Fuck you very much, RNC PR BS:
Today @gop commemerates the 51st anniversary of the #VotingRights Act https://t.co/ydk2vDIC8o
Every American has #Right2Vote #VRA— Reince Priebus (@Reince) August 6, 2016
@Reince @GOP Aw, Reince. You don't mean EVERY American. At least until the courts force you to.
— HarleyPeyton (@HarleyPeyton) August 6, 2016
Wow. Just … wow. (Reince, you do know GOP is blocking the restoration of the VRA, right?) https://t.co/zHpM8K3vmQ
— Barbara Morrill (@BarbinMD) August 6, 2016
Trying to make a list of all the things I’ve celebrated by actively trying to destroy them and coming up empty. https://t.co/B8A1d2zg2X
— James Hupp (@jameshupp) August 6, 2016
And you can share some with your ol’ friend Mitch McTurtle…
McConnell: "one of my proudest moments" was when I told Obama "you will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy" pic.twitter.com/t8uzEnJN9i
— Greg Giroux (@greggiroux) August 6, 2016
So one of McConnell's proudest moments is predicated on trusting Donald Trump to do something presidential. https://t.co/rgisDyREaL
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) August 6, 2016
Adam L Silverman
I put this in the previous thread, but it fits here too:
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: I disagree. It doesn’t matter if Hillary gets 60 percent of the vote, she will still be viewed as an illegitimate president. They will just blame their weak candidate. Gore received more votes than Bush, and Bush wasn’t viewed as illegitimate. He was viewed as the President.
chopper
jesus, the mendacity of these people.
Mary G
They have no shame. I don’t think I’ve seen such a reality-denying group in my lifetime.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: This analysis and these rules do not apply to the President if he or she is a Republican.
Stacy
We should expect nothing less from the leader of the neo-confederate party in the Senate. It is kind of amazing that Civil Rights Act of ’64 was ever passed. Really don’t think it could be today.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: It won’t matter if she gets 80% of the popular vote. Unless and until Grassley and ilk get put out, as it were, to grass.
Particularly if it’s for infrastructure. Because the military is the only public works program left that’s considered legitimate.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: The Corps of Engineers is shovel ready!
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: She’ll be treated as illegitimate if she gets 75% of the vote.
chopper
@Adam L Silverman:
this is kinda dumb. Clinton could win with 60% of the vote and they’ll still act like her presidency is illegitimate. all Democratic governance is inherently illegitimate and is to be treated like an illegal military occupation according to these guys. there’s nothing magical about 50% that’ll make that change.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: Rachel Maddow had an interesting segment with Rosa Brooks on the expansion of the Pentagon and the funding increases they try to get Congress to cut back, it’s on the show’s blog but for some reason I can’t get it to play.
Maddow did introduce it with a bizarre assertion that “not much has changed” in military policy from Bush to Obama, because DRONZE, I guess
PsiFighter37
Fuck Mitch McConnell. I don’t really understand what happened to him – everything I have read about his career biography suggests he was actually a pretty moderate Republican when he got started in politics. I honestly think a lot of the crap he says (like this, or trying to make Obama a 1-term president) comes from succumbing to the siren call of power and not what he actually believes. And since he thinks the path to power lies in being an obstructionist quasi-racist asshole, that’s why he behaves the way he does now.
Perhaps that is naive of me. But I hope he enjoys it when it’s Justice Liu sitting on the bench for 3-4 decades instead of Justice Garland for 2 decades.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
The last time I checked, 5 > 4./wingnut
Matt McIrvin
No Democrat is ever going to break 50% of white men, and that’s the demographic that matters for these people.
Dadadadadadada
@Adam L Silverman: So of course they applied that same standard (EVs are meaningless if you lack a majority of votes) to GWB, who LOST the popular vote, right? Right? Right?!?!?!?
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The White Wing Left (and I include Rachel Maddow in this number) is terribly, terribly disappointed with President Obama because DRONZE and Libya! and Syria! and what a centrist warhawk he is! And let’s not get onto SOS Clinton, because everyone knows these were really HER wars, and she can’t wait to start more! And maybe Donald Trump has a point, you know, about NATO, and well, it was simplistic to say that Brexit was more about race than it was about the real economic hurt of the working-class.
And that’s the point where I start wanting to yell at things and people.
ETA: What programs did she say the Pentagon wanted to scale back? If they’re wanting to give money back…
Gelfling 545
@Stacy: Well, no, it couldn’t since they can’t seem to vote to pass an act to order lunch, much less do anything substantive.
Schlemazel
and yet, – AND YET – people in the last thread were wondering why I wished President Barack Obama would kick these nasty fuckers int the balls.
When confronted by a rabid dog there is not honor int trying to pat them on the head any say ‘nice doggy, good doggy’
Sebastian
Maybe I don’t understand it but doesn’t Congress always expect the Executive to respect and honor Article 1 (please correct me)? In other words, the Executive is supposed to accept the legitimacy of the Legaslative? What happens if the Executive says “Fuck you, this goes both ways. You don’t see me legitimate, we deny you legitimacy as well.”
Hunter Gathers
@Adam L Silverman: Clinton could get 60% of the vote and she will still be treated as illegitimate because of Teh Voter Fraud. Trump and his lackeys are already pushing it, and as long as Trump doesn’t call for bloodshed during his rambling ‘concession’ speech on Election Night, the press will run wild with it. No Democrat can be legitimately elected as POTUS as long as the conservative movement exists. Obama is illegitimate by deign of his skin color, Clinton cannot possibly be legitimate since everyone supposedly hates her (and is a woman to boot) and her ascension will be driven by minority voters, who aren’t Real Americans because of their skin color. Only Republicans are worthy enough to be our rulers.
The press will always be sympathetic to the arguments presented by the conservative movement for two reasons:
1 – Sweet, sweet tax cuts. The vast majority of pundits and talking heads are rich, and the rich always need more fucking money. Hookers and blow cost money, and tax cuts help pay for fine Peruvian blow snorted off the ass of $2000 an hour escorts.
2 – Although they will never admit it outside of their wine cellars, black and Hispanic people scare the shit out of them. They don’t understand them, don’t want to understand them, and view them with suspicion since they aren’t ‘savvy’ enough to vote Republican. Their music and language frustrate them and their absolute refusal to shut up and take their beatings in silence make them uncomfortable. Pick at a pundit long enough, and you’ll find a white sheet over their heads.
Emma
I am about as agnostic as anyone can get, but every time I encounter these hypocrites I think of Aquinas’ definition of mortal sin as an act being contrary to the love of God (perjury, blasphemy) or the love of one’s neighbor (murder, adultery, theft) and wonder how these self-professed Christians have come to terms with their actions.
JMG
My advice to Clinton is that if she’s elected but the House and/or Senate obstruct her, fuck ’em. If they won’t pass a budget, enact her own by fiat. If the Senate won’t confirm her nominees, put them in place anyway. They’ll call her a dictator anyway. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. PS: Zika would be the perfect place to start. “Oh, you’re impeaching me for fighting a plague? Let’s see how that plays out for you.”
Miss Bianca
@Sebastian: That could start things going down a scary road.
debbie
@PsiFighter37:
I’m an old and my memory’s not shot yet. McConnell was never a moderate and was never even remotely reasonable.
Dadadadadadada
@Emma: Here’s how: Aquinas was Catholic, and therefore of dubious validity to today’s “Christian” theocrats, who embrace a quite different flavor of “Christianity,” one that places much greater value on being a rich white male than on any particular detail of behavior.
chopper
@Sebastian:
if drumpf wins we’ll get to find out.
JMG
@Miss Bianca: Only one side in such a dispute is Commander in Chief, as both President A. Jackson and A. Lincoln noted in their tenures.
Hal
Ugh. I use to have a shirt just like The Turtle many years ago. Don’t ask me why I ever thought yellow was a good color.
Roger Moore
@Miss Bianca:
No, that would continue things down a scary road. The start is when the legislative branch started treating the executive as illegitimate. I realize that “they started it” is not moral justification for doing something awful, but we shouldn’t pretend that the Republicans haven’t already gone pretty far already.
debbie
@chopper:
I think the GOP’s still stupid enough to think they can control a President Trump.
Emma
@Dadadadadadada: I grasp that at some level. I just can’t see how they get from Christ to what they have become. I suppose I could figure it out historically and intellectually — emotionally it’s much more difficult.
Bloix
@Sebastian: @Sebastian: gw bush denied the legitimacy of the legislature all the time. Look up “signing statements.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Hal:
Yellow is my favorite color (favourite colour for the Canadians). It’s not easy to wear (and looks simply ghastly on Turtle), but I find it cheerful and optimistic, and refuse to let him wreck it for me.
ruemara
I’m so sick of these people.
Edited to add, I’m including Maddow & all the Green Party diehards in that.
germy
Ugh. Casual Mitch in his yellow shirt is even more hideous than suit-and-tie Mitch.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@germy: I think it’s because the suit reads as more of a container. Like, it would be easier to handle the Michster (perish the thought) without getting him on your hands or clothing. Mitch in just a shirt looks . . . squishy.
ruemara
Cole. I’m at another pedicure place. Not only is half the staff male – ladies, my attendant is rather beefcakey – but we’re also about even in ratio of old white guys to females.
Miss Bianca
@JMG: @Roger Moore: Yes, both these points are true. And, truth to tell, we’re at such a point that we might end up going down that road. Tho’ I don’t think PBO would do it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: they weren’t specific, but as I recall they were talking about weapons systems, the clip is on the Benen blog but I can’t get it to play.
What I was most interested in was Brooks saying that the Pentagon does all sorts of stuff, like a micro loan program in Afghanistan (IIRC), that you know the R’s would be itching to cut if it were run in this country.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman: @JPL:
I second JPL’s point, Obama easily cleared 50 % twice and the GOP had no problem saying that their midterm victories with fewer votes were more consequential than his victories. Republicans get mandates from their votes, democrats steal elections through voter fraud and must be checked by the true representatives of the will of the people, republicans.
All democratic votes come from people who are not ‘real Americans.’
Republicans represent the heartland so they should always be in charge win or lose.
lamh36
Wait..I knew Phelps has most medals, but I didn’t realize it was 22 medals (18 golds)! Well dang…didn’t realize it was that many.
JMG
@Miss Bianca: No, he never would. He’s a better man than I on many levels. But once the micro headed babies start being born in Florida, his successor might feel differently.
SiubhanDuinne
@ruemara:
YOU NOT SHOW PICTURES WHY????
Jeffro
Btw I am seeing pictures on Twitter of vegan Sarah Palin (Jill Stein) having dinner with Putin and retired general Flynn over in Russia… I normally dismiss conspiracy theories but this stinks
Brachiator
@JMG:
Your budget remedy won’t work. The nominee thing might be an interesting play. But no matter what, I’m sure the GOP goofballs have a post election impeachment option at the ready.
germy
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: Yes, that’s it. The suits sort of contain him. The shirt is too… like a turtle without a shell.
burnspbesq
@Sebastian:
The Republicans do a good enough job of pissing on the Constitution without Democrats joining in, TYVM.
Emma
@ruemara: Last month I had a retired football player as a chair mate. We had a great time discussing treatments.
lamh36
I ain’t even gonna lie, the last time I really cared about an Olympic Basketball “Dream Team” was 1992
Dream Team
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Since the time of the shitty grade Z movie star, no Democrat can be the legitimate President of the United States. No matter how much he won by, no matter how many electoral college votes he got.
Democrats are usurpers. Any election they win is obviously the result of voter fraud, or the votes of those who should not be allowed to vote…the blah, the female, the mezzikan, the muslin, the liberal.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne: You need more beefcake after being treated to casual Mitch above? You’re insatiable.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
Everybody knows that 50% of the Democratic Party electorate are illegal aliens with Kenyan birth certificates. That includes Melania Trump.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Emma: There are enough contradictions and impossibilities in the King James Bible (and what comes after) that everyone has to pick and choose what to believe. If one wants to believe in “Prosperity Gospel” or “Slavery is OK with God” or “The Earth was created before the Sun” or “Massacring civilians is OK if they have the wrong religion” whatever, one can find a way to justify it.
IOW, “Christian” is a convenient tribal label – not a descriptive or a proscriptive.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Villago Delenda Est
@Emma: They are not Christians. They are Mammonists.
Iowa Old Lady
Book recommendation: DRIFTLESS by David Rhodes. It’s about a small farm community in SW Wisconsin where the glacial drift never scraped the hills away. Rhodes brings all these characters to life and looks at the nature of community, plus a lot of other big questions about life that they’re wrestling with.
Frankensteinbeck
No, it’s predicated on him giving the finger to the black man who had the audacity to outrank him. McConnell is acting like a Kentucky aristocrat. They don’t yell the n-word, they just do their damnedest to drive the one black family out of the neighborhood.
@Hunter Gathers:
Yep. You don’t have to listen to pundits for long to realize that they think Muslims are all terrorists, unarmed blacks killed by the police were probably criminals who had it coming, and having Hispanics vote for you is ‘pandering.’ Combine that with their being rich enough to join the IGMFY crowd, and they’re Republicans who don’t need to be ordered to attack Democrats.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
I don’t think the Republicans clearly distinguish those two categories.
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemazel: Well, as Will Rogers put it, “Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘nice doggy’ until you can find a rock.”
lamh36
Schlemazel
@lamh36:
The power of pot!
Emma
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Not really, no. Most of those are in the Old Testament. Christians are (supposed to be) the people of the New Testament and Jeshua’s rules are very different. A friend of mine calls the Prosperity Gospel types Old Testament Christians because, he says, they’ve forgotten the New one.
Schlemazel
@Villago Delenda Est:
I would have hoped in 8 years he could have found a rock
Emma
@Villago Delenda Est: I suppose so, yes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good lord. That is some unsettling shit
germy
@lamh36: I saw this comment on a medical blog. The blog subject was “Does race exist?” Here is a reader comment:
I thought it was odd that no one replied to this commenter.
hovercraft
Much as I detest Tweety’s frequent chrushes on republicans, I have to give him credit for his ongoing excoriations of Rinse Pubis and the republican party for their systematic restriction of voting rights. I don’t think it’s all Rinse’s doing, (Ryan and Boehner deserve more credit) but this is a topic he keeps going back to it and harassing republican guests about it. He repeatedly plays the clips of republicans admitting that voter ID is just for the purpose of limiting democratic voters, and then he badgers them as only he can. But because of his liking for so called good guys like Ryan he gives him a pass, last time I checked congress passes legislation, not the RNC.
SiubhanDuinne
@Emma:
I remember once, years ago, saying something (disapprovingly) to a priest friend on the order of “these people are all going for Old Testament remedies,” and his instant response was “We live in Old Testament times.”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Emma: Ah, but you’re proving my point. :-)
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who thinks that Paul messed up a lot of what was good about Jesus’s teachings.)
lamh36
I feel bad how little interest I have in Men’s Gymnastics…
well, not THAT bad
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
I know, wouldn’t you even think Mitch would satisfy??? But nooooo… Reach my age, insatiable doesn’t even qualify.
gene108
@PsiFighter37:
He believes Senate Majority Leader is the best job on the planet. All other beliefs are in service to this One True Beleif.
Edit: I doubt he has had any other beliefs.
N M
So if I click the Trumpyte ads on the site, the site gets paid by DJT? just want to be sure. Any idea how much the site gets paid and how much it costs Trump’s campaign?
schrodinger's cat
Since we are on the topic of religion, look what I found:
The Creation Verse from Rigveda, the oldest Veda.
It was used as the title track of the Indian TV show, Bharat Ek Khoj, based on Nehru’s book, Discovery of India, showcasing all of India’s recorded history from Mohenjo-Daro to independence.
Detailed English translation here.
I like the note of agnosticism at the end, who created the universe, does anyone know?
Adam L Silverman
@Dadadadadadada: I have now replied several times that this analysis does not apply to Republicans. I have nothing more to say on this.
JMG
@efgoldman: Our system depends on norms, not rules. In black letter Constitutional law, a President with 34 Senators willing to back his/her play can do whatever they damn well please and there’s no getting rid of them except through the next election or term limited out. As we have seen, all but maybe two Republican Senators will go along with President Trump no matter how he violates the Constitution, as long as he signs those tax cuts for the rich.
My point is, the GOP has forfeited its right to be regarded as anything but an enemy of our Constitutional democracy and should be treated as such. The Disloyal Opposition
Brachiator
@germy:
One of the side links at the medical blog site is about how much Mike Spence doesn’t know about evolution. The GOP never changes.
elm
@Jeffro: They’re up on her official website as well (more) so probably legit.
Emma
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: The Commandments don’t say anything about “kill anyone” or “enslave anyone.” Ten simple sentences that make a society much more livable, IMHO. And I don’t want to get into the theological weeds (2 college courses taught me I had no patience for it) but “fulfill” had a different meaning out of Jeshua’s mouth.
Paul had Issues.
gene108
@lamh36:
The 1992 squad is the only Basketball Dream Team. Christian Laetner* is the only member not in the HoF as an individual inductee.
* They let him in because they thought they still needed some amateur representation to keep with the spirit of the Olympics.
burnspbesq
The last sane, sensible Republican died on January 3, 2015.
One wonders what Edward Brooke would think about Trump.
Emma
@schrodinger’s cat: I love this site.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Emma: It’s fine to not want to get into the weeds – I agree this isn’t the place for it.
My closing point is: (almost) none of the teaching of Christianity is cut-and-dried and universally agreed. People have been puzzling and arguing about it for 1500+ years. You and I may agree that some behavior isn’t “Christian” and be able to support it, but others will be able to argue otherwise by pointing to passages in the same text.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@burnspbesq: I’d say Olympia Snowe and a few others are sane. Gutless cowards, but sane.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@SiubhanDuinne: So the crucifixion was a waste of time?
Shawn in Showme
@gene108:
The 1960 team, relative to its competition, was the first Dream Team. They outscored the competition in Rome by 42 points a game.
germy
@Brachiator:
Imagine having a man a heartbeat away from the presidency who says “Well you know, it’s just a theory…”
SiubhanDuinne
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
Total bust.
Emma
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I know that. But it seems to me “thou shall nt bear false witness against your neighbor” is pretty much cut and dried! Oh well. Each person to its own soul.
Jeffro
@elm: that is crazy stuff…the Trump campaign conspiring with the Green party candidate and the head of a hostile foreign power in advance of our presidential election
Haydnseek
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: He wasn’t crucified. He just had the wind knocked out of him……
gene108
@germy:
How does the person, who wrote that response seem to be able to repeat words and not understand them?
We are all from East Africa originally. We coexisted with other hominids for much of our time on this planet.
We spread out through Africa and then the world.
Africa has the greatest genetic diversity among its human population versus other continents.
Europeans, Central and East Asians and Native Americans all have common genetic ancestry.
Other than explaining how humans migrated, where they migrated and when they migrated there, you cannot derive deeper meaning.
burnspbesq
@hovercraft:
There is a small factual problem with your analysis.
Northwest Austin Was decided in June 2009. The Obama Administration had the rest of 2009 and all of 2010, with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, to address the issues with the historic pre-clearance formula that they were warned about.
And they did … what? Nothing?
The current problems with the Voting Rights Act are not solely the fault of Republicans, or Justice Roberts.
Never call the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court always has pocket aces.
The Ancient Randonneur
@burnspbesq: Jim Leach, former Congressman from Iowa is still around. He was to the left of some Blue Dogs.
schrodinger's cat
@Emma: Thanks! I will look it up. I want to learn Sanskrit so I can read this stuff in original and not have to depend on dead Victorians or live Sanghis.
germy
@gene108: Thank you. I sort of thought someone would say the same thing at the medical blog, but the comment went weirdly unchallenged.
I think balloon-juice commenters have spoiled me. I find myself expecting the same level of discourse on other blogs, and so many of them come up short.
schrodinger's cat
@germy: Much bigotry, so racist, wow.
germy
@schrodinger’s cat: And yet I suspect he’d be offended if someone called him that. The “scientific” racists are sometimes the least self-aware.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Emma: Ah, but what is a “neighbor”?
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Emma:
My dog is more Christian than these fundigelicals. I vary between agnostic and atheist, but on some days I wish/hope there is a hell for these Republican monsters. As well as the few Democratic monsters running under cover.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Ancient Randonneur: John Warner’s alive, I don’t know how active. Richard Lugar was moderately sane at least on foreign policy. I’m wondering how many endorsements HRC is gonna get from people like that.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
FVK, SRSLY????
Jesus, that makes me fucking CRAZY.
Percysowner
Marco Rubio lays down the law! Marco Rubio: No abortions for pregnant women infected with Zika virus.
I don’t think he can stop them legally, at least not if they get diagnosed early enough in the pregnancy, but there it is.
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: Answer the question, libtard.
Five?
SIX?
I’ll be you people want a whole litany of options for race on the forms, like they make us do for gender!
I hope you’re ready for “press three for Mestizo!”
/
amk
@chopper: and the gutlessness of the corrupt 4th estate to call out their mendacity.
japa21
@burnspbesq: Northwest Austin only settled the right of one district to request bailout form Section 5. The SC did not throw out pre-clearance until 2013, which is when Roberts said our country has changed.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I saw Newton Leroy is flogging the “short-circuited” thing, too. They think they’ve got something. Please proceed, Governors.
schrodinger's cat
I met a Bernie bro (actually sis) IRL. Sixty year old woman, she wants to vote for Trump and burn it all down because that’s the only way shit will change
J R in WV
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I’m with you on Paul. A guy who never met Jesus making up rules for people who believe in what Jesus taught, rules that break most all of what Jesus had to say about – well, everything. Should be struck from the holy book.
The Council of Nicaea messed up big when they picked books to include in the Gospel and books to burn.
germy
RawStory headline:
Wikileaks denies they’re looking for Trump’s tax returns — Assange claim on Maher was a ‘joke’
nutella
@amk:
Here’s a reporter that actually called out an obvious and well-known lie and she got dumped on for it. (Candace Smith is a reporter for ABC. She was referred to above for the story about the white guy who wanted to know why she’s a different color.)
Miss Bianca
@schrodinger’s cat: She sounds like my Bernie Bro ex-pal, who is 67. What is it with the olds who are still so bitter against The Establishment, Man? Was it some kind of arrested development? Their mindsets got frozen in time between 1968 and 1972? My friend was basically pulling that “if you weren’t there then you don’t KNOW how corrupt the Democratic Party became!”
It doesn’t really make much sense to me. But then, I was a very young kid at that time.
raven
@Miss Bianca: That seems right.
Thoughtful David
@Miss Bianca:
So, are you that little Jill Stein guy I talked to yesterday? You say every single word he did. Are you sure you’re not a little white guy, about 22 years old, cute little soul patch that you keep tugging at as you rant about Hillary starting the war in Syria and filling us up with GMOs? If you aren’t him, how did you get a recording of what he was saying? ;)
Emma
@schrodinger’s cat: I want to learn Welsh for the same reason. At least to read it well. I don’t think my Romance-language throat will ever wrap itself comfortably around any form of Celtic language.
Major Major Major Major
@Miss Bianca:
Yes.
Nobody really ever gets over what happens to them between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five.
schrodinger's cat
@Emma: Its the diction that’s hard. Also, too the conjugation. I can read the Sanskrit script and know some prayers and such from memory. So if took a couple of classes, I think it would be possible to learn Sanskrit.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
What good is having sane republicans if they behave the same as the insane ones.
elm
@Jeffro: I’m sure Putin will be all over ending the global arms and petroleum industries…
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: Are you saying my whole life I’m basically going to be haunted by the Reagan-Bush I years? Say it ain’t so, Joe!
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: I took Sanskrit for a summer. It’s the sandhi that really makes it tough. They spell the damn elisions and stuff.
@Miss Bianca: Just know that it’s there and don’t let it become a habit! Only the dummies keep re-fighting the same battles.
Spike
@Frankensteinbeck:
Nail. Head. Bang!
Miss Bianca
@Thoughtful David: No, I’ve just been fighting for a week with an old (old!) acquaintance, who decided to White Mansplain why depriving Hillary Clinton, World’s Greatest Neoliberal Monster after President Obama, of the Presidency was way MORE important than throwing the election to Trump. Because according to his handy-dandy theory of leftist dialectics, it might just be sadly necessary to throw this country to the fascists in order to shock the Corrupt Democratic Party back to its real roots. Or something. I wish I were making this up.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: There have been multiple Presidents already who publicly stated that evolution didn’t happen, so this scenario is hardly theoretical.
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: What did you learn ? I have no problem with Sandhi in Marathi but Sanskrit is a different ball game altogether.
Thoughtful David
@Miss Bianca:
The kid I was describing is a real person too. Soul patch and all. What really struck me was how what you wrote was pretty much verbatim for what the kid was saying. I presume they’re all memorizing the same talking points off the Green Party website Or wherever.
hovercraft
@burnspbesq:
As with all things, there is enough blame to go around. Washington is notoriously reactive, and so they didn’t act on the warning, and the democrats bear responsibility for that. But the trigger was actually pulled while the republicans were in control, and Roberts specifically said (probably cynically) that congress must rewrite the formula. The republicans saw what the pre-clearance states did within hours of the decision coming down, so I blame them for sitting back and doing nothing.
Eric U.
@efgoldman: we just did this with Bush. Some people never learn.
Miss Bianca
@Thoughtful David: They’re getting their talking points from the German Communist Party, circa 1932: “Nach Hitler, uns!”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wasn’t clear if the reference to old days was when the party became corrupt, or if it’s been corrupted since. So she wants to go back to the good old days of Boss Daley and people like Richard Russell?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Miss Bianca: Nach Trump uns.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: Pretty much everything was a pain, really. The cryptic vocab, the seven(!) classes… fun though!
This was a while ago, I don’t remember exactly what we were reading. It was language-focused though, not content-focused, so the text was less important. The professor was having a spat with Chomsky about something or other at the time, so there was a lot of ranting about theoretical linguistics involved.
Thoughtful David
@efgoldman:
This is where I’ve always been really glad that Obama was in the seat and not me. There’s a bunch of times when, if I were him, I would’ve said “fuck you” and just burned it all down. And shit WOULD have changed, alrighty. But Obama has always been the adult and done the right thing.
JPL
@Miss Bianca: I wonder what country would be left after Trump.. It certainly wouldn’t be the country I know.
hovercraft
@Miss Bianca:
That’s the Susan Sarandon theory of the case, it’s also what Nader and most Naderites believe.
Amir Khalid
@shomi:
The Libertarian candidate is Gary Johnson (no T in his surname).
raven
So Maya Dirado had a prefect SAT and graduated from Stanford and can’t say a sentence without “LIKE”!!!
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: Yep. It’s a very paleoleftist way of seeing things.
What’s the word for that? Like the lefty version of paleocon?
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: On the physics Usenet newsgroups back in the 1990s, there sometimes appeared a man named Alexander Abian, who was an elderly professor emeritus of mathematics in Iowa. This man had many odd beliefs, and chief among them was that he insisted we must blow up the Moon. (At one point he made the front page of the Weekly World News for stating this.)
When asked why it was necessary to blow up the Moon, he said that we needed to do it to “shake up the present decadent cosmic setup”. The cosmic setup as it existed involved terrible misery, poverty and war and diseases such as AIDS and herpes. Blowing up the Moon would somehow disturb it in such a way as to produce a better world.
People who want to elect Donald Trump to shake things up remind me of this man.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, I’m sure it would have ended up being corruption all the way down, if I had felt inclined to drill down there with him. Unfortunately for my sense of humor, I got tired of his BS fairly early on. This was the same guy who got up and made a speech at the state convention where he basically said all that stuff and why we had to support Obi-Bernie Sanders as our only hope. Now, of course, Bernie is big fat sell-out to the Dark Side, and my friend could have debated Hillary better than Bernie did, and so he’s going to exercise his ideological purity by organizing a write-in campaign for Ralph Nader. Or something.
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: Its not an easy language to learn.
Jeffro
@Amir Khalid: Sheesh, it’s like me and the
Kaisch/Kasich thing ;)
Lizzy L
How many races are there?”
head/desk
ONE. Oneoneoneoneoneoneoneoneoneoneoneoneoneoneone. The human race.
schrodinger's cat
@Matt McIrvin: Are you sure that was not DougJ trolling?
Brachiator
@Percysowner:
Sadly, part of the strategy is to put obstacles in a woman’s path that might delay an abortion until she gets to a point late in the pregnancy when any abortion can be prohibited outright.
These people are vile. I don’t know whether Rubio is Catholic. I wonder whether he opposes birth control as a matter of principle.
Regine Touchon
@Miss Bianca: how just , I can’t even believe how just, these words are….their audacity still amazes me. Don’t know why, It’s been this way forever.
Technocrat
@Eric U.:
The Lesson Not Learned predates GWB by quite a bit:
Yeah, no.
Sufficiently partisan ideologues don’t really have the capacity to learn, in my opinion. They’ve crossed the line from conviction to dogma.
I’d bet good money that even after Reagan AND Bush, Nader still believes in the destructive reset.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: Oh, no argument here.
raven
Silver for, like, Dirado! Totally!
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin:
So, this guy was professor emeritus of mathematics and astrology, then?
Lizzy L
I recommend, in case anyone here has not read it: Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields. Awesome, magisterial book. My favorite quote: “There is no such thing as race. There is only racism.”
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: Husband kitteh almost flunked out in when he had to take it from grade 8-10. He is still traumatized at the mere mention of Sanskrit grammar.
Schlemazel
@Matt McIrvin:
HEY! Let’s trey it! What have we got to lose?
The sad fact is the guy was incredibly smart but obviously was a bit nuts. I forget the name of the Nobel prize winner that was also nuts and did the race thing to prove it.
Citizen Alan
@efgoldman:
Can someone please explain that to the fucking Greens?
lamh36
@raven: Saw that…wow, the Hungarian swimmer totally blitzed everyone didn’t she. Man, her husband is an intense fella aint her…
Congrats to Dirado!
IDK, it’s early yet, but I don’t know if this is US Swimming’s Olympic year. But I heard the commenters say the current roster is made of of 2/3 new swimmers who don’t have any Olympic experience.
Major Major Major Major
@Matt McIrvin: We have the technology. The time is now. Science can wait no longer. Children are our future. America can, should, must, and will blow up the moon.
Amir Khalid
@shomi:
It seems to be the constant message of your commentary here that the Juicitariat, front-pagers and commenters alike, are forever obsessing on the wrong things and saying the wrong things about them. You do realise, don’t you, that this situation is not going to get recognised, nor will the right action be taken about it, until you have sent an email detailing your rightful concerns to John Cole. Don’t forget to emphasise the most important points by typing them out in all-caps.
hovercraft
@efgoldman:
He’s positioning himself to be able to compete for the evangelicals against Rafael in 2020.
Lizzy L
Very cranky today. Had a not-argument with a very Nice person who doesn’t want to vote for Trump but can’t quite bring herelf to vote for Clinton because Wall Street-corruption-e-mails-war-Kissinger-Clinton Foundation. She agrees that Benghazi is a load of BS, but everything else just makes her “uncomfortable.” We parted on amicable terms because I have hopes that she will ultimately recognize that the country needs her to vote for Hillary. She mentioned Jill Stein. I managed to smile.
There’s no scotch in the house, otherwise I would be drinking it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: A series of emails may be more effective, don’t you think? .
dmsilev
@Schlemazel: Robert Shockley. Co-inventor of the transistor in the 1940s, notorious racist crank a few decades later.
Major Major Major Major
@Citizen Alan: I nominate you.
@schrodinger’s cat: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, I’ll give you. Ablative, okay. Instrumental, you’re stretching it. Locative? Use a fucking preposition, hippie.
Vocative? Oh, come on!
ThresherK (GPad)
@Matt McIrvin: Well, no moon would rob Bill O’Reilly of his talking points about the tides.
That does sound a lot like Zapp Brannigan speaking, doesn’t it?
LibraryGuy
Grammar Nazi alert…
The head of the RNC “commemerates” the VRA? Maybe that means something different from commemorate, like “gut with the cuts from a thousand knives.”
Yeesh.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@lamh36: It was an amazing performance by the Hungarian woman. I don’t know much about her – maybe she is that good. But I really hope that she didn’t have any verboten chemical help from her overly bulky husband/trainer… :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
Here’s my 84 Olympic hat with a Russian Swim PIn!
japa21
@LibraryGuy: Only took 173 comments before someone noticed. Of course illiteracy is a trademark of the GOP.
lamh36
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: right…that dude was wayyy intense…but according to the commentary, she got “really focuseds” once she married him and he’s her coach as well.
But they did say she’s been a steady swimmer …but yeah that dude was intense!
Thoughtful David
So Scott Rigell, R Congressman from here in Virginia, says he’s going to vote for Johnson, says Trump would be a disaster for the country (via TPM). FUCKING COWARD!
We have a two-part system in this country: either the R is gonna win or the D is. If you really think the R is going to be bad for the country, you have to vote for the D. Anything else is being a ball-less COWARD.
Amir Khalid
@shomi:
@Omnes Omnibus:
On second thought, Omnes is right. A series of emails would be better, with each one dedicated to a full discussion of a particular concern. Use bold all-caps for the especially important points.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Lizzy L: dear god, I’d almost forgotten the Kissinger thing…. they basically went to the same Christmas party. A couple trolls here like to flog that dead horse
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Just yell at them to like get off of your lawn.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Thoughtful David: Scott Rigell doesn’t care – he’s not running for re-election.
I haven’t heard much about her, but Shaun Brown is running for the Democrats for the seat.
Cheers,
Scott.
Schlemazel
@dmsilev:
Thats the guy, thanks! All I could think of was Shackley & I knew that was not right.
Being brilliant, particularly in one particular area does not prohibit insanity.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Pst, the USSR boycotted the ’84 games.
Thoughtful David
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
No, I know he’s not. That actually makes him a bigger coward. Gutless. No balls at all.
He’s not alone, of course. I just wanted to point out that all the Rs that are saying they won’t vote for Trump but who won’t say they’ll vote for Clinton are just fucking cowards.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: It should be in ALL CAPS with the important parts BOLDED.
TS
@Percysowner:
I thought I read the damage to the fetus cannot be verified until 24 weeks with current testing – which then does become a legal problem
(I’ve lost the link – sorry)
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And Kissinger didn’t endorse Hillary, as some like to claim; he merely said he’d heard that she was an excellent administrator at State, who restored its morale and effectiveness after it was sidelined and demoralised in the Bush 43 years. (Come to think of it, that’s actually better than Kissinger telling people to vote for Hillary.)
Lizzy L
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Evidently Bernie Sanders mentioned it in a debate. My very Nice person was a Sanders supporter and is still in mourning. I forget the 7 stages of grief thing but she’s stuck in guilt. She thinks it would be disloyal and a betrayal of her principles to vote for Clinton, but she believes Trump would be a total disaster. I think she’ll get there.
TS
@Brachiator:
He’s been married for 18 years, has 4 children – maybe his wife hasn’t told him her beliefs. 100 years ago most families were having 10-12 children in an 18 year period – that is the reality of no birth control.
Omnes Omnibus
@TS:
Citation please.
Baud
Sounds like you guys have been interacting with a number of reluctant fascists.
Y’all are better people than I am.
schrodinger's cat
@dmsilev: Also too, Watson.
Lizzy L
@TS: Bullshit if we are talking about white American families. From the cdc website:
“Family size declined between 1800 and 1900 from 7.0 to 3.5 children (4). In 1900, six to nine of every 1000 women died in childbirth, and one in five children died during the first 5 years of life.* Distributing information and counseling patients about contraception and contraceptive devices was illegal under federal and state laws (8,9); the timing of ovulation, the length of the fertile period, and other reproductive facts were unknown.
“In 1912, the modern birth-control movement began. Margaret Sanger (see box), a public health nurse concerned about the adverse health effects of frequent childbirth, miscarriages, and abortion, initiated efforts to circulate information about and provide access to contraception (9). In 1916, Sanger challenged the laws that suppressed the distribution of birth control information by opening in Brooklyn, New York, the first family planning clinic. The police closed her clinic, but the court challenges that followed established a legal precedent that allowed physicians to provide advice on contraception for health reasons. During the 1920s and 1930s, Sanger continued to promote family planning by opening more clinics and challenging legal restrictions. As a result, physicians gained the right to counsel patients and to prescribe contraceptive methods (10,11). By the 1930s, a few state health departments (e.g., North Carolina) and public hospitals had begun to provide family planning services.
“During the first part of the 20th century, family planning focused on the need of married couples to space children and limit family size. Among a national probability sample** of 1049 ever-married white women born during 1901-1910 and interviewed in 1978, 71% reported having practiced contraception; common techniques used were the condom (54%), contraceptive douche (47%), withdrawal (45%), rhythm (24%), and the cervical diaphragm (17%) (12). Other reported methods included infrequent sexual intercourse (8%), intermittent abstinence (6%), and contraceptive sterilization (4%).*** Using abstinence to prevent pregnancy was limited by uncertainty about the timing of a woman’s ovulation. In 1928, the timing of ovulation was established medically, but the safe interval for intercourse was mistakenly understood to include half the menstrual period (13). Nevertheless, by 1933, the average family size had declined to 2.3 children.”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Thoughtful David: Indeed they are.
Country Party First!Rachel was always seemingly quite pleased when he agreed to be on her show (before they went Teabagger all the time a few months ago). I never bought his “reasonable Conservative” shtick. He voted with the rest of the insane ones on just about everything…
Rep. Hanna from NY endorsed Hillary, but he’s not running for re-election either. But he’s at least broken with the GOP on a few things in the past – I don’t think Rigell even went that far.
Cheers,
Scott.
? Martin
@Thoughtful David: Worse, if they believe that Trump would be bad for the country, it’s immoral to not vote for Clinton. They’re arguing that Trump would be harmful to people, but they personally are not willing to sacrifice even their vote in order to stop that. That are unwilling to sacrifice even their pride.
That is straight up immoral and I have no reservation telling them so.
Baud
The Olympics remind me of how out of shape I am.
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: I would blame the Sanskrit grammarian Panini
instead of punching a hippy. Although, Chomsky does act like he deserves a punch or two.
smedley the uncertain
@Emma: Thank you. It appears to be a wonderful resource.
S
Thoughtful David
@? Martin:
Good point.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: “undefined”?
Oh well, I tried to edit it.
Sorry.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: Panini needs to DIAF.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Perhaps a sandwich press?
Kay
It;s no longer really in doubt whether or not Republicans are acting to suppress AA voters:
Anyone can read the opinion. North Carolina lawmakers deliberately and carefully targeted African American voters, up to and including collecting state data on when AA’s (specifically) vote and acting to block them from voting.
Removing Republicans from office with an election is really the best revenge. African American voter registration and turnout in North Carolina is way up since 2000. Throw them all out of office-voter suppression problem solved.
Dmbeaster
@Adam L Silverman: They never need a rational reason to view Democratic presidents as illegitimate.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Just don’t watch them, problems solved.
Dadadadadadada
@Miss Bianca: Sorry to bang on about this, but read The Fourth Turning. It gives a very interesting answer to that very question.
Basically, baby boomers grew up spoiled and lacking the memory of shared sacrifice that everyone else had lived in the Depression and WW2. This gave them a lifelong, inflated sense of self-importance and uniqueness, which persists today in the form of believing very, very strongly in particular causes. Your Bernie Sis friend believes strongly in ideological purity, and equally strongly in nearly everyone’s lack of it; Mr. Trump believes in his own right to do whatever he wants; Mrs. Clinton in her responsibility to all Americans, etc.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dadadadadadada: HRC is a Boomer.
Dadadadadadada
@Brachiator: Rubio was raised Catholic, converted to Mormonism, converted back to Catholicism, and currently attends both Catholic mass and Baptist services. His opposition to abortion is entirely principled, the principle being “I will say whatever these trogolodytes want to hear that will help them vote for me.”
Dadadadadadada
@Omnes Omnibus: Exactly. The causes vary from person to person (from ego gratification to public service), but the level of zeal is rather constant throughout that generation.
GxB
@Amir Khalid: Something like: “UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.” tends to work well, or so I’ve heard.
Dadadadadadada
@hovercraft: In fairness to Ryan (not that he deserves it…), the goopers in congress haven’t done much voter-suppression work (or work of any kind, really). All the vote-suppression laws that matter came from state leges, not the national congress or the RNC.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dadadadadadada: If I may ask, how old are you?
divF
My best friend from childhood came from a family of competitive shooters. One sister was the co-captain of the East Tennessee State rifle team in the 1970’s and won an individual national championship.
They grew up in Fairfax County, just like Ms. Thrasher. Even back then, competitive shooting was a specialized sport, and women participated.
Brachiator
@TS:
@Lizzy L:
Well, no. In addition to the info provided by Lizzy, I ran across this.
Where there might be some confusion is an under appreciation for the number of pregnancies a woman might have to go through over her lifetime, since not all of those pregnancies would be carried to term and result in a birth.
satby
@Dadadadadadada: late to the thread, but you took the thoughts right out of my head.
Gravenstone
@JPL:
Caught a headline blurb talking about what a Trump presidency might mean for LAs efforts to get a future Olympics. Just trivial drivel, when a Trump presidency would signal the end of America as we know it – and quite possibly the wrold.
Omnes Omnibus
@satby: Eh, look at the right-wing Catholics who have achieved prominence. Those on the Supreme Court. Gingrich, Ryan, O’Reilly, Hannitty, etc.
Mary G
@Amir Khalid: Bravo, sir.
Sebastian
@efgoldman:
Fair enough. At what point do the Executice (together with perhaps SCOTUS) say it’s enough and start sanctioning bad players in the Legislative? I know, it’s supposed to happen by the voters, aka The People. But that’s not really true, is it? The Legislative has not been picked by the voters, they’ve picked the voters. They’ve rigged the system and are now a dishonest player.
The constitution has no check or balance for that (or are redistricting commissions something in the constitution?) and we’ve seen a decade of obstruction with another coming.
frosty
@Miss Bianca:
I was there, I had my copy of “Revolution for the Hell of It” and I’m a big Abbie Hoffman fan. And yet I’ve been a Yellow-Dog Democrat since 1980. I don’t know why the rest of my DFL generation can’t figure it out. Including a couple of friends of mine. Idjits.
AnderJ
The worst possible thing for Trump is being seen as a loser. Which is why Trump and his team will lie about polls, vote rigging, party unity etc. Shouldn’t we consistently brand Trump and his team Bagdad Bob (There are no Americans in Bagdag, we will crush the infidels…)
NorthLeft12
I nominate Mr. Prebius’ tweet as the most misleading/self delusional of all time.
Personally, I believe Mr. Prebius is well aware of, and a part of, the Republican efforts to gut the voting rights of a large number of Americans. This is a part of the smokescreen to hide these efforts from the low information voters who form the republican base.
This tweet is odious and mendacious, as is the man who had the audacity to send it.
nutella
@Omnes Omnibus:
Obviously not a boomer but convinced that s/he is the world’s greatest expert on boomers! I for one don’t appreciate the ageism.
It’s also remarkably weak to blame HRC’s conscientiousness and dedication to public service on her generation while also blaming Trump’s lazy selfishness on the same generation. They’re very, very different people who happen to be about the same age.