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You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Election Year Open Thread: The Hate Rally At Mount Rushmore

Election Year Open Thread: The Hate Rally At Mount Rushmore

by Anne Laurie|  July 4, 202011:08 am| 234 Comments

This post is in: 2020 Elections, Open Threads, Racial Justice, Trumpery

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never realised how gross and sad mt rushmore looks when you can actually see the whole mountain pic.twitter.com/XUd4Iio3hR

— andy, the melted mask (@AndyAstruc) July 3, 2020

A bunch of white Trump supporters chanting "Go back to where you came from" to Native American protesters in front of Mt Rushmore is probably THE most American way to celebrate the Fourth of July ever.

— Daryl Sturgis??? (@darylsturgis) July 3, 2020

Robin Givhan, at the Washington Post, “Trump got his crowd and his fireworks, and peddled his fiction”:

… Mount Rushmore is painfully complex — much like America itself. The faces of four revered, but profoundly flawed, presidents were carved into the stone by a talented sculptor who sympathized with the Ku Klux Klan. The majestic monument — a testament to human tenacity — scars land considered sacred by Native Americans.

But the president is not a man of complexity and nuance. He is a man who sees things in gloriously righteous white and suspicious, dangerous black. For him, Mount Rushmore is not complicated. It’s telegenic. His was not an open-armed celebration of American independence and the country’s raucous striving to fulfill its promise. The president had orchestrated a rally — a place where he could wade into a warm embrace of approval…

He stepped to the microphone and settled into his speech, which was not a pleasing pep talk for a country torn into bits. Instead, he warned his Americans that other Americans were a threat to the country. “Our country is witnessing a merciless campaign to erase our history,” Trump warned. “One of their political weapons is cancel culture … This is the very definition of totalitarianism.”

He promised to save the monuments, to defend the monuments, to put the full weight of the federal government into protecting giant hunks of stone and bronze. And why not? It’s so much easier to cordon off a statue, to surround it with police officers, than it is to come to terms with the blood and the glory, the cruelty and good will that built this country and that haunts it.

Trump derided “social justice.” He referenced Martin Luther King, Jr., whose words have been so repeated, so decontextualized by errant politicians, that they’ve become rhetorical armor. Everyone claims King. Some stand on his shoulders; some hide behind him…

He will defend the Second Amendment and never defund the police. The former is part of the oath he takes as president; the latter is not up to him. No matter. They are his campaign cherry bombs.

The crowd chanted: “USA, USA.” The crowd demanded “four more years.” The president did not discuss the coronavirus, which has killed more than 130,00 Americans. The crowd did not seem to care.

Trump left the microphone with a promise to the crowd that the best is yet to come. If the president assured the country of anything on this night, with his buzzwords and generalities, with his us versus those other Americans tone, it was that the monuments would be safe.

He would defend the American fable, the mythology. The truth would go missing…

Reminder: The guy talking about the threat from protesters is the same guy who does nothing while Russia pays bounties for dead American soldiers.

— Quentin Hardy (@qhardy) July 4, 2020


Answer: This speech
Question: What is the kind of speech most likely to convince suburban voters, women and college educated voters he's bonkers?

— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) July 4, 2020

Notable reaction to @POTUS mentioning Frank Sinatra in his speech at Mt. Rushmore. pic.twitter.com/9oZc20o1pW

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) July 4, 2020

If history is any indication, future Trumpists gonna put up a statue of the coronavirus, christen “Fort COVID-19.”

Lol jk there is no future.

— dismantle the mpd (@anamariecox) July 4, 2020

Trump obviously has no idea what words like facism and totalitarianism mean. To those who wrote that speech, shame on you. To those that cleared on this speech, shame on you. Perhaps the most un- American speech ever delivered by an American president, on the eve of July 4th.

— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) July 4, 2020

I just watched my sister get arrested for #DefendingTheSacred Black Hills. She was beautiful. GIVE TO THE BLACK HILLS BAIL AND LEGAL DEFENSE FUND IF YOU ARE ABLE, and please share either way ?? https://t.co/JzQdjbztAU

— Lily Gladstone (@lily_gladstone) July 4, 2020

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Previous Post: « Saturday Morning Open Thread: Independence Day
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Reader Interactions

234Comments

  1. 1.

    David Evans

    July 4, 2020 at 11:17 am

    Trump looks at the whole mountain and thinks “Room there for me and my family”

  2. 2.

    debbie

    July 4, 2020 at 11:21 am

    I’m picturing this Garden of Heroes and laughing my ass off. Perhaps it should be located at Mar-a-Lago while he’s serving out his prison term.

  3. 3.

    Ladyraxterinok

    July 4, 2020 at 11:22 am

    NPR has posted a video of 5 young descendants of Frederick Douglass reading parts of his famous 4th of July speech on how a slave views Independence Day.
    Very moving
    After the reading, they talk a bit about how they view today’s protests

  4. 4.

    Elizabelle

    July 4, 2020 at 11:22 am

    I disagree with McFaul that Trump does not know what fascism is. It is what he and Bannon and their ilk promote. I suspect he admires Mussolini, even as he wants to avoid his mortal end. Trump just pulled the usual projection WRT deploying that word against those who are actually fighting it.

    Trump’s speech did not make me ashamed to be an American. Because I never voted for, and never ever once supported the bastard. He does not speak for me, or to me.  It made me ashamed for those who continue to support him, though, and especially for those who attended the Mt. Rushmore and Tulsa speeches. For shame.

  5. 5.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    July 4, 2020 at 11:23 am

    I watched 45 minutes of that clown.  Shiver.  He said he’d sign an executive order to build statues of the greatest Americans in history.  Can’t wait to the details.

  6. 6.

    Ladyraxterinok

    July 4, 2020 at 11:28 am

    I believe the tweet about her sister being arrested dates from tbe Keystone pipeline protests #defendthesacred

  7. 7.

    randy khan

    July 4, 2020 at 11:29 am

    I guess he’s resolved the question of whether to continue to appeal to his base or try to broaden his appeal so he can win re-election.

  8. 8.

    Ladyraxterinok

    July 4, 2020 at 11:30 am

    @Old Dan and Little Ann:

    Have seen some fear he is thinking about Scalia!

  9. 9.

    Baud

    July 4, 2020 at 11:33 am

    @Old Dan and Little Ann: 

    He said he’d sign an executive order to build statues of the greatest Americans in history.

    I’m honored, but no thanks, Trump.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    July 4, 2020 at 11:36 am

    Our nation was founded on a simple idea: We're all created equal. We've never lived up to it — but we've never stopped trying. This Independence Day, let's not just celebrate those words, let's commit to finally fulfill them. Happy #FourthOfJuly! pic.twitter.com/1WrATlx8Xl— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 4, 2020

  11. 11.

    MattF

    July 4, 2020 at 11:36 am

    Reports say Trump delivered a ‘divisive’ speech, which is… a euphemism. Trump, to pump up his hard-core fans, said that a race war would ‘solve’ our current problems. Maybe it was actually Miller who wrote the words, but it was what Trump wanted and ordered up. Anyone who suggests that that Trump could plausibly ‘broaden his appeal’ or be less ‘tone-deaf’ is deeply delusional.

  12. 12.

    different-church-lady

    July 4, 2020 at 11:37 am

    The president did not discuss the coronavirus, which has killed more than 130,00 Americans. The crowd did not seem to care.

    Oh, but they will. It’s only a matter of time, and they’ll be caring about it personally…

  13. 13.

    SFAW

    July 4, 2020 at 11:42 am

    @Baud:

    I’m honored, but no thanks, Trump.

    As if you’re an American, you commie.

  14. 14.

    SFAW

    July 4, 2020 at 11:43 am

    I don’t recall if I ever read that speech in the original German.

  15. 15.

    different-church-lady

    July 4, 2020 at 11:43 am

    @SFAW: Baud is as American as any of us, Comrade!

  16. 16.

    planetjanet

    July 4, 2020 at 11:45 am

    I am having difficulty suppressing a giggle reading that Kimberly Guilfoyle, DJT, Jr’s girlfriend tested positive when she arrived for the rally in South Dakota.  She and DJT, Jr have been quarantined, though he has tested positive so far.

  17. 17.

    Amir Khalid

    July 4, 2020 at 11:46 am

    @David Evans:

    Trump looks at the whole mountain and thinks “Room there for me and my family”

    Corrected to reflect Der Scheißgibbon’s self-centredness.

  18. 18.

    Hungry Joe

    July 4, 2020 at 11:49 am

    When I visited Mt. Rushmore many (many!) years ago, it reminded me of seeing the Mona Lisa: 1) you can’t get very close to it, and 2) yup, it looks just like its pictures. Never again gave it any thought, but that aerial shot is a shocker. It really is a scar — grotesque, Brobdingnagian kitsch.

  19. 19.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 4, 2020 at 11:51 am

    Protesting Mt Rushmoore??? I DONT THANK SO

  20. 20.

    JPL

    July 4, 2020 at 11:51 am

    @Baud: but you could take Scalia’s place

  21. 21.

    SFAW

    July 4, 2020 at 11:52 am

    @Ladyraxterinok:

    Have seen some fear he is thinking about Scalia!

    I saw what I think is the current list. It included Scalia. Surprisingly, it did not appear to include any Confederate generals nor politicians. Of course, the list had the word “including,” so maybe Bobby Lee and Jeff Davis get added later, when no one’s looking.

    Actually, here’s the relevant part of the Exec Order:

    “The National Garden should be composed of statues, including statues of John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Daniel Boone, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Benjamin Franklin, Billy Graham, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Douglas MacArthur, Dolley Madison, James Madison, Christa McAuliffe, Audie Murphy, George S. Patton, Jr., Vladimir Putin, Ronald Reagan, Jackie Robinson, Betsy Ross, Antonin Scalia, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, George Washington, and Orville and Wilbur Wright.”

    Scalia? Reagan? Graham? Patton but not Grant? WTF ?

  22. 22.

    SFAW

    July 4, 2020 at 11:53 am

    @different-church-lady:

    Baud is as American as any of us, Comrade!

    Da, tovarishch!

  23. 23.

    planetjanet

    July 4, 2020 at 11:56 am

    @SFAW: Putin????  That must be major league trolling.

  24. 24.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 4, 2020 at 11:56 am

    @Elizabelle:

    I suspect he admires Mussolini

    I am convinced, no hyperbole, that Hitler is his personal idol.  He is a literal Nazi.

  25. 25.

    zhena gogolia

    July 4, 2020 at 11:57 am

    I just saw this exchange from last night on BJ:

    MoCA Ace

    JULY 3, 2020 AT 10:35 PM

    Don’t know if there is a pool or something but I tried to bet my MAGA brother-in-law $1,000.00 that the orange menace would mention in the speech or tweet/retweet within 24 hours that “many people are saying” he should be on Rushmore. I offered to write and sign the check for him to hold but he wouldn’t bite.

    I put the odds right up there with the sun rising tomorrow.

    Reply
    245.
    different-church-lady

    JULY 3, 2020 AT 10:37 PM

    @MoCA Ace: Well, I think he should be stranded on Mt. Rushmore…

    My reply would have been, “He should be on Mt. Rushmore in exactly the same way as Martin Landau was on/off Mt. Rushmore . . .”

  26. 26.

    SFAW

    July 4, 2020 at 11:57 am

    @planetjanet:

    Putin?

    That was just my little joke, thrown in there to see if anyone was paying attention. The rest of the list is accurate, however.

  27. 27.

    Hungry Joe

    July 4, 2020 at 11:58 am

    @SFAW: Patton was a vicious, out-front, in-your-face (or in my face, anyway, if I’d been around) anti-Semite. Fuck him.

  28. 28.

    planetjanet

    July 4, 2020 at 11:59 am

    @SFAW: I bow to your trolling skills.

  29. 29.

    Mallard Filmore

    July 4, 2020 at 12:00 pm

    @different-church-lady:

     

    The president did not discuss the coronavirus, which has killed more than 130,00 Americans. The crowd did not seem to care.

    If Trump is reelected, we could reach that magic 2 million mark.

  30. 30.

    SFAW

    July 4, 2020 at 12:00 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    My reply would have been, “He should be on Mt. Rushmore in exactly the same way as Martin Landau was on/off Mt. Rushmore . . .”

    Your proposal is acceptable

  31. 31.

    Calouste

    July 4, 2020 at 12:02 pm

    @Hungry Joe: 
    A couple of years ago I saw the statue of David by Michelangelo and 1) you can get really close to it 2) seeing it live gives a totally different impression than the pictures.

  32. 32.

    SFAW

    July 4, 2020 at 12:03 pm

    @Hungry Joe:

    Didn’t know he was an anti-Semite. My limited “knowledge” indicates that he was not a particularly good general, except when pursuing a retreating enemy. Either way, he shouldn’t be one of the first-cut list.

    ETA: “Knowledge” because I don’t really know, I just recall reading that somewhere, possibly here.

  33. 33.

    Laura Too

    July 4, 2020 at 12:03 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: I am never on soon enough to let you know how much I value you! I always end up looking through the comments way after the thread is dead.Thanks for always finding tweets to fit the occasion and your input.

  34. 34.

    Emma from FL

    July 4, 2020 at 12:08 pm

    @SFAW: VLADIMIR PUTIN?!

  35. 35.

    Ruckus

    July 4, 2020 at 12:09 pm

    Is anyone surprised by this speech, this hate rally?

    shitforbrains has decided that he’s not getting reelected so he’s going full racist hate. Yes I know that he’s been a massive racist for his entire life. And that the people that work for him are massive racists as well. I’d bet that a number of people didn’t know this about him or know how little he knows past the hate. But it doesn’t take intelligence to hate, it helps to have a lack of intelligence to hate to his degree. And he’s far enough gone to have lost all his filters. He doesn’t care that 130,000 Americans have died at his hands, as long as a portion of them are black, he’s fine with it, probably more than fine with it. He’s going to continue to do crap like this racist rally, because this is who he is. He got elected and quite probably thinks it’s because of his views. He gets support for his views from an ever narrowing bit of America, because while racism is strong here, it isn’t as strong as he and his supporters believe. They don’t hide in white robes and dunce cones for nothing.

  36. 36.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 4, 2020 at 12:10 pm

    Thank you and I’m glad to help. It’s a site populated by the extraordinarily educated which I ain’t but we still need a clown.

    All I need are my copy-paste skills .

  37. 37.

    SFAW

    July 4, 2020 at 12:18 pm

    @Emma from FL:

    VLADIMIR PUTIN?!

    As I said to planetjanet, it was just my little joke. The rest of the list is accurate, however.

  38. 38.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    July 4, 2020 at 12:22 pm

    My wife–no Trump supporter herself–is currently watching the Trump speech on youtube. I am currently questioning her sanity.

  39. 39.

    Keith P.

    July 4, 2020 at 12:24 pm

    @zhena gogolia: That’s a pretty solid bet

  40. 40.

    Hungry Joe

    July 4, 2020 at 12:26 pm

    @SFAW: Patton: “Harrison and his ilk believe that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews, who are lower than animals.”

  41. 41.

    SFAW

    July 4, 2020 at 12:26 pm

    Unrelated to the Traitor-in-Chief’s speech, but this caught my eye:

    “I will Veto the Defense Authorization Bill if the Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren (of all people!) Amendment, which will lead to the renaming (plus other bad things!) of Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, and many other Military Bases from which we won Two World Wars, is in the Bill!”

    The thing I don’t get is the “(of all people!)” assholery. Not sure what connection/insult he’s trying to imply. Seriously: I have no idea what attempted insult he’s trying to make.

  42. 42.

    patrick II

    July 4, 2020 at 12:28 pm

    …much like America itself. The faces of four revered, but profoundly flawed, presidents…

    Nice metaphor, but when did Lincoln become a profoundly flawed person? He was a good man from the beginning.

  43. 43.

    SFAW

    July 4, 2020 at 12:28 pm

    @Hungry Joe:

    I didn’t doubt you; it was just that I hadn’t heard about his anti-Semitism until you noted it. But thanks for the quote, I guess. [“I guess” because I get perturbed when I see shit like that from, for example, the Racist-in-Chief.]

  44. 44.

    SFBayAreaGal

    July 4, 2020 at 12:30 pm

    @Calouste: I saw the statue of David when I was in Florence. The pictures do not convey the beauty of the statue of David.

  45. 45.

    Hungry Joe

    July 4, 2020 at 12:31 pm

    @Calouste: Yes, the David is … astonishing. I just kept walking around it, first one way, then the other. My father (I was a teen) stage-whispered to me, “It’s not that impressive. You just take a big block of marble and chip away everything that doesn’t look like David.”

    Years later I learned that that’s a VERY old joke.

  46. 46.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 12:32 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: I truly can’t tell anymore.

    Was that parody?  Or for real?

  47. 47.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    July 4, 2020 at 12:32 pm

    @Hungry Joe:

    I delivered your greeting to Scalzi yesterday. You should go on over there and see.

  48. 48.

    sdhays

    July 4, 2020 at 12:33 pm

    @SFAW: I don’t want waste braincells pondering the details of another one of Dump’s stupid, racist insults, but I am finding it harder to ignore this one from the COVID-19 thread:

    Trump on resurgence of virus as cases are spiking in several states: “We are putting out that life because it’s a bad life that we’re talking about.”

    WTF is he trying to say?

  49. 49.

    RepubAnon

    July 4, 2020 at 12:34 pm

    @debbie: Why do I think the Garden of Heroes will be all white men, and omit anyone who challenged the American myths?  Will Colin Kaepernick be in that Garden?  O will they instead have Nathan Bedford Forrest?  Or perhaps a plaque honoring the white men who burned down black houses in Tulsa.

    Funny thing – the right has been suppressing inconvenient truths for years, and calling it “patriotism.”  Any attempt to point out what really happened is greeted with screams of “cancel culture”.

     

    Note: If Trump supporters tell the Cherokees to go home, can they retrace the Trail of Tears?

  50. 50.

    Another Scott

    July 4, 2020 at 12:35 pm

    @zhena gogolia: There’s a picture floating around with him smirking with the carving in the background, obviously posed to show what it would like were he up there (next to Lincoln).

    Everything he touches turns to crap.

    January 20 cannot come soon enough.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  51. 51.

    JeanneT

    July 4, 2020 at 12:37 pm

    @patrick II:  He was a good man, but he was still a racist, believing whites and blacks were inherently different and incompatible. He hoped for some time to settle emancipated slaves to Africa or to Central America. See https://www.theroot.com/did-lincoln-want-to-ship-black-people-back-to-africa-1790858389

  52. 52.

    Don K

    July 4, 2020 at 12:41 pm

    @Hungry Joe:

    All the more reason to have him on the list. I’m honestly surprised Henry Ford didn’t make the cut – anti-Semite, check; anti-union, check; revered industrialist, check.

  53. 53.

    sdhays

    July 4, 2020 at 12:41 pm

    @JeanneT: He was representative of a deeply racist culture, but one of his strengths was his ability to be convinced otherwise. He was less racist at the end of his life than he was at the beginning of his Presidency. If he had lived, who knows where he would have ended up.

    We should have more monuments to Thaddeus Stevens, who was more than a hundred years early in his thinking

    ETA: Also what made Lincoln an effective politician was that he wasn’t too far ahead of the rest of the culture, so he was able to bring part of the country with him on his evolution. We lost a lot when he was murdered. I think Israel possibly lost a similar amount when Rabin was murdered.

  54. 54.

    p.a.

    July 4, 2020 at 12:45 pm

    @RepubAnon: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”- Dr. Samuel Johnson.

    “Patriotism is the first refuge of scoundrels”- some wag during the W years, I believe.

  55. 55.

    Ken

    July 4, 2020 at 12:53 pm

    @sdhays: Maybe someone told him the virus is alive? So we have to kill that life because it is bad life?

    Either that or he’s one of Saberhagen’s Berserkers.

  56. 56.

    Hungry Joe

    July 4, 2020 at 12:53 pm

    @p.a.: I believe it was Ambrose Bierce, in “The Devil’s Dictionary.”

  57. 57.

    germy

    July 4, 2020 at 12:57 pm

    @JeanneT:

    He hoped for some time to settle emancipated slaves to Africa or to Central America.

    Ghana to black Americans: Come home. We’ll help you build a life here

    Kimberly Reese has never visited Ghana, but she is already designing her dream home there. The Ohio mother of five says she doesn’t feel safe in the United States.

    “Some of us are tired,” said Reese, 54. “Some of us just want to be in an environment where we don’t have to look over our shoulders. Where we don’t have to worry about our sons getting pulled over.”

    She’d rather focus on floor plans some 6,000 miles away.

    As the United States again confronts its history of racism, as outrage again erupts over police killings, leaders in Ghana say they’re rolling out the welcome mat for black Americans who want to get away from the turmoil.

  58. 58.

    scav

    July 4, 2020 at 1:00 pm

    How thoughtful (?) of Herr TrumpenDump to spell out his Garden of Heroes fertilizer pack ingredient list!  In the mean time, the national garden is so over-abundantly supplied with his own trademarked bullshit that our needs are covered for the immediate future.

  59. 59.

    danielx

    July 4, 2020 at 1:01 pm

    Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondsman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still must be said: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strike on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. – President Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address, March 4th, 1865.

    A real national anthem!

  60. 60.

    Ladyraxterinok

    July 4, 2020 at 1:03 pm

    @SFAW:

    Putin?? Kidding, right??

  61. 61.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 4, 2020 at 1:04 pm

    @debbie: I’m picturing this Garden of Heroes and laughing my ass off. Perhaps it should be located at Mar-a-Lago while he’s serving out his prison term.

    Remember Trump’s fake Civil War battle memorial at one of his golf courses; want to bet that the key point for Trump in the Garden of Heroes project it will be on some shuttered Trump property?

  62. 62.

    germy

    July 4, 2020 at 1:04 pm

    The executive order says the garden will include statues of John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Jackie Robinson and Harriet Tubman, among others.

  63. 63.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 4, 2020 at 1:06 pm

    @SFAW:

    The thing I don’t get is the “(of all people!)” assholery. Not sure what connection/insult he’s trying to imply.

    In Trump’s mind, Elizabeth Warren is universally known to be a dumb, bad person who does dumb, bad things and has been defeated by smart, good Donald Trump many times before.  There is no need for him to explain, because everyone knows.

  64. 64.

    Martin

    July 4, 2020 at 1:07 pm

    If  you put a gun to his head, Trump could not name the 4 presidents on Mt Rushmore, even while looking at it.

  65. 65.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 4, 2020 at 1:10 pm

    @Hungry Joe: Yes, that is a surprise, I was thinking it was on the side of some dramatic cliff like The Lion Monument in Switzerland, not looking like a recent landslide on crumbling pile of rocks.

  66. 66.

    Ladyraxterinok

    July 4, 2020 at 1:19 pm

    @Ruckus:

    Obligatory reference to this song from South Pacific You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 1:20 pm

    @sdhays:

    I think Israel possibly lost a similar amount when Rabin was murdered.

    Yes.

  68. 68.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 4, 2020 at 1:21 pm

    @Martin:

    I’m not sure I know.  Looking at the photo, I guess that’s Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln?  Ah, yep.  Looked it up.  At least I can recognize them.  Mount Rushmore is something I never think about.

  69. 69.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    July 4, 2020 at 1:22 pm

    @Old Dan and Little Ann: Can an executive order obligate funds? I’m pretty sure the answer is no.

    But I guess he could steal some more from the military.

  70. 70.

    germy

    July 4, 2020 at 1:24 pm

    Seeing a lot of people noting the irony in Trump/right-wingers' claiming liberals are trying to bury the Founders' legacy while we're all swooning over "Hamilton." But they regard "Hamilton" as a desecration of the Founders because it isn't white. I mean, it's that simple.

    — Mollie W. O'Reilly (@MollieOReilly) July 4, 2020

  71. 71.

    patrick II

    July 4, 2020 at 1:24 pm

    @JeanneT:

    @sdhays:

    Lincoln always believed in black people’s basic humanity.  He believed in the “gold” of the Declarations’s basic assertion that all men are created equal, and they are equal in the eyes of God, and should be treated equally before the law.

    What he didn’t believe, despite us being equal in the important sense of law and God, that we were the same.  And, though people are loathe to admit it, we are not all the same.  We have different cultural biases and some physiological ones as well, but so what.  We all deserve to be treated with the respect due equals.

    In Lincoln’s time slaves were not allowed to read, most blacks were not well educated, there culture had been mostly isolated from whites.  He did not know that if freed they would do well here. But as time went by and his travels broadened his views about black’s capabilities changed.  Espeically after he met Stephen Frederick Douglass, whom he considered intellectually equal (at least) to any man he had met.

    And that realization was possible because of the basic tenant of equality that was the underpinning of his approach.  A true racist would never be open to Douglass’s intellect — just like Trump (and too many others) think Obama isn’t that smart because he can’t be because Trump has superior genes.  He can’t see it.

    When Lincoln was a lieutenant in the Black Hawk war, he challenged some soldiers to a duel to prevent them from hanging an Indian.   He was on a trip back home to Springfield and met a black barber.  They traveled the rest of the way together and Abe invested in and helped him open a barbershop. He did not smoke or drink, and he would not even hunt as a young man living on small farm in backwoods Illinois.

    I think many people who call Lincoln racist do not have as sophisticated an understanding of race, rights, and equality as Lincoln did from early in his life.

    It came down to treat people with respect and as equal in the most essential ways.  The less important differences can be dealt with.

    edit: to correct the name

  72. 72.

    JPL

    July 4, 2020 at 1:26 pm

    @Ruckus: You might be right and that will allow them to hold hate marches fully attired.

  73. 73.

    germy

    July 4, 2020 at 1:26 pm

    The reason they zip tied seats together is so Trump can get his live shot of a Mount Rushmore crowd close together, in open defiance of what every expert has told us to do. He's selling a narrative to fuel his base that will cost more Americans their lives just to feed his ego. pic.twitter.com/8hrJHltHgY

    — Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) July 4, 2020

  74. 74.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 4, 2020 at 1:26 pm

    @JeanneT: Lincoln thought that until Fredrick Douglas talked some sense into Lincoln.

  75. 75.

    JPL

    July 4, 2020 at 1:28 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I wonder if it will have an ark?

  76. 76.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 4, 2020 at 1:29 pm

    My favorite red hat Brent gives us Libertards a piece of his mind about Mt Rushmore,

    https://youtu.be/j-I1-c-pRTc

    That’s right, what about the gift shop there?

  77. 77.

    Ladyraxterinok

    July 4, 2020 at 1:32 pm

    @sdhays:

    IIRC the Mennonites who were invited by Penn to settle in PA colony very early set forth a proclamation condemning slavery

    BTW I learned when doing genealogy that many Mennonites migrated south and settled in the Shenandoah Valley of VA

  78. 78.

    Brachiator

    July 4, 2020 at 1:32 pm

    @JeanneT:

    He was a good man, but he was still a racist, believing whites and blacks were inherently different and incompatible. He hoped for some time to settle emancipated slaves to Africa or to Central America

    It may be unfair to hold Lincoln accountable for everything he ever contemplated and ignore what he actually did, and how this reflected a change in his attitudes.

  79. 79.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 4, 2020 at 1:32 pm

    @JPL: I wonder if it will have an ark?

    That would be prefect in it’s absurdity

  80. 80.

    prostratedragon

    July 4, 2020 at 1:34 pm

    Antidote: John Lewis: Good Trouble
    Rep. Lewis’s careers as activist and Congressman, emphasizing his work on voting rights. Also, there are chickens. And a cat. And you’ll end up happy.* Streaming info at the link, or you can rent it at Prime or through YouTube tv.

    ______
    * And damned ready to vote!

  81. 81.

    prostratedragon

    July 4, 2020 at 1:36 pm

    @SFAW:  And they should all have archaic smiles.

  82. 82.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    July 4, 2020 at 1:37 pm

    In order to cleanse yourselves after reading or hearing the putrid, venomous bile that Trump spewed in his disgusting Mount Rushmore speech, I urge you all to read this amazing Frederick Douglass speech:

    “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”  https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july

    Douglass delivered the speech on July 5, 1852 in Rochester, New York, addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society.  It should be required reading for all Americans and if we lived in a just, rational society it would as familiar and recognizable as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address.

    I look forward to the day when we elect to the Presidency someone who has a fraction of the capacity for learning, understanding, and analysis that Frederick Douglass clearly possessed:

    Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too — great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.

    They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.

    I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. — The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.

    America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the great sin and shame of America!

    What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

    Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth.

    h/t https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july

  83. 83.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 1:43 pm

    ‘Twas a rendezvous with sophistry.

  84. 84.

    patrick II

    July 4, 2020 at 1:43 pm

    Dammit.  I said Stephen Douglass instead of Fredrick Douglass. Sorry.  The rest still stands.

  85. 85.

    different-church-lady

    July 4, 2020 at 1:50 pm

    @Brachiator: I think it’s kind of cool the way we’re going to tear down all the statues and rename all the stadiums and still have a bunch of congress critters and judges hardening the concrete on systemic racism because voting is a waste of effort when you don’t get the candidate you want. Way to go, online left!

  86. 86.

    Bruuuuce

    July 4, 2020 at 1:52 pm

    I would LOVE it if Joe Biden asked Senator Duckworth to be his VP (she’s not the only one I’d love, but she is up there).. Here’s a sample of why:

     In a time that cries out for real leadership, we’ve seen the opposite from President Donald Trump, as he’s used this moment to conflate patriotism with nationalism and democracy with autocracy, working to undermine the rule of law to serve his own interests.

    The last few weeks have been a microcosm of his entire term, with him manipulating the levers of the presidency to try to silence those who oppose him, from the firing of tear gas to the firing of government officials who refuse to fall in line. Not seeming—or caring—to know the difference between president and tinpot dictator, he’s worked to pervert what our military stands for, showing an alarming kinship to a certain former leader who, when also faced with growing unrest, treated those protesting as traitors, threatening to use their own military against them. That leader of old was King George III: the man whose actions were considered so antithetical to what America should be that some patriots got together and declared independence from him 244 Fourth of Julys ago.

  87. 87.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    July 4, 2020 at 1:52 pm

    He stepped to the microphone and settled into his speech, which was not a pleasing pep talk for a country torn into bits. Instead, he warned his Americans that other Americans were a threat to the country.

    […]

    Trump left the microphone with a promise to the crowd that the best is yet to come. If the president assured the country of anything on this night, with his buzzwords and generalities, with his us versus those other Americans tone, it was that the monuments would be safe.

    He would defend the American fable, the mythology. The truth would go missing…

    I wonder what the right-wing response to this framing would be? Probably some variant of “You libs just hate America.”

  88. 88.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 1:53 pm

    @patrick II: I added the correction, if that’s not okay, let me know and I’ll change it back.

  89. 89.

    JoyceH

    July 4, 2020 at 1:54 pm

    @patrick II: As an experience in cognitive dissonance, there’s a black church in Roanoke with a stained glass window memorializing Stonewall Jackson. The church was founded by the descendants of slaves who were taught to read by Jackson.

  90. 90.

    different-church-lady

    July 4, 2020 at 1:54 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Trump left the microphone with a promise to the crowd that the best is yet to come.

    Wow, that’s quite an endorsement of Biden.

  91. 91.

    Warblewarble

    July 4, 2020 at 1:55 pm

    let history call it “The Roast Chicken Racist Rant”

  92. 92.

    The Moar You Know

    July 4, 2020 at 1:55 pm

    I’d like to see a law that forbids people from blasting apart mountains in a wretched attempt to turn them into monuments.  Rushmore looks like shit.  Stone Mountain even worse.  The Crazy Horse Memorial.  They all look like shit.  Subpar artwork sitting in the middle of a giant pile of rubble.

    Feel free to revoke the law the day that humans can create anything that’s more beautiful that what nature herself put there.

  93. 93.

    patrick II

    July 4, 2020 at 1:56 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    thank you.

  94. 94.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    July 4, 2020 at 2:00 pm

    @Brachiator:

    How is it unfair? He was a flawed man and probably fundamentally a good person, but his beliefs regarding resettlement of POC was always racist. He just wasn’t as racist as many of his contemporaries

  95. 95.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    July 4, 2020 at 2:01 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    To be fair to the Crazy Horse Memorial, it’s not finished yet

  96. 96.

    Bill Arnold

    July 4, 2020 at 2:01 pm

    @SFAW:

    That was just my little joke, thrown in there to see if anyone was paying attention.

    Saw that, ctrl-f putin [enter] to see what the rest of the thread had to say. Yes, we pay attention. :-)

  97. 97.

    rikyrah

    July 4, 2020 at 2:04 pm

    Descendants of Frederick Douglass mark July Fourth by reciting his famous speech. Spoiler alert: it's as true as ever. https://t.co/3gf28Zotst pic.twitter.com/kvh7JFNe05— The Root (@TheRoot) July 4, 2020

  98. 98.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 4, 2020 at 2:04 pm

    @WaterGirl: parody

  99. 99.

    cain

    July 4, 2020 at 2:06 pm

    @patrick II: I think many people who call Lincoln racist do not have as sophisticated an understanding of race, rights, and equality as Lincoln did from early in his life.

    It is part of the same disease – rigid ideologues cannot see the forest for the trees. Their aim is to repudiate everything – and so nuance is tossed out. It’s one of the things that we must guard against when working social justice that people are complex and the more you know them the harder it is to put them in boxes.

  100. 100.

    JoyceH

    July 4, 2020 at 2:08 pm

    @The Moar You Know: The other day, I saw a picture of what Mount Rushmore was supposed to look like. The original plan was to depict the four presidents from the waist up, but the project ran out of money in 1941. When you know that and then look at the monument as it is, geez, Lincoln’s face isn’t even finished! He looks like he’s emerging from primal ooze or something.

    And as I saw some clips of the fireworks last night, it looked to me like there were cracks on Jefferson’s face and on Lincoln’s. I don’t know if that’s surface stuff than could be repaired, or if the whole thing is starting to crumble.

  101. 101.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 2:11 pm

    Probably ought to mention there’s already this:

    The Hall of Fame for Great Americans is an outdoor sculpture gallery located on the grounds of Bronx Community College in the Bronx, New York City. It is the first such hall of fame in the United States. Source

  102. 102.

    different-church-lady

    July 4, 2020 at 2:11 pm

    No, seriously, it’s going to be great when all the universities are no longer named after white men who have been dead for centuries and as a result cops realize they can’t drive their knees into the necks of black people any more.

  103. 103.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    July 4, 2020 at 2:12 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    Imagine if Biden had come out and started speaking, trashing Trump

  104. 104.

    Kay

    July 4, 2020 at 2:14 pm

    Tommy Fisher billed his new privately funded border wall as the future of deterrence, a quick-to-build steel fortress that spans 3 miles in one of the busiest Border Patrol sectors.
    Unlike a generation of wall builders before him, he said he figured out how to build a structure directly on the banks of the Rio Grande, a risky but potentially game-changing step when it came to the nation’s border wall system.
    Fisher has leveraged his self-described “Lamborghini” of walls to win more than $1.7 billion worth of federal contracts in Arizona.
    But his showcase piece is showing signs of runoff erosion and, if it’s not fixed, could be in danger of falling into the Rio Grande, according to engineers and hydrologists who reviewed photos of the wall for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. It never should have been built so close to the river, they say.

    I didn’t realize the “privately-funded Trump wall” was actually a way to win federal contracts from corrupt Trump appointees, although I suppose I should have. There’s always a grift in there somewhere.

  105. 105.

    prostratedragon

    July 4, 2020 at 2:16 pm

    Alex Dumas, an Afro-Frenchman who became the top cavalry officer in the Revolutionary army. His statue was melted down by the Nazis, who objected to his color, and eventually replaced by the French with a sculpture depicting chains and a shackle. His son was the writer.

  106. 106.

    Steeplejack

    July 4, 2020 at 2:16 pm

    Movie note: 1776 is coming up in a bit on TCM: 2:30 EDT.

  107. 107.

    trollhattan

    July 4, 2020 at 2:17 pm

    @Bruuuuce:

    I’d be chuffed at VP Duckworth. What is the current Illinois succession scheme for replacing a senator? They have a…um…bit of history in that regard.

  108. 108.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    July 4, 2020 at 2:18 pm

    @JoyceH:

    Huh, you’re right. It really does look like unfinished. You can see that Washington’s upper body was started

  109. 109.

    prostratedragon

    July 4, 2020 at 2:23 pm

    @trollhattan:
    Yeah, no shit! According to Ballotpedia it’s still the same: governor appoints a replacement to serve until the next state general election. Fortunately, the present governor is Democrat JB Pritzker, who’d be unlikely to do anything dumb.

  110. 110.

    Citizen Alan

    July 4, 2020 at 2:23 pm

    @SFAW: I imagine if Shitgibbon actually did order the creation of a Patton statue, he would insist it look like George C. Scott.

  111. 111.

    trollhattan

    July 4, 2020 at 2:26 pm

    @Kay: I’ve worked on hundreds of levee repair studies and workplans. That fencing will not last w/o being anchored really, really deep. The map shows a dramatic river bend, which results in complex hydrology that will concentrate force in small bank segments. Rivers change their course. It’s what they do.

  112. 112.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 2:30 pm

    @trollhattan

    Did you drive your Chevy to the levee? And was it dry?

    :)

  113. 113.

    sdhays

    July 4, 2020 at 2:30 pm

    @different-church-lady: I expect that universities will solve the problem of being named after racist dead white men by selling naming rights like stadiums have.

    “FedEx College” anyone?

  114. 114.

    Martin

    July 4, 2020 at 2:32 pm

    @The Moar You Know: I agree.

    We have Rushmore on land that the Supreme Court says was stolen from the Lakota, and that will need to be dealt with. I’m not sure what they’re going to do with Stone Mountain but I can’t imagine it will make the mountain look better.

    But we need to move into an era where we are more attuned to the world around us. Carving mountains are just a celebration to our ability to conquer nature, and that’s completely the wrong attitude right now.

  115. 115.

    Another Scott

    July 4, 2020 at 2:33 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    Reuters:

    ATLANTA (Reuters) – Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial, a nine-story-high bas-relief sculpture carved into a sprawling rock face northeast of Atlanta, is perhaps the South’s most audacious monument to its pro-slavery legacy still intact.

    Despite long-standing demands for the removal of what many consider a shrine to racism, the giant depiction of three Confederate heroes on horseback still towers ominously over the Georgia countryside, protected by state law.

    […]

    “Here we are in Atlanta, the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement and still we have the largest Confederate monument in the world,” said Gerald Griggs, a vice president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP civil rights group, which staged a march last week calling for the carving to be scraped from the mountainside. “It’s time for our state to get on the right side of history.”

    The sheer scale of the monument makes its removal a daunting task to contemplate. Longer than a 100-yard American football field, it features the likenesses of Jefferson Davis, the president of the 11-state Confederacy, and two of its legendary military leaders, Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, notched in a relief 400 feet above ground.

    […]

    But with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, segregationist officials in the state pushed for the creation the Stone Mountain Memorial Association in 1958 and purchased the park. The carving was completed in 1972.

    […]

    Griggs of the NAACP said that the civil rights group has consulted with stone masons who said it would cost about $300,000 to $400,000 to remove the towering images.

    “Take it down,” he said. “Restore the mountain to its original condition.”

    +1. That would be money very well spent.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  116. 116.

    Bruuuuce

    July 4, 2020 at 2:35 pm

    @trollhattan: Per https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/vacancies-in-the-united-states-senate.aspx, Illinois is a state where the governor appoints a replacement until the next regularly scheduled general election. Because IL’s governor is a Democrat, I feel reasonably confident that the replacement he chose would also be one (though Illinois Dems are weird), which is why I can endorse the Senator as strongly as I do

    ETA: What prostratedragon said, first.

  117. 117.

    JoyceH

    July 4, 2020 at 2:37 pm

    I’m wondering when Virginia is going to get around to renaming Jefferson Davis Highway. We have a Democratic legislature and a Democratic governor for the first time in decades, might be time to do it.

  118. 118.

    patrick II

    July 4, 2020 at 2:39 pm

    @trollhattan:

    In a “I’m not saying this because I want to be Vice President” way, she has been making a hell of an impression lately.

  119. 119.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 2:39 pm

    @Another Scott

    Suggested some time back planting kudzu and nurturing it for six months.

    ;)

  120. 120.

    sdhays

    July 4, 2020 at 2:41 pm

    @JoyceH: Amen. One of the most jarring aspects of moving to  Virginia was encountering the Lee Highway and the Jefferson Davis Highway. Fuck those guys. I try to use the route names, but it confuses my wife.

  121. 121.

    Hoodie

    July 4, 2020 at 2:41 pm

    @The Moar You Know: My dad used to say his idea of a great 4th of July party would be a battery of 150mm howitzers blasting that shit off of Stone Mountain.

  122. 122.

    Martin

    July 4, 2020 at 2:42 pm

    @Another Scott: You really can’t bring in the history of Stone Mountain State Park without also noting that it was opened on the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination.

    Even in 1965 they were pissed that slavery ended.

  123. 123.

    JoyceH

    July 4, 2020 at 2:43 pm

    @sdhays: And do you notice? Nobody says “Davis Highway”. It’s always “Jefferson Davis Highway”. And the clown wasn’t even a Virginian.

  124. 124.

    Another Scott

    July 4, 2020 at 2:44 pm

    @sdhays: We refer to the JD Highway as “Route 1”, and Lee Highway as “US 29/Route 29” also too.

    Similarly, the airport is DCA/National.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  125. 125.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 2:45 pm

    @JoyceH

    From 2019:
    Jefferson Davis Highway to Be Renamed Richmond Highway in Arlington

    On Jan. 1, the section of Jefferson Davis Highway through the city of Alexandria was renamed Richmond Highway to match the name the road has always carried in Fairfax County.

    The county estimates it will have to spend $17,000 to pay for new street signs. County officials say the changes will be implemented by Oct. 1.

  126. 126.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    July 4, 2020 at 2:46 pm

    RE:  the “National Heroes”  Sculpture Garden.  UGH.  The poverty of thought which went into that list angers me (well, it’s another addition to the list).  No artists, no writers, no one from the arts, as well as bad choices and most choices from the World Book Children’s Encyclopedia of the 1950s.  Where’s Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Paul Dunbar, W.B.E. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Arthur Rubenstein, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Dr, Suess, Charles Schultz, Billy Wilder, Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, Jonas Salk, Erwin Schrodinger, and so on and so on.  Patton and MacArthur rather than Eisenhower and Bradley?  No George Marshall?  No U.S. Grant?  Scalia rather than John Marshall or Thurgood Marshall or Earl Warren or even Oliver Wendall Holmes?  Daniel Boone rather than Lewis and Clark?  Faugh.

  127. 127.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 2:48 pm

    @Another Scott:  The interesting thing is the diversity of the town surrounding the mountain. I attended a couple of conferences and climbed the mountain for sunrise. They have gates where local residents come in to walk, run and bike on the trails and they are largely African American. Here’s sunrise looking toward Athens.

  128. 128.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 2:51 pm

    @Cheryl from Maryland

    See the list included at the link in #101 above. Nothing’s perfect, but it’s a far better extant mix.

  129. 129.

    sdhays

    July 4, 2020 at 2:52 pm

    @Cheryl from Maryland: I think SFAW put more thought into adding Putin to the list than was put into the actual list.

  130. 130.

    Calouste

    July 4, 2020 at 2:52 pm

    @sdhays: Have you tried calling them the Traitor General Highway and the Traitor President Highway?

  131. 131.

    Brachiator

    July 4, 2020 at 2:53 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    How is it unfair? He was a flawed man and probably fundamentally a good person, but his beliefs regarding resettlement of POC was always racist. He just wasn’t as racist as many of his contemporaries

    The historical record is not clear as to whether Lincoln’s ideas about colonization were simple racism or reflected a “belief that white racism in a post-slavery United States would continue to plague African-Americans to the point that their future could only be secured abroad.”

    His discussions with black leaders and the inclusion of black troops seemed to have an impact on his actual proposals.

    His pessimism about the persistence of white racism was not far from the mark. And here, Lincoln’s biggest defenders would like to believe that he would have persuaded white Americans to become more accepting.

    But if course, we can never know what he might have done had he not been murdered.

    A useful link

  132. 132.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 2:54 pm

    Folks going up Stone Mountain for sunrise. Hint, these are not confederates.

  133. 133.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 2:55 pm

    @Brachiator

    His record of tweets provides no clue.

    :)

  134. 134.

    Mike in NC

    July 4, 2020 at 2:56 pm

    Andy Rooney was a war correspondent in Europe during WW2. He said he hated Patton because he was a cruel bully who cared little for his men.

  135. 135.

    Kay

    July 4, 2020 at 2:57 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Trump hired him off an appearance on Fox News. I wonder how many of those there are over the last 3 years- Fox news appearance selling the proposal to Trump/ multi-billions in federal contracting. I think that’s exactly what happened with the covid 19 cure grift. Maybe Fox even gets a kickback.

    He’s such a sucker, Trump. He awards federal contracts on the basis of what is essentially an informercial on Fox.

  136. 136.

    sdhays

    July 4, 2020 at 2:58 pm

    @Another Scott: It’s “National Airport” in our house too.

  137. 137.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 2:59 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    He was one of the first American journalists to visit the Nazi concentration camps near the end of World War II, and one of the first to write about them. During a segment on Tom Brokaw‘s The Greatest Generation, Rooney stated that he had been opposed to World War II because he was a pacifist. He recounted that what he saw in those concentration camps made him ashamed that he had opposed the war and permanently changed his opinions about whether “just wars” exist.

  138. 138.

    sdhays

    July 4, 2020 at 3:00 pm

    @Calouste: My wife struggles with street names as it is, so it’s better to just stick with what’s on the signs, I’m afraid.

  139. 139.

    Just One More Canuck

    July 4, 2020 at 3:00 pm

    @NotMax:

    And what would happen if the levee breaks? Would you have a place to stay?

  140. 140.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 3:03 pm

    @NotMax: Even thought it’s hotter than shit the princess wants to go for a ride in my 66 chevy so off we go!

  141. 141.

    Kay

    July 4, 2020 at 3:03 pm

    (CNN)Whenever I hear an operative complain about public polling, I have just one thing to say: Put up or shut up. Release your own numbers that show the race in a different place than the public polling, or let the public polling stand. This is especially true in House races, where public polling is limited and there’s a real chance to shape the conventional wisdom.
    Perhaps, it’s not surprising then that when one party puts out a lot more internal polls than normal, it is good for their side. Parties tend to release good polling when they have it. Since 2004, there has been a near perfect correlation (+0.96 on a scale from -1 to +1) between the share of partisan polls released by the Democrats and the November results.
    Right now, Democrats and liberal groups are releasing a lot more surveys than Republicans, which suggests the public polling showing Democrats doing well is backed up by what the parties are seeing in their own numbers.
    Democratic and liberal aligned groups have put out 17 House polls taken in April or later. Republican aligned groups have put out 0. That’s a very bad ratio for Republicans

  142. 142.

    different-church-lady

    July 4, 2020 at 3:04 pm

    @sdhays: I think you’re kinda missing my point here…

  143. 143.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 3:06 pm

    @raven

    Her finger healed?

  144. 144.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 3:07 pm

    @The Moar You Know: You can’t see the Stone Mountain carving from anywhere outside the park.

  145. 145.

    JoyceH

    July 4, 2020 at 3:08 pm

    @sdhays: ” My wife struggles with street names as it is, so it’s better to just stick with what’s on the signs, I’m afraid.”

    What’s fun is using Map Quest and hearing how the automated voice pronounces some of the street names.

  146. 146.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 3:10 pm

    @NotMax: Yea, not bad at all, she didn’t lose the nail either. She’s making her famous blueberry slaw to go on the turkey dogs!

  147. 147.

    patrick Il

    July 4, 2020 at 3:11 pm

    @Cheryl from Maryland: 

    Scalia ?

  148. 148.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 4, 2020 at 3:13 pm

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    Patton and MacArthur rather than Eisenhower and Bradley?  No George Marshall?  No U.S. Grant?

    Patton and MacArthur connect with his maladjusted eighth-grader’s understanding of “tough”

  149. 149.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    July 4, 2020 at 3:14 pm

    Brent Terhune sorts out the Mt. Rushmore thing.

    Protesting Mt Rushmoore??? I DONT THANK SO.
    pic.twitter.com/Ey9ufBt5me

    — Brent Terhune (@BrentTerhune) July 4, 2020

  150. 150.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 3:16 pm

    @raven

    Have one with mustard and kraut in memory of Carl Reiner.

    ;)

  151. 151.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 3:16 pm

    @HumboldtBlue: oh, thank god!  I was halfway in before it even occurred to me that it was parody.  so well done.

  152. 152.

    James E Powell

    July 4, 2020 at 3:16 pm

    @prostratedragon:

    Fortunately, the present governor is Democrat JB Pritzker, who’d be unlikely to do anything dumb.

    He’s clearly no Blagojevich, but in American politics, never bet against dumb.

  153. 153.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 3:17 pm

    @rikyrah: I thought I had spent all my tears today sobbing as I watched Pete Seeger from 2009, and afterwards.

    But no, I cried again as I watched this.  Thanks so much for posting this.

  154. 154.

    James E Powell

    July 4, 2020 at 3:19 pm

    @Another Scott:

    We could raise that with a gofundme on a weekend.

  155. 155.

    Another Scott

    July 4, 2020 at 3:21 pm

    @raven: My dad took us there and we rode the gondola up to the top around 1970 (when we lived in Smyrna), before the carving was done.  It’s an amazing place.

    But the sculpture is an abomination.  The gondola lines pass nearby.

    A few years ago, a conference I usually go to almost every year was scheduled there.  It was a hard pass for me.

    Sorry.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  156. 156.

    japa21

    July 4, 2020 at 3:23 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone): I expect Trump to retweet that soon.

  157. 157.

    trollhattan

    July 4, 2020 at 3:24 pm

    @Another Scott:

    The Taliban will do it for free.

  158. 158.

    trollhattan

    July 4, 2020 at 3:28 pm

    @NotMax:

    Fun story: I was passenger in a Chevy that rolled off a levee, luckily on the land side. ’64 Corvette convertible, we landed upside-down and had to dig ourselves out through the dirt. I was afraid it would catch fire before we got out, because teevee.

  159. 159.

    Baud

    July 4, 2020 at 3:29 pm

    @Kay:

    Democratic and liberal aligned groups have put out 17 House polls taken in April or later. Republican aligned groups have put out 0. That’s a very bad ratio for Republicans

    Can’t get worse than an infinite ratio.

  160. 160.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 3:33 pm

    @Baud

    infinite ratio

    Immediately goes on the list of potential band names.

  161. 161.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 3:41 pm

    @Another Scott: The gondola line at sunrise.

  162. 162.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 3:44 pm

    That was a stupid idea. We hate leaving the old boy so I picked him up and put him in the cab and it was WAY to hot.

  163. 163.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 3:44 pm

    @trollhattan: Holy shit!

  164. 164.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 3:45 pm

    @trollhattan: It wasn’t in Southern Illinois was it?

  165. 165.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 3:45 pm

    @raven: While I’m at it, I’ll say holy shit to your comment, also.

  166. 166.

    Heidi Mom

    July 4, 2020 at 3:50 pm

    @The Moar You Know: Crazy Horse never allowed a photograph to be taken of him, so imagine what he’d think of the memorial.

  167. 167.

    Another Scott

    July 4, 2020 at 3:52 pm

    @raven: Thanks.  :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  168. 168.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 3:52 pm

    @WaterGirl: Which one?

  169. 169.

    JeanneT

    July 4, 2020 at 3:52 pm

    @sdhays:  I can’t argue with that!

  170. 170.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 4, 2020 at 3:53 pm

    @sdhays: It’s National Airport here too.

  171. 171.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 4, 2020 at 3:57 pm

    @NotMax: The mustard is a myth, there is no mustard.

  172. 172.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 3:57 pm

    Ok , there used to be a place in Grand Tower, Il called Ma Hales, great food served “family style”. The was a road that ran from Carbondale to Grand Tower that was on a levee and I knew some people who got in a wreck there. I looked it up and ended up seeing “Chester, Il, Home of Popeye and they have a bunch of statues on the Popeye Trail!

     

    Home of “Popeye”[edit]
    Chester is the “Home of Popeye,” where a 6-foot (1.8 m), 900-pound (410 kg) bronze statue of Popeye the Sailor Man stands in the Elzie C. Segar Memorial Park, which honors Popeye’s creator, Elzie Segar. The park is located next to the Chester Bridge. Several of Mr. Segar’s characters were created from his experiences with people of Chester. Chester’s big event is its annual Popeye Picnic and parade, held the weekend after Labor Day. Popeye fans travel from all over the United States and the world to partake in the weekend activities. Most of the events and entertainment are free and all are family friendly.

    New statues honoring the other Thimble Theater characters are added each year.[9]
    THE POPEYE AND FRIENDS CHARACTER TRAIL is spread throughout Chester and to date includes:

    • Popeye (1977) [9]
    • J. Wellington Wimpy (2006)[9]
    • “Olive Oyl, Swee’ Pea, and Jeep” (2007) [9]
    • “Bluto” (2008) [9]
    • “Castor Oyl and Whiffle Hen” (2009) [9]
    • “Sea Hag and Bernard” (2010) [9]
    • “Cole Oyl” (2011) [9]
    • “Alice The Goon and her goon-child” (2012) [9]
    • Poopdeck Pappy (2013) [9]
    • Professor Wotasnozzle (2014) [9]
    • RoughHouse (2015) [9]
    • Pipeye, Pupeye, Peepeye, and Poopeye, Popeye’s four nephews (2016) [9]
    • King Blozo (2017) [9]
    • Nana Oyl (2018) [9]
    • Popeye’s Pups (Unveiling in September 2019) [9]
    • Sherlock & Segar (Unveiling in December 2019) [9]
  173. 173.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 3:58 pm

    @WaterGirl: Please release my very interesting post!

  174. 174.

    Suzanne

    July 4, 2020 at 3:59 pm

    @Elizabelle: 

    It made me ashamed for those who continue to support him, though, and especially for those who attended the Mt. Rushmore and Tulsa speeches. For shame.

    So Mr. Suzanne and I have been talking about how, not too long from now, lots of people are going to deny that they ever voted for him. They will want that to just go down the memory hole. There are a few people in my social cohort who I will NEVER let forget it. I will screenshot their social media if I have to.

  175. 175.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 4, 2020 at 4:01 pm

    @Kay: That’s easy; polling costs money.  The Republicans group are about girfting off their rich and dumb donors.

  176. 176.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 4:02 pm

    Well shit, here’s a link to the Popeye Character Trail. These statues must go!

  177. 177.

    trollhattan

    July 4, 2020 at 4:04 pm

    @raven:

    Stockton, California. Cultural hub of the northern bit of San Joaquin Valley.

  178. 178.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 4:05 pm

    @Heidi Mom: Did you know Geronimo was held at Ft Pickens in Pensacola?

     

    Geronimo – Pensacola’s First Major Tourist Attraction

    By Katie King

    133 years ago this October, a train arrived into the port city of Pensacola, all the way from the wild west, carrying a very famous passenger.

    His name was Geronimo. He was a legendary Apache warrior and leader.

    But unlike most visitors to our shores, Geronimo certainly did not come to Pensacola for it’s beautiful, sugar-white beaches.

    On October 25, 1886, 16 Chiricahua Apache warriors were captured by the U.S. government and sent to Fort Pickens on the edge of Pensacola Beach where they were locked behind bars.

    This is a lesser-known chapter in our American history books.

    After the Civil War ended, the U.S. Government brought its military to bear against the native peoples out west, removing them from their lands, forcing them onto reservations and then continually constricting those reservations.

    The Apache natives were known as fierce warriors, and the government’s policy of removal and confinement naturally led to many deadly confrontations in the mid 1870s. Facing the loss of their homelands, bands of Apaches who were once hostile to one another were now forced together, united in their distrust of the American government due to broken promises. As conditions on the reservation worsened, some bands escaped.

    The famous Chiricahua Apache Geronimo Goyathlay (“one who yawns”) led one such band.

    In the mid 1870s Geronimo fled his reservation with a band of followers and spent the next 10 years raiding with his band. They raided across New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico, successfully evading nearly a quarter of the U.S. Army’s cavalry in that time.

    Geronimo and his fugitives’ exploits were highly chronicled by the press. He soon became the most feared Apache and the top target of the Army. His capture even became a personal mission of the President of the United States.

    In 1885, Geronimo and some 135 Apache men, women and children left their reservation for the final time. Then in his 60s, Geronimo remained as determined as ever, often pushing his group to cover as much as 70 miles per day to avoid the American cavalry on their trail and raiding countless Mexican and American settlements along the way.

    By 1886, the famed warrior’s band was being pursued by 5,000 U.S. soldiers as well as some 3,000 Mexicans. Geronimo was able elude both forces for over five months, but by August, he and his followers had grown weary of life on the run.

    On September 4, 1886, Geronimo finally gave himself up to General Nelson Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona. In laying down his arms, he became the last Indian leader to formally surrender to the United States military.

    In the following weeks, the Chiricahua Apache were shipped by rail to Florida where they were to be exiled and held as prisoners.

    Initially, Geronimo’s band was to be sent to Fort Marion in St. Augustine. Hoping to capitalize on Geronimo’s fame, several prominent Pensacola business leaders lobbied the government to have Geronimo’s group sent to Fort Pickens on Pensacola Beach instead. The petitioners stated Fort Marion was too crowded, and that Army troops from Fort Barrancas could guard Geronimo’s warriors at Fort Pickens.

    On October 25, 1886, 16 Apache warriors arrived to Pensacola and were ferried to Fort Pickens. Their wives and children were sent on to Fort Marion in St. Augustine.

    By February 1887, tourists from all across the country were arriving in Pensacola by train to visit the fort and see the prisoners. Admission was 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children. On one recorded Sunday, 459 tourists visited the fort. Geronimo had become a sideshow spectacle.

    Geronimo and his warriors spent nearly two years at Fort Pickens working manual labor. In May 1887, the wives and children of Geronimo’s band were returned to them, but many had died of malaria while in confinement. Eventually the imprisoned Apaches were moved to Mount Vernon, Ala., due to a yellow fever scare, and then later on to Fort Sill in the Oklahoma Territory.

    Geronimo spent the last 23 years of his life as a prisoner of war until his death from pneumonia in 1909. In 1913, after 27 years of imprisonment, the Chiricahua Apaches were finally set free and were no longer prisoners-of-war. One-third opted to stay at Fort Sill, while two-thirds moved to the Mescalero Apache Reservation, in New Mexico.

    Geronimo and the Chiricaua Apache’s resistance came at a steep cost. The Chiricahua lost loved ones, their lands, their traditional ways of life, and for 27 years their freedom. During Geronimo’s prime, the Chiricahua Apache had numbered 1,200. At the end of the war, in 1886, they numbered 500. By their release in 1913, they numbered only 261.

    Historians would later come to define Geronimo’s legacy as one of the most legendary warriors in American history.

    Today, Geronimo’s story of continued resistance against tremendous odds continues to inspire thousands of visitors to Fort Pickens every year. There are now over 850 Chiricahua Apache living in the U.S., and the descendants of Geronimo and his band still live on.

    https://visitpensacolabeach.com/geronimo-pensacolas-first-major-tourist-attraction-blog/

  179. 179.

    Baud

    July 4, 2020 at 4:05 pm

    @Suzanne:

    I hope that’s right. But W. went down the memory hole pretty quickly as soon as the national agenda changed.  Maybe Trump will be more memorable.

  180. 180.

    zhena gogolia

    July 4, 2020 at 4:06 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Have you watched Hamilton yet? I’m bracing myself for “It’s Quiet Uptown” tonight.

  181. 181.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 4, 2020 at 4:06 pm

    @Elizabelle: I disagree with McFaul that Trump does not know what fascism is

    Trump is a pretty dumb guy, he likely thinks “fascism” is a bunch of cool looking uniforms and big rallies with lots of people cheering the strong man and utterly no idea about fascism philosophy, such as it is, and wouldn’t even understand it if someone explained it to him.

  182. 182.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 4:07 pm

    @raven: The one I replied to. :-)  (pup in the cab, too hot)

  183. 183.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 4:11 pm

    @zhena gogolia: Not yet. :-(

    Turns out that my Apple TV is not generation 4, which you need in order to get the app store, which you need in order to download the Disney+ app.  I knew you needed generation 4 for Hamilton, but I thought I had generation 4.  Dammit!

    I don’t like watching movies on my laptop or iPad screens, especially something like this, so I have to figure out whether it’s worth getting a new Apple TV or a Fire stick.

    I have never looked into Fire sticks – never needed that because I have Apple TV – so I don’t know how that works of if that would just be on my computer, also.  Haven’t researched that yet.

  184. 184.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 4:11 pm

    @trollhattan: Close

  185. 185.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 4:12 pm

    THE POPEYE AND FRIENDS CHARACTER TRAIL is spread throughout Chester and to date includes:

    • Popeye (1977) [9]
    • J. Wellington Wimpy (2006)[9]
    • “Olive Oyl, Swee’ Pea, and Jeep” (2007) [9]
    • “Bluto” (2008) [9]
    • “Castor Oyl and Whiffle Hen” (2009) [9]
    • “Sea Hag and Bernard” (2010) [9]
    • “Cole Oyl” (2011) [9]
    • “Alice The Goon and her goon-child” (2012) [9]
    • Poopdeck Pappy (2013) [9]
    • Professor Wotasnozzle (2014) [9]
    • RoughHouse (2015) [9]
    • Pipeye, Pupeye, Peepeye, and Poopeye, Popeye’s four nephews (2016) [9]
    • King Blozo (2017) [9]
    • Nana Oyl (2018) [9]
    • Popeye’s Pups (Unveiling in September 2019) [9]
    • Sherlock & Segar (Unveiling in December 2019) [9]
  186. 186.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 4, 2020 at 4:13 pm

    @trollhattan: Phil Spector’s current residence.

  187. 187.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 4:15 pm

    @raven

    No Ham Gravy?

  188. 188.

    Kent

    July 4, 2020 at 4:18 pm

    @patrick II:Nice metaphor, but when did Lincoln become a profoundly flawed person? He was a good man from the beginning.

    I expect from the historical context he did not oppose slavery until it was a convenient strategy for winning the war.

  189. 189.

    trollhattan

    July 4, 2020 at 4:20 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Was one of those adreneline-drenched events that you, or at least I can’t think about but just react to. Once we were both out of and away from the car, realizing that cuts and bruises were the extent our our injuries, I started shaking and couldn’t stop for what seemed like ages.

    Getting home from the countryside was a whole other adventure, since it was midnightish.

  190. 190.

    Kent

    July 4, 2020 at 4:22 pm

    @WaterGirl: Your cheapest and easiest option is to probably pick up a Google Chromecast which are like $30 at Wal-Mart or anywhere else.  Then pretty much anything you can stream on your phone/tablet/laptop can be cast onto your TV including Disney+

     

    https://www.cordcutters.com/can-you-watch-disney-plus-chromecast#:~:text=Best%20answer%3A%20Yes%2C%20Disney%20Plus,on%20it%20with%20a%20Chromecast.

  191. 191.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 4:23 pm

    @trollhattan: All the “what if” thoughts will get you, too.

    I was in an accident with a semi and I handled it pretty well, emotionally.  Until the next day (or the day after) when I went to get my stuff out of the car, and then I burst into tears.

    It was horrifying.  The driver’s side (me) was smashed in about 2 feet, and if I hadn’t been driving my sporty Subaru that was built like a tank, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be here.

  192. 192.

    trollhattan

    July 4, 2020 at 4:24 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    That needs to me memorialized somehow. He’s a rebel, donchano.

  193. 193.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 4:26 pm

    oops

  194. 194.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 4:26 pm

    @Kent: Well, I can do that now with my screen mirroring from my iPad and my iPhone, but it’s like letterbox gone bad with a huge black box around the mirrored screen, and I don’t want that.

    Maybe I can screw around with the settings, but I didn’t have the heart for that yesterday after screwing around with my Apple TV for 2 freaking hours yesterday.

    Love my Apple TV, but of course when any equipment gets that old, you are gonna have compatibility issues.

    edit: I just have to figure out if now is the time to screw around with trying to make it work in some way just for Disney+ for this one thing, or if I just want to get a new Apple TV that can do 4K and be done with it.

  195. 195.

    trollhattan

    July 4, 2020 at 4:32 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Yeesh. Semis are basically buildings that move. Surviving in even the toughest car depends on a lot of dang luck.

    I dealt with it by going back to the site during the day, seeing the skid marks and the path down the thankfully dirt and brush slope. The car was hauled away already but I collected a hunk of the fiberglass body (blue metallic) as a memento.

    The water side was boulder riprap and no way in hell would we have survived going down that way.

  196. 196.

    Elizabelle

    July 4, 2020 at 4:34 pm

    @Kent:   Popping in to say that Lincoln opposed slavery way before that.

    Didn’t he make some speeches against allowing slavery into the “western” states in the 1850s?  I remember some speech along the lines of “you wouldn’t put a snake in bed with your child, would you?”

    As to what he thought about how the formerly enslaved would fit into the United States after slavery ended, or whether they might want to repatriate … not sure there.  I would guess his thinking on a lot of things evolved, and what any politician says in a speech is not necessarily their complete internal mindscape on the issue.  Lincoln had a lot on his plate once elected and at war.

    Does anyone believe that Barack Obama actually opposed gay marriage, and then had an “epiphany.”  I do not. I suspect he was there all along.  Everyone has to choose and prioritize their battles.

  197. 197.

    Robert Sneddon

    July 4, 2020 at 4:34 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: No place for General Groves? One of the greatest American military figures of WWII and barely remembered these days.

  198. 198.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 4:35 pm

    @Kent

    Roku devices without all the bells and whistles are very inexpensive, also too.

    Will note there are a very, very few models of Roku which are not compatible with Disney+.

  199. 199.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 4:36 pm

    @trollhattan: You see where that guy went off the cliff in Santa Cruz and lived?

  200. 200.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    July 4, 2020 at 4:41 pm

    @NotMax:

    Immediately goes on the list of potential band names.

    “A Certain Ratio” tribute band.

  201. 201.

    Kelly

    July 4, 2020 at 4:42 pm

    I know of two Trump voters that are sensibly scared of CORVID-19 and they are mad at Trump for failing to respond to the pandemic. Their RWNJ issue is the environmental tyranny Democrats want to impose. Spotted owls, off highway vehicle limits, that sort of thing. They’ll probably leave president blank on their ballots. Oregon will go Biden anyway so their votes don’t matter. I’m hoping there’s more like them in the swing states.

  202. 202.

    Baud

    July 4, 2020 at 4:47 pm

    @Kelly:

    I know of two Trump voters that are sensibly scared of CORVID-19

    Ravens scare me too.

    (Sorry, Raven.)

  203. 203.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 4, 2020 at 4:50 pm

    @Baud: Clowns frighten me, as they do with all sensible people.

  204. 204.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 4, 2020 at 4:51 pm

    @NotMax: Looks like even my Roku will work(yeah, finally found it).

  205. 205.

    Another Scott

    July 4, 2020 at 4:53 pm

    @Baud: Who’s “W”?  Some baseball commissioner or something??

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  206. 206.

    HumboldtBlue

    July 4, 2020 at 4:55 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Does anyone believe that Barack Obama actually opposed gay marriage, and then had an “epiphany.” I do not. I suspect he was there all along. Everyone has to choose and prioritize their battles.

    Well-explained.

  207. 207.

    James E Powell

    July 4, 2020 at 4:56 pm

    @raven:

    As a child, I found the Bluto/Brutus thing to be very disconcerting.

  208. 208.

    Kent

    July 4, 2020 at 4:57 pm

    @Elizabelle: I’m as much of a Lincoln fan as anyone.  But I present to you Lincoln’s First Inaugural  Address.   I know he was trying to preserve the Union.  I understand the context.  I’m just pointing out that he didn’t oppose slavery in an official capacity until it was strategically beneficial to do so.  In fact he even supported the Fugitive Slave Act.

    https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp

    Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that–

    I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

    Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

    Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

    I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause–as cheerfully to one section as to another.

    There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

    No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

    It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution–to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause “shall be delivered up” their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?

    There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority, but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should anyone in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?

  209. 209.

    different-church-lady

    July 4, 2020 at 5:01 pm

    @WaterGirl: Remember when TV was a thing you just turned on and it worked?

  210. 210.

    patrick II

    July 4, 2020 at 5:04 pm

    @Kent:

    I expect from the historical context he did not oppose slavery until it was a convenient strategy for winning the war.

    That is wrong. Lincoln had left politics and only got back in after the Dredd Scott decision in 1857. He was always against slavery but thought it would be dissolved as the new western states came in the union and outvoted the South. That idea was changed by the Dredd Scott decision, so Lincoln came back to politics.
    I’m not sure why we have to throw rocks at our great men, and in this case perhaps the greatest American in history.

  211. 211.

    Bob7094

    July 4, 2020 at 5:05 pm

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    Scalia, because he couldn’t remember Roget Taney.

  212. 212.

    Another Scott

    July 4, 2020 at 5:07 pm

    @Kent:

    Wikipedia – 1860 GOP Platform:

    The 1860 Republican platform consisted of 17 declarations of principle, of which 10 dealt directly with the issues of free soil principles, slavery, the Fugitive Slave Act, and the preservation of the Union, while the remaining 7 dealing with other issues.

    Clauses 12 through 16 of the platform called for a protective tariff, enactment of the Homestead Act, freedom of immigration into the United States and full rights to all immigrant citizens, internal improvements, and the construction of a Pacific railroad.[7]

    In addition to the preservation of the Union, all five of these additional promises were enacted by the Thirty-seventh Congress and implemented by Abraham Lincoln or the presidents who immediately succeeded him.

    Lincoln was a great politician. But he also had ideals that he wanted to see enacted and knew that doing so would take more than him just saying so.

    tl;dr – History, and politicians, is complicated and doesn’t fit into little boxes.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  213. 213.

    NotMax

    July 4, 2020 at 5:07 pm

    @different-church-lady

    Remember hopping up to go across the room in order to adjust the vertical hold?

    As a sprat was fascinated with watching the picture close in on itself when the set was shut off, reducing to a pinpoint of light which slowly, slowly, ever so slowly faded away.

    ;)

  214. 214.

    Baud

    July 4, 2020 at 5:13 pm

    @NotMax: 

    vertical hold?

    Another good band name.

  215. 215.

    Kent

    July 4, 2020 at 5:14 pm

    @Another Scott: Look, it’s not my intention to ding on Lincoln.  He was clearly our greatest president without exception.   I was merely responding to the upstream comment about “flawed men” by suggesting that the author was probably referencing his rather slow opposition to slavery in his official capacity as president.  For whatever overall strategic reasons he had.  The appeasement he showed to the south in is first inaugural didn’t do any good anyway as the war started a short time later.

    Lincoln also initially supported deporting freed slaves back to Africa.  His positions and thinking evolved.  He didn’t start out where he ended.

  216. 216.

    different-church-lady

    July 4, 2020 at 5:17 pm

    @NotMax: Remember hopping up to go across the room in order to adjust the vertical hold?

    Of course not: you had to keep one hand on the antenna the whole time if you wanted any reception.

  217. 217.

    Kelly

    July 4, 2020 at 5:20 pm

    @Baud: CORVID-19 is my top mespilling the year.

  218. 218.

    J R in WV

    July 4, 2020 at 5:22 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Trump is a pretty dumb guy, … with … utterly no idea about fascism philosophy, such as it is, and wouldn’t even understand it if someone explained it to him.

    Worse, if someone were to describe it to him, he would tell you how great that was, and how much he loves that idea. Totally and willfully pig ignorant!

  219. 219.

    trollhattan

    July 4, 2020 at 5:23 pm

    @raven:

    Missed it, were either a Thelma or a Louise involved? :-)

    Most involuntary flights are a one-time thing. Lucky man!

  220. 220.

    raven

    July 4, 2020 at 5:40 pm

    @trollhattan: It was a carjacking.

  221. 221.

    Martin

    July 4, 2020 at 5:43 pm

    @WaterGirl: We have two gen 4s and they really are much better than the Gen 3 ones. You have the app store, but pushing a desktop to them is trivial, or just a video, or whatever. I have a 4K in my office with an AppleTV hooked up and I can treat it like a 2nd monitor, which is often convenient.

    Virtually every network has an app you can install. Most require authentication with your cable provider if you have one. Some don’t.

    Supports HDMI-CEC so you can power up the TV from the Apple remote if the TV supports that feature.

  222. 222.

    Ruckus

    July 4, 2020 at 5:47 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I work next door to a huge body shop that works on late model cars and the other day saw a Honda that looked OK on the passenger side but about 90% of the drivers side was pushed back into the last 10% or was just gone. Car was maybe 3 feet wide, looked like a minor hit from the right. Hit from the front or ran into something rather solid. Over the last 7 yrs I’ve seen some rather beat up cars there, this one was the worst.

  223. 223.

    zhena gogolia

    July 4, 2020 at 5:48 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Oh, we’re watching it on my laptop. I hope someday it will play safely in movie theaters. But I’m happy with this.

  224. 224.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 5:58 pm

    @different-church-lady: Yep.  All 3 channels!  :-)

  225. 225.

    catclub

    July 4, 2020 at 5:59 pm

    @Another Scott: In addition to the preservation of the Union, all five of these additional promises were enacted by the Thirty-seventh Congress and implemented by Abraham Lincoln or the presidents who immediately succeeded him.

     

    If the southern representatives had not boycotted the proceedings, a whole lot that Lincoln and his congress got done, would have been stopped.

  226. 226.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 6:02 pm

    @Martin: That certainly nudges me strongly in the Apple TV generation 4 direction.  If you post something nice about the gen 4 again tomorrow, that should send me right over the edge.  :-)

    Or maybe just sleeping on it will do that!  thank you

    edit: the problem is, I want this also:

    12.9-inch iPad Pro

    Add the two together, all decked out, and it’s real money.  :-)

  227. 227.

    catclub

    July 4, 2020 at 6:03 pm

    @Baud: Ravens scare me too.

     

    I fed raisins  to  a  crowd of crows/ravens in Sri Lanka. They have substantial beaks.  I was a bit nervous. and my plan to get one to take a raisin from my hand went out the window.

  228. 228.

    Martin

    July 4, 2020 at 6:15 pm

    @WaterGirl: I have a 12.9″ iPad Pro as well if you have questions.

  229. 229.

    Another Scott

    July 4, 2020 at 6:17 pm

    @catclub: What’s that expression about noses and faces??

    The Soviets didn’t learn that lesson before they boycotted the UN in June 1950.

    “80 percent of life is showing up.”

    One never knows how history will change…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  230. 230.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 6:33 pm

    @Martin:  Yeah, do you have 2k lying around that needs a new home?  :-)

    Seriously though, I appreciate the information offer.  I think you were one of the people who spoke up a few weeks ago when I first thought I might like to get one.

    My summer client’s business is a no go this year because of COVID, so that’s about 20k less income for me this year.  So of course there are two new toys that I want!

  231. 231.

    Another Scott

    July 4, 2020 at 6:43 pm

    @WaterGirl: Does it have to be new?

    2nd Gen 12.9-inch IPP for $599.

    (I bought a couple of mid-2012 13″ MBPs from them a year or so ago that have been fine.)

    Good luck.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  232. 232.

    WaterGirl

    July 4, 2020 at 6:47 pm

    @Another Scott: Yeah, I stay away from used and refurbished.  I know some people have good luck with that, but in my years in IT, I never saw anyone who did.

  233. 233.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 4, 2020 at 7:05 pm

    @J R in WV: Worse, if someone were to describe it to him, he would tell you how great that was, and how much he loves that idea. Totally and willfully pig ignorant!

    Trump would certainly love the whole idea of getting personally rich off stealing stuff from rich Jews like the Nazis did, but I doubt if Trump would listen that long.

  234. 234.

    Just Chuck

    July 4, 2020 at 8:18 pm

    @Martin: I have a Gen 4 Apple TV as well, and while it’s a handy device, I still have a few issues with it:

    • The touchpad on the remote is a gimmick that’s much more fiddly than a simple d-pad would have been.  Especially since 99% of the time it just moves the selection like a d-pad would.
    • Siri is fucking useless and only searches the Apple stores unless you tell it otherwise.  It also won’t search for anything with naughty words in it.
    • Apple as usual went with apple-proprietary tech for screen sharing.  No Miracast support, which is what everything else uses.
    • It seems they’ve loosened this recently, at least for Amazon, but you couldn’t buy anything through the AppleTV that wasn’t through the Apple store.

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