Last Call For The Junior Varsity

Observations of tonight's Kaine vs Pence debate:

• The Vice-Presidential debate was mostly a wash, as they tend to be.
• Tim Kaine did a better job of defending Hillary Clinton than Mike Pence did defending Trump, but that's because Pence wasn't defending Trump, he was running for the GOP nomination in 2020.
• I have no idea what Elaine Quijano was doing, but it wasn't moderating this fight either.
• Kaine let some huge fastballs over the plate go and didn't swing at them.  Pence's record as Governor in Indiana should have been fertile ground for him, but Kaine let Pence get away with it.
• Having said that, Pence spending the entire night pretending that Donald Trump didn't exist isn't going to stop Trump's fall in the polls.
• Neither man is very exciting, huh.  Kaine comes across as that cool dad in accounting that you wish would stop talking about how awesome vaping is, and Pence comes across as the asshole lawyer at the sports bar who had one beer too many and is now asking very loudly to see the manager. They're about as telegenic as watching a video of a fireplace in 4K HD.
• This debate maybe moved the needle a fraction of a point at most, and flip a coin to see in which direction.
• I'm going to miss Joe Biden.

Surprise! The October Surprise Has Been Postponed

Pretty sure Donald Trump is crying into his taco bowl this morning as Julian Assange and his Russian pals at WikiLeaks aren't ready to quite deliver that "Clinton-destroying bombshell" that Roger Stone promised yet.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Tuesday the organization would publish around one million documents related to three governments and the U.S. election before the end of the year.

Assange denied that the release of documents related to the U.S. election was specifically geared to damage Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and said he had been misquoted in that regard.

Assange also signaled changes in the way Wikileaks is organized and funded, saying the group would soon open itself to membership. He said the group was looking to expand its work beyond the 100 media outlets it already works with.

About all that Assange has left is his "credibility" in delivering doctored leaks fed to him through Moscow and even that's starting to look pretty threadbare at this point.  If he can't deliver the October Surprise in October, it's not going to be much good to Assange, Trump, or Putin if whatever it is drops in the lame duck session while President-elect Clinton is taking over from President Obama.

Vladimir can't be very happy with Assange or Trump right now.  He's got a White House to try to pressure over Syria and you know, he's working hard to put a Moscow-friendly Republican in the Oval Office, really hard you guys.  It's exhausting being a mastermind.

Maybe this time he's finally outsmarted himself.

StupidiNews!

• Hurricane Matthew continues to dump feet of rain on Haiti and southeastern Cuba today and could threaten Florida by the end of the week, Gov. Rick Scott has already declared a state of emergency.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has suspended a plutonium clean-up treaty with the US over Syria, saying the treaty now qualifies as a bargaining chip with Washington.
• Three British scientists have been awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Physics based on the trio's work in exotic phases of matter and superconductors.
• Former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and current Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will square off in tonight's Vice-Presidential Debate at Longwood University near DC.
• Facebook is taking on Craigslist and eBay with its new Marketplace app, rolling out to all mobile users in the US, UK and ANZAC regions this week.