Tonight's debate between the two vice presidential candidates is expected to be both very exciting and entirely inconsequential. The Democratic nominee is expected to mount a twofold attack, both introducing Republican Mike Pence to America as one of the nation's nastiest gubernatorial opponents to women's rights and LGBT protections and, of course, as the running mate of the nation's most visible tire fire. Pence's hardline opposition to Syrian refugees may also come up.
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, is focusing their attention on Democratic vice presidential nominee's opposition to the death penalty with a "Willie Horton"-styled charge accusing him of defending "people who went out and murdered and raped people."
Donald Trump, for his part, promises to live tweet the debate. Because doesn't that just sound like the best idea ever.
As for the rest of the day's developments:
• Vice President Joe Biden unleashes a furious condemnation of Trump’s PTSD comments.
• Another day brings even worse news about the Donald J. Trump Foundation, with strong evidence that Trump used donations from the foundation to win over conservative groups as he prepared to run for the presidency. If such donations amounted to "self-dealing", the use of charitable funds to advance Trump personally, they would be illegal.
• The Trump tax revelations continue as well, with news of a ploy to make sure he didn't have to pay New York sales tax on lavish jewelry purchases. What a man of the people. What a salt-of-the-earth guy. He's just like us, and so on.
• On the business side of things, Newsweek reporter Kurt Eichenwald outlines Trump's efforts to use Chinese steel in his construction projects rather than from manufacturers in the United States. Pre-dissecting Trump's usual dismissal of such revelations, Eichenwald notes that "Trump does not operate a public company; he has no fiduciary obligation to shareholders to obtain the highest returns he can. His decisions to turn away from American producers were not driven by legal obligations to investors, but simply resulted in higher profits for himself and his family."
• So what was Trump doing in 1995 that could have resulted in nearly a billion dollars of loss? We don't know, but he certainly was on a spending spree.
• Eric Trump blasted donations from the Saudi government to the Clinton Foundation as being from "one of the largest abusers of women and minorities in the world." More defensible, one presumes, is the $4.5 million the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia paid for the 45th floor of Trump World Tower.
• Trump surrogate Roger Stone and allied conspiracy theorist Alex Jones strongly promoted an announcement by WikiLeaks' Julian Assange as being a "historic" revelation against Clinton that would leave her "devastated." Trump supporters who woke up to witness the event were instead treated to a two-hour infomercial for WikiLeaks with no new revelations whatsoever. As long as we're dabbling in conspiracy theories, here's mine: Stone and Jones may have pumped the wee-hours-of-the-morning event as a ploy to make sure Trump partisans sleep through tonight's debate.
• When this election is over, Sen. Kelly Ayotte's devotion to supporting-but-not-supporting Donald Trump deserves its own D.C. monument. I'm not sure we've ever seen a national politician so transparently struggling to tell audiences whatever she guesses they want to hear, only to have to walk it back again soon afterwards. Today's edition is Ayotte's debate response praising Trump as "absolutely" a role model to children, which is about the most insane thing anybody has ever said about the man, only to reverse herself afterwards by saying she "misspoke." Perhaps we can crowdfund that monument to the good senator: Might I suggest a gigantic weathervane?
• House Speaker Paul Ryan, on the other hand, is firmly in the Trump camp. That's not been working out to well for him. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is going with what he presumes to be the safer option, refusing to talk about Trump.
• The campaign continues to strongly suggest Trump will attack Clinton's husband for his infidelities in the next debate, with Trump himself suggesting that it will depend on whether or not he's losing.
• The Service Employees International Union is spending $3 million for Spanish-language ads blasting Trump for his racist statements.
• Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, on whether he would share a meal with Trump: "Absolutely f---ing not."
• “The most vulgar man I have ever met.”
• Post-debate poll numbers have finally rolled in, and Clinton is indeed seeing a measurable boost.