They’re eating the dogs! They’re eating the cats!

[Cornflake]

I plead innocent, Russell. The tendency of politicians to evade difficult questions is common, inevitable and, to me, irritating. In that regard, Harris's sidesteps were within normal parameters. Trump's evasions exceeded normal parameters.

But I didn't like it from either candidate. To me, an evasion always suggests that the candidate thinks people are too dumb to spot the evasion, or too simple to handle an honest but unattractive answer.

Harris was asked why the administration was so slow to get aggressive about border security. She dodged. I'd have thought more of her if she'd said, "In retrospect we should have tended to that problem more quickly."

[papabill]

Sept 11, 2024 10:51:22 GMT -5 Cornflake said:

But I didn't like it from either candidate. To me, an evasion always suggests that the candidate thinks people are too dumb to spot the evasion, or too simple to handle an honest but unattractive answer.

Evasive or non-answer answers can, and often do, indicate they're hiding something. 

[Cosmic Wonder]

My take aways.

He is insane.

She is a reasonable administrator.

Mike

[howard lee]

Sept 11, 2024 10:31:29 GMT -5 TKennedy said:

Sept 11, 2024 6:34:45 GMT -5 howard lee said:

Forty-some-odd years ago, when I began my wretched publishing career, the assistant manager of the page composition department shared an anecdote about when he was a US Marine during the Vietnam War. Don (may he rest in peace) was attached to a unit that helped South Vietnamese villagers build schools and medical facilities. At one such village, the residents threw a big celebratory dinner for the Marines when the schoolhouse was finished. Don said they served some sort of very tasty, savory stew. He complimented one of his hosts on the dish and asked what sort of meat had been used.

"Dog," was the reply. At first he thought they were joking, but then it was confirmed. Not wishing to offend his hosts, he cleaned his plate.

I asked Don how dog stew tasted. "It was pretty good," he told me.

Woking your dog-

Funny you should mention. Our dog IS woke.

[Shannon]

Sept 11, 2024 10:14:21 GMT -5 Russell Letson said:

Shannon and Cornflake: I'm getting just a whiff of both-side-ism here. Correcting for the inevitable and near-universal habit of politicians sliding around more-difficult/uncomfortable questions, Harris's responses were well within the normal range for shading the truth, while Trump's offerings ran from evidence-free or flat-out untrue assertions (about inflation, crime statistics, infanticide, illegal immigrants voting, January 6, his lost court cases, Harris meeting with Putin but not Netanyahu) to urban mythology (pet-eating immigrants, immigrant-driven crime waves).

The pet-eating immigrants bit is getting all the attention--Trump's source: "the people on television saying my dog was taken and used for food." But my favorite was the assertion that not only is the flood of immigrants filled with people from prisons and insane asylums, but that "all over the world, crime is down—all over the world except here," where crime is "through the roof," because "they’ve taken their criminals off the street and they’ve given them to her to put into our country." And in both cases, Trump dismissed evidence to the contrary, including FBI crime stats, which he called "fraud."

It ain't even close.

Russell, I don't know what "both-side-ism" is.

If you had said "neither-side-ism," I would be inclined to agree, at least in my case.

[james]

Accusations of the casual and merciless killing of new borns and of stealing and eating pet dogs and cats? Blood libel, nativist dehumanisation and villification of that kind are disgusting and dangerous and wholly inexcusable. Shameful.

[RickW]

Sept 11, 2024 10:50:59 GMT -5 papabill said:

Sept 11, 2024 6:34:45 GMT -5 howard lee said:

Forty-some-odd years ago, when I began my wretched publishing career, the assistant manager of the page composition department shared an anecdote about when he was a US Marine during the Vietnam War. Don (may he rest in peace) was attached to a unit that helped South Vietnamese villagers build schools and medical facilities. At one such village, the residents threw a big celebratory dinner for the Marines when the schoolhouse was finished. Don said they served some sort of very tasty, savory stew. He complimented one of his hosts on the dish and asked what sort of meat had been used.

"Dog," was the reply. At first he thought they were joking, but then it was confirmed. Not wishing to offend his hosts, he cleaned his plate.

I asked Don how dog stew tasted. "It was pretty good," he told me.

I believe those "units" were called CAPs (Civic Action Platoons). You didn't hear much about them 50+ years ago, since most reports of troop action 
were negative or "anti-war." These were very stressful times for military personnel.

Most, including myself, wouldn't find the thought of eating dog very appetizing but experience can change your mind. I was never an avid hunter 
but from my adolescence thru my mid teens, it wasn't unusual to hunt small game (squirrel, rabbit, birds, raccoon, etc.) in the lean months of winter.
No matter how repulsive it may sound, when you're hungry enough or in survival mode, you would eat it and enjoy it. Circumstances like Don experienced 
also add an element of cultural differences where it's best not to offend your hosts.

My wife’s father fought in WWII as an infantry captain in Italy. On leave in England, he went to visit his relatives in Scotland. They were so proud of him, they decided to have a special meal, and pooled all their ration cards to buy some meat. It was beef heart. He said he ate it with a smile.

[Rob Hanesworth]

[Marshall]

A famous local hot dog place posted this:

[epaul]

So, these newcomers who are stealing jobs from Americans are insane, dog-eating, criminals. Good workers, though.

[Marshall]

Cheap.

[Rob Hanesworth]

From the time I was a small child my three ambitions were to be a dishwasher, a roofer, or to do lawncare. Unfortunately, before I was old enough to enter the workforce, all of these plum jobs had been snapped up by illegal aliens, dooming me to working for forty years in an air-conditioned office.

[Russell Letson]

At the risk of sounding pedantic (though I am a fully certified pedant and thus allowed), both-side-ism is the logical equivalent of neither-side-ism. Though it is possible to refuse to support either side for different reasons, while both-side-ism is generally a way of asserting some kind of moral or behavioral equivalence--"they all lie/cheat/steal/are incompetent," and so on. It's also often expressed as a version of the tu-quoque deflection/argument: "Your side does it, too!"

Nevertheless, I understand that it's possible to find no fully satisfactory candidate or party platform. And nevertheless, part deux, we are, practically speaking, facing a binary choice, and even refusal to choose (or to vote third-party) has real-world consequences.

[Shannon]

Sept 11, 2024 14:04:08 GMT -5 Russell Letson said:

At the risk of sounding pedantic (though I am a fully certified pedant and thus allowed), both-side-ism is the logical equivalent of neither-side-ism. Though it is possible to refuse to support either side for different reasons, while both-side-ism is generally a way of asserting some kind of moral or behavioral equivalence--"they all lie/cheat/steal/are incompetent," and so on. It's also often expressed as a version of the tu-quoque deflection/argument: "Your side does it, too!"

Nevertheless, I understand that it's possible to find no fully satisfactory candidate or party platform. And nevertheless, part deux, we are, practically speaking, facing a binary choice, and even refusal to choose (or to vote third-party) has real-world consequences.

I don't mind being taught something. I had never heard of "one-side-ism." Now I have, along with an explanation. Thanks.

I can see what you are saying. Let me be clear. I'm not trying to assert any kind of equivalence whatsoever. I think they are both deficient in their own unique ways, and I support neither of them. Last night, they just happened to have in common that they would not give a direct answer to any simple direct question. I find this infuriating, no matter how common or expected it might be.

Furthermore, I wasn't attempting to advance an argument of any kind. I was making an observation and offering a reaction. Since I was not advancing an argument or proof of any kind, I'm not likely to have committed some kind of logical fallacy.

[dradtke]

Sept 11, 2024 9:38:55 GMT -5 Marty said:

Sept 11, 2024 8:55:23 GMT -5 Shannon said:

Why couldn't either one of them actually answer a question?

I have no use for either of them.

As always it comes down to voting for the lesser of two evils. Place your bet and take your chances.

Who wants to vote for the greater of two evils? Seems pretty obvious, here.

[david]

The debate seemed lopsided to me, but then, I do not like Trump.

Trump was his angry, lying, negative self. I liked that Harris made clear from the start that trump was going to tell whoppers, and she was correct.

Even when he was telling whoppers he was on his heels. I don't live on a border state, but it seemed that trump's tired, pet eating, criminal illegal immigrant, tirade was unbelievable. Then, when he dodged the question about his political motivation to defeat the Senate bill to secure the border, it was obvious that he was trying to win an election and not too interested in securing the border.

I don't think that Harris would have anything to gain in a second debate. She is not going to sway the FOX news watching faithful who buy into Trump's fantasies that he won the 2016 election and that illegal immigrants are eating their pets.

[epaul]

Some lies and untruths are of a magnitude more dangerous and hateful than others. Trump deserved his fact checks as they were hateful and dangerous.

Using dehumanizing language to describe immigrants is nothing new for former President Donald Trump or vice presidential candidate JD Vance. Accusations of immigrants being criminals, being rapists or poisoning the blood of the nation have become common currency. But this week, the rhetoric seemed to hit a new low: the allegation that immigrants eat pets.

Vance, who represents Ohio in the U.S. Senate, spread a debunked claim about Haitian migrants living in the city of Springfield, Ohio, on Monday, accusing them of abducting pets and eating them.

The claim, which local police say is baseless, was made by far-right activists, local Republicans and neo-Nazis before being picked up by Vance. A well-known advocate for the Haitian community says she received a wave of racist harassment in the aftermath of Vance's post.

On the social media site X, Vance wrote, "...Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country."

(facebook reports, not police reports or town council reports or local newspaper reports)



Without one second's worth of thought, reflection, or question, Trump jumped on that planted rumor like a hungry dog on a pork chop and on national TV said immigrants who shouldn't be here were eating our dogs, cats, and pets (and stealing our jobs despite being criminals (who don't work) and mentally insane (who can't). Something doesn't add up. Nothing adds up with Trump. Crime is down all over the world, lowest it's ever been ever in history, ever, ever in history, because the world is sending all their criminals here?)

There are good reasons to increase border security. Good reasons. Make them. Don't Trump plunge into racism, de-humanization, and hateful lies and exaggerations that color desperate people evil and make hate easy. That is a foul road to go down, a road that leads to evil, in heart, and deed, and too much tragic history.

www.npr.org/2024/09/10/nx-s1-5107320/jd-vance-springfield-ohio-haitians-pets

[Cornflake]

Sometimes I think we have become too numb about Trump. Or at least I have. I hear him saying crazy things and think, "Well, that's just how he is." But it isn't okay and I shouldn't get used to it.

[Russell Letson]

Yup. There's that saying, when somebody tells you who he is, believe him. Trump's been telling us for years, and his supporters and enablers have been depending on a combination of disbelief ("He can't really mean all that crazy shit--it's just his way of talking") and desensitizing/normalizing.

Take him seriously and literally.

[kbcolorado]

Meanwhile, JD Vance responds to his basement level popularity numbers by attacking the most popular performer on the planet.