Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

Giving up is unforgivable. ~Joe Biden

Come on, man.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

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

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sunday Night Open Thread: Security Theatre, It’s Not Just Us

Sunday Night Open Thread: Security Theatre, It’s Not Just Us

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Oh brave new world, that has such bureaucrats in it!…

What’s on the agenda as we hunker down for the new week/year?

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Okay, I’ve never had kids, but it is my understanding that every two-year-old has terroristic tendencies.

  3. 3.

    Comrade Dread

    Little Susie continues to talk back and question authority. Suggested course of action: 3 months of solitary confinement for the entire family along with enhance interrogation to determine how far this subversive attitude has spread in their community.

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    One would think that the Brits, who endured decades of “The Troubles” spilling onto the big island, would be less prone to this sort of bullshit than the vile cowards of the United States, but no. The Tories love them some fear as a means of grabbing power as much as the Rethugs do.

  5. 5.

    Mike in NC

    We will never, ever complain about our TSA goons after spending roughly an hour going through absurd security screening at Heathrow last year just because one of us had a wet toothbrush inside a Baggie.

  6. 6.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Villago Delenda Est: The Tories do love fear, but also there are lots of melanin enhanced residents of England now and some of them are Muslin (as they say down south in the US). So the fear is there to be stoked.

  7. 7.

    srv

    Some people just aren’t in denile about all those British Muslim extremists in Isis. London probably has a dozen madrassas.

    If the crown can enable a few daycare folks, they can be the spitfires in this generations Battle of Britain.

  8. 8.

    jl

    OK, damn Holiday break is over. Can’t wall out the ‘real world’ forever. So, trying to look on the bright side.
    Our new Congressional GOP overlords probably have some good entertainment in them, to go along with all the bad stuff.
    Some Yoho from FL decided to challenge Jonny Bones, cheap two-bit hood of the House, so Louie decided to go where one man went before. Announced on Fox and Friends, so you know it’s real news.

    Louie Gohmert Announces Challenge To Speaker Boehner
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gohmert-challenge-boehner-speaker

  10. 10.

    Brandon

    The UK Home Office targeting terrorist toddlers falls on the heels of their previously widely successful proposal to target gang banging toddlers. Not kidding.

    Troubled toddlers should be targeted in a bid to prevent them joining gangs later in life, the Home Secretary has suggested as part of plans to tackle inner-city violence.

    Theresa May told the Sun newspaper early intervention is key to keeping young people on the right track.

    “If you look at case studies of youngsters who got involved in gang violence, very often there are lots of points in time at which, if someone had done something, that young person’s life could have been changed,” she said.

    “That goes for primary schools, hospitals, children’s services, and even housing departments. This isn’t just a problem for the police.”

    Mrs May added: “It might mean working with toddlers. It’s at that age you sometimes identify a troubled youngster.”

    https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/home-sec-target-toddlers-tackle-155628599.html

  12. 12.

    lamh36

    To all the white folk always asking their Black friend about how Black folk feel, or who maybe don’t really have any Black friends and so feel they don’t really have anyone to turn to when it comes to situations and feeling about racism, I hope you all checked out (or finds the repeat) of tonight’s special edition of Oprah’s MasterClass: Stories of the Civil Rights Era.

    It’s a bunch of first person interviews with celebrities and others who were alive and experiencing pre-Civil Rights era America, along with interviews of younger celebs talking about civil rights era figures and stars and activists.

    The first person interveiwees include: Cicely Tyson, Morgan Freeman, Sidney Poitier, Diahnn Carroll and even Condaleeza Rice.

    To see and hear Sidney Poitier overcome with emotion as he describes being called out of his name by a white person, and feeling like he knew who he was “my name is Sidney Poitier, I’m the son of Reginald Poitier, I’m not the name you called me…” then he took a breath, and just looked at the camera.

    Or Diahnn Carroll talking about a play she was a star in, and a party they were having to celebrate the play, that she was dis-invited to, because the party patron, didn’t want to “expose” her guest to the possible savagery of Black folk…

    If you can find the replay and DVR or watch it.

    Again, I know there are more important things, but do yourselves a favor and watch the rebroadcast of tonight’s OprahMasterClass: Stories of the Civil Rights era…

    BTW, OWN network will be doing a whole month long honoring of civil rights legends and the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches. So if you’d like to hear first hand accounts and give your Black friends a break, take just a minute and sit the fam in front of the tv, check out OWN this month.

    http://www.channelguidemagblog.com/…/own-civil-rights-lege…/

    ETA: Also check out the Oprah Prime special on the Selma marches…

  13. 13.

    Anne Laurie

    @lamh36: Good on Oprah for getting these testimonies on camera & widely distributed! I will be looking to see if (how) I can access the special…

  15. 15.

    KG

    That tweet from billmon is probably spot on. I used to work in Palos Verdes Estates, super rich LA suburb, tiny town where one of the four cops did nothing but parking tickets. They had a mobile terrorism response unit that sat in the parking lot of city hall. Guessing post Sept 11 as the government was giving away money, the city jumped on it even though they’re as likely to be hit by terrorists as they are to be hit by a meteor

  17. 17.

    Bob In Portland

    Came across this. Pretty crappy article, but it’s what the Nixon staff used to call a “modified limited hangout.”

    The big news in this story, which immediately submerged and disappeared before it crossed the Atlantic, is that the autopsies showed that the flight crew had bullet wounds.

    Fascinating. Seems to match Moscow’s initial radar analysis two days after the event.

    And the cover story about trying to shoot down Putin’s plane is pretty ridiculous. Apparently, someone in Kiev is pushing out a particular oligarch.

  20. 20.

    lamh36

    @Violet:

    Yep, like this one I missed:

    ICYMI: Diahann Carroll: “You Are Hopelessly Powerless” http://www.oprah.com/own-master-class/Diahann-Carroll-You-Are-Hopelessly-Powerless-Video

    You can go to OWN website and watch some videos from the MasterClass special.

    Part of the #Selma50 month long OWN programming:

    Oprah Shares a Poem Commemorating the Civil Rights Movement http://www.oprah.com/selma50/Oprah-Winfrey-Commemorates-the-Civil-Rights-Movement-With-a-Poem

  21. 21.

    Origuy

    The spectacle of Gohmert trying to be Speaker should be entertaining, but the problem should he win is that he’ll be second in line of succession to the Presidency. Having Orange Crush there is bad enough, but he’s relatively sane.

  22. 22.

    lamh36

    Julia O’Driscoll, 53
    Location: Sandy, UT

    Julia O’Driscoll was a child during the legendary civil rights marches from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery. Her family didn’t join the march and they never discussed race at home. She remembers making one particularly off-color, naive remark at a local grocery store.

    “I pointed and I yelled, ‘Mama, there’s a chocolate lady!” Julia says. “My mom was so devastated and embarrassed, and this wonderful, sweet women came over to the shopping cart and she held my hand. I just stroked her hand, and I looked at her earlobes and her fingernails, and she gave me this moment of discovery. It was very beautiful.”

    Find out how this powerful experience had a deep impact on the young Julia. Plus, she explains why her dad didn’t participate in the marches, and she shares what she remembers about the first day of desegregation in Syracuse, New York.

    Read more: http://www.oprah.com/selma50/A-Powerful-Moment-of-Racial-Understanding-Video#ixzz3Nv1jmY3K

  24. 24.

    Mike in NC

    @lamh36: President Obama, like the Sidney Poitier character in the movie “In The Heat Of The Night”, made the unforgivable crime of wearing ‘white man’s clothes’ and the Republicans will never let that pass. He should show up at the next State of the Union address barefoot and in bib overalls.

  27. 27.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @PurpleGirl: Note that it applied to people who couldn’t prove that they had a fifth grade education.

    ETA: I am willing to bet that white education went to eigth grade or beyond and black education generally ended before fifth grade.

  28. 28.

    lamh36

    This is why a big screen film about MLK has never been attempted.

    Oh look, another “fact check” article about Selma.

    Jeez, first off, this is NOT a documentary…audiences and film critics alike have raved about Selma. It seems to me there is an effort to diminish this film anyway possible. Started with the LBJ WashPo article, I have seen at least 3-5 more since, and today, Politico joins in the fun.

    To be clear, the “accuracy critiques” are NOT film critics. The movie has gotten 100% positive reviews from top film critics. this “accuracy critiques” are obvious in their intent to poo poo a film that getting raves…oh and just in time for the beginning of Oscar voting…I’m sincerely starting to wonder how much of this is blowing up at the behest of rival studio PR teams…jeez.

    https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/status/551919367056007168

  29. 29.

    lamh36

    Weekend B.O. Jan. 1-4 and the ‘Selma’ Non-Controversy

    …Of course you should realize that all the criticism is really about something else. As Anne Thompson said in a piece for her Indiewire blog, Thompson on Hollywood (HERE), what’s really going on here is a secret underhanded campaign by rival studios to lessen Selma’s chances of getting Oscars nominations. It’s a tactic that sometimes works, as in the case of “The Hurricane” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” and in other times, doesn’t, as was the case in “A Beautiful Mind.”

    Of course, just as importantly, it really disturbs some white people (and Julian Bond as well) to have a film where black people are the decision makers of their destinies, and not waiting for some benevolent white savior to help guide them out of the wilderness, to freedom.

    This leads to the question: will the controversy hurt “Selma”? Not in the least. “Argo” was about as fictionalized as any film I’ve seen about a real historical event (see its “by-the-skin-of-their-teeth-last-minute-escape-from-the-airport” sequence which NEVER happened in real life, to start). And, by the way, did you hear one single person criticize that film about its historical inaccuracies? Of course not; and it went on to win the Best picture Oscar. So don’t be fooled by this so-called controversy. It’s a game…

  35. 35.

    sharl

    I suspect someone posted on this already, but in case it wasn’t: the latest chapter in the Dayton/Beavercreek, OH Shit Parade:

    Girlfriend of man killed by police in Walmart, dies in crash
    Single-car crash claims 2 lives on New Year’s Day.

    Tasha Thomas, a mother of three young boys whose voice was featured prominently nationwide after her boyfriend was shot to death by police inside the Beavercreek Walmart in August, was killed Thursday along with a friend following a car crash in Dayton. She was 26.

    Dayton police said they believe alcohol and excessive speed may have played factors in the double fatal, according to Cara Neace, public information specialist. Police have not released details about the events leading up to the crash.

    Thomas was a passenger in a car driven by her friend, Frederick Bailey, said her attorney, Anthony VanNoy. He said Bailey was giving Thomas a ride to her car when the crash occurred.
    …….

    On Aug. 5, Thomas took John Crawford III to Walmart to buy groceries for an outdoor party. Crawford was killed by police after a 911 caller mistook the BB/pellet gun he was carrying inside the store as a real firearm and prompted police to swarm the store and fatally shoot Crawford, who was unaware he was creating a scare. Another Walmart shopper, Angela Williams, collapsed in the mayhem and died at nearby Soin Medical Hospital….

    The article by The Guardian’s Jon Swaine, who has been excellent and tenacious on this sad, horrible sequence of tragedies, is here.

    Who knows if there might have been an ulterior motive here – suicide by speeding? – but whether accidental or premeditated, it’s just awful, and made all the worse because of the kids left behind.

  36. 36.

    PurpleGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: Accepting those conditions as given, I was thinking about a general ability to do that test. One wrong answer and you fail the test… Most people couldn’t do that test, period.

    Eta: I couldn’t remember the legal term for accepting evidence without questioning it, or am I getting things mixed up?

  38. 38.

    jl

    @lamh36:

    ” Here’s a copy of the literacy test from Louisiana used to prevent Black folk from voting! Wow. ”

    That is the strangest literacy test I have ever seen. Thanks for linking to that. I had no idea.. how evil and ridiculous they were.

    Edit: some of it reads as though dictated by some good ol’ boys way too full of bourbon.

  43. 43.

    Howard Beale IV

    @jl: King left a big screed at Breitbart’s Big Government site saying why he’s not signing up for another go-round.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    And, by the way, did you hear one single person criticize that film about its historical inaccuracies?

    Slight correction — I heard a LOT of people criticize the historical inaccuracies in Argo. But most people didn’t care, because the movie itself worked as a movie.

    There are whole books that point out the historical inaccuracies of various movies but, again, if it’s a good movie, no one really cares.

  46. 46.

    sharl

    @lamh36: I rarely follow sports, so the name was new to me, but watching that video you linked and another clip over at Deadspin got me all weepy, and even the normally cynical, hard-assed commenters over there seemed generally respectful and mournful about his passing. Sounds like the guy was almost universally admired by sports fans, and loved by former and current colleagues.
    RIP, Mr. Scott.

  48. 48.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    I must be a terrible person because until this morning I had never heard of Stuart Scott (understandably, since to the best of my knowledge I’ve never watched ESPN, although I’m sure it’s been on in the background at bars and restaurants when there’s a game on). However, from all the tributes I’ve seen, heard and read today, it sounds as though he was a really great guy with a marvelous life-affirming personality, gone much too young. There was a nice statement from the President, and his colleagues clearly adored him. So I join with all who are saying RIP.

    Edit: What Sharl said. Glad I’m not the only one.

  49. 49.

    lamh36

    @sharl: I don’t follow sports much at all, but I did know who Stuart Scott was and I knew enough about Sportscenter to know who he was. Also too, he did not shy away from urban audiences like some people do once they make it past local stuff.

  50. 50.

    Peale

    @Mnemosyne: I had a difficult time with Imitation Game while I was watching it because after awhile the story stopped being plausible. I was going along with it all just fine, but there was a point in the movie where it started to become obvious that what was being presented as history didn’t happen. Not just “didn’t happen that way”, but didn’t happen. There is very little about that film that doesn’t stray from historical fact. If I could have kept the connection going, it would be a good film. But I couldn’t.

    For the sake of enjoyment, it’s usually best to go to the theater and watch historical dramas and bio-pics without reading the “historical fact check” articles. Read those articles afterwards to make sure that movie facts don’t get confused with historical facts. A person can enjoy more movies that way.

  51. 51.

    Amir Khalid

    @lamh36:
    I doubt I could pass that test without cheating. I doubt that whoever came up with those test questions could either.

  52. 52.

    sm*t cl*de

    I searched for any trace of the 39-page discussion document supposedly promoting the surveillance of pre-school children, but it has no on-line existence outside of the fertile imagination of the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

  54. 54.

    sharl

    @sm*t cl*de: What do you think of this anecdote, based on your own observations?

    Lily ‏@LilyLivingstone
    Irish sister finds the biggest change in NZ is how many police there r here now, swarming about confronting people over minor transgressions
    10:57 PM – 4 Jan 2015

    Please say it ain’t so!

  55. 55.

    Amir Khalid

    @sm*t cl*de:
    This has to be some kind of tall story. Just what kind of things does a terrorist-indoctrinated toddler say? Is James Bond to be assigned to day-care centre and kindergarten duty now? (I’d like to see that movie.)

  56. 56.

    Amir Khalid

    Oh yeah: an update on the disappearing wallet front. I reported the loss of my MyKad (ID card) this morning. I was issued a temporary ID, which I used with my savings account book to extract some sorely needed Vitamin M from the bank. Tomorrow I collect the new MyKad and get my ATM card replaced. A hassle, but less so than it would have been not too many years ago.

  60. 60.

    SRW1

    @Amir Khalid:

    Count your blessings for not being toddler in the British Isles. Reporting your ID card lost is such an obvious cover story when actually providing a ‘terrist’ with false documents.

  61. 61.

    Chris T.

    @lamh36: Oy. I like the question that says to draw three circles, with the two circles you have drawn satisfying particular conditions. Since you have to draw three, they can pick any pair and claim you failed.

    (And of course the whole “line around” thing … a line going around something, isn’t that a “circle”?)

  62. 62.

    sm*t cl*de

    Irish sister finds the biggest change in NZ is how many police there r here now swarming about

    News to me. The ratio of police staff to population has hardly changed in the last few decades. How much swarming can 8700 officers accomplish?

  65. 65.

    danielx

    @Mike in NC:

    He should show up at the next State of the Union address barefoot and in bib overalls.

    Better yet, he should show up wearing a hoodie and seriously baggy trousers. With sunglasses.

    On the home front, it was 38 degrees at noontime yesterday and it’s 7 above this morning. There’s the midwestern winter I know and loathe…

  66. 66.

    Patricia Kayden

    @lamh36: Thanks. I had meant to watch that yesterday. Definitely will do so when I get a chance. Oprah is really good when it comes to talking about racial issues.

  67. 67.

    satby

    Freezing cold, blowing snow on top of yesterday’s freezing rain, snow squalls predicted until tomorrow. And one of the two days this week I have to go to work. Yay.

  68. 68.

    Patricia Kayden

    @sharl: Very sorry to hear about this. My sympathy goes to the three parent-less children and all those who loved Ms. Thomas.

  69. 69.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Winter has arrived. The high on Wed is supposed to be 12… at 9 am. Downhill from there. So far we have been spared any snow and ice, but it’s only a matter of time.

  70. 70.

    Patricia Kayden

    @lamh36: No movie is 100% accurate. I recall reading an article criticizing “Roots” for being inaccurate. My gut reaction was “so what”? While Alex Haley’s account may not be 100% true, the experiences reflected in “Roots” are representative of what happened to thousands of African Americans starting with slavery and continuing through the Civil Rights Movement.

    I wouldn’t worry too much about these attacks on “Selma”. I doubt anyone who plans to see it will change their minds based on claims that it contains some inaccuracies.

  72. 72.

    Southern Beale

    So, speaking of security theater: local news is reporting that the Ft. Campbell soldiers who were sent to Africa to fight ebola are finally returning home but they won’t be with their families for three whole weeks because of the quarantine. And they’re reporting it like, wow isn’t that AWFUL our POOR TROOPS. When this whole thing is because of the fearmongering the media dredged up about EBOLA. These folks had zero contact with anyone who was sick, they were sent over to Africa to build hospital facilities and were not providing any medical treatment, but everyone had to freak out about EBOLA and how Bamz was such a bad commander in chief for sending our precious troops to Africa when they should be fighting terriss in Iraq.

    So fucking stooooopid.

  73. 73.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby:Once upon a much younger time I gloried in the cold and snow and ice. Not anymore of course. The old bones are just… Old (well, more worn out than anything else). But I still like a hard cold winter. Makes Spring time so much more joyous.

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    @lamh36:

    That literacy test is appalling. Students should see it. Had they administered it to everyone seeking to cast a vote — or work at the polls — you’d have had about 2% of your population eligible to do so.

    Although at least one of the questions is so badly worded, it may have been designed to have an actual zero pass rate.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    You had to be brave just to show up and ask for it. Local law enforcement had almost unlimited power. You’d be identifying yourself (and your family) as politically engaged-challenging the people in power- and you’d be subject to any and all reprisals. It’s why I cannot understand the states’ rights people. That’s a disaster. It was a disaster last time and it would be exactly the same now. It isn’t just a legal theory. To believe it or promote you have to feel comfortable that YOU would never need a review or an appeal or an intervening authority. That has to come from somewhere, that feeling of being “safe” from what can really be nasty and corrupt and vindictive local actors.

  78. 78.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Patricia Kayden: Yeah, what those critics are really saying is that this film makes them uncomfortable and if they can find a fact to question, they can dismiss the horror of what they’re seeing.

  80. 80.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Elizabelle: I suspect the weird wording of the questions, coupled with the “one wrong answer means a failure” were exactly the point.

  83. 83.

    J.D. Rhoades

    @PurpleGirl:

    I look at that test and think of all the people, many of them white, who walk into my office (which is marked by at least three prominent signs saying RHOADES LAW OFFICE), walk right up the the desk (where one of the signs is right in front of them) and go “is this the DA’s office?” or “Is this TASC (the drug and alcohol rehab place next door)?” There’d be a lot less fewer voters overall if that test was applied across the board. Which it wasn’t, of course.

    But hey, at least we might not have to deal with Renee Ellmers and the egregious Virginia Foxx anymore.

  84. 84.

    Elizabelle

    @debbie:

    I was imagining a judge working through the test. He would most likely fail too, although he’d get a pass to try again. Takes a lot of attention, and some of the directions are nonsensical.

  85. 85.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    I don’t know how anyone works in or around a local system and retains that romanticized, abstract view. You almost immediately encounter nasty, petty, vindictive or biased actors who are ONLY behaving because there’s a threat of an appeal or a review.

  87. 87.

    J R in WV

    I remember seeing another “literacy” test, I’m thinking from MS, or perhaps SC, which was even more internally inconsistent. Which allows the person “grading” the test to dismiss everyone as failures, which – of course – is the whole point.

    Test grader doesn’t even have to be literate himself, at all.

    We lived in Pascagoula MS while I served in the USN and my ship was in the Ingalls shipyard for overhaul. This was in the very early 1970s, as I was discharged in January of 1973, as the ship was undergoing sea trials after the overhaul.

    There was still a sign in the liquor store that read “All proceeds from sales to Ni**ers will be donated to the United Klans of America!” which the black guys from New Jersey found unacceptable, for example.

    The wife worked in the library, and was homesick, as being in Mississippi back then was like being in Dubai today, a very foreign country. You needed a road map to avoid a mis-step that dould get you in trouble. A family friend, an older white-haired guy (we were in our early 20s) stopped by the library to see wife, who hugged him. Big mistake, as a “Public demonstration of affection for a … black person (wanted to say “NI**er!!” so bad!) is grounds for dismissal!” she was informed by the head librarian.

    When wife informed her that Mr. Buckley was a neighbor of her grandma that she had known all her life, that made things worse, as in Pascagoula no white person lived near a black person, by law. You see how this went, like the literacy test, there was nothing you could say that wouldn’t make it worse, from the local point of view. More wronger, to be sure.

    So we didn’t like living in Pascagoula, MS, at all. So glad to take I-75 north to Kentucky, and then I-64 east to WVa.

    I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be a black enlisted person in the service, assigned to a base/fort in the deep south, before the courts and federal justice systems had straightened the deep south out to the minor extent things could be straightened out. Of course, well known national stars of music and the stage died while touring in the deep south, and being unable to access hospital medical care, which was for whites only.

    This was all horrific, and everyone now wants to deny that things were that bad, but it was that bad. No bathrooms for “Colored Folks” as they were marked “Whites Only” and if you went into the bushes to pee you could be arrested as a sex criminal for exposing yourself, and you would never be a free man again! Leased Prison Labor replaced actual ownership of slaves, but the sentence was never served, and you were never free.

    Ted Bundy was a very nice guy, unless you were a target type of female, until he decided you were his meat. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a nice guy, except for founding the KKK, unless you were black.

    The whole political structure of government was is controlled by sociopaths with a thing about skin color, as hard as that is to imagine.

  88. 88.

    Liberty60

    I think the smart tip here is to follow the money, like the tweet says.

    I remember hearing an interview with some old leftist, who reminisced that during the 50’s, you could get nearly any social program spending you wanted, so long as you could phrase it in the form of Anti-Communist Security.
    Like, school lunches made sure that we wouldn’t fall behind the Soviets in producing strong young draftees.

    So now, instead of gummint hiring pre-school teachers, it can hire “Anti-Terror Preschool Monitors”.

  91. 91.

    Elizabelle

    @J R in WV: What an overtly awful world.

    Too many people don’t realize what happened in the past, and the not so far back past. They want to segue right past stories like that.

    I guess there is some realization of the past, given how defensive so many people’s reactions are.

  92. 92.

    Bill Arnold

    @lamh36:

    Here’s a copy of the literacy test from Louisiana used to prevent Black folk from voting! Wow.

    That literacy test is appalling. My favorite is question 30 (sic) “Draw five circles that one common inter-locking part”

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