Posted from Seth Abramson’s Substack: Donald Trump's Shocking Box Score: 602 Lies in Just 40 Minutes, An Unprecedented Tsunami of Deceit That Is Disqualifying The debate performance Trump just turned in was the most shameful in U.S. political history. It doesn’t matter who’s running against him because he’s nonviable. And now some breaking news confirms it.
All these people whining about Biden’s performance are useless to me. I’m only 62, but I’ve felt the same way Biden did that night after no sleep or having to work while sick. Given that he was facing a raging shitgibbon fir 90 minutes, the reasonable course of action for Biden would have been to swing a coal shovel against Trump’s face so he could drown in his own blood from a smashed nose and sinuses.
Since Thursday I’ve made two more donations to the Biden campaign and addressed 100+ postcards going to swing voters. Will never, ever accept a second term from the Orange Howler Monkey.
I gave Biden a C-note, and another to Airlift.fund, a group that studies grass roots groups and gives to the best of them in the places where they are needed most.
I spent 12 hours on Saturday at the Network NoVA Women's Summit in Northern Virginia, right outside of Washington DC. This is an annual gathering of grassroots organizations to network, to share ideas, to be inspired, to hear from people who know better than we about what's going on and to get energized.
Hundreds were in attendance, and Biden/Harris is our ticket.
Joe Biden has a lifetime of accomplishments and one bad evening. Trump has a lifetime of being horrible.
For all the caterwauling about how Biden should retire, educate yourselves by reading the whole transcript of the debate, and understand that the rhetorical device Trump used, the Gish Gallop, has no real-time counter except a general denial of the whole stream of BS..... Then, when you read the transcript, note the extensive recitation of facts and figures by our "senile ineffective" president. Do I sincerely wish he had been the guy who showed up Friday night in North Carolina - hell yes. Life would be so much simpler, and so many Democrats would not be contemplating taking a large knife into the bath and cosplaying Seneca..... It is up to us to make sure that the arc of the universe continues to bend toward justice. Many people have given their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, to get us to this point, and we can honorably do no less. The circumstances make it easy really - Biden has committed to him almost twice the delegates he needs for the nomination. He will have to step down himself - no one else can remove him. And who at this late date will replace him - he polls best against Trump by far, very few other candidates have national name recognition, and they do not have the campaign staffs, organizations or money to run a national campaign for president. "Alea iacta est."
Thanks to Heather Cox Richardson, the Gish gallop is now in my lexicon -- and I'm wondering if it explains the almost complete inability or unwillingness of the press to deal with Trump's performance. He snowed them but good.
It's too damn easy to snow the press, especially when no one does any real-time fact checking..... I read the whole transcript - in print, even Trump at some points doesn't sound as bad as he did on TV, but when you read what he actually said, you realize it was a campaign rally speech. And "senile" Joe Biden, lousy stage presence and all, still rattled off an impressive amount of factual data, and called out Trump on numerous occasions.
Lucian Truscott did a substack essentially saying, Democrats are the biggest bunch of bed-wetters ever. Now, did Biden actually hurt himself Thursday night? Yes. I think he did badly. But the media refusing to pay attention to what Pol Potbelly did, and The New York Times calling on him to step aside, show that they are abettors of treason.
By the way, The Times's nepo baby publisher has his diapers in a twist over Biden not giving an exclusive to the newspaper that inspired The New York Times Pitchbot's first viral tweet about the fellatio administered by The Habes: “Sources close to Jared and Ivanka said that privately the couple opposes the pandemic.” Further, I complained about the lack of coverage of the obvious fact that Needy Amin has dementia. I got an email from a news assistant who was stuck answering it, and the response included links to articles from 2020 and earlier, plus, "I couldn’t say precisely why our editors haven’t covered Mr. Trump’s age and mental fitness more thoroughly recently. It may be because voters and Republican leaders have other more pressing concerns about him."
Now, whatever their myriad faults, Adolph Ochs was the guy who said they needed to publish the news without fear or favor. His son-in-law who succeeded him, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, said the paper's job was to tell the public which way the cat was jumping, and the public would take care of the cat. His son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, said the best advice he got was from his first managing editor, Turner Catledge, who was like an uncle to him. Catledge said the first thought always should be that you are editing the paper for the reader. Then we have Punch's son giving us the Howell Raines of Terror and then knifing Jill Abramson, and now his son is prompting his staff to go after Biden because he hasn't capitulated to their demands.
All these people whining about Biden’s performance are useless to me. I’m only 62, but I’ve felt the same way Biden did that night after no sleep or having to work while sick. Given that he was fav
Agreed, mostly, Tom. Except for polls. As you've probably guessed I have ZERO faith in polls. If they were by telephone - what was the percentage of hang-ups to the percentage of answers. How were the questions worded? yes/no or opinions? Was the poll conducted in all 50 States? How about DC?
If it was online - did the poll include begging for money? [Most online polls do ask for donations]
If it was door to door, which neighborhoods were selected and why? Was the poll conducted during normal working hours? weekdays? weekends? If the polling company is unwilling to answer these questions, why should I believe them?
I think, from past campaign experiences, that polls are purchased by people who want certain specified answers. The pollster then provides THOSE results. Who, in their right mind believes the trumpster is leading by even 1% over Biden. Trump has NEVER won the popular vote EVER, except in his own warped mind. Hillary, who for some unfathomable reason was disliked, beat Trump by some 2,000,000 votes, Biden beat him by almost 8,000,000 votes.
Yes, the electoral college does throw a monkey wrench into the mix. And the gerrymandering, especially in the Republican States plus illegal "purging" of the votes in Democratically leaning Districts places a steamroller on voting rights.
But I'm willing to bet Biden wins the popular vote, hands down. We will have to be very vigilant in the so-called swing States that rampant fraud does not occur - and I'm not talking about undocumented immigrants.
The point is that Republicans are telling them they're Democrats, then casting Republican positions; things are thus further fucked up beyond all recognition.
This is a quoted remark from a HCR newsletter. It fits. The felon in chief did not come to debate. He came to do just what he did. He used the format for his own purpose and the moderators did not moderate...they let him get away with lying and not answering questions. He showed contempt for the process, for the office of the presidency, for the people of the United States.
"Below is a quote from a reader of HCR's newsletter concerning the debate and President Biden’s "performance":
“. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them.
Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.
It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has. It is similar to what Trump did to Biden during a debate in 2020. In that case, though, the lack of muting on the mics left Biden simply saying: “Will you shut up, man?” a comment that resonated with the audience.
Giving Biden the enforced space to answer by killing the mic of the person not speaking tonight actually made the technique more effective.”
Linda, I'm a little confused by your comment. That quote about the Gish gallop is from Heather Cox Richardson herself, not "a reader of HCR's newsletter." We're a smart lot, but it was definitely HCR who introduced us to the Gish gallop.
If Biden was as cognitively impaired as some people think, how could the people who work with him every day let him participate in that “debate”? Whether the debate was a fluke, we will see.
We know Donald’s lawyers do not allow him to testify in person at any of his trials. He answered the subpoena by the Mueller investigation in writing. They know he would perjure himself.
According to Rick Wilson at The Lincoln Project, Biden had already attended events during the day and might have been tired before he even showed up. He certainly looked like it.
The fact that MSM still talking about Biden in the debate and ignoring the lies of the lying liar makes no sense. Biden was terrific the day after and thanks to Lawrence O’Donnell for showing it and Rolling Stone for listing the lies. A liar is simply not acceptable in any public or private leadership role anywhere. 💩🤡🎃💩🤡🎃 ps. No lies is one of the 10 commandments and donthecon has broken every commandment. How the heck does his religious fanatics ignore that?
One thing that strikes me about all the folks, pundits and commenters on Substack, who think this debate proved incompetence somehow--how these opinions have been affected by a rather insidious propaganda technique. It is actually a general psychological phenomenon, and falls under the heading "framing."
In framing, people's actual perceptions--what they actually "see"--are influenced by the way the question is presented or by the way they have been "primed" by prior observations to see something in a particular way.
We have been deluged by the media, in particular the NYT, about how "old" Biden is and how this is a problem. Just being 81 years old has been ASSUMED to be indicative of incompetence or the presumption of incompetence. Then we had the Hur report and the gratuitous comment that Biden seemed 'distracted' and thus not on top of things. This was THE DAY AFTER THE HAMAS attack. Of course he was distracted.
This has been in the air for months. People have been primed to think of Biden as somehow senile because of his age. This is in the minds of everyone whether or not they accepted the Hur report or the proclamations of MSM. Thus, when they "see with their own eyes" Biden faltering, the tendency to "see" this as evidence of "senior incompetence" arises from this framing unless one actually resists that and looks beyond the appearance.
When Biden first started talking, I myself could feels something wrong. But the fact that he had a cold was ALSO framing my view as soon as it came up (within minutes) and I told myself I had to RESIST the "senior incompetence" narrative and concentrate on whether, however faltering his presentation was, he was making sense.
This became hard to concentrate on once the deluge of lies began--I kept focusing on the lies, not what Biden was saying. But I was able to resist the idea that the falter was senility--and when I was able to look at the transcript I could see that my initial instinct was right. He WAS making sense. And continued to do so with only a few missteps that anyone might make--for example, that insulin now cost "$15 per shot" rather than $30/month. Even what people are calling his "confusion" about Roe is not really confused--his basic analysis of how Roe worked in the trimester format was really how it DID work--the state under Roe could intervene with laws after the First Trimester (later modified to "viability" in other cases.)
So those out there who are going on and on about what they "saw with their own eyes" really need to question WHAT they saw with their own eyes. Did they see someone unable to form a complete thought (no, they didn't, whatever their "eyes" told them.) Or were they INTERPRETING what they saw in the context of the months of framing about what "old" must mean?
It seems to me that such interpretation of behavior is EXACTLY what Hur did. Hey guys--are you Hurs or objective observers?
For all you 'christian nationalists, "Isaiah 30:9-10, 12-13
This is a rebellious people, / deceitful children, / Children who refuse / to listen to the instruction of the Lord; / Who say to the seers, “Do not see”; / to the prophets, “Do not prophesy truth for us; / speak smooth things to us, see visions that deceive!” / Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel: / Because you reject this word, / And put your trust in oppression and deceit, / and depend on them, / This iniquity of yours shall be / like a descending rift / Bulging out in a high wall / whose crash comes suddenly, in an instant."
The Gish Gallop, Trump’s calling card? It’s is a debate technique where one side overwhelms the other with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations. The tactic is designed to overload the opponent with so much information that it becomes impossible to refute every point, thus giving the impression that the Galloper’s position is stronger. The term is named after Duane Gish, a biochemist and prominent creationist, who frequently employed this strategy in his debates against evolutionary scientists. The sheer volume of arguments forces the opponent to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort addressing each point, often at the expense of presenting their own arguments effectively.
All these people whining about Biden’s performance are useless to me. I’m only 62, but I’ve felt the same way Biden did that night after no sleep or having to work while sick. Given that he was facing a raging shitgibbon fir 90 minutes, the reasonable course of action for Biden would have been to swing a coal shovel against Trump’s face so he could drown in his own blood from a smashed nose and sinuses.
I’m with Biden. End of story.
Since Thursday I’ve made two more donations to the Biden campaign and addressed 100+ postcards going to swing voters. Will never, ever accept a second term from the Orange Howler Monkey.
I gave Biden a C-note, and another to Airlift.fund, a group that studies grass roots groups and gives to the best of them in the places where they are needed most.
I spent 12 hours on Saturday at the Network NoVA Women's Summit in Northern Virginia, right outside of Washington DC. This is an annual gathering of grassroots organizations to network, to share ideas, to be inspired, to hear from people who know better than we about what's going on and to get energized.
Hundreds were in attendance, and Biden/Harris is our ticket.
Joe Biden has a lifetime of accomplishments and one bad evening. Trump has a lifetime of being horrible.
Thanks for doing the work!
For all the caterwauling about how Biden should retire, educate yourselves by reading the whole transcript of the debate, and understand that the rhetorical device Trump used, the Gish Gallop, has no real-time counter except a general denial of the whole stream of BS..... Then, when you read the transcript, note the extensive recitation of facts and figures by our "senile ineffective" president. Do I sincerely wish he had been the guy who showed up Friday night in North Carolina - hell yes. Life would be so much simpler, and so many Democrats would not be contemplating taking a large knife into the bath and cosplaying Seneca..... It is up to us to make sure that the arc of the universe continues to bend toward justice. Many people have given their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, to get us to this point, and we can honorably do no less. The circumstances make it easy really - Biden has committed to him almost twice the delegates he needs for the nomination. He will have to step down himself - no one else can remove him. And who at this late date will replace him - he polls best against Trump by far, very few other candidates have national name recognition, and they do not have the campaign staffs, organizations or money to run a national campaign for president. "Alea iacta est."
Thanks to Heather Cox Richardson, the Gish gallop is now in my lexicon -- and I'm wondering if it explains the almost complete inability or unwillingness of the press to deal with Trump's performance. He snowed them but good.
I read of the “Gish Gallop” on both HCR’s Substack and Jim Wright’s Stonekettle Station. “Flooding the Zone” with a firehose.
It's too damn easy to snow the press, especially when no one does any real-time fact checking..... I read the whole transcript - in print, even Trump at some points doesn't sound as bad as he did on TV, but when you read what he actually said, you realize it was a campaign rally speech. And "senile" Joe Biden, lousy stage presence and all, still rattled off an impressive amount of factual data, and called out Trump on numerous occasions.
The perfect reply, of course, would have been this.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0
Lucian Truscott did a substack essentially saying, Democrats are the biggest bunch of bed-wetters ever. Now, did Biden actually hurt himself Thursday night? Yes. I think he did badly. But the media refusing to pay attention to what Pol Potbelly did, and The New York Times calling on him to step aside, show that they are abettors of treason.
By the way, The Times's nepo baby publisher has his diapers in a twist over Biden not giving an exclusive to the newspaper that inspired The New York Times Pitchbot's first viral tweet about the fellatio administered by The Habes: “Sources close to Jared and Ivanka said that privately the couple opposes the pandemic.” Further, I complained about the lack of coverage of the obvious fact that Needy Amin has dementia. I got an email from a news assistant who was stuck answering it, and the response included links to articles from 2020 and earlier, plus, "I couldn’t say precisely why our editors haven’t covered Mr. Trump’s age and mental fitness more thoroughly recently. It may be because voters and Republican leaders have other more pressing concerns about him."
Now, whatever their myriad faults, Adolph Ochs was the guy who said they needed to publish the news without fear or favor. His son-in-law who succeeded him, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, said the paper's job was to tell the public which way the cat was jumping, and the public would take care of the cat. His son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, said the best advice he got was from his first managing editor, Turner Catledge, who was like an uncle to him. Catledge said the first thought always should be that you are editing the paper for the reader. Then we have Punch's son giving us the Howell Raines of Terror and then knifing Jill Abramson, and now his son is prompting his staff to go after Biden because he hasn't capitulated to their demands.
All these people whining about Biden’s performance are useless to me. I’m only 62, but I’ve felt the same way Biden did that night after no sleep or having to work while sick. Given that he was fav
Agreed, mostly, Tom. Except for polls. As you've probably guessed I have ZERO faith in polls. If they were by telephone - what was the percentage of hang-ups to the percentage of answers. How were the questions worded? yes/no or opinions? Was the poll conducted in all 50 States? How about DC?
If it was online - did the poll include begging for money? [Most online polls do ask for donations]
If it was door to door, which neighborhoods were selected and why? Was the poll conducted during normal working hours? weekdays? weekends? If the polling company is unwilling to answer these questions, why should I believe them?
I think, from past campaign experiences, that polls are purchased by people who want certain specified answers. The pollster then provides THOSE results. Who, in their right mind believes the trumpster is leading by even 1% over Biden. Trump has NEVER won the popular vote EVER, except in his own warped mind. Hillary, who for some unfathomable reason was disliked, beat Trump by some 2,000,000 votes, Biden beat him by almost 8,000,000 votes.
Yes, the electoral college does throw a monkey wrench into the mix. And the gerrymandering, especially in the Republican States plus illegal "purging" of the votes in Democratically leaning Districts places a steamroller on voting rights.
But I'm willing to bet Biden wins the popular vote, hands down. We will have to be very vigilant in the so-called swing States that rampant fraud does not occur - and I'm not talking about undocumented immigrants.
The point is that Republicans are telling them they're Democrats, then casting Republican positions; things are thus further fucked up beyond all recognition.
This is a quoted remark from a HCR newsletter. It fits. The felon in chief did not come to debate. He came to do just what he did. He used the format for his own purpose and the moderators did not moderate...they let him get away with lying and not answering questions. He showed contempt for the process, for the office of the presidency, for the people of the United States.
"Below is a quote from a reader of HCR's newsletter concerning the debate and President Biden’s "performance":
“. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them.
Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.
It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has. It is similar to what Trump did to Biden during a debate in 2020. In that case, though, the lack of muting on the mics left Biden simply saying: “Will you shut up, man?” a comment that resonated with the audience.
Giving Biden the enforced space to answer by killing the mic of the person not speaking tonight actually made the technique more effective.”
Linda, I'm a little confused by your comment. That quote about the Gish gallop is from Heather Cox Richardson herself, not "a reader of HCR's newsletter." We're a smart lot, but it was definitely HCR who introduced us to the Gish gallop.
I read it within a comment. Yes it was in HCR newsletter. I took the remark from a reader.
Aha. Now I get it!
I was the reader who posted that quote from HCR here, with credit to her.
I posted that quote from HCR's Letter here.
I posted this comment from HCR's letter on this site and several others, giving her proper credit.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! xxx's
It is the blatant, endless, in your face lying that sickens me the most. We should never, ever be subjected to that again.Nobody should. It’s wrong.
If Biden was as cognitively impaired as some people think, how could the people who work with him every day let him participate in that “debate”? Whether the debate was a fluke, we will see.
We know Donald’s lawyers do not allow him to testify in person at any of his trials. He answered the subpoena by the Mueller investigation in writing. They know he would perjure himself.
According to Rick Wilson at The Lincoln Project, Biden had already attended events during the day and might have been tired before he even showed up. He certainly looked like it.
The fact that MSM still talking about Biden in the debate and ignoring the lies of the lying liar makes no sense. Biden was terrific the day after and thanks to Lawrence O’Donnell for showing it and Rolling Stone for listing the lies. A liar is simply not acceptable in any public or private leadership role anywhere. 💩🤡🎃💩🤡🎃 ps. No lies is one of the 10 commandments and donthecon has broken every commandment. How the heck does his religious fanatics ignore that?
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-debate-lies-cnn-moderators-1235048495/
One thing that strikes me about all the folks, pundits and commenters on Substack, who think this debate proved incompetence somehow--how these opinions have been affected by a rather insidious propaganda technique. It is actually a general psychological phenomenon, and falls under the heading "framing."
In framing, people's actual perceptions--what they actually "see"--are influenced by the way the question is presented or by the way they have been "primed" by prior observations to see something in a particular way.
We have been deluged by the media, in particular the NYT, about how "old" Biden is and how this is a problem. Just being 81 years old has been ASSUMED to be indicative of incompetence or the presumption of incompetence. Then we had the Hur report and the gratuitous comment that Biden seemed 'distracted' and thus not on top of things. This was THE DAY AFTER THE HAMAS attack. Of course he was distracted.
This has been in the air for months. People have been primed to think of Biden as somehow senile because of his age. This is in the minds of everyone whether or not they accepted the Hur report or the proclamations of MSM. Thus, when they "see with their own eyes" Biden faltering, the tendency to "see" this as evidence of "senior incompetence" arises from this framing unless one actually resists that and looks beyond the appearance.
When Biden first started talking, I myself could feels something wrong. But the fact that he had a cold was ALSO framing my view as soon as it came up (within minutes) and I told myself I had to RESIST the "senior incompetence" narrative and concentrate on whether, however faltering his presentation was, he was making sense.
This became hard to concentrate on once the deluge of lies began--I kept focusing on the lies, not what Biden was saying. But I was able to resist the idea that the falter was senility--and when I was able to look at the transcript I could see that my initial instinct was right. He WAS making sense. And continued to do so with only a few missteps that anyone might make--for example, that insulin now cost "$15 per shot" rather than $30/month. Even what people are calling his "confusion" about Roe is not really confused--his basic analysis of how Roe worked in the trimester format was really how it DID work--the state under Roe could intervene with laws after the First Trimester (later modified to "viability" in other cases.)
So those out there who are going on and on about what they "saw with their own eyes" really need to question WHAT they saw with their own eyes. Did they see someone unable to form a complete thought (no, they didn't, whatever their "eyes" told them.) Or were they INTERPRETING what they saw in the context of the months of framing about what "old" must mean?
It seems to me that such interpretation of behavior is EXACTLY what Hur did. Hey guys--are you Hurs or objective observers?
For all you 'christian nationalists, "Isaiah 30:9-10, 12-13
This is a rebellious people, / deceitful children, / Children who refuse / to listen to the instruction of the Lord; / Who say to the seers, “Do not see”; / to the prophets, “Do not prophesy truth for us; / speak smooth things to us, see visions that deceive!” / Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel: / Because you reject this word, / And put your trust in oppression and deceit, / and depend on them, / This iniquity of yours shall be / like a descending rift / Bulging out in a high wall / whose crash comes suddenly, in an instant."
As I said in a previous TAFM comment, Debates are theater, polls are BS. We're with Joe!
So what demented psychopath introduced Trump to
The Gish Gallop, Trump’s calling card? It’s is a debate technique where one side overwhelms the other with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations. The tactic is designed to overload the opponent with so much information that it becomes impossible to refute every point, thus giving the impression that the Galloper’s position is stronger. The term is named after Duane Gish, a biochemist and prominent creationist, who frequently employed this strategy in his debates against evolutionary scientists. The sheer volume of arguments forces the opponent to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort addressing each point, often at the expense of presenting their own arguments effectively.