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Lefties REALLY Need To Vote…

by MyBaconPress

As of this writing, there are still twelve days to go until election day. So far, something like 25 million votes have been cast. Several states have set new records for early voting turnout. People are voicing their opinions. Sadly, not ALL of the people are voicing sane opinions. (Some of those votes must be for Trump.)

The early voting, so far, has favored Democrats. The Dems have embraced mail-in ballots and the cons are dedicated to using the machines (so Russia can “help” by strategically flipping votes). IF this keeps up, by the time we reach election day, itself, the Dems should have a huge lead. It’s called a ‘Blue Wave.’

Even mentioning such information can be dangerous. Saying the Dems are building up a huge lead runs the risk of people feeling like enough has been done. Maybe their vote isn’t needed. Maybe they sit this one out. DON’T DO THAT! Because a ‘Red Wave’ is coming, too.

Remember, the anti-American cons WILL come out, in force, on election day. They’ll stand in line for hours and hours just to vote for a traitorous, wanna-be dictator. They’re intent on destroying their own lives just to “own a lib.” They will not stop. They WILL follow orders, just like any good Naz… er… MAGA is expected to do.

So don’t let all this talk of a huge Harris lead at this point slow your roll. Get out there and vote, if you haven’t already. Help your (liberal) friends vote. Long ballot? Just check off Harris/Walz and send it in. You don’t HAVE to check every issue. Your ballot will count where you vote and be ignored where you don’t.

Remind your cons that Trump said to vote on January 5th and Trump is never wrong so they have to wait. I saw a guy on the web suggesting that if we can get 100 million votes out for Harris, it will be very hard to pretend the election was stolen. (Of course they will anyway. We’re just making it harder for them.) I like the plan. Get out there and vote for Harris…

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Well, he stalled and put off taking responsibility for as long as he could, but Rudy Giuliani is finally starting to pay Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the two women he defamed by accusing them of cheating in their vote counting during Trump’s Big Lie about the stolen 2020 election. See, like all of the rest of the Big Lie, it was, well, a lie. They didn’t cheat. They just did their jobs. Giuliani lied about them. They sued. They won. Giuliani has to pay.

The judgement against Giuliani is over $140 million dollars. It’s my understanding that Giuliani doesn’t have $140 million dollars. But he has stuff. He has been disbarred for being so dishonest but he still KNOWS all the legal stuff and he used what he could as long as he could but justice seems to be coming for him, now. Good. It’s comforting to see that justice CAN still prevail, even if it so rarely does, these days…

He has to hand over a New York apartment, a Mercedes Benz, some watches, and the fees Trump owes Giuliani that Trump intends never to pay. (That last one seems of limited value, eh?) And that’s just a start. He’s got a LOT more he owes and he’s going to lose everything.

I’ll tell you this: I’ve noticed that the closer one gets to Trump and the more energetically one defends Trump, the more they lose in the end. I guess the Devil IS getting his due…

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Look, Trump is just acting. From time to time, we get a candidate for high offices that learned to work crowds by acting. Ronald Reagan learned on the Silver Screen. Arnold Schwarzenegger learned on the Silver Screen. Trump learned on ‘The Apprentice.’ They all had appeal to begin their political careers, and all of it because we were already familiar with them from other sources. But they were – and are – just acting.

Reagan delivered the first death blow to the United States by introducing and selling “Supply Side Economics,” a fictional economic system that has done great harm to the country. Arnold didn’t do too badly as Governor of California, but I doubt he would have gotten the job if not for a special election, where the requirements were much lower, combined with his fame. Trump? By now, we all know the damage, death, and destruction Trump brought to the office. (Yes, even MAGA. They cannot, WILL not admit it, but they know…)

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Trump says he needs generals like Hitler’s generals. That’s weird. Do you think he knows Hitler’s generals tried, several times, to kill him? But, hey, if he insists…

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Well, whaddaya know? Aileen “Loose” Cannon hasn’t been acting impartially from her bench. Who could have guessed? Instead, she’s been angling for a Cabinet position this whole time! NOW, it looks like she’s up for the job of Attorney General in the upcoming Trump maladministration. Not bad for a toady not even qualified to be a lawyer…

I think the public admission that Cannon is up for the post of AG should be enough to get the Eleventh Circuit Court to overturn her “decision” to dismiss the charges against her precious AND cause them to remove her from the case. She has clearly NEVER been impartial in this trial but now, knowing she has personal gain in her vision? CAN the Eleventh just sit back and watch their judges work on a Quid pro quo basis? The whole world is watching…

The Metro Case…

by MyBaconPress

So…HAVE you heard of Matthew Metro? You shouldn’t have, but you may have. Mr. Metro is a grown, out and proud man who currently lives in Hawaii. He attended school in Minnesota at a time when Tim Walz taught there.

The cons have put out a video of a man named Matthew Metro, claiming to have had an interaction with Tim Walz. An inappropriate interaction. The problem? The man in the video is NOT the Matthew Metro who attended that school when Walz taught there. He’s lying. He said that during a rough time in his life, he sought guidance from Tim Walz. He said he was upset because his parents were getting divorced and he had to keep his sexuality a secret and the pressure of both issues was weighing heavily on him. He said Walz was inappropriate with him. You don’t really need the details. The guy is lying. People are investigating.

The Harris campaign was tipped to the video and began looking into it. At around the same time, the real Matthew Metro was tipped by a friend still living in Minnesota. The Harris campaign finally found the real Mr. Metro and spoke with him. Mr. Metro said he doesn’t know WHO the person in the video is. He said his parents are still married. He said he was out and proud in high school and everyone knew. He never had any problems because of it, and he had a GREAT high school experience.

The real Mr. Metro speculates that the faker got photos and learned the interests of the real Metro through abandoned social media accounts. (Be advised…) Professionals have said it’s not a deep fake, generated by AI. There’s no sign it was generated by AI. In fact, they called it a “Cheap fake” because it was so badly done. Of course, that’s no accident. They make the video grainy and hard to see in order to try to fool people into thinking that might be the real guy.

That seems like some desperate stuff, there. Someone went to a lot of trouble to collect information about this Metro guy and then distort it and use it as a smear against Walz. A LOT of trouble. As I indicated, people are investigating. I don’t know that there’s a crime associated (maybe identity theft) but there’s very definitely civil liability. Public figures usually have to put up with crap like that. But Matthew Metro does not.

I hope when the culprit is uncovered, they pass the information on to Mr. Metro and I hope Metro sues the perpetrator. If a link to some Republican operative can be proven, I hope Mr. Metro sues the Republican party, too. Meanwhile, if they have to go to THAT much trouble to come up with a smear, it says very good things about Walz, right? They looked. They looked hard. They didn’t find anything. So they made crap up.

The only question remaining? Why would you use the name of a REAL person? You’re making stuff up. Make up the name, too, you idiots. Oh, the name gave it “credibility?” Maybe. Right up until the instant the name skewered the credibility of the video.

I’ll tell you this: The cons think they’re losing this race. They shouldn’t have done what they’ve done and they wouldn’t have if they thought they were winning. But they DID do it. If you’re unfortunate enough to stumble across this drivel, ignore it. It’s yet another GOP lie. (My GOD, do they EVER say ANYTHING honest?)

Shameless…

by MyBaconPress

It’s shameless, is what it is. Can you imagine getting all geared up to complain about how unfair the election “was” – before the election even takes place? THEN, should your defective candidate actually win, they just…what? Drop it? Who can’t do that? I can take the same position. Watch. ‘If Trump wins, it’s because the cons cheated. The election is only fair if Kamala wins.’ There, see? The only difference between their pretend position and MY pretend position is that MY pretend position is probably correct. No sane person wants Trump to win this election and no decent American would allow that to happen. (Why, yes, I HAVE noticed that Putin and MAGA are all-in for Trump. I stand by my statement…)

But there they are, insisting on stupid. Their voices are hoarse from shouting about the “rigged election” (which, remember, ONLY the cons are trying to rig) and then, suddenly, the Russians flip a few key votes in a few key districts and your guy is handed power again and then everything is a-okay? They have no shame. At long last, they have no shame…

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Speaking of shameless, Trump tried another political stunt. He went and worked at a McDonald’s for a short time. No, that’s wrong. He went and pretended to work at a closed McDonald’s for a short time. A few staged photos of him handing out some french fries and MAGA is happy. My guess? I’d guess there was an actual employee there, doing the actual work. Trump was just taking credit for someone else’s work – as usual.

BTW, he sometimes handed the fries out the drive-through window to customers on foot for the photo op. Actual workers aren’t allowed to DO that. Under normal conditions, it’s dangerous because on-foot customers have to stand in, essentially, a driving lane to make or receive an order. ‘Car vs person’ rarely goes well for the ‘person.’

He keeps cancelling one-on-one events saying he’s “exhausted,” but he was able to muster up the strength to pretend to be a worker (one might say mock workers) which we know he is not and never has been…

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He STILL will not let the “eating the pets” lie go. As you recall, the very old man, whose faculties seem to be failing at an alarming rate, saw a “story” on some chat board on the web that suggested Haitian migrants were killing and eating their neighbor’s pets, and he repeated that story – without verifying it and during a presidential debate, no less. Since then, he has continued to insist the story is true because he saw it on the internet.

To be clear, the story is NOT true. No, that’s not just me taking a political position. Law enforcement in Springfield, Ohio, where the story is said to have happened, said it didn’t happen. The City Manager of Springfield, also said it didn’t happen. Yeah, okay, maybe a Harris supporter, right? How about this? The woman who originally posted the story said it never happened and the woman the O.P. was citing ALSO said the story never happened. That is to say, the two sources of the story have both insisted the story isn’t true.

Now, any normal human being knows they have an “out” on that story. He could easily have repeated he saw it on the web and it turned out to be false. He wouldn’t be admitting that HE made a mistake – something he’s absolutely incapable of confessing – only that he saw and repeated a story that turned out to be false. But he can’t even bring himself to do THAT, either.

Rule 1: Donald Trump never makes a mistake.
Rule 2: WHEN Donald Trump makes a mistake, see Rule 1.
How obnoxious.

There IS a caveat, here. Some guy DID kill a couple of geese at a golf course. He is an employee of the golf course. He didn’t have any permits to hunt or kill the migratory birds. He said after his arrest that he thought killing the birds was legal because he thought the golf course had a nuisance permit. But even at that, he wasn’t eating the geese.

But Trump has taken to insisting that his story about eating the pets MUST be true because “someone” killed a couple of geese, too. We know the “someone” in question – a 64 year old white guy named Brian Comer. He is decidedly NOT Haitian. But Trump can not admit an error under any conditions, at any time.

That’s a very dangerous trait. It does NOT make him “strong” or “decisive.” It makes him wrong to dangerously wrong. His horrific handling of Covid-19, based on the idea that he couldn’t accept that a problem happened during his term and could only wish it away, killed thousands of Americans needlessly. That happened, specifically, because he couldn’t admit error and since he had taken a (wrong) position, he insisted the wrong position become right.

Too bad it doesn’t work like that…

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Elon Musk is giving away a million dollars a day to some random person for registering to vote, a move which is probably illegal. Worse? Trump has promised Musk a position in the new Cabinet should Trump return to power. How is that NOT Musk trying to buy a political appointment? Why aren’t Musk’s “prizes” considered illegal campaign contributions?

I’ll tell you this: Trump and Musk should NOT be working together in the next administration. They should be cellmates while they serve time for their various and sundry crimes. It’s a weird world we’re suffering through right now…

Beware The Corrupt Media…

by MyBaconPress

Right after the Brett Baier/Kamala Harris interview, I started seeing stories from right-leaning sources claiming Baier had beat her up (metaphorically) and dragged her around the stage. I’m not sure I’m buying. Baier has had to come out and make excuses for his performance throughout the thing. She wasn’t easy to re-direct, he said. He showed the wrong clip. Baier screwed up, not Kamala.

Meanwhile, people are saying on the left that Trump is cancelling one event after another for some reason. Is that true? I don’t know. I heard that Monday, but then, on Monday night, Trump did a rally. That doesn’t sound like cancelling, to me. As the election looms, the claims from BOTH are becoming increasingly charged – and decreasingly accurate. That’s a bit of a bummer.

Apparently, Trump went back to Detroit. You remember, Detroit is the city that Trump went to and told them that if Harris gets elected, the whole country will be in the same terrible shape as Detroit! People who live in Detroit probably didn’t care for the reference – especially since Detroit has done such an amazing job re-inventing itself. So now he has gone back. The way he’s been doing things recently, I imagine he went back to tell them he thinks they’re stupid, too. It’s an odd campaign strategy, if you ask me…

The only thing Trump seems to be cancelling is one-on-one interviews. He has backed out of several. He’s still on the rally trail, though. The obvious difference is that he gets to just stand up in front of a crowd of adoring sycophants and blather at his rallies – or maybe just sway back and forth to some of his preferred music – but in one-on-one interviews, he has to respond to questions (which he can’t do) and sound rational (which he ALSO can’t do). Simple enough solution: avoid them.

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Most of the time, not always, but most of the time, I don’t find conservative humor funny. There’s a specific reason. Their “jokes” rely heavily on their dishonest talking points. Humor often depends upon unexpected viewpoints on otherwise shared and common experiences for their punch. When the experience being referenced is made up out of whole cloth (therefore, not “shared”) the joke that relies upon it isn’t funny.

Trump went to this Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner, a political tradition. It’s important to understand that the Al Smith Dinner is an annual Catholic Charities event. The candidates are supposed to make some humorous, and even self-deprecating comments. Kamala just sent a greeting video so she could attend a campaign event, but Trump actually showed up, which doesn’t sound like cancelling to me, at all.

To his credit, he DID try. He tried to make some jokes but he’s trapped inside the conservative bubble. His jokes relied on fraudulent talking points and they were just not funny. MOST of his comments, were really just more whining and crying about how unfair life has been to the pampered and rich bully. He mentioned he was supposed to make a couple of self-deprecating comments but just…couldn’t do it. He’s SO insecure, he can’t even make a few lighthearted jokes about himself.

The very first thing the guy who brags about never using a teleprompter noted was the presence of the teleprompter he had wanted to use. Weirdly, he’s STILL trying to convince people he’s NOT weird. That really got under his oh-so-thin skin, didn’t it? I actually think he started off okay but, it’s Trump, so it didn’t last long. He had only been speaking a few minutes when he earned his first “boos.” He riffed, a bit, on ‘The Democrat Party.’ It’s petty and most people think it’s stupid. What, you’re running for President and you don’t even know the name of one of the two major political parties? (He does…)

Left-leaning media portrayed his speech as “profanity-laced.” It wasn’t. He DID drop one scatological reference. One. Yeah, yeah, it was in front of priests. It’s my understanding priests don’t have much moral ground to stand on, so I’m guessing they can put up with a single utterance of a “bad” word. That description bothered me a lot. Whoever wrote that piece is counting on the fact that most people on the left can’t stand to see Trump’s face or hear his voice and just DO NOT want to endure one more second of his blather. That is to say, they count on the fact that lefties probably didn’t watch the speech. So they lie about it. It WAS boring, but not “profanity-laced.”

For me, the most ridiculous whine in Trump’s arsenal is when he quips that “There’s never been a president that has been treated so badly as me.” Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy might disagree. They were all assassinated. I think being murdered is worse treatment than being asked a tough question by a journalist. Apparently, Trump can’t tell the difference…

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There has been another document dump regarding Trump’s criminal trials, as well. Trump tried to stop it and has characterized the dump as “election interference.” The Judge in the case, Tanya Chutkan, ruled that NOT releasing information relevant to the candidate could, itself, be election interference and allowed the release.

The documents show about $3 million dollars being budgeted for the January 6th rally and coup attempt and some promotion of the event. Other than those details, though, there didn’t seem to be much new stuff in the release so I’m not sure why Trump worried so much about it. Who is it going to affect? Rational Americans all KNOW Trump lost the 2020 election and the details of his coup attempt. MAGA doesn’t know, doesn’t WANT to know, and doesn’t care. Trump focuses on the weirdest things…

Abandoned In Darkness…

by MyBaconPress

Trump decided to hold a rally in Coachella, California. Get this, he BUSSED attendees in from nearly five miles away. One of his big jabs against Kamala is a constant claim that SHE buses in attendees. He insists the people being bussed MUST be illegals, brought in to fatten her crowd. But then HE buses in attendees? So, HE’S bringing in ringers to fatten HIS crowd? Who knew? Okay, admittedly, most of us know…

It turns out, they BOTH use buses to shuttle people in from parking areas too distant to walk. Trump definitely knows that – he does it himself – but he STILL tries to use it as a weapon against her. It’s yet another tool in the ‘Arsenal of Artifice’ he uses to deceive MAGA.

But do you know what SHE does that he, apparently, does NOT? She brings the buses back to take the supporters back to their cars after the rally. Trump? Not so much. After his Coachella rally, the attendees who had been bused in were simply abandoned. The people came over in several buses. The return trip used only one bus. The supporters had to wait for hours and hours and, if I understand correctly, that one bus finally stopped running, too, leaving the rest stranded.

Trump was probably just saving the expense, right? After all, he needed them there so he covered that. But after the rally, he was done with them. He didn’t need them anymore. (The cameras had stopped rolling.) He didn’t care if they got back to their cars or not – so he DIDN’T cover that. He abandons them in the darkness because he doesn’t need them anymore.

Come to think of it, ‘Abandoned in Darkness’ is a perfect metaphor for MAGA…

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Really? Another one? A third guy has been arrested for having a gun too close to the former and disgraced ex-president. Oh, I’m sorry. I meant, another Republican has been arrested. And he says he’s a Trump supporter who never meant Trump any harm. The last guy was a disgruntled Trump supporter and the guy before that? Nobody knows for sure but he WAS registered GOP.

Either one-time Trump supporters are trying to kill him for some reason, or these “assassination attempts” are fake, staged events to give Trump something else to whine about AND look tough over. Officials keep “catching” people but two of the three never got anywhere near Trump and were never a threat.

At this point, the only thing that’s going to convince me that someone is ACTUALLY trying to kill Trump is if someone successfully kills Trump. (NOTE: Please don’t do that. Political violence is never the right answer…) I’m just saying, he’s leaning in to these “assassination attempts.” That, combined with the fact that there’s never any harm (to him), causes me to suspect they are staged set-ups, not actual attempts.

Yes, three people were shot the first time and one of them died. But, to Trump, those were “only” small folk and he doesn’t give two figs about the small-folk beyond the fact that he needs their vote, apparently on January 5th, and he certainly is going to need that mob AFTER the election if his coup is to have any chance, whatsoever…

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I think Trump’s ‘don’t-answer-questions’ dance party was one of the strangest things I’ve seen in a long time. He had clearly agreed to attend Kristi Noem’s “town hall” for a specific period of time. He DID stay. He even answered a few questions. But if people ask questions, he’s supposed to have answers and he absolutely does not. So, he just pivoted. “Hey, let’s listen to music.” 38 minutes worth.

Noem TRIED to get him back on track, she did. But Trump is a VERY talented, extremely practiced malingerer. NOBODY can get that old man working if he doesn’t want to – and he didn’t want to. So he just stood on stage and made a fool of himself. MAGA thinks he’s beautiful. The rest of the world is literally laughing at him.

Do you think those people made the effort to get to that town hall, stood in line, endured the heat, and then waited through the late arrival in an effort to ask Trump a question, only to be put off and watch him sway back and forth to ‘Ave Maria’ for 38 minutes? It was their chance to talk to their candidate, their dream date, their latest god-on-Earth.

I’m surprised people didn’t leave, but it seems as though he kept suggesting they’d get back to questions after a few songs so they sat it out only to discover that, once again, like all things Trump, the promises flowed freely, but the follow-through never happened…

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If you’ve been paying attention, you know that most red states are doing everything they can to rig the election in favor of their guy. (All the while, SCREAMING about how the left is trying to rig the election. See how that works? EVERY Republican accusation is an admission.) In Georgia’s case, Trump toadies have gone to great lengths. They made a rule requiring all ballots be HAND-counted starting on election day. THAT would have been slow. Very slow. Slow enough to feed disinformation into the system and create an illusion of issues. But it would only be an illusion.

Georgia also recently made a rule that said they didn’t have to certify the outcome of the election if they didn’t want to. Well, they dressed it up prettier than that, but that’s what it boiled down to. If Harris wins, we don’t have to certify. We’ll cite “anolo… amonlo… alamos… irregularities.”

Fortunately, Trump hasn’t destroyed EVERYTHING, yet, and an honest judge has blocked BOTH of those new rules. The judge didn’t toss the rules. He just said they had been put in place too closely to this election so they MAY apply later – he is still going to rule on that part – but they can’t be used this election. According to Georgia state law, the election board MUST certify by a given date and time. Hand counting would take too long and they can’t dawdle on certification.

It’s funny, Georgia Republicans seem to know that if they can’t cheat, they can’t win…

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“Oh, hey, do you want dramatic?”
“No, not really.”
“You sure? This is pretty good.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to regret this but, okay.”
“Have you followed the thought-thread?”
“Oh, God…”
“No, really. Consider this: Most Americans know that if Trump ends up in the White House, it will mean the end of the country as he dismantles the Constitution, right?”
“Right…”
“But most of us end it there.”
“Isn’t that bad enough?”
“Yeah, it is, but think about this. Trump is planning to enact a program called ‘Project 2025,’ right?”
“He denies that.”
“Yeah, he says people are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, too. His words don’t mean Jack Spritz. But when someone takes the time to make up a playbook, they intend to use it.”
“Didn’t Walz say that?”
“Yeah, he did, and he’s right. Part of that playbook involves rolling back environmental protections across the board. This, at a time when humanity is sitting precariously on a tipping point in the climate change battle. At the EXACT time we desperately NEED to be doing more, Project 2025 insists it’s time to do far, far less – in the name of profits, of course.”
“But that would be insane. It could wipe out humanity.”
“Ah, so you ARE following the thought-thread.”
“Yeah, just now. You’re saying that if Trump gets elected, it’s not only the end of a once-great nation, it will, very likely, actually be the end of humanity as corporations are free to pursue profit at any cost with no controls?”
“I told you it was dramatic…”
“Yeah, thanks. I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep between now and the inauguration…”

Puzzlement…

by MyBaconPress

He goes to Springfield Ohio and tells them about the pet eating. It’s not true, but Springfield MAGA will vote for him anyway.
He goes to Aurora Colorado and tells them about the gangland takeover. It’s not true, but Aurora MAGA will vote for him anyway.
He goes to California and tells them California sucks. That’s not true, either, but California MAGA will vote for him anyway.
He claims schools are helping kids get sex change operations without parental permission and, amazingly, in ONE DAY! That’s absolutely not true, but MAGA will vote for him anyway.
Did you hear that Trump tried to withhold disaster relief aid for states that didn’t vote for him? What a petty piece of…um, work. White House staffers had to show him that he was harming RED voters before he agreed to send aid. That one IS true, but no matter. MAGA will vote for him anyway.

As it happens, Trump has a real advantage in this election. He’s not constrained by anything restricting – like truth. He gets to say anything he wants to say, at any time, about anybody and it just never matters to MAGA. They dismiss his lies as “just Trump.” And it IS “just Trump.” Trump never tells the truth (unless it somehow serves him), but instead of counting that against him, they just dismiss the lies and overlay the Trump they’d prefer to see. That might be anything, and, often, it is.

That means Kamala is actually running against a specter, a phantom, an illusion. She sticks to the truth and runs a traditional campaign while he blathers whatever pops into his head in the moment and pretends to be whatever they want him to be – and they LOVE him for it. No, they LOVE the qualities they make up and assign to him. They simply DO NOT see the difference. There really ARE none so blind as those who WILL not see.

When I listen to MAGA describe the utopia that was under Trump, I throw up in my mouth, a little. There’s not one piece of legitimate information out there, not ONE, that backs up the claim that all was well under Trump. But don’t try to tell MAGA. They know what they know and they’re not going to let facts get in their way.

Trump benefited from Obama’s economy for a long while after taking office. Failings started creeping in as he started taking action. (He single-handedly decimated the American Soy bean trade.) Then he let Covid run rampant for political reasons and killed over a million Americans. Do you know which segment of the economy thrived while Trump was in office? The segment the provided the refrigerated trailers hospitals used to stack all the bodies that were piling up. Remember that?

After his attempted coup, when he finally left office, the economy was flat-lined. Only the most important workers, mostly the lowest-paid, menial workers, were still working. As a direct result of Trump’s failures, this country was literally in the worst shape she’s been in since the Great Depression. That’s HARDLY Utopia – and those are just the facts.

The current polling says Trump is not only even with Harris, he’s pulling ahead in some places. How? How does that happen? Look, I know MAGA glorifies his name and his deeds but the rest of us? We know better. So how is he gaining on Kamala? One answer I know is that there are always some “Never Trumpers’ who manage to find their way back to Trump, after all, so there’s going to be some gain from that.

But those were fringe MAGA to begin with. They buy the stories to a degree but they’re not all in. Trump’s antics seriously turn them off – but they just can’t quite bring themselves to vote Kamala and they DO intend to vote. So, they’ll hold their noses and pull the lever for Trump. They figure a lying incompetent is better than a Democrat. How dumb is that?

But many of us on the left were planning to do the same thing for Biden. The difference? I submit that, despite MAGA lies, Biden has had a pretty successful Presidency. Perfect? No, of course not. But there aren’t 18-wheeler trailers stacked high with dead Americans parked outside of every hospital in the nation, so there’s some improvement shown there.

Yesterday, I posted a bit about all the various and sundry ways Trump fits the Biblical description of the Anti-Christ. Maybe THAT explains why people continue to support him. Nothing else does. Of course, if he IS the Anti-Christ, he’s bringing cheating metaphysical energy with him and, theoretically, he can’t lose. If you think about it, MAGA is literally about to unleash hell on Earth…

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“Hey, did he leave office or not?” I get that argument from MAGA whenever the topic of January 6th comes up. Americans who know, suggest from time to time that Trump tried to stay in power illegally through a coup. MAGA responds by pointing out that he DID, in fact, leave office on January 20, 2021, which is true.

But their meaning is that leaving office is proof that Trump never even tried to steal the office. It isn’t, and the position is just stupid. Here, let me blow that one up for you. DID Hitler try to take over all of Europe and wipe out all the Jews? I say he did. For their argument to hold water, MAGA has to hold that, because he failed, he didn’t even try. You’d have to ask the 6 million murdered Jews or any one of the 60 million people killed during WWII to know for sure, I guess.

Failure is NOT proof there was no attempt…

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Rejecting Israel’s position doesn’t mean I automatically support Hamas or Hezbollah. Put THIS in your pipe and smoke it: I think BOTH sides are wrong. There, how’s that? I don’t approve of the Hamas attack on October 7th. I don’t approve of Israel’s “response.” I understand Hamas started the current shooting. I also understand Israel has extended and now expanded this damned little war for their own purposes.

How far back do you want to go? I know that Jews and Arabs lived side by side on that land for centuries. (The Arabs weren’t yet Islamic. It didn’t exist.) I accept and hold to this day, the Jews NEED a state of their own. When Israel was created, Arabs were forcibly removed from land that had been owned by Arabs for generations. The Arabs in question were “relocated.” Just…forced out. The Palestinians have NEVER accepted that situation. I’m not sure they hate Israel. I’m pretty sure they hate what Israel has done to them.

So who “started it?” The Palestinians who fought back after being forcibly removed, or the Israelis who did the forcible removal in an effort to create their home state? I mean, really, this region is a mess and has been since Britain decided to stick their noses in. I’m not sure one could make a final, certain case that one side is wrong and one side is right.

But I’ll tell you this; I think BOTH sides are wrong to keep turning to guns, rockets, and bombs to try and make their point. The ongoing killing isn’t going to get anybody anywhere…

The Long Run…

by MyBaconPress

This is just a feeling. I haven’t done a deep dive. I keep seeing moves Gavin Newsom makes and thinking, “He’s moving right.” It kind of makes sense. With Kamala’s rise in fortunes, Gavin has been moved to the back burner in the Democratic Party. He clearly had his eye on the White House in 2028. But with Kamala suddenly becoming the nominee, she would likely run in 2028 as well, and the Democrats won’t back anybody against her. In fact, other Democrats will specifically be told to stand down if they try.

Newsom is 56 years old. He’ll be 64 at the end of two Harris terms (should that be the way it works out.) That might be seen as getting up there, a bit, in years. If he stays a Democrat, he has to wait until 2032 to mount a run at the White House. Maybe he needs to move right and try to run as a Republican? (I don’t really think so. I just don’t know what he’s doing.)

As I indicated, it’s only a feeling. He still says all the right things about Democratic governance and, realistically, the cons have spent years vilifying Gavin Newsom. The idea that he could gain their good graces seems like a stretch to credibility. But I continue to be an “actions speak louder than words” kind of guy and the things Newsom is DOING are speaking more loudly, to me, than the words he’s saying.

Let’s just call it a…concern…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recently, the NFL changed it’s kickoff rules. They had a combined goal: they wanted to see more returns but they want to reduce impact of collisions during kickoffs. I support the new rule for it’s protection efforts and it DOES seem to be increasing the number of returns as well.

But it’s weird seeing all those players just standing there waiting for the ball to hit the ground or be fielded by the returner. I feel like the rule needs one, final tweak. The NFL should require all the players on the lines, both lines, in unison, to shout “One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi” before moving. Call it an homage to three-on-three street football played by kids everywhere. (At least, it used to be…)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How frustrating it must be to be Trump/Vance. JUST when they thought they were going to enjoy a little economic upheaval, thereby giving a boost to their flagging campaign, the Dockworkers suspended their strike. Work will continue, goods will continue to flow. No economic upheaval to tout on the campaign trail.

No biggie, really. They’ll just keep making things up and MAGA will just keep drinking it down. Apparently, lying can be a BIG advantage – but it also has consequences…

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I know this is unkind and I don’t mean to be unkind but I find myself wondering how all of those red folks I spent years arguing about climate change with feel, now that “climate change” is smashing right through their doors, destroying their towns, and killing them? When a natural disaster occurs in a blue state, you can bet your bottom dollar some televangelist will come on television and claim it’s ‘God’s wrath’ for their sins. (‘Wrath’ actually being one of the Seven Deadly Sins…)

So, are the states in the southeast corner of our once-great nation now experiencing a little of ‘God’s wrath’ of their own from the hurricanes? Would I STILL get arguments that climate change is a hoax from people who live in Florida or the Carolinas? Sadly, I suspect I would. Some people simply refuse to learn.

But we were warned. Experts – people who study these things their entire lives – told us this is what we should expect if we do nothing. Because a certain crowd could form fraudulent sentences, we did nothing. Or, at least, we didn’t do enough. Now, we’re reaping the whirlwind. Literally. Why, it’s almost as if experts DO know more than web-surfers.

I’m sorry. I understand that, above all, these are human beings (and animals and other living things). They need help and I support doing all we can. It’s one of the benefits of our large, powerful government. You know, the one those very self-same people are always saying should be dismantled? Yeah, that one. I guess they’ll get back to dismantling it after they’ve received their bailout checks – and they ARE getting help, despite the continuing lies from the right.

Florida is about to be hit by a Category 3 hurricane. This, right after Hurricane Helene swept up the coast, killing and destroying as a Category 4 hurricane. You’d think those folks would have had more concerns about climate change, in view of the fact that they’re in the crosshairs of hurricane after hurricane. But no. They wanted to win a political battle – and they did.

Hey, congratulations on your “victory!”

I apologize again. I know it’s wrong and I’m working on it. The schadenfreude I’m feeling isn’t really overpowering my humanity, but it’s very definitely there. As it happens, one can lie all they want to, but they can’t ignore the consequences of their lies, nor the reality they denied. My heart goes out to every person who lost something or someone in these storms – or will lose out yet. But I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t noticed how their lies have “served” them in the long run…

Nobody Lies Like A Conman…

by MyBaconPress

“The rules were, you guys weren’t going to fact-check.” Oops. That was a Vance misstep in the debate. Not to think it, but to say it out loud. How does “you guys weren’t going to fact-check” NOT translate to “I need to lie to get anywhere?”

Of course, he doesn’t care about lying. He said in an interview that if he has to lie to get people talking, then he’ll lie. Except, won’t that have people talking about the lie or what an effing liar you are? How is that beneficial to the political discourse? I mean, I can see how it benefits YOU, personally, but how does it…?

Oh, I see. Never mind…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trump is STILL obsessed with trying to prove nobody leaves his rallies, even as video floats around of people leaving his rallies and reporters interview people leaving the rallies to find out WHY they’re leaving the rallies early. Primarily, the interviews suggest people leave because Trump is usually late to take the stage, they don’t like the length of his speeches, and they don’t like his rhetoric. (That’s from the interviews.)

One of Trump’s spokespeople, Karoline Leavitt, claimed it’s not true that people leave and that Trump’s rallies are the “biggest political events in history!” That’s yet another example of MAGA not knowing their history. Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies, anyone? Anyone?

Isn’t it interesting that the two most reviled people in history, Hitler and now Trump, are BOTH so obsessed with having the biggest rallies? They BOTH insist that nobody should love anybody more. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” indeed…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trump says the GOP is now the party of the working man and unions? Trump’s plan includes tax cuts for the rich and higher cost of living for the working man. How is that the “party of the working man?” Trump was giving a speech at one of his rallies and he said, out loud, to working people, that he hated to pay overtime, so he just didn’t pay it. Sure, he owed it according to the law. He just didn’t pay it – because he didn’t WANT to. HE said it, not me.

He was also quite specific that he doesn’t use union workers if he can avoid it. How is that the party of unions? That STILL seems anti-union, to me. You know what? I think I’m going to believe the plans they have written down (Project 2025 and Agenda 47) and not the words (or other sounds) coming out of his mouth. He’s a known liar. But he has a playbook and, like Tim Walz pointed out, one doesn’t make a playbook if they don’t plan to use it.

He’s just trying to tell you what he thinks you want to hear. He’s been doing that a lot recently. He’s promising anything, everything to everybody in an effort to convince them he’s on their side. He’s not on anybody’s “side” but his own. He’s not trying to help, he’s trying to deceive…

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Okay, I have a question. How come Israel is the only group involved who “has a right to defend themselves?” Israel was attacked on October 7, but they weren’t “innocent victims.” Israel has been engaging in Micro-aggression since it’s founding, what with all the settlements, legal and otherwise being quickly built and occupied.

But still, the logic just doesn’t track. Hamas attacks Israel, Israel has the “right to defend itself.” Israel attacked Syria but the warning was, don’t strike back because Israel has the right to defend itself. Israel attacked Iran but the warning was, don’t strike back because Israel has the right to defend itself.

If Israel has the right to defend itself because Hamas turned to weaponry, doesn’t Syria have the right to defend itself because Israel turned to weaponry? Doesn’t Iran have the right to defend itself after Israel turned to weaponry? Israel seems to be the only group with a right to defend itself because it has a big, bad bully of a bodyguard in the US.

Israel and the US are NOT on solid moral ground in this whole thing. Setting up an obvious double-standard isn’t going to convince me of the righteousness of their cause. What a freakin’ mess…

Joffrey Knows No Bounds…

by MyBaconPress

I realized last night that I’m watching the battle between Donald Trump and Jack Smith play out like I watched ‘Game of Thrones.’ Two great houses, each working to bring down the other. One makes a move, the other makes a counter-move. Each week, we, the viewers, tune in to see this week’s plot twists. This version doesn’t have nearly as much nudity but, having seen the cast fully dressed, I think that’s probably preferable in the vast majority of cases.

House Trump is known to be scoundrels, criminals and layabouts, wreaking havoc on the world around them and they command a huge army. They represent Pride, Envy, Greed, Lust, Avarice, Wrath, and Sloth. The patriarch of House Trump has committed numerous egregious crimes and must be held accountable. In an effort to avoid the dungeon, the patriarch of House Trump is attempting to usurp the throne.

House Smith is honorable, faithful, and true. They enforce laws of the king by chasing and prosecuting wrong-doers, and they command a huge army of their own. The patriarch of House Smith is a MASTER of the law. He and his house understand the details on a level most houses can simply wonder at. It has been the responsibility of House Smith to protect the realm since it’s founding.

When the story opened, House Trump was caught, red-handed, committing a wide variety of crimes. House Smith stood up to pursue justice, but House Trump was in a strong position. With so much power under their control, House Trump had quietly slipped loyalists into positions expected to help the House repel any efforts of the forces of good. Now, House Trump has loyal followers everywhere. Many are in disguise and one doesn’t know from where they’ll jump out until they jump out.

House Smith relies on the processes and procedures they know, but find themselves constantly thwarted by House Trump allies. House Smith is unaware of the depth of corruption House Trump has already installed and finds themselves being stalled by the very people who are supposed to be supporting them. Many of the lower houses sworn and expected to support House Smith attack House Smith from the shadows. House Trump benefits. House Smith must constantly watch their backs.

Early in the season, House Trump had all of the advantages. House Smith made moves to bring House Trump to justice but House Trump called in favors and turned to lackeys who stood up for House Trump. Several skirmishes have taken place but none have been decisive. The action has been the behind the scenes stuff, the plotting of the primary characters.

In a recent episode, with the help of a flagrant betrayal of House Smith from another great House, House Roberts, House Trump had thought they had secured a victory that would lead them to their goal, the throne. It appeared as if, after a stunningly unexpected flanking move by House Roberts, House Smith had no army left. The attack had seemed devastating. (Hell, I thought the show was over.)

If the patriarch of House Trump can make it to the throne, he can eliminate House Smith once and for all. As king, the risk to his house will be behind him and nothing can stop him from his rampage of destruction and pillaging. Wildfire for all. The damage to the realm will be unimaginable. But first, he has to win the conclave to reach the coronation and there is a FAR more popular claimant to the throne, House Harris. There are rumors the current king, House Biden is directing House Smith from the shadows in support of House Harris but there’s no evidence to support that specious claim.

The House Trump patriarch CAN achieve his goal through legal means, but he needs to convince people he will be a king of the people, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. Many have flocked to his banner, taken in by stories he tells them. He promises every house will have a dragon and a barrel of gold, and all things will be perfect – and a huge number of the small folk actually believe him. They simply ignore his penchant for flaying people alive. His stories make them feel good.

Already, he has a coup built in, just in case the first, legal way fails. Some of his henchmen have already cleared the way for him, should it become necessary, and House Roberts had managed to put his legal troubles on hold, making it easier to deceive the people who believe in House Trump. Can House Trump get to the conclave and, through deception and machinations, win it?

Meanwhile, House Smith has been working behind the scenes trying to get some upper hand. Everywhere they turn, they find House Trump loyalists standing in their way. People who SHOULD BE supporting House Smith are inexplicably supporting House Trump, often covertly. House Smith has been scattered to the winds and nobody knows for sure who’s still alive and who has been killed. For much of the season, House Smith has seemed in disarray. The House Trump loyalists will do anything, sacrifice anything, to help House Trump in every way they can. Nevertheless, the law persists and House Smith has mastery House Trump lacks.

In this week’s episode, we saw House Smith make a masterful move in the battle. Nobody saw it coming. As the conclave approaches, House Trump was smugly ignoring potential legal hurdles because well-placed loyalists (House Roberts) had interfered with House Smith efforts. But House Smith doesn’t give up. Even as House Smith faces ruin, they keep their honor and they have been working behind the scenes to come up with a new challenge to the legitimacy of House Trump’s claim to the throne.

This week, House Smith unveiled their new challenge, a new indictment, free of the details House Trump’s Special Court had tried to kill. House Smith can still go after House Trump because the rules the Special Court set weren’t as strong as they had hoped and House Smith is very, very good at what they do. It was a major blow to House Trump but only moves forward if House Trump loses the conclave.

House Trump was very upset this information has been revealed. House Trump fears that if people realize the truth about who and how they are, some of that support may abandon them. They won’t. The lower houses supporting House Trump are there out of fear or obligation, not loyalty. Knowing their liege is a deceitful troll won’t move them because it can’t. If they take their banners elsewhere and then House Trump wins, House Trump will seek revenge and those lower Houses fear destruction.

Meanwhile, House Smith suspects that SOME House Trump supporters are being forced to bend the knee to House Trump against their will. They believe that if House Smith can make one decisive move, some of those supporters will fall away, happy for the opportunity to be free of House Trump. If it looks like House Smith has a fighting chance after all, some of those Houses might even return to the banner of House Smith.

We’re waiting for next week’s episode to find out how House Trump responds to House Smith’s latest move, but we know the show is set up as a limited series set to run through January so whatever plot twist is introduced, it won’t be a final move. It can’t be. They’ve got to fill hours between now and January. This season ends with the conclave and they go straight into the next season right away, the after battle. The conclave is important but the after battle is where the action is expected to be.

So far, it’s been very exciting, even stressful. EVERYBODY is talking about it. Everybody has an opinion. SO MUCH is riding on the outcome. The viewers know, House Smith isn’t guaranteed to win this thing. The writers seem to take an almost gleeful joy in NOT giving the audience anything they expect at any time. The situation is rigged against House Smith but not completely overwhelming. House Trump got a head-start, giving them an early advantage.

House Smith has appeared on it’s heals more than once, but keeps battling back. House Trump has tremendous advantages right now, but neither side can get a true upper hand. If House Smith wins, the land is saved. If House Trump wins, we can only hope for mercy from the Old Gods and the New. Most of the nation is pulling for House Smith, but House Trump commands a huge army.

If House Trump wins, the nation falls into crime and disrepair. Our status as a world leader is over and we become a world pariah and laughing stock. The patriarch of House Trump assumes the throne, and like King Joffrey before him, will be free to do anything he wants. The patriarch of House Smith ends with his head on a pike but it’s not just House Smith that loses. It’s everybody. EVERY House, even those who have bent the knee. Joffrey knows no bounds and believes loyalty is a one-way street. It’s really that simple.

Debatable…

by MyBaconPress

At this point, considering Trump too demented to be President is kind of doing the guy a favor. I mean, a Purge? Look, either the guy is lost and doesn’t know what he’s saying, or he’s not and he knows exactly what he’s saying. Which is worse, in this case? Yeah, I know, he never said the word, ‘Purge.’ He just described it, right?

He was talking about shoplifting and how bad it’s getting. He was pretending that shoplifting is a Democrat thing, the left supports it. In fact, during a part where he was pretending the left allegedly prevents police from enforcing the law, he shared his plan to “end it.” “You know, if you had one day, like one real rough, nasty day, one rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately. End immediately. You know, it’ll end immediately.”

Not exactly a ‘Purge,’ since it wouldn’t be a completely lawless day. It would be more like Germany’s infamous ‘Kristallnacht,’ where Nazi mobs attacked Jews in Hitler’s Germany. One night. One really rough, nasty night, and I mean real rough. And the word got out.

He seems to get all of his favorite ideas from some of the very worst people, doesn’t he?

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Can we talk about Tay for a minute? Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala. She’s an American. She has the right to choose the candidate she prefers. She prefers Harris. I don’t know if she would have said anything, but Trump started pretending she was endorsing him. HE kind of forced HER into announcing her support for Harris. But MAGA didn’t like it.

I saw video of a guy who bid $4,000 on a guitar at an auction that was originally reported to have been signed by Taylor. I’m not sure what the event was, because when the man went up to get his guitar, the auctioneer handed him the guitar and a hammer, which the guy then used to smash a few holes in the guitar. $4,000. Who pays $4,000 dollars to buy a guitar and then smashes it? The mind of MAGA, that’s who. (Actually, as a MAGA, the guy probably just won’t pay. He’ll bitch that the guitar was “broken…”)

As it happens, the guitar was NOT signed by Taylor. Hell, it was never owned nor even played by Taylor Swift as far as anybody knows. The person who donated the guitar included a CD cover that HAD been signed by Swift, but there’s no traceable provenance for the guitar that I’ve heard about. But some guy out there spent $4,000 to destroy a guitar just because someone associated Taylor Swift’s name to it. The effing guitar didn’t endorse Kamala! Why the hell did the guitar have to die? (Full disclosure, it could STILL turn out to be hers. There’s just no evidence at this point.)

So now there’s a story out there in the media that Taylor Swift lost supporters after endorsing Kamala. The story is trying to convince people she’s really suffering for her choice. Oh, she lost 2 million Spotify users? According to the article, that “only” leaves her with 91.9 million. She must be in a panic.

More likely, she doesn’t care. For one thing, I would guess the numbers ebb and flow anyway. For another, she, perhaps, remembers the big MAGA “boycott” of the NFL after Colin Kaepernick expressed an opinion. The MAGA boycott didn’t last long. They LIKE football. The people who got all pissy in the moment probably like Taylor’s music, even if they disagree with her politics. They’ll be back. I’d guess Taylor thinks that, too…

Oh, yeah, she has earned over a billion dollars – FAR more than Trump ever earned – or even grifted. I’m guessing if she lost her entire fan base overnight somehow, she’d be fine. But DAMN, MAGA desperately wishes they had a celebrity with a tenth of Swift’s stature to endorse Trump. Instead, he gets Kid Rock, Scott Baio, and Cameron Kirk. (Who? Exactly…)

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I’ll say this for Vance, if you give him several weeks to practice speaking, standing, and looking, he does quite well. I don’t know how well Vance did to advance the Trump/Vance ticket but he seemed to help his own prospects for a 2028 run. Word is, Trump doesn’t LIKE Vance and regrets choosing him for a running mate. How do you think he’s going to feel, now that Vance out-performed him on the debate stage?

Vance stayed focused, something Trump simply cannot do. Vance looked calm, something Trump definitely did NOT do during the Harris/Trump debate. Vance stayed on message, yet another failing of the would-dictator. Vance just did better than Trump. That, I’m sure, will irritate Trump to no end. No, not like “small crowds,” but a LOT.

Vance stood up there like a pro. I think he shed much of the ‘clumsy oaf’ characterization he’s been struggling against since trying to make small talk with a stranger in a doughnut shop like a real human. He just didn’t seem to have any actual answers, though. Lots of quick-time, double-talk to get around questions, but nothing responsive.

Q: “For example, would you deport parents who have entered the U.S. illegally and separate them from any of their children who were born on U.S. soil?”
JDV: “Blah, blah, blah. Fentanyl. Blah, blah. Opioid addiction. Blah de blah de blah, blah…”
Q: “Senator, the question was, will you separate parents from their children, even if their kids are U.S. citizens?
JDV: “Blah, blah, blah. Parents who can’t afford health care. Blah, blah. Schools that are overwhelmed. Blah de blah de blah, blah…”

“DID he (Donald Trump) lose the 2020 election?”
“Tim, I’m focused on the future, did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation?”
See what he did, there? “Focused on the future” to avoid answering the question (he used that phrase twice to duck the same question) but focuses on the SAME past in response. “I’m not going to answer a question about 2020 but what about 2020?

When asked about conservative dreams to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but maintain protections for pre-existing conditions, Vance said, “Well, look, we currently have laws and regulations in place, in place right now that protect people with preexisting conditions.”
Yeah, the ACA. The one you want to repeal…

My final take? If you’re MAGA? Vance won. If you’re not MAGA? Walz won. Not one mind was changed and no new insights into either candidate. Debates are kind of dumb. We all know it going in. Questions, sometimes good questions, will be asked but they rarely get answered by cons. “I’ll get back to that important question, but first…”

Yeah, screw you. Answer the question, THEN make your efforts to “correct” (read: distort) the record. Vance largely stuck to (delusional) talking points (lies) on the right. Walz was different than the Tim I’ve seen on the campaign trail, and I like campaign trail Walz better than debate Walz, but at least he had answers to questions…