Delaying game? Crazy. I could take the ties to various political orgs, but now Fox has too much power.
— lindastern (@lindastern) October 28, 2015
behind the scenes at fox rn pic.twitter.com/TtyyYox2zZ
— laura olin (@lauraolin) October 28, 2015
Is this a good time to ask why it's called the 'World Series' when the rest of the World isn't allowed to compete for it?
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) October 28, 2015
Why is it called "Great Britain" when, at best, it's sort of "meh?" https://t.co/nbqCFHb4wl
— Ben Mankiewicz (@BenMank77) October 28, 2015
JOE BUCK: Welcome to the top of the 47th
[Sun rises]
[Sun keeps getting bigger]
BUCK: yes
[World engulfed by flames]
BUCK: oh god yes
— Justin Klugh (@justin_klugh) October 28, 2015
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Am I the only one who switched loyalties from Mets to Royals in the bottom of the 13th – and again in the bottom of the 14th – just to get the damned thing over with?
It being an odd-numbered year, los Gigantes are out of it and the Giva dam is broken.
magurakurin
The world doesn’t get invited to the World Series because what would be the point? All the best players from all over the world are already in MLB teams. And the winner of the seven game series pretty much is, without question, the best baseball team in the world. If the French or the Italians or any other place has issue with it, then they can make a team and see if they can beat the Royals in a seven game series. They won’t be able to. We know it. They know it. Everyone knows it. World Fucking Champions. Simple as that.
Mister Papercut
Hey, check out the big brain on Piers! No one has ever made that observation before. Only now do I well and truly understand why he gets paid the big bucks.
Ziggurat
@magurakurin: I’ve heard NPB referred to AAAA – not quite on the level of MLB, but not exactly a minor league. A mid-major, if you will.
And according to that analogy, the NPB champion defeating the MLB champion would be a huge upset. Still, it would be pretty cool to have this series.
Montanreddog
British joke from the latter years of Bill Clinton’s presidency…
Why are the British superior to the Americans?
1) they speak English
2) other countries get to play (and win!) at the sports they invented
3) they only have to get down on one knee before the head of state
ThresherK (GPad)
Expos (and later, Jays) fans have asked the question Morgan has for decades.
Some think the ’94 strike was simply to keep Montreal from winning the Series after two years of Toronto being champions. Of course, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched when considering how Organised Baseball conspired to ruin the Expos.
(Obligatory: Sod off, Bud Selig and Jeffrey Loria.)
magurakurin
I live in Japan, so I watch the games with my father-in-law. The level of play is indeed high. I’ve heard the same thing that it is between triple A and the majors. But the winner of the Japan Climax Series would not beat the winner of the World Series. It would be a cool series though. I suspect that the MLB players get paid to much for their team owners to let them do it though.
There is a series here though were a team of MLB players comes over and plays the league teams here and then plays an all star team. The MLB players don’t win every game, but it isn’t actually an all star team. It is a fun series though. The best Japanese players are in the Majors, though.
Amir Khalid
It’s absurd to speak of a world championship for a sport played only in North America, the Caribbean and three east Asian countries. Especially when the championship in question is actually that of a national league.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Baloney
Baud
Getting Worldlier
Baud
Fascism wears a hairpiece
Baud
I didn’t watch the game last night. This is sad.
NotMax
Grab bag of stories which caught the eye.
Of note.
Imdomesiana mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
Practically scrapoing the surface.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
He’s some piece of work, that Donald Trump.
@raven:
Not baloney. People are passionate about baseball, but it just doesn’t the international reach to claim a world championship.
Besides, the “World Series” is a national club championship, for a league with one non-US team.
NotMax
@NotMax
Cripes, dunno how that happened. Obviously was supposed to be Indonesians.
NotMax
Ghastly.
Honus
Back in the old days, some wag, I think lieblng or red smith, called it the “World Serious” patenting to Amir and Raven i finally understand why.
Honus
Listening not patenting. Spellcheck and lack of editing in mobile combined to produce that semantic disaster.
SectionH
@Baud: @Amir Khalid:
Sportsball. It’s pretty easy for me to take it or leave it.
But once in a while, I’m a bit happy. Americans can play like girls too. Badass.
magurakurin
@Amir Khalid:
If it is only played in North America, then the winner of the North American championship is…the world champion. Since no one else in the world is playing. Bring a team from Malaysia. Let’s see how they do.
World Fucking Champions. Booyah.
Zinsky
My beef is that baseball is a summer sport. They will be playing the World Series while we eat Thanksgiving turkey, if they keep dragging this shit out!
Amir Khalid
@magurakurin:
If you held a baseball championship with every continent except Antarctica represented — you know, like the World Cup in actual international sports — then you could call it a world championship and not have people laughing behind your back.
magurakurin
@Amir Khalid:
You don’t get it, do you. We don’t give a fuck if people laugh, cry, complain, yell, scream, bitch, moan, whatever. Behind our backs if they are scared in our face if not. Doesn’t matter. Not a world sport, blah blah blah. Whatevah.
World Fucking Champion Kansas City Royals.
oh and soccer. You mean corrupt and venal beyond all physical description FIFA soccer? That sport? Whatevah.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Amir can’t eat Baloney.
Ziggurat
@Amir Khalid: Are people from other continents excluded from playing Major League Baseball? Last I checked, there are absolutely no restrictions on imports, which makes this a curious thing to bitch about.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
If you were to hold a sepak takraw tournament in which only Malaysian and Indonesian (and possibly southern Thai) teams competed, you could crown the winner “World Champion.”
That you don’t do such a ridiculous thing is highly to your credit.
Amir Khalid
@magurakurin:
FIFA has corruption out the wazoo, perfectly true. But football is still by far the most widely played and spectated sport on the planet.
Another Holocene Human
@Mister Papercut: That’s exactly why he deserved that smackdown. It’s the sort of thing an 8 year old would say.
Another Holocene Human
@Ziggurat: They’d do it if they could sell enough tickets/tv rights.
OzarkHillbilly
So Jon Kasich has decided to throw in the towel:
“Do you know how crazy this election is? Let me tell you something, I’ve about had it with these people,” Kasich said, according to the report. “I want you to know I’m fed up. I’m sick and tired of listening to this nonsense and I’m going to have to call it like it is in this race.”
….
“What’s happened to our party? What’s happened to the conservative movement?” Kasich said to the crowd, according to the publication. “I’m done being polite and listening to this nonsense.”
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
The correct answer is “Newt Gingrich Republicans,” of which Kasich was one.
magurakurin
@Cervantes:
yeah, it would be, except for the fact that they do do such a thing
ISTAF World Cup
Cervantes
@magurakurin:
You see my point, then?
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Nah, just a rant at this point. I think he’ll toss the towel in soon though.
SectionH
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, we know. Well, some of us.
Didn’t the US just WIN the fucking soccer/football WORLDCUP?
Oh wait, that was just the little women’s minor thing…
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
That’s rather impolite.
Another Holocene Human
@NotMax: ISIL happened because of the Arab Spring, which happened because of a spike in food prices due to shortages, which occurred because of a perfect storm of climate change induced drought and bankster commodities market fuckery.
It wasn’t inevitable.
magurakurin
@Amir Khalid:
so what? What’s the line then? How many people or how many countries have to play a sport before you can have a world champion? Most soccer is played in professional leagues in which the players are from all different countries. The World Cup is an artificial construct. Is the World cup championship team better than the winner of the English Premier League? It’s all just a matter of degrees and artificial lines. Some of the members of the US World Cup team didn’t even speak English. They’d spent their whole lives in Germany. It’s all bullshit anyway. If we want to call the Royals the World Champions and you don’t even play baseball, who the fuck cares?
magurakurin
@Cervantes: No, because whoever won that competition is definitely the world champion. Who could beat them? It doesn’t really matter how many countries play the sport. Those guys are the best at what they do. World Fucking Champions.
Cervantes
@magurakurin:
It’ll come to you.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
How so?
magurakurin
@SectionH:
He shoots! He scores for a case of Tastycake!
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: Without saying what he thinks is wrong, he sounds like he’s mad that the good old days of the Frank Luntz mind control machine are over and he has to pander to TeaPublicans.
And if the Freepers take it that way, he’s done.
SectionH
Sore loser are you, magurakurin?
Randy P
@Amir Khalid: Forget it, Jake. They’re sports fans.
magurakurin
@Cervantes:
you’re such a fucking dick. You’d argue against free blow jobs as far as I can figure.
whatever it is, I’m against it.
Another Holocene Human
@SectionH: “It’s just a little sport called Women’s Soccer. You’ve probably never heard of it.”
raven
@Another Holocene Human: “Women’s Soccer” is not a sport. Soccer is a sport.
Ziggurat
@Another Holocene Human: Fitting it in the MLB schedule would be rough. Pitchers and catchers in March, and the World Series ends in November.
Plus, tradition, and all that crap that “baseball guys” throw out because they’re afraid of change.
The NBA would be more likely to do a Champions Series with the Euroleague, but Adam Silver seems more interested in a mid-winter tournament.
Speaking of…opening night! Obama watches the Bulls, and Steph drops 40 in 30 on the Pelicans.
Cervantes
@Baud:
About that moniker … Kasich was in Congress long before Gingrich won big in ’94, and was even ranking member on the Budget committee — so he may not have felt he owed that much to Gingrich.
On the other hand he did vote to impeach Clinton, so perhaps I shouldn’t shed too many tears if you lump him in with Gingrich!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: It’s obviously the fault of the Mean Bad DemocRATS.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: Whooossshhh…. That was the punchline going over your head.
Gin & Tonic
@magurakurin: If we want to call the Royals the World Champions
Shouldn’t we wait for the outcome of at least three more games before we decide to do that?
Cervantes
@magurakurin:
No, it’s just that you are so pre-disposed to “think” such lofty thoughts that you couldn’t see I was agreeing with you …
Baud
@Cervantes:
Thanks. For some reason, I thought he was part of that crew.
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, we did elect a black dude, which seems to have triggered something primal in their party.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Meh.
raven
@Baud: we did elect a black dude. . . twiced.
bystander
@Baud: This has gotten zero coverage on teevee so far as I can tell. Imagine if some Ellen Jamesians for Hitlery had beaned a wimpy Sandersite. CNN would have Wolf bringing his jammies to the studio for continuous coverage.
@OzarkHillbilly: You have to wonder if he’s not thinking of 2020 and running as a Democrat.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes: Not wanting to get involved in what is a really ridiculous argument to have, but I have to ask, if you are the best in the world, are you not the world champions? And if one is so invested in saying somebody is not the world champions, is it not incumbent upon them to field a team and prove that somebody is not?
Satby
I see we’re starting the morning with the circular firing squad, as all good Democrats do.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Me, neither.
I was just providing Amir Khalid with a counterpoint I thought he might recognize.
Of course, he could turn around and say: Those sepak takraw organizers are just copying you clowns …
SectionH
. until I can trust link.
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: That’s nothing: in 2014 the World Candlepin Bowling Championship was held within walking distance of my house. This is a sport that isn’t played outside of the New England states.
Amir Khalid
@SectionH:
Women’s football is not a minor sport, and it does of course have a legit world championship with all continents represented save Antarctica. Besides, the men’s sport will likely never see a striker
— complete a hattrick
— from the halfway line
— in the World Cup Final.
And people in the men’s sport were impressed by the general quality of play.
@OzarkHillbilly:
If I am champion of a sport that is regional rather than a global, I can’t really proclaim myself a world champion without inviting mockery.
Another Holocene Human
@Ziggurat:
Exactly. And they they started having interleague play during the regular season. Soooooo … again, it’s all about the money.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes: Ahhhhh, got it.
BillinGlendaleCA
Latino Republicans don’t seem like happy campers for some reason.
OT: Following the tracking of the delivery of my new 50-200 lens, looks like it’s at Magic Mountain now.
Another Holocene Human
@raven: The only person who thinks the women’s game is the same as the men’s game is the person who has never played seriously.
Another Holocene Human
@BillinGlendaleCA: People don’t tend to become Republicans outside the 1% if they’re happy campers, I find.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid:
lol, okay
it’s okay, men in the US expressed similar sentiments about women’s basketball
(in the US, anyone in a position to know has been aware for years that the girls’ teams play at a higher level than the boys’ so our relative national teams’ performance is no surprise.)
and I guess in tennis there was Billie Jean King and Martina Navratirola, although that was before my time
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Will you still be able to track it once it enters the Mines of Moria?
Another Holocene Human
@Matt McIrvin: I used to watch Candlepin Bowling on tv religiously on Saturday. Man, the things you do when you’re a kid.
(Candlepin is tough. Less injuries, though, I reckon.)
SectionH
@Another Holocene Human:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/27/452260571/obama-to-u-s-womens-soccer-team-playing-like-a-girl-means-youre-a-badass
Gimlet
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2015/10/27/How-FBI-Could-Derail-Hillary-Clinton-s-Presidential-Run
James Comey – not Bernie Sanders — is the biggest challenge to Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions, a prospect that should keep the former Secretary of State up at night. The fiercely independent head of the FBI is directing the investigation into Clinton’s use of a personal email server and attendant issues raised during the Benghazi inquiry, which could lead to indictments of the former Secretary of State or her various aides.
If the probe determines that Hillary or her aides mishandled classified information or obstructed justice, her campaign will likely collapse. (Hence, the rumored possibility that Joe Biden could still emerge as a “draft” candidate.)
Just One More Canuck
Wasn’t the World Series named after/sponsored by the New York World newspaper and just kept the name?
Baud
@Gimlet:
On the other hand, if Bernie is proven to be a member of ISIS, he could lose Iowa.
Neither possibility is likely.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Probably not, it’s being delivered by the USPS.
Gimlet
@Matt McIrvin:
As I recall competitive “Quidditch” is also a New England sport.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Holocene Human: Yeah. It’s less intimidating to people without a lot of upper-body strength, because the balls are light, but in a scoring sense it’s a harder game. Perfect games are a regular, if not common, occurrence in tenpin; I don’t think one has ever happened in candlepin.
There are a bunch of these small-ball bowling games that are only played regionally; I get the impression, though, that candlepin is thriving to a greater degree than the rest of them. People used to play duckpin around Washington, DC when I was a kid, but I’ve heard it’s almost gone.
Gimlet
@Baud:
Comey’s comments on the “Ferguson Effect” show him to reach conclusions without evidence and lean rightward in political thinking at this point in his life-career.
Cervantes
@Just One More Canuck:
Short answer: no.
Baud
@Gimlet:
No doubt. But it’s a whole other level to try to take out the Democratic front runner by falsifying a criminal probe.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid:
From people who don’t understand the basic meaning of “best in the world”. Why would you care what people that simple minded thought?
magurakurin
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m originally from Philly. No Mets No Way. So, yeah, it’s premature but…
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, he does hang out here, so maybe that’s just his way.
Gimlet
@Baud:
Digby
If Comey and the FBI are good partisan Republicans they’ll help out any way they can. And that means they may not be able to press charges but you can bet they’ll leak misleading information to feed the hungry little birdies in the press and the wingnut mob.
Anyway, this is what the wingnuts see as their “trump” card and they are very, very confident they’ve got the win.
JPL
@Gimlet: IMO, there will be a constant drip of misinformation until the FBI finishes the investigation.
Baud
@Gimlet:
Speculation. But I agree it’s important to stay vigilent.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gimlet: They were very very confidant in 2012 too. Not that they could not win in ’16, but today’s GOP has a talent for self delusion that I have never seen outside of an insane asylum.
Gimlet
During a tense 30-minute meeting at the Coors Event Center, which was described by three sources present, several lower-polling campaigns lashed out at the RNC. They accused the committee of allotting them less-than-hospitable greenroom spaces while unfairly giving lavish ones to higher-polling candidates, such as Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
Trump was granted a spacious room, complete with plush chairs and a flat-screen TV. Marco Rubio got a theater-type room, packed with leather seats for him and his team of aides. Carly Fiorina’s room had a Jacuzzi.
Then there was Chris Christie, whose small space was dominated by a toilet. So was Rand Paul’s.
“This is ridiculous,” fumed Christie’s campaign manager, Ken McKay. “We’re in a restroom.”
RNC officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Matt McIrvin
@Gimlet: A few years ago, a local tried to teach me to play forty-fives, a card game with surrealistically odd rules whose popularity is limited to several nearby towns in Massachusetts, Cape Breton Island, and parts of New Zealand. But I don’t think it has a World Championship.
Gin & Tonic
@Matt McIrvin: There’s duckpin bowling in RI. More so than candlepin.
Gimlet
@JPL:
The more articles that hit the front pages and broadcasts about Comey and a partisan outcome to his email investigation, the less credibility anything detrimental has.
Patricia Kayden
@Gimlet: Such wishful thinking. LOL. Poor dears. Nothing has been going their way and I’m sure they’ve figured out that none of the Clown Car Occupants have a chance in hell against Sec Clinton.
Matt McIrvin
@Matt McIrvin: …Wikipedia says 45s is more widely popular in Eastern Canada than I implied above (I was told it was French-Canadian).
Patricia Kayden
@Gimlet: Paul and Christie are running campaigns which appear to be in the toilet so their spaces are quite fitting, imho. Perhaps this is a hint that they need to suspend their campaigns like Walker and Perry.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Another Holocene Human:
Kinda, but it’s more complicated (as everything is). ISIL is basically Baathists in wolf’s clothing:
W’s Mess-O-Potamia was the first step in creating ISIL.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
So, anyone else watching the second season of Fargo?
Gimlet
@Patricia Kayden:
Rather than drawing the conclusion his campaign is in the toilet, Christie’s advisers refer to his space as the “throne room”.
NotMax
@
I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Yup yup. Assigning Arab Spring as instigation is stretching it.
Protracted drought plus rises in food and fuel (read: kerosene and cooking oils) sparked the initial uprising in Syria. The resultant partial power vacuum provided an entree for Daesh to consolidate in Syria, from Iraq.
gene108
Rep. Pompeo’s on CSPAN’s Washington Journal spouting Benghazi talking points, but I was thinking, if I called in I do not have a set of points handy to shoot him down and even if I did it would not be enough to shut him up.
I really feel hopeless sometimes about beating Republicans, because they are so smooth in having talking points and sticking to a theme and getting it all over the media.
gene108
@Montanreddog:
Just because the Brits never learned to play basketball worth a damn, does not stop the rest of the world from playing it. If the Brits can think up a team sport that becomes an Olympic sport, I’d love to hear it.
And exporting cricket to former colonies is about the same as baseball being played in Asia, South America and the Caribbean.
Baud
@gene108:
I think Hillary proved that their smooth talking points aren’t so scary.
Paul in KY
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I was at a 7 OT football game (UK – Arkansas) and by OT 5 was cheering for Ark or KY to win it & get it over.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Now if only we could get the media to play relevant clips rom the hearing every time some Republican opened his mouth about it…
debbie
Unmindful of the joke that was the Benghazi hearings last week, House Republicans are doubling down:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-koskinen-house-republicans-impeach
Paul in KY
@magurakurin: Y’all haven’t won it yet (this year). Praise not your World Champion, until they actually become World Champions (modern update to old Norse proverb).
germy shoemangler
@debbie: They’re reliving the psychodrama of the Watergate hearings. They were traumatized by what their poor Dick Nixon was subjected to, and want to even the score. Ever democratic administration will be subjected to endless investigations. And they will never be satisfied.
p.a.
@Matt McIrvin: New England? As far as I know (please correct me etc etc) it’s Mass. only. Has it bled into NH?
Of course béisbol championship is called the World Series; Amrica is the onliest country that matters. USAUSAUSAUSAUSAGABBAGABBAHEY
Eric U.
the MLB doesn’t claim that the World Series winner is the World Champion, that’s just a lazy thing that people do. And speaking of lazy, I say this because they have a page that lists the “MLB World Series Champions” on their web site.
I think the joke meant to say that the Brits can’t win the sports they invented. When was the last time the Brits won a significant international Cricket match?
@germy shoemangler: My thought is that the Republicans just realized that these “scandals” are a good electoral and politcial strategy. I can’t imagine that they think running a burglary out of the White House is something that should go without punishment. Not that you could get them to admit to such a thing
debbie
@germy shoemangler:
Most of them weren’t alive or old enough to follow Watergate!
Gimlet
@germy shoemangler:
Not sure about that. I think Nixon is remote, irrelevant history to them.
Would go more with the themes of “Republicans protecting the common man from overbearing and incompetent government” and a general theme of “Democrats are bad, don’t trust or elect them”.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Cervantes
@Matt McIrvin:
Great example!
Next we’ll have fans of the Red Sox or the Yankees wanting to call their team Galactic Champions, because, after all, there’s no one who plays better baseball anywhere in the Milky Way, is there?
I agree that it’s all silly; but then again, there are worse things about “professional sports” than the names we use for trophies.
rikyrah
George Lucas Gifts $10 Million to Support African American & Hispanic Students at USC’s Film School
By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
October 27, 2015 at 6:53PM
The George Lucas Family Foundation has announced a 10 million endowment that will support the recruitment of talented USC School of Cinematic Arts students from communities that are underrepresented in the entertainment industry.
The gift, which is the largest single donation for student support in the school’s history, will establish The George Lucas Foundation Endowed Student Support Fund for Diversity, which will provide financial support for African American and Hispanic students enrolled at the school, meaning African American or Hispanic students at the undergraduate and graduate levels will receive priority consideration.
Student support will be split equally between male and female students who will be known as George Lucas Scholars or Mellody Hobson Scholars.
The first recipients will be awarded for the fall of 2016.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/george-lucas-gifts-10-million-to-support-african-american-hispanic-students-at-uscs-film-school-20151027
Cervantes
@germy shoemangler:
If they are, it’s a third-hand, bowdlerized version of that psychodrama, cobbled together to fit their current needs.
How many of them understand what Nixon and his crew actually did?
rikyrah
In bipartisan budget deal, not all ‘cuts’ are created equal
10/27/15 12:47 PM
facebook twitter 6 save share group 28
By Steve Benen
When Rachel asked Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) last night about the tentative budget agreement between the White House and congressional Republican leaders, the presidential hopeful conceded he hadn’t yet read the agreement, but he was skeptical.
“Our goal is to expand Social Security benefits [and] to push for a Medicare-for-all single-payer program,” Sanders said. I will not be supportive of cuts in those programs.”
It’s a safe bet that many progressive policymakers will feel the same way, which may raise doubts about the viability of the newly announced deal.
In practice, however, there are “cuts” and then there are “cuts.”
Democrats have quite a few reasons to like the budget deal – $80 billion in sequestration relief goes a long way – on top of the peace of mind that comes with eliminating the possibility of government shutdowns and debt-ceiling crises until 2017.
But did President Obama accept entitlement cuts in exchange? I’m reluctant to start parsing the meaning of the word “cut,” but the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent talked to a progressive expert this morning who sounded an optimistic note.
On Medicare and Social Security: Nancy Altman, the president of Social Security Works, a group that strenuously opposes benefits cuts and argues for their expansion, tells me that the deal “doesn’t actually cut benefits or really hurt beneficiaries who aren’t gaming the system.”
Altman says the Medicare cuts are all on the provider side, which could harm beneficiaries at some point, but it’s not a major concern.
It’s true that the deal includes “reforms” to the Social Security Disability Insurance program, which was facing major deadlines of its own, and Republicans had previously said they’d only divert funding from Social Security’s retirement insurance program to SSDI if Democrats accepted benefit cuts.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/bipartisan-budget-deal-not-all-cuts-are-created-equal
Gin & Tonic
@Cervantes: because, after all, there’s no one who plays better baseball anywhere in the Milky Way, is there?
This year, there is.
Jeffro
@Baud: It just occurred to me…we really ought to thank our lucky stars that Trump is not religious (at least not in any sort of convincing way). If he got those folks worked up in addition to all the xenophobes and star-struck rubes, there’s no telling how high his poll numbers would be.
Actually, there is: just add Carson’s, Huck’s, and half of Cruz’s support to Trump’s numbers.
Yikes.
Halloween came early this morning, I guess(!)
Bobby Thomson
@Gimlet: So his campaign isn’t just figuratively in the toilet.
He should count himself lucky they haven’t kicked him out of the debates. Yet. Take a fuckin’ hint.
germy shoemangler
@debbie:
I imagine them squirming angrily in their seats while learning about it in high school from some liberal history teacher who looked just like Bernie Sanders. There are people down south reliving the psychodrama of the civil war who weren’t even alive twenty-five years ago.
Jeffro
Also, because it is irritating the crap out of me: one of my cousins posted this (from the Prager U, a right-wing air quote “university”) on his Facebook page yesterday. It’s meant to truly educate folks on the injustice of progressive taxation. See how many distortions, wingnut fantasy tropes, and outright lies you can spot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6HEH23W_bM
Why are so many of my fellow GenXers “IGMFY” conservatives? Is it because they were all in their impressionable, formative years while Papa Reagan was in office? Sheesh.
Chris
@OzarkHillbilly:
What’s happened to the former is that it was taken over by the latter.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Excellent piece in The Atlantic on just that subject.
gene108
@Jeffro:
I think growing up during the Reagan years did push GenX towards being more right-wing than other generations.
Paul in KY
@Jeffro: Have you told him that unfortunately he attends a fake ‘university’?
NotMax
Ooh, snap.
Cervantes
@Baud:
No denying that Kasich worked with Gingrich (and gladly, most of the time). I just meant he was not newly elected in the “wave” of ’94, not directly indebted to Gingrich and the so-called “Contract with America” for his place at the table.
Chris
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
You gotta love the fact that W’s destruction of Iraq ultimately led to the Saddamist/jihadist merger that his administration was talking about at the time.
Cervantes
@Chris:
Lying about at the time.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Jeffro:
Yes. And the Silent Generation had Ike in their impressionable, formative years. I’m a late Baby Boomer, I had Nixon.
Chris
@Jeffro:
Yeah, I think so. I’ve often heard it said that the political opinions people from in their late teen/young adult years stick with them for the rest of their lives, and anecdotally that seems to be true.
Dad came of age in the sixties, and by his own admission still votes on the civil rights movement. His wingnut younger brother came of age a decade later and is, well, every stereotype of the Nixon/Reagan Republican voter you could possibly want.
Same again with my generation – there’s a similar gap between my sister who came of age in the nineties and me who did so in the 2000s, and while we’re both Democrats, she’s much more capitalist than I am. (I’m basically a democratic socialist at this point, as you’d expect from someone who graduated from college in 2009).
Equally interesting is that my wingnut cousin who’s the same age as I am is still, well, a wingnut – but of the Ron Paul variety. Near as I can tell, he gradually came around between 2008 and 2012 to the idea of holding his nose and voting for the guy who wasn’t the Kenyonesian Socialist Usurper, but basically believes both parties are Big Government corrupt assholes. The catastrophic fallout from the Bush era had an impact on that side of the aisle too, it appears.
Chris
@NotMax:
Because “the devout” (a reductive term that assumes the religious right has a monopoly on American religion) tend to be raging bigoted assholes who love it when a politician calls Mexicans murderers and rapists.
When you hear the word “evangelical,” mentally substitute “segregationist.” It’ll give you a much truer representation of their voting patterns than listening to their hogwash about the baby Jesus.
Gin & Tonic
@Chris: It’s not just “coming of age” but the views you had of who was up then. Like Bill above, I “came of age” politically during the Nixon years, but I hated that motherfucker with the heat of a million suns.
Jeffro
@NotMax: I’m happy to keep the nutters split between Carson and Trump for as long as possible. Trump really can’t push too hard in that regard – it would reveal him pretty quickly as a fraud.
Jeffro
@Paul in KY: He doesn’t and didn’t attend there, just forwarded a link to that cruddy video.
It’s such stupidity masquerading as insightfulness, it blew me away.
Matt McIrvin
@Cervantes: I’m sure sentient beings on other planets are pissed off about the Miss Universe pageant.
Jeffro
@gene108: Yes. I know a sampling of FB friends and relatives is not actual data about a generation, but jeez. And these are all middle class or higher folks, too.
They’re not Establishment Rs, and most are not particularly religious – they’re all just kinda greedy, selfish, Rand-worshipping, IGMFY conservatives who grew up hearing Reagan’s nonsense about government always being the problem, not the solution.
Matt McIrvin
@p.a.: There’s candlepin in NH, yes. Funspot way up in Weirs Beach is half tenpin and half candlepin.
Wikipedia claims that, aside from New England, it’s also played in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and in a couple of oddball places in Ohio.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: I spent the 1980s as a teenager in western Fairfax County, Virginia. In those days, it was whiter than it is now and pretty conservative. My experience was that the Reagan-loving GenX kids were getting it from their Silent Generation parents, who were old Birchers and Cold Warriors, probably segregationists too.
Cervantes
@Matt McIrvin:
I should hope so!
Matt McIrvin
(There’s this Alex P. Keaton myth that conservative GenXers were rebelling against their hippie boomer parents. But the GenXers I know who actually had hippie boomer parents are super-liberal.)
Paul in KY
@Jeffro: Oh, OK!
kc
Calling it the Workd Series is a grotesque display of cultural imperialism and white privilege. It’s literally erasing the rest of the world.
kc
@magurakurin:
Hey, if Cervantes & Amir want to be on Team Piers Morgan, who are we to argue. :)
Cervantes
@kc:
Here’s some advice: don’t be daft.
Uncle Cosmo
@Jeffro:
TL;DR version: T. rump + Bible-Thumpin’-Religiosity = Nehemiah Scudder.
Yikes on a steamroller.
different-church-lady
@NotMax:
Yeah, but under certain court-ordered conditions someone at the NSA might be allowed to read the e-mail they hoovered up and threw on a hard drive in Utah 3 years ago so WE’RE JUST LIKE EAST GERMANY NOW!
different-church-lady
@Another Holocene Human:
Candlepin bowling is not “tough” — candlepin bowling is perverse. Which pins go down has absolutely no relationship to where you put the ball.