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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Assassination of Russian Ambassador in Turkey

Assassination of Russian Ambassador in Turkey

by Betty Cracker|  December 19, 201612:32 pm| 311 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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A gunman killed Russia’s ambassador to Turkey today. AP, via TPM:

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A gunman opened fire on Russia’s ambassador to Turkey at a photo exhibition on Monday. The Russian foreign ministry confirmed he was shot, but did not immediately say anything about his condition.

Turkish police shot and killed the gunman, Turkish station NTV reported.

The ambassador, Andrei Karlov, was several minutes into a speech at the embassy-sponsored exhibition in the capital, Ankara, when a man wearing a suit and tie shouted “Allahu Akbar” and fired at least eight shots, according to an AP photographer in the audience. The attacker also said some words in Russian and smashed several of the photos hung for the exhibition. There was panic as people ran for cover. NTV said three other people were wounded in the attack.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Karlov was shot “when an unidentified assailant opened chaotic gunfire during a public event in Ankara.” She said Russia was in contact with Turkish officials about the incident.

On Twitter, there are confirmations that the ambassador was killed, and also translations of what the gunman allegedly said before HE was killed that indicate this was vengeance for Russian support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Scary times.

It’s a good thing we have an incoming president who is cool and deliberative and understands the tangled alliances in that part of the world. Oh wait…

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Reader Interactions

311Comments

  1. 1.

    rikyrah

    December 19, 2016 at 12:33 pm

    It’s a good thing we have an incoming president who is cool and deliberative and understands the tangled alliances in that part of the world. Oh wait…

    SIGH….
    add another reason why I’m going to miss President Barack H. Obama II.

  2. 2.

    jeffreyw

    December 19, 2016 at 12:35 pm

    Thread needz moar Ollie!

  3. 3.

    Kryptik

    December 19, 2016 at 12:35 pm

    Hello,WW3, we’ve been expecting you…

  4. 4.

    germy

    December 19, 2016 at 12:35 pm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqLyylJdy4w

  5. 5.

    BGinCHI

    December 19, 2016 at 12:36 pm

    It’s like the run-up to WWI, but now we can’t afford trenches.

  6. 6.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 12:36 pm

    @jeffreyw: Hello Ollie. Times like these call for lots of Ollie. And that ‘dorbs dog in Christmas attire earlier today.

  7. 7.

    debbie

    December 19, 2016 at 12:37 pm

    Starting sooner than I expected, but not a real surprise. America’s not the only (or biggest) Satan.

  8. 8.

    germy

    December 19, 2016 at 12:38 pm

    @BGinCHI: Privatized trenches.
    It was caught on camera:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLBONYitmic

    It’s like the early 20th century. Shooter in a suit and tie.

  9. 9.

    Pogonip

    December 19, 2016 at 12:38 pm

    Well, don’t panic just yet. Russian-Turkish hostilities were pretty regular events till very recently. We may be just returning to the norm.

  10. 10.

    Juice Box

    December 19, 2016 at 12:38 pm

    World War I is calling. It wants its assassination back

  11. 11.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 19, 2016 at 12:38 pm

    @Pogonip: How recently?

  12. 12.

    SatanicPanic

    December 19, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    I don’t get how this turns in WWIII- what side are we going to jump in on here? Turkey? Is this their fault? What am I missing?

  13. 13.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 12:40 pm

    Well, this is just fucking great. I wonder if the economic anxiety voters are even aware enough to start feeling a little more anxious.

  14. 14.

    debbie

    December 19, 2016 at 12:41 pm

    @germy:

    How’d he get so close? At first, I thought he was the Ambassador’s security guard.

  15. 15.

    dmsilev

    December 19, 2016 at 12:41 pm

    @BGinCHI: We’ll built a beautiful trench, and Germany will pay for it?

  16. 16.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 12:42 pm

    In times like these the world needs a calm, collected, knowledgeable diplomatic type personality to talk this situation down. Somebody get John Bolton on the phone, stat!

  17. 17.

    germy

    December 19, 2016 at 12:42 pm

    @debbie: A white man in a suit and tie can get close to pretty much anything.

  18. 18.

    BGinCHI

    December 19, 2016 at 12:43 pm

    @germy: HOLY shit. What a world we live in where that’s immediately available.

    Amazing.

    We’ll see now what happens between Russia’s autocrat and Turkey’s autocrat.

  19. 19.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 19, 2016 at 12:43 pm

    @Corner Stone: “Turkey? Is that even a country? Pass me another beer.”

    /economically anxious voter.

  20. 20.

    debbie

    December 19, 2016 at 12:43 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Syria. Turkey’s anti-Assad.

  21. 21.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 12:44 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    Knowing Trump, with him in the White House, he’d probably be on Russia’s side.

  22. 22.

    Cacti

    December 19, 2016 at 12:44 pm

    I suspect Trump will handle such crises just as ably as James Buchanan did with the events leading to the American Civil War.

  23. 23.

    BGinCHI

    December 19, 2016 at 12:44 pm

    @dmsilev: Now that I think about it, why don’t they ever suggest a trench on the Mexican border?

    Too vaginal?

  24. 24.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 12:45 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: “Turkey? Hell yeah I fried that sombitch up right for our Turkey Day this year! Nice and hot, that turkey was! Now, where’s muh ballot?”

  25. 25.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 12:47 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Turkey? Is that even a country?

    “Obama just pardoned it last Thanksgiving, and it’s already getting into trouble again. See, this is what you get when you coddle criminals!”
    /other economically anxious voter

  26. 26.

    BGinCHI

    December 19, 2016 at 12:47 pm

    Kellyanne Conway calls it a desperate attempt by Dems to distract from Electoral College vote in 3…2…1….

  27. 27.

    Ruckus

    December 19, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    @debbie:
    Specific mention was made of him wearing a suit and tie. Seems to me he probably knew that he would stand out but not in a bad way.

  28. 28.

    Kryptik

    December 19, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    It’s going to be pretty much whatever side Russia decides to take it out on, because we dance to Putin’s drum, remember?

  29. 29.

    dmsilev

    December 19, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    @BGinCHI: There’s a convenient river already in place for a good chunk of it, which helps. Needs more alligators, though. All the best moats have alligators.

  30. 30.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 19, 2016 at 12:49 pm

    @Ruckus: Here’s a picture. Doesn’t look like a terrist, amirite?

  31. 31.

    Cacti

    December 19, 2016 at 12:49 pm

    @Chris:

    “The President just pardoned it last Thanksgiving, and it’s already getting into trouble again. See, this is what you get when you coddle criminals. He should’ve locked it up and thrown away the key!”
    /other economically anxious voter

    We need us a national registry of all Turkeymen. Thank Gawd fur President Trump.

    -Another economically anxious voter

  32. 32.

    SenyorDave

    December 19, 2016 at 12:50 pm

    @BGinCHI: Kellyanne Conway calls it a desperate attempt by Dems to distract from Electoral College vote in 3…2…1….

    Add in a chorus of “na, na, na, na, na, we won” and you’ve nailed it.

  33. 33.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2016 at 12:50 pm

    @germy:

    You have to admire the classics.

    Asymmetrical conflict is going to become commonplace – and in that environment, nonviolent resistance goes the way of the dodo, even here in the US.

  34. 34.

    Mike in dc

    December 19, 2016 at 12:50 pm

    At least it’s not in Sarajevo.

  35. 35.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!)

    December 19, 2016 at 12:51 pm

    @debbie:

    Yeah, it might be a Syrian who pulled the trigger, but just over a year ago Turkey shot down a Russian aircraft that the Turks claimed flew through their airspace.

  36. 36.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2016 at 12:51 pm

    @debbie:

    A guy in a nice suit gets entrance to a lot of things. White people see it, and it becomes an invisibility cloak.

  37. 37.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    December 19, 2016 at 12:54 pm

    Bolton may want revenge for Turkey opposing the invasion of Iraq. Fun times.

  38. 38.

    Cacti

    December 19, 2016 at 12:54 pm

    If guns are outlawed, only outlaw Turkeys will have guns.

  39. 39.

    Betty Cracker

    December 19, 2016 at 12:55 pm

    @BGinCHI: Russia Today (Russian propaganda outlet) identified the gunman as a member of Turkey’s special forces.

  40. 40.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 19, 2016 at 12:56 pm

    @Chris: “What’s Aleppo?”

  41. 41.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 19, 2016 at 12:56 pm

    scary times, indeed

    @debbie: Starting sooner than I expected, but not a real surprise. America’s not the only (or biggest) Satan.

    I’ve been surprised there hasn’t been more terrorism directed at Russia in recent years, especially given the history in Chechnya and other regions in and countries to the south of Russia. But I sure do wish we had gotten more involved militarily in Syriaqia!

  42. 42.

    Calouste

    December 19, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    Meh, it’s only an ambassador, not the heir to the throne, and ambassadors are two a penny. And what’s Russia going to do in retaliation, declare war on Syria?

  43. 43.

    debbie

    December 19, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I can’t believe the Ambassador didn’t have bodyguards. They’re suspicious of everyone, suited or not.

  44. 44.

    Cacti

    December 19, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    Russia Today (Russian propaganda outlet) identified the gunman as a member of Turkey’s special forces.

    So he was probably a librarian then?

  45. 45.

    Gindy51

    December 19, 2016 at 12:58 pm

    @Botsplainer: yep, that’s how those white supremacists are making head way into the main stream. They ditched the hoods and put on suits.

  46. 46.

    debbie

    December 19, 2016 at 12:59 pm

    @Betty Cracker:

    Now, that’s stunning.

  47. 47.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    Suited up for Reservoir Dogs.

  48. 48.

    Spanky (ex P-man)

    December 19, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    @Ruckus: I can not congratulate him on his choice of shoes. Totally at odds with that suit, and you’d think a suicidal assassin would have made a better choice, knowing they’d be soles-up before the day was over.

    (Too soon?)

  49. 49.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 1:01 pm

    Where’s Adam? Turkey is a NATO ally and Russia is not. Does Trump understand that? I think not!
    ugh

  50. 50.

    Cacti

    December 19, 2016 at 1:01 pm

    What do we know about this ambassador?

    How do we know this isn’t an inside job from Putin?

  51. 51.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 1:02 pm

    And as Trump pushes the button to launch nukes at targets across the globe, the camera will cut to Chuck Todd interviewing VP Pence.
    Pence (slowly shaking his head side to side): Well, Chuck I can tell you 100% that he simply did not launch those nooks.
    Todd: VP Pence it seems we’re being given the 15 minute warning on nuclear inbounds?
    Pence (sadly): No, Chuck. That did not happen.
    Todd: Thank you for your time today, sir. And we’re going to have to lea-

  52. 52.

    Shalimar

    December 19, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    We’re going to need Congressional investigations of Hillary Clinton for allowing this attack on America’s representative to Turkey.

  53. 53.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 1:04 pm

    @jeffreyw: Thread needs more than just Ollie. At this time, it would be helpful if we saw Betty’s dogs on the new sofa.

  54. 54.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 1:05 pm

    @JPL: NATO? What even is a NATO?
    /Alec Baldwin Trump voice

  55. 55.

    bjacques

    December 19, 2016 at 1:05 pm

    I really need to step back from the Book o’ Faces. This just makes me want to put the fear into fans of Trump and John Pilger alike for Teh LULZ. Oh well. If this blows up into a major war, better that it happens now while the US has a (relatively) functional government and military. I don’t mean this either, but I still want to troll some idiots hard with it.

  56. 56.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    After the nuclear apocalypse, America’s tombstone will read “Hillary would’ve used a hydrogen bomb!”

    Or at least the MSM’s will.

  57. 57.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    @Cacti: Very Reichstag-ian of you. Or is it Bolton-esque false flag?

  58. 58.

    Shell

    December 19, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    @jeffreyw: Did that cat just do the laundry?

  59. 59.

    West of the Cascades

    December 19, 2016 at 1:07 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    I don’t get how this turns in WWIII- what side are we going to jump in on here? Turkey? Is this their fault? What am I missing?

    There’s this little thing called Article 5 of the NATO alliance which requires allies to respond to attacks on others. If Russia were to attack Turkey over this, Turkey could invoke Article 5 to bring its NATO allies into a broader war.

    Assuming, of course, under President Trump, Turkey is evaluated to have paid its fair share into the alliance, otherwise No Deal!

  60. 60.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    They just showed the dude getting assassinated. Not sure that’s really necessary.

  61. 61.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    December 19, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    @Chris:

    After the nuclear apocalypse, America’s tombstone will read “Hillary would’ve used a hydrogen bomb!”

    Or at least the MSM’s will.

    [golfclap]

  62. 62.

    Jeffro

    December 19, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    @Corner Stone: I know and love that voice almost as much as the sound of my own…thanks a lot AB!

  63. 63.

    BGinCHI

    December 19, 2016 at 1:09 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Wow.

    Can’t decide whether to believe RT….

  64. 64.

    Gordon Schumway

    December 19, 2016 at 1:09 pm

    @SatanicPanic: Turkey is a NATO member.

    Edit: What West of the Cascades said.

  65. 65.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 1:10 pm

    What was his name again? Ferdinand? Hmmmm never heard of him….

  66. 66.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 1:10 pm

    Drezner’s twitter feed.
    https://twitter.com/dandrezner/status/810909257805758464

  67. 67.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2016 at 1:10 pm

    @Cacti:

    “Obama’s weakness clearly cost the Russian Federation an ambassador. We look forward to working with President Trump to bring peace and order to Russia’s backyard.”

  68. 68.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 1:11 pm

    @Corner Stone: Who is they? I looked at the youtube link that germy linked to at 8.

  69. 69.

    hovercraft

    December 19, 2016 at 1:11 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    We’ll see now what happens between Russia’s autocrat and Turkey’s autocrat.

    Yes this should be fascinating to watch, Erdogan has been cozying up to Putin, ever since the west has been grumbling about his ever more authoritarian actions. As it became clear that Turkey was not going to get into the EU because of his anti democratic tendencies, he has been moving closer to Putin, (this is kind of chicken and egg). This is an attack against both of then though, it shows that Erdogan can’t keep his nation, let alone diplomats safe, and it punishes Putin for his support of Assad. Both are being punished for their acts in Syria, because both are killing/aiding in the killing of civilians. The one thing they do agree on in Syria, is that the Kurds cannot be allowed to gain any strength. None of the actors want a Kurdish State, not even us, though we are implicitly promising one in order to outsource our ongoing fight in Iraq and Syria.

  70. 70.

    Calouste

    December 19, 2016 at 1:11 pm

    @Betty Cracker: True or not, it will an excuse for Erdogan to do some more purges. Which might not be a great idea, because quite a few revolutions have started because military officers were unhappy with their prospects.

  71. 71.

    Shalimar

    December 19, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    @West of the Cascades: That would be the end of NATO. I can’t imagine many members going to war with Russia to defend Turkey.

    Anyway, Russia is already fighting wars in Georgia and Syria. They aren’t going to declare war on Turkey over this.

  72. 72.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    @Thoroughly Pizzled:

    I live far enough outside my city to survive the blasts if they come at night. I also have art paints.

    After the power goes out, I’ll paint that on the side of my house while having the grandest of drunks before offing myself.

  73. 73.

    ? Martin

    December 19, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    In light of today’s news, a reminder that the ‘Yes California’ secessionist group is not a liberal group. This is now a Russian supported effort.

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    @jeffreyw:

    Ollie! I love his little beauty mark.

  75. 75.

    Mike in dc

    December 19, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    Putin should travel personally to Ankara to straighten this out. Better file his flight plan too.

  76. 76.

    EZSmirkzz

    December 19, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    Spokespeople for the Trump transition team are denying the ambassador’s shooting death, as not all experts can agree that it was an assassination.

  77. 77.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    @JPL: What did you take away from that twit thread?

  78. 78.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    in that environment, nonviolent resistance goes the way of the dodo, even here in the US.

    That is what I am afraid of.

    We are one Greensboro Massacre or related event away from a 3 way insurgency war.

  79. 79.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    @hovercraft:

    It’s like we want Kurdistan to be the Taiwan of the Middle East. Independent in fact, but not recognized as such by anyone.

  80. 80.

    ? Martin

    December 19, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    @Shalimar: No, of course not. But they will demand tribute from Turkey instead. That may open more avenues for Russia in Syria.

  81. 81.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    @Corner Stone: My read is no one knows what it going to happen.
    The assailant is a police officer from Ankara, so that’s not good.

  82. 82.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 19, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    @West of the Cascades: If this helps Putin split NATO, then Karlov was disposable.

  83. 83.

    Spanky (ex P-man)

    December 19, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    Can’t decide whether to believe RT….

    ROTFL! Whatsamatter, Comrade? Thinking that announcement came a little too fast after the event?

  84. 84.

    jeffreyw

    December 19, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    @JPL: O
    All I can offer is Gabe on an old sofa.

  85. 85.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2016 at 1:18 pm

    @EZSmirkzz:

    Spokespeople for the Trump transition team are denying the ambassador’s shooting death, as not all experts can agree that it was an assassination.

    Hand to FSM, I honestly can’t tell whether that’s true or whether you made it up for the Snarky Lulz.

  86. 86.

    debbie

    December 19, 2016 at 1:18 pm

    @JPL:

    From that Twitter feed:

    Mock the foreign policy community all you want but

    I’d bet Mattis is the only Trumpster who would appreciate the foreign policy community. I hope Trump will take heed of his counsel because I’m betting Trump really wants in on the action when Putin takes his revenge.

  87. 87.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2016 at 1:18 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    Suburbia is full of white chickenshits. They’ll fall right in line with law ‘n order.

  88. 88.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Yup.

  89. 89.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    @JPL:

    Uh oh.

  90. 90.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 19, 2016 at 1:19 pm

    @JPL: The first response was by end-of-history Fukuyama. Mockery if any, is well deserved.

  91. 91.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    @germy: It was shocking to see the shooting. The ambassador moved only once within the first 10 seconds, and then only his lower arm.

  92. 92.

    debbie

    December 19, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Who in NATO, other than Trump (and probably not even him), would take Russia’s side?

  93. 93.

    Calouste

    December 19, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @ Martin: The USA falling apart or descending into a civil war is Putin’s wet dream. And there are a lot of low-risk unlikely-reward gambles that he can make to advance that goal, and some of them might pay off. A few of them already did.

  94. 94.

    Spanky (ex P-man)

    December 19, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    If this helps Putin split NATO, then Karlov was disposable.

    I’m wondering if making someone Russia’s ambassador to Turkey is a reward or punishment. We see what the answer is this time.

  95. 95.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @? Martin:

    I would like the governors of California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Nevada to form some kind of mutually beneficial consortium, but I’m not going to support anything that isn’t driven from the top down. I feel reasonably certain that Jerry Brown is not a Russian stooge. Mostly.

  96. 96.

    some_doc

    December 19, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    There’s this little thing called Article 5 of the NATO alliance which requires allies to respond to attacks on others. If Russia were to attack Turkey over this, Turkey could invoke Article 5 to bring its NATO allies into a broader war.

    But Erdogan and Putin have been growing closer since the attempted coup. The strategic play on Russia’s side had seemed to be trying to pry Turkey away from NATO, and make common cause in the Middle East against ISIS and Kurds. A Turkey aligned with Russia would have terrible implications for NATO in general and for US policy in the Middle East.

    My armchair geostrategery suspects that Erdogan and Putin will use this sad event to draw closer, rather than being a pretext for war. Plus, if the shooter really was Turkish military, it gives Erdogan a pretext for further purges of his opponents in the military – with Russian assistance, since NATO isn’t going to help Erogan consolidate autocratic power.

  97. 97.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Is Putin going to push Erdogan too far in order to find out?

  98. 98.

    Ruckus

    December 19, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    @Spanky (ex P-man):

    (Too soon?)

    No, seems about right.
    @Gin & Tonic:
    I live in socal so I don’t see suits and ties much any more. I figure anyone wearing one is not to be trusted because they must have some sort of ulterior motive to dress so strangely.

  99. 99.

    jeffreyw

    December 19, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    @Shell: He’s atop Mrs J’s lay-out table in her sewing area.

  100. 100.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 19, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    @debbie: Who takes Erdogan’s? That’s the point.

  101. 101.

    Mike in dc

    December 19, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    Russia will demand that Turkey stop allowing the US to fly missions out of Incirlik, and that the Turks stop supporting the opposition to Assad.

  102. 102.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    @Spanky (ex P-man): It got the late ambassador out of North Korea.

  103. 103.

    germy

    December 19, 2016 at 1:25 pm

    @Elizabelle: Shot a bunch of times in the back. Never saw it coming.

  104. 104.

    Ruckus

    December 19, 2016 at 1:25 pm

    @JPL:

    Does Trump understand that?

    Once again a question that is doing a lot more work than 4 words should have to do.
    Well as he has a long standing dislike of NATO, I’d bet he doesn’t give a shit.

  105. 105.

    debbie

    December 19, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    They’d be required to. Plus, Putin is making many NATO members nervous so there would be no reason to stand up for Russia.

  106. 106.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    The Troubles in Northern Ireland started as a nonviolent civil rights movement modeled on the Americans Civil Rights Movement, but violent repression by the British turned it into a terrorist war.

  107. 107.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    @jeffreyw: Sweet!

  108. 108.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 19, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    @debbie: “Required” is doing a lot of lifting there.

  109. 109.

    crawdad

    December 19, 2016 at 1:27 pm

    It’s a good thing we have an incoming president who is cool and deliberative and understands the tangled alliances in that part of the world. Oh wait…

    Meanwhile, Obama is golfing in Hawaii.

  110. 110.

    BGinCHI

    December 19, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    FOX News Headline:

    Putin Suddenly Withdraws Ambassador to Turkey

  111. 111.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    @debbie: Trump’s response will be to tweet.

  112. 112.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    The Troubles in Northern Ireland started as a nonviolent civil rights movement modeled on the Americans Civil Rights Movement, but violent repression by the British turned it into a terrorist war.

    I’m sorry. What?

  113. 113.

    PIGL

    December 19, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    @Spanky (ex P-man): Patrick O’Brian’s respects, and please to join him on the quarterdeck with the utmost celerity.

  114. 114.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    Greensboro and the rest of NC have a lot of NOT suburban areas and open carry is legal here. It’s a bit jarring to see someone strapping a Glock on the hip when you walk into a convenience store.

    I also know some of those folks would have no problem introducing someone like me to the business end of a shotgun (I am a trans woman here in NC). Public and private affairs here led to me keeping a loaded rifle near the bed for awhile last February.

    To your point of violent resistance, I could see a 3 sided Northern Ireland situation start if Trump and the militarized police began jailing protesters en masse and curtailing civil rights under an emergency decree:

    1) The state and various police agencies eager to bust heads and get some gun time on “dirty hippy” types
    2) Angry progressives who begin an ELF style campaign of arson and monkey wrenching on high value state targets
    3) Rural reactionaries and neo fascists who use the situation to target the GLBT community, African Americans etc under an extended version of Krystalnacht.

    At some point, this escalates into shooting.

  115. 115.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    @Calouste:

    His investment in this project is really low. Gotta give him credit – he hit it out of the park, using the conservatives as his vehicle.

  116. 116.

    SatanicPanic

    December 19, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    meanwhile we have a faithless elector… voting for Bernie Sanders. WTF

  117. 117.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    @BGinCHI: Well…it’s not “technically” false. I guess. He’s definitely leaving Turkey suddenly.

  118. 118.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Exactly.

  119. 119.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    LA Times has a photo up of the ambassador and gunman after the attack, from the LA Times.

    More interesting photograph than any on the wall. Like a still from a movie.

    Merriam Webster’s word of this year is “surreal.”

    Fuck yeah.

  120. 120.

    Cacti

    December 19, 2016 at 1:30 pm

    Another thought…

    Since Drumpf has put China on edge, what better opportunity than a conflict between NATO and Russia for the PRC to reassert control over (i.e. invade) Taiwan?

    Is the American public ready to go to war over Taiwan? I rather doubt it.

  121. 121.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    Next election cycle, we really need a rule to keep month old Democrats from being allowed to run for national office.

  122. 122.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 1:33 pm

    @Botsplainer: With manic progressives and dudebros piling into the clown car.

    William Weld must be deeply ashamed of running on Gary Johnson’s vanity ticket.

  123. 123.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 1:33 pm

    @Cacti: It really would be the time for it, although Taiwan can still give the PLA a seriously bloody nose.

  124. 124.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2016 at 1:33 pm

    I decided on liquid lunch after that news today. It wasn’t planned.

    Had an amazing burger and a couple of Old Fashioneds, craft made. I may hang out for mussels.

    Here’s a cartoon that sums up how I feel about the media:

    Motherfucking Cocksuckers

  125. 125.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2016 at 1:34 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association

  126. 126.

    Spanky (ex P-man)

    December 19, 2016 at 1:34 pm

    @SatanicPanic: Only one? Sad!

  127. 127.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 1:35 pm

    Since the gunman shouted “We die in Aleppo, you die here”. The assailant also shouted “So long as those places are not secure, you won’t taste security yourselves.” I sure hope that our embassy is secure. We bear some responsibility for not stopping Russia’s intense bombing. IMO

  128. 128.

    trollhattan

    December 19, 2016 at 1:35 pm

    Secretary Clinton had time to call in special forces to protect the ambassador and DID NOT. Turkghazi!

    Let us now hold hearings. I know just the guy to chair them.

  129. 129.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 19, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    New troll spotted!

  130. 130.

    trollhattan

    December 19, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    @JPL:

    We bear some responsibility for not stopping Russia’s intense bombing. IMO

    Do tell.

  131. 131.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    “Millyunayuhs and billyunayuhs” taking your future.

    And he did his best to midwife it into existence.

    They’re playing Bohemian Rhapsody in here. Sums up my mood.

  132. 132.

    debbie

    December 19, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    @JPL:

    Nothing yet from him. Surprising! Abdication!

  133. 133.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 1:37 pm

    What kind of sick ass karma must you have pulled off from a previous life where your mom gets killed by a falling tree on your wedding day?

  134. 134.

    ? Martin

    December 19, 2016 at 1:37 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Brown certainly isn’t. I think it would be most accurate to say that Brown sees himself as the People’s President of the United States of California. His attitude isn’t that CA should secede, rather that CA should act as a shadow government for the nation until Trump is run out of office.

  135. 135.

    Calouste

    December 19, 2016 at 1:39 pm

    @Cacti: I don’t think the PRC really has much interest in invading Taiwan, short of Taiwan explicitly declaring independence, although publicly they would of course keep the option on the table. Too messy, too much risk of destabilizing the mainland. The PRC can live with the current situation for another 50 or 100 years.

  136. 136.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 19, 2016 at 1:40 pm

    @Botsplainer: Another Russian stooge, that one.

  137. 137.

    manyakitty

    December 19, 2016 at 1:40 pm

    @BGinCHI: I thought it was a desperate attempt on the part of Russia to distract from the EC vote.

  138. 138.

    MazeDancer

    December 19, 2016 at 1:41 pm

    Because gunman’s shout is on video, it is known what he said.

    There was a brief report flying around Twitter that Ankara was saying gunman was a “jihadi” follower of Gulen. Who is the cleric who lives in NY whom Erdogan wants and Obama won’t give him. Erdogan detained a relative of a Trump biz pal. Some discussion of swap of Gulen for Trump pal was reported to have begun.

    But the video shows the shooter, reportedly an off-duty police officer who was part of the security detail, was seeking revenge on Russia for Syria destruction, especially Aleppo.

  139. 139.

    Calouste

    December 19, 2016 at 1:41 pm

    @SatanicPanic: There will be a lot more faithless Clinton electors than there will be faithless Trump electors, which I estimate will be 1, 2 at the most.

  140. 140.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 1:41 pm

    @? Martin:

    until Trump is run waddles out of office.

    The man couldn’t run to save his life…not saying we should *literally* find out if that’s true…saying, not saying.

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    December 19, 2016 at 1:42 pm

    @Cacti:

    Is the American public ready to go to war over Taiwan? I rather doubt it.

    There was an amount of the American public that wasn’t ready to go to war in Iraq for (what was the reason we went there again?) and we went. (And fucked up the middle east even more….) So what would stop us from fighting in Turkey or Russia or Taiwan or China? Good sense? No, that’s now out. Sharp, intelligent politics? No, for sure not that. Absolute fucking stupidity? Aw, there it is.

  142. 142.

    Mike in dc

    December 19, 2016 at 1:43 pm

    @Calouste:

    There’s also the economic hit to consider. Sanctions from their major trading partners, the loss of business with Taiwan, the cost of the invasion, and the costs of occupation and rebuilding.

  143. 143.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 1:43 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Assuming he’s inaugurated, I would not guess that Trump survives his first term. He is not a well man. Although perhaps he would leave office for other reasons.

  144. 144.

    Calouste

    December 19, 2016 at 1:43 pm

    @ Martin: California can definitely be a bulwark for environmental legislation for the next 4 years, as they have been for decades.

  145. 145.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2016 at 1:44 pm

    @JPL:

    The assailant also shouted “So long as those places are not secure, you won’t taste security yourselves.”

    Hm. Not a bad sentiment to express to a certain 1% class and some puffy, pasty movement conservative legislators and movement conservatives in North Carolina.

  146. 146.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 1:45 pm

    @debbie: He’s waiting for the electoral college returns, and they he will gloat first.
    The tweet supporting Russia will come later.

  147. 147.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2016 at 1:45 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Speak for yourself. I wouldn’t mind seeing it.

  148. 148.

    ? Martin

    December 19, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    @Cacti: PRC lacks the capability to invade Taiwan. They have a bit army, but not much of a navy/marine corps. They can defend the mainland, and they can nuke at range, but they can’t pull off an invasion.

    Taiwan isn’t going anywhere. PRC is more likely to either press the issue on their geographic expansion into the pacific and/or to drive wedges between the US and Taiwan. They also benefit by driving wedges between the US and Japan and other asian nations. We’ve already screwed that up pretty badly with our broad opposition to TPP.

  149. 149.

    Juice Box

    December 19, 2016 at 1:49 pm

    I live at least 25 miles from the 32nd St. Naval Station. Is that close enough to be incinerated? I hope so, because I don’t want to wind up partially melted.

  150. 150.

    JMG

    December 19, 2016 at 1:49 pm

    In 1944, the US Joint Chiefs studied invaded Taiwan as part of war on Japan. Concluded that even with the total air-sea supremacy US would enjoy it would require more troops than then available in Pacific Theater. It’s a very defensible place. China is indeed if not happy content with status quo. That’s why it lit up when Trump had that phone call.
    Likewise, Turkey isn’t Syrian or Chechen rebels. It has modern and large military. Erdogan will have to eat some crow, but doubtful this would lead to war.

  151. 151.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 1:50 pm

    Seeing reports that Trump is keeping his private security enforcers and they will be with him in the WH. The head of his security, someone named Schiller, will be made a WH aid

    who would act as a “full-time physical gatekeeper.”

    What the holy fuck.

    The Secret Service is being cut out of Trump’s immediate protection?

  152. 152.

    gvg

    December 19, 2016 at 1:50 pm

    @Mnemosyne: ahhh………..not really. No matter what some relatively recent Irish leaders may say, the Irish problems went back so many centuries and involved the horrible potato famine, not to mention a lot of bloody civil war battles and just a long past of blood that I can’t really accept that their were any real non violent intentions. I know that the British over reacted and made a lot of repressive laws including things like no Catholics in government which they had been doing for centuries.

    I was last in London around 2000 and it was shocking to me that they do not have trash cans nor locker check ins in public because people used to leave bombs in them. So the British just make do and carry everything with them and take their trash home with them. Very inconvenient at the Chelsea Flower show.

  153. 153.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    Next election cycle, we really need a rule to keep month old Democrats from being allowed to run for national office.

    The California legislature is apparently considering a rule that would require presidential candidates to disclose their taxes to get onto the ballot in 2020. Here’s hoping more states follow suit.

  154. 154.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 1:52 pm

    uhoh… BREAKING NEWS: US Embassy ‘security incident’ after Russian ambassador shooting in Ankara
    THE US Embassy in Ankara is on lockdown after a ‘security incident’ moments after the Russian ambassador shooting this evening.

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/745297/US-Embassy-security-incident-attack-Ankara-Russian-ambassador-shooting

  155. 155.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 1:52 pm

    @celticdragonchick: Fine by me. Trump’s own goons may be less skilled than the Secret Service.

    ETA: which does not portend well for civilians at a Trump appearance, but it is what it is. Suckers!

  156. 156.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 1:54 pm

    @Roger Moore: That’s a great idea. Go California!

    A weary nation lifts its weary eyes to you.

  157. 157.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 1:54 pm

    @? Martin:

    That is how I see it. The PLA does not have the capability to pull off an invasion of Taiwan. Also, attempts to build up the naval capacity to do so would be obvious and impossible to hide.

    The PLAAF can bomb the hell out of Taiwan, and the PLAN can blockade things (at least until Japan and the USN get involved…and the Japanese Navy is actually pretty damned impressive)…but I don’t see how they can actually invade and hold territory.

  158. 158.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 1:55 pm

    @Roger Moore: Oh hell yeah.

  159. 159.

    fuckwit

    December 19, 2016 at 1:56 pm

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=91YeWT-48-Y

  160. 160.

    ? Martin

    December 19, 2016 at 1:57 pm

    @Calouste: I think we’re more ambitious than that. We don’t get credit for it, but we’re also the bulwark for women’s health with ⅓ of the nations abortion clinics and continuous efforts to expand and reduce the cost of care. Consider that UC has a new mandate to train nurses in abortion procedures and compare that to how other states are legislating.

    And Richard will tell you that we’re the tip of the spear on how to actively run an Obamacare exchange. Look to CA to pick up that mantle, at the very least by finding a way to move the exchange to the state level if ACA is repealed, and possibly going as far as single payer within the state.

    We’re also usually near the forefront for labor rights. We were the first to pass a $15 minimum wage and have a lot more worker protections than most states. We did away with partisan districting and were quick to follow Oregon with automatic voter registration. We’re going to lead on a lot of issues.

  161. 161.

    SatanicPanic

    December 19, 2016 at 1:59 pm

    @celticdragonchick: this. And now that Sanders has left the party he can GFH

  162. 162.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 2:02 pm

    @gvg:

    I can’t really accept that their were any real non violent intentions.

    Bloody Sunday disagrees with you.

    The RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) habitually beat and injured civil rights marchers in Derry and elsewhere, and Protestant gangs terrorized Catholics who applied for jobs or were found outside their area of town. The violence against Catholics prompted the beginning of The Troubles.

    Wkipedia:

    During 12–17 August 1969, Northern Ireland was rocked by intense political and sectarian rioting. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising from the civil rights campaign, which was demanding an end to discrimination against Irish Catholics. Civil rights marches were repeatedly attacked by both Ulster Protestant loyalists and by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), a unionist and largely Protestant police force.

    The disorder led to the Battle of the Bogside in Derry, a three-day riot in the Bogside district between the RUC and the nationalist/Catholic residents. In support of the Bogsiders, nationalists and Catholics launched protests elsewhere in Northern Ireland. Some of these led to attacks by loyalists working alongside the police. The most bloody rioting was in Belfast, where seven people were killed and hundreds more wounded. Scores of houses, most of them owned by Catholics, as well as businesses and factories were burned-out. In addition, thousands of mostly Catholic families were driven from their homes. In certain areas, the RUC helped the loyalists and failed to protect Catholic areas. Events in Belfast have been viewed by some as a pogrom against the Catholic and nationalist minority.[1][2][3]

  163. 163.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 2:03 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    Wow. When did this happen?

  164. 164.

    SatanicPanic

    December 19, 2016 at 2:05 pm

    @celticdragonchick: after the election. I was surprised too. F that guy. He lost the last bit of credibility with me after that.

  165. 165.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 2:09 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    He was a goddamned spoiler…especially after he was numerically eliminated and kept gunning for Hillary and telling his fans that everything was rigged.

    THAT is what the Russian targeted in their wikileaks bullshit. It wasn’t aimed so much at Trump die hards…it was aimed at Berners who wanted a reason to go home and not feel bad abut letting Trump win.

  166. 166.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 19, 2016 at 2:11 pm

    @celticdragonchick: @SatanicPanic: Basically right after the election. But we gave him a nice, shiny new leadership spot just for him. We’re nice like that.

  167. 167.

    ? Martin

    December 19, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    @Elizabelle: If Trump pays them out of his own pocket, it means they aren’t subject to anti-discrimination laws that affect public employees. Trump is building his own private security force that is unaccountable to FOIA or Congress or rules against public employees. If he can then find ways to profit from his role in office, he can funnel that money back into expanding this private force, shielding him further from public scrutiny.

    It was Trump’s private security folks that were throwing people out of rallies and profiling them, not Secret Service. He wants to continue to do that.

  168. 168.

    trollhattan

    December 19, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    @Roger Moore:
    Can they (the Leg) do that? I don’t know where the Leg and the parties fall WRT controlling the primaries. The Dems, for example, allow anybody to vote in theirs but the Republican primaries are closed to party registrants. That’s off in the general, of course, but if we moved up our primary to when the Republican nomination would still be in play it would be interesting to see how a non-compliant candidate like Trump would fare.

  169. 169.

    Jeffro

    December 19, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    Btw (will repost in the next open thread) – as usual, K-Thug is on point about How Republics End

    Why is this happening? I’m not asking why white working-class voters support politicians whose policies will hurt them — I’ll be coming back to that issue in future columns. My question, instead, is why one party’s politicians and officials no longer seem to care about what we used to think were essential American values. And let’s be clear: This is a Republican story, not a case of “both sides do it.”

    So what’s driving this story? I don’t think it’s truly ideological. Supposedly free-market politicians are already discovering that crony capitalism is fine as long as it involves the right cronies. It does have to do with class warfare — redistribution from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy is a consistent theme of all modern Republican policies. But what directly drives the attack on democracy, I’d argue, is simple careerism on the part of people who are apparatchiks within a system insulated from outside pressures by gerrymandered districts, unshakable partisan loyalty, and lots and lots of plutocratic financial support.

    For such people, toeing the party line and defending the party’s rule are all that matters. And if they sometimes seem consumed with rage at anyone who challenges their actions, well, that’s how hacks always respond when called on their hackery.

    PK, I’d suggest that half of it most certainly is ideological – the rise of the super-wealthy Randians and their ability to set the agenda. The other half is due to status anxiety amongst the older whites who see the US getting more multicultural, more accepting of LGBT folks, and more urban-area-oriented. They’re resorting to extraordinary means in order to keep power…and that means throwing plenty of norms right on out the window.

  170. 170.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 19, 2016 at 2:13 pm

    @SatanicPanic: And we have not yet seen his taxes, have we? Vacation homes on Lake Champlain aren’t that cheap.

  171. 171.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 19, 2016 at 2:16 pm

    @gvg: I checked two large suitcases for the day at Victoria Station this past March with no issues whatsoever.

  172. 172.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    December 19, 2016 at 2:18 pm

    Can I just say the Russian Assassin is kind of hot?

  173. 173.

    Mike in dc

    December 19, 2016 at 2:19 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    They need some kind of uniform to distinguish themselves from the regular Secret Service. Brown shirts and black armbands might work. Maybe some kind of double lightning bolt insignia too.

  174. 174.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 19, 2016 at 2:19 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    And we have not yet seen his taxes,

    And never will.

  175. 175.

    tybee

    December 19, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    @Dog Dawg Damn:

    he’s getting colder by the minute

  176. 176.

    InternetDragons

    December 19, 2016 at 2:21 pm

    @Jeffro:

    This tweet from “Rafalca Romney” (love the name =P) seems appropriate in response to the article about how republics are lost:

    KNOCK KNOCK

    “Who’s there? Is that you, Obama, come to take my guns?”

    “No. It’s Vladimir Putin. I’m taking your country.”

    “OK cool.”

  177. 177.

    Mike in NC

    December 19, 2016 at 2:24 pm

    So we’ve learned that Trump doesn’t trust the CIA or Secret Service and plans to have intel and protection provided by his own goons. That will be billed to the US taxpayer. His tax returns will never be made public. This is the Republican definition of government transparency?

  178. 178.

    Aleta

    December 19, 2016 at 2:24 pm

    I’m hope our diplomats will be safe now that Trump’s got intel to flaunt.

  179. 179.

    gene108

    December 19, 2016 at 2:24 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    The California legislature is apparently considering a rule that would require presidential candidates to disclose their taxes to get onto the ballot in 2020. Here’s hoping more states follow suit.

    It won’t impact Trump. He knows he won’t win CA, so there’s no benefit for him to be on his ballot, versus the dirt that could be dug-up on him, if he released his tax returns.

    If Michigan or Wisconsin or PA or Ohio or Florida did this, it’d really change things for 2020 or even Texas, or some other red-states, Republicans must carry to win the White House.

  180. 180.

    Jeffro

    December 19, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    @InternetDragons: That’s about right, unfortunately…they’d rather ally themselves with a opposition-and-journalist-murdering ex-KGB Lt Colonel than share the country with non-whites, LGBT folks, or people who believe in progressive taxation & a decent safety net.

  181. 181.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 19, 2016 at 2:26 pm

    @Dog Dawg Damn: Several of my friends have also noted this!

  182. 182.

    jonas

    December 19, 2016 at 2:27 pm

    Oy, this is just crazy. Turkey and Russia were really going at each other last year after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter that had strayed into its airspace, but seemed to be trying to play nice as of late. I wonder if Moscow isn’t going to bring enormous pressure on Erdogan now to pull back his support for the opposition in Syria (as well as NATO/US), or face some kind of serious reprisal from Russia?

  183. 183.

    SatanicPanic

    December 19, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    @celticdragonchick: an under-appreciated point is that the secret service can be counted on as an impartial observer in the even of a real or imagined assassination attempt. What do you want to bet that if Trump is trailing in the polls in the next election his security detail finds evidence of an attempt on his life by terrorists? This is a rhetorical question because I know you’re smart and wouldn’t take this bet.

  184. 184.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    The Troubles in Northern Ireland started as a nonviolent civil rights movement modeled on the Americans Civil Rights Movement, but violent repression by the British turned it into a terrorist war.

    Not quite like that;

    Yes the Caths tried to emulate Dr King and were peacefully marching for civil rights. And at the side of the road there was the Rev. Ian Paisley playing to the cameras screaming that they were “committing treason”. After unsuccessfully using the courts to stop the Prods annual victory celebration of marching thru or next to Cath neighborhoods, young Catholics in Derry threw rocks at the marchers. The Protestant reaction was to loot and burn down the Catholic neighborhood, quietly encouraged by Paisley and his fucktards. The IRA was a bunch of middle aged commies waiting for the historical dialectic to bring ruin to the Prod regime. They were replaced by a new generation of “hard men” who organized defense and retaliation. The Brit Army came in to keep the peace a year or two later, initially the Caths were happy to see them, but the Brits were co-opted by the Prod government and paramilitaries.

    And every time sanity and a peaceful solution seemed possible, Paisley would rise up and start spitting hate again.

    The thing that sticks out to me is a film clip of a Prod paramilitary talking about this and saying “they’re calling for rights I didn’t have” Well you stupid git, maybe you should have gone and marched with them instead of gunning them down. Which really seems like the Trumpanzee’s attitude in a nutshell.

    The Scotch-Irish, when you need a civilization burnt to the ground, they’re the people to hire. It’s going to be very interesting how Brexit plays out there, NIR voted no, but the prime directive of the Prods are that they are citizens of the UK, not Irish. So they’ll get dragged out of the EU which will crater the economy while the Republic of Ireland is in the EU. I find it bittersweet that the ROI could impose border controls and keep the Prods penned in the shithole of their own creation. Certainly the Scots won’t let them back in, and the English have been looking to dump them for a generation. They’re just crackers but they sound more intelligent.

    Sorry, didn’t mean to go on a tangent, but the similarities between the Prods and the GOP base is just so compelling.

  185. 185.

    gvg

    December 19, 2016 at 2:31 pm

    @celticdragonchick: how does the fact that the British were violent oppressors prove that the Catholic side was non violent in intentions?
    the history is so bad with blood on both sides that I am doubtful of the non violence. it can’t be said to have started in the 60’s. It started in the 1600’s. the British protestant side was the more powerful for much of that time, so they had more opportunities to kill, but the Irish side killed back not just then, but before too. I am somewhat surprised they found a way to stop and share power. it was really vicious.

    This is one of the examples of why the religious fanatics who want “god back in government” here, irritate me so. Separation of church and state is something the founders came up with to avoid repeating the mistakes of Europe. their ancestors had often fled being on the losing side of an inter Christianity war. they didn’t want that here. Can you imagine having to worship either Catholic or Protestant according to what your Prince believed? Is there anything less invasive than that? The religious here just assume their specific creed will be dominate. They haven’t wondered about what purity ponies would happen and come for them later.

  186. 186.

    Gravenstone

    December 19, 2016 at 2:31 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Oh that’s going to be a dandy bit of misdirection. Way to jump immediately on the “state sanctioned assassination” train, there fellas.

  187. 187.

    danielx

    December 19, 2016 at 2:33 pm

    I blame Obama.

    Edit: that won’t end on January 20, Obama will be blamed for every bad thing that occurs during the shitgibbon’s term in office. Assuming that said shitgibbon doesn’t get bored and quit.

  188. 188.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 2:33 pm

    CNN International is saying that a truck driver has plowed through a crowd in Berlin. Hopefully, this is not a terrorist act.

  189. 189.

    James E Powell

    December 19, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    @JPL:

    Only if the truck driver is a Muslim.

  190. 190.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 2:36 pm

    @gvg:

    The British made non violent protest impossible because they kept beating and jailing the protesters. You seem very determined to not see that. BTW, 3 decades of the IRA DOES NOT EQUAL over 400 years of abuse, murder, rapine, invasion and (in the latter 17th century where Ireland’s population was cut in half) actual genocide.

  191. 191.

    jonas

    December 19, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    @Mike in dc: The Schutzstaffel started out as Hitler’s private bodyguard/security force (the Totenkopf/skull emblem being a symbol of their oath of loyalty-unto-death to the Führer) that later evolved into a massive paramilitary organization under Hitler’s (via Himmler) direct authority.

    Up next: some kind of Reichstag fire scenario. Good times.

  192. 192.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    @Cacti:

    Since Drumpf has put China on edge, what better opportunity than a conflict between NATO and Russia for the PRC to reassert control over (i.e. invade) Taiwan?

    Interesting that you should say that. I pointed out something similar last week, but with Russia and China reversed.

    Namely, that Putin now has a huge fanboy and absolute dumbass about to become president of his largest foreign adversary… and, that with the Taiwan tweeting, that fanboy now seems to be driving us headfirst into a confrontation with the only other major foreign power of a similar size and power. (More generally, Trump’s brand of populism targets China rather than Russia for both racist and economic reasons).

    Looks more to me like a conflict between America and China (even if it never turns into an actual shooting war) giving Russia a free hand to flex its muscles some more while the other two are busy with each other.

  193. 193.

    gene108

    December 19, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    @Jeffro:

    The other half is due to status anxiety amongst the older whites who see the US getting more multicultural, more accepting of LGBT folks, and more urban-area-oriented.

    A lot of the anxiety is media driven.

    There are a lot of good social indicators going on, which are not reported.

    High school graduation rates are at the highest level ever. But when the news bothers it mention this, it is couched in the language like “sure the kids these days are better educated, but their job prospects suck, which means we need to question the value of all the book learning. Unlike their grandparents, who could be financially independent by 25, married and with kids, even while dropping out of high school”.

    Teen pregnancy rates are at record lows.

    Crime rates have fallen sharply in the last 20 years and even with the Great Recession did not spike up that much. Yet the only things Fox News viewers will find out about is every homicide in Chicago, which is depicted as a war torn hell hole.

    The media really is another big barrier to why we cannot have better things.

    Also, too since the media is wired for Republicans, they accept everything a Republican does as the new normal, such as the stonewalling of Garland’s appointment to the SCOTUS. The “balance” was that Biden gave a speech regarding maybe holding off on seeking an appointment 25 years ago, for what ended up being the nomination of either Kennedy or Thomas, who unlike Garland, got their up-or-down vote in the Senate.

  194. 194.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2016 at 2:40 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Can they (the Leg) do that?

    I don’t see why not. States control their own elections, including things like rules about how many signatures a candidate needs to get on the ballot. I don’t see any particular reason why they couldn’t add more requirements, like divulging tax returns, on top of the ones they currently have.

  195. 195.

    gvg

    December 19, 2016 at 2:40 pm

    @Mike in NC: you know, i am not sure this will be paid by the tax payer. He doesn’t like paying out of his own pocket but I don’t see why this would be authorized. SS is supposed to do it…..people are going to say. Plus I be t they are more competent than whatever trump can find. he isn’t good at finding competent.

    Someone last night speculated that if Trump divorced Melania’s protection and Trump tower cost would go down. I don’t think that could be eliminated. Even if a President is long divorced and his wife might not be a target….his kid would be. Someday their will be a former spouse and kid. I think the kid will always have to be protected. Actually Trump has 2 ex’s and I would think they need some security too because their are nuts and because they all have kids who care who can influence the President. So ethically we have to guard them all.

    i don’t like the private guard.

  196. 196.

    Spanky (ex P-man)

    December 19, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    @Dog Dawg Damn:

    Can I just say the Russian Assassin is kind of hot?

    And cooling rapidly.

  197. 197.

    Mike in dc

    December 19, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    Sounds like another wave of ISIS attacks. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t put anything past Putin, who bombed apartment buildings and blamed the Chechens back in the day.

  198. 198.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!)

    December 19, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    @The Pale Scot:

    …the similarities between the Prods and the GOP base is just so compelling.

    Have you ever read Kevin Phillips’ The Cousins’ Wars? He thinks it’s more than a casual similarity.

  199. 199.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    @Jeffro:

    PK, I’d suggest that half of it most certainly is ideological – the rise of the super-wealthy Randians and their ability to set the agenda. The other half is due to status anxiety amongst the older whites who see the US getting more multicultural, more accepting of LGBT folks, and more urban-area-oriented. They’re resorting to extraordinary means in order to keep power…and that means throwing plenty of norms right on out the window.

    I’d argue that the real turning point was in the 1990s, when two things happened. In Washington, the arrival to power of Gingrich’s clique and their scorched-earth, by-any-means-necessary, all-other-considerations-are-secondary-to-beating-the-Democrats school of politics. And in America in general, the appearance of the Fox News network that mainstreamed and popularized the kind of echo chamber that used to be limited to John Birch Society magazine subscribers and the like, and encouraged a similar scorched-earth mentality among ordinary Republican viewers, who learned more and more to view the rest of America not as misguided fellow citizens but as battlefield enemies.

  200. 200.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    This is the Republican definition of government transparency?

    IOKIYAR. Rules about stuff like government transparency apply only to Democrats. The only rule that applies to Republicans is that they get to do WTFTW.

  201. 201.

    rikyrah

    December 19, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    What the holy fuck.

    The Secret Service is being cut out of Trump’s immediate protection?

    Who is paying these people?

  202. 202.

    Kay

    December 19, 2016 at 2:44 pm

    @JPL:

    well if it is be assured we’ll be ordered to behave normally and with some restraint, while the President-elect and the GOP Congress can go completely insane and say whatever the hell they want.

    We’re the designated “norm defenders”, apparently. No rules apply to Republicans. They’ll be coddled like children no matter what insane thing they blurt out.

  203. 203.

    Jacel

    December 19, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    @Calouste: No, an Ambassador is the most important thing ever. Why didn’t Russia’s Secretary of State keep him safe? Many investigations are necessary. That person will never get elected in Russia — or at least won’t get past Russia’s Electoral College.

  204. 204.

    gvg

    December 19, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    @Roger Moore: states also chose to by laws give advantages to people running in the big parties. real independents have to do more to get on the ballots wheras Democrats and Republicans are automatically on. I think in Florida it’s based on the number of votes the parties got in the last election. I wonder if the GOP could do so badly in California, that they wouldn’t get automatically on the next ballot? They can I think make this rule. I personally was wanting each party to make it a rule. they could do that.

  205. 205.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    @The Pale Scot:

    The thing that sticks out to me is a film clip of a Prod paramilitary talking about this and saying “they’re calling for rights I didn’t have” Well you stupid git, maybe you should have gone and marched with them instead of gunning them down

    Yeah, this is what occurs to me every time I hear the American version of those fucking assholes whining that union members have it too good because he works even harder and he doesn’t get those benefits. Unless you’re in the military where things like strikes and collective bargaining are not an option for obvious reasons, you have no excuse. Get off your fat ass and go negotiate yourself some better benefits. Just because you want to live in a pigstye is no reason the rest of us should have to.

  206. 206.

    Lurking Canadian

    December 19, 2016 at 2:49 pm

    This is all ass-backwards. First you have the political assassination in the Balkans, then you have the bloody conflict, then you have the economic collapse, then you get the dictator with a private army.

    It’s not supposed to happen all at once like this. Somebody get me rewrite!

  207. 207.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 2:51 pm

    On the the Troubles, Provos, Loyalists and Brits is a 9 part BBC documentary that does a good in depth job of the issues. Unfortunately, it seems that the 9 episodes have been cut up, start with Provos E01 and probably it will send thru the series.

    The RTÉ doc ‘Collusion’ covers Thatchers involvement in allowing the British army to collude with the Prod paras.

  208. 208.

    Ruckus

    December 19, 2016 at 2:51 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    And we have not yet seen his taxes, have we?

    Seen his taxes? He’s paid any?
    Hell I’d be happy to see his tax returns, just to know how he didn’t pay taxes and clams to be a multi billionaire. At least we’d have some idea on what to try to get changed in the law.

  209. 209.

    Spanky (ex P-man)

    December 19, 2016 at 2:53 pm

    Predictable as the sunrise:

    (CNN)The real voting for the White House is now underway.

    At 10 a.m. Monday, members of the Electoral College began casting their ballots in state capitals across the nation to make Donald Trump’s victory official. By 2 p.m., 30 states had voted so far, with no surprises in the balloting and Trump collecting 176 votes to Hillary Clinton’s 103.

  210. 210.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 19, 2016 at 2:53 pm

    @Ruckus: She was commenting about Sanders’ taxes.

  211. 211.

    FlipYrWhig

    December 19, 2016 at 2:55 pm

    @Chris:

    who learned more and more to view the rest of America not as misguided fellow citizens but as battlefield enemies.

    A lot of cops think this way too.

  212. 212.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    @Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!):

    He thinks it’s more than a casual similarity.

    Completely, that book about the five white cultural groups (I can’t remember who) covers it in detail. The Chevalier growers from the Caribbean brought over the border Lowland Scots ans indentured servants. Same people, they just didn’t stay over in N. Ireland first.

  213. 213.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @James E Powell: This is from ABC News and will barely deserve a mention
    Several were injured in a shooting at a mosque in Zurich, Switzerland, local police said on Twitter.
    The perpetrator is on the run, police tweeted.

  214. 214.

    Citizen_X

    December 19, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @Juice Box:

    I live at least 25 miles from the 32nd St. Naval Station. Is that close enough to be incinerated?

    Maybe. Find out here.

    Choose any yield you want. It’s hours of terrifying fun!

  215. 215.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 2:59 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    Seeing reports that Trump is keeping his private security enforcers and they will be with him in the WH. The head of his security, someone named Schiller, will be made a WH aid
    …
    who would act as a “full-time physical gatekeeper.”
    …
    What the holy fuck.
    …
    The Secret Service is being cut out of Trump’s immediate protection?

    Will the new bodyguard have Cobra-themed lapel pins?

    @celticdragonchick:

    The British made non violent protest impossible because they kept beating and jailing the protesters. You seem very determined to not see that. BTW, 3 decades of the IRA DOES NOT EQUAL over 400 years of abuse, murder, rapine, invasion and (in the latter 17th century where Ireland’s population was cut in half) actual genocide.

    At the risk of minimizing the issue and derailing the conversation, I just had to say congratulations for using the word “rapine” in conversation, which you really don’t see enough these days.

    @Spanky (ex P-man):

    Can I just say the Russian Assassin is kind of hot?
    …
    And cooling rapidly.

    You are a terrible person for making that joke, but I am a worse one for laughing at it.

  216. 216.

    Ruckus

    December 19, 2016 at 3:00 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Have we seen those returns?
    I didn’t think so. If I’m right then this applies to both the shit-gibbon elect and the prince of stupid. Although of course Sanders doesn’t claim to be a billionaire.

  217. 217.

    ragnar

    December 19, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    @germy: where were the russian’s security people?
    and the turkish secret service?

  218. 218.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    @Chris:

    Will the new bodyguard have Cobra-themed lapel pins?

    Hydra.

  219. 219.

    Skippy-san

    December 19, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    Party like it is 1914!

  220. 220.

    Jeffro

    December 19, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    @Chris:

    I’d argue that the real turning point was in the 1990s, when two things happened. In Washington, the arrival to power of Gingrich’s clique and their scorched-earth, by-any-means-necessary, all-other-considerations-are-secondary-to-beating-the-Democrats school of politics. And in America in general, the appearance of the Fox News network that mainstreamed and popularized the kind of echo chamber that used to be limited to John Birch Society magazine subscribers and the like, and encouraged a similar scorched-earth mentality among ordinary Republican viewers, who learned more and more to view the rest of America not as misguided fellow citizens but as battlefield enemies.

    Right…your two items are variations on my first one: the rise of the Randians and their ability to set the agenda. (Granted, that’s pretty broad! =) But beginning with the Reagan tax cuts, the super-wealthy began to have a lot more $$$ to throw around in general, and $$$ invested in media outlets & think tanks especially – it’s when the whole right-wing infrastructure really began to get built out.

    I kinda picture this as two timelines running from 1980 until about now: one labeled ‘things that gave the Randians more power over the national debate’, and one labeled ‘events that reinforced to older straight white lesser-educated males that they weren’t special anymore’.

    Anyway, good points and thanks. I’m passing that K-Thug column around on FB and Twitter and email and basically everywhere. The comparison to the fall of Rome is just so incredibly accurate.

  221. 221.

    Cacti

    December 19, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    @Lurking Canadian:

    This is all ass-backwards. First you have the political assassination in the Balkans, then you have the bloody conflict, then you have the economic collapse, then you get the dictator with a private army.

    It’s not supposed to happen all at once like this. Somebody get me rewrite!

    We live in an accelerated culture.

  222. 222.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Until Death!)

    December 19, 2016 at 3:06 pm

    @The Pale Scot:

    …they just didn’t stay over in N. Ireland first.

    A lot of them- with surnames like (but definitely not limited to) Jackson, Crockett, Boone and Bowie- came from families that had been planted in Ulster, though. Once the Ulster Plantations became too densely populated to support more Scots-Irish farmers, they headed off to American colonies, most of them in Pennsylvania and the colonies to its south. These were the soldiers in the armies of the Confederacy, the Klansmen in all of the Klan’s different eras, and, since the early ’70s, the base of the Republican Party. And Phillips himself helped make that last thing happen.

  223. 223.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2016 at 3:08 pm

    @gvg:

    Read the link at #125. There was an attempt at non-violence in the late 1960s and 1970s, but it was squashed. “Bloody Sunday” was designed by its organizers to be a nonviolent protest, but it didn’t work out that way, to say the least.

    Violent repression of protest leads to violent retaliation.

  224. 224.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 3:08 pm

    @The Pale Scot:

    Thatchers involvement in allowing the British army to collude with the Prod paras.

    Of course she fucking did.

    I didn’t know that, but adjectives fail me in describing how completely and utterly unsurprised I am. This is just such an archetypal right-wing MO: find the criminals you’re most aligned with on ideological/identitarian lines and back their side of the gang war, instead of actually doing your job and reestablishing law and order (while assuring the public that that is in fact what you’re doing). Germany in the inter-war era, France in the Algeria conflict, Italy in the years of lead, Israel in the West Bank, Colombia in the civil war, and that’s just off the top of my head.

  225. 225.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    @Jeffro:

    I think “Randians” is too narrow a term, would be my only disagreement; Krugman’s own term, “movement conservatives,” is probably better. Ayn Rand style ideology is a big part of it to be sure, but there are a hell of a lot of people in the movement who don’t give two shits about her philosophy and are just as dedicated to the movement for their own reasons.

  226. 226.

    Aleta

    December 19, 2016 at 3:11 pm

    U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel ordered that (a search warrant in the Hillary Clinton email investigation) — along with the reasons that an FBI agent gave for seeking it and an inventory of what was recovered — be unsealed by noon Tuesday. The documents could be telling, revealing what cause the FBI felt it had to search a computer belonging to disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) for evidence in the Clinton email case.

    I can’t make headway against my dread and mourning today.

  227. 227.

    germy

    December 19, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    MOBILE, Ala. — The mayor’s chief of staff in Mobile, Alabama, is apologizing for his role in having a large tree cut down at a city park so it could be used as a prop during President-elect Donald Trump’s recent “thank you” rally.

    Colby Cooper said he became “overzealous” while trying to ensure that expectations of Trump’s advance team were met.

    Al.com reports (http://bit.ly/2hAuyZB ) that Mobile residents raised questions almost immediately after the cedar tree at Public Safety Memorial Park was felled Friday. It was taken to Ladd-Peebles Stadium, placed in front of the scoreboard and decorated with Christmas ornaments to serve as a backdrop while Trump spoke at Saturday’s rally.

    In his apology, Cooper said that in the future he will be “more sensitive to the spectrum of concerns regarding trees.”

    “expectations of Trump’s advance team”
    Jesus! They’re all about the spectacle, aren’t they. Where’s Leni? We need her on camera one.

  228. 228.

    Mike in dc

    December 19, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    @Citizen_X:
    I have to go to the endpoint stations on DC Metro to escape most blasts.

  229. 229.

    tobie

    December 19, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    @JPL: I just checked the Süddeutsche Zeitung. They are saying this is a terrorist incident. Two people hit by the truck have died. No one as far as I can tell has taken responsibility for the incident yet.

  230. 230.

    rikyrah

    December 19, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    So we’ve learned that Trump doesn’t trust the CIA or Secret Service and plans to have intel and protection provided by his own goons. That will be billed to the US taxpayer.

    Oh phuck no. He wants his own goons, then he can pay for them.

  231. 231.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    CNN just sent headline alert that “multiple people” have been killed and at least 50 injured in the Berlin Christmas market truck incident.

    No matter how you slice it, this isn’t a good day.

  232. 232.

    JPL

    December 19, 2016 at 3:19 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: At least 9 dead, at least at this time.

    How long before Trump blames Merkel.

  233. 233.

    germy

    December 19, 2016 at 3:19 pm

    @Mike in NC: plans to have intel and protection provided by his own goons.

    Don’t start me talking
    I could talk all night
    My mind goes sleepwalking
    While I’m putting the world to right
    Called careers information
    Have you got yourself an occupation?

    Oliver’s army is here to stay
    Oliver’s army are on their way
    And I would rather be anywhere else
    But here today

    There was a checkpoint Charlie
    He didn’t crack a smile
    But it’s no laughing party
    When you’ve been on the murder mile

  234. 234.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2016 at 3:20 pm

    @gvg:

    how does the fact that the British were violent oppressors prove that the Catholic side was non violent in intentions?

    Again, if you read the links that have been provided to you, that’s exactly what the British decided — there was no way that Catholics in Northern Ireland could possibly have been trying to get civil rights through non-violent protest, so the British had to respond to non-violent protests with overwhelming force to “prevent” the violence they knew was the real aim of the protest. And that’s why the attempts at non-violence went to shit.

  235. 235.

    J R in WV

    December 19, 2016 at 3:22 pm

    @jeffreyw:

    Thanks for the pix of the happy fuzzy babies. We luvs our little guys, and your little guys.

    Very nice break from increasingly grim reality.

  236. 236.

    Corner Stone

    December 19, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    that’s exactly what the British decided — there was no way that Catholics in Northern Ireland could possibly have been trying to get civil rights through non-violent protest, so the British had to respond to non-violent protests with overwhelming force to “prevent” the violence they knew was the real aim of the protest. And that’s why the attempts at non-violence went to shit.

    WOW

  237. 237.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    @JPL:

    How long before Trump blames Merkel.

    We might have to wait for the 3:00 a.m. tweet.

  238. 238.

    InternetDragons

    December 19, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    @Chris:

    Re: the assassin. Putting aside the jokes for a moment – apparently he was a police officer in Ankara – a member of a special operations unit. Can you imagine the degree of desperation and anger that would drive someone who had a career focused on protecting others into a place where he’d become an assassin?

    This will all be turned into anti-Muslim propaganda, though.

  239. 239.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2016 at 3:24 pm

    @InternetDragons:

    He was just 22, the assassin/police officer. Twenty-two.

  240. 240.

    J R in WV

    December 19, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    @Spanky (ex P-man):

    His previous post was in Pyongyang, or however you spel the capital of the People’s Glorious Democratic Republic of Korea (Northern Branch)… so Ankara, until today, must have seemed like a huge, youuuuge promotion. A country where you can stop anywhere and have a nice snack and a stiff drink.

    Today, not so much! At least it was quick and unexpected. By the Ambassador, anyway.

  241. 241.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2016 at 3:28 pm

    @jeffreyw:

    Beautiful. Looks very textured, like a painting, not a photo — did you run it through Prisma or a similar filter to get that effect?

  242. 242.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    @InternetDragons:

    Eh, I’m not sure I buy that. How many times have we seen one of our cops, who may be supposed to be “focused on protecting others,” actually turning out to be thugs or outright assassins. I see no reason to believe this guy wasn’t just another asshole. Especially in the increasingly politicized world that is Erdogan’s Turkey.

  243. 243.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2016 at 3:30 pm

    @gvg:

    Also, too, just to be clear, this is NOT a justification for the violence by the IRA that followed the collapse of the non-violent movement in Northern Ireland. I am only pointing out that non-violent methods cannot succeed when the national government picks sides and works against non-violence.

    The Civil Rights Movement succeeded in the US because the federal government was willing to intervene on the side of non-violence when needed, like when various National Guards were mobilized to force school integration. If Eisenhower had instead chosen to use the National Guardsmen to block the schools, or refused to send them, US history might look very different today.

  244. 244.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 3:33 pm

    @jeffreyw: That’s gorgeous.

    Is it a painting?

    I think the events of today are just the new normal.

  245. 245.

    Jeffro

    December 19, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    @Chris:

    I think “Randians” is too narrow a term, would be my only disagreement; Krugman’s own term, “movement conservatives,” is probably better. Ayn Rand style ideology is a big part of it to be sure, but there are a hell of a lot of people in the movement who don’t give two shits about her philosophy and are just as dedicated to the movement for their own reasons.

    There’s a hell of a lot of people in the movement who don’t know who she is, or anything about Objectivism, but they sure are ardent “gubmint is the enemy” foot soldiers. They’re Randians and don’t even know it. They, combined with the ones who do consider Atlas Shrugged to the their bible, are the unifying force of the movement you (and PK) are referring to. Fueled by billionaires’ dark money and supported by the infrastructure they’ve built since the 70s – that’s the movement.

  246. 246.

    Keith G

    December 19, 2016 at 3:35 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    No matter how you slice it, this isn’t a good day.

    Just another day in the human race. If violence is one’s concern, no days are good.

  247. 247.

    chopper

    December 19, 2016 at 3:35 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    It’s like the run-up to WWI, but now we can’t afford trenches.

    sounds like just the shovel-ready infrastructure project trump is gonna get behind.

  248. 248.

    rikyrah

    December 19, 2016 at 3:39 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    He was just 22, the assassin/police officer. Twenty-two.

    22 in the Special Forces?

    That doesn’t sound hanky to anyone else?

  249. 249.

    InternetDragons

    December 19, 2016 at 3:40 pm

    @Chris:

    Fair point. I’m the last person to be idealistic about law enforcement officers, though I have known some who were incredible people (in a good way).

    For some reason I’m feeling a lot of sorrow at the moment over…everything. My usual reaction is more along the lines of trying to come up with things I can actually DO rather than sit around and emote, but seeing both of these lives lost today (the ambassador and the young assassin) just sparked sadness.

  250. 250.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 19, 2016 at 3:41 pm

    Stuck in moderation, again.

  251. 251.

    Kryptik

    December 19, 2016 at 3:41 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Again, if you read the links that have been provided to you, that’s exactly what the British decided — there was no way that Catholics in Northern Ireland could possibly have been trying to get civil rights through non-violent protest, so the British had to respond to non-violent protests with overwhelming force to “prevent” the violence they knew was the real aim of the protest. And that’s why the attempts at non-violence went to shit.

    This sounds so terribly, terribly familiar. It’s almost like that one saying…what was it again, learning about history and about it repeating?…something like that.

  252. 252.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 3:41 pm

    @rikyrah:

    The Secret Service is being cut out of Trump’s immediate protection?

    That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while

  253. 253.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2016 at 3:42 pm

    @Keith G:

    You’re quite right, and I don’t mean to minimise the daily tragedies that happen around the world. Not all instances of violence, though, carry within them the seeds of hostile international confrontation. And very few of them occur on a day when the Electoral College is voting for a singularly and stupendously unqualified person to become the next President of the United States.

  254. 254.

    Doug R

    December 19, 2016 at 3:42 pm

    @efgoldman: This is why Hillary wanted a no fly zone.

  255. 255.

    cmorenc

    December 19, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’ve been surprised there hasn’t been more terrorism directed at Russia in recent years, especially given the history in Chechnya and other regions in and countries to the south of Russia. But I sure do wish we had gotten more involved militarily in Syriaqia!

    IIRC, didn’t Putin get the critical traction toward gaining control of Russia’s government at a time when the Yeltsin government he served as head of FSB and freshly, its Prime Minister, were deeply unpopular and vulnerable to being overthrown – by being in on a plot to blow up some occupied apartment buildings in Moscow and throwing the blame on alleged Chechen terrorism? The bitter irony-is-dead aspect to the aforementioned link is that it comes an article in National Review, an arch-conservative website, though if you google the incident “putin apartment bombings” you’ll come up with plenty of other sources for this information.

  256. 256.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    @Jeffro:

    Sure, but being ardently anti-government isn’t enough to make you a Randian: there’s a bunch of different ways to be anti-government that don’t entail what she believed in (even if they’re often similar to it), many of which predates her ideology. Anarchism, feudalism, Confederate-style aristocracy, etc.

    Ayn Rand’s ideology is specific enough that you can’t really apply it to all of them any more than you can call, say, every left-wing revolutionary a Maoist. (And at least some of it is stuff that they would reject energetically: they may be terrible Christians, for instance, but most of them would furiously insist that they are in fact Christians of some kind).

  257. 257.

    gene108

    December 19, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    The Civil Rights Movement succeeded in the US because the federal government was willing to intervene on the side of non-violence when needed, like when various National Guards were mobilized to force school integration. If Eisenhower had instead chosen to use the National Guardsmen to block the schools, or refused to send them, US history might look very different today.

    The big difference back then is the Supreme Court was the driver for desegregation. Even before Brown v Board of Education, Thurgood Marshall had won other lawsuits before the Supreme Court, that chipped away at institutional racism.

    I think the conservatives took that lesson to heart, which is one reason they are so hell bent on having a strangle hold on the Supreme Court.

    The Supreme Court can really shake up society, like it did in the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s, with several landmark decisions that have been cheered by liberals. And now several landmark decisions that have gone the way of conservatives and tilted the landscape in favor of Republicans.

  258. 258.

    debbie

    December 19, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    @Doug R:

    Except then you have to enforce it.

  259. 259.

    Brachiator

    December 19, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    @crawdad:

    Meanwhile, Obama is golfing in Hawaii.

    Not quite.

    This should get picked up by one of the hosts.

    President Obama Grants 153 Commutations and 78 Pardons to Individuals Deserving of a Second Chance

    Today, President Obama granted clemency to 231 deserving individuals — the most individual acts of clemency granted in a single day by any president in this nation’s history. With today’s 153 commutations, the President has now commuted the sentences of 1,176 individuals, including 395 life sentences. The President also granted pardons to 78 individuals, bringing his total number of pardons to 148. Today’s acts of clemency — and the mercy the President has shown his 1,324 clemency recipients — exemplify his belief that America is a nation of second chances.
    President Obama has been one of the most consistently compassionate presidents we have ever had.

    Instead of handing out favors to cronies, Obama has done more to try to heal wounds and help average citizens than almost any public figure I can think of.

    And yet, here is a man who is still feared by those consumed with racial anxiety, belittled by moral dimwits, distrusted by idiots who still think he is not a real American. He even frustrates some of his own allies, who kept wanting him to get down into the mud with his enemies.

    I will miss President Obama. But I will never forget the good that he tried to do, and the great deeds that he managed to get done despite obstruction and opposition.

    I hope that some of our leaders are paying attention. As the assassination of the ambassador demonstrates, we are going to need some real leadership.

  260. 260.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Of course it does. At that age, he should still be a probationer.

    Hell, insurance actuaries know that young men up to the age of 24 or 25 are far more likely to do dumb, rash shit, and set their rates accordingly.

  261. 261.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 19, 2016 at 3:48 pm

    Posted without comment:
    Another news item about our new overlords:

    More than 40 people dead from alcohol poisoning after drinking bath oil in Siberian city

  262. 262.

    Adrift

    December 19, 2016 at 3:48 pm

    I can’t believe I actually just watched an assassination. I feel sick.

  263. 263.

    debbie

    December 19, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    @efgoldman:

    Bet his security costs more than the Secret Service and that he’ll pocket a percentage of the take.

  264. 264.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 3:52 pm

    @Adrift: It is shocking.

  265. 265.

    J R in WV

    December 19, 2016 at 3:52 pm

    @Juice Box:

    No, not at all. There’s a pretty good modeling tool for nuclear explosions, which shows that the area of total devastation isn’t that big, in terms of 25 miles.

    Try THIS, select San Diego, CA, and then drag the target to the Naval base. I used 2,000 Kilotons, which would be 2 megatons, about the maximum.

    If you pick a surface detonation, you get a somewhat smaller footprint of total devastation, but a long tail of fallout. An airburst, which is more likely from a military perspective, provides much larger radius of total devastation, but no fallout compared to a surface burst.

    Of course, if a special munitions device is used by terrorists, it will be a surface detonation, as opposed to an incoming missile/bomber, which will provide an airburst. I studied up on this kind of thing back in the 1970s when it seemed more likely.

    Now it’s like old times again.

    And Francis Fukuyama doesn’t see why the murder of a Russian ambassador might be comparable to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand???? Really? A Stanford professor of Political Science?

    Really?

  266. 266.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 19, 2016 at 3:53 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I have a counter example, the Indian Freedom Struggle. It had both its violent and non-violent components and the British certainly were not favorable to either and had no compunctions about using violence against unarmed Indians. They left because the economics of maintaining India as a part of the empire was untenable after WWII, among other things.

  267. 267.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2016 at 3:54 pm

    @Jeffro:

    There’s a hell of a lot of people in the movement who don’t know who she is, or anything about Objectivism, but they sure are ardent “gubmint is the enemy” foot soldiers. They’re Randians and don’t even know it.

    I don’t think they really are Randians. They have no objections to government when it’s helping them- keep your grubby hands off their farm subsidies, Social Security checks, Medicare, etc.- but they are attacking it because they believe it’s mostly helping Those People. That’s why there’s such a disconnect between leadership and the base about doing away with those popular government programs. The base doesn’t believe leadership could actually be serious about eliminating Medicare, to the point they actively disbelieve when presented with evidence.

  268. 268.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 3:54 pm

    @Adrift: The most striking was the stillness of the fallen ambassador, the finality, the rapidity. So strange to see assassination footage with no blood whatsoever. It’s almost clinical, but it’s real.

    Or so we are told.

  269. 269.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 3:55 pm

    @Kryptik:

    This sounds so terribly, terribly familiar. It’s almost like that one saying…what was it again, learning about history and about it repeating?…something like that.

    Yeah, about that.

    Yesterday, I did something I’d been meaning to do and hadn’t gotten around to yet despite years and years of living in DC, and went to the Museum of the American Indian. There’s a big section on Hawaii, which includes a fairly detailed film on the annexation process… which is really, really, depressingly familiar, especially after Trump. Native population and government coexisting with a white planter aristocracy (which started out as missionaries, because of course it fucking did). White planters pressure government to pass a constitution that disenfranchises people without enough property. Eventually, queen muses on possibility of passing new constitution that doesn’t advantage them that way; backs down under pressure to avoid violence, and does everything she can to avoid even the appearance of troubles that might give the U.S. a reason to intervene. Meanwhile, white planters and their friends at the U.S. mission are writing increasingly hysterical messages to Washington and to the local U.S. naval commander talking of chaos and anarchy and lawlessness in the streets and begging the U.S. to please intervene and save them all before the savages massacre all of them. Which of course, eventually, the U.S. does.

    The more things change…

  270. 270.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2016 at 3:56 pm

    @Chris:

    Sure, but being ardently anti-government isn’t enough to make you a Randian: there’s a bunch of different ways to be anti-government that don’t entail what she believed in (even if they’re often similar to it), many of which predates her ideology. Anarchism, feudalism, Confederate-style aristocracy, etc.

    Also, Ayn Rand sold her “philosophy” of Objectivism as a total all-or-nothing package. To qualify as an Objectivist (or should I say, “student of Objectivism,” because she alone decided who was and was not an Objectivist) you had to buy into her political philosophy, economics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. I’m not kidding, if you admired Beethoven’s music, you were considered to have a “negative sense of life” and if you were prominent enough in her inner circle it could get you shunned. Same if you weren’t a full-throated atheist, or if you dared suggest that government might have a role in building roads, or if you ever claimed to have a “gut instinct” about something or someone.

  271. 271.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2016 at 3:57 pm

    @Chris:

    Love that Museum.

  272. 272.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    That too.

  273. 273.

    Adrift

    December 19, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    @Elizabelle: I don’t know anything about the man, but I am saddened for his family, and hope they don’t see this.

  274. 274.

    trollhattan

    December 19, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    @Elizabelle:
    Guy had some sucky posts; he was Soviet ambassador to North Korea.

  275. 275.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2016 at 4:01 pm

    @Adrift: Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. Their family’s loss and private tragedy has just gone viral.

    @trollhattan: as someone pointed out upthread, he just got a better post and this happens. At an art gallery.

  276. 276.

    trollhattan

    December 19, 2016 at 4:02 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    So basically, if she had gone more heavily for the SciFi angle she could have become Ron Hubbard. Boy, did she ever choose wrong.

  277. 277.

    catclub

    December 19, 2016 at 4:03 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    That will be billed to the US taxpayer.

    I was going to ask “How that heck does that work?”, then thought, Blackwater. So it is all good. Maybe they will shoot up some town square in the US of A.

  278. 278.

    Shalimar

    December 19, 2016 at 4:05 pm

    @germy: The largest of those cedars date back to before the United States was founded. No wonder Mobilians are pissed off at the idiot who had one cut down.

  279. 279.

    J R in WV

    December 19, 2016 at 4:07 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    I’m sure that’s the whole point. His private security guys won’t interfere with his “loyal fans” stomping peaceful protesters into the ground, as the Secret Service would. The Secret Service would perhaps even attempt to arrest Trump’s civilian security or fans/goons breaking the law.

    Trump’s private security can open fire on a crowd, claim it was to protect the President and get away with it clean, if no government law enforcement survives to testify. And would have no mission regarding protecting nuns from rednecks with boots.

    Of course, cell phone video automatically uploading to a cloud would provide some sort of “evidence” but it would be more deniable than an experienced Secret Service agent, wouldn’t it?

    If the private cloud even survived contact with the NSA cloud….

    Troubled times.

  280. 280.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2016 at 4:22 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Objectivism and Scientology have a lot in common!

    (Believe it or not, I first typed “have a lot in conman” and had to go back and make the correction!)

  281. 281.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2016 at 4:24 pm

    @J R in WV:

    If the private cloud even survived contact with the NSA cloud….

    I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now.

  282. 282.

    tobie

    December 19, 2016 at 4:25 pm

    @cmorenc: Yes, I remember the 1999 attack on the apartment building in Moscow that Putin blamed on Chechen separatists in a ruthless effort to shore up support for his party and himself. Angela Merkel is fighting for her political survival right now. The horrifying attack on the Xmas market in Berlin could well cost her the election and put the right-wing ‘Alternative for Germany’ in the Christian Democrats place. This is, at this point, a wild theory but it shows how belligerent Russia has become in recent years.

  283. 283.

    trollhattan

    December 19, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    have a lot in conman

    Heh, too perfect.

  284. 284.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 4:31 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    You got it right the first time.

  285. 285.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    December 19, 2016 at 4:33 pm

    @celticdragonchick: well considering I don’t see Trump as a legitimate president I take great comfort his life is in the hands of a pack of underpaid macho men. He really and truely is an idiot for shutting out the secreat service.

  286. 286.

    Chris

    December 19, 2016 at 4:37 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    I wouldn’t. Considering what would inevitably come next, the last thing any of us should want is Trump assassinated.

  287. 287.

    Calouste

    December 19, 2016 at 4:40 pm

    @tobie: Opinion polls have AfD at a fairly consistent 12-14% since about August. A lot needs to happen before they can take over from the CDU/CSU.

  288. 288.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 19, 2016 at 4:47 pm

    @The Pale Scot: It’s terrible news. Trump is keeping a private goon squad, loyal to him rather than to the office or to the Constitution. That’s most likely going to be the basis for his personal secret police, responsible for eliminating opposition politicians and journalists, etc.

  289. 289.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 4:53 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    you, that’s exactly what the British decided

    It’s more complemented than that. Yeah, by the time Thatcher was elected Lord Mountbatten (who was an Irish advocate) had been assassinated and the IRA was bombing London. But earlier the British gov was trying to find a peaceful solution, it was the Paisleyites that shit in the punch bowl over and over and implied that England was engaging in the final retreat from Empire. There were still a lot of WW2 vets around and with the economy (coal mines) skidding out supporting NIR was a political ploy.

  290. 290.

    Curtis Lowe

    December 19, 2016 at 4:58 pm

    Its ridiculous that this guy didn’t have a bodyguard. Isis/radicals are all over Turkey. Isis fighters have been seen taking public transportation in Istanbul. The Russian government should have insisted that he have protection.

  291. 291.

    EBT

    December 19, 2016 at 5:00 pm

    http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/donald-trump-security-force-232797 It’s hitting the airwaves now too.

  292. 292.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 5:05 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    They left because the economics of maintaining India as a part of the empire

    India is out in the boondocks. NIR was between London and the Kiev Military District . The most heavily armed Soviet unit except for the Moscow District.

  293. 293.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    @J R in WV:

    His private security guys won’t interfere with his “loyal fans” stomping peaceful protesters into the ground, as the Secret Service would.

    No, his Brownshirts won’t be talkative witnesses to whatever treason he commits

  294. 294.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 19, 2016 at 5:11 pm

    @The Pale Scot: WTH are you talking about? I was giving Mnem a counter example of a mostly non-violent movement succeeding despite opposition from the rulers of the land.

  295. 295.

    tobie

    December 19, 2016 at 5:17 pm

    @Calouste: You’re right, and Germany of course has the option of a grand coalition to keep out the far right. Their mainstream parties haven’t become extremist parties, as has our GOP.

  296. 296.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 5:26 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m saying that the British government during to cold war would have seen keeping NIR militarily viable much more important than holding onto India’s economic advantages.

    Any Soviet nuclear launch would come over the North Sea, having intel nodes in north Scotland and Ireland was important.

    Short clip of initial impacts from Threads,

    The scariest, most dismal film I’ve ever watched

  297. 297.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2016 at 5:32 pm

    @The Pale Scot:

    Right, but there’s quite a bit of evidence that the Paisleyites were being supported by the Ulster government and probably by the British as well. Again, when one side gets supported by the government in power, the other side gets screwed, badly.

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I think India falls more into the other independence movements in Asia and Africa. As someone else mentioned, Northern Ireland in the 1960s became this weird symbol of, We’ve lost the rest of our Empire (including India), we can’t lose Northern Ireland, too!

    And, of course, the English were entrenched in Ireland long before they got to India.

  298. 298.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 5:34 pm

    @The Pale Scot: You still have to keep going back to the RUC, Paisley and the paras suppressing (and murdering) peaceful protesters in the first place.

    Without that poisoned fruit, you do not get 30 years of The Troubles. When peaceful protest become impossible, violent alternatives become inevitable.

  299. 299.

    celticdragonchick

    December 19, 2016 at 5:40 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Right, but there’s quite a bit of evidence that the Paisleyites were being supported by the Ulster government and probably by the British as well. Again, when one side gets supported by the government in power, the other side gets screwed, badly.

    Yep.

    Also, as Americans, we do not tend to understand the historical depth of anti-Catholic animus in England and how that was used against the Irish. Hell, you can still see incidents of Catholic old men or women getting caught in the wrong place during marching season when some group of drunk punks singing Billy Boys* gets bored after dark…

    *
    Hello, Hello
    We are the Billy Boys
    Hello, Hello
    You’ll know us by our noise
    We’re up to our knees in Fenian blood
    Surrender or you’ll die
    For we are
    The Brigton Derry Boys[27]

  300. 300.

    Panurge

    December 19, 2016 at 5:49 pm

    geographic region and metal band

    Uhhhh wat?

  301. 301.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 19, 2016 at 5:54 pm

    @The Pale Scot: Funny how the jewel in the crown becomes a backwater once you can no longer hold on to it. Indian blood and money financed the British Empire. To paraphrase Curzon, without India, Britain was a third rate power.

    During the Cold War, India was already independent, so I am not sure why you are comparing it to NIR.

  302. 302.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 5:55 pm

    @celticdragonchick: It’s long before Paisley.

    I have heard stories from before 1920 of people just going about their business being robbed and killed because they were Cath and in the wrong place in the wrong time (like some places in the USA). Go back 50 yrs further and people were killed for teaching their children Gaelic and Catholic doctrine.

    Anecdotally, the tales say that after the English beat King Brian in 800AD, they sent successive waves of settlers over from England to “Englishfy” the Irish. And successively the settlers would find common cause with the locals and become just as big a pain. Like I said the stories are mythological but they are entertaining. Then Cromwell started shipping over the border Scots, solving two problems with one stone. The Scots were Protestant, dirt poor and gained advantage by raiding each other. Now they had new government approved victims.

  303. 303.

    J R in WV

    December 19, 2016 at 5:56 pm

    @The Pale Scot:

    Thanks! Just what I didn’t need with all this other good news, old “good news”.

    I saw H G Wells Time Machine as a youth, and one of the terrible slices of history he saw running forward was a nuclear attack, sirens, red hot flash, etc. Sirens have affected me seriously ever since.

    Maybe my imagination is too good?Q!

  304. 304.

    Panurge

    December 19, 2016 at 6:08 pm

    @Botsplainer: He probably has to have a HAIRCUT YOU DAMN HIPPIE, too.

  305. 305.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 6:13 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Oh, I’m just saying that defense of the realm would be more important than economic necessity. Here in the USA we’d have 20-30 min to react. England would have 10 at most. And the western North Sea is deep enough for a ballistic sub to sneak up and launch with only a 3-4 minute flight to London. Which is the nightmare of every Navy. Letting the commies in Dublin keep watch over western Britain and Naval Base Clyde (where the Brits keep their boomers) was not a happy option. I think today we tend forget how scary (to both us and the Russkies) this shit was. We could track and follow their boomers, they couldn’t do the same. We were scared about Russian boomers sneaking up on DC, they were freaked because they couldn’t find ours at all.

  306. 306.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 6:17 pm

    @J R in WV: The only time I watched Threads all the way thru (in 1985) I drank steadily afterwards for quite a while. The Walking Dead is puppies and rainbows in comparison.

  307. 307.

    Fr33d0m

    December 19, 2016 at 6:41 pm

    Have they scheduled a new Senate Benghazi committee hearing for Hillary yet? Its got to be her fault that another trusted Ambassador was killed in Cuba or wherever.

  308. 308.

    schrodingers_cat

    December 19, 2016 at 6:48 pm

    @The Pale Scot: Okay, got it. I think I misunderstood what you were saying earlier in the thread.

  309. 309.

    The Pale Scot

    December 19, 2016 at 6:56 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: It’s cool

  310. 310.

    AxelFoley

    December 20, 2016 at 2:18 am

    @crawdad:

    Meanwhile, Obama is golfing in Hawaii.

    And he’s supposed to do what about a Russian ambassador being assassinated in Turkey?

  311. 311.

    AxelFoley

    December 20, 2016 at 3:25 am

    @Brachiator:

    Instead of handing out favors to cronies, Obama has done more to try to heal wounds and help average citizens than almost any public figure I can think of.

    And yet, here is a man who is still feared by those consumed with racial anxiety, belittled by moral dimwits, distrusted by idiots who still think he is not a real American. He even frustrates some of his own allies, who kept wanting him to get down into the mud with his enemies.

    I will miss President Obama. But I will never forget the good that he tried to do, and the great deeds that he managed to get done despite obstruction and opposition.

    I hope that some of our leaders are paying attention. As the assassination of the ambassador demonstrates, we are going to need some real leadership.

    Amen.

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