Just catching up on last night’s news. Let me see if I have this straight:
Rodent fornicator Ted Cruz double-crossed Trump by failing to endorse him in his convention speech and exhorting so-con crazies to “vote their conscience,” i.e., vote for someone other than Trump. Moreover, Cruz provided an accurate transcript of his speech hours before delivery and ingeniously relied on the Trump organization’s incompetence to ensure it wouldn’t be reviewed in advance.
Master political strategist Trump triple-crossed Cruz by knowingly allowing him to deliver his non-endorsement speech while sending Trump minions to whip the crowd up into an anti-Cruz frenzy, such that Mrs. Cruz had to be hustled from the convention floor to safety by security guards. This is all good for Team Trump because it shows Trump is “well-liked” and that everyone despises Cruz.
In a NYT interview, Trump signaled a novel partnership with Vladimir Putin, in which Trump will stand by while Putin slams smaller NATO countries against the wall, and then Trump will emerge to shake those countries down for protection money. Will Putin get a cut? Probably in the form of an occasional annexation as an example to other countries that they better pony up.
Does that about cover it?
MattF
I think Mike Pence gave a speech.
schrodinger's cat
Trump wants to run the country like a mafia don and the media is worried about Hillary’s email server.
raven
Cruz didn’t “double cross” anyone. He told Triumph wasn’t going to endorse him and he didn’t.
dmsilev
Yeah, pretty much. But remember, Hillary Clinton something something emails something, so both sides are about the same.
dmsilev
Okay, there’s also this. That really happened, and no, that picture isn’t faked.
MattF
We know there’s a German word for ‘stab in the back’. What’s the word for ‘stab in the front’?
NorthLeft12
I really don’t get why the Donald’s, and RWNJs in general, love and admiration and obsequiousness to Putin do not have more serious repercussions.
I mean, the guy is a grade A dictator, who is a potential threat to peace and stability in the world. Unless, this is exactly what the powers that be want that is.
Betty Cracker
@raven: Let’s just hope Bernie doesn’t get any ideas! (I keed! I keed!)
schrodinger's cat
Betty Cracker @ top Can you suggest a book/s that gives me a review basic punctuation rules. I am never sure about commas, sometimes I have too many and at other times too few.
Gin & Tonic
@NorthLeft12: They’ve always loved a guy who can say “fuck you” to anyone he wants, any time he wants. And I’m pretty sure there are some who wouldn’t mind the ability to off their pesky opponents without repercussions.
Pogonip
Are you all really this worried about Trump, such that the site is all Trump, all the time? If so, cheer up. The voting machines will be rigged so he will not become president. I was living in Ohio when the head of the Diebold company promised to deliver the state for Bush Jr., and I can tell you that nobody, including reporters, objected or even noticed much.
p.a.
@NorthLeft12: It’s Putin envy. It’s what they want the US to be.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing some years back, when my sister told me she had voted for McCain in 2008. She seems to have come back to her senses. A shit show fail parade like this’ll do that to people sometimes…
lamh35
ICYMI: Miami police shoot an unarmed black man who was lying in the street with his hands up
Face
@NorthLeft12: If I had to guess, it’s because The Base sees as their #1 opponent the Judicial System. They’re the ones who’ve allowed gay marriage, shot down voter ID (aka Keep the Nigs and Spix Away Laws), shot down abortion rights-killing legislation, etc. Dictators are infamous for ignoring the courts, and/or stacking them in their favor. The True Believers think this extra-Constitutional rule by Trump is the only way to bring back the country they want.
Or, they’re just so fuckin stupid to even recognize just how awful this man would be, and his effect on relationships with damn near every other country not named Canada.
hovercraft
@NorthLeft12:
He does the types of photo ops that they love, bare chest horse riding, soring 7 goals in a professional hockey game, judo, killing big animals, you know all those manley things, none of namby pamby sports like body surfing and basketball. Plus Manafort told Trump that Putin promised to be his bestie.
rikyrah
Rodent fornicator…
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
p.a.
@schrodinger’s cat: Strunk & White, The Elements of Style. Nice and brief. To build muscles: The Chicago Manual of Style (still a thing?), The New Century Handbook, Hult & Huckin (has ‘New’ in the title; must be good).
Please note: do not judge these sources by my comment form!
srv
Most Americans don’t know why NATO is still a thing. Didn’t the EU put their big pants on? With an economy 8X bigger than Russia.
Cermet
Only tRump could make me feel bad for Cruz – not much, but a little. However, not at all for his wife – she is the worst form of life so makes sense those two are married.
Comrade Jake
Last night was basically a pro-wrestling spectacle, with Cruz playing the heel.
NickM
I can’t believe that Trump actually planned the triple-bank his people are spinning. If the name of Trump’s game is dominance politics, extracting concessions from friends and enemies by being tough, etc., allowing your chief rival to walk into your party, spit in your face, and walk back out again on his own power demonstrates weakness. So what Cruz got booed? He didn’t kiss anyone’s ring and basically threw down the gauntlet for 2020. No one’s going to remember the boos; they will for better or worse remember that Cruz shoved it right in Trump’s face.
rikyrah
Because, both sides don’t do it. How about Trump having as a Campaign Manager, someone with direct ties to Putin?
MattF
@Cermet: It’s the Cruz version of a pivot.
hovercraft
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Nuh uh, the Mornin Joe crew says that the plagiarism story now makes Trump and Melania look good, that Rafael has healed the party wounds and united the party by shitting in the punch bowl, and to make the convention the greatst ever held Trump and his spawn just have to give great speeches tonight.
PaulWartenberg2016
That is exactly correct.
And yet the major news sources will claim it’s all bad for Hillary Clinton because it keeps HER scandals front and center (because the Republicans have nothing else to attack her with), the die-hard Republican voting base will still vote Trump and play out the endgame of “party purity” by insisting on open pledges to the demagogue, the generally inclined voters who aren’t playing close attention will only get snippets of what’s going on and likely turn away creating reduced turnout numbers, and the polling will still have Trump’s numbers somewhere near around 40 percent (or, Dear Gods, go up /shudder) because the people getting polled are not representative of the actual population diversity (not enough Hispanics get polled).
The only thing we can hope for now is that every NATO nation is breaking out every dark secret file they’ve got on the Republican leadership and threatening to release every last page unredacted unless the GOP agrees to rig their own turnout so that Trump only gets 50,000 voters nationwide.
Cermet
@schrodinger’s cat: There is mainly just one typical blunder with comma’s – comma splices; I live them, do them and can’t avoid them.
scav
The “I totally meant to do that!” defense is so convincing. “I meant for that to happen.” “It’s all a part of my cunning plan.”
Well, that and using the reactions of a self-selected deliberately wound up sugar-high set of hard-core partisans as evidence of the inevitable reactions of all the piggies that stayed home, went to market, went without dinner or wanted nothing to do with the Orange Roast Beef in the first place.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: In addition to P.A.’s suggestions above, here’s a quick-n-dirty guide — warning, includes controversial style choices!
NonyNony
Interesting that Cruz is going out of his way to make sure that the Dolchstoßlegende narrative gets pinned on him. I know it’ll endear him with the muky mucks of the movement conservative leadership, but it strikes me as a bit of a misstep for winning a primary in 2020. Maybe not – maybe he’s counting on the fact that Trump supporters are a minority in the party and by 2020 he’ll be able to make the case that it wasn’t a stab-in-the-back but rather that Trump was a LOOOOSER and it won’t matter.
p.a.
@Cermet: Oxford comma. COMMA FIGHT!!!
Cermet
@lamh35: But to be fair to the Cop, the black man on the ground (trying to help) had someone (not black) sitting next to him holding a toy train. Who else would the cop shot if he felt threaten by that toy train? Duh.
hovercraft
Dan Savage Has Had Enough Of ‘Pasty White’ Jill Sein Supporters
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
I just wish that Cruz had closed with a “the Lannisters send their regards”. That would have been funny as shit.
Betty Cracker
@NickM: Yeah, that’s how I see it too. Seems like the entire convention has been geared toward the Trumpenproletariat true believers from start to finish, and they’ll be happy to view the Cruz incident in whatever manner Trump interprets it for them. But there’s a larger audience watching all this shit play out. Is not one of the main functions of a convention to introduce lightly affiliated or unaffiliated viewers to this year’s version of the party? Hard to see how this is not disastrous from that perspective.
Manyakitty
@Cermet: That, and the greengrocer’s apostrophe. “‘s” signifies a possessive or a contraction, but not a plural. /pedantry
Kay
It’s hard because they all lie constantly so “honorable”, “double cross” or “triple cross” will never be determined.
It’s above my pay grade. They lie so much they probably no longer know themselves. I don’t think I need to remind you man’s nickname is “Ly’in Ted” and Trump of course is a well-documented liar of epic proportions :)
Cermet
@p.a.: :) Your on!
satby
@p.a.: Another one is Eats Shoots and Leaves
hovercraft
@PaulWartenberg2016:
Last night around 2 am when someone tried to make the point that this has all been disasterous, Tweety said yeah I know but I’m rooting for a close race, I want this to go down all the way to the wire. The media will do everything in their power to ensure the race stays close.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
I doubt that Trump reviewed it. The man is a consummate liar.
And for the record, I never thought it a good idea to bring the Baltics and former Eastern Blocclients like Poland into NATO. That was ALWAYS fraught with disaster, given the treaty obligations.
Betty Cracker
@hovercraft: He actually said that aloud? Wow.
Shell
I bet she did. See. Honey. Its not just Hillarys blood the ravening hoard will yell for they’ve been riled up. Its anyone there told is todays enemy.
germy
@hovercraft: did he say why he wants a close race? I know why his bosses want it close (more drama, more viewership) but did Tweety give a higher-minded reason? Or did he admit it’s all just an adrenaline rush for him?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am not sure how widening the split between Trump and Cruz helps Trump. I mean most of the people at the convention are Trump supporters so of course they will rally around Trump. It’s the Cruz supports Trump needed to draw in, so how did last night do that….?
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
It was late, he was punchy, it was Tweety.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: I think you can make a good argument that NATO should have been disbanded the day after the Berlin Wall came down, so I don’t necessarily disagree on the wisdom of expanding the alliance. But Trump isn’t offering a credible argument for scaling back entangling alliances; he’s proposing an extortion scheme.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think conventions matter more for Republicans because their voters are older and more traditional. The ways to reach the respective Party bases aren’t the same anymore. Democrats can use more fragmented and diverse outlets.
Cermet
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Putting anti-ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe was criminal and frankly, insane. Yes President Obama – I’m looking at you. Make the ONLY country in the world outside of us that has thousands of ICBM’s nervous and trigger happy – so fucking stupid! My only – Obama really fucked up really and in a monstrously big time manner. Yeah, ending all human life if the Russians panic makes any sense at all to protect Europe from Iranian missiles that DON’T FUCKING EXIST and WON”T!!!!
Some Dude
Cruz is betting that Trump tanks badly, and takes a chunk of the party with him in November. Come 2020, Cruz will try to be the White Knight saving the GOP from this terrible defeat by vanquishing Hillary. That is the plan as I see it. The only problem with that plan is that he is Ted Cruz.
hovercraft
@germy:
For him it’s for the love of the game, he just loves this stuff. The fact that he has a crush on both Drump and his wife, and dislikes Hillary makes him feel like each one has their pros and cons, but Drump being a builder seems to be the trump card so to speak. If Rafael had been the nominee, I’m pretty sure his attitude would have been completly different, he seems to despise Cruz (like most sentient people).
Mnemosyne
@Face:
I’m pretty sure that Justin Trudeau is Not A Fan of Trump, so I wouldn’t count on Canada continuing to be nice to us if Trump somehow ends up in charge here.
@scav:
Now I’m picturing Trump as a dumber version of Blackadder. Or maybe we’re living in the universe where Baldrick ended up the dictator.
Amir Khalid
This RNC seems to be a dog’s breakfast of incompetence and disorganisation. As an outsider, my own feeling is that this party needs to be kept as far away from the reins of power as possible. I do wonder about the 40% or so of American voters who pick them no matter what.
gogol's wife
@NorthLeft12:
The NYTimes, instead of having the headline “Trump Threatens to Dismantle NATO in Order to Please Putin,” has something like, “Trump Downplays U.S. Role in Other Countries’ Affairs.” Those small countries far away of which we know little.
Mnemosyne
@Manyakitty:
True story: I once got into a verbal fight at work over apostrophe use.
VOR
@Betty Cracker: Yes. Most conventions are aimed at convincing the undecided voters that your party has better ideas. This convention seems to be geared to firing up the already committed base. Speakers keep exhorting people to vote in the fall, saying a non-vote is actually a vote for Hillary. The chants of “Lock Her Up” to fire up the crowd – how does that appeal to anyone other than the hardcore, talk radio crowd?
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat: So, yes, my nym. Again and again.
MomSense
@lamh35:
I just read that. OH MY GOD.
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I do. I don’t think it’s a given that most of the people at the convention are strong Trump supporters. Most of the people at the convention are GOP Party “regulars”. Party regulars aren’t insurgents. They’re team players.
There was beginning to be talk of empty seats and lower ratings than 2012. Popularity is all Trump has. It’s the entire argument for his candidacy- “people like me”. He has to create the appearance that he is popular and he is struggling to maintain that.
I don’t know that he engineered this but there’s a plausible argument for why he would. He’s supposed to be a phenom. People watch phenoms. They don’t leave early. He was Tweeting afterward about all the “excitement in the arena”. He’s pushing back against the idea that this thing is a flop.
Jeffro
@dmsilev: She’s been waiting her whole life to give that salute…it all makes sense now. Coulter can only watch in envy.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@p.a.: Team Oxford!
@Betty Cracker: I think you missed the story that starts at this tweet. It’s arguably a continuation of the Heidi Cruz incident. Oh to have access to the listening devices at that hotel.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Good point. But won’t the base outreach via whatever medium and impressions delivered to non-base voters revolve around the spectacles of the conventions to some extent?
MattF
@Betty Cracker: There’s also a ‘slow leak’ of possible Trump voters who decide, finally, one by one, that they just can’t do it.
Richard Mayhew
yes
hovercraft
From Josh Marshall
satby
OT, but giant evil software company forcibly moved my spambait hotmail account to Outlook. Hard to believe they consider Outlook an upgrade. It’s been my throwaway account for years but I have stuff from vendors I deal with I hate to lose, and Outlook makes it borderline unmanageable. Fuck MS.
Jeffro
@Some Dude:
I agree with all of this.
For the GOP, “did you openly…or even tacitly…support Trump?” is going to be their 2020 equivalent of the Dems’ 2008, “Did you vote to support the Iraq War?”
SFAW
@srv:
Gee, there was a time when there was a “sometimes-amusing srv.” You seem to have replaced him/her with a “all dumbshit srv, all the time.” You might consider changing “back” (so to speak).
p.a.
@Amir Khalid: It’s the atavistic response to America’s original sin. The Western Hemisphere’s original sin actually, not that conquered peoples fate was ice cream and cookies here before the European invasion. There has been progress, but of the 2-steps-forward-1.8-back type. Glacial.
Jeffro
@hovercraft: Josh’s metaphor is correct, but for one thing: they are having this wizard-battle on Cruz’s turf. (and as an additional note: Cruz is much younger and can afford to play a longer game here).
Villago Delenda Est
So is Drumpf going to send von Ribbentrop to Moscow and agree to let Russia snack on the Baltics?
Dadadadadadada
Um, what just happened to the Twitter feed? It’s now full of ads for something called LAShTal Daily News. Did you get hacked or something?
pluky
Trump loves Putin because the Russians are just about the only people left who will loan him money.
lamh35
Ted Cruz on Donald J. Trump: “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father”
O. Felix Culpa
@satby: “giant evil software company “
Gene108
At a hotel for a business trip watching CNN. They cut to an interview with Manafort, until someone started asking him about white supremacists and ant-Semites backing Trump/Republicans. They cut back to the talking heads before the reporter finished his question.
Lee
One quibble:
That is the assumption that everyone booing made. There might be some people out there that voting their conscience is voting for Trump.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Well, for TRUMP it will because he isn’t doing anything other than that and cable and tweeting. The Clinton ads here are all about making Trump a bad person. They’re not directed to the Party base(s). They’re directed to older voters who watch and vote but aren’t plugged in other than that. Her Latino media outreach is for a segment of the Party base.
rikyrah
@lamh35:
Hands up, and the AUTISTIC PATIENT HAD A TRUCK.
Yeah, I can see why he needed to be shot
Phuck.outta.here.
danielx
@Face:
I’m waiting for Trump to announce that he’s going to acquire Canada in a hostile takeover. Because he can, and because they have all those resources going to waste, i.e., not being used for the benefit of Donald Trump and real Americans.
I was conversing with a co-worker yesterday about the convention and what a complete display of asshatery and hatred it is. She’s a recent college grad; she told me her parents are Russian immigrants and do not care for Trump even the slightest bit because he’s all too reminiscent of Vladimir Vladimirovich.
p.a.
@Mnemosyne: on my corporate bio website under skills I posted “generally knows proper use of semicolon”. Under bio: “heir to Jolly Rancher fortune”. Got no response. When I changed my pic to Homer Simpson, however, I heard from HQ: “you can’t do that.” I deleted it, but replied to them that it was, unfortunately, a rather accurate portrayal.
Stan
@gogol’s wife: Well played!
NonyNony
@Jeffro:
The problem with that is that for the Dems “Did you vote to support the Iraq War” is a bottom-up requirement from Dem voters being imposed on Dem politicians.
I strongly suspect that “did you support Trump” will also be a bottom-up requirement from Republican voters being imposed on Republican politicians. But it’s going to be the ones who can’t say “yes” who are going to feel the pain in the 2020 primary I suspect. (And in 2018 for a few marginal cases – but only at the margins. Without a presidential campaign I doubt that the hardcore Trump supporters will bother much except in a few cases.)
Mnemosyne
@lamh35:
Your link was messed up, so here’s a fixed version.
At least the poor guy didn’t die but, Jesus, what a fuck up.
hovercraft
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
@lamh35:
The Lannisters send their regards.
MattF
Via TPM, Cruz continues to be Cruz.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
“Could have made,” maybe. But with Bush-and-Trump’s man-crush object (i.e., Vladimir Vladimirovich) having designs on expanding the Soyuz Rossya, it seems like that argument ought to be put on hold until Putin dies or leaves power.
Stan
@Lee:
No. It is a very well established political convention that “vote your conscience” means “ignore the usual calculations and do what you want”, i.e., its the opposite of an endorsement. It’s not a neutral statement at all.
Which, by the way, is another way of saying that most of the time political operatives are not free to vote their consciences.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
@danielx:
As I read the transcripts of the programs on Radio Rwanda (aka RNC in CLE), I’m struck by how craven this whole hate bukakke is.
Mike in NC
After disbanding NATO, Drumpf and Putin will sign a historic non-aggression pact, which will work out as well as all previous such pacts.
hovercraft
Mnemosyne
@lamh35:
At least Cruz has something vaguely resembling a principle, unlike John McCain.
scav
Unifying the team by identifying a foe seems to be SOP and they’ll leap on the next available one to keep the excitement high. At this point, they’re adicted: they need the fix. Muslims, Women, Gays (especially in the military), Mexicans, Democrats, the poor, the sick (moochers all), fellow Republicans. This Very Hatefilled Hungry Caterpillar will consume all, but I somehow doubt it will prove a butterfly.
satby
@O. Felix Culpa: LOL, it’s a plot!!
NorthLeft12
@Gin & Tonic: I just realized that people might be confused. I was talking about Putin, not the yet unproven dicktator Trump.
Leto
From the Guardian: Donald Trump, Peter Thiel and the death of democracy
I have a friend who’s a Libertarian and wonders why I always refer to him as a Repub. I’ll continue to use examples like this.
MattF
@Mike in NC: And after Putin re-Russifies those inconsequential little countries on the Baltic…
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Dadadadadadada: Not seeing it now. Wonder if it was a glitch on Twitter’s part, sending the wrong account on the API call.
I gotta admit, that’s a fascinating news aggregator. Choice selections:
The Fortean Times’ editor on what makes a successful niche magazine
The Cactus and the Beast: Investigating the role of peyote (mescaline) in the Magick of Aleister Crowley [M.A. Thesis]
amk
LOL. Wish the msm ‘reporters’ were all like you.
Rand Careaga
@Pogonip: Well, since you asked, The Diebold Variations from years ago. I’m actually agnostic on the subject of voting machine chicanery, but was amused at the notion of marketing it as a feature rather than a bug.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@VOR: It appeals to virtually all Republicans and quite a few non-Republicans. Even my father, who is so appalled by Trump that he WILL be voting for Hillary in November, thinks she should be in jail over the email server issue.
He’s ex-military (Vietnam) and I’ve tried to explain to him how things work in the modern military with IT issues and security – it’s what I do for a living – but he doesn’t accept it. In his world, classified was classified and you kept your fucking mouth shut and the documents in the safe or you’d go to jail. Which is a legit viewpoint. One could argue that both the Russian and Chinese stealth fighter jets would be still at windtunnel testing stages if not for what they stole from poorly secured US contractors networks, for example, and rightly so. But this is the world we have and the systems we have and classified doesn’t mean what it used to, even though none of the laws have changed. Gonna take a long time for the majority of the public to catch up to that kind of thinking.
MomSense
@Cermet:
That happened when GW was still the decider.
Jeffro
@NonyNony:
We’ll see. I have a funny feeling that after seeing their chieftain get his mojo smacked into the ground this November, a notable number of Trump supporters will melt away, while another notable chunk will be attracted to Cruz’s “Donald was crude, unintelligent, and offensive…but his indictment of a ‘rigged system’ was on target” message for 2020.
Cruz will also hide his true agenda behind a facade of ‘inclusion’ and ‘freedom’ gibberish…in fact, that may well be his campaign slogan in 2020. He was up there last night talking about a need for ‘love not anger’ with a straight face, fer Pete’s sake…
Gin & Tonic
@NorthLeft12: I was not confused.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
How does one access the rest of that story? Only the first tweet shows up.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Putin is doing it in direct response to the NATO expansion on Russia’s borders.
Jeffro
@Stan:
Exactly right.
If it helps folks to ‘get it’ about what happened last night, just change the players to Democrats…
Dadadadadadada
@Leto: Thiel’s gay, isn’t he? Doesn’t he have a slight inkling of what might become of him in Trump’s America? Or does he think he’s rich enough to skate away? Or that Trump will be controllable after he’s purged the civil service, bypassed the judiciary, chucked our alliances and disposed of all other checks and balances to his power?
FlipYrWhig
@hovercraft:
“Builder”? Fuck that. Real estate developer and “builder” aren’t the same at all. There’s been a massive retcon underway, abetted by scum like Donald Junior, wherein simple hardscrabble contractor Donald Trump raised himself up by his own drywall-hanging bootstraps. And it seems plausible somehow because Trump is so garish and classless that he seems to have been something other than to the manor born. But he was, pretty much literally.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mnemosyne: I used to edit a journal that mostly published articles by English professors. You want to see fights over commas, apostrophes, and pretty much every other part of copy editing, dare to edit an English prof.
amk
I read peter king of ny took ted bundy to task for not endorsing the deadbeat. So, after all the tough talk, this coward too surrendered?
Iowa Old Lady
@MattF: That slow leak is what I saw with Sanders supporters around here.
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
The compound noun Dolchstoß literally means “a stab (Stoß) with a dagger (Dolch)”. It doesn’t actually specify whether the victim is being stabbed in the front or the back.
FlipYrWhig
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
But no one took the documents out of the safe this time either. At worst they mentioned that there were documents.
laura
@schrodinger’s cat: strunk & White’s Elements of Style is still a classic slim volume easy to read and apply.
Emma
@Dadadadadadada: He’s rich. Like the Log Cabin republicans, he knows he can up stakes and live anywhere else in the world. His less fortunate brethren? Who cares. He’s got his.
Dadadadadadada
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Leaking stealth-fighter tech to Russia and China was the patriotic thing to do. With any luck, all of our enemies will soon be wasting 70% of their defense budgets on that utterly useless dead end, just like we are.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@FlipYrWhig: I know that. But they don’t. And we won’t win this discussion with these folks by quibbling over details, because they’re not looking for facts, they’re looking for reinforcement of an already deeply-held belief. So ignore it, let them yell about jailing her and wait for everyone to get tired of it, and move on.
NonyNony
@Jeffro:
a) No way in Hades does Cruz go that route. He doesn’t believe it and he can’t fake it. Plus it would alienate so many of his core supporters – remember that he’s the Real True Christian of the bunch.
b) He has to win his Senate seat again in 2018 if he really wants a legit shot at the Oval Office in 2020. I’m putting a marker down right now that he’s going to get primaried hard. He’s made few friends in the Texas GOP establishment, and that won’t help him.
And let’s keep in mind that by 2018 – assuming that Trump loses – we will be into our second year of SHE DEMON FROM HELL HILLARY CLINTON as President. Do you really think that the hard core Republicans will be thinking “well, I don’t care for Clinton, but at least she’s not Trump” by that point? Nope. The bad elements of Trump will have faded into the background in the face of the fact that “that woman” is president. And Cruz just set himself up to be the recipient of the stab-in-the-back “Ted Cruz elected Hillary Clinton by refusing to be a good Republican” attack.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I suspect that even Republicans who refused to vote for Trump this year will be angry enough about a Clinton presidency – and that their memories of how godawful Trump would have been will have faded enough – that anyone who visibly didn’t get behind Trump is opening themselves up to a primary challenger who will be able to exploit that. And I think Cruz just set himself up to be the king of targets. We’ll see how it plays out.
Emma
@CONGRATULATIONS!: How does he reconcile that with the fact that an ex-military secretary of state did the exact same thing? Or does Powell skate because he’s an ex-soldier?
hovercraft
@FlipYrWhig:
Not to Tweety, to him he is a builder which means he can re-build our infrastructure, but he mustn’t use the infrastructure word, he must emphasize the fact that he’s built things and created jobs, and ask Hillary what she has ever done. The fact that he has been in a building with drumps name on it makes him a builder. He’s a billionaire with a fabulous beautiful family who talks like a regular guy and many ‘working class’ voters are going to be impressed by him. Everything he’s ever done has been successful, so he can turn America around.
Dadadadadadada
@Emma: I guess that’s what he’s thinking, but I think he’s wrong. I mean, does it matter where you up stakes TO if Trump decides to send the SEALs after you? Or start a nuclear war?
rikyrah
From Redstate about last night:
Leto
@Emma: This.
rikyrah
@NonyNony:
Remember, Cruz only won a primary that was held in JULY.
in 2018, it will be a regular Primary election in Texas……
So, yeah, he’s gonna get primaried.
Leto
@Emma: Powell skates because his last name isn’t Clinton, and the symbol after his name is all that matters. (-R) The fact that he basically deleted his entire server also doesn’t matter.
@Dadadadadadada: No, but I’m sure he thinks he can control him, or that his handlers won’t let that happen. I’m sure Dr. Frankenstein never intended to have his creation run amok, but hey, it is what it is.
burnspbesq
@Cermet:
Wrong in every way possible.
hovercraft
If there was a trap set for Cruz someone forgot to tell the kids. They were not amused.
hovercraft
Help please, I’m stuck in moderation. Thanks
Amir Khalid
@laura:
@schrodinger’s cat:
But take what it says with a grain of salt. In fact that’s how you should treat all the popular prescriptivist grammar/usage guides. It helps to read a few of them to help you form a sense of how English works. But none of them is the whole truth on such matters. If a rule laid down in any one of them doesn’t make sense to you, feel free to disregard it.
trollhattan
@FlipYrWhig:
“Steel girders or noodles? Why should I care? I got structural guys for that. Where are the gold toilets going?”
–Trump, da developer.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Emma: Never brought it up. Not going to, either, as he’s going to vote the right way and I have nothing to gain and everything to lose by rubbing his nose in the facts. People tend to respond extremely poorly to that kind of treatment. I know I do.
hovercraft
If there was a trap set for Cruz someone forgot to tell the kids. They were not amused.
Ivanka Trump is widely known as The Donald’s composed, picture-perfect daughter – but Wednesday night the world saw a different side as she contorted her face and jabbed her finger accusingly following Ted Cruz’s controversial speech.
the mother-of-three looked furious as the Texas senator refused to endorse her father during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio.
And she wasn’t the only one. The fiercely loyal Trump clan – made up of Ivanka’s sister-in-law Lara, her half-sister Tiffany, brother Donald Jr. and his wife Vanessa – all flanked the businesswoman and shared looks of sheer disdain.
trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
At that point Trump will have become the Neville Chamberlain the Republicans are always hauling out to compare every Democrat living and dead, against.
D58826
@Leto: But isn’t Thiel part of the ‘other’? He is gay. Or like all autocrats he makes an exception for because he is a special snowflake.
hovercraft
Nigel Farage, stil a dick
Emma
@Dadadadadadada: Of course he’s wrong. But, let’s face it, we allow the wealthy to get away with all sorts of crap, including buying legislation, with immunity. Why should he think any different? It will take a personal catastrophe before he gets it.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: I know how English works, its the punctuation that sometimes trips me up.
Emma
@Leto: I got that. I was just curious whether Congratulations has brought it up in conversation.
(edited due to brain fart)
schrodinger's cat
Thanks for the suggestions. I am not too fond of Strunk and White.
Emma
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Agreed. Though I wish sometimes we could honestly have such conversations. Oh well. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
amk
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Good point. As long as he is going to voter for her, no need to score points.
Immanentize
@p.a.: More commas!! I’m an Oxford man!
(Well,I am wearing an Oxford shirt?)
Gelfling 545
@raven: I’m pretty sure that when they previewed Cruz’s prepared speech they didn’t think “vote your conscience” would be a problem as they don’t know anyone who actually has such a thing.
bryan
@Cermet: I haven’t followed the issue much since then, but during the fall term of 2007 (still during the Bush admin) I was taking Prof. Ted Postol’s class on nuclear warfare and missile defense, and this policy was already being implemented then. Much of the class was spent on Professor Postol’s critique of the policy, and of the whole concept of ballistic missile defense in general.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Emma: I’m curious as to why. We know, from decades of experiments, that all those “conversations” do is get people – both of the liberal and conservative persuasion – to dig into their already-existing belief systems and ‘talking points’ harder. So why have them when at best they are counterproductive?
catclub
@NonyNony:
This certainly worked for Trump vis a vis Romney this year.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: For example, Loki was facing Thor when he stabbed him.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Change a couple of names and affiliations and this sounds like very common political behavior from both sides.
Leto
@Emma: There are times when I’ll bring it up and the usual response is, “Oh yeah, that’s bad and it shouldn’t have happened, but we have to do something about it now.” Why is this case different? What makes it special? Oh…
Mnemosyne
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
What actually works is asking the other person to explain what they think the situation is rather than confronting them. Studies have shown that people can talk themselves out of what they thought were strongly held positions and are then more open to actual facts.
Amir Khalid
@Emma:
All the major dictionary publishers put out their own punctuation guide books. You could start there. My own favourite punctuation-specific work is G.V. Carey’s Mind The Stop. But that might be a bit too British English for your tastes. The fine points of punctuation, grammar, and usage are ultimately very personal to the writer. Your prose should feel like your own.
Emma
@Leto: Yeah. And the hypocrisy isn’t even noticed. I’ve decided that my answer will be: if you agree to trying everyone who did it, be my guest. If not, I will fight you on it even if it’s with real weapons.
Emma
@Amir Khalid: Uh?
Leto
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I’ll answer for myself and say, it’s because I still hold out hope that people can be reasoned with and will “see the light”, as they say. I look at our blog host and think, it can be done. We’re supposed to be the party of logical thinkers, so there has to be a way to connect with them.
But there’s also the part of me that just loves to troll, so I’ll occasionally do that too.
Humdog
@CONGRATULATIONS!: of course you have to do what is best for your relationship with your father, but this really sounds like a cop out. If your dad is being hypocritical, pointing it out gently may make him think about his hypocrisy and be embarrassed enough by it to change. Pointing it out harshly and with disdain will not, but I would like to think we all help those we love be their best selves. How else does someone learn? Pointing out that a respected military officer took similar steps to Hillary’s actions isn’t an insult to anyone.
Aleta
I wonder how the kid reporters covering the convention for National Scholastic are handling it all. I hope their moms or dads packed earplugs for them.
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet: In informal Internet writing I’m starting to see avoidance of comma splices as slightly stilted and unnatural.
J R in WV
@schrodinger’s cat:
Strunk and White “Elements of Style” was what my good English teacher used way back in… 1967. English changes over time, but I don’t imagine Elements of Style is out of date yet. A small book, packed with all the rules. American English, of course.
And some people do argue about some of what they recommend, but that’s academia. Unless you’re writing an English dissertation I doubt anyone still counts commas, though. There is an on-going battle over the “Oxford comma” which I don’t understand well enough to describe.
I grew up in a house full of writers, and so I depend to a large extent on feel for my correctness. I don’t know my pluperfects or subjunctives or gerunds that well. But my feel is successful enough that I think I do OK for writing. My grants got approved almost every time, so there’s that.
Aimai
@hovercraft: read that as PATSY white supporters which wofks well too.
schrodinger's cat
@J R in WV: My grammar and punctuation has been adequate to get me through most professional and academic situations. I am working on book right now and I just thought a brushing up of the rules learned a long time ago would be good.
Randy P
@CONGRATULATIONS!: As you probably know, what happened with a couple of emails (information on unclassified servers that somebody after the fact decides is classified) is called “data spillage”. It has a name and associated policies and procedures. Those policies probably include a mandatory scolding from your boss and somebody in Security. Nobody calls it a crime, let alone treason.
Also, Petraeus. Who committed actual criminal leakage of classified info. How does your dad feel about him?
Or the outing of Valerie Plame?
schrodinger's cat
@schrodinger’s cat: * a book. Stupid WP, it won’t let me edit my comment.
Feathers
@schrodinger’s cat: The book I like is The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed. The problem for me is that most grammar and punctuation guides assume you are writing a very spare newspaper style prose, which I generally don’t. This book uses humorously florid examples, closer to my own tastes. Here’s what it says about commas:
I had a job where copyediting was one of the potential paths for advancement, so I did do some studying in the area before realizing that I don’t have the “eyes” for it. The most useful point I learned is that there is a reason every magazine, newspaper, and publisher has their own style guide: the point of punctuation is to recreate the author’s “voice” on the page, and people have differing patterns of speech. Getting good enough to let go of the rules is a great deal of work.
Best wishes on your book! Do you have an idea of where it will be published or who you will be submitting it to? If so, you might want to find out what their favorite style guide is. At the pro level you are dealing with style guides, not grammar rule books. And for these purposes, Strunk & White is too old and incomplete to be relied on.
J R in WV
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well , as Amir said above, the language is flexible. If you’re consistent, you’re good. Having read your writing short form, I’m sure your long form is OK too.
Especially with commas, which everyone has a different feel for. If you fear that you have a comma splice, which is about the only universally recognized rule, try it with a period or semicolon. Either is OK for repairing a comma splice, I usually try the semicolon, and if that works for me I change it to two sentences with a period followed by a capital letter. But a semicolon is OK to fix a comma splice AFAIK.
schrodinger's cat
@Feathers:
I thought so, that’s why I asked BC the question, since I admire her prose. My book is in early stages. Its a part memoir, part oral history of my family intertwined with the history of the city about which Kipling
wrote:
Mother of Cities to me,
For I was born in her gate,
Between the palms and the sea,
Where the world-end steamers wait
schrodinger's cat
@J R in WV:
That’s what I do too. But I find that I am double guessing myself at times. So a quick review would be good, I think. I have more than enough suggestions to start with in this thread itself.
Dadadadadadada
@hovercraft: So Farage, a foreign (to us) politician, attends a political convention in a country not his own, in order to tell a bunch of (to him) foreigners how to vote. In that speech, he leads with “foreign politicians shouldn’t tell people how to vote.”
The hypocrisy, the stupid, it burns. Burns, I tell you.
Feathers
@schrodinger’s cat: Then Well Tempered Sentence would probably work well for you. There is also The Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed. I found it much more helpful when writing fiction and creative non-fiction than the academic/newspaper/magazine guides.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I can’t tell if you’re being serious, or just channeling BiP, or what.
SFAW
@Feathers:
Transvestite Vampires? What will they think of next?
ETA: And of course, the vampire’s name would be “Dragula.”
No, that’s not an original from me. NatLamp, 1970s vintage.
schrodinger's cat
@Feathers: Thanks, I will look them up.
Bill Arnold
@p.a.:
The classic missing Oxford comma making the rounds is “This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God”.
There is decent pro/con collection at The Best Shots Fired in the Oxford Comma Wars (2013)
(My personal favorite is the last one)
Bill Arnold
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
This we do know – Russian intruders were within the official state department unclassified email system from 2007 (maybe earlier) to 2014. . (Or at least it has been so reported.)
I only know that because I read the whole article; most people probably missed it.