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Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

So many bastards, so little time.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

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

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

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

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

This blog will pay for itself.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / This Week’s Primary: “Indiana Is Weird”

This Week’s Primary: “Indiana Is Weird”

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Times like this, I really miss Doghouse Riley. Imagine what he would’ve done with the newest ways the state GOP is embarrassing itself — as Jim Newell describes it, “Indiana Gov. Mike Pence Thinks Donald Trump is Perfect! (He Also Endorses Ted Cruz.)”

And here’s Craig Fehrman explaining at FiveThirtyEight “why Abe Lincoln’s dad would be a Trump voter”:

… I’ve lived in Indiana my whole life, outside of a few years passed on the East Coast in grad school, and I have to say: All the attention has been nice. It’s nice to be noticed, however fleetingly, for something other than hosting sporting events and being a part of Abraham Lincoln’s formative years.

The Lincoln who’s most relevant in the upcoming primary, though, is Abe’s father, Thomas. For more than a decade, Thomas and his family lived in Indiana, and as I’ve watched the politicians and pundits try to figure Indiana out I’ve thought a lot about Thomas. Indiana, which is 86 percent white, may seem demographically similar to nearby states like Ohio (83 percent white) and Wisconsin (88 percent white). But, in truth, Indiana is a much stranger place than it’s given credit for, with a history and heritage that divide it from other Midwestern states. The Hoosier State was settled from the south and isolated from cultural change, and you can still see the effects of that today. In fact, that’s why it’s actually pretty hard to predict how Indiana will vote in its primary. That’s why, if you really want to understand Indiana, you need to go back to the time of Thomas Lincoln.

Thomas moved from Kentucky to Indiana in 1816, the same year Indiana became a state. The direction of that move is crucial to making sense of Indiana today…. The Ohio River made it easier for Southerners to enter, and they settled the state from the bottom up. Thomas Lincoln was born in Virginia, migrating from there to Kentucky and then to southern Indiana…

The Southerners got to Indiana first and thus dominated its early politics. (At the state’s constitutional convention, 34 of the 43 delegates hailed from below the Mason-Dixon Line.) They created its local culture, shaping everything from what Hoosiers ate to how they worshipped. (Southerners imported their Baptist and Methodist beliefs, and in the 1850 census 60 percent of Indiana churches belonged to those denominations.) More than any other Midwestern state, Indiana ended up with a certain kind of citizenry: white, working-class Protestants with Southern roots…

Probably not coincidentally, NYMag suggests that “Indiana May Be the Definitive Victory for Trump”:

A new NBC News/WSJ/Marist poll shows Donald Trump beating Ted Cruz by 15 points in Indiana, where the vote on Tuesday is seen by many as the actual last opportunity to halt Trump’s first-ballot nomination in Cleveland. FiveThirtyEight’s forecast now gives Trump a 69 percent probability of winning on Tuesday, and Politico is reporting that top staff inside Cruz’s campaign are beginning to see Indiana’s writing on the wall as well, though Indiana’s GOP elite have seemed less savvy about the situation…

In the meantime, Cruz himself continues to profess his belief in an outcome which, so far, projections do not support, telling reporters in California on Saturday that, “At this point no one is getting to [the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright]. I’m not getting to 1,237 before the convention, but neither is Donald Trump.” Appearing on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Cruz again insisted that “it is going to be a contested convention” — though he and his staff seem to have also acknowledged that if Trump wins Indiana, his nomination will be impossible to block…

Always keep in mind, whatever the Media Village Idiots want to believe, it’s not the Democrats who are embarrassingly In Disarray this time around…

Reader Interactions

122Comments

  1. 1.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Is Bin Laden still alive?

    Famed investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says yes and presents stunning evidence that he’s alive and planning new attacks (photo)

  2. 2.

    debbie

    Wishful thinking that Indiana will be definitive of anything. Cruz won’t give up. Hell, they can’t even get Kasich to give up.

  3. 3.

    raven

    Back when I was going over to Wabash College to see Johnny Winter, Humble Pie and ELP you could get life for one joint!

  4. 4.

    MCA1

    I ran across that 538 piece earlier today and kept thinking “So that’s why they call it the Mississippi of the Midwest.” Indianapolis definitely has more of a Southern feel than any other Midwestern city, including Cincinnati.

  6. 6.

    JPL

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    “The president did authorise the killing and the [Navy] Seals did kill bin Laden. Everything after that is sort of a fantasy, it’s Lewis Carol,” Hersh said. “But the killing of bin Laden didn’t seem to change the war very much.” Hersh said the US is struggling to win the longest war in its history. “The Americans declared a war on terror and look at where we are now …15 years later still fighting in Afghanistan.”

    link

  7. 7.

    MomSense

    I’m devastated. Just found out my cousin’s cancer came back – this time with a vengeance. This is someone who rescues senior dogs, blind dogs, dogs with illnesses that make them too difficult to place. I just can’t accept this. It’s too much.

  9. 9.

    Gimlet

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Indiana

    Southern immigrants who were anti-slavery settled in Ohio where a strong anti-slavery movement was underway. The immigrants in favor of slavery generally moved to Indiana where the government was friendly to slaveholders.[3] When they relocated to the Indiana Territory, they brought what few slaves they owned with them. An 1810 census recorded 393 free blacks and 237 slaves in the Indiana Territory.[4] Knox County, where the territorial capital of Indiana, Vincennes, was located, was the center of Indiana slavery. A young Army officer named Charles Larrabee, who was serving in Governor William Henry Harrison’s army, summed the Vincennes populace as “chiefly from Kentucky and Virginia…slavery is tolerated here.”[5]

    Most of the initial immigration was attributed to the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. After the Revolutionary War, George Rogers Clark and his soldiers, all Virginians, were given land grants in southern Indiana. Many settled in Indiana bringing their Southern ideals with them. After the War of 1812 many veterans of the Western theater were granted land in central Indiana. These soldiers were mostly from Kentucky and the South. They also moved into Indiana, bringing more Southern influence to the state.

  11. 11.

    Big Ole Hound

    In the late 60s I used to cover a sales territory that included the southern half of Indiana and Ohio and it was the most racist redneck section of the U.S. I have ever been in. They even spoke a harsh southern version of English. Once you cross the Ohio River into Kentucky both the language and racism got a little more subtle.

  13. 13.

    joel hanes

    I really miss Doghouse Riley

    Nearly every day.
    What he would have written about Trump! Or Cruz. Or Christie. Or Indiana in general.

    Also missing and missed:
    The Editors at The Poor Man
    Fafnir, Giblets, and The Medium Lobster at Fafblog.
    The golden-age-of-snark crew at Sadly, No!
    Media Whores Online
    Jon Swift, “a reasonable conservative”
    Hilzoy as a front-pager at Obsidian Wings
    Gary Farber as a commenter, everywhere

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: And banksters get no consequences. We live in an upside down world. I’m sorry about your friend.

  15. 15.

    raven

    @MomSense: My boss is having her ovaries out Friday to try to slow here secondary breast cancer. She’s worked so hard to get where she is and it just doesn’t look good for her.

  16. 16.

    RAM

    It might also be useful to recall that in 1922, Indiana had by far the largest KKK enrollment of any state in the union, thanks to D.C. Stephenson who, the next year, became the Klan’s Grand Dragon. Although Stephenson was discredited thanks to a sex scandal (right wing racists never change), the ideas championed by the Klan remain popular to this day.

  17. 17.

    Big Ole Hound

    @MomSense:So very sad. Lost my son to cancer last fall. It seemed to always come back no matter the “all clear” signs. Hateful disease.

  18. 18.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: He died a few years back, the 4th event we came up for was part a memorial for him. He got out in about 6 months, it seemed the DA knew the law was going to be over-turned so he threw the book at him. He was a little dude, USMC Nam Vet and he didn’t take any shit in the slammer so they left him alone. One funny dude, I miss him.

  19. 19.

    joel hanes

    @raven:

    Many midwestern states still have _very_ harsh drug laws.
    Often they’re used as a cover for the racism of the local law enforcement.
    Iowa, for example, has the highest racial disparity in sentencing of any state in the nation.
    The sons of well-connected families need not worry, but if you’re poor, or black, or brown, or poor and black or brown, they’ll pull you over for driving while dusky, search the car without cause or warrant, and put your ass in state prison for a long time as a way of explaining that your kind ain’t welcome here.
    It’s today’s version of “sundown towns”

  21. 21.

    joel hanes

    @debbie:

    Sounds like it’s Hersh who’s been at the hookah a bit too much.

    His record of truth and accuracy is better than that of his critics.

  22. 22.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @Gimlet:

    I really hate going over to Southern Indiana. Here in the People’s Democratic Socialist Kenyan Shariah Republic of Louisville, things are nice and diverse. Tolerance is embraced, cultural differences celebrated – over there, it’s like the Klavern just let out, I shit you not.

  23. 23.

    Mnemosyne

    As someone who grew up in Illinois, it’s all true. Indiana has far more in common with the Southern states than it does with any of the surrounding Midwestern states.

  24. 24.

    Kropadope

    Cruz rhapsodizes about how the election is coming down to ‘the good judgment of the Hoosier state.’

    After Trump wins Indiana, Cruz will continue:

    …which they apparently failed to exercise.

  27. 27.

    joel hanes

    @joel hanes:

    Also missing and missed:

    momentarily forgot :
    The crew at Wampum, who used to give out the Koufax awards.
    That cross-product of Native American activism and pure tech geekery was unique in my experience.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: The should be a special place in hell for prosecutors who over charge just because they can. Total abuse of power. Glad nobody messed with your friend in prison, but still awful. Sorry you lost him.

  30. 30.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: They didn’t mess with him because he bit the ear off the first guy that tried. He knew he had to go hard from the beginning or it would be curtains. He didn’t make the best choices down the stretch and the VA essentially had to cut him off of meds and that was that.

  32. 32.

    Shawn in Showme

    If Indiana is so much more Southern than Kentucky, how come it’s purple and Kentucky is solidly red?

  33. 33.

    Mnemosyne

    @raven:

    It’s different. You might not be able to tell the difference going from Georgia to Indiana, but there is a difference between Illinois overall and Indiana overall.

  35. 35.

    Calouste

    @RAM: Just read the Wikipedia entry about that man. The “sex scandal” was actually abduction, rape, and murder.

  37. 37.

    Gimlet

    @WaterGirl:

    Apparently Christie doesn’t realize it’s legal in Colorado and semilegal elsewhere. Just the idea of it pushes his buttons.

    Christie couldn’t take his eyes off the scene.

    “It’s unbelievable,” Christie said, per BuzzFeed. “Because the bong hits aren’t enough. Give me the gas mask too. It’s incredible. I can’t take my eyes off it. It’s unbelievable.”

    Chrisite, who’s been against the legalization of marijuana—the drug Tunsil was smoking in the video that went viral instantly—told the audience how a younger version of himself would have handled the incident.

    “When I was a prosecutor, I would’ve gone in and cuffed this guy,” Christie said. “I would’ve been all over it.”

  38. 38.

    indycat32

    It ain’t for nothing Indiana is called the south’s middle finger. I cannot wait till 6:00 PM tomorrow. The constant political ads are driving me nuts, although I did learn from Trump Junior that when he and his siblings were growing up they had to “submit proposals” to their dad. I wonder if they included powerpoint presentations. And I just remembered no alcohol sales while the polls are open, so I’m off to the liquor store.

  40. 40.

    Capri

    I’ve lived in Indiana for the past 30 years, and yes, it is very different. The Indiana below Indianapolis makes rural Mississippi look liberal. There are two saving graces : 1) it has a conservatism that is bred in the bone, it is not rushing into full out nihilism (which is why Cruz has no chance, IMHO). The Republican majority state legislature has prevented our feeble-minded governor from turning the the state into another Kansas. and 2) thanks to minorities and liberal leaning suburbs it is turning purple. It went for Obama in 2008.

  42. 42.

    NotMax

    In the hefty, heavy, leather bound, gold embossed dictionary – over six inches thick from cover to cover – which I’ve relied upon forever (it’s copyright date is over 60 years ago), the first definition for hoosier is “an ignorant rustic.”

  43. 43.

    WaterGirl

    @indycat32: I had to write a letter in fourth grade explaining why I should be able to stay up late to watch some movie I really wanted to watch, and I turned out okay. I think.

  44. 44.

    mak

    Indiana: the South’s middle finger to the North.
    ETA: Indycat beat me to it. I blame my Hoosier education for my slow reading.

  45. 45.

    Mnemosyne

    @Shawn in Showme:

    Is it purple? They voted for Obama in 2008, but not in 2012. They have a Republican governor and both houses of their legislature are overwhelmingly Republican. They have one US senator who’s a Democrat and a few US reps.

  49. 49.

    Mandalay

    @srv:

    The Jon Snow of political commentary is back from the dead

    He was a guest on Tweety’s debacle this evening. Tweety spoke to Sullivan like he was a child molester, and must have stomped all over his replies a dozen times.

    But anyone who is so lacking in self-respect that they voluntarily appear on Tweety’s show deserves all the rudeness they get.

  51. 51.

    Mike J

    @Gimlet:

    Apparently Christie doesn’t realize it’s legal in Colorado and semilegal elsewhere. Just the idea of it pushes his buttons.

    It’s not against Colorado (or Washington) law, but that doesn’t mean it’s legal. Federal laws still apply, even when they are stupid and we don’t like them. I don’t think prosecutors should waste resources going after most pot crimes (and certainly never end users), it’s not really true to say it is legal anywhere in the US.

    There were all sorts of places that insisted they had the right to ignore the ACA. They were wrong.

    That said, I’m in favor of states taking their laws off the books. It’s one less law people can be charged with breaking, and eventually we’ll hit a critical mass where congress will want to harmonise federal law with the states. It won’t happen this week, but it will be yet another win for incrementalism

  53. 53.

    ? Martin

    Looking forward to Trump/Cruz battling for California. Whatever gently glowing embers of the GOP still remain should get promptly snuffed out by this shitshow.

  54. 54.

    Calouste

    @Amaranthine RBG: You’re only the 5th or so Sanders-cultist to post that link to Politico today. You should read the campaign talking points emails earlier.

    And no, it’s Politico, so it’s made-up bullshit unless confirmed by at least two other, actually reliable, sources.

  55. 55.

    JPL

    @joel hanes: It is but the article I linked to, reminds me of someone beyond their time of brilliance. To say that we are going to be attacked again, is something everyone knows. Unfortunately, I’m more likely to be killed walking down the street by a stray bullet.

  57. 57.

    Gimlet

    @Mike J:

    What is it about pot smoking that makes Christie purple with rage? Would he get that upset over a car at an expired meter?

  58. 58.

    Shawn in Showme

    @Mnemosyne:

    Oba@Mnemosyne:

    So basically the Dems do OK in presidential years and get spanked the rest of the time. Sounds like the nation at large. You think Trump will be favored against Hillary in Indiana?

  59. 59.

    indycat32

    @Shawn in Showme: Indiana is not purple. The larger urban areas tend to lean democratic, but the rural counties counteract that. The counties around Chicago and counties with universities carried the state for Obama in 2008. He didn’t even try to win here in 2012. Joe Donnelly (D) is in the senate because he ran against “a rapist’s baby is a gift from God” Mourdock.

    ETA: turns out they changed the law and liquor sales are now legal on election day.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    @joel hanes:

    Everyone gets old. Hersch is a year older than my now-late father. His accuracy in the past decade seems to be lower than it used to be.

    Or, as they say on those Charles Schwab commercials, “Past performance is no guarantee of future performance.”

  63. 63.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

    Thank you. Cancer really is evil. It is so clear to me that Republican politics are so far from what we are supposed to do as human beings. Life is fragile. For God’s/Dog’s/FSMs sake we are supposed to help each other, be kind.

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MomSense: I’m so sorry to learn the news about your cousin. I’ll hold (him? her?) in my thoughts. Your cousin sounds like a good person. Fuck cancer.

    @raven: I’ll also hold your boss closely in my thoughts, with best wishes that they get the little bastards for good this time. Fuck cancer.

    @Big Ole Hound: I am devastated to read this, and sorrier than I have words to express. Children should not die before their parents. Fuck cancer every day and twice on Sunday.

  66. 66.

    MomSense

    @raven:

    It’s just awful. I hope she is successful.

    @Big Ole Hound:

    I’m really sorry about your son. It’s a ruthless disease.

    Thank you everyone for the support.

  69. 69.

    TriassicSands

    I don’t care at all about competitive sports. As a young, healthy man I was always very active — over time I evolved away from competitive sports into activities that were challenging, but could be engaged in without competition — like rock climbing. Competition in climbing is potentially even more harmful than competition in team sports. On one level, competition in climbing could get people killed. On another, it could and has resulted in environmental damage. I’ve long felt that the logical culmination of professionalism and competition is cheating. We see it everyone in high profile sports, whether it is individual athletes using banned substances or teams engaging in despicable behavior (deflategate). Competitive cycling has moved from drugs to cyclists who are using bikes with tiny motors.

    All that said, I do still have a soft spot for underdogs and so I’ve taken note of the amazing triumph of Leicester in winning the EPL championship. 5000-1 odds are pretty daunting. The only thing that could spoil their victory would be the revelation that it was achieved with the help of some sort of cheating. That’s why their victory brought a smile to my face, but it would never make me a fan.

  70. 70.

    Luther M. Siler

    @indycat32: Indiana is purple, but our Dems tend to run toward the conservative. We’ve had a Democratic Governor for most of my life and tend to split the Senate; Obama won Indiana in 2008 and Hillary will win Indiana in 2016. The state government is gerrymandered to hell and back but our Democratic state superintendent of education got more votes than Pence did in ’08, and his endorsement of Cruz is going to mean precisely nothing. He’s going to lose this year, too.

  71. 71.

    joel hanes

    @Gimlet:

    What is it about pot smoking that makes Christie purple with rage? Would he get that upset over a car at an expired meter?

    Authoritarian mindset. Not surprising in a former prosecutor.

    Rules MUST NOT BE BROKEN (unless I am the one breaking them, then it’s completely understandable)

    Code-words/dog-whistles for the above : “order”, “law and order”

  72. 72.

    sherparick

    @MCA1: Illinois south of Springfield has the same feeling and culture as Southern and Central Indiana. Northern Indiana and Northern and Central Illinois were settled by New Englanders and New Yorkers who started traveling west when the Erie Canal open and from the Western Reserve are of Northern Ohio (so called because Connecticut Reserved it when releasing its land claims under the1785 and 1787 Northwest Ordinances). On can someway consider I-80 as it cuts across Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois as an extension of the Mason-Dixon line and during the Civil War, a lot of Copperhead agitation was located there (although also a lot loyal, Union regiments). It is also to be remembered that a lot of southerners immigrating over the Ohio, like Tom Lincoln, may not have liked Blacks, but were also anti-slavery. Like much of American history, it is complicated.

  77. 77.

    Rolling Along

    There will be a come from behind victory the likes of which no primary has ever seen tomorrow!

    Cruz is closing hard and strong.

  78. 78.

    Rolling Along

    #NeverTrump, this is our final stand, our Agincourt, our Yorktown, our Gettysburg. The forces of freedom will win out over phony progressive populism and restore order and justice to the GOP.

    And, if we lose, we are not going to sit around and vote for a phony like Trump. Perhaps the birth of a new party is at hand, as it was in Ripon Wisconsin in 1855…

  83. 83.

    Rolling Along

    @Gimlet:

    The National Conservative Party has a nice ring to it…Jen Rubin, Erick Erikson, Jonah Goldberg have already floated possible candidates.

  85. 85.

    sharl

    I grew up in western Ohio, but never knew all this social and cultural history of my then-neighboring state. Someone I follow on twitter – freelancer now living paycheck-to-paycheck in Bed-Stuy – grew up in Indiana and has no desire to return.

    Her occasional opinions on her home state are interesting though (at least to me), whether or not they are generally accurate beyond her own experiences, e.g., she is NOT a fan of the Ron Swanson character in Parks-&-Recreation:

    Amber A’Lee Frost @AmberALeeFrost

    Ugh I hated that character as a Hoosier. Libertarian Hoosiers are not nice stoic dudes they are terrifying racists.

    Lays Cbip ‏@Samhedonia Mar 6

    @AmberALeeFrost Ron Swanson was still a piece of shit but P&R never nailed Indiana tbh
    __ __ __

    Amber A’Lee Frost ‏@AmberALeeFrost Mar 6

    not enough rednecks and virtually no black people or Mexicans

  88. 88.

    Rolling Along

    We would even have instant funding “on demand” from the Kochs. We wouldn’t even have to ask…

  89. 89.

    Jeffro

    @Rolling Along: How about just the Freedom Party? Much “bigger tent” than “National Conservative”.

    Oh speaking of “National Conservatives”, Jon Huntsman – you know, that guy who’s oh-so-moderate and part of ‘No Labels’ – has called for the GOP to unify behind Trump. Because the Democrat would be so unbelievably awful that Conservatives should betray everything they stand for and rally behind the utterly moronic misogynist racist crybully billionaire.

    All about the principles, those folks. But hey, look how quickly the mask comes off of No Labels, amirite?!??

  91. 91.

    Origuy

    @Omnes Omnibus: When I was in college, a linguistics professor told me that US40 (now I70) was the dividing line between the Southern dialects and Northern ones in the Midwest.) I grew up in Bloomington. When I was a kid, Bloomington high schools played schools from the rural areas. There were often problems because our teams had black players and the outlying areas were lily white. The worst was Martinsville, which was a sundown town and center for the KKK. After a basketball game, the players would dress quickly and run to the buses; the black cheerleader would not suit up.

    Even Bloomington was bad in the 60s. The black families nearly all lived in the north side of town, in an area that a lot of people called “Coon Hill”. There were no black kids in my suburban elementary school and only one in my junior high. He got beaten up a lot. The University students stayed close to campus and the kids went to a school run by IU.

  92. 92.

    Rolling Along

    @Jeffro:

    That’s because Trump is a moderate RINO just like Huntsman. Neither support a Reagan agenda.

    National Conservatism would keep the three legged stool intact: free markets/free trade, a strong national defense, and social conservatism.

  94. 94.

    Rolling Along

    Imagine a convention of Reaganite conservatives meeting in Dallas to nominate a Presidential ticket of our own:, again, with “on demand” funding from the Kochs and Adleson. We could start fresh and pick a candidate of our own choosing to assume the mantle of Goldwater and Reagan.

  96. 96.

    Mnemosyne

    @Rolling Along:

    I have some lyrics for you to practice, adapted for the occasion:

    And if you were to ask me who I’d promote
    Hillary Clinton has my vote
    I’ve never agreed with Hillary once
    We’ve fought on like seventy-five different fronts
    But when all is said and all is done
    Hillary has beliefs. Trump has none.

    (Bernfeelers, feel free to join in anytime!)

  100. 100.

    Rolling Along

    @Gimlet:

    I was thinking along the lines of Rick Perry, or (dare I say it) Jeb Bush if he can be persuaded.

  102. 102.

    Gimlet

    @Rolling Along:

    Both of those candidates were in the clown car last August. Only a true conservative like Brownback can represent your movement.

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @debbie: I rely on my Tea rule. If you go into a place and order tea and don’t specify hot or iced, what to they bring you?

  109. 109.

    Mnemosyne

    @divF:

    When I had to travel to Florida last year (family stuff), you should have seen the astonishment when I asked for unsweet tea. Like I was speaking a foreign language.

  110. 110.

    ruemara

    @Amaranthine RBG: so, as long as they endorse Sanders, he’ll toss them some leavings. And down ticket races were “whinging”. Got it. Reread Sanders’ platform sometime.. When your method of governance is Executive Orders & friendly state legislature, finding 100+ progressives now is a little bit slow on the draw.

    @MomSense: I’m terribly sorry. Cancer is pernicious & horrible. Sending my best hopes for health to your cousin and comfort to you both.

  112. 112.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    Had an aunt like that, she made it to her late 70s, still on meds. She’d be 100 this yr if she had lived.

  115. 115.

    Turgidson

    @Mnemosyne:

    Agreed. I grew up in the Chicago area, had relatives in Indiana – aunt and uncle who lived on a farm, and grandmother who lived in Columbus. Once you get out of the Chicago collar, it is like you go through a wormhole right into Alabama, Bible bangers everywhere you look. People in Indiana even talk with Southern(ish) accents.

  117. 117.

    sherparick

    @JPL: Even Seymour Hersh seems to think President Obama has been President since January 2001. Has any Presidency been more dump down the memory hole then George W. Bush by the Village Media? Memories of Reagan’s Presidency are bright and fresh (and distorted as the double digit unemployment, inflation that only seemed low when compared to what had gone before, massive budget deficits, the Marines Barracks bombing, the dirty wars in Central America, and Iran-Contra Affair are all forgotten), but W’s and Cheney’s co-Presidency simply does not exist. Perhaps because the Villagers were cheerleaders for the war and W and said so many embarrassing things, they want it simply all forgotten. Much easier to blame the intractable guerrilla war between the Salafists mass movement in the Muslim world and the West on the Black guy.

    I don’t know if this “war” can be ended. Although it has much of the same character of guerrilla wars of the past (Vietnam, Algeria, Sri Lanka, 1970s-80s Central America, 1950s Malaysia, Ireland, etc.), it has unique characteristics that frustrate any political settlement or military attrition campaign (usually the way guerrilla wars are resolved). It is transnational, ranging from San Bernardino, California, to the West coast of Africa; to a neighborhood in Belgium, through North Africa, Egypt, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Russian Caucasus, through Kashmir and India, to Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines – wherever disaffected Muslims live, whether as a minority communities or within Muslim majority states, disaffected young men (and some women) who are the raw material of mass movements exist to replenish those who re killed or become disaffected. It is made up of many groups, sometimes affiliated and sometimes antagonistic, but such that the destruction of any one group will not stop the war, it is not localize to any territory (ISIS may hold some territory right now in Syria and Iraq, but that heart of the movement in many ways are our two ostensible “allies” and “friends” Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which are untouchable, especially Saudi Arabia. And if we are going to go back to when Americans started killing Muslims and Muslims killing Americans, the Ur-conflict was Lebanon in 1982. So it goes. Further, given the movement and migrations of people, which will only get worse as Global Warming really starts to bite, I don’t see this conflict ending even in our grandchildren’s life times. Although I would like to see a withdrawal of the U.S. from Empire, particularly in the Middle East, I expect that is easier said then done. Nor would the withdrawal necessarily end the motivation to attack Americans and Western European targets.

  118. 118.

    sherparick

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yes, I meant I-70. I-80, the road John McPhee made famous in his “Annals of the Former Worlds” books on the geological history of North America runs parallel to I-70 along the Great Lakes through Chicago. The rural areas between I-80 and I-70 are a mixed area. The conservative composite of Indiana is perhaps larger than the neighboring states of Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, but all four states have large communities of White Tribalists and folks who have learned their politics the last 20 years listening to Rush Limbaugh and other local talk radio. They have transformed the Republican Parties in these states into something really malignant, as can be seen by the results of Walker, Snyder, and Rauner. Pence, because he is really dumb, and Kasich, because he still retains a little of the old Republican Mid-western sensibility, are made to look good by comparison with three sociopaths governing the 3 states Obama carried in both 2008 and 2012. It should also be remember that Indiana voted for Obama in 2008 (only time it has voted for a Democrat since 1936 (FDR himself failed to carry the state twice!), except for 1964. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=1964

    (When I was looking at this web site, I became struck of how the 1992 election appears more and more to be a “realignment election” as certain state have been “constant” Democrat or Republican since that election. If I was running Hilary’s campaign, she would hardly leave Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and the western 3 of New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado, with an occasional visit to New Hampshire.

  119. 119.

    Paul in KY

    @MomSense: Very sorry to hear this. Just tell your cousin how much you love them & help them out as much as possible.

  122. 122.

    Paul in KY

    @raven: Also very sorry to hear this, raven. Please tell her how much you care for her, in your gruff raven way.

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