Tag: presidential debates

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Don’t Miss The Vice-Presidential Debate Tonight At 9PM ET/6PM PT

Make sure you’re sitting in front of the TV tonight for the one and only Vice-Presidential Debate between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence.

Among many other issues that separate the two presidential tickets (including the lack of class on the GOP side) you can check out where the veep candidates stand on LGBTQ issues.

As many folks know, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is famously anti-LGBTQ.

Some details from the Human Rights Campaign:

Pence became a national disgrace in 2015, for his “license to discriminate” bill that could have allowed businesses to deny service to LGBTQ people — and subsequently defending the bill over an outcry from the business community and a majority of Hoosier voters. In a now notorious interview with ABC last year, Pence refused to answer eight separate times when asked whether businesses should be able to discriminate against LGBTQ people.

Pence also opposes marriage equality and Department of Education guidelines supporting transgender students. When serving in Congress, he voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, calling it a “radical social agenda.”

Tonight’s debate will air live on all of the major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) as well as C-SPAN and cable news channels such as CNN, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and MSNBC. Spanish-language networks Telemundo and Univision will also air the debate.

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SNL Opens New Season With Alec Baldwin’s Perfect “Donald Trump”

The 42nd season premiere of Saturday Night Live did not disappoint as newly-annointed Emmy Award winner Kate McKinnon came on strong with her incarnation of “Hillary Clinton,” and Alec Baldwin delivered a drop-dead “Donald Trump,” in SNL satirical version of this week’s first presidential debate.

Mic has the recap:

“We should be talking about the important issues like Rosie O’Donnell and how she’s a fat loser,” Baldwin-as-Trump says after Clinton cedes her response time to him in the hopes of such a remark.

Jabbing at Trump’s complaint that he experienced microphone problems during Monday’s debate, Baldwin’s character immediately turns the blame on Clinton.

“She broke it with Obama; she and Obama stole my microphone and took it to Kenya and they broke it,” he says.

The sketch also features a sparring match almost identical to the one that played out on the debate stage on Monday, with McKinnon mimicking Clinton’s speculation about why Trump has refused to release his tax returns while Trump interrupts her sporadically.

“He hasn’t released his tax returns which means he’s either not that rich,” (“wrong”) “not that charitable” (“wrong”) “or he’s never paid taxes in his life” (“warmer”).

When Michael Che as Lester Holt asks “Clinton” why she is crying towards the end of the sketch, McKinnon’s perfectly timed answer pretty much sums it up:

“This is going so well,” she says, referring to Trump’s unprompted reference to Rosie O’Donnell. “It’s going exactly how I’d always dreamed.”

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Radio Show: This Week In LGBT News 10/1/16

Happy Sunday, folks!

Here’s this week’s episode of The Randy Report on BlogTalkRadio.

My recap of popular & important stories of pop culture, politics and entertainment of interest to the LGBT community:

• Edie Windsor, LGBTQ hero who helped bring down the Defense of Marriage Act, finds love a second time.

• Anti-gay Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore suspended from the bench for instructing judges to not perform same-sex marriages even after SCOTUS ruled in favor of marriage equality.

• The first presidential debate came and went this week. Who won? I think Randy Rainbow did with his parody of a classic Mary Poppins song that recaps the Donald’s debate performance.

• GLEE star Alex Newell teams up with the CDC to share new music and a new campaign to help stop HIV.

Tune in for these stories and more.

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Behind The Scenes Of Donald Trump’s Debate Prep

Interesting look inside the Donald Trump campaign before and after the first presidential debate this past Monday night.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Trump’s debate preparation was unconventional. Aides have introduced a lectern and encouraged him to participate in mock debates, but he has not embraced them, focusing mostly on conversations and discussions with advisers.

During the primaries, the group briefing him for debates was small and closely held. By the weekend before the debate on Monday at Hofstra University, there were nearly a dozen people preparing Mr. Trump, including the retired Army generals Michael Flynn and Keith Kellogg, neither of whom has experience in presidential debates.

There were early efforts to run a more standard form of general election debate-prep camp, led by Roger Ailes, the ousted Fox News chief, at Mr. Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, N.J. But Mr. Trump found it hard to focus during those meetings, according to multiple people briefed on the process who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. That left Mr. Ailes, who at the time was deeply distracted by his removal from Fox and the news media reports surrounding it, discussing his own problems as well as recounting political war stories, according to two people present for the sessions.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a friend of Mr. Trump’s who has been traveling with him extensively, took over much of the preparation efforts by the end. But with Mr. Trump receiving so much conflicting advice in those sessions, he absorbed little of it.

The team had primed Mr. Trump to look for roughly a dozen key phrases and expressions Mrs. Clinton uses when she is uncertain or uncomfortable, but he did not seem to pay attention during the practice sessions, one aide said, and failed to home in on her vulnerabilities during the debate.

“It clearly looked like he ran out of gas after 30 minutes, and that came through loud and clear,” said Scott Reed, the senior political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who has not supported Mr. Trump.

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NBC News/SurveyMonkey Poll: Clinton Won 1st Debate Over Trump 52%-21%

According to a newly released poll conducted by NBC News/SurveyMonkey, 52% of respondents say Democrat Hillary Clinton won the first presidential debate this past Monday night over Republican Donald Trump. Just 21% said Trump came out on top.

Within her own party, Clinton strengthened her base among Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters view her with 50% saying their opinion of her changed for the better.

Only 26% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters felt Trump improved his standing among them.

When it comes to all-important Independent voters, two-thirds of those polled said their opinion of the two candidates did not change as a result of the debate. Sixteen percent said Clinton improved in their view, while 9% said the same about Trump.

In terms of “appearing presidential,” 53% of respondents said Clinton has the proper temperament to serve as president effectively, while 63% said Trump does not.

As noted by Chuck Todd this afternoon while reporting on these results, this survey is an actual scientific poll, as opposed to a “widget” or “instant poll” on a website trolls can vote, refresh, and vote again.

While Trump boasted about how he won several of those easily freeped online voting widgets, several scientific polls now show Clinton won the night.

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Randy Rainbow Parodies Presidential Debate: “Braggadocious!”

I know, I know – “Randy, all these presidential debate parodies!”

I promise this is the last one.

But Randy Rainbow’s very clever rewrite of the Mary Poppins’ classic, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” is very, very clever.

Over a million views in less than 3 hours.

(h/t reader Dan)

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First Presidential Debate “Songified”

Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie join The Gregory Brothers in this “songified” version of the first presidential debate.

The Gregory Brothers have made a name for themselves with their auto-tuned, musicalized versions of current news events. This doesn’t disappoint.

Who knew singing “Call Sean Hannity” could be so funny? Catchy refrain.

Here’s more of the Gregory Brothers hilarious work.

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First Clinton/Trump Debate Draws More Than 80 Million Viewers

According to CNN Money, the first presidential debate of 2016 between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump drew over 80 million viewers across 12 different networks.

The figure doesn’t include PBS, C-SPAN or any online streaming views.

More than 80 million people tuned in to see Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off, setting a new record in the sixty year history of televised presidential debates.

Nielsen traditionally measures viewers who watch via traditional TV at home. That means people who watched the debate at parties, bars, restaurants, and offices were not counted.

Nor does the 80.9 million viewer total include PBS and C-SPAN. Ratings for PBS will be available later Tuesday.

Many millions also watched the debate via the Internet.

Various live streams on YouTube together registered more than 2.5 million simultaneous viewers. Live streams on other sites also reached millions of people.

This means the actual total audience is significantly higher than 80 million.

Nielsen data confirms that viewership stayed high the entire time. Contrary to some speculation, there was not a big drop-off after the first hour of the 98-minute debate.

The first Obama-Romney debate in 2012 averaged 67 million viewers.

The debate viewership number to beat was 81 million, set back in 1980, when Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan debated just once before the election.