The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. This income is used primarily to cover hosting costs and to pay moderators for their work (there are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees). Any leftover amount is typically either saved for future expenses or otherwise reinvested into the forum or the ecosystem.

There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post. Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads; these people don't increase the impression stats for your ads.

Design & ad restrictions

Ad text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. No ICOs^[1], loggable mixers^[2], banks, funds, or anything that a person can be said to "invest" in; I may very rarely make exceptions if you convince me that you are ultra legit, but don't count on it. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted.

See the ad design rules for info on designing forum ads.

When advertising a new service, you should always check with me in advance whether your service is OK. I will sometimes accept bids of people who don't do this, but such people are taking the risk of being rejected at the last minute. It's also a good idea for you to have me check your ad's HTML+CSS in advance, especially if this is your first time advertising.

Duration

- Your ads are guaranteed to be up for at least 7 days.
- I usually try to keep ads up for no more than 11 days.
- Sometimes ads might be up for longer, but hopefully no longer than 12 days. Even if past rounds sometimes lasted for long periods of time, you should not rely on this for your ads.

Stats

Exact historical impression counts per slot:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats

Info about the current ad slots:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfo

Auction rules

New members are likely to have their bids rejected unless they PM me first, telling me what they're going to advertise. New members might also be required to pay some amount in advance. Additionally, if you have never purchased forum ad space before, and it is not blatantly obvious what you're going to advertise, say what you're going to advertise in your first bid, or tell me in a PM.

Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in BTC per slot. You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled.

So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 0.5 BTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 0.4 BTC and 1 slot @ 0.5 BTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot.

The notation "2 @ 0.5" means 2 slots for 0.5 BTC each. Not 2 slots for 0.5 BTC total.

- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however, like "5 @ 0.1 and 1 @ 0.5".
- All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 0.01.
- The bidding starts at 0.01.
- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time. Unless I say otherwise, I typically try to end auctions within a few days of 10 days from the time of this post, but unexpected circumstances may sometimes force me to end the auction anytime between 4 and 22 days from the start.
- If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first.

If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done.

I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made.

Price flattening

At the end of the auction, after the winning bids are all determined, I will do a "price flattening" operation. This has no effect on which bids actually win. For each bid, in order of lowest to greatest price/slot, I will reduce each bid's price/slot to the highest value which is equal to or only the minimum increment greater than the next-lower bid. This allows you to bid higher prices without worrying so much, but you still mustn't bid more than you're willing to pay. Example:


Payment, etc.

You must pay for your slots within 24 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.

---

[1]: For the purposes of forum ads, an ICO is any token, altcoin, or other altcoin-like thing which meets any of the following criteria: it is primarily run/backed by a company; it is substantially, fundamentally centralized in either operation or coin distribution; or it is not yet possible for two unprivileged users of the system to send coins directly to each other in a P2P way. The intention here is to allow community efforts to advertise things like Litecoin, but not to allow ICO funding, even when the ICO is disguised in various ways.
[2]: A loggable mixer is a service marketed primarily for improving transaction privacy which accepts full custody of cryptocurrency for a time and has the technical ability to log where the cryptocurrency comes from and goes to (even if they promise not to log).

Auction ended, final result:
Slots BTC/Slot Person
1 0.09 DogecoinMachine
2 0.08 lightlord
6 0.07 sportsbet.io

It looks like I'll probably end up being right about Biden winning, but I was right only through sheer dumb luck, since I was basing that mainly on polling, and the polling looks to be ridiculously off across the board. I thought that the polling methodology which these pollsters use seemed reasonable & science-based, and would probably be more accurate than 2016 (which wasn't even really that inaccurate), but I guess these pollsters actually have no idea what they're doing. Maybe the whole idea of random sampling is just too difficult to perform nowadays because nobody answers their phones, and online panels are self-selected rather than truly random. The big polling misses two presidential elections in a row is one of the main stories here, and the polling industry is going to have to make major changes if they want anyone to take them seriously going forward.

There's a chance that Trump could still pull it off, but it's difficult from here. He definitely can't lose GA or NC, which it looks like he might, and then he'd have to gain one or more (depending on which) of NV, WI, MI, or PA, all of which he's behind in. If it comes down to just one or maybe two states, I could see him successfully pulling some shenanigans to get a bunch of Democratic ballots thrown out, but it's not as if it's easy to do this: the courts are not just going to rubber-stamp anything that Trump wants, even if they're full of Republican judges, and it's not even easy to find stacks of ballots that you could somehow justify throwing out and which will be sufficiently Dem-leaning. Maybe Trump will try it, but I don't see it working if he has to "steal" several states this way, and even stealing one state like this is a bit of a long shot in itself. And while he might talk tough and refuse to ever concede, he's not actually going to refuse to leave the white house on inauguration day or anything like that.

It looks like the Republicans will retain the Senate, which I'm happy about. That means at least 2 years of gridlock. Biden can still do a lot of harm through the executive branch, and he will get bipartisan agreement on things like pro-war policies, but with the Republicans intentionally trying to obstruct him as much as possible, the damage will be limited. I'm especially happy that Gary Peters will apparently lose his MI Senate seat: I've seen several hearings with him participating, and he's a neoliberal authoritarian of the worst kind. (Not sure if his replacement is any better, though...)

ideaology.io will not be accepted. Current auction status:
Slots BTC/Slot Person
6 0.06 lightlord
1 0.06 Murat
2 0.05 DogecoinMachine

The auction continues.

This month 142 users were eligible.

Old:

New:

I was shocked when Trump won in 2016, and I hope to be shocked again, though I really don't think I will be. Good luck!


Very true. That IRS case was after Trump had been in office for several years. Both Trump and Biden will move the US more toward authoritarianism, just with slightly different flavors and degrees.

If anyone else trustworthy wants to join in, I'd be up for making the same charity-bet several more times.

Most charities are using crypto payment processors nowadays, which is nice for avoiding address reuse, but bad for verification. Probably we'll just have to use one of these and post a screenshot of the receipt, which is not truly verifiable, but this'll be among trusted forum members anyway.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance has done some gun-rights-related cases, though it's not their focus. If I lose the bet, I might donate to the Foundation for Economic Education. Both accept donations via The Giving Block, which allows anonymous BTC donations.

I don't do "real" betting. I'd do a modified bet (with you and/or eddie13 and/or other reputable forum members) where the loser has to donate 0.01 BTC to a charity of his choice.

To be clear: I'm not at all certain that Trump will lose, and although I don't like or support him, I'd prefer that he win over Biden. But AFAICT his chance of winning isn't even 25%, so taking a bet at even odds makes sense.

If Trump wins, it will indicate that polling has utterly failed, which would be interesting. However, the 2016 polls weren't actually that far off, with most being within their margins of error; it was mainly an issue of people ignoring the margins of error and "just knowing" that Trump couldn't possibly win. Now the situation is more-or-less reversed: a lot of people "just know" that the polls are wrong and Trump will somehow pull it off, so they're baking in a several-point swing from current polls. However, if the election were held today, polls would have to be much more wrong than they were in 2016 for Trump to win, and if pollsters overcorrected as I suspect, then the real result may swing against Trump compared to polls, not even for him.

While there are several very bad things about Trump, I think that a Trump victory would be far better than a Biden victory. Trump is more anti-war and anti-regulation, and he's much less effective at actually getting the government to do things. It'd also lead to increased distrust of government and perhaps some serious anti-federalist and secessionist movements among blue states, which is excellent from a libertarian perspective. And on a personal level I'd also find it hilarious to see Democrats' reaction if Trump pulls off a surprise victory again. But I just don't think that it's going to happen. The best we can probably hope for is that the Republicans retain the Senate and we get at least 2 years of gridlock, though even this is in serious doubt.

The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. This income is used primarily to cover hosting costs and to pay moderators for their work (there are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees). Any leftover amount is typically either saved for future expenses or otherwise reinvested into the forum or the ecosystem.

There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post. Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads; these people don't increase the impression stats for your ads.

Design & ad restrictions

Ad text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. No ICOs^[1], loggable mixers^[2], banks, funds, or anything that a person can be said to "invest" in; I may very rarely make exceptions if you convince me that you are ultra legit, but don't count on it. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted.

See the ad design rules for info on designing forum ads.

When advertising a new service, you should always check with me in advance whether your service is OK. I will sometimes accept bids of people who don't do this, but such people are taking the risk of being rejected at the last minute. It's also a good idea for you to have me check your ad's HTML+CSS in advance, especially if this is your first time advertising.

Duration

- Your ads are guaranteed to be up for at least 7 days.
- I usually try to keep ads up for no more than 11 days.
- Sometimes ads might be up for longer, but hopefully no longer than 12 days. Even if past rounds sometimes lasted for long periods of time, you should not rely on this for your ads.

Stats

Exact historical impression counts per slot:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats

Info about the current ad slots:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfo

Auction rules

New members are likely to have their bids rejected unless they PM me first, telling me what they're going to advertise. New members might also be required to pay some amount in advance. Additionally, if you have never purchased forum ad space before, and it is not blatantly obvious what you're going to advertise, say what you're going to advertise in your first bid, or tell me in a PM.

Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in BTC per slot. You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled.

So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 0.5 BTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 0.4 BTC and 1 slot @ 0.5 BTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot.

The notation "2 @ 0.5" means 2 slots for 0.5 BTC each. Not 2 slots for 0.5 BTC total.

- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however, like "5 @ 0.1 and 1 @ 0.5".
- All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 0.01.
- The bidding starts at 0.01.
- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time. Unless I say otherwise, I typically try to end auctions within a few days of 10 days from the time of this post, but unexpected circumstances may sometimes force me to end the auction anytime between 4 and 22 days from the start.
- If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first.

If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done.

I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made.

Price flattening

At the end of the auction, after the winning bids are all determined, I will do a "price flattening" operation. This has no effect on which bids actually win. For each bid, in order of lowest to greatest price/slot, I will reduce each bid's price/slot to the highest value which is equal to or only the minimum increment greater than the next-lower bid. This allows you to bid higher prices without worrying so much, but you still mustn't bid more than you're willing to pay. Example:


Payment, etc.

You must pay for your slots within 24 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.

---

[1]: For the purposes of forum ads, an ICO is any token, altcoin, or other altcoin-like thing which meets any of the following criteria: it is primarily run/backed by a company; it is substantially, fundamentally centralized in either operation or coin distribution; or it is not yet possible for two unprivileged users of the system to send coins directly to each other in a P2P way. The intention here is to allow community efforts to advertise things like Litecoin, but not to allow ICO funding, even when the ICO is disguised in various ways.
[2]: A loggable mixer is a service marketed primarily for improving transaction privacy which accepts full custody of cryptocurrency for a time and has the technical ability to log where the cryptocurrency comes from and goes to (even if they promise not to log).

Auction ended, final result:
Slots BTC/Slot Person
3 0.08 lightlord
1 0.07 yahoo62278
1 0.07 Murat
4 0.07 Stunna

The whole Republican strategy seems broken to me. They're talking about all the wrong things. At this point, I'm thinking that Biden is going to win by a landslide. He's currently ahead in Florida and Arizona, which Trump needs to win. The polls may still tighten, but I suspect that pollsters are more likely to have overcorrected than undercorrected after 2016; in other words, I expect polling error to go in the opposite direction to 2016.

On election night, we should watch Florida and Arizona, since they're apparently going to have some solid results early. If Biden wins either, then it's over. If Trump wins both, then it'll go into a big mess of delays and litigation in the other swing states. If Trump wins FL&AZ, then it also implies a fairly tight election, which gives Trump the opportunity to try for various tricks such as trying to have mail-in ballots thrown out in the remaining states. But I think Biden wins Florida and Arizona, which will be a bit of an anticlimactic end to the whole thing.

Ticket-splitting has become rare, so Trump's disaster of a campaign is likely to lead to the Democrats taking the Senate as well. It's always bad when either party has full control, since then the government can actually do stuff, and everything the government does is harmful. Disappointing.

Biden represents a return to the neoliberal status quo, which I would not have expected. The neoliberal ideology and post-WWII world order has been falling apart worldwide, and we seemed (still seem?) headed inexorably toward something else. The protracted and disastrous wars in the middle east were major blows to the political strength of the US and neoliberalism's strength in domestic politics, as was the 2008 financial crisis. Trump's open and loud rejection of neoliberalism seemed like the final nail in the coffin. But now Biden will attempt to "go backward". People voting for Biden want and expect a return to something "ordinary", but I think it'll be moreso Biden fighting to recreate something that can no longer exist in this world.

Especially after watching both conventions, I really got the sense that both parties are at their core fascist parties, with only relatively minor differences between them. For both of them, their central tenants are nationalism, collectivism, authoritarianism, and maintaining the American empire. In the Democratic convention, "UNITY!!!" was the resounding message, while in the Republican convention, "LAW & ORDER!!!" was what they chose to most focus on.

After the election, there will probably be quite a bit of violence, which is really sad and pathetic. For almost everyone, 99.9% of life will be the same under Trump or Biden, but yet probably at least a quarter of Americans are going to feel a certain sense of hopelessness and/or fear after their candidate loses the election. According to an August Pew poll, only 16% of voters say that "things will be pretty much the same regardless of who is elected," even though this is in fact the reality. I feel bad for all of the people who have tied themselves up personally with this election, as if Trump or Biden actually cared about them, or as if their election will actually matter much to the voters personally.

That said, the election result won't be unimportant. The executive branch has been ceded more and more power by Congress over the decades, so a president can do quite a bit. A president could for example wield the administrative state in such a way as to make it very difficult to use Bitcoin without existing in the shadows, and a Biden administration is probably more likely to move in this direction than a Trump administration. I'd also prefer to see a Trump win because it's likely to lead the coastal states to think much more seriously about secession, which would be one path toward ending the Federal Reserve as we know it. (I think that political action of any sort almost never has positive expected value, though, including in this election.)

A narcissist who's largely living in fantasy-land vs a senile old politician... And they both ended up visibly winded by the end.

The whole "trojan horse for socialism" argument is just stupid; people who aren't already voting for Trump simply find it unbelievable. "You're running against Joe Biden!" And Trump brings up the stock market... You're not speaking to avid Fox News watchers, Don.

Trump should've pointed out that at least according to FBI director Ratcliffe, Russia and Iran are trying to make Trump lose. (This is just spin from Ratcliffe, but it would've been effective for Trump to repeat.)

Framing the question of structural racism in terms of "the talk" was smart by the moderator, connecting something abstract to something that most people can find believable and many will relate to personally. Biden's response to the question was effective, though when you dig deeper, the Democratic ideology toward structural racism is basically that racism is original sin: everyone/everything has it, it can't be removed, and all you can do is constantly but futilely try to atone for it through various forms of self-flagellation. IMO this is both wrongheaded and ultimately an unpopular message, but yet the Republicans always seem to want to ignore the issue entirely rather than actually making an ideological argument. Trump's response in this case was to basically dodge the question and point to several ways in which he's helped minority communities, which was an effective response, but like most Republicans, he avoids presenting an actual ideology here. Republicans should say something like, "A great many people, especially minority communities, feel oppressed by the system, often with good reason. We should try to fix this. However, the end goal is colorblindness: to put racial divisions behind us. You don't do that through stuff like affirmative action or critical race theory, which only solidify racial divisions."

It's pathetic that Trump wasn't more effective at attacking someone who is both in terms of style and record as weak as Biden. Both sides made several effective arguments, though Biden was weaker on style, so I'd say that Trump "won", though this'll have nearly zero impact: even less than the previous debates.

It's sad to see you go. Although there were various small bits of drama and conflict, you've been one of the most active and dedicated members of the community over the course of several years. (And if there's no conflict, then probably nothing is actually being accomplished.) I hope that you're not in any actual danger, and I hope that you will be successful in whatever you choose for your future.


Done. Lauda is banned in the same way as satoshi, such that it isn't possible to even log into the account anymore.

The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. This income is used primarily to cover hosting costs and to pay moderators for their work (there are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees). Any leftover amount is typically either saved for future expenses or otherwise reinvested into the forum or the ecosystem.

There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post. Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads; these people don't increase the impression stats for your ads.

Design & ad restrictions

Ad text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. No ICOs^[1], loggable mixers^[2], banks, funds, or anything that a person can be said to "invest" in; I may very rarely make exceptions if you convince me that you are ultra legit, but don't count on it. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted.

See the ad design rules for info on designing forum ads.

When advertising a new service, you should always check with me in advance whether your service is OK. I will sometimes accept bids of people who don't do this, but such people are taking the risk of being rejected at the last minute. It's also a good idea for you to have me check your ad's HTML+CSS in advance, especially if this is your first time advertising.

Duration

- Your ads are guaranteed to be up for at least 7 days.
- I usually try to keep ads up for no more than 11 days.
- Sometimes ads might be up for longer, but hopefully no longer than 12 days. Even if past rounds sometimes lasted for long periods of time, you should not rely on this for your ads.

Stats

Exact historical impression counts per slot:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats

Info about the current ad slots:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfo

Auction rules

New members are likely to have their bids rejected unless they PM me first, telling me what they're going to advertise. New members might also be required to pay some amount in advance. Additionally, if you have never purchased forum ad space before, and it is not blatantly obvious what you're going to advertise, say what you're going to advertise in your first bid, or tell me in a PM.

Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in BTC per slot. You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled.

So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 0.5 BTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 0.4 BTC and 1 slot @ 0.5 BTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot.

The notation "2 @ 0.5" means 2 slots for 0.5 BTC each. Not 2 slots for 0.5 BTC total.

- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however, like "5 @ 0.1 and 1 @ 0.5".
- All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 0.01.
- The bidding starts at 0.01.
- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time. Unless I say otherwise, I typically try to end auctions within a few days of 10 days from the time of this post, but unexpected circumstances may sometimes force me to end the auction anytime between 4 and 22 days from the start.
- If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first.

If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done.

I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made.

Price flattening

At the end of the auction, after the winning bids are all determined, I will do a "price flattening" operation. This has no effect on which bids actually win. For each bid, in order of lowest to greatest price/slot, I will reduce each bid's price/slot to the highest value which is equal to or only the minimum increment greater than the next-lower bid. This allows you to bid higher prices without worrying so much, but you still mustn't bid more than you're willing to pay. Example:


Payment, etc.

You must pay for your slots within 24 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.

---

[1]: For the purposes of forum ads, an ICO is any token, altcoin, or other altcoin-like thing which meets any of the following criteria: it is primarily run/backed by a company; it is substantially, fundamentally centralized in either operation or coin distribution; or it is not yet possible for two unprivileged users of the system to send coins directly to each other in a P2P way. The intention here is to allow community efforts to advertise things like Litecoin, but not to allow ICO funding, even when the ICO is disguised in various ways.
[2]: A loggable mixer is a service marketed primarily for improving transaction privacy which accepts full custody of cryptocurrency for a time and has the technical ability to log where the cryptocurrency comes from and goes to (even if they promise not to log).

Auction ended, final result:
Slots BTC/Slot Person
9 0.10 SlavaVendo

I'm informed that Playerspin and SlavaVendo are the same person, so I will ignore Playerspin's earlier bid here.

Current auction status:
Slots BTC/Slot Person
1 0.08 oncebitten3
8 0.08 SlavaVendo

The auction continues.

As everyone expected, it was a boring and near-meaningless debate between Politician Man and Politician Woman. Each side will view their candidate as winning, and will be slightly enthused if they watched the debate. Undecideds who lean toward Republican ideology will be pushed a bit in that direction, while undecideds who lean toward Democratic ideology will be pushed a bit in that direction. The next big headline will completely wipe out any real effects, probably within days.

Everyone was so shell-shocked from last week that any interruptions or time extensions are liable to be viewed as horrific, though what went on here was totally in-line with what would normally be considered a civil debate. Some interruptions are normal in a debate. Because people would obviously be especially sensitive this time, though, I'm surprised that Pence was as aggressive on bending the rules as he was, and some people will judge him harshly for it. Both candidates did clearly hobble themselves by being more strict about following the rules than is normal or comfortable.

Since the whole thing is electorally meaningless, it's a bit pointless to declare a winner, but I'll do so anyway. Kamala did OK, and I think that her points were on the whole slightly more appealing to average viewers, but Pence had much better delivery and ability to adapt/rebut. I think that if you took an undecided person, had them watch the whole debate, and then polled them before they watched any other news coverage, Pence would win by a comfortable margin.

Random notes based on my notes while watching:
 - Kamala's delivery is overall not terrible. She sounds like she knows what she's talking about. She looks less calm than Pence, though, with some stilted delivery of rehearsed lines and a poor ability to adapt.
 - Plenty of spin and dodging from Pence, but I see less obvious lying than Kamala
 - Pence runs too long too often
 - Kamala's virus points are probably more convincing to the average person
 - Effective point from Pence on Biden's handling of swine flu
 - Both dodged on questions of presidential succession. Pence's use of the "free time" seemed more effective.
 - Kamala got a lot of mileage out of Woodward's stuff, and it all comes across pretty effectively
 - Kamala makes several economic points that will be attractive to people (creating jobs, taxing the wealthy, protecting healthcare, infrastructure, etc.), though Pence's rebuttal was pretty effective
 - Pence was pretty successful at treating Kamala with kid gloves, to the point where she comes off as rude/aggressive in several exchanges.
 - Kamala's reference to a Pew poll showing that other countries trust Xi more than Trump is a novel and effective argument.
 - Kamala's arguments around Trump's interactions with Russia & Iran are too esoteric to be effective.
 - It's a good line of attack for Biden/Harris to connect the supreme court to the ACA, and Kamala made this argument effectively. Pence should've used his time to somehow rebut this strong argument, but instead he wasted his breath on the esoteric court packing point. He was successful in pressuring Biden/Harris further on court packing, but most people don't understand or care about this.
 - Pence ideologically has to defer to the grand jury in the Breonna Taylor case, but it looks really bad because it's such an esoteric argument. It's like defending O.J. Simpson: people "know" that Breonna Taylor was not treated fairly, and no amount of legal mumbo-jumbo is going to change their minds. He should've avoided mentioning her particular case at all. (BTW, pretty rich for "Copmala" to complain about grand juries.)
 - Good points from Pence on Kamala's terrible DA record. Trump/Pence should talk more about this.
 - He couldn't do the argument justice in 5 seconds, but it's good for Pence to dismiss Bush's cabinet members the "establishment". Trump/Pence should talk more about this, and openly recognize that the Democratic party wants to bring together the bipartisan group who are responsible for 30+ years of failure and put them back in power.


The fly was sent by the deep state to infect Pence with coronavirus and put Nacy Pelosi in charge!


There's apparently disagreement within the government on whether those bounties actually existed. (And random leaks from "the intelligence community" aren't trustworthy anyway...)

Damn it... That isn't even good politics by any stretch of the imagination. It maybe appeals to some of his base, but it turns off a lot of people.

I agree that people shouldn't "live in fear"; a lot of the lockdown actions have gone way too far. But it's like driving (which is also quite dangerous!): you shouldn't live in fear or let the risk control your life, but you should also wear a seatbelt and drive carefully.

It's looking like Trump is going to get destroyed in this election, in large part because he just can't get beyond his own irrationality, narcissism, and tribalism. It's frustrating to watch, since Biden is a terrible candidate who represents an awful ideology. I think we're all kind of expecting due to 2016 that things will at least shift somewhat in Trump's favor, but with current polling Biden is on track to win in a historic landslide. And it's even possible that polls will be wrong in Biden's favor this time around, especially since pollsters might well have over-compensated after 2016: margins of error go both ways.