Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Celebrate the fucking wins.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

When we show up, we win.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

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Reader Interactions

272Comments

  3. 3.

    Schlemazel Khan

    The colonists asked the Crown to fight the French and natives so that they could take more land. The Crown was willing but the war was expensive. Since it was the colonists that profited most from the war Parliament expected them to share the cost. They put a small tax on things like document stamps and tea. The rest is history. The real story of the American revolution was that it was a bunch of entitled slave owners who didn’t think they should have to pay for services rendered.

  5. 5.

    burnspbesq

    @Amir Khalid:

    There will always be a Union Jack. It will live on, like our Confederate flag, as the standard of the dead-enders and no-hopers that history has left behind.

  6. 6.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    Like the Brits know anything about independence or leaving a union.

    Amateurs, the rank lot of them.

    And the ones who pushed for Leave the most – Boris, Farage – are fleeing from the scene of the crime the fastest of any of them. Cowards and fools, who lied to the British voters over unfounded Populist outrage and now sticking them with the bills.

  8. 8.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Holy crap. I had avoided the Capitol Steps for a few years, but didn’t turn off the radio soon enough today. Were they ever funny, clever, witty, or the least bit talented? Just awful.

  10. 10.

    c u n d gulag

    I’m waiting to celebrate “Texit” – when Texas finally decides to leave.

    They can go, but first, they’ll have to give us all of our military personnel and ordinance, and we’ll close the bases for good!

  12. 12.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @c u n d gulag:
    Nah, I changed my nym when I offered my services to President Baud. I want to be named Secretary of Internal Pacification. It would make me smile to go all Billy Sherman on Texas’ ass. Maybe this time we could get reconstruction right.

  14. 14.

    schrodinger's cat

    Its jealousy speaking, without India UK became a second rate power, without Scotland and Ireland they will be reduced to a third rate power if that. After all you can only rest on your past laurels for so long.

  16. 16.

    bmaccnm

    It’s an open thread? Here’s my gripe. I officially give up on NPR. I’ve listened to NPR for more than 30 years. My once-husband and I used to tape programs so we would stay informed. I’ve noted the drift, then sway, rightward, but jebus. I turned it on at 5:00 am, during my break, and the lead was “We travel around to see how the Obama years have affected real Americans”, or some such shite. Sure enough, the first segment was Steve Inskeep standing along the rusty Susquehanna, talking with some cop who whined about how Obama had divided the nation. Old Steve even helped the guy articulate his inner feelings, “Like when a white policeman happens to have an encounter with someone of another color…” And the cop goes on, “Yes, and Obama did nothing to quell the violence.” Fuck me. No. Fuck them. Enough. I shut it off, and I’m not coming back. No honesty. No journalism. Just Nice Polite Republican noise.

  23. 23.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @bmaccnm:
    I mentioned a story I hear this week where they interviewed people in Ohio. EVERYONE was pissed off, EVERYONE was unhappy with their choices and EVERYONE they interviewed was going to vote for Drumpf! What a miracle, they traveled the entire state, a state where Clinton leads by 3 points but could not find a single Clinton supporter to interview. Statistically one would expect half the people interviewed should have been voting Clinton.

    Yeah, I’m done with NPR – sell out whores for corporate donations.

  25. 25.

    gindy51

    @Schlemazel Khan: Sounds like things have not changed one tiny bit. We have our slave owners now (CEOs making 450% more than their peons, rich entitled pukes) and the slaves… the rest of us. The entitled pukes don’t want to pay their fair share now just like they didn’t back then.

  27. 27.

    burnspbesq

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    London will remain a global financial center for one simple reason: nobody with a choice (and if you have money, you have choices) will ever voluntarily leave London for Frankfurt. Frankfurt is the most boring major city I’ve ever spent time in. It’s Tulsa without tornados.

  30. 30.

    trollhattan

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    Fifty years on everybody thinks they’re Tom Lehrer if they can play piano and sing the news. I hasten to remind them he did a bit more than just that.

  33. 33.

    Joel

    @gindy51: nope, not even close. Slavery still exists and middle class life in the US is nothing like it. Not even close. I mean, it’s offensive to even suggest it.

  34. 34.

    Tripod

    @Schlemazel Khan:

    The political press has really been flogging the disgruntled Midwestern voter. I’d wager The GOP is worried about internals and a down ballot implosion.

  37. 37.

    trollhattan

    @Schlemazel Khan:
    This a.m. they did same, only from Kentucky. They introduced the piece as getting to know conservative voters or somesuch, so there was no “liberal” counterpoint attempt and one wonders when the cross-country chats with disaffected Berners will happen. I do wish they’d have quizzed the dude on exactly how Obama was going to take away his Precious Guns via executive order, but the comment just hung there.

  38. 38.

    Corner Stone

    @c u n d gulag:

    They can go, but first, they’ll have to give us all of our military personnel and ordinance, and we’ll close the bases for good!

    Go on then. And take all your city regulations with you!

  42. 42.

    Patricia Kayden

    @bmaccnm: That’s a shame because Republicans are on record as advocating for cuts to the funding of NPR, PBS and other publicly funded media. I suppose NPR is trying to curry up to Republicans so that threat subsides.

    Reminds me of Romney’s threat to go after Big Bird in his first debate against President Obama.

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    @Joel:
    Holy crap, I thought it was just wishful thinking on their part. GS could break their own win record if they can integrate him into the offense.

  44. 44.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Baud:
    true enough.

    Also, like bmac I noticed the “reporter” egging the subjects on, completing sentences and highlighting anger.

  45. 45.

    RaflW

    @bmaccnm: I am thankful that Minnesota Public Radio has good local content, and I still like shows such as Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. But I agree that Morning Perdition and Some Things Considered have gone way down hill.

    ETA: The same dynamics I commented on recently on cable nooz apply here, too. People under 40 aren’t listening to NPR on the radio to get their news. So they have to be Nice Polite Republicans to entice the (older, white, wealthier, quasi-moderate) donor base that is still ~50% of their budgets. And I guess they don’t want to hear about Clinton being up in Ohio, etc.

  46. 46.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Tripod:
    They are working overtime trying to tip the scales. Hope that fails like a Trump.

    @trollhattan: @debbie:
    Yeah, I regret I ever gave NPR a dime & won’t make that mistake ever again

  47. 47.

    trollhattan

    @Patricia Kayden:
    Pretty sure the Republicans already gutted public broadcast funding to table scraps, hence the wall-to-wall fundraising. Any cuts at this point would be like threatening to kill a car by shooting the ashtray.

  49. 49.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Patricia Kayden:
    What they have done is to force NPR/PBS to go begging to corporate sponsors with the intended result being that they now have to kowtow to the corporate overlords views.

    They have already won the battle, Rmoney was just playing a golden oldie. Though you may have noticed Big Bird is now owned by HBO

  50. 50.

    burnspbesq

    @RaflW:

    Morning Perdition and Some Things Considered

    Price worth paying, considering everything else my KCRW membership gets me.

  51. 51.

    The Dangerman

    @trollhattan:

    GS could break their own win record…

    They (and no one else) will never try; sure, they got 73, but their legs (Curry, Barnes) were done by the end.

  52. 52.

    Miss Bianca

    @Patricia Kayden: @trollhattan: I think the problem is that they have had to rely more and more not only on raising money from memberships, but also from corporate underwriters. I don’t know whether the rightward drift is deliberate – so as not to piss off these corporate sponsors – or accidental/unintentional as PBS/NPR/PRI etc. absorb the values of their corporate sponsors – but in any case the “rightwards” trend appears to be a real thing.

    ETA: I see that Schlemezel Khan got there first. I will just add that while I’m not a huge fan of Amy Goodman – I think Democracy Now! can be just as biased in its way as NPR – I do think she performs a valuable service, and I am a little alarmed to note that my “progressive” community radio station has finally dropped DR. A sign o’ the times?

  53. 53.

    Baud

    I’ve never been able to get into radio news talk. I need to read it or watch it on TV.

  54. 54.

    justawriter

    @bmaccnm: Years ago, before everyone called them memes, there was a meme along the lines of “I cried when I found out Jefferson owned slaves.” Never quite understood that because I didn’t know how anyone could believe an 18th century Virginia plantation owner didn’t own slaves. But I had a similar reaction when, after years of listening to NPR, I found out that Cokie Roberts was the the daughter of the former majority leader of the House of Representatives. She was basically reporting on her family friends. Any responsible news organization would have placed her in New York or LA in any position except Chief Political Correspondent. I found that an incredible lapse in ethics.

  55. 55.

    Barbara

    @trollhattan: After the 2012 election the Washington Post did a few profile articles of some very active Romney voters in Florida and Tennessee, and they were well-done if disconcerting. I don’t think NPR has ever been able to do anything comparable. The format permits only the shallowest kind of examination of the subject even when they are trying to operate in good faith.

  56. 56.

    Barbara

    @justawriter: And her brother was one of the biggest lobbyists in D.C. I stopped listening to NPR because of Cokie but honestly I always thought it was derivayive and overrated, but in smaller markets it is way better than the alternative and it does not center on celebrity culture.

  58. 58.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @justawriter:
    I believe they sold it as her having an insiders view of the process. In theory that could be a good thing for analysis but not for news. Her rightward shift is very pronounced over the years she has been squawking on NPR.

    @Barbara:
    But the long-form stories they do, like the hour from Ohio, should give them more than enough time to do an excellent job of looking at the situation and examining the complex details. Instead they go all GOP with no nuance.

  59. 59.

    cmorenc

    @trollhattan:

    Holy crap, I thought it was just wishful thinking on their part. GS could break their own win record if they can integrate him into the offense.

    Unfortunately, Curry and Durant have to share one basketball. That might be enough many games, but others – not so much.

  61. 61.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Funny. When I have the tv news on, I just listen without looking.

    @Miss Bianca:

    The rightward trend doesn’t surprise me. What bugs me is that, no matter the subject matter, there’s a new light-heartedness to the reporting. Especially in the morning. Steve Inskeep always rephrases the previous response (“If I’m hearing you correctly…”) and Rene Montaigne’s questions are longer than those at White House briefings. Either way, they usually end up having to cut the guest off in mid-sentence. Very amateur hour. These same reporters did’t use to do these things, but I can’t imagine what kind of directive they’re working under.

    If the DJs (or whatever they’re called today) jabbered less, I’d go back to listening to music.

  63. 63.

    Ken

    @Baud:

    If the UK spilts, I wonder how they’ll divvy up the remaining protectorates.

    First-come, first-serve.

    And by “first-come”, I mean “first to get a capital ship there”. Or in the case of Gibraltar, an armored batallion.

  64. 64.

    The Lodger

    @Miss Bianca: A few weeks ago, NPR started running an underwriter blurb from Koch Industries saying how many thousands of people they employ. The expectations, they have been lowered.

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @trollhattan:

    Yup, Tom Lehrer for sure. And Allan Sherman also did some good, funny parodies that still hold up after half a century.

  66. 66.

    oklahomo

    @Schlemazel Khan: Mostly lurker, reading between program compiles and job runs. I live in Green Country Oklahoma, a/k/a the Land of the Troglodytes of the Trees.

  67. 67.

    The Dangerman

    @cmorenc:

    Unfortunately, Curry and Durant have to share one basketball.

    Offense will be fascinating but GS has to renounce Bogut; sure, he didn’t play huge minutes, but you can’t win without a serviceable 5 that can protect the rim every once in a while and grab some boards.

    They will be damn good but I’m not sure I’m fitting them for rings any time soon.

  69. 69.

    Tripod

    @cmorenc:

    The Chicago Bulls of the last couple of years – Jimmy Butler and Derick Rose just flat refused to pass to one another. It’s hard to judge Hoiberg – he couldn’t run an offense, just swap isolations every trip down the floor.

  70. 70.

    henqiguai

    @BubbaDave(#13):

    @c u n d gulag: A Texan pushed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act through Congress. Just sayin’.

    And white people were the architects and primary operators of America’s peculiar institution. Just sayin’.

    Things change, as do institutions. Deal with what it is, not what it used to be.

  74. 74.

    ? Martin

    @NotMax: Nah. There would be an exception made for that. This is just housekeeping after the Bill/Lynch embarrassment.

  75. 75.

    Tom Levenson

    @Schlemazel Khan: That leaves out a little.

    In that vein — just finished a fun book, As If an Enemy’s Country: The British Occupation and the Origins of Revolution by Richard Archer. The dispute was (as always) more complex than represented then and now. Not that racism and humans-as-property weren’t part of the deal, in Boston too (though not on the same scale as in the southern colonies).

    What amazed me about this book, which is good-not-great, is the degree of ignorant incompetence in the British govt. They had so many opportunities to nip rebellion in the bud, and whiffed at every one of them, large and small.

  76. 76.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @debbie:

    Steve Inskeep always rephrases the previous response (“If I’m hearing you correctly…”) and Rene Montaigne’s questions are longer than those at White House briefings.

    I think those (admittedly annoying “features”) are a consequence of the way they do editing. They probably talk to the people for 10-15+ minutes (unless it’s live) and then have to cut it down to 2-3 minutes. They never know whether they’ll have the time for the question and the answer, so they try to make it so that if they have to cut something to a sound-bite, then it will still make sense.

    You can occasionally hear an editing error – like when they’ll have the reporter ask a question, get an answer, and then repeat the exact same question/comment again later in the segment.

    They way they should do it is: ask they guy/gal the question, let them answer the way they want, then when they broadcast the story, introduce the story and let them talk. People understand that editing happens. Or simply paraphrase the comments, put the full piece on the web, and refer the listeners there if there isn’t time. Spending 50% of the time rephrasing what was said, or telling us, “reporting from Paris, the capital of France, …”, etc., wastes our time.

    I don’t think not donating to NPR and your local station will make things better. Donate and let the NPR and station management know what you like and don’t like. Griping from the sidelines won’t help – they’re going to listen to their donors more.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  78. 78.

    SteveinSC

    @henqiguai:”And white people were the architects and primary operators” Uh, no I believe it was the African tribes who captured their brethren and sold them on the coast. Just sayin’. .And oh yeah, “Things change, as do institutions.” well I understand they are still selling their brethren in Africa so, well maybe they don’t change all that much, Just sayin’.

  79. 79.

    Kathleen

    @bmaccnm: I’ve given up on National RePublicAn Radio as well. Some things they do so well. Political coverage is a disgrace. Those “liberals” whose identity is based on how well they “rise above partisan politics” to form a “balanced opinion” eat it up. Bleh.

  80. 80.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Schlemazel Khan:

    In fairness, I believe that is just one of a week-long series they’re doing with “real people,” so I’ll listen to the remaining segments to see whether they interview Clinton supporters and others. Whether they find people whose lives have changed very much for the better under President Obama. Whether they find people who are activists for equality, sane gun policy, voting rights. If they fail to provide that balance by the end of the week, I’m with you. But I’ll give ’em the week.

  81. 81.

    trollhattan

    @NotMax:
    Couldn’t they simply resign? My money’s on Perez for whatever that’s worth. He’d clobber whatever small appliance Trump chooses in the VP debate.

  82. 82.

    Ghost of Joe Liebling's Dog

    @bmaccnm: Steve Inskeep has been raising Republican hackery to Damn Near An Art Form Made of Pure Dull for more than a decade. There’s probably some NPR award named after him by now.

  85. 85.

    Tripod

    July 4th 1863 – Vicksburg surrendered, and Lee started his retreat from Gettysburg.

    Vicksburg didn’t celebrate the 4th again until 1945. Obama was the first Democratic candidate to win in Warren County Mississippi since 1960.

    Trump isn’t happening because economic insecurity in some swingy Midwestern districts. This is Ragnarök for the white nationalist heartland.

  90. 90.

    Kathleen

    @debbie: Well, to be fair, with would be almost impossible to get a liberal perspective from the state that gifted us with Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, Jim Bunning and Matt Bevin. Though a friend of mine born and raised in Kentucky assured me that Louisville is a civilized oasis. (And I salute Mr. Botsplainer and offer him as Exhibit A).

  91. 91.

    Elie

    @bmaccnm:

    Their news is terrible and I agree with your conclusions. Recently I wanted to come through the radio and bite off Moira Liasson’s head. I listen to the other programming like This American Life and Dinner Party Download and their other cultural programming — which has remained excellent and untouched by the right wing prion that is consuming the news division.

  92. 92.

    henqiguai

    @SteveinSC(#77):

    well I understand they are still selling their brethren in Africa so, well maybe they don’t change all that much, Just sayin’.

    Missed both the thrust of the comment (Johnson’s actions were then, not now) as well as the clear reference to America’s peculiar institution, did’cha? And yes, slavery is still practiced in wide swaths of the world, including some illegal instances, still, in the US. Do pay attention.

  93. 93.

    ? Martin

    @Tripod: Don’t underestimate the depth to which the GOP has branded anti-Hillary sentiment. I’ve spoken with a lot of GOP voters and they all detest Trump but detest Clinton as much or more, mostly for reasons that either are really criticisms of Bill (apparently women cannot have any personality or policy views other than what their husband holds – its a miracle we even allow them to vote) or are just fictitious bullshit from the last 3 decades. It’s as if 85% of Coke drinkers were so incensed by the idea of drinking Pepsi that they chose to drink bleach instead.

  94. 94.

    CarolDuhart2

    @SteveinSC: Whatever slavery was in the African continent, it certainly wasn’t a racial caste system nor the systemic oppressiveness and brutal disregard of life as the United States. It certainly didn’t have the racism or hypocrisy either. Slaves were simply the losers in the wars, just folks with bad luck. Not to mention nowhere near the continent-stripping numbers of captives either.

    Only bigots really bring this up as to say, “don’t be proud of your African inheritance, they didn’t want you either”, or “our slavery wasn’t so bad-we were just doing what they did”. But nothing compares to the massive near genocidal Middle Passage slave trade, or the decades of lynching and Jim Crow that came afterwards.

  95. 95.

    CarolDuhart2

    RaIny July 3 and 4th, storms predicted-some folks have already canceled fireworks (at least public ones). The only thing: I bet some people on vacation will set them off tomorrow, and the last this coming weekend to make up for the lost booms.

    For me this year, it’s just another long weekend. I’m not even interested in the neighborhood parade. And last night’s 3am fireworks didn’t even get me to look outside.

  97. 97.

    geg6

    @justawriter:

    Every damn year these mouth breathers come to Heinz Field to see this no talent shitstomper and every fucking year they get disgusting drunk, start fights and leave the entire North Side looking like a giant dumpster. They should have stopped this annual fiasco a few years ago when people were being raped in the parking lots and the garbage was piled feet high. But no, Pennsyltucky, West Virginia and Southeastern Ohio must have their “entertainment.”

  99. 99.

    Elie

    @burnspbesq:

    I’m not sure that will remain so and I think that the UK is in immense trouble, economically and politically. I would be more optimistic if it looked as though ANY of their political leadership has the skill or the will to help work this through. Every single one of the assholes behind pushing the Brexit has quit and walked away from taking any responsibility, including Farage, the UKIP instigator. That does not bode well for a managing a situation that even in the best and most dedicated of hands, would be really really tough. I am hoping that they can find or somehow, the political leadership will emerge . Also necessary is the courage by the UK population to stand up for doing the right thing instead of the resentment and alienation that spurred this. It will not be an easy time and its going to be a hard thing to behold. Their political structure does not have “checks and balances” or separation of powers that ours does and even as we struggle, they don’t/won’t have the tools to easily address this. Their 3 week campaigns that everyone here so admires, is not really enough time to see the true character of some of the people running for office and their quick call for things like this referendum using a simple majority vote result, can lead to complete chaos and leaders who do not have the tools or obvious skills to manage the results. Bad times for them and truly, all western democracies looking at this thing….

  103. 103.

    gindy51

    @Joel: I did not mean it literally, I meant people grinding down their lives just to stay alive. Staying in dead end jobs just barely making it while those who own the companies they work for do whatever the hell they want and make millions trying to shaft the people who work for their companies. I watched my dad work his fingers to the bone for his family only to lose it all because the company cut health insurance and my mom got sick. Every dime he saved went to get her well and save her life, leaving nothing much for any thing else. So yeah to me that is 1st world slavery if that makes it easier to digest.

  104. 104.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @SiubhanDuinne: They’re like Mark Russell, except there’s four of them.

    The sell-by cat musta been after the DailyyShow covered the 2000 election, and Gilbert’s WHCD performance was the nail in the coffin.

  105. 105.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Elie: Britain has a parliamentary democracy and they do have checks and balances, they are different than those in a Presidential system. The Prime Minister is accountable to the House of Commons, for starters.

  106. 106.

    AliceBlue

    @geg6:
    Renee Zellwegger divorced Kenny Chesney a few years ago, after having been married for about two weeks. Bet there’s an eye-opening story there.

  107. 107.

    Elie

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Yes, that is what I understand. While I did not speak of why (parliamentary vs presidential) that difference has real consequences for them right now in this situation….

  108. 108.

    NotMax

    Reminder for those with a movie yen or who are rained out, that The Devil’s Disciple on TCM today at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time.

    Burt Lancaster, Laurence Olivier and Kirk Douglas in a Revolutionary War flick based on George Bernard Shaw’s play. The fight scene Lancaster has towards the end of the movie is peppered with clever shtick.

  109. 109.

    geg6

    @JPL:

    It’s been a shitshow every year. Barely measurable improvement does not justify the city tax payer cost and aggravation created by this crap every damn year.

  110. 110.

    Matt McIrvin

    @burnspbesq: The hardcore English racist types prefer the St. George’s Cross of England, don’t they? Them and football fans.

  112. 112.

    Formerly disgruntled Clinton supporter

    @Cat48: I’m sure that’s what the Neo-Nazis who originated the image meant… pathetic

  113. 113.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Elie: If the Tories lose the vote of confidence, new elections will have to be called. There are mechanisms that exist to get out of the leadership vacuum. FWIW, England/UK’s parliamentary democracy has evolved over centuries and is resilient and I don’t think its going to completely crumble following the Brexit vote. Breathless news reports not withstanding.

  114. 114.

    planetjanet

    @NotMax: Not unless he resigns first. Same could apply to Tom Perez as well. Its not like they have mych tenure left to lose.

  115. 115.

    JMG

    Nick Clegg, the former leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats, has an article in the Guardian today saying there should be a national Parliamentary election because of Brexit and Cameron’s resignation. Well, in years past there would have been, but a law was passed mandating that Parliaments have fixed five year terms. The main instigators of that law were Clegg and his party. Honestly, the self-serving nature of all British politicians in this crisis makes our bunch look good by comparison. These guys believe in nothing but their own careers. At least our bad guys have the honesty of fanaticism.

  116. 116.

    Betsy

    @Kathleen: that’s right. Just as the only Republicans who pay any attention to David Brooks are moderate Dems who want to feel that they are open-minded.

    Can’t stand the Friday afternoon Brooksie-vs.-Dionne thing on NPR, by the way. Cannot listen to it,

  118. 118.

    Matt McIrvin

    @bmaccnm: Several years ago I was driving home and listening to the local NPR station, which plays “Marketplace” (technically not an NPR show, but it usually plays on the same stations) after “All Things Considered.”

    It was a year or two after Hurricane Katrina, and “All Things Considered” was doing retrospectives on the aftermath, and this time their segment consisted entirely with an interview with some solid citizen in, I think, Alabama who spent the whole interview complaining that the displaced persons in FEMA trailers were bums with no initiative who were just looking for handouts. Then it was on to “Marketplace”, and an editorial crowing smugly about how businesses were flocking to the virtuous states who had cut state services so they could have lower corporate taxes.

    I just started screaming at the radio, screaming at the top of my lungs while I was trying to drive. Not long after that I switched to listening to a college rock station most of the time.

  119. 119.

    Eric U.

    @bmaccnm: I gave up on NPR back in 2000 when they helped defeat Gore. Sick of them and allowing Republicans to lie unchallenged. Nice Polite Republicans indeed. The only joy I get out of them is when some asshole from the local station calls and asks for money and I get to tell them why I’m never giving them any. I guess totebaggers are too stupid to realize they are being fed Republican propaganda

  121. 121.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @trollhattan: People who are that attached to their precious guns need to have them grabbed, before they hurt someone with them.

    They’re unfit to wield firearms.

  122. 122.

    Elie

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I have no doubt that stability will eventually emerge, whether they end up still being a UK or just England. There is real risk however that the change could be substantive and impact Europe as well… not all possible outcomes are in their control. I personally hope you are right. I have always admired the Brits and thought them (maybe wrongly) to have a bit more sanity than us. The rest of Europe is no less in a challenging time. Hopefully we can learn from this but we have our own problems and lessons ahead. Like I wonder if there is any basement to the Republican support for Donald Trump. That convention is going to be something to behold. Very stressful for them and our country to watch.

  124. 124.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @ThresherK (GPad):

    Oh Lordy, I had (mercifully) relegated Mark Russell to the far dustbins of memory. Yes, that is a perfect description of the Cap Steps. Just so bad.

  126. 126.

    Elie

    @JMG:

    I agree but the UK had better come up with some real leaders at some point and before too long also.

  128. 128.

    ? Martin

    So I would encourage people to tune into NASA TV and keep up somewhat on the Juno mission as a celebration of what we can do in this country. Consider that we collectively chose to invest in our future, we provided public educational institutions and enough social support to allow young people to go off and become experts in scientific and engineering areas that decades ago we couldn’t always attach to specific economic benefits. We created these agencies whose job is to advance science and build infrastructure that would benefit us in various ways. NASA is an institution that unquestionably values their mission, seeks out the best individuals in their field, and allows them to do great things for this country. Juno is a good example of that. We’re the only country that could and was willing to build that probe. The team that built it are largely US born and educated or nearly so and the results from Juno and our other efforts are shared with scientists and governments around the world. These are really impressive efforts by this country.

  130. 130.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Elie: Parliament has the power to throw it aside. It was an “advisory” vote. Only Parliament can start the process for leaving the EU.

  133. 133.

    CaseyL

    @? Martin: Thank you for those links! I’m excited about the Juno mission, and NASA TV will be must-see-TV today!

    And, yes, it makes me very happy to see how much we’re still “in space” despite budget cuts, GOP enmity to the entire idea of NASA, and the lack of humans-in-space (at least for now).

  139. 139.

    Cacti

    @maya:

    That might not sit well with Governor Netanyahu.

    Israel declined an offer to join the union when it was told it would only control 2 US Senators thereafter.

  141. 141.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @? Martin:

    It’s as if 85% of Coke drinkers were so incensed by the idea of drinking Pepsi that they chose to drink bleach instead.

    I still think B Barry Bamz needs to go on the teevee and plead with Americans not to drink bleach.

  142. 142.

    Amir Khalid

    @Elie:
    As I understand, in theory the British monarch has absolute power, but in practice the monarch only assents to what is done in their name by the elected PM and government. It would trigger a constitutional crisis if the Queen were to forbid Brexit by decree.

    Then again, it should be pointed out that the Brexit referendum is non-binding. Cameron could have ignored it, at great cost to his credibility since it was his promise to the pro-Exit faction among the Tories, but he said he was going to abide by it. Then he quit. There could be takey-backsies on Brexit if it can be shown that enough Britons want that, I guess; but then the pro-Brexit crowd would feel they’d been robbed.

  143. 143.

    Plantsmantx

    @SteveinSC:

    Uh, no I believe it was the African tribes who captured their brethren and sold them on the coast.

    Ah, the “the blacks sold their own people” meme. Those people were no more “brethren” or the “same people” than the French and the Russians were “brethren”. The British came a whole lot closer to “selling their own people”.

  144. 144.

    gex

    @Plantsmantx: Thank you. Apparently it is “say some stupid shit about slavery” day on BJ. See also the person who discussed modern life in America as being like slavery as they exercise agency and the franchise in ways that no slave could ever dream of.

  145. 145.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Plantsmantx: Seriously. Those shitkicking twits at the Chesney concert might be white, but they’re not my brethren. Quite the opposite.

  147. 147.

    Elie

    @Amir Khalid:

    Exactly. It was a close vote so that without a supermajority, the other side will always feel wronged and that is the political rub on this thing… their are substantial minorities who disagree and may disagree strongly, making it politically difficult for any leaders.

  148. 148.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mary G:

    Well, since someone else has introduced the motif, Vox has this fun article up today about how Hamilton is in some ways fanfic. The writer also makes some good points about how LMM is being held to a much higher standard than the writers of 1776, who also took some liberties (no pun intended) with events.

  150. 150.

    Elie

    @smith:

    THAT is interesting. Lets see what happens and if they can navigate their ship of state through this horrible storm…

  151. 151.

    Elie

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Yes, but aren’t they without a leader right now? With Cameron stepping down who would “lead the charge”? Again, it underscores how little thinking about the after part — obviously no one did any kind of what-if or strategic modeling of the consequences and possible paths in the case of either outcome. They all seemed totally as surprised and adled as the rest of the world — like they had nothing to do with it!

  152. 152.

    CaseyL

    @Amir Khalid:

    It would trigger a constitutional crisis if the Queen were to forbid Brexit by decree.

    There are also rumors that the Queen is pro-Brexit. If true, that would be another reason she has no desire to interfere.

  153. 153.

    Mnemosyne

    @SteveinSC:

    The importation of slaves from Africa was banned in 1807, and yet slavery persisted in the USA until we fought a war over it almost 60 years later. Did the mean ol’ Africans force us to maintain our “peculiar institution” against our will?

    @Plantsmantx:

    Also, this — being an indentured servant was pretty close to slavery, and there were quite a few tricks that masters would pull to force people to work longer than the term of their indenture. But only one class of people were put into a permanent chattel slavery class, and it wasn’t English indentured servants.

  154. 154.

    Shell

    @NotMax: Yeah, showing 4th of July themed films t oday. Tho not sure how West Side Story fits in, and then theyre showing 1776 at 1 AM.

  155. 155.

    Cat48

    @debbie:

    Guess we have to imagine those round little thingys. Hillary yelled at him that he does this all the time,and when caught makes up dumb excuses & expects everyone to just ignore his behavior. So tv press yelled at,him too about tweeting offensive things.

  156. 156.

    CaseyL

    More shit hitting the fan post-Brexit: Two of the leading contenders to replace Cameron as head of the Tory Party and as PM have said different things about the status of non-UK citizens living in the UK.

    Andrea Leadsom says the UK must allow them to stay; Theresa May says it depends on whether the EU will reciprocate by letting UK citizens remain in the EU where nations they live. This essentially reduces EU citizens living in the UK – for years, even decades, with families, careers, etc. – to bargaining chips.*

    In the super-twisty funhouse mirror that is now UK politics, Leadsom was strongly pro-Brexit and May was strongly pro-Remain.

    *If you’re thinking this sounds uncannily like the US scrum over undocumented aliens, it does – with the difference that, until the vote, the non-UK residents of UK were “documented.”

  158. 158.

    trollhattan

    @CaseyL:
    Are the bargaining chips what we call fries in the States? Bargaining Freedom Fries for the Fourth!

  159. 159.

    aimai

    That is an excellent essay on Hamiltion–whoever linked to it upthread! its one thing to know that Hamilton is fan fic, which I did, but the essay does a great job of really situating fan fic in a larger context, and showing how the Times and certain readers/auditors resent the way that great fanfic can revitalize issues, bring new viewers to old media, challenge cultural assumptions about agency.

    Not to hop onto my hobby horse but this issue comes up w/r/t the racebending of Hamilton and it also comes up w/r/t to the gender bending of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and her nomination. And it is equally hard for people enmeshed in white privilige to grasp that commentary and criticism of a non white project like Hamilton is unwanted, as for Bernie’s priviliged white male dudes to grasp that criticism of the way Hillary is running her campaign is unwanted. Over at Kos people spend most of every day, out of every election cycle, explaining to you ad nauseum how they think each candidate should run his campaign. They are like the tedious know it all comic book seller in the Simpsons. But when you finally get a non traditional candidate–like Obama or Hillary–who is fighting a successful campaign on his/her own terms its just incredibly galling to have them critiqued on points by some white guy who has never even run for dog catcher. That is the way I think of the Times criticism of Hamilton, and the way I think of the Bernie Bro criticism of Hillary’s campaign. She’s going to have to win 110 percent of the vote before she gets any respect as a political leader or campaigner. If Trump wins even one state they are going to moan that if she’d “only adopted Bernie’s platform” she could have won in a landslide!

  160. 160.

    Matt McIrvin

    @? Martin: There’s a bit of a drought coming in US outer-solar-system exploration, though. Juno is only a year-long mission at Jupiter, and next year Cassini is going to come to an end as well (the end is going to be spectacular, though–it will do a series of orbits between Saturn and its rings, and then a suicide plunge into the planet). New Horizons encounters a second, small Kuiper Belt object in 2019, but I don’t think anything’s planned after that.

    So we won’t have anything doing active planetary exploration out beyond the asteroid belt for a while, with the next mission probably being Europa Clipper sometime in the 2020s (in conjunction with the ESA’s JUICE mission). Personally I’d like to see the US go back to Uranus or Neptune, but it’s a long way off if it’s happening.

  161. 161.

    Elie

    @CaseyL:

    Its a mess… Lot of political and social healing needed — as well as clarity about what they really want… it doesn’t seem that they are all that clear about it at this point…

  162. 162.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Elie: Cameron is still in charge until October. But he can’t do a blessed thing now, he has no moral authority.

    No one else has any moral authority, either. Boris is a buffoon, obviously. It’s just like the Untergang parody; the leave side was not supposed to win!

  164. 164.

    Ruckus

    @justawriter:

    I found that an incredible lapse in ethics.

    Personally I don’t think there have ever been all that much ethics in journalism. Since the first printing press it’s been all the news we’re paid to print. Sure there have been/are/will always be people in the field who take what we think their responsibilities are seriously, but that’s very rarely the goal of the owners of the media. Like everything else, it’s about the money.

  166. 166.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @srv: If only we could get this level of followup questions for every sack of Rethug shit on whether or not they’re going to support the tiny-fingered, cheeto-faced, ferret wearing shitgibbon.

  168. 168.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Elie: They don’t seem to know what they really want, they’re too busy scapegoating anyone but the Tories who have sold them out for the greater glory of the bank accounts of the UK 1%.

  169. 169.

    ? Martin

    @Matt McIrvin: All true, and hopefully that will reverse should we convince Congress to stop burning money with SLS.

    But filling that gap, we have a host of US companies that are bringing us cheap, reliable access to space. That will open up a whole pile of new opportunities for local science missions and I’m sure there are a bunch of NASA folks looking at a $60M-$100M lift budget and wondering what they can do with that.

  171. 171.

    Gravenstone

    @PaulWartenberg2016:

    Cowards and fools, who lied to the British voters over unfounded Populist outrage and now sticking them with the bills.

    Makes one wonder what Trump has planned for his aftermath?

  173. 173.

    Matt McIrvin

    @? Martin: For what it’s worth, the SLS would actually be pretty spiffy as a launcher for a flagship mission to Uranus or Neptune, not that it’s the only way to do that or that it will happen.

  174. 174.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Ruckus: There was a time in the 60’s where broadcast news was deliberately a “loss leader”, and the owners used the news divisions as a prestige mechanism, not a profit center. Those times passed in the 70’s, and by the time Reagan was elected, it was courtiers for hire.

  175. 175.

    Patricia Kayden

    @c u n d gulag: Nah. I doubt we’ll ever see the day when Texas (or any other state) leaves the United States. It’s just a “threat” that Rightwing Texans throw around from time to time when things don’t go their way.

    @BubbaDave: I don’t think anyone here is taking away from President Johnson’s progressive bona fides. Looking forward to the day when Texas turns purple which could happen if voter ID doesn’t shut down minority voting rights.

  177. 177.

    GregB

    Has Right To Rise returned to crow that Trump will be the inevitable President now that pig-nut cutter Joni Ernst has been floated up as a VP trial balloon?

    Ernst seems Palinesque and will likely let fly with some doozies given the chance.

  179. 179.

    ? Martin

    @Matt McIrvin: The problem is that they don’t have enough use for it. At one launch per year, it’s $1B per launch. That’s absurd. And they can’t make them quickly enough (and don’t have enough planned missions) to get frequent enough launches to make them cost effective. The Falcon Heavy, even with only half the lift capacity, is likely to be massively cheaper simply on account of a more modular, scalable design.

  180. 180.

    Ruckus

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    They were loss leaders then because most TV was still relatively new. TV news was competing with newspapers, AP, UPI and finding their own way. They had to be loss leaders to get eyeballs at the time. The situation is now reversed, for the most part. Technically TV sucked back then and newpapers were at their zenith.

  181. 181.

    dogwood

    @aimai:
    It’s not just the know-it-all attitude of much of the online liberal community that drives me crazy, it’s their sense of entitlement and their ignorance about how government works. I’ve just had it with the faux outrage over every appointment the President makes as some kind of a sell-out. Who seriously thinks that appointments to the cabinet or White House positions should be chosen based on ideological considerations alone. There are skill sets required for various jobs that have nothing to do with ideology. The president decides policy. It reminds me of a friend’s daughter who pulled her children out of the public schools and enrolled them in the Montesori school. She was committed to that approach after doing considerable research. Two years later the kids are back in public school. Why? Well the teachers at the school were die-hard serious when it came to educational philosophy, but overall they were shitty teachers. Believing something doesn’t necessarily make you qualified to do something. With Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton it’s intensified because of race and gender.

  182. 182.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Ruckus: In the wake of the quiz show scandals of the 50’s, the broadcast networks needed to mend fences. News was how they did it. Once sufficient repairs were completed (and the old guard of executives dead or retired) then it was make room for MBA asshats.

  184. 184.

    Ruckus

    @dogwood:
    This.
    President Obama can not possibly do a good job, for heavens sakes he’s BLACK! And that overrides any possibility of compet… now let’s see what is that word, it isn’t in the Racist’s dictionary.
    Hillary Clinton must be corrupt, it isn’t possible for her to get where she is because she doesn’t have any dangly bits. And we all know that affects thinking.

  185. 185.

    Gravenstone

    @kd bart: I didn’t bother to read the piece, only clicked the link to see which right winger wrote it (no one I recognized), but there was actually an editorial piece a couple of days following the Brexit vote that made that very argument.

  188. 188.

    gogol's wife

    @aimai:

    I mostly agree with you, but for the most part the Times has been adulatory of Hamilton. (not so Hillary)

  189. 189.

    rikyrah

    igorvolskyVerified account
    ‏@igorvolsky igorvolsky Retweeted igorvolsky
    Twitter analytics firm found that 62% of the accounts Trump rewteeted had ties to white supremacists

  190. 190.

    hovercraft

    Just heard Bob Shrum slap down former Carly deputy campaign manager Sarah Isca Florez, when Thomas Roberts mentioned that Drump was having a hard time finding a credible running mate she suggested that Hillary had so many eager to run with her because the candidates were anticipating an indictment so that is the attraction. Shrum just told her to stop the nonsense, stop being silly and to be serious, she just sat there with a I don’t know what to say now, I can’t believe you just called me on my bullshit. Roberts then said everyone should enjoy the fireworks tonight unless they felt they had already seen them and ended the segment. Oh and the 68 million Hillary raised in June doesn’t matter because she is struggling right now to finnish off Bernie and in the swing states, so drump doesn’t need as much money because he beet 16 others with virtually no money. At what point do they realize that the fact that he beat their best field in a generation with nothing but bombast is a reflection of the weakness of their party, not a reflection on how that will play in the general election. The attention stunts and tweets play well with the base, normal people not so much.
    Drump is going to need a higher caliber of liars on tv to make his case, too many of the current crop come off as in over their heads and full on crazy. He needs to get some elected officials who can lie without sounding crazy or delusional. She suggested that Joni Ernst is a strong candidate with great experience and great DC bonafide’s. Who knew she was so formidable.

  191. 191.

    rikyrah

    @PaulWartenberg2016:

    And the ones who pushed for Leave the most – Boris, Farage – are fleeing from the scene of the crime the fastest of any of them. Cowards and fools, who lied to the British voters over unfounded Populist outrage and now sticking them with the bills.

    Yep. And, the LEAVE voters must now face that they were nothing but SUCKERS.

    PERIOD.

  192. 192.

    burnspbesq

    @srv:

    Nice try, clown. Booker has the same disqualifying characteristic as Warren and Brown.

  193. 193.

    Ruckus

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    True, this was part of it. But don’t discount that newspapers were where most people got their news. In the 50s and 60s quite a number of my neighbors didn’t have TV. We lived without one in our house for a number of years, although we had one in the very early 50s, 8-9 in round screen, B/W, ghosts for everyone…… But almost everyone took the paper. We had a local city paper, now long gone, and the LA Times. Some only took one paper but most took both. I know, I delivered the local paper as a kid. There was little news on TV, 3 channels, maybe a local one in big cities, so 4 at our house. That of course grew as more people got TV and TV tried to kick ass on the newspapers, until we are at today. Leading me to my comment, it’s always about the money.

  194. 194.

    D58826

    The Saudi chickens, or in this case suicide bombers, may be coming home to roost. In the past 24 hours there have been 3 suicide attacks, including one in Medina near the Prophet’s Mosque. The Mosque is one of the holiest sites in Islam and gets over 2 million visitors per year. Karma seems like a thing in Islam also.

  196. 196.

    Elie

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    It’s like they made up the reality and the choice and Now have awakened to real reality with real consequences. Like college boys getting drunk and doing a prank that killed someone but can’t remember how it happened and panic and blame each other.

  197. 197.

    Ruckus

    Oh and BTW I got an email from Bernie’s help desk person telling me how to unsubscribe to his emails still asking me for money. I sent him back a reply that I had tried to unsubscribe twice without any success and for him to just remove me rather than tell me how to do something I’ve done twice before.
    Not a Bernie email since. It’s quite nice having less crap to delete everyday.

  198. 198.

    hovercraft

    @aimai:
    I agree, if the losing candidate and his supporters keep sticking their heads up to draw attention to themselves, who am I to deny them my attention. They seem to want to engage so I’m obliging, they lost, the loser doesn’t get to determine the path the victor will take. The Clinton campaign has given some concessions in the platform which by and large is a hollow victory, Bernie can go to the convention thinking he will be able to make additional demands, but he’s in for a rude awakening. Most democrats and delegates are happy with our nominee and I doubt he’ll have the support there he thinks he will. It’s over, but I’ll still bitch about the sore-loser tendencies they keep displaying. I’ll be magnanimous when they are gracious in defeat.

  199. 199.

    rikyrah

    uh huh

    U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is seeking to prohibit Department of Justice officials from enforcing parts of the Americans with Disabilities Act at private voucher schools.

    The amendment, which Johnson submitted to be included in the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriation Act that has yet to pass, prohibits DOJ from enforcing provisions of the ADA that ensure equal access to public education.

    Johnson’s amendment says the provisions that protect students with disabilities from discrimination cannot be enforced in private voucher schools because the schools are not public, despite receiving public money in the form of a school voucher.

    A spokeswoman for Johnson’s Senate office said the amendment is meant to protect voucher schools from a “hostile” attitude the Obama administration and other Democratic lawmakers have toward voucher programs and comes months after the Obama administration closed a probe into the Milwaukee voucher system after a lawsuit alleging discrimination against students with disabilities.

  200. 200.

    D58826

    @hovercraft: Was reading some comments on the e-mail issue by Bernie Bros. They are positively giddy at the prospect of Hillary and maybe even Bill being indicted. They are guilty of violating the Espionage act, RICO, numerous pay to play laws with regard to the Clinton Foundation, and then just plain old corruption charges. Anything less than 100 years for each will be a grave disappointment to these folks..

  202. 202.

    Elie

    @rikyrah:
    Problem is there were quite a few suckers. How will they trust anyone to negotiate a solution since their own reps are liars?

  203. 203.

    burnspbesq

    @dogwood:

    The Berniacs seem to think that if one’s heart is in the right place, that is all that is required. Yesterday, the Berniacs in my facebook feed were boing batshit because someone got a resolution passed in the California Assembly asking that a stste of emergency be declared with respect to homelessness. Now, no one with more than two working brain cells would deny that we have a massive and so far intractable homelessness problem here. But if you ask the question “without policies and money, how does this declaration materially improve the life of a single homeless person in our state,” they are like the identical androids in the Harry Mudd episode of “Star Trek,” and unlike Norman, Bernie can’t correlate worth a damn.

  205. 205.

    Baud

    @burnspbesq:

    they are like the identical androids in the Harry Mudd episode of “Star Trek,” and unlike Norman, Bernie can’t correlate worth a damn.

    That’s “coordinate.”

  206. 206.

    mike in dc

    “You’re welcome, America.:”
    –France

    “You too, France.”
    –America

  208. 208.

    smith

    @Elie: The whole Brexit thing appears to be another exercise in demanding a unicorn at the end of a rainbow. The unicorn being preserving all the privileges of EU membership while losing all the costs. This means that whoever takes on the job of negotiating an exit is doomed to fail. One of the most succinct, and funny, summaries of the Brexit position I’ve seen is this comment from a few days back at LGM. Having to carry out a charade like this is one of the reasons that the chief conspirators In Brexit can’t wait to disappear and disavow any responsibility going forward.

  210. 210.

    Emma

    @D58826: It has nothing to do with karma. it has to do with the religious, intellectual, and social schisms in Islam that have been there for centuries. Christians did the same for centuries, but we did it at the nation-state level.

  211. 211.

    philadelphialawyer

    Many English folks, century after century, are shocked and appalled when it turns out that other folks don’t actually want to be ruled by a Parliament meeting in London and dominated by English Members. The Americans, the Irish, the Indians, etc, etc, and now, perhaps, the Scots……how dare they want to be independent, and, boy, if they should succeed, will they be sorrrry they ever did!

    Even Orwell was not consistently in favor Indian independence, and actually used the euphemism of “central,” rather than the straight forward “imperial,” to describe the relationship between the Westminster government and India.

    As for the American Revolution and slavery, the position of its opponents in the mother country could not have been more hypocritical. Sure, slavery was a prominent feature of colonial America, but it was in place in many other British territories as well, and was not fully ended in the Empire until 1843. Moreover, for the most part, very few people in England had any real objection to it existence in America, and happily bought and smoked the Virginia tobacco that the slaves there produced, for a hundred and fifty years prior the Revolution. The imperial authorities saw slavery as a weakness of their enemies to be exploited, but that was far more a matter of tactical expediency than one of principle.

  212. 212.

    ? Martin

    @dogwood: Right. Obama won me over in 2008, not because he was to the left or to the right of Clinton but that he demonstrated a greater competency at running a campaign, and there were decisions being made in both campaign that spoke directly to how they would run the country as President.

    My criticism of Sanders wasn’t that his ideas are terrible, is that there’s a near-0% chance of execution of those ideas. I’m not interested in proving the worth of liberalism, I’m interested in actually getting things done, and an executed half measure is vastly better than an unexecuted full measure.

    My other criticism is against populism itself, which is a form of leadership abstinence, where the figureheads affirm the crowds preferred brand of torches and pitchforks rather than take a stand on whether torches or pitchforks are even in order or where they should be appropriately directed.

  213. 213.

    glory b

    @geg6: Late on this one, but AMEN. I worked at Heinz Field a few years ago and was APPALLED at the behavior, mountains of trash and imbibing done at the Kenny Chesney thing.

    If the same happened at a hip hop/ rap artist’s concert, there’d never be another one.

  215. 215.

    D58826

    @Emma: I was think along the lines of what goes round comes round, since the Saudi’s have been exporting extremism for decades and now it’s come back to bite them. I realize that The Sunnis (and their subdivisions) and the Shia have been at each other since the 7th century.

  217. 217.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    There was a time in the 60’s where broadcast news was deliberately a “loss leader”, and the owners used the news divisions as a prestige mechanism, not a profit center. Those times passed in the 70’s, and by the time Reagan was elected, it was courtiers for hire.

    In fact, IIRC, the first transformation of a news division into a profit center was at ABC & the person responsible was Roone Arledge, creator of Wide World of Sports, who was put in charge in 1977 & in effect said Screw prestige, we’re gonna make money from now on! And the networks’ race to the bottom began…

  218. 218.

    trollhattan

    @Baud:
    Am eager for the day he does to hear half a million each hipsters and Paulites simultaneously yelling, “I got an email from a monster!”

  219. 219.

    Baud

    @trollhattan: It should be made easy to get one’s name taken off the list. I hope Hillary and every other Dem with an email list makes it so.

  220. 220.

    Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill

    @? Martin:

    It’s as if 85% of Coke drinkers were so incensed by the idea of drinking Pepsi that they chose to drink bleach instead.

    Pepsi is made by opening a Coke, adding two spoonfuls of sugar, setting it in the sun for two days and then rebottling it as Pepsi. Everyone knows this.

    Bleach would be preferable.

  221. 221.

    Ruckus

    @? Martin:

    which is a form of leadership abstinence,

    Brings to mind the old joke. Fella is standing on a street corner watching people march by and says to the man next to him, “Where are they going?” Second man asks “Why?” “I am their leader and they are my people, I need to know where they are going so I can lead them!”

  222. 222.

    CaseyL

    @Baud: Not sure how valuable that would be right now – particularly as, if I remember correctly, the Sanders campaign stole most of the email list information from Clinton’s campaign in the first place.

  224. 224.

    dogwood

    @aimai:
    “After the convention I will never speak of them again.”
    That’s fine, but democrats shouldn’t forget these people and their leader. Bernie’s goal was to destroy the Democratic Party, not move it to the left. I mean seriously, I actually saw him say that he wasn’t interested in winning elections, it was the revolution that mattered. What the hell? A political party isn’t an ideological debating society; it’s an institution designed to facilitate winning elections and moving an agenda forward. Republicans have completely abandoned their party to grifters, demagogues, and angry racist mobs. Think something similar couldn’t happen to us? The next Bernie Sanders will be even more dangerous.

  225. 225.

    philadelphialawyer

    @aimai: The people at Kos also continue to pretend that all this crap about the platform is somehow like an Oxford Union debate in its apolitical purity. It is now all about “the issues,” you see, and anyone who brings up King Asshole’s failure to concede, congratulate and endorse is just muddying the waters with “politics,” “process,” and “personalities.” The fact that the whole platform flap is part of a months long political, primary conflict, which their boy lost, big time, and in which he refuses to do the minimally respectful thing and concede, etc, somehow now has nothing to do with it. Similarly, the fact that their boy has spent the last five months complaining about “the process” has nothing to do with it, either. No, it is now all about the certainty that his positions on TPP and so on are simply “better” than Hillary’s (and President Obama’s), and why oh why can’t and won’t the bad ole Hillbots just agree with that clearly self evident proposition.

    Or, in the alternative, if “politics” must intrude on their purity, why oh why can’t Hillary and her bots see that appeasing the last of the dead enders is clearly the only thing that matters in the general election, and so she “must” do everything asked of her by Bernie, West, and the bros, and more, or else Trump will “outflank” her from the left. The fact that Trump has no coherent policy on trade (or anything else) has nothing to do with it. Nor does the fact Trump’s appeal is based far more on right wing racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and bigotry in general than it is on any even vaguely leftist notion of economic fairness intrude on their ever so astute political calculus. Their guy lost, big time, in the primaries, but, somehow, his positions, and only his positions, must be adopted by Hillary and the whole party, down to the last letter, or else the general election will be lost.

    Hillary knowing what she’s doing? That can’t be. No, some asshole on Daily Kos clearly knows better.

  228. 228.

    Emma

    @Baud: It doesn’t matter. I trust their ability to do whatever needs to be done. On the other hand, I no longer trust anyone who still clings to the Bernista delusion. Like Aimai, I just want them out of the way.

  230. 230.

    J R in WV

    @Cat48:

    I saw a sheriff on the TV news earlier today, and his badge was a 7-pointed star. I’ve also seen many sheriffs with 5-pointed stars for badges. I know there are some sheriffs with 6-pointed stars for their badges, but we all know that isn’t where this particular star came from, as it doesn’t say “Sheriff” on it.

    So Trump is lying in his teeth, again. Just like when he talks about Native American-owned dens of games based on odds, or when he talks about his “University” or when he talks about his many high-end brands of stuff.

  231. 231.

    dogwood

    @aimai:
    Absolutely. I never got concerned about the PUMA’s and other angry Hillary voters from 2008 because they were, for the most part, democrats who felt Obama had cut to the front of the line. They weren’t going to burn the party to the ground. Most of the Sanders voters have moved to Hillary, but I’m concerned that these people ever thought it would be a good idea to nominate an Party hater in the first place.

  232. 232.

    glory b

    @aimai: I think it was in Vox a few weeks ago, an article about how Hillary may have discovered a new way for female candidates to run a campaign, the smaller scale gatherings are a better fit. Women get trashed for being shrill, shouty and not smiling enough in large scale rallys, better to leave that model altogether.

    Bernie could point and yell, with the breeze blowing his hair ll over the place. For better or worse, right now, a woman can’t, at least not without her demeanor and appearance being the main story.

  233. 233.

    Sloane Ranger

    Don’t make any mistakes, those who voted Brexit are not having 2nd thoughts or regretting anything. They know things will be bad short term but think things will improve.

    As for Scotland the reason Nicola Sturgeon is playing it cool is that once people calm down there is no guarantee that she would win a new referendum. She went to Brussels to try to gin up support and got lots of tea and sympathy but nothing substantial. There are too many EU nations with separatist movements of their own for them to want to do anything that seems to encourage them. In that case staying part of the UK may seem the least worse of the options.

    And not everyone in England cares whether Scotland leaves or goes. I have heard arguments that the Scots are whiners and leeches, they get more money that they put in, they got a very good deal in joining the Union and then rebelled twice. Then suddenly when the British Empire took off and they were part of its ruling elite, everything was hunky dory only to start complaining again once we lost the Empire. The general attitude of people holding this view is, if you want to stay you’re very welcome, don’t let the door hit you on the way out if you choose to leave.

  235. 235.

    rikyrah

    @burnspbesq:

    London will remain a global financial center for one simple reason: nobody with a choice (and if you have money, you have choices) will ever voluntarily leave London for Frankfurt. Frankfurt is the most boring major city I’ve ever spent time in. It’s Tulsa without tornados.

    LOL

    Tell me how you really feel about Frankfurt.

  237. 237.

    lollipopguild

    @Kathleen: Congressman Yarmuth is Louisville’s rep, he is probably as liberal as they get these days. Louisville should try to become the 51st state because it is so liberal compared to the rest of the state.

  239. 239.

    debbie

    @dogwood:

    I’m concerned that these people ever thought it would be a good idea to nominate an Party hater in the first place

    So what are you going to do, ground them? And in the future, will you demand loyalty oaths? Let it go already, welcome them into the fold, and just move on. Does this not seem the least counterproductive?

  240. 240.

    Tony J

    Treason Shmeason.

    Didn’t stop the Royal Navy enforcing your Monroe Doctrine for a century, did it? And that was after we kindly dealt with that Napoleon fellow who otherwise would have owned the Mississippi river and could have seriously crimped your expansion westwards. And let’s not forget the costly job we did holding the line against two generations of central European wannabes while waiting for them to tweak your noses.

    You’re. Welcome.

    OT – Just watched a BBC Panorama documentary in which they sent chirpy Midlands TV presenter Adrian Childes back to his home region where people voted 2/3 Leave to ask why, and lo and behold, even though everyone gets really, really, really annoyed when they’re called ignorant bigots who don’t understand what they’ve done by Remainers, it takes literally ten seconds for every single one of them to finger Eastern European immigration as their reason for voting. They get all the jobs because they’ll work for less, they get all the housing because of Political Correctness, they just come here for money and give nothing to society. no one was listening to them, but now they have to!

    With the exception of the goggle-eyed Packaged Food businessman whose beef with the EU was they wanted him to estimate how much packaging he used in a year, and the tragedy hit woman with the chronic pain and flooded house who was enthused that she’d taken back power from Europe even though she’d never actually voted in an election before, every single one of them was complaining about what Thatcherism and Blairism and Austerity have done to the country but blaming it on immigrants.

    And none of them have any idea what happens now. Zero. Zilch. They’re all Underpants Gnomes who made their protest vote based on genuine pain and despair and now expect that somehow, despite the very nature of the political factions they’ve voted for and encouraged being opposed to what they say they want, their decision to Leave will somehow bring back industry, multiply jobs, increase housing and access to public services, because it HAS TO. That was depressing TV.

    And as for the 16+ million Remainers who hate what they’ve done and don’t see why 1/3 of the population get to screw everything up out of misplaced anger? We should just shut up and unite with them to do exactly what they want, whatever that might be, to be decided, as soon as the immigrants are out.

    Yeah, not gonna happen.

  241. 241.

    Soprano2

    @SiubhanDuinne: I listened to all of those interviews as a podcast this weekend. You’ll be disappointed – the majority of the interviews were with people who are unhappy with Obama and/or are Trump supporters. It seemed to me that they went out of their way to find people who are not Obama supporters – even the African-Americans they interviewed were unhappy! I think they did that so they could play the sound bites for Obama and ask him to address the criticism. I was disgusted by how unbalanced it was – if you only listened to that hour you’d think Trump was winning by a landslide!

  242. 242.

    Baud

    @Emma: Just to be clear, I’m not currently worried about the outcome of the election. That doesn’t mean I have no opinion on the actions of public figures.

  243. 243.

    philadelphialawyer

    @debbie: er, the point is that, as party haters, they don’t want to be in the fold…they are the ones who won’t let it go….and are also the ones being counterproductive, when it comes to stopping the neo fascist trump from winning.

  244. 244.

    aimai

    @debbie: No one is talking about “grounding” or punishing anyone. We are talking about how a party committed to electoral politics and progressive change through electoral politics deals with a small but vocal minority of self described outsiders and revolutionaries who tried to stage a hostile takeover of the party and then, when they failed, are contemplating fireworks, pouting, and attacks at the convention.

    My concern is that Bernie Sanders rhetoric and his approach to losing the primary has confused some of his followers about what electoral politics is, and what it can do–and what they can do about it. Some of his voters are still very confused about what it is the President does, or can do, in power and how a candidate wins election. They are under the impression that Bernie’s voters are a majority of the country, or would be if people just knew his positions better. That’s simply not true. We are struggling to win this election against a hard base of at least 40 percent for Trump, that will always be for the Republican. Then we are struggling to raise turnout among the Obama coalition–these are not Bernie voters even if they agree on some dimensions with some of Bernie’s rather obvious goals or policies.

    We are having two different discussions when we criticize Bernie and (some) of his voters. The first discussion centers around whether the Party should ever let a lifelong anti-Democrat come in and use our money and energy to try to win the primary. I think we shouldn’t. Its obvious that Bernie is, at this point, a toxic force in the Democratic Primary because his most virulent supporters are indistinguishable from right wing trolls and are openly rooting for Hillary Clinton to be indicted and arrested for something something something.

    Then: what should we do about the people who followed Bernie into the, as they see it, political wilderness and can’t find their way back? Can’t be satisfied with any of Hillary’s policies because they aren’t identical to Bernie’s or, if they are, she’s so corrupt and two faced that she’s probably lying? There’s nothing we can do about them except reach out, educate them, and hope that their fever breaks. Sometimes we like to make fun of them. It all depends on how I’m feeling during the day.

  245. 245.

    Miss Bianca

    @Amir Khalid: The pro-Leave crowd would certainly be up in arms, metaphorically if not literally, if one of my elderly British acquaintances is anything to judge by. He’s already gone from “Brexit yeah – make England Little Again!” to being afraid of being put under Sharia Law if Brexit doesn’t go thru’ – his words. I remain shocked at the depth of self-deception that the suggestion of *that* possibility must entail, altho’ I did take the liberty of suggesting myself that I didn’t think he really needed to worry about Sharia being implemented in (whatever will remain of) the UK.

  246. 246.

    AliceBlue

    @Mnemosyne:
    Illegal importation of slaves continued for many years after it was banned. The last slave ship to reach America, the Wanderer, landed at Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia in 1859.

  247. 247.

    PST

    Seeing that flag reminded me that a few years ago, I read one of those “ain’t it terrible” pieces about a poll in which some large percentage of the population failed to correctly identify the country from which the United States achieved its independence. I often wondered if it was a multiple choice test, because I realized that without a list of choices I could not identify it with certainty either. I knew we declared independence from an island kingdom in the North Atlantic with its capital in London, but just what was that kingdom called in 1776 (or 1783, if you prefer)? I wasn’t sure, so my honest answer would have had to be “I don’t know.” Now I do. Do most people know?

  249. 249.

    Kathleen

    @lollipopguild: So I have heard. Is he planning to run for the Senate (I think Senator Ferret Hair’s term is up?). Louisville also has active arts community. I’ve watched a weekly program on KET which focuses on what’s happening Louisville, and It was very interesting. Also (and way OT) KET has some of the best historical programming of any public channel I’ve seen; I viewed a fascinating history of Berea College and a history of the banjo in the African American community. Kentucky is a beautiful and very interesting state. Too bad so many of its citizens are close minded, (and I’m talking about the middle and upper middle class in Northern KY, not the people from the mountains), entitled, uber Catholic and racist.

  250. 250.

    catclub

    @The Dangerman: I think that extra day between games really benefitted Lebron. He was able to be a beast every game.

    Remember when Phoenix was not built for the playoffs? GS was similar but obviously much better. By comparison OKC and Cleveland were built for the playoffs rather than the regular season. Also a lot of luck involved in Draymond Greene sitting Game 5 at home.

  251. 251.

    catclub

    @? Martin:

    My criticism of Sanders wasn’t that his ideas are terrible, is that there’s a near-0% chance of execution of those ideas.

    It seems that Sanders is ignoring the ratchet effect of any improvements. They never go backwards. See SS – bad at start, occasionally improved coverage of new groups. Medicare, DADT started improvements in The military, which now accepts trans persons.

  252. 252.

    burnspbesq

    @rikyrah:

    Tell me how you really feel about Frankfurt.

    The best food in Terminal 1 at FRA is McDonald’s. Need I say more?

  253. 253.

    mohagan

    @burnspbesq: I saw an article rating European cities for being the financial center successor to London and while Frankfort was high on the list, their favorite was Amsterdam.

  254. 254.

    burnspbesq

    @mohagan:

    Not if Margrethe Verstanger has anything to say about it. She is currently trying to take away the power to make tax law from all 28 EU member states, and without the ability to stick to its historically inbound-investment-friendly international tax rules, all the Netherlands has left to attract foreigners is dope and prostitutes.

  255. 255.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @srv: The question you’re not bothering to consider, because you’re a moran troll, is how likely is it that Stein or Johnson will score any electoral votes? The answer is vanishingly small, which means that the horse race doesn’t consider such lame nags in any of their calculations.

  256. 256.

    philadelphialawyer

    @Tony J:

    “Didn’t stop the Royal Navy enforcing your Monroe Doctrine for a century, did it?”

    Eh. Other than you lot, who really could violate it anyway? The French did, once, in Mexico, and you didn’t do anything to stop them. We didn’t either, as the Mexicans took care of the problem themselves.

    “And that was after we kindly dealt with that Napoleon fellow who otherwise would have owned the Mississippi river and could have seriously crimped your expansion westwards.”

    LOL! He sold us his holdings in the Mississippi valley, and then you guys came over here and tried to take it. But Andrew Jackson did his perhaps only good deed, by kicking your asses out of Louisiana!

    “And let’s not forget the costly job we did holding the line against two generations of central European wannabes while waiting for them to tweak your noses.”

    The first go ’round, WWI, we probably could have done without. But we came over anyway and helped win the war and preserve your empire for you. In any event, the French did more to “hold the line” than you did. The second go ’round, WWII, you basically got your butt kicked, and ran back to your island, rather than “hold” any line. And while the Russians did most of the heavy lifting, we still did more than you did, in the end. Plus, we paid for everything, both times.

    You’re welcome!

  257. 257.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Holy crap. I had avoided the Capitol Steps for a few years, but didn’t turn off the radio soon enough today. Were they ever funny, clever, witty, or the least bit talented? Just awful.

    No, they were never funny, clever, witty, or the least bit talented,

  258. 258.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @srv: Horseshit. I know it, you know it, even the Idiot Bullshit Daily knows it, but they (like you) lie through their teeth as a matter of course.

  259. 259.

    Mnemosyne

    @AliceBlue:

    True, but it didn’t happen because the mean ol’ Africans forced us to take their people as slaves, which was my initial point. American slavery had more than enough momentum to continue regardless of what illegal importers did.

  260. 260.

    Matt McIrvin

    @D58826: The people who actually get killed in these things are never the bastards who are really responsible.

  261. 261.

    Matt McIrvin

    @SiubhanDuinne: The Capitol Steps were one of the acts that convinced my wife Sam that she disliked political satire. They’re kind of like Mark Russell, the shitty off-brand imitation of Tom Lehrer–they always go for the easiest possible targets to make the least disturbing possible jokes. Oh, those darn politicians in that well-known political scandal! They originally consisted of Congressional staff, so there was a limit to how hard they were going to hit.

  262. 262.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Villago Delenda Est: If Stein and Johnson take more votes in a state from one candidate than from the other, they could flip electoral votes from Clinton to Trump or vice versa, even if they win zero electoral votes themselves (like Nader in 2000). So they’re potentially important. There are an unusually large number of “undecided/other” voters for this late in the campaign; it’s possible that they could break in unusual ways because of the third-party candidates.

    The more cogent objection to that article is that it’s about a single poll. Any theorizing about the election on the basis of a single poll, at this point, is basically never worth your time. That’s not the only poll that asks about Johnson and Stein, and Clinton still has a substantial lead in aggregates of them all.

    Also, I think there’s a historical pattern of third-party and independent candidates fading toward the end of a presidential campaign (though election-eve polls reflect their support fairly accurately).

  263. 263.

    john fremont

    @Schlemazel Khan: And with the Parliament’s passage of the Quebec Act, fear of a foriegn religion putting Americans under sharia, oops I mean canon law. Followed by hordes of Mooslims, I mean Papist who would put us under foriegn rule from Rome.

  264. 264.

    Tony J

    @philadelphialawyer:

    Ah, it’s always nice to prick a few balloons.

    Yes, who could have violated the Monroe Doctrine? Two entire continents sitting there, another continent full of advanced countries who would all have loved a chance at grabbing some imperialism if they coud have, and what stood in their way? The Royal Navy, invincible for a century, making the seas safe for all that trade the old colonies profited from but didn’t want to pay for.

    I wonder why Napoleon sold you guys the Louisiana Purchase? Mmmmnnn… Was it because he was a lovely guy? Was he poor? Or, and bear with me because this is only in all the history books, did he do it because he was engaged in a hardcore, life or death war with those boring old Brits? Did the Royal Navy and desire for quick money have something to do with it? Could he have been an issue for your fledgling continental empire if we hadn’t done all the fighting? Well, Aaron Burr thought about grabbing off a bit of what Napoleon had, and that gave conniptions to a much stronger USA so….. Yeah.

    And as to your, interesting, I think that’s the word, version of the two world wars… Sorry, but I’ve never read those Alternate History books. Are they online? Self-published?

    You could have done without WWI? Sure. A Kaiser’s Germany dominating the world’s only superpowerful continent, controlling world finance, snapping up all the Eurasian territories available just to show it can, and then…. Yeah, no interest in messing around with the western hemisphere, none at all, you’d have been fine.

    And I don’t think that your version of WWII is any more accurate. I mean, if you ignore what happened, who did it, where it happened, what it meant and what that meant for the USA, yeah, you could convince a 5 year old with attention issues that you have a point, but come on, really?

    When did you declare war on Germany, again? What year? Which country provided your only ally and base for your eventual response to Germany actually declaring war on you, which was lucky for everyone, eh? I mean, where would you have based your armies if we hadn’t fought on for three years without you and not actually given in? Were we doing all the fighting by then? No, the Russians were, as they would until 1945. Did you pay for it all? No, not all, you waited until the entire credit of the British Empire was drawn on before you started signing cheques, but thats sort of heroic, isn’t it?

    And you’re still welcome. That’s just how we roll.

  265. 265.

    nutella

    @Tony J:

    Actually Napoleon sold us Louisiana because his army was beaten decisively by the Haitian rebels. Not saying the French army wasn’t also worn down by lengthy wars with the Brits/allies, but the reason he sold was losing Haiti.

  266. 266.

    Matt McIrvin

    @PST:

    I knew we declared independence from an island kingdom in the North Atlantic with its capital in London, but just what was that kingdom called in 1776 (or 1783, if you prefer)? I wasn’t sure, so my honest answer would have had to be “I don’t know.” Now I do. Do most people know?

    I did not know until now, because I looked it up.

    (It was “The Kingdom of Great Britain”, which existed from 1707 until 1 January 1801, when it became “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland”, until most of Ireland seceded in 1922.)

    (And, of course, the flag pictured at the top was not the flag it had at the time.)

  267. 267.

    Matt McIrvin

    @? Martin: I doubt the will or funding will ever exist, and the timescale would be long… but imagine a fleet of New Horizons-class spacecraft (they could even be duplicates of New Horizons) doing flyby missions for several other large Kuiper Belt objects: Eris, Haumea and Makemake, say. Haumea has got to be a weird-as-hell place; I’d love to see that one up close.

    In general, I think we could often benefit by sending more missions using (maybe mildly updated versions of) existing designs instead of building the latest and greatest from the ground up. Curiosity is a cool rover but for the same budget we could probably have dropped Spirit/Opportunity-class rovers at a bunch of other locations on Mars; they’re known to be spectacularly rugged and capable, and they don’t need plutonium-238, which can be hard to come by.

  268. 268.

    philadelphialawyer

    @Tony J:

    “Yes, who could have violated the Monroe Doctrine? Two entire continents sitting there, another continent full of advanced countries who would all have loved a chance at grabbing some imperialism if they could have, and what stood in their way? The Royal Navy, invincible for a century, making the seas safe for all that trade the old colonies profited from but didn’t want to pay for.”

    “Advanced countries.” That’s a little vague, no? Who, exactly? Belgium, perhaps? Long declining Spain and Portugal? Austria? Russia? (Oh wait, the Russians actually did have a colony in the Americas, and the US had to buy them out, as we were still waiting in the 1860s for the Royal Navy to do the job). No European country in the 19th century was “advanced” enough to pose much of a threat to the USA, except you guys, and, maybe, France. And, like I said, when the French came calling in Mexico, you did nothing about it. As for your the Royal Navy making the seas “safe” for us, I guess a few impressed American seamen would have begged to differ. As would some American ship owners, given your curious idea about the rights of neutrals and freedom of the seas and so forth.

    “I wonder why Napoleon sold you guys the Louisiana Purchase? Mmmmnnn… Was it because he was a lovely guy? Was he poor? Or, and bear with me because this is only in all the history books, did he do it because he was engaged in a hardcore, life or death war with those boring old Brits? Did the Royal Navy and desire for quick money have something to do with it? Could he have been an issue for your fledgling continental empire if we hadn’t done all the fighting?”

    I think the Haitians deserve the lion’s share of the credit for driving Napoleon out of the New World. After his army was crushed by the only successful slave revolution in history, it just wasn’t worth it. I would give you guys and your Royal Navy an assist on that, but then again, as I said, you quickly tried to take his place in New Orleans, and so we had to fight to kick you out the hard way. Nappy took the cash, and that is always better. And, by the way, most of the actual “fighting” against Napoleon was NOT done by Britain, but by Prussia, Austria and Russia.

    “You could have done without WWI? Sure. A Kaiser’s Germany dominating the world’s only superpowerful continent, controlling world finance, snapping up all the Eurasian territories available just to show it can, and then…. Yeah, no interest in messing around with the western hemisphere, none at all, you’d have been fine.”

    Better that you should have continued to dominate world finance and Eurasia, right? And, again, we helped you maintain that dominance, not vice versa. The threat to us, if any, was speculative, at most. But, somehow, we owe you, cuz you fought to the last Frenchman before we got there!

    “WWII…When did you declare war on Germany, again? What year?”

    1941. After Hitler declared war on us, and after his ally Japan attacked us following its complete devastation of your Far Eastern empire. Also after he had driven your troops off the European mainland.

    “Which country provided your only ally….”

    Huh? USSR? China? Among others.

    “… and base for your eventual response to Germany actually declaring war on you, which was lucky for everyone, eh? I mean, where would you have based your armies if we hadn’t fought on for three years without you and not actually given in?”

    Yeah, your island, which you were driven to, provided the base. For the invasion that our armies spearheaded, not to mention bankrolled and supplied. You were a good base. That’s nice. And, for most of the “three years” (not really), your “fighting” consisted of fooling around in Africa. As for it being “without” us, why wouldn’t it be? Your allies, Poland and France, were attacked, not ours. Funny how your baseline assumption is that it is the duty of the USA to fight everyone else’s battles for them, and, even when it does, and does so overwhelmingly and victoriously, you complain that it didn’t do it fast enough. And pat yourself on the back for not capitulating in the meantime, and being a convenient stepping stone.

    Oh, and I believe it was your prime minister who said he slept the sleep of the saved after Pearl Harbor. Because he knew we were going to save the day, and his beloved empire. So, who was the “lucky” one again?

    “Were we doing all the fighting by then? No….”

    ….almost none of it.

    “…the Russians were, as they would until 1945….”

    Just as I said.

    “Did you pay for it all? No, not all, you waited until the entire credit of the British Empire was drawn on before you started signing cheques.”

    Sorry for the hyperbole. We paid for most of it, not all of it. And, yeah, we wanted you to spend some money too, seeing how your country and your empire were among the prime beneficiaries of our efforts. I guess that was wrong, too.

    So, to review, we owe you nothing, and we saved your asses. Again, you’re welcome. Come on back to New Orleans or Yorktown, if you want some more.

    I left out your personal attacks and such, because they are not worth responding to.

    I would say, though, that talking this kind of smack on our national holiday is kinda nasty.

  269. 269.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Matt McIrvin: That’s a valid point…enough chipping away can flip a state.

    But I don’t think that’s going to happen, anywhere. Jill Stein isn’t going to cut into Hillary like Gary Johnson is going to cut into Drumpf.

  270. 270.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Villago Delenda Est: If I had to bet, I’d bet that Stein and Johnson get unusually many votes for Green/Libertarian candidates, but they don’t really change the overall picture of the race.

    And that the electoral map in November is going to surprise people mostly by looking fairly normal. It’ll be hard to distinguish from the results in 2012 or 2008.

  271. 271.

    LiberalTarian

    Wow. As the eyesight wanes things get more interesting.

    At first glance I thought it said, “Happy Threesome Day.”

Comments are closed.