the lie.

I'm not sure what absurd figure Americans have to pay for insulin, but it must be unbelievably annoying for to be told it's cheaper than water. And there must be millions of voters who need insulin.

lpm wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 11:33 am Another thing being missed is Trump's lie about insulin. He claimed he made insulin "cheaper than water".

It's not only insulin users who know this is a lie, their family and friends do, and it's pretty easy to post your insulin invoices on Facebook proving the lie.

I'm not sure what absurd figure Americans have to pay for insulin, but it must be unbelievably annoying for to be told it's cheaper than water. And there must be millions of voters who need insulin.

It's a good one for attack ads, too. Show Trump's claim, then the usual pictures of worried Americans worrying about medical bills for themselves and their loved ones overlaid with what they usually pay, or average prices in their states, or whatever, and finish up with point that Trump is lying, but Biden will work to fix the situation.

lpm wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 11:33 am Another thing being missed is Trump's lie about insulin. He claimed he made insulin "cheaper than water".

It's not only insulin users who know this is a lie, their family and friends do, and it's pretty easy to post your insulin invoices on Facebook proving the lie.

I'm not sure what absurd figure Americans have to pay for insulin, but it must be unbelievably annoying for to be told it's cheaper than water. And there must be millions of voters who need insulin.

You haven't seen the price of Trump brand mineral water...

I guess for the Trump team (to the extent that they have any influence on what he does), the strategy was to find the best way to highlight Biden's perceived (and probably actual) incipient dementia. That might have been by unbalancing him with interruptions, but perhaps they could have let him say his thing for a couple of minutes and extract some WTF from it.

Whatever else the US needs to reform in the wake of all this, the age of incoming Presidents surely has to be high on the list. Really nobody over 60 should be doing that job, but an age limit of say 66 on inauguration day would be a good start. Maybe this can become a project of President Biden; after 18 months in office, if he has Congress on side, he can go on TV, say "I'm knackered", and hand over to Kamala on condition that they amend the Constitution to stop this happening again.

The sad thing is, the Democrats probably have picked the best candidate, if the aim is only to beat Trump. AIUI, Biden polls the best with otherwise-less-likely-to-turn-out minority voters in the states that the Democrats need to win.

Squeak wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:24 am

lpm wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:19 amForest Cities?

Yep. Europeans are all actually Elves who live in treehouses. Didn't you know?

I've researched this so you don't have to.

Every year an organisation called The European Forest Institute awards a city the title "European Forest City".

It's Bonn in 2020. It was Aberdeen in 2019. Previously Oslo, St Petersburg and Vienna.

They pick a city where the university has a good forestry course. The "award" means the city gets to host the annual conference of The European Forest Institute. A bunch of people gather and talk about forests and how nice they are. Ecosystems! Climate! Animals that sh.t in the woods! They have a good time and take a group photo. This was Olso:
https://efi.int/



Somehow Trump gets to hear about European Forest Cities.

Trump thinks it means cities in forests.

He said at the debate that these city dwellers live in the forest.

Where the trees are explosive.

But in these Forest Cities they manage the forests so the cities don't burn down.

Orange Racist wrote:In Europe, they live, they’re forest cities. They call forest cities. They maintain their forest. They manage their forest. I was with the head of a major country, it’s a forest city. He said, “Sir, we have trees that are far more, they ignite much easier than California. There shouldn’t be that problem.”

Aberdeen 2019, yesterday

Spoiler:

Still, you have to give President Trump credit.

Spoiler:

Bird on a Fire wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 4:04 pm Still, you have to give President Trump credit.

Spoiler:

Because he hasn't got any cash.

Snap polls had Biden up 48-41 on who won the debate, with 10 calling it a tie. I don't want to get too optimistic yet, but I think Trump needs to win these debates more than Biden, and that Biden could settle for a tie anyway. Trump's "It's hard to play chess with a drunken pig" strategy doesn't seem that likely to give him anything better than a tie.

And the next debate is apparently in a town hall format - it will be interesting to see how it goes down when he directs the same hostility he did against the moderator last night against ordinary voters.