R FBN/Charleston Debate(s) Tweetoloquy and Open Thread
Dan (@dscotto10), Roland (@rolanddodds), and Jay (@AmateurPolSc) say they’re in for tweeting y’all through this here ruckus – on Fox Business Channel if you have Fox Business Channel (turns out I do!) or streaming on-line at foxbusiness.com. Russell (@RussellSaunder1) and Elizabeth Picciuto (@epicciuto) are maybeing, for now.
Find the List-Stream-Feed-Embed-Thing below. As for the debate (the main one): Could be a ripping bloody pit-fight between the Canadian and the canardian and the other guys (all guys this time), or they could just play paddy-cake. If the latter, then we’ll all be sorry. If the former, then we’ll all be even sorrier, on the inside, we swear.
For proper orientation, I highly recommend Dan’s recent post on the state of play R-nominee-selection-wise. Otherwise, here’s one summing up of R partisan sentiments just right about now, still a bit more’n two weeks before the first official (caucus) votes are cast:
pmarca: RT GabrielRossman: 1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Making America Great Again https://t.co/OG4L5AkZ8S— I retweet @pmarca (@pmarca_retweet) January 13, 2016
For proper disorientation, that’s up to you: I’ll be sipping Negra Modelo.
There’s also an undercard debate. I’m confident that someone will be watching it, though not that any of us will be.
As usual, technopeasants are invited to play along in the comment thread.
The feedstream:
Do you think the shooting and conversation about the Confederate flag will be brought up?Report
About as likely as a certain shooting in Chicago would be brougt up at a Dem. debate.Report
Which shooting was that?
ETA: Oh the one involving the cop? I’m not really sure that is an analogous situation.
ETAA: Unless we just want everyone talking about Black folks being unjustifiably gunned down.Report
No, its not strictly analogous. It falls into the area of things that wont get discussed because it might damage the brand/be uncomfortable/etc.Report
Oh, yea. But I think the Charleston shooting/Confederate flag is a MUCH more uncomfortable topic for the GOP than the cop shooting is for the Dems. And it was a much higher profile event. To me, pretending it didn’t happen will feel weird. But I’m not their target audience so…Report
Well, I’m not sure what the Charlston shooting has specifically to do with the GOP, but the Chicago shooting involves a possible coverup by what was one of the Dems leading lights to make sure his reelection went smoothly. When you are desperate to make sure the African Amercan vote gets out this election, things like that don’t help.Report
Great point. It was alluded to in the intro. Curious if it comes up again.Report
“I repeat, again, my contention is that Jeb Bush is what you’d get if Lisa Simpson grew up to be a Republican.”
Scott ShackfordReport
That has to be one of the cruelest things anyone has said about Lisa Simpson… like… ever.Report
So Cruz said that under his watch no American solider would be on his knees.
What, exactly, would he have done to prevent what happened in Iran? Never put our troops in foreign lands/seas? Train them to kung fu all comers? Insist that they all go down fighting?Report
@kazzy He would have made sure they all died pointless deaths like a good, decent American.Report
Ship Captain: “We’ve drifted into foreign waters here. Being approached by Iranian ship. They’ve made request to board.”
Home Base: “Allow boarding… Maintain peacef…
President Cruz: “BLAZE OF GLORY!”
Ship Captain: “Who is that?”
President Cruz: “BLAZE! OF! GLORY!”
Home Base: “Mr. President… is that…”
President Cruz: “THAT’S AN ORDER, SOLDIER!”Report
I’d settle for not having them surrender like the french navy.Report
Since they were released the next day, I think surrendering and going back to their lives seemed like a far better thing to do other than fight it out over a mistaken border incursion.Report
So what was the alternative you’d have preferred?
Saying, “I wish they didn’t do that,” and providing no alternative amounts to saying nothing.Report
Saying, “I wish they didn’t do that,” and providing no alternative amounts to saying nothing.
But this does?
“Ship Captain: “We’ve drifted into foreign waters here. Being approached by Iranian ship. They’ve made request to board.”
Home Base: “Allow boarding… Maintain peacef…
President Cruz: “BLAZE OF GLORY!”
Ship Captain: “Who is that?”
President Cruz: “BLAZE! OF! GLORY!”
Home Base: “Mr. President… is that…”
President Cruz: “THAT’S AN ORDER, SOLDIER!””Report
Answer the question. If you can.
I think the sailors handled the situation properly. And I think Cruz is full of shit if he thinks there is something he could have done as President that would have resulted in a better outcome.Report
Talking on Iranian TV was a mistake.
Edit: and as the reports are coming out, they screwed up from the get go with their transit plan, and then again with elements of the execution.Report
Which puts it on the sailors have F’d up. So a simple overnight stay and diplomatic solution seems like a best case situation.Report
When exactly did the French Navy surrender?
Just a reminder that this sort of political sideshow antic is almost completely divorced from any sort of historical or empirical reality.Report
The United States owes a lot to the French Navy. The Battle of Yorktown was predicated on the Battle of the Chesapeake, which in turn was a rare win for the French over the Royal Navy.Report
Also, I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of the French Navy. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13573848Report
Sigh. The French navy is famous for dying rather than surrendering. They lost a significant fraction of the men the US lost at Pearl Harbor, then the remainder continued to obey their legitimate orders despite defections until their government became no longer a thing.
We joke about cheese eating and surrendering, and the French land forces did fail in a number of ways that are in retrospect predictable. But I won’t hear a word spoken against the French naval or air forces in WW2. Despite the stench of garlic, they acquitted themselves as honorably as possible given the hands they were dealt.Report
And what the know nothings forget about WW 2 is the Germans whipped everybody for the first couple years. The only thing that saved the UK was the channel. They beat the greeks, who fought heroically, as well the poles. They conquered a huge amount of russia and killed/took prisoner millions before they were barely stopped. The French did no worse then the others. In fact at the first big battle we faced the Germans in North Africa, Kasserine Pass, we got whipped.Report
IIRC, more French soldiers died defending Paris than the US lost in the whole fricking war.Report
Not to mention that they were defending Paris against the Germans for the fifth time in 125 years. They lost five out of six generations of young men fighting over the same provinces against the same enemies. Admittedly, one of those five times they were the instigators.
And yet another massive irony – we think of the French as being passive because of the results, but if anything any failure of theirs in WW1 was being too aggressive tactically with regards to the facts on the ground. WW2 isn’t a fair comparison because they were doomed demographically and they’d known about it for years and dreaded the possibility. Even so they fought with honor, if not with the best of all possible strategies (to put it mildly).Report
Napoleon vs. the Sixth Coalition, Franco-Prussian War, WW1, WW2. France was the aggressor in the first and second of those. What am I missing?Report
Cruz has an uncomfortable fondness for that phrase.Report
Well, actually…
~ http://www.allenbwest.com/2016/01/folks-heres-what-i-find-very-odd-about-what-happened-with-iran-and-our-navy-yesterday/Report
Wasn’t our ship in their waters?Report
“So Cruz said that under his watch no American solider would be on his knees.”
What a prude!!!Report
If that line doesn’t come up in next week’s episode of Savage Love, I’ll eat my hat.Report
Cruz is probably against hat eating, too.Report
Even if it’s a lady hat and I marry it first?Report
As I alluded to above, he’ll also want to bring in the earlier quote: “Any president who doesn’t begin every day on his knees isn’t fit to be commander-in-chief of this country”.
As I said, Cruz thinks about this much more than I’m comfortable with.Report
Don’t call Indiana JV!Report
“Today, Jan 21, 2017, President Cruz signed his first executive order, banning the Catholic Mass at US Army chapels”Report
I’m totally amused by the whole Cruz birther thing. Apparently, there are legitimate constitutional arguments that he doesn’t meet the definition of “natural born citizen.” Please let it be so. He’s one meglomanical asswipe who should never be allowed within a mile of the White House.Report
“He’s one meglomanical asswipe who should never be allowed within a mile of the White House.”
That’s odd because I feel the same way about Hillary every time I hear her speak.
We should really have a similar post next Dem debate so we can comment about them.Report
I have no particular love for Hilary and have no plans to vote for her, but she’s nowhere near as scary as the dominionist Cruz. If almost everybody thinks you’re an asshole (and it seems nearly everybody who has to deal with Cruz on a regular basis does), then you’re probably a serious asshole with major mental issues that should preclude you from the presidency. I don’t care how successful you are. If the GOP nomination comes down to Trump and Cruz, I pray Trump wins.
And we should definitely do a similar commentary on the next Democratic debate, which hopefully won’t be on a Saturday night. Does the Democratic party want people not to watch? Jeez.Report
@michelle The R debates have generated more interest – generally and here at OT – mainly because they present an apparently highly uncertain, multi-sided contest, featuring several colorful characters trying to get in the political Sportscenter highlight reels. As for OT specifically, we also have at least one regular contributor, Dan, who writes well-informed and intelligent horse-racy commentary, and we have found a few people who also enjoy immersing themselves in debate-agitated Twitter waters.
Most of these qualities are absent for the D debates – though lately some people have been trying to squint Bernie into believability, potentially adding a bit of drama to whatever goings-on on that side.
I think we’ve had a couple of posts inspired by discussion at Dem debates, but I don’t think anyone has posted on the Dem race at all since Our Tod’s Hillary-skeptical pieces of a hundred years ago or so in blog time. Bottom-line, if/when anybody wants to OT-cover a Dem debate, I’d be happy to set up a set-up. So far no one’s asked.Report
You could not pay me enough to watch this. Nor, for that matter, the Democratic equivalent. During (IIRC) the first Democratic debate I was the after dinner speaker giving a talk on baseball and the Civil War to a Civil War roundtable. (Miraile dictu, I was paid for this. My wife was astonished.) This was in central Pennsylvania. I understand central Pennsylvania: very nice people, and the last thing I want to do is talk politics with them. So when one of my table mates during the dinner raised the topic of Hillary and that evening’s debate, I proclaimed that I could not stand listening to politicians, regardless of whether or not I voted for them. This proclamation has the benefit of being true. If I am driving down the road with NPR on, and they cut to a clip of a political speech, I switch stations, even if it is my guy speaking. My proclamation worked beautifully. It is nearly universally acceptable, and if anyone noticed the implication that I might be voting for Hillary, they had the discretion to not raise the issue.Report
I tried to watch the Republican debate, but it lost me after the opening credits.
https://youtu.be/oV5LQcmuGg8
I found it quite derivative, frankly.Report
Why I would not be a good journalist reason #245: I was in Charleston yesterday and today and was not aware this was going on. Instead, I was eating fantastic shrimp and grits in a cloistered bar that specialized in Gullah food and chatting with the folks there. It seemed the general consensus on Donald Trump the one time he came on TV was that he says some crazy things and just don’t give a fish.
My “midlife crisis tour” of the southern US should continue for most of the next month or so. I’ll post about it when I’m done.Report
Lookin’ forward to it. Have fun man, and drink to the lees.Report
Thank you, Sir! My next stops are Baltimore, Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans! Should be fun!Report
I’m going to be in North Carolina next week (on business). The only part of the South I’ve visited before was the Deep part (the Mississippi Gulf Coast, also business), so I’ll be interested to discover the differences.Report
Two different worlds. Get pulled pork.Report
I recently ordered a reuben at a sandwich shop here, and the counterman smiled and said that he never got to make them anymore, because people always had pulled pork instead, It’s everywhere.Report
Cookout. If you enjoy fast food at all, you must go to Cookout.Report
I’ll be in Charlotte for lunch on Monday. That definitely looks like a plan. (BBQ, Homemade slaw, hushpuppies, and tea “sweet or unsweet”. Yum.)Report
If you have time in Nashville, head out to Loveless. Eat the biscuits. Thank me after.
Also, get some Goo Goo Clusters.Report
I will for sure. I work with a guy in Ontario who grew up in the South as well, so we’ve been talking for months about stuff like moon pies and hush puppies and fried okra that we just can’t get in our culturally-impoverished surroundings.Report
I’ve had a good amount of googoo clusters considering I got here a few hours agoReport