Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Everybody saw this coming.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

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

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Let there be snark.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Nothing worth doing is easy.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Night Open Thread

Tuesday Night Open Thread

by | 207 Comments

This post is in: 

I am so sick and tired of hearing about Trump, and I am doubly disgusted by the “Woah, he’s gone too far” bullshit coming from the Republican assholes who created this monster by egging on gun nuts, racists conspiracy theorists, Christianist nutjobs, and every other variant of know-nothing slack-jawed shitheel for the last 30 years. Fuck you Paul Ryan and Dick Cheney and all of you now pretending TRump is out of line. Trump is the logical conclusion for the bullshit you’ve been peddling for decades.

Consider this a Trump free open thread.

Reader Interactions

207Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    John, Don’t forget about Norquist who pushed them to the right. His Muslim wife must be so proud of the GOP now.

    also, too.. The GOP condemns his statements but when asked whether or not they will vote for him, they say yes. fk em

  2. 2.

    catclub

    Mosul is just about cut off from re-supply for Daesh. Ramadi is also being encircled to isolate Daesh.

    CalPers is trying to hide from its Board of Directors how badly it has been swindled by private equity
    companies.

  3. 3.

    Roger Moore

    Trump is the logical conclusion for the bullshit you’ve been peddling for decades.

    He’s the logical next step. The logical conclusion is ethnic cleansing and genocide.

  4. 4.

    Original Lee

    All righty then, let’s talk about our feckless Congress. What I feel about them collectively, right now, is probably impossible for me to express without exceeding even the generous attitude towards profanity on this site. Suffice it to say, they have just now, this evening, figured out that they will not be able to pass the omnibus budget bill on time. Ryan has asked for an “extraordinary” weekend session, of course after the Dec. 11 deadline, and now they’re bickering over how many days the next continuing resolution needs to last. Some want a week, but some (including Ryan, IIRC) want a six-week extention. Why? Because they need to decide if they want to fold in the tax extender bill or not, and how many of the riders they can strip out and still get it through both chambers and across Obama’s desk.

    I think if someone in my house turned off all the lights, they’d be able to read by the incandescent glow of my fury.

  6. 6.

    Corner Stone

    @JPL:

    Don’t forget about Norquist who pushed them to the right. His Muslim wife must be so proud of the GOP now.

    He just wanted all the monies. He never thought Reagan’s three stool-leg coalition would come back to eat him and his up.

  7. 7.

    JMG

    In the spirit, John, are you encouraged by or suspicious of the Steelers’ apparent renaissance. Up here in Boston, the consensus among Patriots fans is that they’d rather not see Pittsburgh in the playoffs.

  8. 8.

    beltane

    I’m going to Italy by myself (away from the kids and husband) in January to reconnect with my family. This is a very big deal for me and something I’ve wanted to do for years. It will be interesting to view the American political scene from afar.

  10. 10.

    Corner Stone

    @JMG: The best thing that ever happened to the Pittsburgh defense was having three beasts at WR. And if they can get Heath Miller back at TE…sheeeeiiittt.

  12. 12.

    Corner Stone

    @catclub: I, for one, really enjoy these two sentences in the same comment.

    Ehhh, three sentences but you know what I meant.

  13. 13.

    beltane

    Grover Norquist’s Muslim wife isn’t going to personally suffer anything on account of her husband’s political activities. It will be the un-wealthy and unconnected who will be put in jeopardy.

  17. 17.

    catclub

    Lies from Dick Cheney in his ‘good’ answer:

    1. A lot of people, my ancestors got here, because they were Puritans. There wasn’t anybody here then when they came, but it’s a mistaken notion.

    2.It’s a serious problem to make certain that the people coming in don’t represent ISIS. You’ve got to set up a vetting process.

    3. And that’s crucial, but I think the way you’ve got to begin to deal with that problem is to go back and look at why they’re here. and they’re here because of what’s going on in the Middle East. And what’s going on in the Middle East is the result of a U.S. vacuum.

    I am glad it is the vacuum and not some incredibly stupid invasion.

  18. 18.

    Mike in NC

    @Roger Moore: Trump is just getting warmed up. By Christmas he’ll be talking about “sending those people back where they came from” and the old white folks who vote in every election will keep demanding more.

  19. 19.

    beltane

    @schrodinger’s cat: @Jane2: Thank you both. I am really looking forward to the trip. My uncles are in their 80s and I wanted to see everyone together while they’re still around. When I saw what a steal the airfare was, I could not say no.

  20. 20.

    AnotherBruce

    Well, I’m thinking hell would freeze over before anyone would force a comment from Dick Cheney that was somewhat human. I’m thinking Satan is putting off his retirement and having second thoughts about Dick Cheney running the place. Trump is too crazy to run the place. It’s really starting to get cold down there.

  21. 21.

    Grung_e_Gene

    Trump is a Right-Wing Stalking Horse allowing truly despicable assholes like Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan to appear reasonable when they plan to implement the same fascist policies Trump is espousing.

  23. 23.

    Mike in NC

    @beltane: We’ve been to Europe twice in the past five years and are going back next week. One great thing is that nobody over there gives a damn about America’s sickening, rancid political climate.

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    @Mike in NC: I was curious. Here’s Newsweek on Trump demographics.

    Slightly over half are female, about hcalf are between 45 and 64 years of age with another 34 percent being over 65 years old and less than two percent younger than 30. One half of his voters have a high school education or less compared to 19 percent with a college or post-graduate degree. Slightly over one third of his supporters earn less than $50,000 per year while 11 percent earn over $100,000 per year.

  27. 27.

    Keith G

    I have been keeping clear of campaign reporting for a bit. Such negativity and down right meanness washes over, but still leaves a draining residue.

    I try to stay away to keep what’s left of my humor. Unfortunately, the rapacity still seeps in since we are so connected.

    Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild wired world
    It’s hard to get by just upon a smile

    But I’m trying. I’m trying.

  29. 29.

    amk

    you left out one important thing. all these protesting fuckwits will still vote for the il douche if he wins the nom.

  31. 31.

    mclaren

    @beltane:

    I’m going to Italy by myself (away from the kids and husband) in January to reconnect with my family.

    Lucky you. The italian countryside is some of the most beautiful in the world.

  32. 32.

    catclub

    @Corner Stone: I heard it via Harry Shearer on
    le Show. Pension swindles are where you can steal BIG money. Chris Christie and the new governor of Mass apparently can tell stories. Also the new Governor of Illinois.

    I remember that during the 2008-9 meltdown, the Central States pension fund ( of Jimmy Hoffa fame) actually did much better than most big investors. (Either remember or hopefully imagined.)

    I also suspect you are pulling my leg – unless you are a California public employee.

  40. 40.

    MomSense

    @raven:

    It’s on my list. Tonight we are working on another school presentation. Kid’s Benedict Arnold rap report was a big hit yesterday.

    @beltane:

    Enjoy every moment! Happy for you.

  41. 41.

    mclaren

    Brett Easton Ellis has a great op-ed about the toxic plague of the “likeability” culture due to online ratings:

    Facebook encouraged users to “like” things, and because it was a platform where many people branded themselves on the social Web for the first time, the impulse was to follow the Facebook dictum and present an idealized portrait of their lives — a nicer, friendlier, duller self. And it was this burgeoning of the likability cult and the dreaded notion of “relatability” that ultimately reduced everyone to a kind of neutered clockwork orange, enslaved to the corporate status quo. To be accepted we have to follow an upbeat morality code where everything must be liked and everybody’s voice respected, and any person who has a negative opinion — a dislike — will be shut out of the conversation. Anyone who resists such groupthink is ruthlessly shamed. Absurd doses of invective are hurled at the supposed troll to the point that the original “offense” often seems negligible by comparison. (..)

    The reputation economy depends on everyone maintaining a reverentially conservative, imminently practical attitude: Keep your mouth shut and your skirt long, be modest and don’t have an opinion. The reputation economy is yet another example of the blanding of culture, and yet the enforcing of groupthink has only increased anxiety and paranoia, because the people who embrace the reputation economy are, of course, the most scared. What happens if they lose what has become their most valuable asset? The embrace of the reputation economy is an ominous reminder of how economically desperate people are and that the only tools they have to raise themselves up the economic ladder are their sparklingly upbeat reputations — which only adds to their ceaseless worry over their need to be liked.

    Empowerment doesn’t come from liking this or that thing, but from being true to our messy contradictory selves. There are limits to showcasing our most flattering assets because no matter how genuine and authentic we think we are, we’re still just manufacturing a construct, no matter how accurate it may be. What is being erased in the reputation economy are the contradictions inherent in all of us. Those of us who reveal flaws and inconsistencies become terrifying to others, the ones to avoid. An “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”-like world of conformity and censorship emerges, erasing the opinionated and the contrarian, corralling people into an ideal. Forget the negative or the difficult. Who wants solely that? But what if the negative and the difficult were attached to the genuinely interesting, the compelling, the unusual? That’s the real crime being perpetrated by the reputation culture: stamping out passion; stamping out the individual.

    “Bret Easton Ellis on Living in the Cult of Likability,” The New York Times, 8 December 2015.

  42. 42.

    raven

    @MomSense: I was just looking at the online sports page and the Lady Dogs played a game at 11am today and the local elementary schools attended. It looked like they had a ball but I can’t imagine what the noise was like!

  44. 44.

    raven

    Research: links between childhood abuse, Facebook friend networks and alcohol probelms

    Our patterns of Facebook friends may reveal more about us thank we think, according to University of Georgia researchers.
    Psychologist Assaf Oshri and others analyzed connections among the Facebook friends of 318 University of Georgia women who agreed to participate in the study, which included asking them questions about childhood trauma and about recent alcohol use and problems. Men weren’t included because not enough signed up to yield meaningful results.

  45. 45.

    Elie

    @beltane:

    Good for you! Enjoy!

    You will be surprised how far away we will be to you and how it all falls away. Mostly, they don’t cover us like we think — like we are the center of the universe. Unless they have CNN International on the teevee or some such, you won’t get much news about us — unless you make the mistake of getting on the net to ramp up on our poison while out of the country. Mostly, though, you will be surprised at how little it matters and how good it is to be away from it…. Enjoy enjoy… I love Italy. What part?

  46. 46.

    mclaren

    @srv:

    Who would win if Trump and Sanders go independent?

    Bernie Sanders has vowed not to run as an independent. He has promised that if Hillary wins the nomination, he will support her and urge his supporters to vote for her.

    If Donald Trump runs as an independent, it will split the Republican vote into the insane fascists (like you, srv) and the unhinged Ayn Rand fanatics. The fascists will vote for Trump out of pique, while the Rand fanatics will vote for Jeb out of hopes that Jeb will continue the Bush crime family’s tradition of stratokakistokleptocracy (militaristic rule by the worst for purposes of theft). Result? Huge blowout win for the Democratic nominee.

    Of course, insane fascists and unhinged Ayn Rand fanatics don’t account for all the Republican voters. There are also the troglodyte racists and misogynist Boston-Strangler-wannabes, but since both Trump and Jeb are giving them plenty of dog whistles, the troglodyte racists and misogynists will probably split about evenly for both candidates.

  47. 47.

    catclub

    @Corner Stone: 1. The Board of Calpers is financially illiterate.
    This is really not good.

    2. Somebody is probably making money hooking Calpers into various private equity investments.
    AND Calpers is getting the off the street suckers rate of 2 and 20, not the giant pension fund rate
    for expenses, which should be less. Naturally, those PE investments have NOT earned huge profits for Calpers, but the fees paid have been.

    3. The staff of Calpers has to hide information from the one financially literate board member who is asking pointed questions. He has had to file FOIA requests to get information.

    4. So called private investment seminars exist. Pension board members get free tuition, but the people who pay to come are PE managers who want face time with people who invest hundreds of billions of dollars. payoffs seem likely in this kind of situation.

    Hope that helps.

  48. 48.

    mainmata

    @catclub: Yeah, private equity was what Pres. candidate ILoveMoney was all about. These are high risk firms often destroying firms as much as creating value and a pension fund has no business investing public money in them.

  55. 55.

    Mack

    Jeb said Trump has resorted to using dog whistles. Really? Sigh. He really should not reference things he doesn’t grasp.

  57. 57.

    Keith G

    @raven: A little further down in the link:

    The researchers also found Facebook users in those more densely interconnected Facebook friend groups were more likely to use alcohol; those with less-connected networks were less likely to report alcohol use or problems.

    The results are correlational, so Oshri and his colleagues don’t make any conclusions about one thing causing another in their data.

    Though, informal conclusions could be made.

  59. 59.

    mclaren

    @Corner Stone:

    Basically, there seems to be a lot of self-dealing and opacity iin CalPers investments. CalPers uses closed board meetings, for example, to decide bonuses and salaries and so forth, in violation of California law.

    But the major charge against CalPers seems to be that the board is steering investment toward very expensive and probably highly risky private hedge funds — the kind of private hedge fund that blew up Orange County’s entire pension fund a few years back. If true, this is classic case of private hedge funds looting the public coffers. The hedge fund convinces some government entity to invest its pension funds with the fund, the hedge fund charges exorbitant fees to (mis)manage the money, and then when the entire hedge fund blows up because its promised high returns came from very risky investments whose risk the fund didn’t properly disclose (or wasn’t even aware of), then county or city or whatever loses all its money and the hedge fund walks away laughing to the bank, chortling, “Hey, nobody said investment was risk-free!”

    In effect, it’s the old scam of privatizing profits while socializing losses. The same deal that went on with the subprime mortgage scams back in the 2000s.

    One of the striking elements of the November CalPERS private equity workshop for the ostensible benefit of its board was the length to which the giant pension fund was willing to go to distort data and abuse analytical methods to make the case that only private equity could offer the returns needed to meet CalPERS’ performance targets. These tricks were obvious to finance experts, which means that it is almost certain that CalPERS’ staff and the experts on its panel understood full well that they were pulling the wool over the board’s and public’s eyes.

    The fact that CalPERS could not make an honest case for private equity suggests that there was no honest case to be made.

    Source: “CalPERS Used Sleight of Hand, Accounting Tricks, to Make False “There is No Alternative” Claim for Private Equity,” nakedcapitalism.com, 1 December 2015.

  63. 63.

    MomSense

    @raven:

    By junior high the pitch is a little less screech like. Thank goodness.
    @Keith G:
    Ha!

    Waiting on the Lewiston mayoral run off election results. You may remember the Republican MacDonald wanted to publish the names of welfare recipients and told immigrants that they should leave their culture at the door.
    It’s a close race. Polls closed at 8 but results aren’t expected until 10:30.

  64. 64.

    mclaren

    @Keith G:

    The researchers also found Facebook users in those more densely interconnected Facebook friend groups were more likely to use alcohol…

    So let’s see…the more you use Facebook, the worse your alcohol problems.

    Seems like there’s a simple solution to that one — stop using Facebook. Problem solved.

    Of course, people will label me as an “asshole” for pointing this out. And guess what? You are correct. I am an asshole. Anyone who suggests simple common-sense solutions to self-created problem always gets labeled an ‘asshole.’ Anyone who is creative or acts like an individual in our likability-rating online social bullshit network society gets called an `asshole.’ Anyone who stands up and calls the prevailing groupthink bullshit gets tarred as an ‘asshole.’

    So that’s me, asshole deluxe. And proud of it. If I make a comment and everyone agrees with it, I immediately must stop and ask: “Have I inadvertently said some foolish and evil thing?”

  65. 65.

    RandomMonster

    @Original Lee:

    I think if someone in my house turned off all the lights, they’d be able to read by the incandescent glow of my fury.

    When they turn off the lights to the whole country, that may be all we have to read by.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @mclaren:

    So that’s me, asshole deluxe. And proud of it. If I make a comment and everyone agrees with it, I immediately must stop and ask: “Have I inadvertently said some foolish and evil thing?”

    So what will you do if everyone agrees with you that you’re an asshole deluxe?

  67. 67.

    mclaren

    @raven:

    You two need to get a room.

    This from the subliterate sociopath whose idea of contributing to the discussion is “You are a dog-fucking piece of shit of the lowest possible denomination.”

    Go back to beating your wife and abusing children, troll. This is a discussion for adults.

  68. 68.

    raven

    @MomSense: They had a Simon Says competition at the half and Georgia wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell was eliminated early! He’s a neat kid who happened to have written a children’s book.

  70. 70.

    mclaren

    @Baud:

    So what will you do if everyone agrees with you that you’re an asshole deluxe?

    In that case I become the set of all assholes not members of a given set, which triggers Cohen’s undecidability theorem. We then have a choice between a system of assholeishness in which there are no contradictions but the axioms are incomplete, or a system of assholeishness in which the axioms form a complete system but mutually contradictory statements can be proven.

  71. 71.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @mclaren: Ever thought it could be the other way around, the more you abuse the booze, the more you use facebook? Or it could there’s just no causation either way.

    ETA: Oh, you’re right about the asshole part, though I’d go with idiot asshole. Just to cover all the bases.

  72. 72.

    mclaren

    @raven:

    eta It’s shit eating dog fucker.

    Once again, you live up to your usual standards of perspicacity and insight.

  75. 75.

    Baud

    @raven:

    Does that refer to people who fuck dogs that eat shit (shit-eating-dog fuckers) or to people who both eat shit and fuck dogs (shit-eating dog-fuckers)?

    Appropriately placed hyphens can aid in clarity.

  76. 76.

    Debbie

    @JPL:

    There’s quite a whisper campaign among the RWNJs that Grover is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. In the current atmosphere, maybe she ought to be concerned.

  77. 77.

    David Koch

    @Baud: He said…. wait for it… income inequality is the foundation and core source of racism and xenophobia, as well as sexism and homophobia.

    sigh.

    According to the center of budget and policy priorities there was “substantial economic growth and broadly shared prosperity” from 1945 to the early 70s, yet there was virulent, overt racism and bigotry.

    Moreover, there was broad based economic growth in Nazi Germany in the 30s and that didn’t extinguish hate.

  83. 83.

    mclaren

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Ever thought it could be the other way around, the more you abuse the booze, the more you use facebook? Or it could there’s just no causation either way.

    That’s certainly possible. However, we have the results of other studies to guide us here. Other studies have shown that people have a lower self-image the more they use Facebook. Also, I’m guessing that excessive alcohol usage would tend to inhibit Facebook usage, since reading ability and the ability to post comments probably drops off precipitously as people get drunker.

    See the article “Facebook status updates reveal low self-esteem and narcissism,” phys.org, 25 may 2015.

  89. 89.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @mclaren:

    Also, I’m guessing that excessive alcohol usage would tend to inhibit Facebook usage, since reading ability and the ability to post comments probably drops off precipitously as people get drunker.

    That’s true when they pass out, before then, not so much.

  91. 91.

    Schlemazel

    When are the libtards going to publicly condemn Baud for his outrageous positions? Are you all skeered?

    How’s the troll thing working, am I doing OK?

  92. 92.

    mainmata

    @mclaren: The stratoyaddakleptocracy was not a Bush feature, I believe. That was Cheney’s gig. He held the secret energy talks that closed off all but the big fossil fuel companies right at the start of the Bush Era and led directly to the Iraq War and colossal profits for his former company, Halliburton. W, on the other hand was a total serial failure as a businessman and his administration just resorted to petty corruption and ratfucking regulatory agencies. Cheney was always the big fish.

  96. 96.

    Keith G

    @mclaren: Well, using Facebook can be not only a problem, it could probably be also a symptom. Social media should be a means to an end not an end unto itself. It seems possible that folks with fragile social networks in the physical world, which may lead them to over invest in the digital world, may have the types of issues either caused by or causing them to rely on drink etc.

  98. 98.

    Baud

    @Keith G:

    It seems possible that folks with fragile social networks in the physical world, which may lead them to over invest in the digital world

    I don’t know anyone like that.

  99. 99.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Am I the only person who finds “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” just a wee tad racist?

  100. 100.

    Schlemazel

    @srv:
    The Republican nominee, if not outright electoral than for sure when Congress votes as per the Constitution.

  101. 101.

    mclaren

    @David Koch:

    He said…. wait for it… income inequality is the foundation and core source of racism and xenophobia, as well as sexism and homophobia.

    Sounds like Bernie Sanders is trying to make the argument that discrimination in our society is mainly class-based rather than ethnicity- or sexual-preference-based. That sounds unlikely, for obvious reasons. For example: that infamous case where the police officer arrested the black professor in Boston for standing on his own porch. If that kind of discriminatory punitive behavior were really class-based, we’d expect black professors to get treated deferentially by cops, while poor whites get gunned down like dogs. But, as John Cole and others have pointed out repeatedly, white shooters tend to be captured alive while blacks who are even suspected of having a gun get blown away by crazed cops emptying their clips.

    The xenophobia claim also seems hard to sustain. Some of the wealthiest immigrants in America come from the middle east. So if xenophobia were really based on income inequality, Americans would welcome wealthy middle easterners while suggesting that we bar poor whites from central Europe from entering the U.S. But that’s not what we see.

    It seems more likely that racism + xenophobia are the cause of income inequality, rather than the result. Ta Nehisi Coates has done excellent work in detailing the kind of economic redlining and discrimination that has kept blacks corralled into poor neighborhoods for many decades, in turn hurting the economic mobility of the blacks who live there. See his article in The Atlantic “The case for reparations.”

  102. 102.

    David Koch

    @Baud: Yes, but Rachel was lapping it up and lauding his theory. So he responses to the positive reinforcement from his echo chamber which ultimately traps him into a constrictive narrow bubble that will never grow.

  103. 103.

    Keith G

    @mclaren:

    …since reading ability and the ability to post comments probably drops off precipitously as people get drunker.

    Or as we call it, Balloon-Juice on a Saturday night. The rate of response may slow down, but the diehards can keep after it for quite a while.

    Anyway, as I alluded to above, social media is as much a form of self medication as is alcohol and combining meds to further squelch the sadness is a time-proven activity.

    Now excuse me while I enter that ounce and a half of Laphroaig into my calorie counter.

  104. 104.

    mclaren

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Am I the only person who finds “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” just a wee tad racist?

    Horribly. Also, George Lucas was going through a divorce at the time, which might explain all the hearts getting ripped out.

  106. 106.

    Schlemazel

    @Baud:
    Well I just started so bear with me, OTOH I am getting some decent examples in this thread. Not as good a unlimited or corner stone but I’m probably not ready for the advanced class yet so this one will have to do

    “I’m an asshole
    He’s an asshole
    Wouldn’t you like to be an asshole too?”

  109. 109.

    Keith G

    @Omnes Omnibus: No. You are not alone. Its use of the serial movie tropes of the 1930s leads it to use some scenes which are not only painfully trite but insensitive in final presentation if not in purposeful execution.

  110. 110.

    Schlemazel

    @mclaren:
    I don’t think he intended it to be as racist as it was (but then ‘Ark’ had racist scenes in it to so maybe I am being too understanding & he is just too self-involved to see his racism). I think he misunderstood what made the first one so successful & tried to double down on those things instead of actually having a better story to tell.

  111. 111.

    Steeplejack

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    What do I tell my friend who thinks both Trump and Clinton are equally disgusting, where do I even begin?

    I have a friend (60-ish white woman) who is an ardent Sandernista because she “cannot vote for Clinton under any circumstances” (direct quote). My response has been to tell her that Sanders is a great guy who will never get the nomination and that she should start preparing to deal with her three 20-something daughters having a very hard time getting any kind of reproductive health care once President [Any Republican] is in office. That did bring her up short. This is a woman who (I believe) got birth-control pills from the campus clinic when she was in college. (Do they still do that now?)

  112. 112.

    mclaren

    @Renie:

    See, that’s one of the reasons I hang around Balloon-Juice — because people suggest articles like that. Thanks!

  113. 113.

    Amir Khalid

    @David Koch:
    I hate to say it, lest I break Thoughtful Today’s heart. But maybe Bernie just doesn’t have the intellectual depth to be President.

  117. 117.

    gogol's wife

    Just watched (again) the Wolf Hall episode with More’s execution. Unbelievable acting from Rylance and Lesser.

  120. 120.

    burnspbesq

    @catclub:

    CalPers is trying to hide from its Board of Directors how badly it has been swindled by private equity
    companies.

    Bullshit. The fees that CalPers has been paying are standard for the kind of private equity deals it is in, and those are the best-performing assets in the portfolio even after paying fees that you and I probably agree are exorbitant. The swindle (if any) here is the Legislature failing to step up to the plate and fund the shortfall that results from the losses incurred in 2008-09, thereby forcing the trustees to reach for yield that can only be obtained from private equity and hedge fund investments.

  121. 121.

    mclaren

    @Amir Khalid:

    I hate to say it, lest I break Thoughtful Today’s heart. But maybe Bernie just doesn’t have the intellectual depth to be President.

    Intellectual depth doesn’t mean shit in a president. Woodrow Wilson had tons of intellectual depth, and he was a disaster. Harry Truman had the intellectual depth of an oil slick, and he did a damn good job as president.

    People skills and sound judgment and a pragmatic willingness to change course in the face of changing circumstances count for infinitely more than intellectual depth, as far as I can tell.

  125. 125.

    burnspbesq

    @Mike in NC:

    If Trump offers to pay me to move back to Ireland, I just might take him up on it … as long as I get a business class ticket. No steerage like my ancestors endured in their flight from the English Genocide of 1847-48, fka the Potato Famine.

  126. 126.

    GregB

    The far right in America has been projecting all of their fascist desires onto President Obama for a long time.
    We all knew that they were the ones who would gladly single out a designated group and subject them to identification and confinement and death if so desired.

    Donald Trump is Hair Fuhrer.

  129. 129.

    mclaren

    Fascinating article by Ramez Naam “Why Energy Storage is About to Get Big and Cheap.”

    This will have knock-on effects on transportation, city layout & city livability, the hotel industry, the retail industry, and much more. Naam describes the process as a virtuous cycle that will exponentiate.

    For example: much cheaper denser energy storage means cheap electric cars. Self-driving electric cars will eliminate much of the hotel industry, since people can sleep in their cars while the cars drive them around. Retail stores will have automated deliveries of stock. Cities won’t need to be laid out to cater to the needs of human drivers. Self-driving cars will eliminate traffic jams, reducing or obviating the need for freeways. Large-scale dense energy storage systems can free us from middle east oil dependency, transforming U.S. foreign policy. And so on.

  130. 130.

    schrodinger's cat

    @burnspbesq: One should add up all the people the British killed with their mass starvation policies, their body count was 60 million in India alone from 1860 to 1947.
    Benevolent Empire not so benevolent actually.

    ETA: They held East India (Bengal and Bihar from the 1760s, took them another 100 years to capture the rest of the subcontinent.)

  133. 133.

    Amir Khalid

    @mclaren:
    1. Academic credentials =/= intellectual depth.
    2. At times like this, Bernie very nearly comes off as the sort that has only a hammer and sees everything as a nail. Economic inequality is not the root of all evil; no one thing is. Racism is its own bad thing, with its own quite separate history. It takes a quite serious lack of intellectual depth to fail to see that.

  134. 134.

    mclaren

    @burnspbesq:

    The swindle (if any) here is the Legislature failing to step up to the plate and fund the shortfall that results from the losses incurred in 2008-09, thereby forcing the trustees to reach for yield that can only be obtained from private equity and hedge fund investments.

    Once again the tax avoidance lawyer misses the big picture. Hey! Shit-for-brains! Doesn’t matter why CalPers is reaching for yield. What matters is that risky hedge fund investment tend to blow up. And that leaves CalPers broke and the state of California on the hook for the entire goddamn value of the pension fund. Not to mention all the teachers and firefighters who gets their pensions from CalPers fucked, stuck, ‘n outa luck.

    If you want to see how this kind of thing ends, check out the L.A. Times article “ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Retirement System Declares Independence : Investments: County employees’ pension board loses confidence, pulls funds from treasurer’s control.” Except this time, the entire state of California will blow up its pension fund, not just one county.

    Based on the kind of reasoning you’ve shown here, burnsie, the rest of us should pay you to go back to Ireland. You can explain to the Irish why it’s such a great idea to socialize losses and privatize profits from greedy thieving hedge funds, and good riddance to you.

  135. 135.

    Amir Khalid

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I remember the bit in the dinner scene where Kate Capshaw (the future Mrs Spielberg) is offered a tureen of eyeball soup. I said to myself, “Self, Indians don’t eat like that.”

  136. 136.

    mclaren

    @Amir Khalid:

    At times like this, Bernie very nearly comes off as the sort that has only a hammer and sees everything as a nail.

    No argument on that point. On the other hand, Bernie’s hammer is a really good one. If it’s a choice between Mrs. My-Daughter-Is-Married-To-A-Goldman-Sachs-hedge-fund-manager who just gave a speech explaining that “bashing the bankers is unproductive” in the aftermath of the 2009 global financial crash, and Mr. economic-inequality-is-the-root-of-all-evil, I’ll take Bernie.

    Bernie Sanders has a much better track record on racial issues than Hillary, by the way.

  138. 138.

    MomSense

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Our economy is not doing well. People are anxious and angry. I also wonder to what extent the anti Muslim bigotry we’ve been exposed to by Trump and the Reoublicans is a factor given the large Somali population in Lewiston Auburn. Over the years of phone banking into those cities, I’ve heard some ugly things.

  139. 139.

    Amir Khalid

    @mclaren:
    It’s not enough for Bernie to have the bestest hammer there is. A President is supposed to have a complete tool kit.

    Perhaps you could offer a summary of the difference between Bernie’s record and Hillary’s on race issues, preferably limiting yourself to 15 lines of comment.

  141. 141.

    Punchy

    And yet you voted for these fuckers for oh so many years. I appauld the changeover, but marvel in the what-the-fuck-were-you-thinking…

  142. 142.

    David Koch

    @MomSense: He’s a 2 term incumbent. Don’t 2 term incumbents usually win reelection?

    eta: He was running in an area that voted for nutty LePage in 2010 and 2014. So he was going with the grain, not against the grain.

  144. 144.

    Amir Khalid

    @srv:
    Maybe I lack the intellectual depth to appreciate Paul Miller’s writing, but it seemed like pure nonsense to me.

  148. 148.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Slow-burning, well crafted drama. Mentioned a while back that the final episode was some of the most intense TV had seen in ages. So much so that had to keep pausing it in order to decompress.

  149. 149.

    MomSense

    @David Koch:

    My comment with a link is in moderation. This was a runoff election. I thought Chin might actually win it because he ran a good campaign and out raised MacDonald. The Bangor Daily News ran a good piece explaining the issues.

  150. 150.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @MomSense: I have. If you go back through the archives, you’ll probably find that I was one of the first people to post songs from it. I just ain’t joining the cult. I’ve also been a fan of the historical Hamilton for quite a while. He was right on far more issues than his opponents were. Oddly, the only one of his generation with a better record on slavery and women’s rights was Burr. Go figure.

  152. 152.

    David Koch

    @MomSense: I read a BDN piece saying it’s an Archie Bunker area.

    It became a Franco-American city after Canadians began moving here in the 1860s for jobs in shoe and fabric mills on the Androscoggin River. Their descendants made Lewiston a Democratic stronghold where John F. Kennedy made the final stop of his 1960 presidential campaign.

    But the mills closed, and since 2000, immigration has changed Lewiston like no other place in Maine, with 7,000 Somalis living in the region.

    At the same time, however, the city has become more conservative, backing Republican Gov. Paul LePage in 2010 and 2014, and twice electing Macdonald, who made headlines for saying in 2012 that Somali immigrants should “leave your culture at the door” and this year for calling for an online registry of welfare recipients.

    Race loomed over this campaign. Local landlord Joe Dunne hung signs in the city saying “Don’t vote for Ho Chi Chin” in October after the Chinese-American candidate dubbed him a “slumlord.” Dunne said the signs simply referenced Chin’s ideas, but many condemned them as racist.

  153. 153.

    NotMax

    Trump is the logical conclusion

    Inevitable outcome, yes.

    “Logical” gives the whole thing validity and credence it does not merit.

    And as for “conclusion,” no such thing as peak [fill in extremist political ideology here].

  154. 154.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @MomSense: Okay, now I want to see Hamilton. And if you meet a Jekkie you can rest assured that Hamilfan is a much cooler sounding term for the musical cult you belong to.

  155. 155.

    danielx

    @mclaren:

    For example: much cheaper denser energy storage means cheap electric cars. Self-driving electric cars will eliminate much of the hotel industry, since people can sleep in their cars while the cars drive them around. Retail stores will have automated deliveries of stock. Cities won’t need to be laid out to cater to the needs of human drivers. Self-driving cars will eliminate traffic jams, reducing or obviating the need for freeways. Large-scale dense energy storage systems can free us from middle east oil dependency, transforming U.S. foreign policy.

    All of which sounds great for everyone, except for the people carrying out those functions now whose jobs will be…outsourced, as it were. I’m not at all opposed to such a change, approve it in theory…but let’s not go all Tom Friedman here. I read someplace or other that every societal policy change of the sort/magnitude envisioned by Naam will result in at least three unintended consequences, two of which will probably be negative…in nature. Benefits, long term and otherwise, may well be more than worth any such consequences, but somebody had best be thinking about the negatives as well.

  156. 156.

    MomSense

    @David Koch:

    That’s the article I was talking about. the city proper, which includes Bates,tends to be younger, more progressive, and much more diverse. The surrounding areas are older and more conservative.

  158. 158.

    MomSense

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Hamilton and Adams were always my favorites. I’m a survivor of too many childhood hours spent in church basements while the adults read , sorted, inventoried archives. No way I’m going through archives here.

  164. 164.

    PurpleGirl

    Feeling kind of confused by this thread so I’m going to bed. One comment though, I have a Facebook page but only because I needed one if I wanted to take part in chat at the various kitten cams I frequent. Any number of people have found me through FB but I don’t often update my status or post stuff there. I talk much more often here at BJ. Night, people. Tomorrow.

  166. 166.

    NotMax

    @Omnes Omnibus

    Put in mind of a cartoon showing the minotaur holding a torch up to a large parchment on the wall which has a big red arrow and the words “you are here” on it.

  167. 167.

    notoriousJRT

    @Mike in NC:
    I saw a YOUNG man on the TV say that not only did he support Trump’s plan, he wanted to “send ’em back to where they came from. It ain’t just the olds that get off on this crap.

  168. 168.

    sdhays

    @mclaren: I agree that making the case that racism and xenophobia are just outgrowths of economic inequality is not supportable, but I wonder if it’s a useful fiction. Racism and economic classism are intertwined; creating a cross-racial coalition focussed on reducing the wealth gap would, if successful, probably also be able to reduce racism over the medium to long term. Xenophobia is complicated with the real, but over-hyped, threat of terrorism, but I think a substantial part of the anti-Mexican xenophobia is the disaster of NAFTA and the free trade policies of the last several decades. Better trade policies would likely drain the virulence of anti-Hispanic xenophobia. I fear that anti-Muslim bigotry will not be that “easy” to put back in the bottle (scare quotes because clearly absolutely none of this is easy).

    Personally, I tend to be uncomfortable with “useful fictions”. But maybe simplifying the complex relationships between economic inequality, racism, and xenophobia down to “economic inequality is the foundation of racism and xenophobia” might be able to generate progress on all fronts if it can inspire new voters without alienating the people who know better.

  170. 170.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @sdhays: It is not a useful fiction because the African Americans and others who are being summarily executed on the streets should not be forced to wait for economic change to “fix” everything. Decreased inequality does no good if a cop shot you down at random.

  171. 171.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @MomSense: IMDB says Hasselhoff was in a made for TV version of it in 2001. It goes on enough good-sized tours, so it’s not a “trouble” show which someone’s always trying to fix (such as Chess).

    All I know about it is I listened to the cast album ofJ&H and it didn’t grab me hardly at all beyond “This is the moment”, a song which works. If a Jekkie would like to persuade me otherwise, I’d listen.

  173. 173.

    different-church-lady

    The really disgusting thing about it is the sense that the only reason they have a problem with him is because they’re afraid he’s giving away their game. “You dumb fuck, racism is supposed to be in code. You’re supposed to let them into the country so that we can hate on them. If you get rid of them all, who are we going to have to vilify?”

  174. 174.

    danielx

    Question of the day: has the wingnut event horizon occurred?

    Unreconstructed Iraq War pimp, torture advocate and Weekly Standard goon, Stephen Hayes, bringing the full weight of his moral heft to bear on this makes it awesome.

    But Dick Cheney … going on Hugh Hewitt… to call out Donald Trump for going too far is what makes it fucking art.

    I swear, between keeping an eye out for looking glasses in front of me, rabbit holes in the ground, and looking over my shoulder for the Cheshire Cat, I’m tripping over my own feet a lot at the moment.

    On the other hand, my brother told me I was having the same issue the other evening while out with him at in a bar. After a) consuming a certain amount of Black Bush and b) seeing a redheaded girl* wearing black tights, a black skirt with approximately twenty square inches of fabric, and a pale blue tshirt with the charming motto Off With His Head in Old Irish font on front. So I’m easily distracted.

    *used the word after some thought. At this point in my life, ‘girl’ refers to any unrelated female young enough to be my daughter or granddaughter. Except for my niece, who is a very bright and gorgeous young woman in her first year of law school. And my buddy’s daughter, who is a gorgeous and accomplished young woman serving as a Navy officer and nurse on unnamed island out in the big blue. And my other friend’s daughter, who is…..aw, maybe I better just drop the whole ‘girl’ thing.

    Edit: maybe I could use it for those who don’t have any kids? Nope, that won’t work….

  176. 176.

    different-church-lady

    @mclaren:

    Sounds like Bernie Sanders is trying to make the argument that discrimination in our society is mainly class-based rather than ethnicity- or sexual-preference-based.

    I also believe that’s the argument Sanders is making, and that it reveals an unfortunate and incomprehensible myopia in his vision, for all the reasons you outlined.

    It seems more likely that racism + xenophobia are the cause of income inequality, rather than the result.

    Actually, it’s a feedback loop. Each reinforces the other in turn. As greater society systematically impoverishes a community, the results “confirm” the bigotry against that community, which then leads to more impoverishment.

    I should also note that the tempered presentation of your excellent observations is a refreshing and welcome change of pace.*

    *(ETA: one which, upon further reading, apparently does not run through all of your comments on this thread…)

  177. 177.

    Amir Khalid

    I think Bianca is upset with me because I was nice to the cat from next door, who likes to hang out here.

  181. 181.

    Suzanne

    I can totally see how the Facebook addicts I know are likely also drunks. I have a few of those people who are so obviously using Facebook to fill the void. like, “HIIII, I’M PRETTY! I’m having fun! I’m so smart and talented! I’m so happy! See? SEE?!?!” I would not be surprised to learn that they are drinking heavily.

    Something that it took me waaaay too long to learn: If someone is telling you how happy they are, they are lying.

  182. 182.

    Srv

    Werner Heisenberg, Kurt Godel and Noam Chomsky walk into a bar. Heisenberg looks around the bar and says, “Because there are three of us and because this is a bar, it must be a joke. But the question remains, is it funny or not?” And Godel thinks for a moment and says, “Well, because we’re inside the joke, we can’t tell whether it’s funny. We’d have to be outside looking at it.” And Chomsky looks at both of them and says, “Of course it’s funny. You’re just telling it wrong

  183. 183.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Suzanne: Also, if someone tells you how smart they are(especially with a reference to their IQ), they’re not(see, Trump, Donald; Furby, Rage).

  185. 185.

    The Republic of Stupity

    @mclaren:

    In effect, it’s the old scam of privatizing profits while socializing losses. The same deal that went on with the subprime mortgage scams back in the 2000s.

    Uh, yup…

    And until some of these greedy fokkers start going to prison for a decade at a time, it’s gonna keep going on…

    There simply isn’t a strong disincentive to prevent this sort of thing…

    A quick google search just revealed that one ex-Calpers CEO, Fred Buenrostro, is due to FINALLY be sentenced Thursday, unless it gets delayed again… expected to get five years…

  186. 186.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Suzanne: Something that it took me waaaay too long to learn: If someone is telling you how happy they are, they are lying.

    Nothing makes me run (figuratively) from a new acquaintance like telling me how much fun they are, especially if they say “I’m so crazy!”, usually means a loud drunk.

  187. 187.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    Still for the amount that (someone said the other day that mclaren had claimed to be a him. And yet I recall (which guaranties absolutely nothing) that the claim had been made a number of yrs ago that he is a she, (So is it possible that there is confusion as to which is which or that changes have occurred?) but in any event I’m a long winded bastard myself and I don’t hold a candle to mclaren.

  188. 188.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Ruckus: Eh, I’m the one who said that. Mnemo pressed mclaren one night a few months ago about the topic. Mclaren said he’s a he.

  189. 189.

    Amir Khalid

    @Suzanne:
    One takes an IQ test. I consistently score a certain number on such tests — a number I could brag about, were I so inclined. Yet even the experts seem unsure what IQ tests measure, so I keep my IQ score to myself.

  191. 191.

    Suzanne

    @Amir Khalid: IQ tests are supposedly invalid after a very young age. So to be very accurate, you have to have taken one when you were young, and to have the results shared with you. Most US students are not told their IQ.

  193. 193.

    Anoniminous

    @Suzanne:

    There’s no scientific definition of intelligence so “tests” (sic) to “measure” (sic) it are pseudo-science.

  196. 196.

    goblue72

    @Omnes Omnibus: I recommend Aziz Ansari’s new TV show “Master of None”. Episode 4 “Indians on TV” does a fantastic criticism of the stereotypical heavily accented Indian character seen in movies and TV.

    “Look, I get it. There probably is a Pradeep who runs a convenience store, and I have nothing against him, but why can’t there be a Pradeep just once who’s, like, an architect, or he designs mittens, or does one of the jobs Bradley Cooper’s characters do in movies?”

  197. 197.

    Anne Laurie

    @Amir Khalid:

    I hate to say it, lest I break Thoughtful Today’s heart. But maybe Bernie just doesn’t have the intellectual depth to be President.

    Nah, Sanders seems to be plenty smart enough. But, like many other smart young people, he found a niche early, and after all these years he’s expanded within that niche until he’s no longer flexible enough to escape it. As in the joke about the economist stranded on a desert island where the punchline is “Assume a can opener”, Bernie has real difficulty seeing problems (like racism) that can’t be solved by his proven solution (economic equality).

    He’ll be valuable to a Democratic president in any number of econ-related roles, but intellectual flexibility is far more valuable than a high IQ in the Oval Office. Neither of the Roosevelts, for instance, were top-rate intellects — but their minds were both extremely adaptable.

  198. 198.

    Anne Laurie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Am I the only person who finds “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” just a wee tad racist?

    I had to be physically restrained by my friends from walking out of the movie theatre when that first came out. And the sexism was just as bad as the racism, too.

    Although I will admit that the line “No thanks — I had bugs fah lunch.” made me laugh out loud.

  199. 199.

    Anne Laurie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’ve also been a fan of the historical Hamilton for quite a while. He was right on far more issues than his opponents were. Oddly, the only one of his generation with a better record on slavery and women’s rights was Burr. Go figure.

    Hamilton and Burr were both very much NYC guys, for better or worse. Even then, the Big Wormy Apple had its reputation — much of the Founding Father “working philosophy” was divided between the New England guys with their cranky Puritan-based communitarianism, and the Southern planter racist aristocracy. The NY/NJ minority were the crucial pivot for a lot of issues, but especially the business-friendly, immigrant-friendly hustler ethics that Terry Pratchett memorialized in his Ankh Morpork tales. At least when I was growing up in NYC, Hamilton (and even Burr) always got more space in our history textbooks than in the “national” narrative — I suspect that one reason Hamilton the Musical has been a success is because Broadway backers and Broadway crowds appreciate the hustle at the heart of Alex’s success in a very visceral way.

  201. 201.

    Applejinx

    @srv: Sanders isn’t going independent. He’s going to win the Democratic primary quite honorably without slinging mud at Hillary Clinton, because we are building the ground game and doing the damn work. If you’re not, go out and volunteer at Bernie field offices. Two different Obama presidential campaigns, there was a grassroots campaign and it worked and he won. Midterms, there was nothing. From the Democrats as a party, there was nothing, they didn’t really give a shit about the electorate and were apparently busy taking money from big donors.

    The grassroots campaign is back, just like it was for Obama. Feels much the same but I see more interest in building it and KEEPING it, and very little interest in turning the results over to the Dem establishment. I also see canvassing results.

    I don’t think this is going to be a great election for dynasties. Again, I think Clinton is like the bizarro world Bush: way the hell more benevolent, and votable-for IF the Dem powerbrokers pull off a Rove-like dirty trick and cheat her into the nomination and leave no choice.

    We’d still have Bernie in the Senate, and if past experience is any indication, the Dem establishment has absolutely no interest in pursuing anything but Presidential elections and big football-rivalry type gestures. Bernie’s people are almost without exception looking to get engaged with the process over the long haul, and don’t answer to the Dem establishment. We won’t be done, regardless of how the very screwed-up world of a Presidential run plays out.

    By every metric except the coronation-wish of the MainStreamMedia, Bernie’s winning. There’s more Bernie energy out there than Trump energy, it’s just that ‘if it bleeds it leads’ and the media only wants to manufacture a clash of dynasties or a new Hitler.

    If this bothers you, go volunteer for Bernie and do something. You don’t have to sit around being upset by the shitshow of typical 2015 politics ramping up. There’s a guy running who can win and isn’t a shitshow and is decent and honest!

    Voting booths aren’t on camera. For every televised Trump rally with a thousand networks circling and waiting to see if the Trump people will beat a protester to death, there’s a Bernie event packing a damn stadium and going COMPLETELY unreported, and you wouldn’t believe how many people are there. Just like the Iraq antiwar rallies that filled London etc. only to be blacklisted by the media.

    People vote. Just saying. This is how Romney got so horribly shocked by voting results (way too much to cheat away!) and now it’s the whole damn media setting itself up for a rude surprise.

    Thankfully it’s a nice surprise, if you like socialism and rebuilding our country :)

  202. 202.

    Applejinx

    @danielx: Maybe it’s my rabid Bernieism, but when I see all this information on energy storage, I think economics. The energy storage thing paints a picture of incredible gains for energy efficiency, and energy is money: it translates pretty directly into a host of economic activity, and a collapse in energy prices through technology (much like a collapse in data storage prices through technology) will produce massive societal changes.

    Unless it doesn’t, because a few obscenely rich people get to swoop in and harvest all the economic benefit, thus causing the world to look very similar or worse. And they’ll say, yes you have to pay even more for higher-tech energy. What, do you think it just comes out of the sky for free?

    It’s called the sun. Yes, in fact, it does. ALL of the planet’s energy traces back to the sun one way or another, and the rest is just kinds of energy storage…

    What that means in practice is, if you can get energy storage good enough you can redesign economics. You can feed all the people, transport them, do whatever you want because this stuff that used to be out of reach has become too cheap to meter. It’ll sound ridiculous, like proposing to charge for Internet by the byte.

    I’m setting up a cellphone service to ‘not really use hardly at all’ (I have wifi for smartphone purposes, and a landline for regular calls, and only need emergency brief call ability) for THREE dollars a month. The way people hammer on big data smartphone networks makes this possible: it becomes too cheap to meter.

    When energy ITSELF turns into this type of situation, many things change… if we let them. And it is very much the incredibly wealthy who will either further this or resist it. Some will want to keep people’s experience of struggling to pay the electric bill the same, even though it increasingly becomes a sham. Someone is keeping the money, even as they become impossibly wealthy and can afford to devote big chunks of that wealth specifically to keeping people’s lived experience the same and denying them the benefits of the efficiency revolution.

    And so it all comes down to income inequality and economics, again…

  204. 204.

    gogol's wife

    @rikyrah:

    Dead thread, but I’ve been listening to it in the car, and I’m obsessed! I come home and say to my husband (history buff), “So what happened at the Battle of Yorktown?” He looks at me funny but answers. It’s hilarious.

  205. 205.

    Spinoza is my Co-pilot

    @mclaren: I know you get a bad rap around here (not sure why, I don’t follow that closely) but I really enjoyed that.

    Not sure about splitting up the rightwing demographics quite the way you did, though. Lots and lots of overlap between unhinged Ayn Rand fanatics, troglodyte racists, and misogynist Boston-Strangler-wannabes, for instance. And far as I’m concerned they’re all fucking fascists, just with varying degrees of commitment to all parts of the American fascist program. I very much include our Christianist nutjobs — who seem completely unaware that they are modern Pharisees, and worse — in the fascist fold.

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