Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

We still have time to mess this up!

Republicans don’t trust women.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

No one could have predicted…

The words do not have to be perfect.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

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Reader Interactions

130Comments

  5. 5.

    srv

    I am without dinner, torn between Chinese delivery or going to the market. This could get alarming or depressing if not addressed shortly.

    And good news, the Rodman will return to North Korea, it seems.

    Also, too, someone is not going hungry or without the garnishings:

    WASHINGTON — Iraqi pilots mistakenly delivered food, water and ammunition to Islamic State militants Tuesday on a mission that was meant to supply their own service members with the supplies, NBC News reported.

  9. 9.

    Comrade Mary

    iTunes is the devil. It seems to be randomly unsubscribing me from some podcasts (ones I download and listen to daily or weekly — I’m not talking about orphan podcasts). And it’s totally shitting the bed when it syncs with my phone. I have three semi-complete versions of You Are Not So Smart on my phone right now and yes, I am fully aware of the irony.

    So what are the best podcast apps out there that I can use instead?

  12. 12.

    RaflW

    Mentioned in previous thread but certainly belongs here:

    “Wide stance” defense costs Idaho’s ex-Sen. Craig $242,000

    U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of lewd conduct in an undercover police sting in a men’s room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

    The senator initially pleaded guilty to a reduced charge, one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct, which carried a fine of $575. As his political career disintegrated, however, Craig tried to withdraw his plea and fight the charge.

    The decision to fight has cost him $242,000.

    HA-hah.

  15. 15.

    Elie

    @efgoldman:

    LOL – bitterly

    sigh..

    BTW — does anyone feel that there may be a sub story under this Secret Service shit. Why do I think that there is some angle here that is being used? Like “these govmint secret service are no good so lets privatize this”.. I don’t think that the real goal is to put Obama at risk (my lips to God’s ears). but I can’t help but feel that there is something more here than meets the eye or obvious facts — this is a job that is not easy to get and has high prestige. Why would you trash that? A third party might want to trash it — cut the budget and make other “tweaks” to make it look ineffective and “presto” — there will be calls to “reform the secret service”. I am immediately suspicious when Daryl Issa is “outraged”. I just know that there is something smelling if I follow the trail from this creep.

    Anyone else have thoughts about a set up?

  16. 16.

    Howard Beale IV

    As the United States was the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in anger, perhaps we should seriously contemplate their use again below the Mason-Dixon line.

  17. 17.

    lamh36

    Just now catching up with the intertubes. And I came across the latest SS snafu.

    ya know what, I’m beginning to completely understand the people who believe that the fuckin’ Secret Service is doing this shit intentionally.

    WTF is us with all these security breaches and NOT informing the damn President!

    Man with gun, criminal record was on elevator with Obama http://wapo.st/1rDYTER via @washingtonpost

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    Ayn Rand is still a thing because she’s the founding mother of modern selfish-wanker porn. She’ll be a thing as long as there are selfish wankers. And as long as our species is still around, there’ll always be selfish wankers. And when humanity meets its end, the ones who survive to the very last will be those with the most experience at hogging it all: the most selfish of the selfish wankers

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: Yeah, based on what I have seen so far, it looks like a combination of budget cuts and a tripling of the threats.

  22. 22.

    tybee

    @Howard Beale IV:

    well, nuking atlanta with a south east breeze would please many in south and east georgia.
    it would, at the least, save the rest of the state from that resource hog.

    save the flint!

  23. 23.

    lamh36

    Ugh, anyway, right now I’m watching Professor Henry Louis Gates on PBS and “Finding Your Roots”.

    If you are looking for something interesting on tv tonight, turn to PBS at 7pm CST and see the new episode of Finding Your Roots with Professor Henry Louis Gates. Tonight’s ep stars Derek Jeter, Billie Jean King, and Rebecca Lobo. I missed last week’s episode, but I heard it was great.

    http://to.pbs.org/1wVSR2S

    Jeter’s ancestors on his father’s side goes all the way back to the slaveowner named Jeter, from which the Jeter name came from on his African American side. It’s hypothesized that he was not actually the first mixed race person in his ancestry. The clues pointed to the ancestor being a probably offspring of the slave owner and African slave due to the fact that the records showed his ancestor Green W Jeter left the slave owner after Civil War with a small fortune and he founded a church on the same grounds owned by the slave owners.

    He also went through Jeter’s “irsh” mother’s ancestory, but unfortunately, he couldn’t go back further than slave records for Jeter, due to the fact that before the Civil War, Slaves didn’t have names, they were listed as properties! So many slaves took the last name of the slave owner, and therefore there was no records beyond enslavement.

  25. 25.

    Elie

    @lamh36:

    I think that there is another way to read this. Also. Like who has an interest in demoralizing and bringing down the Secret Serice? This service has protected presidents and their families of both parties for a long time. As I said above — it is a high prestige assignment to guard the President. Who mucks that up on purpose? Yeah, there may be inside plants trying to destroy it but there may also be other vortexes wanting to change this service fundamentally. I get nervous thinking of corparate interests protecting our Presidents rather than the people’s Secret Service. They are ill equipped to advocate for themselves — not something that they are designed to do. It gives outsiders “ideas” — as I said upstring — Daryl Issa is a 4 alarm bell to me.. I don’t trust him — every word out of his mouth is a lie including “and” and “the”…

    I ask again — what is really going on here?

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Is this a new season of the previous series, or an episode that I missed?

    I still like the big reveal he did for Stephen Colbert on the first series, which Colbert had to open an envelope to see: “100% White Guy.”

  27. 27.

    Elie

    I don’t think it hurts to be suspicious when it comes to protecting the President. Don’t mean to be hysterical and if y’all think its all good, that necessarily means that it is, right?

    Like they say, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. I am vigilating….

  28. 28.

    gbbalto

    Tulip – after so many years of O’s struggles, I just root for underdogs. A’s will likely get it done

  29. 29.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @schrodinger’s cat: I was listening to Dexter Filkins on a Fresh air podcast, and he said there are strong suspicions that one of ISIL’s best customers for smuggled oil is… the Assad gov’t.

    He also said that the second S in ISIS doesn’t stand for Syria, but the Arabic word that translates as Levant (can’t remember and I probably wouldn’t spell it right) which is also a more accurate reflection of their ambitions, and that one of the biggest reasons Obama decided to engage is because they could bring down ( or at least seriously cripple) the Jordanian and Lebanese govts, you know, the Levant. He and Terri Gross still had a good chuckle about the White House’s insistence on using ISIL instead of ISIS. I can’t figure out why people think this is a topic of conversation, much less humor, still less anger, as I gather it is in Winguttia.

  30. 30.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: So they had to compare Derek Jeter’s DNA to the white Jeter line and it was a DNA match. The Jeter slaveowner was the father of David Jeter’s ancestral grandfather.

    Of course Jeter expressed the hope that the birth of the ancestor was not from one of rape, but statistically speaking, the slave master/slave relationship is such where rape was a probable probability.

    I wonder if the white Jeter progeny are telling people that they are related to Derek Jeter?

    Next week’s episode: Anderson Cooper, Ken Burns and Anna Devere Smith

  31. 31.

    Baud

    @Elie:

    It’s not “all good.” I just don’t see any basis for thinking their is some malicious intent behind what’s going on.

  33. 33.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Elie:

    if y’all think its all good, that necessarily means that it is, right?

    I don’t think anyone is saying it’s all good. YMMV.

  36. 36.

    eemom

    Anything on the agenda tonight that isn’t alarming and/or depressing?

    How ’bout all the talk of Romtron 2016? You’d have to have a heart of stone not to be ROFLYAO over that.

  37. 37.

    MomSense

    Tonight we are watching anime. The last couple months we have had 10 year old exchange students from Japan and China stay with us. Turns out 10 year old boys like the same things and watch the same shows. My sample size is a bit small (3 boys) and they are all nerds but they seem to have a lot in common.

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Of course Jeter expressed the hope that the birth of the ancestor was not from one of rape, but statistically speaking, the slave master/slave relationship is such where rape was a probable probability.

    You also tend to get into a moral area where it’s not really possible for someone to give consent, even if they’re willing. It’s a form of statutory rape at best (IMO, anyway).

  41. 41.

    PurpleGirl

    Saturday, October 4th, at the XL Center in Hartford (Ct), The Amazing Pet Expo. Pet adoption event. 10 AM to 6 PM. I will be attending the Expo and helping Cassie’s Kitten Kastle. Cassie’s is a cat rescue I watch on cam. Anyone in the general area of Hartford is welcome to come by and meet some kittens and some adult cats.

  42. 42.

    lamh36

    let’s not forget though, that as Maddow is not pointing out. the SS slip ups have been happening since 2009! Remember the party crashers?

  46. 46.

    Anoniminous

    @lamh36:

    The only time I was at Williamsburg, VA they held an accurate re-enactment of a slave auction. I’d say the people watching were 30/70 (B/W.) Blacks were mostly transfixed at seeing what their ancestors went through and the few I asked thought it was affirming (? … not really the word I want) wrt Black History in America. Whatever. They were mostly OK about it*. The surprising thing, to me, was how upset whites in the audience were by the re-enactment and how vocal they were about their upset.

    * at least directly to this white man. No idea what they really thought

  47. 47.

    lamh36

    @Suffern ACE: I was thinking, it MUST be something interesting, cause we already know a good bit about his immediate family.

    the clip they showed had Anderson exclaiming “Wow”, so must be something?

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jesus. Maddow’s segment is making the Secret Service look worse and worse, above and beyond anything that happened last week.

    Agents taken off WH duty to talk to the former director’s assistant’s neighbor about un-neighborly behavior, an hour away from DC

    Senior agant demanding to be let in to a woman’s hotel room after he lost a bullet while showing off his gun, later found to have been sexually harassing a subordinate

    ETA: This one was a little hard to follow, but apparently some random was following a car with Malia and Sasha in it, and he was allowed to follow the car on to WH grounds. The Fuck?

  51. 51.

    lamh36

    @Mnemosyne: Jeter’s great-great-great-grandmother was 15yrs old at the time of his great great grandfather’s birth.

    So yeah, I’m not thinking some great love story, but we don’t really know. the legacy of slavery is that victims have no names

  52. 52.

    MomSense

    @Elie:

    I honestly think that it is a combination of budget cuts, chronic short staffing (thanks to said budget cuts) and increased volume of credible threats. Morale is really low as you would expect given that they are working increased hours and constantly understaffed.

    It’s true that Republicans do love them some privatization but at this point I think they are just destroyers. I heard a Republican candidate for Congress (can’t even remember which one) saying that he hated the government but loved Americans. Huh? Our government was the alternative to a monarch.

  53. 53.

    RaflW

    @Elie:

    BTW — does anyone feel that there may be a sub story under this Secret Service shit.

    As soon as I saw that the head who was testifying was a woman, I thought, Uh-oh. Can’t trust a woman to do that difficult protectin’/paramilitary/Praetorian guard stuff.

    ETA: I mean that I thought, “Oh-oh, wingers will attack based on a woman being in charge.” Hope that’s clear.

  54. 54.

    lamh36

    FUCKIN’ 2 WEEKS AGO, President Obama in a damn elevator with a convicted felon with fuckin battery charges!!!

    fuckin’ pissed.

    WTF. The Wash Po reporter just said, that the current SS is not expecting an assassination attempt, and so they are complacent, and the training for an assassination attempt is not sufficient!!!

  55. 55.

    Howard Beale IV

    @tybee: The more the South keeps yelling secession, the more I think the Great Lakes states and its neighbors (ND/SD/MN/WI/MI/OH/IL/IN) should secede and join Canada.

  56. 56.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    It really is amazing. I remember going to new countries as a young adult and feeling overwhelmed. In the first few days my ears and head ached as I tried to adjust to new language sounds. I have a feeling these kids were pretty well screened.

  57. 57.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Open Thread? Oh, good. Hope the BJ hive mind can help.

    I have an iPad Air, and I mostly love it except for its weird proclivity of randomly crashing in the middle of an app. Might be a game, or Facebook, or email, or reading Balloon Juice. There may be a pattern to the crashes, but if there is, it’s obscure and I haven’t figured it out yet. It has happened occasionally since I got the Air in January, but has got much worse in the past few weeks since I upgraded to iOS 8. Yes, I regularly close windows, and yes, I do hard reboots pretty much daily. Any advice, or do I need to trek to the damn mall and wait for someone at the Apple Genius Bar to punch a few buttons and look superciliously at me?

    TIV.

  58. 58.

    lamh36

    @RaflW: well, the fence jumper and the armed convict in the elevator happened on this director’s watch, and the elevator incident was made news due to anonymous sources.

    So no she shouldn’t be blamed for breaches prior to her tenure, but she darn sure can take some blame for the one under which she was the director.

    Should have nothing to do with being a woman, but of course that’s where the sexist GOP will always go anyway

  59. 59.

    MomSense

    @srv:

    The Japanese student was here over the summer. He stayed for about 10 days. The Chinese student is only here for five days and he is part of a larger tour with his classmates.

    Yes, the plan is for my son to go to both Japan and China next year. It’s a little scary because he is my baby but he is a curious and bright child and would learn so much from the experience.

  62. 62.

    beth

    @RaflW: Just so we’re clear, according to my wingnut Facebook friends, Obama has no respect for the Secret Service (or the military) and treats them like shit and that’s why they don’t care if he dies. Really.

  63. 63.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    I loved the days when I could just be as a kid. Run around outside barefoot, ride my bike with friends and buy penny candy. Squandering my youth was the best. I would definitely do that again.

  64. 64.

    Howard Beale IV

    @MomSense: Japan I probably wouldn’t have an issue with. China? Depends where in China-some locales in China are nothing short of toxic cesspools and eating kittehs.

  65. 65.

    danielx

    Anything on the agenda tonight that isn’t alarming and/or depressing?

    Well, since Ebola is here, we can probably look forward to reports about how Lindsay Graham publicly beshat himself this afternoon upon hearing the news, so there’s that.

  67. 67.

    Tommy

    @MomSense: Exactly. I talked the last two days about my niece and her soccer game. It was neat but so structured. When I was a kid we just went outside and made our own entertainment. As you said bare foot. Just outside and doing shit. Happy times. I fear that no longer happens. That is sad.

  68. 68.

    BlueDWarrior

    I’m starting to believe the relentless drumbeat of negative news, while it keeps up informed, allows the weak-willed among the global us to give up and just wait for the inevitable meteor to destroy us all.

    I think the combined apathy and fatalisim is the biggest problem we have as a society, right now, because it allows those who do us wrong to get away with murder. In some cases, literally.

  70. 70.

    PsiFighter37

    So, it appears that while I’ve been on the honeymoon, our chances of holding the Senate have gotten worse. From what I can tell:

    1) We’re definitely going to lose South Dakota, Montana, and West Virginia (thanks, COLE)
    2) We’re now definitively behind in Arkansas, Alaska, Louisiana, and Iowa (Braley’s ‘farmer from Iowa’ comment was so unbelievably idiotic). And Colorado seems to be a tossup, even with crazy social conservative Cory Gardner as the GOP candidate.
    3) Kay Hagan in NC is really the only person proving to be resilient – and if anything, I thought she was the weakest politician of the endangered incumbents. Michigan is doing its typical thing and trending our way as we get closer to Election Day – good on Gary Peters.
    3) Kentucky seems to be running away from us – Georgia appears to be closer now, but we’re still going to lose there
    4) Given that, Orman will caucus with the GOP when he polishes off Roberts because a) he won’t get reelected caucusing with the Democrats, and b) the GOP will be in the majority.

    If we thought the last 4 years were a great show of legislative incompetence, just wait for the next 2 years if the GOP takes the Senate. Ugh.

    ETA: I also don’t really fathom why Obama is seen as unpopular. Considering Congress has been a worthless bag of hammers since January 2011, and SCOTUS is like the umpire that keeps calling that low-and-outside pitch a strike while you’re batting, he’s been doing a yeoman’s job. He should be the one drinking nightly, not Orange Julius.

  71. 71.

    MomSense

    @Howard Beale IV:

    Some areas of Japan are pretty bad right now too. For some reason they decided to spread the nuclear contaminated soils all around the country. It’s really tough to think about them being so far away and all the bad things that can happen and yet this is their world and they have to try and live in it.

  76. 76.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    so…. people who understand twitter better than I:

    Josh Barro @ jbarro · 57m 57 minutes ago
    I don’t understand how it could be true that 10% of American adults drink ten drinks a day.
    TBogg ‏@ tbogg 55m55 minutes ago
    @ jbarro Skewed by @ Peggynoonannyc

    Please tell the Nooners saw that?

  80. 80.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Ayn Rand is more or less unknown to Britishers, especially ones of John Oliver’s age. Perhaps the internet has changed that to some degree so that sociopathic teenagers have more exposure to American Randroids, but ugh.

  81. 81.

    PsiFighter37

    @Baud: Perhaps, but what Michelle Obama said (which I read somewhere while I was in Japan) was point-on – people take it for granted that BHO isn’t going to screw the pooch. But there seems to be some expectation he can fix shit on his own, and frankly, he can’t do much when Congress (namely, the House and Mitch McConnell) are devoted to doing as little as possible to earn their $175,000 paychecks.

  84. 84.

    Gravenstone

    Fuck, A’s take the lead on a 3 run homer. C’mon, you guys have the ex-Cubs curse nailed down, you’re destined to lose big.

  85. 85.

    Baud

    @PsiFighter37:

    Right, but Congress’s failures have been attributed to Obama’s lack of “leadership.” And not just by the right. Blaming Obama for everything has just become the easy thing to do, regardless of the circumstances. (At least among white people.).

  86. 86.

    The Dangerman

    @lamh36:

    WTF is us with all these security breaches…

    Along with the unforgivable fuck-up by the Secret Service, how stupid do you have to be to get on an elevator with the President while packing? Then pissing off the Secret Service enough to get frisked?

  88. 88.

    PsiFighter37

    @Baud: I guess it would be too facile to blame the country’s woes on white people. amirite? It’s more post-racial to blame the black man in the White House.

    This country really pisses me off sometimes. We need to make Election Day a) a holiday, and b) compulsory. Make the fuckers in America care about what’s going on in this country.

  89. 89.

    Tommy

    @MomSense: There was one rule in my house. 5:30 PM was the time my family sat down for dinner. That was not something you missed. But short of that I ran around doing anything and everything outside. Often told to “go outside.” My niece isn’t allowed to leave her back yard. I wondered far and wide. Miles away. Did all kinds of stuff. It was wonderful. It pains me that a generation passes and that is no longer the case.

  90. 90.

    lamh36

    Lawrence O and Jansing saying that the WH is responding to all the latest revelations with “measured” tones.

    Well of course, shit they are still being protected by SS at every moment. Heads should roll and they will, but until things are lined up, a measured tone is how you have to go.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne

    I keep looking at that still frame of Ayn Rand and thinking that it’s a young William F. Buckley Jr.

    Now that I’ve told you that, you’ll never be able to un-see it.

  92. 92.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: McConnell knew what he was doing with his “stop everything” strategy. Most people don’t go much beyond the “Those clowns in Washington!” in their personal political analysis, and for whatever reason, their voters get mad and vote more, our voters– at least a good chunk of them– get mad, or frustrated, or bored, or confused, and stay home.

    A week ago I was looking at some videos on YouTube, and i kept getting anti-Mark Pryor ads from Crossroads (not in Arkansas). Rising food prices seem to be a big theme. This isn’t because of the massive drought in the nation’s produce section, it’s somehow because of Obama.

    @The Dangerman: Then pissing off the Secret Service enough to get frisked?

    If I recall what the WaPo reporter said on TRMS, the guy volunteered to give up his gun, and Sec Service were surprised to learn he had one.

  94. 94.

    RaflW

    @danielx:

    we can probably look forward to reports about how Lindsay Graham publicly beshat himself this afternoon upon hearing the news

    I think publicly beshatting ones self can be a symptom of Ebola. So he should be locked in quarantine for 21 days. It’d be irresponsible not to.

  95. 95.

    Tommy

    @lamh36: Last I checked it was their job to take a bullet for the President. That is pretty hardcore. I can easily see why Obama wouldn’t have anything bad to say.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    @Tommy:
    Tommy, I have said this before. The only instructions I received from my parents during the summer were:
    you better be in this house when the streetlights come on
    That was it. Of course, if I did anything bad, it got back to my parents before I even got home, because everyone knew who everyone else was.
    I think I am part of the last generation for whom those those instructions applied.

  100. 100.

    Plantsmantx

    @lamh36:

    So many slaves took the last name of the slave owner, and therefore there was no records beyond enslavement.

    I’m not sure about this. How many former slaves took on their former masters’ names after Emancipation, and how many chose other surnames for themselves? I don’t know, but on the other hand, there’s a reason almost 90% of Americans surnamed Washington are black, and it can’t be because George owned that many slaves.

  101. 101.

    Tommy

    I think this is a first for me, promoting something. But I got this email from a client. He is a the most laid back liberal I’ve ever met. Living in rural Georgia. He at times mentioned his daughter was in Chicago. Never she was a performer. He sent out a request to give to their Kickstarter campaign:

    Here’s where you come in: we are like new-age Cinderellas who have been invited to the Ball, but can’t go unless we get that coach and gown. BUT, since we are liberated Cinderellas, we wanted to ask YOU our fairy Goddess-mothers, straight-up, if you can help us.

    We are fiercely proud of the show we have created for a lot of reasons – it explores and elevates what it means to be feminine while still being warm, inclusive, and hilarious; It was made collaboratively by some of Chicago’s best underground talent; and we did it all by ourselves the first time without crowd-sourced fundraising.

    I’ve watched the video of their show 3 times and honestly I don’t get what is going on. But art :). Maybe you might find a need to give. That wouldn’t be a bad thing.

  102. 102.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @RaflW:

    The senator initially pleaded guilty to a reduced charge, one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct, which carried a fine of $575. As his political career disintegrated, however, Craig tried to withdraw his plea and fight the charge.

    The decision to fight has cost him $242,000.

    That makes me happier than I have any right to be.

  106. 106.

    Tommy

    @Not Adding Much to the Community: Thank you like a hundred times! Jeff, the guy that sent me this, is a stud. He has sent me thousands, tens of thousands in business. I know he has done the same for others. My gut is in the early AM tomorrow folks will run to Kickstarter to support him, or his daughter. Just because he was there for others. Karma.

  107. 107.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    He is The Most Dangerous Man in the World (at least according to Kasparov):

    Arguably the world’s best chess player ever, Garry Kasparov is on a new mission. He hopes to convince the world that the biggest threat to global unrest is not the Islamic State, al-Qaida or North Korea. Instead it is Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president from 2000 to 2008 and then again from 2012 to today.

    In an interview with Yahoo News and Finance Anchor Bianna Golodryga, Kasparov outlined his reasons for believing that Putin should be what keeps the world up at night. He chided President Barack Obama for being too late in addressing Putin’s aggression in Ukraine — ultimately annexing Crimea. And while he views the president’s speech at the United Nations — calling Russia’s invasion into Ukraine and ideology of “might makes right” backward —he still believes that actions speak louder than words. Kasparov has extremely harsh words for what he views as European indifference to Putin’s actions, and he compares the world’s complacency with the lead-up to World War II.

    […]

    Oh, this is a what isn’t alarming or depressing thread, isn’t it?

    Sorry.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  112. 112.

    Tommy

    @Gex: I often say I am from southern Illinois. I do that for a reason. Southern Illinois is far different than the rest of the state. “Down State.” My family took up arms with the Conferdenercy. Not remotely proud of that, but Illinois was a split state.

  113. 113.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Tommy: I was born in and lived in the Chicago area for my first 11 years in the Chicago ‘burbs. Downstate IL is a very different place. As Mike Royko once replied to someone who objected to his Indiana caricatures by saying that downstate Illinoisans did the same things: It doesn’t make it right.

  114. 114.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Tommy: midwestern sympathizers, Illinois and Indiana, were called the Butternuts, right? as opposed to the Copperheads of the northeast?

  116. 116.

    Gex

    @Omnes Omnibus: I just remember that in the early to mid 90’s I went to visit a friend getting a masters at Ball State. And she gave me the name of a town that I was not to stop in for gas. Apparently the town had recently hosted a meeting for the high school principals in the state, and the black principals were transported in in the back of windowless vans for their safety.

    It was a pretty rude awakening for a sheltered Minnesota girl where the racism is probably more passive aggressive than that.

  118. 118.

    Tommy

    @Gex: My parents live on the IL/IN border, in the southern part of each state. Dad talks of the fact the KKK was there in spades not that many years ago. In the 70s a powerhouse. Cross burnings not that many years ago.It is fucked up.

  119. 119.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Gex: Downstate IL can be awfully socially retrograde. Woodland WI and MN have their own assholes though – just so we are being fair. Although my guess is that the worst places in our states are in the near exurbs of Milwaukee and Minneapolis – you know, asshole country.

  120. 120.

    Tommy

    @Omnes Omnibus: I was in a bar the other day. Just sitting there with my VO and Coke. A person said, I kid you not, “that nigger got in my face ….” I have to admit I didn’t say anything other than asking for my check and walking out. Nobody objected.

  121. 121.

    Wally Ballou

    Lotsa racists here in the outer reaches of metro Detroit.

    Last year I finally had to quit going to the barber shop I’d frequented since junior high school because I couldn’t take having to listen to the inevitable casual racism of the otherwise nice middle-aged lady who cut my hair.

  124. 124.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Tommy: I worked with someone (power industry) once who said that when someone told a racist joke in a meeting, he would get up and say that he did feel like sitting in on that kind of conversation and that he would appreciate them calling him back in when the actual work was going to start. Then he walked out of the room. I think it is reasonably effective.

    OTOH, we (white liberals) fuck up all the time, and we should call one another out for it. Sometimes it is purely from cluelessness, butm when it is, we should get clued in as quickly as possible. And we should believe the women and POC who suggest, however gently, that we are unconsciously being douchebags.

    Final note: Do you still remember all the words and gestures of the Delt Challenge? Just yes or no, Don’t say them here.

  125. 125.

    Tenar Darell

    @SiubhanDuinne: honestly, sounds like it might be one of your combo of apps. I had a weird behavior issue on the iPad 2 (not as severe as yours) that was solved by resetting to factory standard after doing what you’ve been doing with the hard reboots. Not sure if there’s anything in between. If you do go to the mall, make sure you are fully backed up, just in case they suggest it to you too. Also, Apple does have a fairly decent online support community where you may find more ideas. Luck!

  126. 126.

    Paul in KY

    @srv: It wouldn’t surprise me that they knew it was ISIL. Jihadi sympathizers/infiltrators.

    Of course, if all the pilots/crew were beheaded, then I guess they didn’t know.

  130. 130.

    BubbaDave

    @Tommy:
    I was in New Brighton, PA (outside of Pittsburgh) a few years back, wandered into a bar to see if they had the Cowboy game on, and one of the locals joked that they might have it on in the “n—-r bar” and then there was much hilarity as they all mocked the idea that I might go to the “n—-r bar” to watch the game.

    I just walked away, because if I had said what I was thinking I’d have gotten my clock well and truly cleaned. But it was kind of ironic– I used to watch the Cowboys back in Dallas at a sports bar called Wizards with the regulars including Tyrone, Curtis, and Big Tony, plus a rotating cast of 2-3 others, and I was typically the only melanin-deficient person at the table. And nobody down here thought it was odd at all.

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