Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Bark louder, little dog.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

This really is a full service blog.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You are here: Home / Economics / Grifters Gonna Grift / Open Thread: Pastor Dobson Has A Sad

Open Thread: Pastor Dobson Has A Sad

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James “Focus on the Family (While I Pick Your Pocket)” Dobson is very, very disappointed by all us haterz who cruelly mock his optimistic embrace of “baby Christian” Donald Trump…

And not just the unsaved Christianist-haters, either:

Poor saintly Mr. Dobson just wanted to remora Deadbeat Donald’s #WINNING grift while that shark is still moving — living off a host’s, uh, leftovers is an honorable tradition among his clan. How was he to know how rapidly the gilt would wear off the Trump scampaign, once it was exposed to the acid examination of non-believers?

Reader Interactions

191Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    I have a vision of Trump being baptized, in a river while they all praise the lord.

    You can imagine the rest of the vision..

  2. 2.

    Scratch

    The things is that it’s really hard to say who’s a bigger asshole, Trump or Dobson? It’s not like either of them would be any sort of wonderful endorsement for the other.

  3. 3.

    Splitting Image

    And to say it once more: Trump is strictly an amateur.

    A professional Republican politician would have “embraced Jesus” long before the primary season, and would have been sure to mention that in his fundraising emails.

  5. 5.

    Ruckus

    How was he to know how rapidly the gilt would wear off the Trump scampaign, once it was exposed to the acid examination of non-believers?
    He should have known, he and drumpf are in the same line of work. Maybe it’s just too dark where his head is located.

  6. 6.

    jl

    Dobson is a real profile in Christian(ist) courage and perseverance.

    Dobson is the guy who beat the crap out his dachshund because it looked at him funny one day, right?
    For a long time I thought the story was that Dobson beat the crap out the dog because it wasn’t housebreaking according to his plan. But then I read that it was just because the dog had an impertinent look on its face (I think I read Dobson’s story itself).

    Makes sense I guess. Losing it and beating up a dog that was not housebreaking to one’s satisfaction is too understandable (not excusable, but understandable). Beating up a dog because it doesn’t look at you right is just inscrutably nasty and mean, which I think fits Dobson better.

    Edit: and does not a dachshund usually have an impertinent look on its face? I believe that is one of the breed’s default facial expressions.

  7. 7.

    rikyrah

    Patrick SvitekVerified account
    ‏@PatrickSvitek
    Page Six: “‘Morning Joe’ hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough could soon go public as a couple.”

  8. 8.

    Luthe

    When asked his favorite part of the Bible, Trump replied, “Bankruptcy, chapter 11.”

  11. 11.

    cbear

    So Dobson and Trump are joined together in Jeebus now?
    Sounds pretty nasty to me, I hope they doubled up on the wetsuits before the union.

  13. 13.

    SenyorDave

    @Luthe: When asked his favorite part of the Bible, Trump replied, “Bankruptcy, chapter 11.”

    To quote Norman Chad, who covers poker and other sport-related entertainment, “pay the man (or woman), Shirley.

  16. 16.

    Sheldon vogt

    Given his embrace of torture, i’d say trump is a stillborn christian at best

  19. 19.

    jl

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I do remember that I did stumble across Dobson’s own version of the story. IIRC, the dog was not looking or acting sufficiently deferential to Dobson’s authority. But Dobson was extremely vague on exactly what the problem was. Dog had some kind of very difficult to describe ‘attitude problem’. My recollection was that I concluded that Dobson wanted to beat up on something and the dog was around. But I have to admit my memory is hazy. Maybe someone can post Dobson’s account of his righteous beat down of the stiff-necked and stubborn dachshund who would not walk the straight path in the Way of the Lord.

  20. 20.

    JPL

    Dobson called him a baby Christian, after during a debate talked about the size of his pe.nis. As jl said at comment 6, the guy is sick. Anyone who abuses a dog, needs to find a special place in hell and soon.

  21. 21.

    jl

    @efgoldman: I admit I can obsess over the dachshund thing. They are one of my favorite breeds, though they do know how to be very irritating at times.

  25. 25.

    Gvg

    I am an atheist, but I don’t consider Dobson to be a real Christian. Frankly the popular tv evangelists especially the political types have all struck me as immoral non Christians for some time. I don’t think most of them realize they are not because many of them are really demonstrated lay stupid and I think the corruption happened at least a couple of generations ago.
    Real Christians exist but they aren’t rich or famous.

  27. 27.

    hovercraft

    According to PPP Obama would only beat Drump by 9 points 52 to 43. And they have Clinton up by 1 point 45 to 44. Strange untill you see this next one :
    If the choice for President were Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Drump, and a Giant Meteor hitting the earth which would you choose?
    Clinton 43 %
    Drump 38 %
    Meteor 13 %
    Not Sure 7%

    Those Bernie or bust people are hard core, death of mankind before Hillary.
    EDIT to add not sure.
    Sorry is it too soon?

  28. 28.

    Anne Laurie

    @jl:

    Dobson is the guy who beat the crap out his dachshund because it looked at him funny one day, right?

    And we know about that story, which Dobson himself repeats, because he was using as it as a teaching tool about how sometimes a good Christian(ist) patriarch is just required by his faith to physically abuse his children, for Jeebus. Because defiant kids, like little dogs, have to be “broken” so that they understand who God put in charge (praise Him!).

    It’s like Mitt Romney repeating the dog-on-the-car-roof incident as a funny, heart-warming family tale… hosing down a trapped, terrified pet while his kids cowered in the back seat. These guys seriously LACK some kind of empathy chip in their robo-programming.

  29. 29.

    Lurker Extraordinaire

    Dachshunds are notoriously hard to house break and stubborn to boot, but extremely cute and oh so funny. I’ve had the pleasure of owning a few. Dobson is just an asshole of the Huckabee variety.

    Trump is an asshole of the Trumpian variety. Christian, my ass.

  33. 33.

    Ryan

    Is no one immune from the grift? Jeepers, I would have asked Dobson what God thinks of Trump Tower, why are they so bad at what they do? As they say, “”It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

  34. 34.

    Anne Laurie

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    Why is it that the more aggressively people proclaim their holiness, the worse they are as people?

    Heck, most of the people in this country making themselves public pests by parading their RELIGION!! are doing so in direct disobedience to the guy they call God:

    “And whenever you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to stand in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they will be seen by people. I tell all of you with certainty, they have their full reward!”

  35. 35.

    muddy

    I got moderated for providing 2 links to Dobson’s words, one from Snopes and one from Dobson’s own blog.

  38. 38.

    Randy P

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    Why is it that the more aggressively people proclaim their holiness, the worse they are as people?

    Jesus (or the Gospels, anyway) actually covered that. Shows human nature hasn’t changed much.

    And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 6But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (Matthew 6:5, King James Version, which is still my favorite)

    Also shows what we see repeatedly, that they don’t do a real good job of following the teaching of their supposed founding teacher. They prefer to ignore the stuff he actually taught and go with the third-party version.

    ETA: Dang, Anne Laurie (#36) typed and bible-quoted faster than I did.

  39. 39.

    redshirt

    I don’t know what’s more hypocritically pathetic here: Trump’s “conversion” or Republican Christians vouching for it.

  40. 40.

    laura

    @jl: yes. Weiner-dogs are indeed impertinent about the face. At least Chet is.
    But he sure as hell lacks the stench of sanctimony,god-bothering or oily, greasy grift. In his name.

  41. 41.

    hovercraft

    @Ryan:
    The prosperity gospel is the hot trend among a certain segment of the evangelical movement these days. God wants you to be rich and being flashy with your material wealth shows others how God has blessed you and can bless them too if they give money to their church. In Drumps case that would mean giving money to him so that you can become rich like him.

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    I read something about how Trump is supposedly close to Clinton in a recent poll. This says nothing about what will happen in November, but I am still amazed over how some people cling to the Donald. But I am astounded by how desperately Ryan, Dobson and other conservatives try to make Trump into one of their own. They reject the evidence right in front of them. “Oh, no. Trump is one of us. He is a true conservative. He is born again.” Trump doesn’t have to try to fool them. They want to be fooled. They are born again chumps.

  44. 44.

    dexwood

    I don’t understand the problem, Mr. Dobson, you and Mr. Trump are a perfect match in your idea of Heaven.

  45. 45.

    Patricia Kayden

    James Dobson is such a homophobe and all around nasty person so it’s always good to hear that he’s having a sadz.

    @JPL: With “the lord” being Trump, right? That’s the only way your scenario would work since Trump is a self-worshipper.

  46. 46.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Splitting Image: Is it an important thing for members of Iceland’s parliament to know someone is born again and had a personal relationship with Christ before they make illegal campaign contributions?

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @muddy:

    You used naked hyperlinks, which FYWP is choking on again. You can easily avoid moderation by dressing up the URLs with the “Link” button above the comment box.

  51. 51.

    Patricia Kayden

    @rikyrah: Lol! I can’t stop laughing. Why would anyone care? She acts like an abused wife with no voice anyways so no surprise. Sounds like a publicity stunt.

  52. 52.

    Joel

    So, here’s a wild fucking story that’s spreading around scientific Facebook circles right now.

    I have the distinct misfortune of not only having met this man, but also having introduced him for an endowed lecture (disclaimer: he wasn’t my choice).

  56. 56.

    K488

    @muddy: That is truly disturbing. I read the account – beating a dog with a belt? Establishing authority? I simply cannot abide the thought of the man. He’s always given me the creeps, but his preening self-regard in the account just makes my skin crawl. I’m going to go hug my cats.

  57. 57.

    Tokyokie

    Trump and Dobson’s relationship with Jesus is about as substantial as the one I had with Claudia Cardinale when she was in her 20s.

  58. 58.

    Lurker Extraordinaire

    @Patricia Kayden: is that the Quinnipiac poll? No one takes them seriously. They have terrible polling methods.

    Husband has to work on the 4th, so on the 5th we are going to the Columbus Zoo for free (military, veterans, and family members get in free from the 2nd to the 8th). Has anyone been? Excited to take the little one there. She’s only been to the Lowery Park Zoo in Tampa for comparison.

  60. 60.

    Anne Laurie

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Rachel Maddow highlighted a poll where Secretary Clinton only leads Trump by 1%. **shudders**

    I’m getting the impression Rachel Maddow likes to tell ghost stories around the campfire, to scare her more timid fellows.

    She might argue, in her own defense, that we need to stay scared, to GOTV & make sure Trump is beaten like a rented mule.

  61. 61.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Amaranthine RBG:
    He bragged about it. Also beat his children. For the same ‘reason’, they must submit wholly and any sign of resistance has to be beaten out of them. As I recall he spanked his few month old children’s bare bottoms for what he perceived as resistance.

    And yes, with a belt or leather strap because that is the way of his lord I guess

  63. 63.

    Mary G

    The dog was sitting in his favorite spot, on the furry toilet seat cover in the bathroom near a heater and wouldn’t go to his own bed when ordered to, so he got a belt (a small one, like that excuses anything) and hit the dog until it obeyed.

    Colossal asshole doesn’t begin to describe this guy.

  64. 64.

    dogwood

    @Patricia Kayden:
    Highlighting outlier polls that show Trump close or winning is the number one 1 job of every cable and network newsroom. Get used to it for the next 4 months.

  65. 65.

    Schlemazel Khan

    POLLS

    Remember, always ignore the outliers, always look at the trends of the mass of them not individual polls. This is the simple trick you can use to be as accurate as 528

  67. 67.

    Felonius Monk

    If Jesus had to choose which one to save: Dobson or Trump. I believe he would pick Trump.

  68. 68.

    Roger Moore

    @Lurker Extraordinaire:

    Dachshunds are notoriously hard to house break and stubborn to boot,

    And any caring, diligent dog person would find that kind of thing out before settling on a breed. Getting a pet is a choice; if you aren’t willing to put up with the downside of the pet you shouldn’t get one. For example, I know that cats tend to scratch the hell out of things, so I have to factor occasional reupholstery and drape replacement into the cost of having one.

  69. 69.

    hellslittlestangel

    At Trump Seminary, my hand-picked spiritual advisors will show you tried and true ways to get the best deal with god. You’ll learn all my secrets, and I guarantee your salvation.

  71. 71.

    burnspbesq

    @JPL:

    You can imagine the rest of the vision..

    Does it involve the EPA declaring the water unsafe to drink because of the unauthorized release of millions of gallons of hairstyling products?

  78. 78.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: I know that, you know that, my guess is that the law enforcement, insurance, and state regulatory investigators are going to know that. What worries me is that either the guy who owns the range and the people he has working for him don’t know that or are dumb enough to think that anyone would buy that as an explanation.

  80. 80.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I didn’t read the story but it might have bounced. Mythbusters ‘skipped’ a projectile off the range, through a minivan & into a house by accident.

  83. 83.

    The Dangerman

    @hovercraft:

    If the choice for President were Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Drump, and a Giant Meteor hitting the earth which would you choose?
    Clinton 43 %
    Drump 38 %
    Meteor 13 %
    Not Sure 7%

    Those Bernie or bust people are hard core, death of mankind before Hillary.

    May not be BernieBros; the Meteor is a rightwing thing, mostly abbreviated SMOD (Sweet Meteor Of Death).It, of course, has a Twitter account:

    https://twitter.com/smod2016/status/739868514031259648?lang=en

  84. 84.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Dobson is as much a grifting hoofwanking bunglec#nt as Drumpf is.

    Fuck him. With a rusty chain saw.

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: Scariest thing to hear on an artillery firing point: Cease fire. Freeze. Tubes stay at current elevation and deflection. Someone, on some FP, put a round out of safe. ::shudder::

    @Schlemazel Khan: Still utterly unsafe.

  91. 91.

    SiubhanDuinne

    MICHAEL ANTHONY: Wow.

    I just want to use this line again and again. Rotating tag, response to trolls, whatevs. I love it. It is perfect.

    MICHAEL ANTHONY: Wow.

    MICHAEL ANTHONY: Wow.

    So awesome.

  94. 94.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Patricia Kayden: Actually the announcement, or leak, is he’s opening one win or lose. Apparently he’s decided that he should be making the money the networks are for covering him. I would expect that if he was elected he’d have an exclusive arrangement for all coverage to only be through the Trump Networks, with a large licensing fee for any other network to cover him. He’s just that uninformed about how things work.

  96. 96.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Patricia Kayden:
    I knew that but doubt he can get enough investors stupid enough to finance the thing so like any good conman he will have to start with a cheap to run game until he builds up his poke.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Without a doubt! I don’t see how anyone buys that argument. They already know the trajectory of the round. They know it hit a tree and then bounced off the ground. So they should be able to reconstruct the path pretty easily.

  102. 102.

    Anne Laurie

    @hamletta:

    Prosperity gospel is not a hot trend. It’s been around for years.

    Media attention to it comes & goes in waves. It always seems to return to the spotlight in election years, for some reason (she said sarcastically). Or when there’s a particularly ripe scandal, especially of the rentboy/pedophilia ilk.

  103. 103.

    muddy

    @Adam L Silverman: A few years ago in a nearby town (rural Vermont) a man was shot to death while sitting on his porch. Two guys were target shooting, overshot their inadequate backstop (woodpile I think it was) and it went through the woods for 1/2 mile without hitting any trees. Poor old guy watching the sunset gets shot in the neck.

    Last time I heard shooting in back of my house, I called the cops and asked them to go check it was safe. I was told you are allowed to shoot in the village as long as you are at least 50′ from a house. I said I was aware, but that didn’t speak to the safety of the backstop. Cops had no interest. So I went and checked for myself.

    But who would think of checking for themselves 3 miles away!

  104. 104.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: That’s why everything is frozen in place if a round strays.

    There’s a fuck up there somewhere, and by all that is holy and unholy, the Army will find the fuck up.

  105. 105.

    PurpleGirl

    Trump has claimed be a Presbyterian and member of Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. When a Church official was asked about it several years ago, the official said that he wasn’t an active member. (Possibly he only show up when he’s getting married.) Marble Collegiate is a very liberal congregation. It was the home church of Norman Vincent Peale and the base for his Institutes of Health. I have a hard time believing that Trump was a member there.

  106. 106.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    safe is relative. If they did everything the way they thought was right, may have done it before even, and something unexpected happened that is different that some wacked up cowboys randomly shooting off shit they do not understand. Funny things happen with high speed projectiles.

    @BillinGlendaleCA:
    True but depending on the shell it could bounce also.

    none of this is to defend their incompetence only to say it might actually be an accident not total stupidity. Perhaps it would be best not to do this sort of thing that close to humans.

  108. 108.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @muddy:
    Hardly a deer season goes by that there is not at least one person killed by a bullet that traveled 1/2 mile or more. Clown can’t hit a deer 25 yards away but kills someone, often another hunter but just as likely some guy or girl having a cup of coffee in their kitchen.

  109. 109.

    Gin & Tonic

    @muddy: Speaking of rural Vermont and guns, this guy had a facility that straddled the VT-QC border. I have a friend who lives in the area, and we drove around the property after he was assassinated but before someone, um, cleaned up after him. The facility straddled the border so things could come in one side and leave out the other.

  113. 113.

    Anne Laurie

    @Schlemazel Khan:

    True but depending on the shell it could bounce also.

    none of this is to defend their incompetence only to say it might actually be an accident not total stupidity

    Forgive my ignorance, but is there some good reason why anyone would need to be firing an artillery shell from a private shooting range?

    I mean, everybody luvs them some Fourth fireworks, but really?

  115. 115.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Schlemazel Khan: A well trained artillery team (forward observer, guns, fire direction center) can tell you within 100 meters where an artillery shell will land. The entire process is about getting the rounds to land EXACTLY where you want them to land. Omnes can provide mind numbing details of this, but I had enough arty training in my military career to know the basics of the process. The US Army developed artillery targeting to a science in WWII and have only been further perfecting it since then. When the crews are properly trained, there are no errors. When an error crops up, the entire “freeze” process is in place to determine PRECISELY where the error occurred. Please believe me, if it’s done according to the book, it’s as close to a certainty where the rounds will fall as you can hope to get.

  116. 116.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: Small arms are a whole ‘nother thing. While you can with reasonable accuracy predict where things will go, there’s way too much random human fuckups involved in small arms. With artillery, there’s a record that can be traced back to determine what mistake was made.

    Oh, wait, this was someone actually firing private artillery? All I can tell you is in the Army, this shit is investigated out the wazoo, as there are records kept of every round that leaves the tube. Once you get out of that situation, who knows what will happen. I don’t trust the “private sector” to not engage in massive ass covering.

  117. 117.

    MomSense

    @jl:

    I was going to say that it would be strange if a dachshund didn’t have an impertinent expression.

  118. 118.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Roger Moore: I do not know. The only thing I’ve ever had to do with both Oklahoma and Field Artillery together was teaching a week’s worth of classes at the Army Field Artillery School in August 2013 and then, despite my POC their retiring abruptly, technically being that school’s cultural advisor until August 2014. I was asked to this from my office at Carlisle Barracks in PA, but after the initial trip, when the senior civilian who was the deputy to the commandant retired, no one there ever followed up.

  120. 120.

    muddy

    @Anne Laurie: I used to go to a weekend long 4th party featuring homemade cannons and automatic weapons as well as the usual weaponry. Cops would come and make sure who was doing it, and then take themselves off. It’s been these 30 years and more, and never had any kind of injury or incident. Even back in the day when we were all young and drunk (everything set up and laid out ahead of time). It’s possible to be cool about it, but I have to say it seems more common these days for there to be idiocy.

    It was better when the NRA was about gun safety and not showing off.

  125. 125.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: Exactly. This was a private range, private event. I’m glad it wasn’t an Army event because in Oklahoma that likely means Ft. Sill. Too many of my former students are currently assigned there to wish this on them. As if living in Lawton wasn’t bad enough…

  126. 126.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Schlemazel Khan: Funny things don’t happen with high speed projectiles. They behave predictably. It an artillery shell ricocheted, it was direct, rather than, indirect fired. If that was the case, the people running the range should have taken that possibility into account..

  127. 127.

    MomSense

    @muddy:

    WTF that man is troubled. The poor little dog was probably terrified.

    I really dislike people sometimes.

  129. 129.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: Tracking. The range owner and the knuckleheads that produced this result may try to cover their 6s, but between the police, the homeowners insurance company, and state regulators, they’re in a world of hurt. And since its 2016, I’m sure someone took video.

  131. 131.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: What do you need to know about Lawton? Buy foreign beer. Visit Geronimo’s grave. Learn the difference between the officer and enlisted strip clubs. Leave as soon as you can.

    ETA: There is no good beer at the Blade and Wing, but the Officers Club requires driving.

  132. 132.

    redshirt

    I went to a a rich person’s party in Virginia once across from DC that had a huge artillery piece on the lawn overlooking the Potomac and DC. The White House was supposedly in range. They filled it with some kind of firecrackers that shot out over the river.

  133. 133.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: Longest week of TDY ever. Wasn’t even a decent steak house in town. So chow was terrible. Fortunately the La Quinta was nice. It was over a hundred degrees, I was in a suit and tie all day, I had to deal with a whiney group of majors and captains from the teaching cadre who could care less and were pissed that because of the realities of OIF and OEF they’d had to be planners, not lanyard pullers for the first half of their careers and no one was going to ever make them do that again.

    I did go to that grass fed beef burger place outside of town in the National Monument/Park area one night for one of their burgers.

  135. 135.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: There’s a great steak joint north of post nearly in the Wichita Mountains, or at least there was back in ’79, that was de rigeur for every young LT to visit while they were at Sill, at least once.

  137. 137.

    muddy

    @MomSense: I would hope that the dog pissed on his pillow or something to get revenge, but he’d only have beaten it again. I’m betting he never gets a big dog either. Little dogs, little kids, damn bully.

  142. 142.

    frosty

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    What do you need to know about Lawton? Buy foreign beer. Visit Geronimo’s grave. Learn the difference between the officer and enlisted strip clubs. Leave as soon as you can.

    LOL. I’ll have to ask my son what he thought, since he did his Natl Guard MOS training at Ft. Sill.

    Most interesting factoid I learned from his arty training. On one drill, his battery of four 777s fired four rounds each. $100,000 worth of ammo. How the hell could we afford a war these days?

  146. 146.

    Brachiator

    @Joel:

    scientific Facebook circles

    Scientific Facebook circles? Well, OK.

    The article about the science researcher was sad and sordid.

  148. 148.

    Suzanne

    @PurpleGirl: Presbyterians aren’t really into born-again stuff, either. They’re mainline Protestants, so it’s all about guilt for sloth. Dobson is trying to make him seem more acceptable to evangelicals who often don’t know much about mainline denominations, other than that they’re all going to Hell (because there is nothing that Christians love more than telling other Christians that they’re going to Hell).

  150. 150.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mike J: It’s possible to fire a howitzer in the “direct fire” mode. It’s just that the situation would have to be pretty damn dire to do so. Artillery is supposed to be well away from the front and deal it’s destruction indirectly, which, yes, requires some elevation to the tube.

  151. 151.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: That sounds familiar, but “Meers Burgers” were not the draw when I visited the place up north of post…it was steak. Might be a new establishment occupying the footprint of the one I remember, but gosh, that was 35 years ago!

  152. 152.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mike J: Depends on terrain. Also, the old difference between cannon and howitzer had been eliminated. I’ll save me the typing and you the reading. Current guns are howitzers.

  153. 153.

    Roger Moore

    @PurpleGirl:

    Or you get one or two scratching posts for the cat to climb on and scratch.

    Scratching posts can reduce but not eliminate cats scratching at things. Scratching is one way they mark their territory, so they want to scratch all over the place. And even if they aren’t deliberately marking, they use their claws for grip, so they can wind up scratching stuff accidentally. You just have to decide if you love your furniture more than your cat. If you do, you should not have a cat.

  154. 154.

    Suzanne

    @Suzanne: Also, joining a Presbyterian church is easy, and they take your name off the membership if they don’t see you for a while. Not like evangelical and LDS churches. So it’s possible that Trump was a member when he got married and then stopped going and was removed from the membership rolls.

  158. 158.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: Meers has been there for ever. The founding director of my higher HQ at the time, a retired Navy O6 who grew up in Oklahoma, told me about it. Said its a local legend. The closest recommendation I got to a good steak place was in town and looked like some type of Oklahoman chain. Sort of a local version of a Cody’s or Texas Roadhouse.

  161. 161.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: The only other thing I saw on my way out to Meers was a National Park Service welcome building near the turnoff. And since my GPS had trouble finding the place, I spent an extra forty minutes tooling around the area. So its definitely moved on.

  163. 163.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @redshirt: You want me to talk about VHF multichannel equipment? I’m the only person here who knows about this stuff, best I can tell. Omnes and I share some time in the arty (since he was a redleg, much much more than I do, although I was the Signal Officer of a Division Artillery for 2 years, so I know a bit about it) so we have a perverse tendency to talk former shop :).

  166. 166.

    muddy

    @Roger Moore: I have never had luck with scratching posts or other purpose made devices. What they do love are door frames. If I let them scratch those, they don’t (deliberately) scratch other stuff. I’ve decided that the casings are now disposable. After 10 years, they dig all the way through it, and then you go buy another 1×4 and replace. They really get a good texture going.

    I just had this idea while typing: I could make things with the cat gouged wood, and sell them online, sculpture made by cats.

  180. 180.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mike J: Way beyond me. I was still mucking with VRC-12 family equipment when I got out. SINGCARS was a long delayed dream.

  181. 181.

    Mike J

    @Villago Delenda Est: To be clear, I don’t know a lot about how digital selective calling works, I just know that when you press this button, the Coasties get your lat/lon, and I hope to never have to press it.

  182. 182.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mike J: Heddy Lamar (NOT Hedley) actually was a pioneer in spread spectrum technology. I understand it in theory, but haven’t worked with the actual equipment. Things have progressed significantly since 1990 when I left the Army.

  183. 183.

    Miss Bianca

    @muddy: Recent headline from my local newspaper: “It’s Out of Control: Cliff residents want ban on discharging firearms”.

    Turns out that some residents of Silver Cliff are starting to get unhappy about their neighbors’ tendency to blaze away on their “homemade firing ranges”. The problem is that Silver Cliff Ranch, a subdivision that’s sort of within and sort of without the town limits, is considered “agricultural” land, and so different rules apparently apply. The other problem, tho’ is that even with five-acre plots, a lot of the houses are only a couple hundred feet apart.

    So you get classic lines like this from one of the residents: “I have nothing against guns, I own some. (The obligatory genuflection). But I want my grandchildren to play in the forest like I did, but with neighbors firing away all the time, it’s not safe. It’s out of control.”

    Surprisingly, the paper goes on to note, “it is not illegal to discharge a firearm in the town limits…as long as it is not done carelessly. The definition of careless…is a hard one to define. The law states that as long as a bullet stays on the property, then it is not a careless discharge.”

    Think about that one for a while. But the good news is that the town council has noted your concerns, citizens, and they promise to keep discussing the issue at later meetings!

  184. 184.

    dww44

    @hovercraft: I don’t think the closeness of the polled vote between Hillary and Trump is a reflection of the Bernie supporters. It’s more a reflection of the sheer hatred that so many of my fellow GOP voting friends and relatives have for Hillary. Husband channel surfs and one of his favorite stopping places is Fox News. Just tonight he said, “Wow, Fox is ginning up the Hillary hate big time. They won’t let the Benghazi report go and they are lying. Roger Ailes must have given them their marching orders to take her down.”.

    More than two decades of being fed the unrelenting anti-Clinton and anti-Democrat rhetoric will seriously warp an otherwise sane person’s thinking. Husband actually made the comparison tonight to Hitler and propaganda minister, Goebbels. Rigidly partisan media does Democracy no favors and does enable the rise of fake populist leaders, and not just here.

  187. 187.

    Lurker Extraordinaire

    @p.a.: That is my biggest fear. The Trumpenproletariat will take out their loss on women, PoCs, etc.

    Omnes, thanks for the Columbus Zoo recs.

    Dachshunds are awesome, no matter how stubborn they are, and anyone who beats them (or any animal) is a dingleberry on the taint of humanity.

  188. 188.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Lurker Extraordinaire: Digby was right about this though: they’d take out a win on women, PoCs, etc., in exactly the same way only with the arrogance of power. Look at the Brexit aftermath: the people harassing Poles and Indians to “go home” the morning after are the same sort of people.

  189. 189.

    Chris

    @Scratch:

    The things is that it’s really hard to say who’s a bigger asshole, Trump or Dobson?

    What’s worse, a guy who does the wrong thing strictly out of selfishness, or a guy who does the wrong thing because he thinks it’s right? I.e. what’s worse, a gangster or a terrorist? I’ve never actually figured out what my answer to that is. They’re both horrific in their own ways.

    @Splitting Image:

    And to say it once more: Trump is strictly an amateur.
    …
    A professional Republican politician would have “embraced Jesus” long before the primary season, and would have been sure to mention that in his fundraising emails.

    Au contraire.

    Trump understands what’s really firing up the Republican base, including most of the people in the pews of the religious right: bigotry, pure and simple, the ugly belief in their own superiority against anyone of a different cultural background, and also women, LGBTQA, etc. Trump understands that the Jesus shtick was always a thin veil covering that reality. And he understands that as the religious right’s power wanes, its charlatan leaders like James Dobson matter less and less. He didn’t “embrace Jesus” because he doesn’t need to; he can appeal to that crowd directly with the things they really care about.

    It’s the same dynamic that we’ve seen between him, the voters, and the Republican establishment politicians: he’s stealing their audience because he understands better than they do what actually makes them tick.

  191. 191.

    Paul in KY

    @Adam L Silverman: I read that as a 14″ naval type shell & when I saw story, I was like ‘why is his house still there?”

    LOL. Sorry for homeowner & hope he can sue the shit out of them.

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