You got what you deserve, Republican Party...

[A Black Falcon]

It would be amazing if even this degree of republican meltdown actually puts Kentucky in play, but regardless the gesture is appreciated!

But yeah, this race sure has gotten even weirder. The second debate Sunday was unbelievably horrible on Trump's part, his behavior there was incredibly bad even for him! Saying that Hillary is "the devil", that she "has hate in her heart", that he would put her in jail if he was President as if this is some third-world country where that is common, and that he would appoint an independent prosecutor to go after her if he was elected were the lowest moments. Those are disgusting, utterly horrendous things to say, particularly to someones' face and it's very sad, and scary for the future of our democracy, that his supporters are so happy to hear him say those things. His refusal to understand or fully apologize for his comments in 2005 about how he can to sexually assault women with impunity was the other really big deal at this debate, of course; he tried to apologize, but it wasn't enough, and the attacks on Bill Clinton don't work because Hillary is not Bill! Does he actually understand that Hillary is not Bill? I am often unsure... :p

Beyond that, on the issues Trump lied constantly as usual. I was on the debate team for two years in high school, so whenever I watch a presidential debate I always notice the huge contrast between how a judged school debate differs from TV debates. In a 'real' debate, after the debate the judge determines who wins based partially on style, yes, but more based on your facts and arguments. But in a presidential debate, style always counts so much more than fact or argument that it's ridiculous! Yes, the content of the debaters' arguments do matter, but style is hugely over-emphasized. I know that in a TV debate you can't have some supposedly objective judge decide the winner, every pundit and viewer is going to decide that for themselves, but the end result is that while these debates are interesting, they tell us more about how the candidates present themselves and interact with eachother than they usually do about actual policy. Now, fact-checkers working for various groups check statements later, and they sometimes get their fact-checking wrong (creating false equivalency between the parties is something some fact checkers like to do, unfortunately; I wish both parties would be equal in how much they tell the truth, but we are not in that situation, Republicans lie far more.), but at least that's better than nothing.

And that's not even starting on how presidential debates are so focused on redirecting the question to your talking point; try that in a highschool or college debate and you'll get nowhere fast... (Lincoln-Douglas debates have one question you debate during each debate, you have to stick to the subject.) I know why they do this, but it's always frustrating.

So yeah, I did not think Pence won the VP debate because he lied CONSTANTLY, way more than Kaine, and I actually consider that when thinking about who won, I would never just go by style and not substance. And Trump may have stayed focused better than the first debate, yes, but thanks to the unbelievably horrendous first section, I can't say he had a better debate this time, not when in the first debate he didn't get quite as nasty while this time he did. The best statement really is that that both times were horrible for different reasons.

All this going on and we haven't even heard anything about the fact that Trump probably raped a 13 year old girl repeatedly around the same time he was claiming losses so as to avoid ever paying federal taxes again.

He's done and said so many horrendous things that by this point it's impossible to focus on all of them as much as should be. This helped him a lot for a long time in this campaign, but over the past month the sheer volume built up too much and he finally started hurting for it, though of course his constant stream of awful comments is hurting him too. But even now, how can all of them get as much focus as they should when there is such an insane volume of stuff to look at?

But yes, the rape allegations are something which I wouldn't be surprised to see become more prominent at some point in the coming weeks, particularly if there is more damaging tape out there relating to them...