Can anyone stop the orange ball of hate now that Tom Brady of the New England Patriots has his back?
Can anyone stop the orange ball of hate now that Tom Brady of the New England Patriots has his back? a katz / Shutterstock.com

Fairly or unfairly, wrongly or rightly, all eyes are on Trump this evening. Fiorina has promised to give him the business. Paul has threatened to out the billionaire as a fake conservative. Will Trump keep his cool like he says he will, or will it be a bloodbath?

Other burning questions: Will Carly Fiorina repeat her command performance in the first debate? Will Rubio do well again and reap no benefits in the polls? Will Jeb! convince anybody that he actually wants to be president? Find out now:

4:50 pm: The debate will begin after all 16 candidates take a group photo for the 2016 yearbook.

5:01 pm: Heads up, Dr. Ben Carson is repping the Lord tonight. He’s got dibs on the Lord! NYAH NYAH, EVERYONE ELSE.

5:05 pm: The candidates are all lined up for a photo. Jeb! won't get any closer to Trump than he has to. Trump looks like he's talkin' shit.

5:08 pm: Anyone who thinks that climate change isn't real doesn't get to be called a doctor, Ben Carson. Turn in your scalpel and stethoscope.

5:12 pm: The candidates are trying to introduce themselves in under 30 seconds. Huckabee calls everyone on stage "the A Team." Yes, Huckabee. One of 11 A's.

5:14 pm: Is Ben "The Number One Cause of Death for Black People Is Abortion" Carson on 'luudes tonight?

5:15 pm: Donald Trump looks like a toasted marshmallow with some cat hair stuck to it. Not sayin', just sayin'.

5:18 pm: Christie says you should take the camera off him and put it on the audience. We couldn't agree with you more, Governor.

5:19 pm: Scott Walker says he took on the status quo in his state. By what, blocking Medicaid expansion to poor people?

5:19 pm: Fiorina: "I think Mr. Trump is a wonderful entertainer." *drinks tea*

5:20 pm: Trump: "Rand Paul shouldn't be onstage. He's number 11." Shots fired. Paul responds by calling Trump sophomoric, attacks him on his looks, and says he shouldn't have his finger on the red button for the atomic bomb. Trump says he never attacked Paul on HIS looks, though there's lots to talk about. Trump looks like he's about to give Paul an atomic wedgie.

5:25 pm: Scott "mandatory ultrasounds are cool" Walker actually lands a hit on Trump. "Just because he says it doesn't make it true." Some people in the crowd seem to appreciate this.

5:26 pm: Kasich says if he were at home he'd turn off these debates, presumably because of the bickering that's gone on so far. Thanks, Dad. Also, thanks for interrupting to comment about how much people have been interrupting.

5:28 pm: Christie just congratulated himself for vetoing 400 bills, then announced that he's the one who will actually get stuff done. Inaction is the highest form of action.

5:30 pm: Jeb! and Trump are in a tiff about who is more in danger of being bought out by special interests. Midway through the back-and-forth, Trump says, "He's got more energy tonight, I like that." Jeb! promptly shuts up, dismayed.

5:37 pm: They're talking Russia, and clearly everybody's practiced this one. Trump says he'd get along with Putin, which is obvious. Rubio blames Obama for Russia's increased sphere of influence in the region. Fiorina doesn't want to talk to Putin. She wants to rebuild the missile defense shield and arm the Kurds. Seems like they want to scale up in anticipation of a full scale war with Russia.

5:40 pm: At any given moment, it seems possible that Ted Cruz's skin might slip off his face and reveal a giant Q-tip with googly eyes stuck to it.

5:43 pm: Walker says he wants to play cards with Obama because he "folds on every hand" with Iran. Clearly Walker's not a conservative at the card table.

5:44 pm: Well, Jeb! looks positively sane compared to his fellow candidates on the Iran deal. "It's not a strategy to tear up an agreement.”

5:46 pm: Huckabee says that Iran threatens the "very essence of Western civilization," meaning... Israel? Jews? Oy vey. Another not-so-veiled reference to Huckabee's weird religio-fascination with Jews. (See here.) The two Jews live-Slogging this are not impressed.

5:46 pm: Trump thinks Obama should have gone into Syria with a huge force, and says Republican senators are to blame for not giving him the authority to strike. Rubio says he didn't trust Obama. Paul thinks ISIS would have taken over Syria if we did it. And Cruz references an editorial cartoon.

5:50 pm: Cruz: "If you're voting for Hillary, you're voting for the Ayatollah Khomeini to have a nuclear weapon." Invade EVERYTHINGGGGGGGGG. *Snorts a line off of the lectern*

5:56 pm: Jeb! just came out in favor of people and businesses discriminating against gay people if they want to. Reminder: he's the establishment candidate.

5:57 pm: Fighting the urge not to strangle Ted Cruz with a giant set of Fallopian-shaped nunchucks when he talks about defunding Planned Parenthood.

5:59 pm: Fiorina says she'd shut down the government over Planned Parenthood funding. Easy for her to say, she's not in office.

6:04 pm: "Everybody better start thinking about North Korea... and perhaps a couple of other places." Okay, yes, it's really funny that Trump is so willing to use the threat of nuclear weapons to rile up the base. But it's also fucking terrifying that he relies almost entirely on fear of fictional enemies in the white imagination to motivate a not-insignificant chunk of the voting population.

6:05 pm: Don't worry about Planned Parenthood, women of America. Trump says he'll protect you.

6:06 pm: Moderator calls out Trump for insinuating that Fiorina's face disqualified her for the presidency. Trump says Fiorina's got a purdy face: "She's a beautiful woman."

6:12 pm: Christie tries to out-dystopia Trump regarding the so-called billionaire's vision of deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants. Christie says we need drones, ATF enforcement, and fingerprints of everyone who has "overstayed their visa" welcome.

6:16 pm: Jeb! wants Trump to apologize for insulting his wife. Trump said he didn't say anything wrong, but hears "she's a lovely woman." Jeb! changes the subject. Strike two, Jeb!

6:17 pm: How can Republicans talk about building a wall at the same time the entire world is criticizing Hungary for attempting to keep Syrian refugees out with barbed wire? The cognitive dissonance in here, man.

6:18 pm: Rubio: "I want to tell you a story about someone who didn't speak English that well." Rich Smith: "WHISKEY. NOW.”

6:21 pm: "The Son of a Bartender and a Maid," the ballad of Marco Rubio.

6:23 pm: Ben Carson seems to be under the impression that there's a spigot located somewhere in America that "dispenses all the goodies" to undocumented immigrants. Where is this spigot and does it dispense candy and if not WHY NOT?

6:28 pm: Fiorina says Democrats don't want to solve the "immigration problem," because they want to keep it as an issue. I guess that's why Obama issued that executive order.

6:30 pm: A well-timed tweet from Hillary while Fiorina’s talking about her experience as HP CEO.

6:34 pm: Chris Christie has earned the Republican nomination for class referee.

6:35 pm: Does anyone actually buy Christie's anti-elitism? "The fact is we don't want to hear about your careers," he tells Fiorina and Trump. "You know who's not successful? the middle class who's getting plowed over by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.”

6:37 pm: Christie just talked about plowing the middle class, and now Kasich keeps saying that he's the only candidate who has done it "in both places." Once the dick is out, it's on the table.

6:44 pm: Moderator says that he thinks all the Republican candidates are more qualified to be President than Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump is on the stage. Donald. Trump.

6:47 pm: Scott Walker doesn't want to talk about the minimum wage. "I don't want to argue about how low things are going to be," he says. "I want to talk about how to lift everyone up in America. That's what we've done in Wisconsin." Oh, like denying healthcare to the state's low-income earners? BARGLE BARGLE BARGLE.

6:47 pm: Fiorina says Hillary hasn't accomplished anything. Somewhere, her graduating class at Yale Law is just breaking shit.

6:50 pm: Donald Trump doesn't know anyone who would know the names of the leaders of ISIS and and al-Qaeda, but once he's president, he's sure they'll suddenly appear.

6:53 pm: Rubio says we’re eviscerating the military. This is the second time today that a Republican has made that claim. A glimpse of the discretionary spending budget, ladies and gentlemen.

6:56 pm: Speaking of Rubio: he says he missed votes in the Senate because he doesn't believe in the power of the Senate to help fix America's problems.

7:03 pm: Trump said that Dubya handed us Obama. Jeb!'s riposte: "One thing I know about my brother is that he kept us safe." The crowd went wild. Trump said, "You feel safe right now? I don't feel so safe."

7:04 pm: As president, Trump would lick his finger, stick it in the air, and measure his own personal feeling of safety before deciding to invade the other countries, you guys. He's got you. He's got. You.

7:05 pm: Christie proudly admits that we went into Iraq and Afghanistan because those who lost folk in 9/11 wanted to get revenge.

7:06 pm:

PREACH!!!

7:12 pm: In regard to the war on terrorism, Huckabee just said that the most dangerous person in office is "someone who doesn't know what he doesn't know." Did you feel that chill, Rumsfeld?

7:16 pm: Kasich: "Faith in Jewish and Christian principles (...) tell us to battle the radicals." Ain't nothing like theocracy to battle theocracy, y'all.

7:17 pm: Everybody is willing to throw Justice Roberts under the bus. Jeb! won't because he will never escape his brother's shadow.

7:22 pm: Saving these gems for #GOPDebate mad libs later: "Arab boots on the ground" "blob of tissue" "philosopher kings" "beautiful woman."

7:25 pm: Meanwhile:

7:27 pm: THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT POT. Paul says it's unfair that poor people--often African Americans and Hispanics--are going to jail for drugs: "We damage them by incarcerating them," he says. Why can't he always say sane shit like that?

7:29 pm: Jeb! admits to smoking pot in high school. Hasn't tried it since cuz he's still hiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

7:32 pm: Paul and Christie are going back and forth about pot. Christie's against recreational pot, Paul says it's a state issue. Then Fiorina jumps in and says that she and her husband buried a child due to drug addiction, blames pot as a gateway drug.

7:38 pm: The topic has switched to guns. We shouldn't pass gun control laws, according to Rubio, because: "Criminals are going to ignore the law because they're criminals." But isn't a criminal only a criminal once he commits a crime? I'll follow you down this tautological road as far as you wanna go, Rubio.

7:43 pm: FINALLY A QUESTION ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. Rubio parts with the Gipper on this one. He's not going to do anything about climate change because anything we do won't matter: "America is not a planet." He says he's skeptical of solutions from the left because they will make America a more expensive place to live.

7:44 pm: Liveslogger health update: Sydney has just thrown herself on the floor and is now screaming wildly.

7:48 pm: Rubio's wrong. Trying to fix climate change won't make it harder for people to feed their families. Study after study after study has affirmed that climate change makes the impacts of poverty more extreme, will create food shortages, displacement, etc. This is just bullshit. Plain and simple.

7:49 pm: Okay, this is what irresponsible journalism looks like. Framing the vaccine question like it's an open debate? Seriously?

7:49 pm: Who they'd put on the 10 dollar bill. Paul: Susan B. Anthony. Huckabee: His wife. Rubio: Rosa Parks. Cruz: He'd leave Alexander Hamilton, but he seconds Rosa Parks. Carson: His mother. Trump: His daughter Ivanka. Other than her, Rosa Parks. Jeb!: Margaret Thatcher. Walker: Clara Barton. Fiorina: I wouldn't change any bill because "Women aren't a special interest group." Kasich: Mother Theresa. Christie: Abigail Adams.

7:58 pm: What they want their code name to be if they become President: Christie: True Heart. Kasich: Unit Two. Walker: I couldn't hear Walker's because I was laughing too hard at "Unit Two." Fiorina: Secretariat. Jeb!: Ever-ready. Trump: Humble. Carson: One Nation. Cruz: Cohiba. Rubio: Gator. Huckabee: Duck Hunter. Rand: Justice Never Sleeps.

7:58 pm: What this guy heard:

8:02 pm: How would the world look different if Huckabee was president? [Safe and legal] "abortion would be no more," he says. "It would be as much of a scourge as slavery is."

8:06 pm: Now everybody is just delivering the climax of their stump speech. Yawwwwwn.

8:12 pm: Christie attacked Hillary all night. Now, in his closing address, he's stealing her lines: "This campaign is about you."

8:16 pm: Rubio and Fiorina won again. Jeb! and Christie improved, but not on issues that mattered. CNN's camera went right to Trump after the debate. The focus is still on him.