Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

No one could have predicted…

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Bark louder, little dog.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

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

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Republicans don’t trust women.

He really is that stupid.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Convention Par-TAY!

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Convention Par-TAY!

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*Boring* Democrat lanyard-wearers, whining about ‘superspreader events’ and ‘massive public health risk’!

… Spreading the events across several locations would dilute the traditional pageantry of the convention — and limit the masses of delegates and onlookers who flock to the events. But it would allow the party to target specific areas where it hopes to turn voters its way in November, according to the two Democrats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private planning…

The presidential conventions, marquee events for each political party that traditionally offer four full nights of televised appeals to voters, are one of the few major events of the summer to remain on the calendar, although the Democratic gathering has already been pushed back from mid-July to Aug. 17 in hopes that the coronavirus outbreak will diminish over time…

Why not get out there and reap the massive ‘earned media’ benefits that the Greedy Old Perverts are not too proud to grasp after, for the entertainment of the horse-race political touts?

Speculation is that such a ‘get’ would be a reward for Florida’s Trump-tastic Governor, Ron DeSantis. But also, of course…


Just enough room for him, a battery of sycophants, and a yuuuuge media corral. No germ-laden swag-flashing peons to distract from the TRANSITION TO OBAMAGATE INFRASTRUCTURE AGAIN, or whatever that week’s slogan turns out to be!

Reader Interactions

151Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    How We Made: Airplane!

    When we were auditioning for the “jive talk” sequence, the script just read: “Shi-mo-fo.” We apologised to the actors saying that was the best three white Jewish guys from Milwaukee could do. Al White and Norm Gibbs auditioned together and said: “Do you mind if we do our own thing?” We didn’t write any of that, it was all them. They also coached Barbara Billingsley, the passenger who steps in to translate.

    ETA: I wonder if they got paid extra for the writing and coaching?

  3. 3.

    Shalimar

    The biggest hotel ballroom has maybe 10% of the space they would need for a proper convention. That said, yeah, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if Trump dispensed with all the pesky delegates and turned it into a television event with a small studio audience.

  4. 4.

    Mustang Bobby

    Good morning, Friends.  Just stopping to let you know that my dad died yesterday morning at the age of 93 after a long twilight of dementia.  My mom and my siblings were braced for it; we knew he was fading, and in many ways, there’s a sense of relief with the inevitable grief.  I posted a little tribute to him at my blog in case you want to stop by.

  5. 5.

    JoyceH

    The two things I remember from the 2016 convention are the smoke machine and the Jumbotron spelling out “TRUMP” in big fat gold letters that barely fit on the screen. Remember thinking at the time “if a comic book supervillain ran for president, it would look just like this.”

  8. 8.

    Baud

    The RNC should just come out and declare that its convention will be held in Moscow.

  11. 11.

    Debbie(Aussie)

    @Mustang Bobby: My condolences to you and your family.

     

    Good morning Jackals. Time for me to go to sleep. Just wanted you all to know that I’m thinking of you all during this trying time. Nope that doesn’t work, maybe disastrous? No words strong enough for the ineptitude of the reverse Robin Hood and his not so merry men. Take care.

  13. 13.

    SFAW

    It takes a while to adequately plan for and carry out a sprawling national confab like that.

    “Bodges Plans? We don’t got no plans. We don’t NEED no stinking plans.”

  15. 15.

    debbie

    Ah, August in Florida. Just what these horrible people deserve. And please let Trump overcharge them for everything.

  18. 18.

    debbie

    @Mustang Bobby:

    I’m so very sorry for your loss.

    ETA: A beautfiul tribute. My mother was always pleading, “Just once, can’t we have a nice, quiet dinner?”

  24. 24.

    prostratedragon

    My condolences, Mustang Bobby. Had those strange feelings myself back in the fall. Hold to the good times, of which no doubt there were many.

  26. 26.

    gkoutnik

    @NotMax: Wow.  Do we all need this or what?  Thanks!  All we need now is John Travolta in drag (I see from the credits he helped out on this).

    I’ve been deeply involved in community and regional theater as an avocation for decades, and have a huge distribution list of like-minded folks.  Imma send this out to them.  We all love theater but don’t have to make our living there, and this is a great chance to help our compadres who do.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @sanjeevs:

    David Sirota has been given a gig at the Guardian to trash the Democrats

    I thought he was hired at Jacobin to trash the Democrats.

  29. 29.

    Waldo

    Narcissistic con man, haphazard event planning, last-minute venue change … It’s like the elevator pitch for a Fyre Festival sequel.

  33. 33.

    Hg

    Question for you folks:
    I already have a subscription to the Washington Post, and am looking to subscribe to a second newspaper (or magazine). Any suggestions for what that should be?

    i used to have a subscription for the ftfnyt, but cancelled last year. Not sure what the best options are… LA times? The Atlantic?

  35. 35.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Kushner’s push to turn the GOP platform into a one page document should be setting off nationwide alarm bells. That’s the step that establishes Führerprinzip as national policy.

    Maybe it can look like this:

    Praise Trump from whom all blessings flow,

    Praise Him all creatures here below,

    Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts,

    Praise Trump the guy we love the most……

  38. 38.

    Kathleen

    @sanjeevs: Amazing how all the professional Dem Demonizers are no talent hacks. I’m so glad they can find a niche for their incoherent rants (not).

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    @Hg: IMO, the Beltway coverage from the LA Times can be as awful as the NYT, but their straight news coverage seems good. I’m not a subscriber, so my sense of it is limited to freebies.

    I enjoy The Atlantic, though it can be maddening AF too. I also subscribe to The New Republic and The New Yorker, which are each maddening in their own way! :)

  45. 45.

    Betty Cracker

    As for holding the RNC in FL in August, it was stupid to do it in 2012, when they had two years to plan, and it would be doubly stupid to do so in 2020 on short notice. In August, not only is Florida a sun-blasted hellscape that is so humid that every breath feels like it’s drawn through boiling cotton, it’s also hurricane season. What could possibly go wrong?

  50. 50.

    hueyplong

    Let’s face it, no matter how this convention drama plays out, it will be done incompetently because those choads can’t do anything well under the least amount of pressure.  The only real question is whether there will be a body count of Republicans whose names we actually recognize.  And those who find excuses not to show up, or who are caught on camera taking extreme precautions, will be grist for a turning-on-their-own exercise that won’t exactly hurt Biden’s chances in November.

    I feel bad for the service industry people who will be collateral damage in the upcoming shitshow, but that’s about it.

    If it ends up being held at a Trump property, I will be pretty pissed off if we don’t see a bunch of references to The Masque of the Red Death.

  52. 52.

    Baud

    Speaking of former Bernie supporters, does anyone know WTF this is about?

    YouTube has taken down the controversial Michael Moore-produced documentary Planet of the Humans in response to a copyright infringement claim by a British environmental photographer.

    The movie, which has been condemned as inaccurate and misleading by climate scientists and activists, allegedly includes a clip used without the permission of the owner Toby Smith, who does not approve of the context in which his material is being used.

    ….

    Many are dismayed that Moore – who built his reputation as a left-wing filmmaker and supporter of civil rights – should produce a work endorsed by climate sceptics and right-wing thinktanks.

    I have many issues with Moore, but this is a strange turn.

  53. 53.

    prufrock

    @Betty Cracker: Am I wrong in thinking that staging the RNC in Tampa would definitely break the century long streak of the Tampa Bay area not being hit by a major hurricane, especially in the wrong place and time (Tarpon Springs, heading Northeast, at high tide)?

  58. 58.

    hueyplong

    @Baud: Enthusiastically agreeing to work for Vichy at the beginning of 1944 doesn’t make much sense.  Just consider him a blue collar Greenwald or else go with the tried and true, “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

    We all  moved on from Moore a long time ago.

  59. 59.

    Betty Cracker

    @prufrock: I doubt Mayor Castor would sign on for the shit-show, so Tampa Bay area residents would probably be spared. If it happens, Trump would probably hold a pared-down affair at Disgraceland in Palm Beach or Doral.

  61. 61.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: It’s really not uncharacteristic. The documentary is all about how Democrats are hypocrites, environmentalism is the real anti-environmentalism, and the only solution is to eliminate civilization. For leftier-than-thou performers who were in the Nader movement this kind of thing is pure catnip.

  62. 62.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Just read on Twitter that other Sanders-adjacent fraud Shaun King is up to fresh new fuckery too. The cottage industry that grifters like King and Moore built around Sanders must be dismantled and transplanted in other soil because Sanders is done, and they know it. I guess they’re not too picky about the soil.

  65. 65.

    Chris Johnson

    @hueyplong: Yeah, the more we can shelter people from this attempt to get ’em all killed for Trump and the Economy the better.

    I see it as not just policy; I’ve been giving stuff away more in recent months, to people who aren’t in desperate trouble but now don’t have to go to work to afford that graphics tablet or whatever. If you know someone who is being compelled to go to some service job, I feel like ‘no you don’t: I’LL pay the rent’ is a perfectly legitimate political act, for them as can manage it.

    It would be nice if our government could kick in to protect its citizens, but it ain’t our government yet, so it’s a matter of what you can personally do.

  66. 66.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: I think if you have one — and only one — trick in your repertoire, it leads to all sorts of strange places. Moore’s was is and always will be that white guys on the assembly line are getting screwed. It’s true! But more than one thing can be true at once and Moore can’t/won’t see that. So, climate change ch-ch-changes are going to hurt that guy on the line. So, guy on the lines issues must beat the rolling truth tide of climate change. He is Ned Ludd.

  70. 70.

    zhena gogolia

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Oh, what a beautiful essay. I love the picture. I lost my father when he was 92, and it was wrenching. (Yesterday was the 110th anniversary of his coming to the USA.)

  75. 75.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: Who knew that Bernie was the most decent one of the bunch!

    The thing about Moore that’s different from the others is that he had a long and established career and reputation before Bernie.  His descent is therefore going to be visible than the other Wilmerites.

  78. 78.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Moore was at his best when he was working out of Flint doing blue collar stuff. He provided insight that wasn’t coming from anyplace else. National success ruined him. Now his blue collar clothes look like a costume and he’s talking about stuff where he doesn’t have anything unique to offer.

    There was another guy, a line worker, Ben Something, who also used to occasionally publish essays in the Free Press’s Sunday magazine. He was called something like Rivet Head. I wonder what happened to him.

  79. 79.

    artem1s

    @JoyceH:

    The two things I remember from the 2016 convention

    the things I remember were the giant super heavy barriers that started to go up on the streets weeks ahead of the event.  Downtown looked like the green zone after they were done partitioning it off.  All the businesses that thought they were going to profit couldn’t get permits to do business in the high security areas, which was pretty much everywhere north of Carnegie Avenue. There allowed permits for some protests but they so far away they might as well have been in the next county.

    The Gilberts profited bigly, I’m sure, but I do remember the word on the street was there were constant misfires in Q arena lighting and sound systems. Remember the meetings with the Russian mobsters delegation at Severence Hall? Seems like about a thousand years ago now – started the whole line of questioning about who was talking to whom before the election.

    The Orange Plague stayed at the Clinic hotel.  So the entire corridor from downtown to university circle was a complete mess every day.  The grift opportunity led the university board and President to agree to house security in the dorms – they were allowed to bring and open carry on a gun free campus – not blocks from where 36 city police went on a murder spree and gunned down two unarmed kids.

    Most of the city, me included, left town for the week of (another grift opp was renting out housing at astronomical prices). Some people left for the entire month.  So the local businesses actually fared pretty poorly because no sane person wanted to be anywhere near that potential riot waiting to happen. And in the end, they stiffed the city for most of what they were supposed to pay for.

    Charlotte, take my advice and pray they take their circus elsewhere.

  80. 80.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Mustang Bobby: What a lovely tribute. Thank you for sharing it with us and may sweet memory bring you and your family comfort, along with some laughs.

  81. 81.

    Amir Khalid

    @Betty Cracker:

    Back in the Before Times, there were plenty of conventions and conferences and such in KL. The weather here is just like the weather in Florida, except of course that we don’t have a hurricane season.

  82. 82.

    Amir Khalid

    By the way, have any American jackals noticed this story? The widower of the staffer who died in Joe Scarborough’s office back when Scarborough was in Congress wrote to Twitter asking them to remove tweets by Donald Trump Sr and Jr, which he said promoted falsehoods about his late wife.

  83. 83.

    WereBear

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Moore was at his best when he was working out of Flint doing blue collar stuff. He provided insight that wasn’t coming from anyplace else.

     
    It happened a lot, post-W. We mistook a lot of people for allies when they were just contrarian jerks. Many of them just switched to complaining about Democrats in power.

    It’s easy to be a cynic. You don’t feel the need to come up with any solutions.

  84. 84.

    Jinchi

    the 2016 Trump GOP convention was unusually amateurish, filled with glitches and poor production quality. Not that I’d ever say that a team that couldn’t put on a convention couldn’t handle the presidency

    Especially when you consider that this was supposed to be the job that Trump was actually good at.

  89. 89.

    MattF

    @p.a.: Trump is forever living in a fun house hall of mirrors. All he sees is distorted images of himself. And he never leaves, so he never sees the last mirror… which is just a normal reflection, how he actually looks to the world.

  93. 93.

    Tenar Arha

    @Hg: I do my local Boston Globe, the US Guardian, & WaPo, & I’m planning  on adding the only alt weekly left around here, digBoston.

    Anyway your local paper or alternative weekly probably could use the subscription $$ the most, but if you’re adding a paper on top, depending on the region where you live pick the biggest urban liberal investigative newspaper? Like the Texas Tribune which do great investigative reporting or someone already mentioned the Miami Herald etc.

  99. 99.

    Aleta

    This entire country needs a 1st degree murder conviction for one police officer and convictions for others in the Minneapolis Police Department.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/26/minneapolis-police-death-custody-fbi/

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/minneapolis-black-man-dies-after-video-shows-cop-kneeling-on-his-neck?via=twitter_page

    The racist (to me he looks like a hate-filled white supremacist) officer taunted the man as he   murdered him.   If not for a video taken by a brave woman on her way to the store, we would never know.

    Minneapolis Police Department confirmed early Tuesday that the man, who is believed to be in his forties, died of a “medical incident” after police responded to a report of a forgery.

  101. 101.

    Kristine

    @SFAW: It’ll be their last grift. The best grift ever. Diverting all the RNC and corporate sponsorship money to Trump.

    and this post tags back to the wrong comment  which is what I get when I try to post on my phone

  103. 103.

    Jinchi

    @Betty Cracker: In August, not only is Florida a sun-blasted hellscape that is so humid that every breath feels like it’s drawn through boiling cotton, it’s also hurricane season.

    This is sounding like a better idea all the time.

  107. 107.

    Roger Moore

    @WereBear:

    I don’t think the problem with Moore is that he changed. The problem is the world changed and he didn’t change along with it.  He really was an ally back in the days of Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine.  But he’s so fixated on the way things used to be that he can’t think about what they could be.

  108. 108.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Roger Moore: The Maginot Line was a very effective means of defending the area it was designed to defend.  The thing is, fixed gun positions aren’t very effective if the enemy attacks elsewhere.

  110. 110.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Mustang Bobby: What a lovely tribute.  I’m so sorry for your loss but glad you had a special moment (aside from all of your life!) to share with him before he passed.

  111. 111.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud:

    The thing about Moore that’s different from the others is that he had a long and established career and reputation before Bernie.  His descent is therefore going to be visible than the other Wilmerites.

    I honestly don’t remember what kind of political junkie I was, what the internet/blogosphere was like in 2000. I don’t know if I had ever heard of Bernie Sanders when Michael Moore was telling me there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Al Gore and George W Bush. I knew who Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins were, I knew who Bill Maher was, I even knew who Arianna Huffington was. I think she was more than one year, but less than two, away from running a think tank to promote Newt Gingrich’s agenda called “The Center for Effective Compassion”. The she told us all to go the fuck to sleep and went away
    Even in Fahrenheit 9/11, that opening sequence when Moore portrays the Congressional Black Caucus as heroic for their futile stand in favor of Gore and not even Gore would help them, I remember sitting in the theatre thinking, “Dude, you and Al Gore have a history…”

  114. 114.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WereBear:

    It happened a lot, post-W. We mistook a lot of people for allies when they were just contrarian jerks. Many of them just switched to complaining about Democrats in power.

    Well, some were allies of convenience that we may have even needed at the time (or didn’t need but figured they couldn’t hurt for the time being).

    The set of people who are against neocon imperial adventures is not going to be exactly the same as the set of people who are against white-racist nationalism. There will be a lot of overlap; but in the first group you’ll also get some paleocon isolationists, some antisemitic conspiracy cranks, some stooges for foreign powers, some people who are just opposed to US policy in all circumstances for whatever reason.

    And in the second group you’ll get some opportunistic warmongers, and some of those self-righteous never-Trumper conservatives who never tire of telling Democrats that to beat Trump they need to be Republicans. Can’t 100% be helped.

  115. 115.

    prostratedragon

    @Aleta: A “medical incident.” Looks like our work is cut out for us.

    Let’s see, on Nov. 22 1963 President Kennedy became the 4th U.S. President to die of a medical incident …

  118. 118.

    catclub

    A small room with many ceiling fans.

     

    on the suggestion for a meeting room for the GOP convention.  I thought he was starting out to describe an abbottoir.

  123. 123.

    Princess

    @Amir Khalid: I wonder if the widower has a case for a slander/defamation suit against Trump and Trump Jr.  Scarborough might have one too, but because he is a famous person, I know it is tougher. The deceased was not famous.

  125. 125.

    Fair Economist

    @Baud:

    I have many issues with Moore, but this is a strange turn.

    Totally tinfoil here, but Moore seems to prefer futile whining and he’s probably upset that renewable energy is starting to provide big wins replacing fossil fuel.

    It’s also possible that he’s getting funding from oil interests, who recognize their heads may be on the financial chopping block soon now that Big Coal is broke.

  127. 127.

    Barbara

    @Fair Economist: I think of Moore the same way I think of Matt Taibbi.  Their early work was like a karate chop to some ideas and institutions that had done more than enough to earn the take down.  But they both seem to have become mired in the idea of shock value and a style that criticizes without illuminating.  It’s like they have combined the traits of the worst and the best per W.B. Yeats: “The worst are full of passionate intensity while the best lack all conviction.”  They are full of passionate intensity that does not seem to be grounded in any real conviction.  Accordingly, they choose their targets for the ease with which they can create mocking put downs, even when there really isn’t a basis for the put down.  And of course, the undercurrent of misogyny in both is really obvious.

  128. 128.

    ziggy

    @catclub: My husband suggests holding the convention in one of the meat-packing plants, due to the very advantageous ventilation conditions.

  129. 129.

    Amir Khalid

    @catclub:

    No. We have much of Indonesia between us and the major expanse of the Indian Ocean. We have the Philippines between us and the major expanse of the Pacific. The South China Sea is not big enough for a weather system to grow into a cyclone. We do get a lot of monsoon rain and floods, but never cyclones.

  130. 130.

    Barbara

    @chopper:

    oh man, the GOP convention having to shelter from a hurricane would just be perfect.

    I’ll ask my sister to plan a vacation to Florida in August.  She has a talent for getting evacuated during the course of vacations — like four years in a row at one point, mostly to OBX, but once to Florida.  Once their vacation to Florida was disrupted by wild fires.  Actually, I don’t think she is going anywhere.  Her husband has a lung condition and is not going anywhere.

  134. 134.

    Amir Khalid

    @Princess:

    He might, and I believe Twitter could also be liable because Trump pére et fils repeated that libel on their platform.

  136. 136.

    L85NJGT

    By 1940 Al Smith was working with isolationists.

    There’s always an audience for “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me” political apostates.

  137. 137.

    Feathers

    Condolences. Declines are hard. Glad you got the Zoom farewell. And because I can’t believe no one else has mentioned this, Tupper was very handsome as well, and looks like a happy and well loved dog.

  138. 138.

    Roger Moore

    @Fair Economist:

    Totally tinfoil here, but Moore seems to prefer futile whining and he’s probably upset that renewable energy is starting to provide big wins replacing fossil fuel.

    It’s also possible that he sees the end of oil as bad for the traditional auto industry.  It looks to me as if the established car companies are not going to adapt to electric cars very well at all, and that’s going to leave room for newcomers like Tesla to move in and take over.  There will be new jobs in the new car companies, but they’re likely to go to new workers in new places, not to the legacy workers in Flint.

  140. 140.

    Roger Moore

    @Amir Khalid:

    Also, KL is too close to the equator to get cyclones.  You can get tropical depressions near the equator, but they can’t develop into big cyclonic storms until they move far enough north or south to develop powerful winds from Coriolis force, which is weak near the equator.

  141. 141.

    Origuy

    @Mustang Bobby: Condolences to you; even though you know it’s coming, it’s difficult.

    A joke I just heard that I think your dad would have liked:

    A priest, a rabbit, and a minister go into a bar. The bartender says to the rabbit, “What will you have?” The rabbit says, “I don’t know. I’m only here because of auto-correct.”

  143. 143.

    Kent

    Is this thread dead?

    I know.   How about the Bahamas?   Let’s do a Fyre Festival for the GOP Convention.  Drop them all off on some small island and walk away.  We can break Billy McFarland out of the slammer and let him organize the thing.  He’s a junior Trump after all.   What can go wrong?

  144. 144.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Baud: The RNC should just come out and declare that its convention will be held in Moscow.

    And the Mayor of Moscow, ID, tweets out

    No, please, that’s an awful idea! We don’t have a hotel big…

    enough…

    Oh. Our bad(enov). Izvenityeh…

  145. 145.

    Scuffletuffle

    @Baud: Money changes everything, Moore has been off the rails and over the shark for a while now.

  146. 146.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Omnes Omnibus: The example you wanted was Singapore in 1942: The Gibraltar of the East was defended against attack from the sea by a formidable weight of artillery, but the guns could not be swung around to target the Japanese Army, which had fought & hacked its way through the allegedly impassable Malayan jungles to storm the island across the narrow Johor Strait.

  147. 147.

    Barbara

    @Kent: Probably dead, but I think that the idea of multi-location mini conventions is actually a good one.  Even when you have one big convention, so much of what happens and what people see is on a screen.  Having multiple locations from which events are broadcast to other locations is a neat idea.  Each location could have materials that are geared to getting out the vote in that particular state, or that state plus bordering states.

  148. 148.

    sgrAstar

    @mustangbobby: Your father was a handsome man in every respect, Bobby. Thank you for sharing him with us, and condolences to your family.

  149. 149.

    James E Powell

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Sorry for your loss. My condolences to you and yours. My father passed from dementia in 2011. He was lost to us sometime before that. We, too, had a sense of relief – for ourselves and for him – and were then free to grieve. May the memory of him bring you peace & joy.

  150. 150.

    Pappenheimer

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    If I remember my military history correctly, the artillery in Singapore could quite easily be turned towards Johore – we’re not talking about 18th C fixed emplacements – but were equipped only with armor-piercing ammunition suitable for killing ships. AP shells landing in swamp just bury themselves. The British Army – which outnumbered the Japanese invasion force – had it own, more suitable, cannon. For all the good it did them – it may be that a lot of field pieces were lost to  Yamashita’s nearly tankless blitzkrieg through Malay(si)a, and were not present at the final invasion across the strait

  151. 151.

    Bill Arnold

    @Betty Cracker:

    it’s also hurricane season. What could possibly go wrong?

    :-)
    If forecasts were saying that a hurricane was heading for the convention, there’s a middling chance that he would order that it be destroyed with “the nuclear”. The military would push back very very hard, it would leak, and if they did bomb it, it … wouldn’t work.

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