In order, worst to first:
Trump: As the evidence piles up and he and the Republicans keep having to revise their defense, as even their own witnesses testify to their lies, this debate was a breath of fresh air and a marked improvement over the clown show that was the Republican party debates 4 years ago. I especially like how Sondland has gone from a “a really good man and a great American” to “I hardly know the gentleman. He came in late and was with other candidates before”.
Deval Patrick, Michael Bloomberg, Julian Castro: while not in the debate tonight, it was very clear: we don’t need them. Most of the candidates acquitted themselves very well tonight; these 3 have nothing to offer that we didn’t see tonight. Just go away.
Gabbard: I hate to engage in CT, but if she’s not on the Trump campaign’s payroll, I’ll eat my hat. The troll candidate had no good moments.
Biden: Dear Jesus, spare us. “I’ve been endorsed by the only black female Senator ever”. With Kamala Harris standing not 15 feet away. “Keep punching” – at the issue of domestic violence – bleah. Then we’re told how he’s going to be tough on Saudi Arabia and empty the prisons/expunge the records of those convicted of marijuana offenses when he’s done nothing about either of these issues in the last 40 years. The conversion on marijuana gave me whiplash given his “it’s a gateway drug” answer 2 days ago. Weak closing statement. Go play with the grandkids Joe, please, just go.
Steyer: I’m being a little unfair here. All his answers were solid, and he pushed climate change hard, which has been given short shrift in these debates. Also highly in agreement with his answer that the Democratic party needs to get non-voters to vote, and not worry about flipping Republican voters. So, a little garlic added to his mashed potatoes candidacy. Tasty answers, but not the main dish.
Bernie: Again, solid answers, but a repeat of his usual script. His self-congratulatory closing remarks were a little off-putting for me.
Mayor Pete: Solid for most of the debate, but the engagement with Gabbard was a disaster. I was surprised he wasn’t attacked more, Kamala Harris really let him off the hook in their exchanges.
Yang: I really want the next president to add a cabinet position and make him Secretary of Technology. This man is highly intelligent, innovative, had several great lines and substantive answers tonight. Great closing remarks. But, like Trump, you can’t come into government to the highest office in the land with no experience.
Kloubuchar: Great night until the closing remarks. I fear we are going to hear a lot about the line “work to have the African-American community stand with us” – and rightly so. Who the bleep is this “us”? African-Americans are not part of the Democratic Party? They don’t stand with you now? It was a classic white privilege answer, the kind that Kamala Harris just 30 minutes prior, did an outstanding job of critiquing.
Warren: Usual great job, all-around. Surprised the attacks against her from the last debate were largely missing.
Booker & Harris: Tie.
- Booker’s line to Biden “Your answer about marijuana being a gateway drug – I thought you might have been high when you said that” was the 2nd best line of the night, right behind Andrew Yang’s “First thing I’d tell Putin: Sorry I beat your guy”. Great answers on criminal justice reform, China, human rights, voter suppression.
- Harris: Where has this been the last 2 debates? Her candidacy seems to be in shambles, but she was great tonight.
- Not sure it will matter for either of them, but they did great tonight.
MSNBC: Maddow, Mitchell, Welker and Parker were outstanding. No “gotchas” – questions were smart and well formed. Balanced talk time except for Steyer and Yang (which I suppose is fair anyway). Well done.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
Great summary. Thanks.
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please use the ‘continued’ button so posts won’t be so long on the home page.
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I looked and he did….But I did come late to the party today.
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I added the break for him
It’s easier using the old editor.
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Fair enough. I too have learned how.
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Did you watch the actual hearings, or just excerpts chosen by the mainstream media?
Sondland’s testimony was so inconsistent that you could cherry pick excerpts to support any point of view you desired.
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@Tabor
It is obvious that Sondland was a reluctant witness who was more or less trapped into cooperation after his first deposition proved to be far less than honest by other witnesses. This was his THIRD time at bat and with each appearance he “memory” has improved.
The bottom line – in spite of whatever inconsistencies you are talking about – is that as a fact witness with first hand knowledge he confirmed what has been obvious all along – this conspiracy of bribery and extortion was not some rogue operation. It was directly lead by Mr. Trump.
It is worth noting that after this testimony, no less a figure than Ken Starr is now saying that it may be time for the GOP Congressional leadership to make that trip to the White House as they did with Nixon.
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‘I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing… Tell him to do what he ran on.’
Zelensky ran on rooting out and exposing the corruption in the prior Ukranian regime, and if he followed through on that, the interference by Ukraine in the 2016 election would come out.
https://johnsolomonreports.com/the-ukraine-scandal-timeline-democrats-and-their-media-allies-dont-want-america-to-see/ (yes, I know you don’t like him, but every step is supported by references)
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@Tabor
So, when Trump realized he had gone WAY too far he started peppering the record with CYA statements like the ones Sondland quoted here. LOL!
Such a natural thing to say . . . “I want no quid pro quo.”
As for the timeline, it is completely irrelevant. Even if Hunter Biden and Joe Biden were guilty of something, it does not change in the least the criminality of Trump’s behavior. If actual financial crimes by Americans are legitimately suspected then we have law enforcement agencies to deal with it and established mechanisms for seeking help from foreign countries.
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I saw parts of it live. I mostly agree with Mr. Murphy below, but it’s not me that found Sondland’s testimony damaging – it’s Trump. Like so many others before him, we see the pattern repeating: “XX is a great person”, then XX says something Trump doesn’t like, so it’s “XX wasn’t a big part of our administration/campaign, I hardly know XX” then ultimately to “XX is a deep state plant”, or “XX was the only one who did wrong not me”, etc.
Actually I thought the damaging testimony yesterday was Deputy Assistant Secretary Laura Cooper revealed that the Ukrainian government was aware that there was a hold up on the US military aid on July 25.For days now we’ve heard Trump can’t be impeached because the Ukrainians didn’t know their aid was being held up. Well, yes, they did, as was made clear in the 2 emails she noted.
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Speaking of “cherry picking”…
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That is the original point i raised.
Sondland was so inconsistent, and mixed his presumptions with the intentions of others so much, that you can cherry pick it to damn or exonerate Trump, depending on your own bias.
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I meant how you chose to address exactly two lines out of a fairly substantial post about a different topic.
We know you like Trump and any testimony or evidence of his wrongdoing is de facto flawed or incorrect.
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You chose to bring Trump into a thread on the Democratic debates, so I replied to that.
What has amazed me is that depending on which news outlet you are watching at the moment, Sondland can be seen as a slam dunk win for either side.
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It was the other Russ that started the thread.
“What has amazed me . . .” As a third-party guy, you should be used to that by now. No Trump-aligned republican can do wrong on Fox; no Democrat not named Bernie can do wrong on MSNBC.
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After watching nearly non-stop “I-hearing” most of the day I couldn’t make it through more than 15 mins. of debate. I’m still for Kloubuchar and Mayor Pete B., but just couldn’t care last night. (Whimpy gal, huh? Ha.) Now , I got to put on everything in my closet for a 9 a.m. tee-time. BBBRRRRRR…..
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What do you think of Tulsi Gabbard?
She struck me as the only candidate who could win over independents, but I don’t think she has a chance of getting the nomination.
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@Tabor
Gabbard should run for the GOP nomination.
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I caught the last hour. My take:
Up:
* Buttigieg, though he’s starting to sound too rehearsed, which can come across as inauthentic.
* Booker. He seemed less angry last night, and I liked his snipes at Biden.
* Yang. He improves every time I see him. I like his passion and conviction.
* Gabbard. It’s great to see her back on the stage after being excluded from one of the earlier debates.
Down:
* Biden. I’m anxious to see what happens to the field if/when he drops out.
* Steyer.
Neutral:
Harris.
Klobuchar.
Sanders.
Warren.
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Does Warren understand that her wealth tax would require a Constitutional Amendment?
https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/64/direct-taxes
And that was only lifted for taxes on income by the 16th Amendment, not existing wealth.
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I suspect the honest answer is that she has no real intention of implementing it. She has to know it’s a loser of a strategy. Yes, you’d probably get a short-lived benefit from increasing money velocity by getting it out of the hands of the 1% who are just sitting on their money in hedge funds and driving up real estate prices. But over the medium and longer term, it’s not the answer. There has to be a fundamental rebalancing brought about by the end of the business oligarchy that has co-opted our free market economy. Else we will become more and more like Japan, except that Japan doesn’t have the gross income inequality we already have, which will have the US in a “lost decade” of our own that will be much longer and deeper than Japan’s.
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So, your proposal is to take capital out of the hands of those who have shown they can employ it to create wealth and put it into the hands of those who will spend it on Chinese made consumer goods.
That’s great for the Chinese economy.
And the Japanese middle class saves and invest at a far greater rate than we do.
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No, as I say, a wealth tax, or indeed taxes in general, are only a band-aid. It’s the structural market problems that are a problem.
Here’s a summary and the full idea:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-21/the-world-may-have-a-bigger-problem-than-a-potential-recession
http://www.oecd.org/economic-outlook/
I especially love slide 11 in the OECD chart. It puts the lie to Trump’s claims about the Fed and interest rates being the cause of any slowdown.
And slide 15 – which is basically Elizabeth Warren & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s economic plan.
The only thing missing in this analysis is the rise of oligarchy as the underlying cause. It fuels the income and wealth inequality, the nationalism, the short-sighted trade practices and a world/economic view that looks backwards and not forward.
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There will be no problem raising the equivalent amount by taxing – at whatever rate necessary – the INCOME from those fortunes. It is time for those who have been robbing the Treasury for four decades to pay their fair share and it ain’t 15% of the income from billion dollar fortunes.
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Total confiscation of all of the US’s 650 or so billionaires(if it were possible) wealth would not fund 1 year of Medicare for All.
They have somewhat under $2,5Trillion between them. Not enough.
And how would you get it? Their money is tied up in factories, mines, hospitals, hotels and other producing property, not buried in mason jars in their back yards. Force them to sell? To whom? All the other potential buyers are similarly being robbed.
But when you’re blinded by the lust to smite those who offend you, you really don’t think things through.
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@Tabor
You are the one who is blinded and does not think things through. There are already huge streams of funding. The small wealth tax proposed is not supposed to fund the whole thing. This is a typical “conservative” argument which cherry-picks one fact (paying for all health service will cost a lot) while ignoring other relative facts (we already more than pay for ALL those services through a dog’s breakfast of revenue streams). The higher taxes on the most wealthy are there to allow the poorest to take part in the system. Not to pay for everything.
I have not lust to smite anybody. I just want everybody to have affordable healthcare and a rational system of financing it. Again, leave it to a “conservative” to cast reasonable proposals to solve a major problem in terms of class warfare.
To help your further understanding of all these matters here are some distinctions that might be helpful . . .
“Capitalism – anybody can be rich.
Communism – nobody can be rich.
Socialism – anybody can be rich but nobody should be poor.”
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