Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

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

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

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

“woke” is the new caravan.

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

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

This really is a full service blog.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Enhanced Protest Techniques / Open Thread: Chris Hayes Has Apologized for Steve King

Open Thread: Chris Hayes Has Apologized for Steve King

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sorry about steve king tshirt raygunsite via iowa old lady

(Raygun Products via commentor Iowa Old Lady)
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Rep. Steve “The Dumb One” King could not bear to let a whole week of Repub arseholery go on wide broadcast without contributing his own special blend of xenophobia and ignorance to the mix. Per Gawker:

During a discussion of the Republican party’s overwhelmingly white leadership on MSNBC, birther congressman Steve King chimed in on Monday to remind everyone that white people are very good (perhaps even better??) compared to “other sub-groups of people.”

“This whole ‘white people’ business does get a little tired,” said King. “I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out where these contributions that have been made by these categories of people that you’re talking about—where did any other sub-group of people contribute more to civilization?”…

I can see Hayes — not a battler by nature — being too dumbfounded to respond to a statement so wrong on so many levels. But he could have let the other panel members point out how wrong King was, in the moment. That’s how the modern GOP has succeeded so far: by screaming out lies faster than the sane people can rebut them.

Reader Interactions

224Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    where did any other sub-group of people contribute more to civilization?”

    By not spawning Steve King.

  2. 2.

    Trentrunner

    Chris actually DID begin to argue it, when he said “Well, if you look at the ledger of white civilization in the twentieth century, you also have Stalin, you have Hitler.”

    Live TV is hard, but he should have said that “It’s preposterous to accept your premise, congressman,” etc.

  4. 4.

    Aimai

    No excuses. The fact that Chris hayes was not prepared on air to chsllenge blatant racism is because he is a coward. He couldnt face a mere ugly scene.

  9. 9.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’d be glad King showed his ass, again, if I thought it were going to have any effect on media recognition of racism as a pillar of the Republican party. So given that Hayes’ colleagues like Mitchell and Williams and Todd are never going to admit that King is the unwashed face of Paul Ryan, why have him on at all?

  10. 10.

    patroclus

    I’ve been busy and just turned the TV on – did I miss the Scott Baio keynote address ?

  11. 11.

    different-church-lady

    Really, the only thing Hayes did wrong is failing to say, “My god, you’re a fucking idiot, and that’s why…” before he said “…we’re not debating this here.”

  12. 12.

    Dave Buchen

    Listening via npr, and that dumfoundedness seems to be the media theme for the first night. better not continue. kind of amazing hearing no one challenge the inanities that i keep hearing as one side. the interview the corey lewandowski. he signed a contract with trump that includes like all of his employees a c clause in which you cannot say anything that would impugn Donald Trump. Does it matter what he says? He is contractually obliged to say inanities. ask him about that,

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    Hayes has been overmedicating with “both sides do it sycophant” pills, with a chaser of “me, me me” juice for quite some time now.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @patroclus: John Harwood tweeted a bunch of it

    John Harwood ‏@ JohnJHarwood 2h2 hours ago
    Scott Baio: “is Donald Trump a messiah? No. He’s just a man – a man who wants to give back to his country”
    Scott Baio at Trump convention: “being an American doesn’t mean getting free stuff”
    Scott Baio says he trusts Trump with “the lives of my family and the health of our country”

    that first one threw me, then I remembered that they think we think Obama’s a messiah

    ETA:@NotMax: bad enough when he gives a far too civil platform to the likes of Ben Domenech, but again, what possible value comes from having Steve King on. He belongs, if anywhere, on the Tweety show.

  16. 16.

    Ruckus

    At some point soon surly there will be a point at which we can start laughing. Surly.

    This level of performance, well of course you can’t call it art….. We need a new word for a show staring shit throwing zombies who daily practice bringing back the worst of vaudeville. The absolute worst. The aristocrat joke used to be held up as someone attempting to be the worst joke teller (or best depending on your sense of humor) and this comes nowhere close to that level. But then again the aristocrat was intended to make you think ill of the teller. These people want you to, I can’t say like them, accept them? The terrifying thing is some people do.

  17. 17.

    Droppy

    If you have someone like Steve King on your show as if he were someone with something to say, it’s your own damn fault if you are not prepared when he says something preposterously stupid. Jesus, what a stupid system. Why are we even talking to these people?

  18. 18.

    Suzanne

    I just got home and I’m watching the RNC. Rudy is indeed saying nouns, verbs, and “9/11”. God, what a dumbass.

  19. 19.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Aimai: Exactly. Mark Twain once said, “Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer”, and this was a moment where Chris Hayes should have said to Steve King, “That’s bullshit.” But, of course, Chris Hayes didn’t, and it’s that timid reluctance that assholes like Steve King count on.

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    For those not watching or listening, it’s exploit people’s personal mourning night.

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    clicked over long enough to see Rudi in full little man on a balcony mode, he’s got the knuckle draggers on their feet

  24. 24.

    Ruckus

    @Aimai:
    The least he could have done would be to just laugh at SK, stand up and walk off. It probably would have cost him his job but then the job really doesn’t seem worth it does it?

  26. 26.

    Amir Khalid

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    With properly spicy peanut dipping sauce? Once in Framingham, Massachusetts, I was served satay with a sauce that looked (and tasted) like someone had dumped water into chunky peanut butter.

  28. 28.

    Tony P.

    Steve King is the fault of some number of Iowa voters — ones who vote for him and others who can’t be bothered to vote against him. It’s hard to accept, I know, but America’s moron politicians are not frogs or locusts. They are the champions of (some of) America’s moron voters. This government-of-the-people-by-the-people-and-for-the-people thing is great, but it does sometimes remind me of Tom Lehrer’s line that “The reason most folk songs are so atrocious is that they were written by (sniff) the people.”

    –TP

  31. 31.

    mike in dc

    Rudy: I’m here to defend Trump from defamation by that lying, crooked murderer Hillary Clinton.

  32. 32.

    catclub

    @Suzanne: I wonder why Pat Buchanan has not been allowed to reprise his 1992 speech. It is a perfect fit for this crowd.

  33. 33.

    amk

    That’s how the modern GOP has succeeded so far: by screaming out lies faster than the sane people can rebut them.

    Then why give the mofos the platform to spout their incendiary lies all the time? Fuck hayes and his preening ilk.

  36. 36.

    trollhattan

    To think I was born in Steevo King’s district. Somebody should have crop-dusted his house.

  37. 37.

    Amir Khalid

    Steve King should be made aware that the Middle Easterners among whom the Abrahamic faiths — especially Christianity — first arose, and who propagated those faiths to the wider world, were and are not considered white.

  39. 39.

    dmsilev

    @Suzanne: My prediction this afternoon was that his introduction of her will include the phrase “nice set of knockers”.

  44. 44.

    Ruckus

    @The Thin Black Duke:
    Just trying to keep it on the proper level. You are welcome.

    And by the way I don’t go by sir, I work for a living. Although my dad was sir and he worked for a living as well. Maybe military humor doesn’t work here.

  46. 46.

    burnspbesq

    There was about a 20 second snippet that I wasn’t able to avoid before the baseball game cut in on the car radio. Which jackass was it that equated free speech with anarchy?

  48. 48.

    Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill

    @amk:

    Your mouth to God’s ear. Why couldn’t Hayes have dropped his jaw and stated “wow – did you hear yourself, you filthy piece of trash?”

  50. 50.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Amir Khalid:

    With properly spicy peanut dipping sauce?

    OMG, yes! My dad was in school when I was a small kid and, in addition Econ, he was doing Southeast Asian studies. He learned Thai and Indonesian (not Malay, sorry). But as a married guy with a fixed off-campus abode, he was a magnet for the SE-Asian students who wanted home cooking. I was eating spicy food from your general region from the time I could eat solid food.

  59. 59.

    Elie

    Hey, mitochondrial DNA demonstrates that every person on this planet descended from THE SAME AFRICAN WOMAN. The migration of homonids out of Africa and into the ME, Asia and later Europe has been documented as multiple waves. Furthermore, advanced mathematics, astronomy and such began in the Middle East and spread to ASIA. Egypt — where folks were a mixture of ME and black folks, led the world in the dawn of recorded history. The wise men who came (at least in theory) to view the baby Jesus were from the Middle East and Africa. He hopefully has heard of the PYRAMIDS. When the Egyptians were doing pretty advanced medicine and surgery and ME were observing and documenting the orbits of planets and stars, his ancestors were pooping in caves and figuring out what fire was about. Give me a break!

  71. 71.

    Jeffro

    Maybe an opportunity for some positive action here would be to take out an ad or get a hashtag going or whatever so that pundits are put on notice: if you invite crazy people on to your show and they say crazy stuff we are going to be watching to make sure you call them on it. And we will make sure that your corporate sponsors and advertisers know exactly what it is we find unacceptable.

    Live by “the market” ( hallowed be its name) , die by the invisible hand

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @TRP:

    Let me put it this way: tomorrow night the RNC will go full Redpill highlighted with Chris Christie taking the gloves off on Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton.

    So misogyny then?

  77. 77.

    dmsilev

    Trump is “intensely loyal” to people? I know it’s kind of uncouth to attack a spouse’s speech, but really, what world is she living on?

  78. 78.

    Ruckus

    @Capri:
    There are a lot of things that being old, white and male one might feel the need to apologize for in life, even if you live on the reasonable side of the scale. Now I’m not one to apologize for the sins of my forefathers. I wasn’t there, I don’t want to continue them, I like sharing the world. It sure makes it more interesting. But having so many asshole old white people who have access to microphones and cameras and shout absolute fucking shit out of their mouths is going too far.
    So.
    World.
    I’m sorry for all the fucking asshole white people in this world. I’m sorry that so many fucking old white people are anywhere near positions of power. In a sane world they’d all be in a zoo, throwing their shit at each other and the rest of us could get on with life.

  79. 79.

    Mary in Ohio

    Did Melania just say “he’s never going to give you up, never going to let you down?” Or has listening to Rudy warped my brain completely?

  87. 87.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Not trying to be a snob, just trying to insert a small level of humor in an otherwise totally humorless situation. Obviously I’ve failed. Or struck a nerve.

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @TRP: It’s not “crying wolf” when there is a real wolf, you cretinous, piss-reeking cockwart.

  90. 90.

    Renie

    I think someone forgot to translate the rules for Melania. She’s not spewing any hate!

  92. 92.

    Amir Khalid

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:
    About twenty years ago. It was a place that brewed its own beer onsite, that’s all I remember about it. I do remember not expecting much from satay made by white people in Massachusetts, if that doesn’t come off as racist.

  103. 103.

    trollhattan

    @TRP:
    As non-performance non-art you’re not never unentertaining.

    Hope you’re getting cash up front, Trump stiffs the little people and pays the rest thirty cents on the dollar.
    Nite.

  104. 104.

    dmsilev

    @Suzanne:

    Not “nice”. He’ll say “YUGE knockers”.

    Ok, he just pointed at her chest and then gave a big thumbs up. I claim at least partial vindication.

  107. 107.

    patroclus

    I think Oklahoma State’s gonna be good, but I’m not so sure about 11 W’s. Hey wait – I must have switched over from that Republican snorefest to the replay of Big12 Media Days. Go Frogs!!

  110. 110.

    ChrisH

    Here’s an important question. Were there more people of color on stage this evening than people of color in the convention audience?

  112. 112.

    Lizzy L

    I am soooo grateful that you are watching/listening to this Day 1 of the Republican National Clusterfuck, er, Convention, so that I don’t have to.

    Steve King. Words fail me.

  115. 115.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    I’d just like to say something here, as a pasty, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant–and let me assure you that they don’t come any pastier, whiter, or more Angular, or Saxony or Protestant than I am. Anyway, when my forebears were living in huts and drinking mead from the skulls of their slain foes, people in much of the rest of the world were building Ankor Wat, the Taj Mahal, circumnavigating the world and doing fucking algebra. That is all.

  116. 116.

    Ian

    @TRP:

    75% of the white vote is coming right up…

    You don’t have that much unlimited corporate cash. Or brink’s trucks.

  119. 119.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ruckus: Not a prob.

    ETA: As someone who got called sir, my terrifying titles were S’arnt Mayor and 1st Sergeant. Off the top of my head, I think that CPO and Master Chief are somewhere near the mark for you squids.

  120. 120.

    inventor

    Also, I still don’t know what “Third Wave Feminism” is. I could look it up, but I get the strong feeling there’s a dark cesspool of the internet waiting at the other end of that search.

  121. 121.

    burnspbesq

    Wonder if Orwell and Molly Ivins are watching this shit-show together up in Heaven. Wouldn’t you like to eavesdrop on that conversation?

  122. 122.

    hovercraft

    Here we go Tweety loved Rudy, HH thinks the last hour has been the best hour of the Trump campaign. Rudy is deeply loved in America and NY. Tweety loves with his aattytuude. He is impressive and doesn’t sound hawkish but like the Bogart in Cassablanca who will defend his neighborhood.

  124. 124.

    Bostondreams

    @TRP:

    So you oppose justice, support racism, and dislike women? That will work out well for you.
    Worked out well in 2008 and 2012 for you for sure.
    Donald Trump can’t even write his name without a ghost writer. Let’s see if he even knows how to vote.

  125. 125.

    p.a.

    @Jeffro: That stupid espn show PTI closed with an intern with a laptop live-correcting the hosts’ misstatements. These ‘news’ organizations don’t have the balls to do it to their guests or hosts. Of course unless they all did it, the ones who would lead the way would only have dead-air.

  129. 129.

    burnspbesq

    I know that collective punishment is contrary to international law, but Slovenia has to be made to answer for this.

  133. 133.

    Amir Khalid

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:
    It was in a building by itself, as I recall. But like I said, it was some twenty years ago so my recollection is a bit hazy. 3Com, a maker of network devices, routers and hubs and things like that, had flown a bunch of Asian journos over for a company event and a factory visit. This was back when IT companies had money for such extravagances.

  136. 136.

    Anne Laurie

    @catclub:

    I wonder why Pat Buchanan has not been allowed to reprise his 1992 speech.

    “Buchanan? Pansy* worked for that RINO Dick Nixon, fer gawds sake!!!” (/today’s GOP rep)

    (*wrong Buchanan, but hand to goddess I’ve seen Repubs conflate Pat & Jim)

  143. 143.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @liberal: you should start a keepin’ it real blog, show all these soft wannabes how a dude who really gets it types. Man.

  145. 145.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @hovercraft: He is impressive and doesn’t sound hawkish but like the Bogart in Cassablanca who will defend his neighborhood.

    Good god.

  146. 146.

    danielx

    That’s how the modern GOP has succeeded so far: by screaming out lies faster than the sane people can rebut them.

    A tactic which Combover Caligula has taken to heart and expanded by an exponential factor.

  147. 147.

    Anne Laurie

    @dmsilev:

    Trump is “intensely loyal” to people?

    Says Trophy Wife #3.

    But then, her pre-nup probably included a non-disclosure clause…

  149. 149.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Amir Khalid: Wow. 3Com’s been defunct for some time now. Was a hell of a company back in the day, started by one of the really smart guys of networking, Bob Metcalfe.

  151. 151.

    Emma

    @burnspbesq: Oh yeah. But I’d like to add Machiavelli to the round table. Shaking his head in sorrow. “Gnomi. Buffoni. Ottusi. Balordi.”

  152. 152.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mary in Ohio: If you believe Julia Ioffe’s GQ profile, Melania is not stupid. Not ‘intellectual’, but almost certainly a better businessperson than her husband. Rickrolling the rubes on national television would not be beyond her.

  153. 153.

    danielx

    @Anne Laurie:

    Giuliani always reminds me of a naked mole rat. (Ditto Roger Ailes, Sheldon Adelman, Rick Scott… )

    With all due respect, I must disagree. Ailes and Adelman look like Jabba the Hut’s mutated sons, while Rick Scott is a dead ringer for Voldemort.

  154. 154.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Actually most of the CPOs and Master Chiefs I met were useless assholes with massive inferiority complexes. Many with very good reasons for same. Lifers in the Marines on the other hand…..
    I think it was a different time to be in the service, the navy anyway.
    ETA XOs were the bane of enlisted. They hadn’t made it yet and went out of their way to make sure you knew they hadn’t.

  155. 155.

    NotMax

    Oh joy (not). Senator Breadbags coming up next.

    Quoth Scrooge: “I shall retire to Bedlam.”

  156. 156.

    LAC

    MSNBC lineup is just fucking useless – a bunch of tone deal cowards, media village idiots and a yammering Chris Matthews. Why is anyone surprised that these comments go by unchallenged?

  161. 161.

    eric

    what i would not give to hear Obama start his speech: “As-salamu alaykum …………”

  162. 162.

    Elie

    @hovercraft:

    I hear you, but its not possible. They are indeed, African — by decent anyway — we all are. We are brothers and sisters albeit from a very dysfunctional family.

    On a slightly different topic, we now know that the most recent black Baton Rouge cop killer sounds a lot like the Dallas shooter: CRAZY with a military history that taught them how to use guns. I know its early and incomplete, but both seemed to have grandiose visions of themselves and their mission. Both seemed (at least from what has been reported), to be paranoid, psychotic.

    All we hear from black and white police leadership is how Black LIves Matter are somehow linked to the behavior of crazy people and that somehow, because of that, we have to wipe clean any possibility that cops murder black people without impunity and that we should thank them for their service! They get paid so little money and we should just “support” them!

    We are so very very far away from fixing this thing if we cannot share the reality of the ongoing murder and abuse of black citizens in this country by the police. There must be some leadership in the police somewhere that is able to start a realistic appraisal of what is happening and begin to take some sort of responsibility for change. I do not want cops killed, but I do not want them made into martyrs while they keep murdering black people without any ownership! Let each side bury its dead but be ready to sit down at a for real community table of justice for both sides and work out a solution from REALITY. And #1.5 — lets try to get some of these damned guns out of circulation somehow….

  169. 169.

    hovercraft

    @Elie:
    I was kidding.
    As to blaming BLM, it’s like making all muslims accountable for every terrorist attack. BLM is calling out bad cop killings so anyone angry about those killings is their responsibility. You know if there was no BLM no one would be angry about police killing people because they are scary black men.
    And your wanting accountability is part of the problem, support the police and don’t talk about these tragedy’s in public.
    There is no logic to their complaining.

  170. 170.

    Elie

    @burnspbesq:

    I do too. It depends on what both sides are willing to do to begin trust.

    And by no means do I think that distrust of cops is just about what blacks and Latinos experience. I think that there are important sub groups that cops routinely hassle of all races, including the mentally ill and homeless. If you do not have power in our society, you are likely going to be abused by the police. That is just the way it is. The media, if they cared, could do some pretty interesting undercover work dressed as various components of the underclass. The thing is that its a pretty dangerous assignment because cops are likely to shoot first…. sigh…

  171. 171.

    Elie

    @hovercraft:

    I knew you were kidding but I got too wound up thinking about the whole situation. It is just so frustrating and depressing — and we are armed to the teeth, making cops already uptight even MORE uptight (can’t blame them there at all).

  172. 172.

    Regine Touchon

    @LAC: Actually Chris challenged Hewitt about Trump saying about Obama “something’s going on” not just insinuating but declaring that our president is not one of us. He is on the side of terrorists.

  173. 173.

    Ruckus

    @burnspbesq:
    Being part of the community, rather than driving in, jumping out and start shooting would be a nice way to start. But both sides would have to respect that and with people being gunned down and all it’s a pretty hard road to go down if the police don’t start first. And the police seem to be scared of being gunned down so what’s the answer? Anything that starts discussion would be better than nothing. Remember that in the 90s the black community wanted additional policing, like everyone else, because of the crime levels, so we got some horrible laws passed. The news and the police in general don’t seem to have gotten the message that crime is down and the general police beatings and killings aren’t helping. Not all departments by the way, Dallas was a disaster, but not because of the protesters or the police. It was the opposite because of them.

  174. 174.

    Elie

    @Mary in Ohio:

    But remember Michelle Obama was treated like trash with her Ivy League education and career as an attorney. All they could talk about was her bare arms. With Melania the Republicans want us to accept her GQ fold outs in a red G-string as worthy of being “First Lady”. I do not normally look down my nose at any woman’s profession but the Republicans are nothing but hypocritical assholes, and unfortunately, she is gonna get the blowback from that.

  176. 176.

    pseudonymous in nc

    I think Hayes got a wake-up call tonight. I also think that the next time King shows up on MSNBC — because the racist fuck loves a camera and cablenews producers love camera-lovers — Hayes will not be there to get a do-over. That’s the fucking problem. We know that Steve King is the House member for unabashed racism. This is what he does. He is not dogwhistling racism, he is nuclear attack siren racism.

    Ugh. Cablenews executives are mainstreaming Everyday Trumpofascism.

  177. 177.

    Elie

    @Ruckus:

    Some of what has contributed to the police culture is their recruitment of a lot of veterans from Iraq and the ME. In my opinion, there hasn’t been enough training to change the mentality of these cops from being a force of occupation versus a civilian force. They are used to imposing their will by coercion and intimidation. Of course, some of this is necessary since we have guns everywhere and they never know who is armed to the teeth. That said, I believe their psychology and the prevalence of recent military experience sets them up to see themselves as not a part of the community that they police, but as I said, a force of occupation.

  180. 180.

    Elie

    @pseudonymous in nc:

    I cannot stand Hayes and have never seen him do a tough interview. He is a nebbish whose rise I truly do not understand. MSNBC is a shadow of what it once was…

  181. 181.

    ms_canadada

    This:
    “But he could have let the other panel members point out how wrong King was, in the moment. That’s how the modern GOP has succeeded so far: by screaming out lies faster than the sane people can rebut them.”
    Thank you, AL.

  182. 182.

    rikyrah

    @Elie:
    Dallas shooter has been overseas. Same with Baton Rouge killer.
    Dallas shooter obviously had something wrong with him. So much so that the Black’radical ‘ groups took a pass at him joining.
    The Baton Rouge killer was a Chapelle Show skit come to life.
    Both of them were unbalanced. ..and is it not wonderful that the unbalanced in this country can get their hands on weapons of death. ???

  183. 183.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Elie:

    Some of what has contributed to the police culture is their recruitment of a lot of veterans from Iraq and the ME. In my opinion, there hasn’t been enough training to change the mentality of these cops from being a force of occupation versus a civilian force.

    That’s going to fuck over the US in big ways and small for the next 50 years. Mostly broken families, addiction, suicides, but also veterans on both sides of the thin blue line who carry the mental scars of their service back home in not the best way. Not all of them, not even a majority of them, but enough of them that it will make a difference. I have friends doing VA mental health care and they know that when they retire there’ll still be Iraq and Afghanistan vets who need help.

  185. 185.

    Feathers

    @Amir Khalid: @the Conster, la Citoyenne: Weird satay sounds more like Brew Moon, which was one shopping mall plaza over from John Harvard’s. We used to go there because we had some non-drinkers in the crowd and Brew Moon served a wonderful house-brewed root beer. Why more brew pub places don’t do homemade non-alcoholic drinks as well, I don’t know. Would help expand their audience.

    @schrodinger’s cat: When my grandfather had Alzheimer’s, I lived with him for a while. A woman came from Dorchester, old school Boston Irish, to do respite care. I was asking her about what food she would like to have. My grandfather was eating Chef Boyardee out of the can at that point. I asked if that was OK for her. “Oh, no,” she said, “I don’t care for Italian food.” That is how I explain the New England palate to people. I’m fairly bad, grew up on good Irish cooking – Brew Moon was fine with me – but I have gotten a bit more adventurous than that.

  187. 187.

    Ruckus

    @Elie:
    A lot of cops that I knew 40-50 yrs ago were vets as well. It’s not that I don’t think there is a grain of truth to the Iraq/Afghanistan vet issue, but it isn’t the entire reason, I think there are several.
    First the 90s. Really not that long ago, especially from a police viewpoint. Crime was much higher.
    Second, the police have always been assholes as a group, it’s the nature of the job, making people do what they don’t want to do or catching them doing something the rest of us don’t want them to do. And no, that does not mean that all cops were or are assholes.
    Third, the weaponry has changed and that change from pump shotguns that hold 8-9 rounds and revolvers that hold 6 to semi-auto pistols and assault rifles with 2 or 3 times the ammo per person certainly gives the impression that the police are at war.
    Fourth, the tactics used along with the rest of the military type gear, armored cars, etc are different. Kent State, calling in the National Guard and giving them live ammo was a big departure way back then but now the police are better armed and act just like the NG did then.
    Fifth, as citizens, we have legitimate concerns about bigotry, about police overreach, about our congress, among others, and many or most of these things are not being answered in any way except that many are trying to double down on their need to have life be a certain way. Take what this thread is about, nearly half the population wants a complete asshole to be elected to be our leader. And look at the support he’s getting. It’s enough to make a person at least speechless. How do we fix anything with such depravity affecting nearly half the population?

  188. 188.

    NotMax

    @Ruckus

    How do we fix anything with such depravity affecting nearly half the population?

    JFK: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

    Substitute “go to the Moon in this decade” with policy of your choice.

  189. 189.

    Ruckus

    @pseudonymous in nc:
    I’m in the VA system and I see people who are in need of serious help. The VA tries very hard to help everyone they can but money is always an issue, to hire more people, to break the stigma of perceived weakness for getting help and just to reach those in trouble. Money alone is not the answer of course but lack of enough makes it that much harder.

  193. 193.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: No worries. Honestly had he, or she, not made that anti transgender slur, I’d just tolerate the silliness. But that was way over the line.

  194. 194.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:
    Did we have half the population saying we couldn’t go to the moon, or electing people who still thought the earth was flat and the center of the universe? OK on that last part I’m sure some of the neanderthals in congress do think those things.
    I’m not in any way saying that we shouldn’t try to fix things, the ACA is a prime example of fixing things. I am saying that the world is different today than it was then. We’ve discussed the differences here on BJ until cows have come and gone and that still doesn’t change that half the people are fucking assholes and have elected fucking assholes to be roadblocks to not going back to the early 1800s. I think it was much easier to go to the moon than to come close to fixing our societies major problems. We only had gravity and lack of the technology standing in our way then, we have millions of racists doing that now.

  196. 196.

    NotMax

    @Ruckus

    Focus on the “not because they are easy, but because they are hard” sentiment.

    Undeniably hard, yet indubitably not impossible, not unattainable, not unreachable.

  198. 198.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Ruckus: money’s an issue, the hiring policies are an issue on the mental health side — mediocre local HR can gum things up for months — and the application process is still shitty and over-bureaucratic. Mental health professionals who want to do this work and have the skills to do it get disillusioned by the process.

    Much of that can be fixed, and what the VA does is vital. What can’t be fixed is that when you send tens of thousands of young people off to war, a significant percentage of them will need help for another 50 years, and even helping most of them doesn’t prevent a lot of underreported localised tragedies. It’s like a country filled with human landmines.

  199. 199.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:
    Oh I get your point. And if I was King the not impossible would become much easier. But we elected a damn good leader 8 yrs ago and while he has done quite a lot, quite a lot indeed, we still have a very long way to go. I’ll do my part, I figure you will as well, but that leaves just a slight bit left. Have you figured out how to get enough others to join us?

  201. 201.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Elie: I can explain.

    The idea that “Black Lives Matter” is crazy to white supremacist scum.

  203. 203.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Regine Touchon: When, in fact, the exact opposite is true. Drumpf is doing PRECISELY what Daesh wants “leaders” in the West to do. Drive Muslims to Daesh. They couldn’t ask for a more compliant ally than Drumpf and the rest of the xenophobes of the GOP.

  204. 204.

    Ruckus

    @pseudonymous in nc:

    It’s like a country filled with human landmines.

    Exactly. We each have to hope that no one steps on one or that the instability doesn’t set one off.
    Was looking at medical jobs at the VA earlier today to help make a point and the number of mental health jobs that are open is astounding. And you are correct the local person in charge of a clinic can make a huge difference. I regularly go to 2 different clinics and a hospital and they are as different as night and day. Now most of the staff is great in all three locations but it’s obvious that each is run somewhat different. And my fellow vets can be quite a bit different as well. I spent an evening in the ER not all that long ago and there was a fellow vet there who should absolutely be seeing a mental health professional. In fact he mentioned that he thought they were going to take him back to the 5th floor. You might be able to guess what service is on the 5th floor of that hospital. But if he doesn’t want help there isn’t much that can be done, unless he becomes an actual danger.

  205. 205.

    Ruckus

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    Never let it be said that conservatives don’t do exactly the opposite of rational thought. Hell, never let it be said that conservatives are capable of rational thought. Or of thinking past the spite that lives right in front of their noses.

  206. 206.

    Groucho48

    @Elie:

    There’s the famous Disraeli quote…

    Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.

  207. 207.

    Anne Laurie

    @Ruckus:

    First the 90s. Really not that long ago, especially from a police viewpoint. Crime was much higher.

    The guys who entered the police force during the 90s, when they were young & impressionable, are now the mid- to upper-level leaders in every department. They’re making policy for the “street” they remember, not the one that’s out there in the world right now.

    The expectation has been (and not just in the police departments) that the ‘not invented here’ problem where older managers/CEOs tend to fight the last war would be offset by their accumulated experience, against the naive youngsters. That expectation doesn’t work when there’s been the kind of massive social/technical changes between age-cohorts; knowing how you dealt with criminals in the Rodney King/crack epidemic/’gay plague’/seize-the-film days isn’t much help in today’s #BLM/meth lab/LBGQT/surveillance-equipment-in-every-pocket world.

  208. 208.

    Ruckus

    @Anne Laurie:
    All of this is very true as well. It is a complex subject that many try to boil down to almost bumper sticker length and that just doesn’t work. Have a friend who put in his 30 as a CHP, retired in 01, who has told me the same as what you wrote. No one is left from his generation of officers and the force shows that in many ways. It’s that way in most departments. However my experience is that the old guard wasn’t all that and a bag of chips either, no pun intended.
    I think another problem is that we don’t really have an idea what we want in the way of police and they certainly aren’t going to get that from the general public. Half of us want better policing, no executions of innocent people, far, far less racism…. the other half seem to want exactly the opposite. But that is a huge problem with most of our issues, health care, infrastructure, and on and on. That is what I have been trying to goad NotMax into saying. It’s not just that making these changes are difficult, and they are, it’s that there are two segments of our population that have almost exactly opposite views of what needs to be done, and who it needs to be done to.

  209. 209.

    NorthLeft12

    A late word about Mr. King’s ongoing bigotry and ignorance; Why does this guy keep getting opportunities to showcase his racism and stupidity? In most normal societies, guys like that are hidden away and ignored.
    Hayes and his staff had to expect he would say something ridiculous.

  210. 210.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Elie: The truth is weirder. Pyramids weren’t built during the neolithic but the bronze age. Apparently bronze age Britons preserved the remains of their ancestors and brought them out of their resting places (for ceremonies? unknown) and would get the bones/mummified remains of various persons mixed up. Pretty morbid stuff. And let’s not forget the human sacrifice–the bog people. Plus the signs of violent murders/lynchings, which get called human sacrifice but seem more like good old fashioned lynchings to me. All this in the age of the druids. Blame the fermented fluids?

  211. 211.

    Jan

    @Aimai: @Aimai: I have to agree. Chris has become the worst limp dish rag on cable news…failing at every turn to do or say the right thing from his high paid “anchor” chair. He’s the poster child for how money corrupts every aspect of our political system down to the corporate owned media. I remember when Chris was actually quite articulate and gave sharp intelligent commentary on MSNBC when he was first hired. After the Comcast takeover and house cleaning of the most outspoken liberals from that network, Chris was elevated to an anchor chair and handed a multi-million dollar salary along with an invisible muzzle. He gags himself with it every chance he gets when hosting the most despicable right wing nut jobs, and conveniently misplaces it for the likes of Jane Sanders and Susan Sarandon. Marrying a professor and having two children probably has more to do with his eagerness to sell out than his lack of courage or intelligence. I wonder what Joan Walsh thinks of her protege’s willingness to repeatedly make a complete fool of himself as long as his corporate masters show him the money?

  213. 213.

    sherparick

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sometimes, the best thing is let the man speak and thereby confirm to the world that he those who vote for him are moral idiots. I think it was great to let Steve King on and let the rest of us know how he and all the other guys (and few well tamed gals) in the Republican caucus talk about with each other behind close doors. But they also talk this way on right wing media, but no one ever notices at the Times or Politico. King and his ilk say this stuff all the time when guesting on Hugh Hewitt, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levine, etc. radio shows and the MSM media just ignores it. After all, it is pretty hard to make the “both sides” meme work when one side are completely loony time travelers for whom the whole 20th century thing did not happen (because the sad thing is, if one went back to 1916, this is what all responsible white males in the ruling class believed (they actually took it bit farther restricted full “white privilege” to males of the Anglo-Saxon protestant “race.”) But 100 years later, we now know that those ideas were stupid and vicious and it takes a particularly stupid, vicious, set of assholes to cling to them. And now Steve King has just given this as the headline moment of the 1st day of the Republican Convention. https://www.google.com/search?q=steve+king+congressman&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 I am filled with joy.

    One other thing. I find it particularly obnoxious that King represents Iowa’s 4th District, given how many Iowans died in the War of the Great Rebellion for Slavery. Since he and his voters have this fondness for all things Confederate as well as a nostalgia for slavery, I would like to reincarnate Sherman and have him re-enact in 4th District Sherman’s March to the Sea.

  214. 214.

    sherparick

    @Elie: Compared to Chuck Todd, George Stephanopoulus, John Dickerson, and the crew on Morning Joe, he is the Spanish Inquisition. You have to remember the iron law of MSM corporate media – “Both Sides,” be nice to Republican and Conservative guests because that is whoa substantial part of our old, white, audience want to see, and don’t invite any crazy liberals, progressives, etc. because that will cause them to blow their blood pressure and flip the remote to Fox. Within confines of those rules, Chris and Rachel are the best we can get.

  215. 215.

    sherparick

    @NorthLeft12: If he is hidden away and ignored, people will forget that he represents the 40% of the electorate that is the base of the Republican Party and serves as Chairman of the House Agricultural Committee, the Committee with oversight of the SNAP program and has led the opposition to immigration reform for 10 years. You don’t kill stinking mass of moral infection by letting it hide in the dark. You do it by bringing him out in the sunlight and letting his freak flag fly. Now the whole world will be reminded for 24 hours what Steve King, Donald Trump, and the Republican Party represents.

  216. 216.

    NorthLeft12

    @sherparick: yes, I hear you, but the more air time idiots like King get seems to further inspire and validate all the other maroons in the Republican base.
    Its just effing embarrassing as a country to display that to the world IMO.

  218. 218.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    @catclub: It was better in the original German.

    (and what Molly Ivins could have done with this election year!)

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