The Witness Chronicles, October 2, 2024
Constant lying in a debate by one candidate
Four Politicians Debated. One Was Completely Out of His Mind
The problem is that it was the Republican candidate for President, Donald Trump
I’ll give him this. JD Vance is a good debater. And both Vance and Walz talked like humans who disagree while actually talking about issues. Trump was walloped in his debate with Harris because it was all about his ego, not the issues the country cares about.
But if they win, Vance will not be the President. It will be Donald Trump, that guy who repeatedly lost it during his debate with Kamala Harris, making haywire claims left and right. He wasted our time talking about his crowds at rallies because he could not resist being baited by Harris.
At least the debate between the VP candidates involved actually talking about issues. Kamala talked about issues, but Trump was obsessed with criticism of himself rather than dealing with the stuff all of us deal with daily. His plan for replacing Obamacare? A ‘concept of a plan’? Wtf is that?
It’s nothing, because the actual issue bores him and requires getting down into the weeds of a complex challenge. And that is the takeaway from tonight’s VP debate, one of them. The Republican presidential candidate is incompetent. And he is the one who would be running the country.
Vance was being reasonable but always circled back to the hot button issues they think they win on. And Tim Walz was doing a good job making him circle back. And despite the supposed ban on fact checking, the CBS hosts called out the most obvious untruths, as they should as journalists.
I have to point out that when fact checked, Vance whined about the rules to the point where the mics were momentarily turned off. In related news, Trump canceled a planned appearance on 60 Minutes because they would be fact checking live. Harris will appear.
Trump knows that live fact checking would mean nearly everything he says would be subject to correction, something long overdue at live events in this election.
So, Americans who are watching this Veep debate are getting the only policy debate we have seen so far, because Trump could care less about policy. He simply says he will solve all the problems in one day, his first day in office. Given that he is not known for working his tail off on anything, that will be interesting to see.
These are notes I made as I watched the debate, and I have to note a turning point. Tim Walz thoroughly stomped Vance on the January Sixth insurrection and the 2020 election denial. Vance tried to divert the conversation into something about freedom of speech, but he stumbled badly.
Walz had to hit him with the ‘yelling fire in a theater’ legal standard and there is no reply to that. There is a line that was crossed on January Sixth 2021, and it was inexcusable.
I give this debate to Walz, barely, but it was a spirited exchange, something we have not seen from Donald Trump. He is unfit for President and JD Vance is not his surrogate. Vance’s constant slick lying disqualifies him to take over when Trump is declared incompetent or worse.
Of the twenty-one lies the Washington Post fact checker identified, 18 were Vance, two were debatable, and one went to Walz. The Post breaks down the reality in detail, for each falsehood. So, while Vance used a reasonable, non-hysterical delivery to make his lies sound true, it was the same old Trump strategy of relentlessly making things up.
That strategy depends on voters being uninformed or willfully ignorant and it unfortunately works for many, explaining the tight polls.
I ask myself if I even remember a debate between Pence and Harris in 2020, and I don’t. But that was before the insurrection, an event that changed everything and eclipsed everything. That was the defining event of the last presidential election and it still is.
We have about a month left. In the real world, missiles are flying in the Middle East, the ongoing disaster that was Hurricane Helene will be felt for years as the death count rises, and, in the background, Ukraine festers on. These are real things and affect real lives and a debate, which many Americans without power could not watch, is a debatable thing.
Did the earth move? No.
Happy 100th birthday Jimmy Carter
I need to note that Jimmy Carter turned 100 yesterday and we are seeing commemorative stories of his presidency, generally remembered as a failure. But he started no conflicts, never lied or exaggerated to the American people, signed an amazing number of laws that still work positively for the country, and went on to devote his life to human rights, building housing, and working for a better future, unlike most former presidents. A genuinely good man.
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In 1986 I met Jimmy Carter down at my parents house in Chestertown Maryland, he was duck hunting my friend was a park ranger and got me a few minute interview on the purpose of getting Jimmy to sign his book for me. He came up from the river and sat down on a log it took me a few minutes to get rid of my nervous feelings yet he sat there and started asking me questions forty five minutes later one of his service men told him that they only had so much time before they had to head back. We talked about politics of the Regan situation we talked mostly about freedom for ALL AMERICANS. He told me that even though I think I am one person that I should never doubt that I could make a difference because I am a American most people go to their grave not understanding what a American is.
I left went back to my parents where I wrote everything down The only other President I have met personally was Clinton and Biden before he became president. Jimmy Carter had a down to earth personality that we could only wish to ever get back again. He was human but most of all he was a man of great integrity to me in my later years now as far as any presidents in my lifetime he is the best