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You are here: Home / You Have to Be Kidding Me

You Have to Be Kidding Me

by John Cole|  December 20, 201512:09 pm| 95 Comments

This post is in: Our Failed Media Experiment

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Against my better judgment, I checked CNN’s homepage, and I found this:

fuckyoucnn

Yes. Donald Trump has insulted every race, creed, and religion, called for the execution of people’s families, called for a ban on Muslims, and basically every repulsive thing you can imagine, but it’s Hillary who might have gone too far.

Your liberal media.

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Reader Interactions

95Comments

  1. 1.

    JMG

    December 20, 2015 at 12:14 pm

    CNN has gone all in on appealing to the Fox crowd. Trump is their ratings magnet. An attack on him is an attack on the network’s bottom line.
    Ignore CNN. It has no information function. In fact, stop watching all cable news. BBC America will take care of your information needs.

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    December 20, 2015 at 12:15 pm

    You have to admit, saying “May the Force be with you” was a bridge too far.

  3. 3.

    jp

    December 20, 2015 at 12:17 pm

    I believe the young people say, “I cannot even.”

  4. 4.

    Alce_e_ardilla

    December 20, 2015 at 12:18 pm

    The Trump cannot fail, he can only be failed

  5. 5.

    Redshift

    December 20, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    Send to me that even an idiotic question about whether a Democrat went “too far” in attacking Trump is good publicity for appealing to the non-wingnut majority of the country.

  6. 6.

    inkadu

    December 20, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    And CNN had to fact check it because CNN doesn’t know about the subjunctive case.

  7. 7.

    MattF

    December 20, 2015 at 12:21 pm

    Too bad about CNN. Never used to watch it very much– my main CNN memory was that cross-eyed anchorperson… whose name I forget… But she was fun to watch, ‘tho a bit distracting.

    ETA: Bobbie Battista!

  8. 8.

    Scratch

    December 20, 2015 at 12:23 pm

    She’s a democrat. By definition, anything a democrat says goes too far.

    In other stuff, yesterday I picked up a box of Humalog Insulin Kwikpens (holds 1500 units of insulin in total). I can see that the retail price is $560. As I remember it, back in 1990 or so, I could buy vials of NPH and R insulins (1000 units in a vial) for about $20. According to the dept of labor inflation calculator, $30 back then is about 86.41 in today’s dollars.

    Yeah, of course there was some research involved in developing Humalog which has a faster action profile than R insulin, but that’s just fucking insane.

    I ended up writing a Facebook post about it and sharing it publicly to my timeline.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    December 20, 2015 at 12:24 pm

    I’m afraid Trump supporters will never vote for Hillary now.

  10. 10.

    Germy

    December 20, 2015 at 12:29 pm

    @MattF: Bobbie’s at The Onion now?

  11. 11.

    Oatler.

    December 20, 2015 at 12:36 pm

    “No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pundits. The creatures outside looked from pundit to Republican, and from Republican to pundit again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

  12. 12.

    Unabogie

    December 20, 2015 at 12:39 pm

    I guess there’s a different standard for “serious” candidates and Trump. Only they don’t treat Trump like a joke. They give him massive amounts of free airtime, so much so that he doesn’t need to buy any advertising.

    This failure of the media dwarfs the clusterfuck they created at the runup to the Iraq war.

  13. 13.

    wmd

    December 20, 2015 at 12:40 pm

    @Jerzy Russian: Yoda i knew. Hillary, no Yoda are you.

  14. 14.

    Stacy

    December 20, 2015 at 12:40 pm

    IOKIYAR

  15. 15.

    rikyrah

    December 20, 2015 at 12:43 pm

    Sahil Kapur‏
    @sahilkapur
    “On Syria and regime change, @HillaryClinton aligns with @MarcoRubio; @BernieSanders aligns with @TedCruz. http://bloom.bg/1MoJZYW“

  16. 16.

    Germy

    December 20, 2015 at 12:48 pm

    @Baud: I read somewhere that all disgruntled Bernie supporters will vote for Trump after HRC wins the nom.

  17. 17.

    Tom

    December 20, 2015 at 12:49 pm

    Don’t worry, the CNN headline will soon change to “Tough Talk from Trump”:

    Host Chuck Todd asked Trump if he would change his language if he knew his words were being used in recruitment videos.

    “No, because I think that my words represent toughness and strength,”

    You see, it’s all about talking tough, not actually doing anything (and ignore the more terrorists part, that’s not important).

  18. 18.

    CaseyL

    December 20, 2015 at 12:49 pm

    CNN was terrific in its early years, because Ted Turner was running it and he knew what a news channel should be.

    One small but interesting note: by Turner decree, reporters and anchors on CNN could not use the word “foreign.” They had to say “international.” Turner envisioned CNN going global, and when you’re global, nothing is foreign. But he also wanted viewers to think of themselves as internationalists, and the word “foreign” evokes alien-ness.

    The rot set in as soon as he sold it to Time Warner – an entertainment conglomerate.

  19. 19.

    Mike J

    December 20, 2015 at 12:59 pm

    @JMG: .

    BBC America will take care of your information needs.

    You’ve never actually watched BBC’s coverage of American politics, have you? They spew the same right wing talking points the rest of them do.,

  20. 20.

    oldgold

    December 20, 2015 at 12:59 pm

    Are we better off with 24/7 cable news?

    Not too long ago, I would have considered this question asinine. Today, not so much.

  21. 21.

    Unabogie

    December 20, 2015 at 12:59 pm

    @Germy: I talked to a Bernie supporter at a Bernie debate party, and I asked her if she would vote Hillary if Bernie lost. She said Trump at least brought up some good points.

    AAARRRRGHHH!!!

  22. 22.

    Guachi

    December 20, 2015 at 1:00 pm

    Rule of Headlines: if the headline asks a yes/no question, the answer is always “no”.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    December 20, 2015 at 1:01 pm

    Hillary wasn’t even the first to call the tone of Trump’s rhetoric fascist. Others had been doing that for weeks. And of course it’s not just his talk, it’s also the atmosphere at his rallies. It wasn’t any Democrat who took to shouting “Sieg Heil!” at one of them, or to beating up people of colour, was it? And the Donald has still to disavow any of this shameful conduct.

  24. 24.

    Unabogie

    December 20, 2015 at 1:04 pm

    @srv: If this is true (and Hersh has a poor record with this sort of thing — Iran invasion imminent anyone?) then how is this an indictment of Obama and not a crime perpetrated by these generals? Are you advocating that military officers replace civilian control with their own personal beliefs?

    Also, obvious trolling thread derail is obvious.

  25. 25.

    jonas

    December 20, 2015 at 1:05 pm

    Hundreds of years from now when historians are analyzing the great collapse of American civilization, I don’t think it will be nutcakes like Trump and his followers that really get the blame — the books will be written about how the media basically allowed politicians to start defining what was or was not reality and just reported “viewpoints” rather than the real facts. Thus there is no climate change, only the “debate” over climate change. Suggesting that we summarily execute families of suspected terrorists is not eliminationist, fascist demagoguery, but merely one of several responses offered on fighting terrorism. Maybe there is a film of a premature baby undergoing a vivisection at Planned Parenthood. Or not. Who’s to say? The unrelenting fecklessness of our supine media in the face of the right’s attempts to practice politics in a fact-free zone — and this really began with Bush and the push for the Iraq War — will be diagnosed as the major reason for the eventual implosion of our civil society and the republic.

  26. 26.

    Pogonip

    December 20, 2015 at 1:07 pm

    Cole, I must issue a small correction: Trump did NOT insult white, female, ambidextrous, number-crunching non-pet-owning Christians. He made me feel like the only kid who doesn’t get picked for the team.

  27. 27.

    MattF

    December 20, 2015 at 1:09 pm

    @Pogonip: As long as they’re not menstruating.

  28. 28.

    ruemara

    December 20, 2015 at 1:10 pm

    I dunno. I just got roped into yet another dumb discussion about how important it is to not vote for Hillary to save the Democratic Party from itself. When you hear a bunch of supposedly smart people detail how Hillary would totally lose to Trump because she can’t excite people like him, plus she’s just the same and that if Bernie isn’t the nominee and the world has to go to hell to show just how stupid everyone is for not voting for the obvious best choice, then so be it, you can’t mock this shit. I’m seeing an incredible amount of nihilism these days.

  29. 29.

    Iowa Old Lady

    December 20, 2015 at 1:12 pm

    @Unabogie: That she’s willing to go from Sanders to Trump is a sign this person doesn’t really give a hoot about Sanders’s policy or experience or honorable nature.

  30. 30.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 20, 2015 at 1:13 pm

    Vaguely related, but I’ve been busy with family obligations and haven’t read many threads here lately. Did I miss HAMMER TIME!? Can’t see much about it in the news.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    December 20, 2015 at 1:14 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: You beat me to that comment.

    @ruemara: I view it as privilege, not nihilism.

  32. 32.

    Suzanne

    December 20, 2015 at 1:15 pm

    I am still in mild shock that they had to ask a question about who is going to pick out the fucking flower arrangements and china.

    Although it was really touching how O’Malley, Sanders, and Clinton were all obviously very supportive and proud of their spouses and the good they have done in the world on behalf of others. It was in total contrast to the grossness of the other side, who still apparently think that women are just for homemaking and child-rearing.

  33. 33.

    ruemara

    December 20, 2015 at 1:17 pm

    @Baud: do you think you can explain to a person or two who was liberal™ long before you were born, that they have unexamined privilege issues? Look, I like some of these people, I’m just trying to back out before I lose my temper, not nuke the internet.

  34. 34.

    Ruckus

    December 20, 2015 at 1:20 pm

    @jp:
    You are way out of date.

    I used to say that. And I could easily have grandkids old enough to drink. Alcohol. Legally.

  35. 35.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    December 20, 2015 at 1:20 pm

    @Mike J: Yup. I can’t watch Katty Kay on the BBC America broadcast for just that reason. She seems to be a big St. John McCain fan.

    The international correspondents seem a bit more balanced, but everyone has a bias. They’re human, after all.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  36. 36.

    Anoniminous

    December 20, 2015 at 1:21 pm

    News is considered a money sink with brief moments of net cash in TV land. To become a profit-center the TV execs have turned to Infotainment which rapidly becomes propaganda when dealing with anything substantive. Trump is good for gathering eyeballs, which is good for selling advertising, so anyone attacking Trump — unless they are good for eyeballs too (see: Cruz, Rubio, etc.) — is attacking the Infotainment profit center, thus the bottom line of the Infotainment Medium company. As Edward R. Murrow put it, “if radio news is to be regarded as a commodity, only acceptable when saleable, and only when packaged to fit the advertising appropriation of a sponsor, then I don’t care what you call it — I say it isn’t news.”

  37. 37.

    Arcadia Berger

    December 20, 2015 at 1:22 pm

    @Scratch: What your Humalog vs. R insulin experience says to me is that we need to find some other way of compensating the developers of new medical treatments besides retail price.
    I don’t know what that is — maybe tax reductions? — but clearly letting people set their prices any Shkreling way they please is not working out.

  38. 38.

    Mike J

    December 20, 2015 at 1:23 pm

    @Suzanne:

    I am still in mild shock that they had to ask a question about who is going to pick out the fucking flower arrangements and china.

    It shouldn’t surprise you at all that the media act like that when even nominal liberals refuse to believe that Hillary can do anything on her own. The unhinged supporters of one candidate constantly point to things they disliked about Bill’s time in office and refuse to consider that Hillary may have any agency of her own.

  39. 39.

    Baud

    December 20, 2015 at 1:24 pm

    @ruemara: No, I wouldn’t have the patience.

  40. 40.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 20, 2015 at 1:28 pm

    @Germy: Yeah, from srv.

  41. 41.

    Germy

    December 20, 2015 at 1:29 pm

    Love the photo they ran with for Did She Go Too Far?

    She’s got her hands up, saying “Rawwrrr!”

  42. 42.

    Germy

    December 20, 2015 at 1:31 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: “My far left candidate didn’t win, so I think I’ll go with the far right candidate. And waiter, may I have some barbecue sauce for my ice cream, please?”

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    December 20, 2015 at 1:33 pm

    @Mike J:
    Well it’s not like she’s been a senator or SoS.

    But really I think part of the problem is that the rethuglican candidates (other than tDump) are all willing puppets. So the perspective is that all candidates for the job are puppets. And who do they hate more than Bill Clinton? And a woman? How can a woman possibly be a real person? Model, nude short film actress sure but, a real person, with real responsibilities?

    /snark, just in case it wasn’t blindingly obvious.

  44. 44.

    Anoniminous

    December 20, 2015 at 1:34 pm

    @Germy:

    And I read somewhere Hillary went too far in her criticisms of Trump.

    Oh. It was at the top of this thread! So it must be true!

    :-)

  45. 45.

    sherparick

    December 20, 2015 at 1:35 pm

    @JMG: Also Al Jazeera America, Canadian Broadcasting, and Deutshe Welle.

  46. 46.

    ? Martin

    December 20, 2015 at 1:45 pm

    Sanders made the key progressive point that Clinton and even Obama don’t ever seem to make: taxing the middle class is fine so long as you are spending that money on things that returns greater benefits than the taxpayer could achieve on their own. That’s the key liberal point. That’s the point behind ACA and extends to single payer. That’s the point behind infrastructure spending – roads, etc. That’s also the point behind defense spending, Medicare, and Social Security.

    All of these can be taken too far, of course, and we would argue that with defense spending that’s happened, but it’s good to see that point being articulated again.

  47. 47.

    Scratch

    December 20, 2015 at 1:45 pm

    @Arcadia Berger:

    Maybe that or maybe let Medicare finally negotiate drug prices. As far as drug prices go, it would probably help a lot if we had a single-payer system.

    Overall, I suspect it would be better if we funded universities as research institutions to look for drugs. Take the profit motive out of it, consider the idea of medications as a public and common good. Another potential imminent problem we’re facing is that we need to put money into new antibiotics research because there isn’t enough profit in them for private research. The continued development of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria could become a serious public health threat that private research is going to be unable to handle.

  48. 48.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    December 20, 2015 at 1:47 pm

    @ruemara: Keep this in your back pocket when you have another discussion like that. From CAP:

    There has been much discussion about the demographic makeup of the 2012 electorate, and one thing is clear: Women’s voices determined the outcome of the election. Across the board, women made the difference. Here are seven key facts about women voters and the gender gap in the 2012 elections.

    1. Women were the majority of voters. According to exit polls 53 percent of the voters in the 2012 elections were women—more than one out of every two voters across the country was a woman. Moreover, 55 percent of those women cast votes for President Barack Obama. Women who voted for President Obama made up 29 percent—nearly one-third—of the electorate.

    2. The gender gap grew to 10 points. The gender gap is defined as the margin between men and women’s support for a candidate. It’s the best way to measure how men and women’s voting patterns differ. According to official 2012 exit polls, President Barack Obama had a 10-point gender gap over his Republican rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney—higher than in most (but not all) presidential races since 1980.

    3. Women decided the election. This past November women determined the outcome of the presidential election. Only in President Bill Clinton’s 1996 victory did a candidate succeed by winning with women and losing with men. Again, according to official exit polls, in both of their first terms in office, President Obama and President Clinton won with both genders. In neither of his campaigns did President George W. Bush win with women, although previous Republican presidents did.

    4. The gender gap extends beyond women of color. The gender gap widened considerably with Latinos and African Americans this year, but also with whites. While President Obama’s support with white women declined, his gender gap among whites grew and was the same as former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s gender gap in 2006 and larger than President Clinton’s 1992 gender gap among whites. It was also larger than the gender gap among whites in the last four midterm elections.

    5. The top issues for women were the economy and a candidate who will fight for them. Abortion may have been salient, but jobs and the economy are still the primary concern. Polling firm Momentum Analysis conducted a bipartisan study of “Walmart moms”—women with kids younger than age 18 and who have shopped at a Walmart at least once within the past month—and found abortion lagged behind the economy as a vote driver for these women. Similarly, according to the official exit polls, Gov. Romney bested President Obama by approximately 14 points with the three-fourths of the electorate who said the most important candidate qualities were that he “shares my values,” “is a strong leader,” or “has a vision.” But President Obama trounced Gov. Romney by 63 points with the one-fifth of voters who said “cares about people like me” was the most important value.

    6. Extreme remarks and candidates changed the debate. The election highlighted many candidates’ extreme views on women—not just those who made public gaffes. Much was written, of course, about Senate candidates Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) and Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock’s extreme comments on women and abortion. But there was a lot more where that came from, including, many argue, from Republican vice-presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The campaign back and forth helped delineate the boundaries of what’s acceptable—both as political speech and as policy.

    7. Abortion and women’s health issues played a real role. These extreme views might have driven many women voters to the arms of Democrats. A Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research postelection poll of women who supported President Obama in 2008 and an early December national poll for Planned Parenthood Action Fund both show the issues of abortion and access to birth control helped President Obama more than Gov. Romney. The Planned Parenthood survey found 69 percent of women—5 percentage points higher than all voters—had heard, seen, or read something about Gov. Romney’s plan to “get rid of” federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
    With women deciding the presidential election, and with record numbers of women in both the House and the Senate, policies helping women must now be on the front burner. Women determined the outcome of the way the government looks, and it is time for lawmakers to answer the call of the majority of voters in the country and make sure economic fairness, pay equity, and issues of work-family balance are on the top of the policy agenda.

    It’s hard to see those trends doing anything but strengthening this time around, also too.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  49. 49.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 20, 2015 at 1:52 pm

    Stop endangering CNN’s ratings surge, you bitch!

  50. 50.

    sherparick

    December 20, 2015 at 1:53 pm

    @jonas: If you want to read the details of our “failed media experiment,” Drifttglass is go to reading. http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2015/12/sunday-morning-comin-down_19.html

  51. 51.

    Botsplainer

    December 20, 2015 at 1:53 pm

    @Tom:

    It’s the legacy of John Fucking Wayne and bullshit swagger.

  52. 52.

    Mystical Chick

    December 20, 2015 at 1:54 pm

    Oh for pity sake! I’m 100% Bernie but if HRC gets the nom, I am not a fool. I will vote for her because there’s a lot at stake and we don’t have time to play stupid ass games like taking your ball and going home because your person didn’t win.

    I can’t say that I’d get out there campaigning for her the way I would for Sanders but I surely will cast my vote for her. People make me want to hurl sometimes. Don’t be asses, yo.

  53. 53.

    Botsplainer

    December 20, 2015 at 1:55 pm

    @srv:

    Another anonymous piece of shit from Sy Hersh.

    Can the useless old fuck just slip into a coma already? His act got old long ago.

  54. 54.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 20, 2015 at 1:59 pm

    @Anoniminous: The networks used to be run by guys with vision. Now they’re run by Ferengi shitstains.

  55. 55.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 20, 2015 at 1:59 pm

    @Mystical Chick: They can’t help it. They learned it from Ralph.

  56. 56.

    Linnaeus

    December 20, 2015 at 2:03 pm

    @? Martin:

    Agreed. This is why the mantra of “middle class tax cuts” bothers me. I mean, I get the political appeal of it, but in the end, broad based programs for the public good need a broad based source of funding.

  57. 57.

    Baud

    December 20, 2015 at 2:14 pm

    @? Martin: @Linnaeus:

    Agree. But a presidential campaign is not a good time to raise that argument for the first time, especially when people are supposedly cynical of government.

  58. 58.

    JPL

    December 20, 2015 at 2:14 pm

    Hugh Hewitt thinks mention of the video is a game changer.

    @Unabogie: Trump isn’t coherent most of the time.

  59. 59.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 20, 2015 at 2:15 pm

    Here we go, Il Donaldo goes all Bob in Portland on us.

  60. 60.

    p.a.

    December 20, 2015 at 2:16 pm

    Great tangental post by Atrios.

  61. 61.

    Linnaeus

    December 20, 2015 at 2:20 pm

    @Baud:

    It’s definitely a political risk to make that argument. I’m not sure, however, that there really is a good time to do it.

    Yes, people are cynical about government, but at some point you have to find a way to change the conversation. Maybe Sanders is miscalculating by trying it now, but it has to start somewhere.

  62. 62.

    MattF

    December 20, 2015 at 2:21 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: I do wonder whether Vlad will be enthused by “It hasn’t been proved that he ever killed amybody.” But when Donald’s your BFF, you know he’s doing his best– so maybe that’s good enough.

  63. 63.

    Baud

    December 20, 2015 at 2:27 pm

    @Linnaeus:

    Well, hopefully his movement can build on this for the future if he can’t convince voters this time around.

  64. 64.

    Ruckus

    December 20, 2015 at 2:28 pm

    @Linnaeus:
    It does have to start somewhere.
    Taxes are the cost of being alive. Hence the saying, death and taxes are the only two certainties.
    How much tax you pay should have some correspondence to how well being alive feels/is. Good roads, good healthcare, etc. It also helps if the world doesn’t look like many are starving rather than living, IOW don’t be so selfish with the good life.

    It’s not a political risk to explain the truth, unless all the people you expect to vote for you are delusional. That last part works out well for conservatives.

  65. 65.

    Linnaeus

    December 20, 2015 at 2:29 pm

    @Baud:

    I hope so, too. This needs to be a long game kind of thing. Aye, that’s the rub.

    ETA: Building lasting political infrastructure is key, both inside and outside of the party. And it’s hard to find people with the temperament to do that.

  66. 66.

    Mandalay

    December 20, 2015 at 2:29 pm

    @John Cole:

    …but it’s Hillary who might have gone too far.

    You are comparing apples with oranges. CNN was asking whether Clinton went “too far” when she claimed that “He is becoming ISIS’s best recruiter...They are going to people, showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”

    AFAIK nobody, including Clinton, has been able to substantiate that bold claim. CNN’s journalism is certainly tacky, but Clinton needlessly overplayed her hand and deserved the blowback.

    I don’t understand why politicians make very specific claims that they can’t support. It’s a dumb thing to do – keep the accusations vague.

  67. 67.

    Mike J

    December 20, 2015 at 2:31 pm

    @Linnaeus:

    broad based programs for the public good need a broad based source of funding.

    This is true of course. The problem is convincing middle class voters that government programs designed to help them actually will. This is why the Republicans hate the ACA so much. They will do anything they can to cripple any program that might help a potential voter, because if people see the program work, they’ll vote for Democrats.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    December 20, 2015 at 2:34 pm

    @Linnaeus:

    Building lasting political infrastructure is key, both inside and outside of the party. And it’s hard to find people with the temperament to do that.

    This exactly.

  69. 69.

    Linnaeus

    December 20, 2015 at 2:38 pm

    @Ruckus:

    Well, it is a risk in the context of our current political discourse, but it’s one worth taking.

  70. 70.

    Linnaeus

    December 20, 2015 at 2:39 pm

    @Mike J:

    Yeah, that’s definitely the hard part. That’s going to take years. The right didn’t get where they are today overnight, and neither will we.

  71. 71.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 20, 2015 at 2:40 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: The Donald is just taking care of his fascist bro.

  72. 72.

    Baud

    December 20, 2015 at 2:46 pm

    @Linnaeus: It was going to take years years ago. I remember them talking about the long game when I was at Kos. Then Obama got elected, and they switched immediately to “I want my pony now.” I’m a bit skeptical about the whole thing now.

  73. 73.

    Ruckus

    December 20, 2015 at 2:48 pm

    @Mike J:
    While the vote for democrats thing has merit, I think it’s because many conservatives think that they worked hard and made something of themselves, so that’s all that others have to do. Many have no idea that life isn’t the same as when they were kids or when their parents were kids. After all life is different for different generations but the pace of change has been rather dramatic in the last, oh 100 yrs, even more so in the last 50. As just one example, my father’s family moved, when he was an infant, from Kansas City 97-98 yrs ago, in a horse drawn wagon. The roads, such as they were, were mostly dirt paths, few could afford cars and even if you could gas was not all that widely available. 48 yrs ago I bought my first new car (with money I earned) and could drive it cross country at a reasonable pace. Or fly on a scheduled airline. Today one can talk most anywhere in the world with a phone that you can carry to most anywhere in the world. And a person working, even at a skill job in their teens, very, very likely can not afford a new car.
    Conservatives want everything to be the way it was, failing to realize that it never really was that way for many, never is and never can be.

  74. 74.

    Linnaeus

    December 20, 2015 at 2:53 pm

    @Baud:

    Understandable.

  75. 75.

    Chris

    December 20, 2015 at 2:57 pm

    @jonas:

    Hundreds of years from now when historians are analyzing the great collapse of American civilization, I don’t think it will be nutcakes like Trump and his followers that really get the blame — the books will be written about how the media basically allowed politicians to start defining what was or was not reality and just reported “viewpoints” rather than the real facts. Thus there is no climate change, only the “debate” over climate change. Suggesting that we summarily execute families of suspected terrorists is not eliminationist, fascist demagoguery, but merely one of several responses offered on fighting terrorism. Maybe there is a film of a premature baby undergoing a vivisection at Planned Parenthood. Or not. Who’s to say? The unrelenting fecklessness of our supine media in the face of the right’s attempts to practice politics in a fact-free zone — and this really began with Bush and the push for the Iraq War — will be diagnosed as the major reason for the eventual implosion of our civil society and the republic.

    Of course, that’s all assuming that future historians are reproducing a more or less accurate image of our times, and aren’t 1) writing whatever history pleases the MOTU of their era or 2) blinkered by the biases of their own era.

    I can just imagine the historians of plutocratic nation a few centuries in the future writing about the tragic, well-intentioned but short-sighted experiments of the twentieth century where Western nations thought to give their people welfare states, only to watch their societies collapse in the next century due to the accumulated, inhuman burden of taxation and regulation…

  76. 76.

    JVader

    December 20, 2015 at 2:58 pm

    @JMG: The joke is on CNN… the faux news crowd will NEVER watch CNN no matter how much “bothsiderism” they engage in. BBCA, Maddow, Kornacki, O’Donnell and that other dude are about it. Maddow is about the only real voice for progressives and the rest is shit.

  77. 77.

    J R in WV

    December 20, 2015 at 2:59 pm

    People are being stupid. Do you not know that there is TV news everywhere today? Do you think ISIS/ISIL whatever needs to make special video of Trump being a fascist? Every new channel in the world carries the message of hate that man is generating, because it is so newsworthy.

    Every Arabic language TV channel carries Trump’s demands for concentration camps for Muslims, his desire to kill the families of Islamic fighters, his hate for people who aren’t white Christiams, his rejection of immigration of Muslims.

    So I don’t think Clinton needs to look very far for proof of Trump’s message being received in the MIddle East. All she needs to do is to use al Jazeera in Arabic or Persian, and then add a crawl of Trump’s words in English to match the other language’s translation of Trumps’s own words.

    People trying to say that Trump’s incendiary language isn’t helping every single militant Islamic group raise money and recruit new fighters, well, that’s just simple-minded stupidity. Of course his hateful speech outrages Muslims at least as much as it outrages Americans who aren’t Nazis. Duh, people!!

  78. 78.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 20, 2015 at 3:03 pm

    Donald Trump is just one of Daesh’s stellar recruiters operating openly in this country. He and his fellow Klown Kar Kavorters are giving black letter aid and comfort to an enemy.

  79. 79.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    December 20, 2015 at 3:07 pm

    Jeremy Carter, 28, died early Sunday after his heart stopped at his family’s home in Peachtree City.

  80. 80.

    Baud

    December 20, 2015 at 3:09 pm

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:

    Oh damn.

  81. 81.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 20, 2015 at 3:12 pm

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Sucks.

    Meanwhile, Dick Cheney continues to be animated.

  82. 82.

    Ruckus

    December 20, 2015 at 3:20 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    Well that stick up his ass and with someone else’s probably now shriveled up heart……

  83. 83.

    Satby

    December 20, 2015 at 3:35 pm

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: So sad for the Carter’s.

  84. 84.

    WaterGirl

    December 20, 2015 at 3:46 pm

    @Mystical Chick: I am probably 100% any democrat but Hilary, and I will still vote for her. I just don’t get people who can’t see the damage they would do by voting republican.

  85. 85.

    WaterGirl

    December 20, 2015 at 3:52 pm

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: First I read that as jimmy Carter and was greatly saddened. Seconds later I took in that it was a grandson, but it’s still heartbreaking. So young, a terrible loss.

    I wonder if he was the grandson who put Romney’s 47% tape out there.

  86. 86.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    December 20, 2015 at 4:02 pm

    @WaterGirl: Jason was the grandson with the 47% tape.

  87. 87.

    Satby

    December 20, 2015 at 4:02 pm

    @J R in WV: @Villago Delenda Est: I can vouch for the fact that my two exchange daughters, one Arab and both Muslim, get DAILY queries from friends and family back home about the harassment and levels of hate they are subjected to here. When they reply they’ve had no trouble, they aren’t always believed; the assumption being they don’t feel safe enough to be truthful. The xenophobia and hate speech by Trump and his minions are going to blow back horribly on this country if it’s not loudly defeated and repudiated.

  88. 88.

    CarolDuhart2

    December 20, 2015 at 4:07 pm

    And these days all it takes is to post the video on youtube. No need to make extra effort.

  89. 89.

    Brachiator

    December 20, 2015 at 5:25 pm

    Did she go too far?

    I heard one bozo on the radio claim that the clothes she wore was “inappropriate” for a presidential candidate appearing on a debate.

    Silly season never ends.

  90. 90.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 20, 2015 at 5:40 pm

    @Brachiator: You know, girl clothes!

  91. 91.

    mclaren

    December 20, 2015 at 6:20 pm

    Trump was supposed to bring balance to the Force, not destroy it!

  92. 92.

    Daffyd Folaman

    December 20, 2015 at 6:31 pm

    @Mike J: bbc world service news used to be a very fine operation , but since the politicians and bean counters have more or less taken over at the beeb it has gone down the toilet and there seems to be no chance that it will ever be the same .As for Katty Kay , the three weeks she was absent from the US broadcasts her replacements did a far better job than she was doing, I get a charge that the presenters go by the job title of “journalist” not by the previous title of either “news reader or presenter”I think journalist is stretching it a bit

  93. 93.

    amk

    December 20, 2015 at 7:19 pm

    @srv: That senile dude was roundly mocked and then ignored for his last ‘expose’, you dimwit.

  94. 94.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 20, 2015 at 10:09 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: HAMMER TIME has yet to manifest. I’m thinking Jeb balked at wearing the parachute pants.

  95. 95.

    Joey Maloney

    December 21, 2015 at 7:04 am

    @Germy: Don’t you mean “May I have some anthrax for my tire rims, please?”

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