DramatistDreamer

Again you never hear the MSM talking about this do you? I will say it again, the demographic shifts in this country will continue to favor dems. Now we just have to get off our asses and work to regain control of our states. After the GOP did its post mortem on the 2012 Romney loss, there seemed to be a lot more talk of shifting demographics but I think most of us have long known that the MSM has been avoiding the realities this time around, in favor of promoting a close race (and the false equivalencies that go with it) so that they can squeeze ratings for their channels, shows, etc. as well as subscriptions for their newspapers. Unfortunately, the Senate/House and local races are getting lost in the national (and I'd assume cable, though I don't watch it) coverage but this is where local media coverage (if they're smart) has a significant role to play. Despite all these mergers threatening to swallow newspapers, believe it or not there are some 'boots on the ground' doing yeoman's work for local blogs and small-town online papers, some of which even still have a component that still churns out a physical newspaper. There are still community papers and NPR and PBS do have local components that function through their apparatus- although people must indeed do some work in locating them. Although the work can be as easy as doing a simple search or heading to the local library.

Just last week, I read an article written by an Asian American blogger describing how many things Asian Americans dislike about Trump and his proposed policies. According to this NYT article, Asian-Americans have been trending toward the Democratic party over the past 8-9 years but Trump seems to be accelerating this trend. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/trump-asian-american-voters.html

For all you folks who are on Nate Silver's Stats Watch: Election Update: Clinton’s Debate Performance Is Helping Her In Swing States This is one example that illustrates why I stated weeks ago that I would wait until the debates began before getting worked up over polls.

Apparently, Newsweek believes they got hit with a DDos Attack (orchestrated by none other than Russia) just after they uploaded an article detailing how Trump's business dealings in Cuba violates the trade embargo. Newsweek hit with cyberattack after posting Trump Cuba story

Buzzfeed chronicles Trump's deposition, which a Washington D.C. judge ordered released today. Here Is Donald Trump’s Newly Released Videotaped Deposition

So after Trump decries an alleged Machado sex tape, some one dug up an interview he did with Howard Stern in 2001 and wrote a blog post about it. The article describes how Trump talked about watching the Paris Hilton sex tape, despite the fact that he has known Hilton since she was 12 years old. I hope these sanctimonious evangelicals who vow to vote Trump hear about this one. UNCENSORED Donald Trump’s Douchebaggiest Interview Ever: ‘Any Girl You Have, I Can Take From You’

Those ratings don't surprise me one bit. I'm not sure what tennis can do about it, except to accept the fact that they cannot build ratings on the 'strength' of either number one, at this time. Tennis better pray that the likes of Fritz, Osaka, Tiafoe, Zverev and yes, even Kyrgios start ascending because Nolé, Kerber and Plisková aren't really doing it for folks. I guess Cilic and Nishikori are entitled to a good belly laugh because people kept saying that they were the low bar in terms of ratings, clearly these people were wrong.

Peggy Noonan was on CBS This Morning saying that someone should bury Trump's phone (as if that will solve his issues) and blaming both candidates for the tone of this election cycle, which is the false equivalency argument (i.e. 'A pax on both your houses). She also blamed the media for the lack of seriousness during this election cycle, which I agree with. Alicia Machado fills this post debate news cycle and in that clip, they are wondering who will fill the next? I'm speculating that it may be one of the small business vendors that Trump stiffed or one of the Trump U. 'teachers' who weren't certified to teach or grads who felt that they got little out of the so-called education they received at Trump U. OMG.

So USA Today has taken the "unusual step" of urging readers not to vote for Trump. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/09/29/dont-vote-for-donald-trump-editorial-board-editorials-debates/91295020/

Looks like someone produced receipts:

Samantha Bee gives a wrap up of Monday night's Presidential Debate as only she can. By the way, did anyone see the interview Chris Matthews did with Gary Johnson and his running mate? Johnson again draws a total blank after being asked a question. My. God. This man wants to be POTUS? Except for HRC, the bar seems pretty low for these men!

Howard Dean was far from the only one commenting on whether Trump was on a controlled substance. Lots of people were. Anyone who watched the debate and was on social media would've seen the flood of tweets about it. I was watching the NBC NY broadcast and they announced the results of some up the moment poll done by survey monkey and it was about the same as CNN's results proclaiming that Clinton outperformed Trump by a wide margin. Of course, debate results are not election results and Trump has vowed to come back at Hillary hard but many are already proposing that it will be difficult for Trump to do this in a Town Hall style debate with people asking questions. I'm not going to speculate about what will happen in the next debate but what I can see is that with HRC mostly being pleased with her debate performance, I see more confidence and ease in HRC which perhaps may carry over into the rallies and the Town Hall debate. And Ms. Machado (who Trump called Miss Piggy) is making appearances all over Spanish language TV. They actually showed footage from the 90s of her at a gym exercising and trying to jump rope with a herd of media filming her while Trump leers at her in the background. I swear on one news show on Univision it must've been playing on a loop. According to her account, Trump made it seem as though he wanted to meet with her personally and then ambushed with the media, cameras rolling and photogs clicking. She said she was utterly humiliated. I also read an article where a few Republican women and independents expressed disgust with how Trump was talked over and interrupted HRC during the debate. One woman used the word bullying. The narrative once was that HRC had a 'Woman Problem'. Now that this is no longer the case, now it's HRC has a 'Millenial Problem'.

I didn't get a chance to watch, but it's definitely on my radar. Maybe I'll stream it later this evening, sounds fascinating. If you do get the chance to view, let me know what you think.

Did anyone see the Frontline special The Choice on PBS? I watched it last night. It's up on their website. Despite all the years of watching and reading about the personal histories of each of the two candidates (although I have a visceral reaction to calling one of them an actual, serious candidate), there were still some illuminating aspects presented in the program. Frontline also laid out a timeline that made the narrative fascinating.

Unfortunately many politicians on both sides have oversimplified the nature and the value of trade. Now many Americans do not have much of an understanding about the complexity of trade, simply parroting talking points heard on the cable news shows and heard in rallies. Trade is much more nuanced than we're hearing in most media and sadly, during several election cycles now. No sovereign nation can expect to have a healthy economy or GDP without trade. A protectionist dictum will not make for a successful economy. Venezuela employed this type of tactic in their economy over several generations. Has anyone read about Venezuela's economy lately? I have, it's quite sad. Let's just put it this way...they are now forced to import oil from the U.S., one of Venezuela's long-time enemies. Think on that for a moment. like @JaneAusten stated, there were some positives as well as negatives on NAFTA. In trade, no one side gets everything they want. The key is to get more of what you want/need for your side and yes, there were definite missteps but the U.S. had some key benefits as well, probably a bit more than the drawbacks. It wasn't all terrible as some want to describe.

Exactly. They should've just given him the pitcher. I've never seen someone down water like that in a debate in my life. He outdid Marco Rubio that year Rubio did the Republican rebuttal after the SOTU. I edited my post to show the original tweet. The laughter was another tweeter responding to Rudy's comment.

Even Giuliani, who ran one of the laziest Primary campaigns in modern politics, thinks Trump was subpar. Several tweeters laughed Rudy to scorn at this comment.

I don't think people realize that this debate took place in the suburbs of New York. Hempstead, in Long Island has pockets of very conservative people. These are people who often picket and protest if someone proposes the idea of apartments or anything resembling affordable housing. Many parts are quite anti-Latino, claiming that too many Latinos change the 'character' of their neighborhoods, insisting that some Latino homeowners rent out illegal basement apartment dwellings to Latinos, while also happily using migrant (mostly Latino) labor for their landscaping needs and roofing, housepainting work. I watched the debate on PBS. I think that was the only way I could've watched with my sanity intact.

This was the sentiment of many a Tweet tonight.

Many people on Twitter remarked that Trump ranted like a man on speed. At first, I was concerned that he would interrupt her constantly but she made the adjustment and let him wear himself out before she inserted coherent statements. Trump often looked flustered and out of depth. Saying that he thought failing to pay federal taxes made him smart. He was such a mess. No one would blame Hillary if she didn't feel she had to do much but she took the debate seriously (mentioning that yes, she prepared) and she very calmly thrashed him. Lester Holt did not do a very good job as moderator and I fear he might be the best of the lot. Hopefully the others took notes tonight on proper moderation technique.

I don't watch this webseries regularly but I did watch when POTUS was on discussing ACA and over the weekend I did watch HRC's episode (as well as Tina Fey's) but I came across this today and thought it was interesting.

Kind of weird to think that Lyla was almost that Lyla, like of Bob and Lyla Hughes.

Point taken@Nothin'ButAttitude I came across a couple episodes from 1983, the first one (where Craig is acting like American Psycho) is only part of an episode though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWbLUPDQY8c&list=PLxnb0vDu6GE6CiYvTiMAOdEI_3R6ehCry&index=8 Justin Deas before he went utterly hammy.

I don't think it would've been far-fetched either but personally, the image of two mature women fighting over John, I wouldn't be interested but that's only my opinion. @Nothin'ButAttitude' Others may be though and I'm not going to dimish the entertainment possibilities.

The last time I got polled by phone for politics was like before the 2000 election. Those pollsters never call, nor do they call anyone I know. These samples seem awfully small...too small to be so predictive, I think. I'm already seeing articles and thinkpieces predicting how high the ratings will be for the first debate. Is that all the media is focused on??