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US Election's Only VP Debate Tonight: Weigh In With Your Reactions
Tonight's debate between the two largest American political parties' candidates for vice president of the United States takes place at Danville, Kentucky's Centre College, starting at 9 p.m. Joe Biden and Paul Ryan will face each other on stage, and are expected to talk about issues "including the economy, foreign policy and the role of the Vice President," according to C-SPAN, which will feature a live streaming view of the event. (Criteria from the Commission on Presidential Debates
means you won't hear tonight from other presidential candidates' running mates (like Cheri Honkala, Jim Clymer, and
James Gray, of the Green, Constitution, and Libertarian party tickets, respectively). If you'll be watching the debate tonight, please add your commentary below. It would be helpful if you start your comment's title with a time-stamp (to the minute), too, for context. (Like this: "9:08: $Candidate just intentionally mis-repeated the Q on taxes.") And Yes, we're posting this here in a vain attempt to keep the political discussion out of other story threads tonight.
Update: 10/12 01:18 GMT by U L : If you don't have flash, you can use rtmpdump and mplayer to watch (incantation duplicated below, in case the site is slashdotted).
Via Don Armstrong an incantation to watch the debate without flash:
rtmpdump -v -r rtmpt://cp82346.live.edgefcs.net:1935/live?ovpfv=2.1.4 \
--tcUrl rtmp://cp82346.live.edgefcs.net:1935/live?ovpfv=2.1.4 \
--app live?ovpfv=2.1.4 --flashVer LNX.11,2,202,238 \
--playpath CSPAN1@14845 \
--swfVfy http://www.c-span.org/cspanVideoHD.swf \
--pageUrl http://www.c-span.org/ | \
mplayer -xy 3 -;
One thing I've always wondered about is the apparent logical inconsistency of political opinions.
Lots of people here have noted the equivalence of Republicans and Democrats - self-serving corrupt parasites who sell favors to special interests, in total disregard of the welfare or wishes of the people. They're the same - either side will screw the people.
Yet whenever the president comes up it's "Your guy is worse than my guy". Obama is a man of the people, but Romney is a financial predator, Romney is a financial genius while Obama is a profligate wastrel.
Can anyone identify an issue - not an opinion or a general feeling or a policy goal, but an actual issue - for which Obama and Romney are on opposite sides? Something for which Obama would veto and Romney would pass, or vice versa? (Note: It's not health care.) Does such an issue exist? Is there any concrete way to differentiate between candidates?
Another aspect is the image of the man versus the actions of the man. Obama has continued and extended most of the odious practices started by Bush. Attacking Libya, assassinating an American citizen, voting telecom immunity, increasing drone strikes, running up the deficit - types of actions which were roundly decried when Bush did similar, but Obama seems to get a pass. Are we voting the image or the actions? Ethics is supposed to be absolute - are there different versions for red and blue states?
Everyone yells how great things will be when *their* candidate gets elected. "We can do so much to change the world, but first we have to get elected".
Quick question: if Obama will be so great once he gets reelected, why can't he do some of that great stuff *right now*? This is his employer mid-term review. How about showing us what he can do in the 3 months running up to the election? Sort of a "try before you buy" kind of thing. Ryan's a congressman - how has he voted in the last 3 months? What legislation has he proposed in that time? (Romney's hard to judge with this, usually it's a congressman running for president.)
A president cannot instigate many changes, that's true. He can't unilaterally pass legislation, for instance. However, a president has the power to stop bad things from happening. Like when the president told the Justice department not to oppose challenges to the Defense of Marriage act. He can veto things, he can suggest legislation, and he can negotiate for outcomes. He can tell the executive branch what to do - why can't he just tell the TSA to stop violating our rights?
(Oh, and incidentally: if he tells the military to do something, they *have* to do it. He doesn't need permission from Congress to close Gitmo.)
The information available about each candidate is noise and randomness. Each issue is a labyrinth of mis-quotes, mis-information, and nuance. Did Obama double the deficit? Or is it the debt? Or did he double it, but it's Bush's fault? Or was it the Democratic Congress? Did Romney pillage the retirement funds of Bain companies? Was it just one company or all of them? Was it actually Romney or the company owner? Was Romney even aware? Should (or shouldn't) either of them be held responsible?
Candidate choice appears to be an emotional decision. It certainly follows no discernible logic.
The only realistic reason for voting one way or the other I can think of is this: vote the incumbent out. We know for certain that "his way" isn't working. If we vote for him again, nothing will change.
Maybe that's the rule we should follow - if things aren't fixed, vote the incumbent out. That sounds more in line with the ideals of democracy.
Regardless of the R or D after the name, how about we just vote the incumbent out?
Gitmo is still open because the Bush administration successfully painted us into the corner through the use of torture. The violations of human rights at Gitmo under Bush turned out to be so extreme that it rapidly became clear that if the inmates were given a fair trial with US standards of evidence judge, so much of the "evidence" against them would have to be thrown out that large numbers of very dangerous terrorists would have to be released.
"assassinated ambassador"
Uh huh. 4 Amricans died in Libya on Obama's watch.
3000 Americans died in New York on Bush's watch.
"muslim extremists taking over EVERYWHERE"
That's what Fox news wants you to believe. But it isn't actually true; you didn't bother to actually check.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Oh.. I don't know the first passed health care reform in almost 100 years.
Ummm, no. Medicare, Medicaid, many, many other reforms since. And that ignores all the initiatives which have been undertaken at the state level. Obamacare is failed legisilation that needs to be fixed.
Ended Don't Ask Don't Tell.
Yea, he signed the bill that ended Clinton's executive order, I'll give him that.
Restarted the hunt for and killed Osama bin Laden.
Bullshit. The hunt was started by Bush and never stopped.