Live-blogging the debates

Pete: I don’t feel like you’re getting a fair amount of screen time tonight.

Kamala: I feel like you’re getting even less.

Joe: You stutter and stammer like you’ve spent all of seven seconds preparing for this debate.

Beto: You’re still here?

Elizabeth: I normally love you but you seem a little stabby toward people tonight. It’s beneath you.

Andrew: Decriminalize opioids? I think that’s going to require a little more nuance to sell as a viable policy proposal.

Anderson: CALL ME.

Tulsi: No.

Anderson: WHY HAVEN’T YOU CALLED?

Pete: Your lashing-out at Beto about courage is out of character for you.

Cory: I always agree with you, I always like you ... but I can never find anything interesting to say about you.

Julián: I always agree with you, I always like you ... but I can never find anything interesting to say about you.

Amy: Why did your people just call us in the middle of the debate? Are they not watching you right now?

Everyone: You’re all a little wobbly at directly answering the questions you’re asked.

Bernie: I pretty much always agree with you. But you’re yelly and disconcertingly old and please groom someone younger and less abrasive to carry your torch.

Tom: I’m wary of the personal influence of your personal wealth on your policies, so I’m equally wary of your populist messages. But I’m listening ...

Everyone: Please shut up when your time is up.

Joe: I admire and appreciate your vast political experience, but more and more it feels like it’s creating baggage and distraction.

Tulsi: No.

Andrew: You’re an example of how a REAL businessman knows REAL things and how they can thoughtfully, practically, REALLY work. I have faith in you.

Ron Reagan: Ballsy ad buy.

Elizabeth: I greatly admire your knowledge, intelligence and preparedness. You set the bar high.

Tom: YES! Take on trump and crush the shithole.

Cory: Nice dig at trump’s health. I hope he chokes on his bile and dies.

Marianne: Why aren’t you here tonight? Too weird?

Joe: You meander and stumble like a trump when you talk. I’m concerned.

Kamala: You’re so freaking smart and I love your take-no-bullshit prosecuting-attorneyness. I’d be proud to call you President.

Pete: I’d still be prouder to call YOU President.

Anderson: I DON’T CARE IF YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF MODERATING A DEBATE. YOU OWE ME A CALL. I’M NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER OR PRETTIER HERE.

Pete: How did I miss your proposal to expand the Supreme Court? I’m skeptical, but I believe in you and your thinking so I’m listening ...

IS IT ME OR DOES PETE KEEP GETTING CUT OFF SOONER THAN EVERYONE ELSE WHEN HE GETS TIME TO SPEAK? IS HE BEING PENALIZED FOR HAVING THE MOST ADORABLE HUSBAND?

Pete: “That’s not how donald trump got within cheating distance of the White House in the first place.” I LOVE YOU.

I have to pee and I’m tired. I may have to cut this short. Tell me if I miss a big splashy production number or something at the end.

Steve King: Iowa’s Super-Awesomest Politician!

(*applause* *chants of “Go, Steve!”*)

You can tell by the way he uses numbers instead of two- and three-letter words that he always has his fingers (ew) on the pulse of the way we all talk in the national dialogue, yo. Plus it saves his valuable time so he can focus on representing us all with racist hate stuff! Plus it saves on pixels so it’s good for the Internet’s bottom line! End net neutrality! End AA!

(*applause* *chants of “Go, Steve!”*)

"Laughing up their sleeves"? Genius!

Are you gonna make that happen like that time you invented "priming the pump" and "Pocahontas" too? Because those totally caught on. You are are truly a scholar, a scientist, a historian and an esteemed inventor of using the words. You're like a worder or something. And ain't nobody laughing up their sleeves (if I may quote the words of a clever man) at YOU. No sir!

Pocahontas? Again? Is that the best ya got, man-boy?

It's the same barely-insult that wasn't clever and didn't stick but was the best your puerile, bellicose little brain could come up with on the campaign trail so you kept pathetically parroting yourself as informed people mocked you and your willfully ignorant, easily manipulated base roared and cheered in approval while secretly hoping their mindless bellowing made it look like they had any idea what you were talking about because Elizabeth Warren wasn't Hillary Clinton and they didn't have enough firepower to lemmingly hate more than one intelligent, powerful woman at a time, no doubt in part because you didn't have the firepower to explain to them why you were kinda sure you thought they should.

And now months and months and months have passed and Elizabeth Warren is still intelligent and powerful and you can't even focus long enough to read and fully understand even the most glaring potential ramifications of an executive order before you sign it and she's using words and phrases and research and history and critical thinking and a conspicuous understanding of the Constitution to simply and procedurally and correctly and Constitutionally voice her objections to your bullshit racist lackey psycho clear-and-present-danger-just-like-you Cabinet appointments and the best your clueless, whiny, erectile-dysfunctiony, mortifyingly-to-smart-people unpresidential self can do in response is dig up your stupid barely-insult that wasn't clever and didn't stick on the campaign trail hundreds of news cycles ago and try desperately to try and make yourself look clever and insightful and laser-precision on-narrative by using it again.

Smart people intimidate you. Women terrify you. The Constitution confuses you. Diplomacy escapes you. Your own bullheaded isolationist nationalism doesn't apply to you. But clearly and presently your petulant, narcissistic, self-aggrandizing desperation for validation drives you.

And it makes you fucking pathetic.

LINK: Trump to Dems: 'Pocahontas is now the face of your party'