Last night’s debate was
on ABC and I had the network news on first at 5:30. I went out for a final cigarette at a quarter
to six and did not have another till the debate was over at just after
7:35. The debate was like a Saturday
night skit and you didn’t even need to camp up the lines any. In general Hillary was the more disciplined
of the two endeavoring to answer the question that was asked. This is something I would do even if I wanted
to talk about something else because in doing so I’d be showing a sense of
discipline. When you just have some kind
of a verbal meltdown, a veritable case of verbal diaria where anything comes
out of your mouth- might be good for marriage counseling but not for a
presidential debate. The very first
question about bringing America together was a question better meant for
Hillary and a lot of the questions kind of favored Hillary the way they were
worded and Hillary was happy to answer them.
Trump went off about Blacks in the ghettos and businesses moving out of
the country and ISIS and what a failure Obama has been in all areas over the
past eight years. It was kind of a
Christmas “wish list” and one suspects he took Shawn Hannity’s advice to just
lay it all out on the table even if we weren’t talking about that topic. ABC news wanted us to know the word was “pussy”
and not “teats”, not that it makes a lot of difference. Trump kind of used the phrase “locker room
conversation” to imply that like high school boys- - maybe he was just bragging
and mouthing off and he hadn’t done half the stuff he was bragging about. The trouble is Hillary pretty well painted a
picture- - a full portrait of Trump’s dealings with women and how he
disrespects them in general and disparages all minorities, so it’s kind of part
of a broader pattern of behavior. I
notice Hillary was careful how she worded things. But I agree with Trump on one issue about not
telegraphing to our enemies what we’re going to do or where we’ll attack
next. Because the people just leave
there and attack elsewhere. Trump
contradicted his own Vice President when it came to taking a hard line with
Putin. Trump made it a point to say that
Putin was a good guy and he disagreed with Pence. In my letter to Tim I was going to talk about
Putin and should be try to cut some deal with him. I had in mind the point that in order to “get
along” with Putin we’d have to morally compromise. So when the bombs fall and Hospitals are hit
and children are injured and die we could turn a blind eye to it and just say “well
that’s what happens in war”. And if
Putin were to say to me “Look what you did in Iraq where a hundred thousand
innocent civilians were killed”. If I
had no backbone I might be cowed by these remarks. But the correct response is that two wrongs
don’t make a right. The same is true for
sexual harassment. While formerly Trump
criticized people such as Paula Jones, Juanita Broadwick, and Cathleen Willy- -
now Trump has seen the light and realized such sexual harassment and predatory behavior
is wrong. These women were in the
audience. My response is “better late
than never” and after all we are all Christians. You see the light and adjust your behavior
accordingly. I believe Trump when he
says “Bill Clinton has said way worse to me about women on the golf course”. The final question was about energy and I
feel Hillary’s position on global warming and conservation was a little
weak. She had to compete with the Trump
stuff about how our coal and natural gas and oil production is way down from
what it could be. Hillary rightly
reminded us that when production goes up prices so down and so do energy
profits. Prices for coal may be dropping
because the world now regards it as passé now.
But liberals were lamenting how the topic of Global Warming never got
brought up.
Donald Trump said he would sick the FBI on Clinton about her E mails regardless she wasn't in power any more. Trump mentioned the 33 thousand E mails but he didn't particularly mention the fact that one of the E mails in the latest "dump" last Friday stated that Hillary Clinton in a Wall Street speech that she had a public persona and a private set of political beliefs. Trump pointed this out and Hillary hid behind the figure of Abraham Lincoln, old Honest Abe, as portrayed in a Hollywood movie! The dodge didn't work. The other big thing that came to light in these E mails was a recounting that Hillary wants to end all trade barriers and have open borders and appears to say she never met an international trade deal she didn't like. This would have been a bombshell with Bernie Sanders still in the campaign. Trump said that Sanders betrayed his followers and made a deal with the devil. The latest Stephanie caller analysis of Hillary is that she wasn't as "smooth and fluid" as she was in the first debate so points were deducted.
Rhapsody in Black was
kind of a disappointment. They said they
were going to play the top one hundred songs by viewers. The most recent song they played was the
vocal version of “Grazing in the Grass”.
Then it was the original of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” from
1967. There were two from 1966, “Tell It
Like It Is” and “I’m Your Puppet”, and about two from 1965. There was the original Temptations original of
“Get Ready” and a Mo-town song I’d never heard before. Finally we have, of songs recorded in the
‘sixties, “Soul Twist” by King Curtiss. I
remember “What’d I Say?” becoming popular this month fifty-five years ago in
1961 even though I know it came out before then. We move to the older songs of note. There was “Angel Baby” and “Shake, Rattle,
and Roll” and “Lui, Lui” by Richard Barry.
They played both “Buick 59” and “Rocket 88” and their final song number
68 was “Bo Didley” by Bo Didley. Most of
the other songs were very obscure duds, however there were a few interesting
hard core blues songs and one of them got John Densemore of the Doors to
contribute money. Oh yes, if I didn’t
say, today was another pledge week. I
guess they played 33 songs in two hours.
They had as some special a unique James Brown DVD that’s worth something.
I
had Norman Goldman on for the hour before dinner. He was talking about the new Donald Trump sex
tape in front of an open microphone.
Every other word had to be bleeped out it was so graphic. I’m an adult; I can take the original. There was also a letter signed by a lot of
evangelical Christians many of them pastors of Black churches. This letter says that Donald Trump is not a
Christian and therefore unacceptable as a Presidential candidate. OK I
just saw the entire video unedited and with captions. I guess it’s something what I expected. This is a few minutes later. Hurricane Matthew has gone from a magnitude four,
to three to two. Now it’s by
Jacksonville and headed for Savannah. It
could curl around and re-trace its own path.
Mike
Pence is showing signs of wanting off the Trump ticket. It seems he
has to "clean up Trump's image" in the debate. Others noticed this more
than I did. Actually the most vocal spokesman that Trump has is Shawn
Hannity, who is a professional liar on so many topics. If you see his
lips moving he's lying. Shawn likes trump because he's going to go hog
wild on energy oroduction and continue to turn West Virginia into a
moonscape with strip mining and all and build oil pipelines accross
Indian reservations like this "Standing Rock" tribe protests going on a
few weeks ago. He wants "energy independence". He wants to build that
wall and keep every last Muslim out of this country. The theory is that
since some of the worst victims of Russian and Assad terrorism in Syria
are ISIS people, and he uses the analogy of the m & m candies and
if three percent of them were poisoned, then you wouldn't want to eat
any of them. Trump of course wants "worse than waterboarding" as far as
torture is concerned and appears to want it as a first rather than a
last resort and even wants to torture innocent relatives of terrorists.
Shawn has never criticized Trump for this. The only minorities that
haven't felt the full wrath of Trump's policies are the Blacks. Trump
appears to want to meet Black people half way on these police shooting
cases. Shawn Hannity is not that way. You could almost say of Shawn
that "He never met a police shooting he didn't like". Trump is making a
play for the Blacks calling them victims of Obama's policies and say of
them "What do you have to lose at this point?" Of course then there is
Trump's tax returns and they will no doubt show that Trump hasn't paid
his taxes in twenty years. Aside from the actual law Trump took
advantage of- - most of us can't take a billion dollar loss and still
keep going. Shawn Hannity praised him for this- - that he "didn't give
up". If you have another nine Billion in the wings of reserves- - the
question is what taxes Trump paid on that Nine Billion, assuming he even
has that much. Of course now we have all of the sex stuff which is
just another "smoking gun" and there is also some letter circulating of
Black (and possible white, too) Christian evangelists saying Trump is
unfit to be President.
In
the US Senate debate between Harris and Loretta Sanchez, clearly Harris
was the more articulate of the two candidates airing on ABC the other
night. Harris accused Sanchez of taking money from "for profit" private
colleges that only rip you off and Harris wants to crack down on
these. Both Harris and Sanchez want to crack down on Vladimir Putin.
Trump may be soft on Putin. This is one area where he and Mike Pence
appear to have a disagreement. Clearly you would have to- - morally
compromise- - to make a deal with Putin. I was going to go into this
more but this letter is long enough already. Actually, it's a tough
call.
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