I have heard many say that never in their lives have they experienced such fear, that the America they know might be gone for good. Here’s why I have hoped with my head high and my eyes focused ahead. /1 #MondayMotivation #50DaysLeft
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) September 14, 2020
George Takei, American treasure:
No one dared stand up for us then. Politicians on both sides, from FDR in the White House to Earl Warren in Sacramento, took advantage of the fear and racism for their own political gain. We lost our home. Our friends lost businesses. We all lost our freedom. /3
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) September 14, 2020
After we were out, many of us, including myself, dedicated our lives to ensuring that something like this would never happen again inside of America. We knew how fragile our freedoms and liberties really were. We knew we had to safeguard them. /5
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) September 14, 2020
It takes hard work to keep our Republic and our democracy strong. Every time we stand up against the forces of fascism, for the rule of law, for decency and humanity, we strike a blow against tyranny and evil. The fight is what keeps us vigilant and strong. /7
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) September 14, 2020
This is why I remain motivated, why I do not despair, why I know that while we have been here before, we can overcome it. We must summon enough strength and win the hearts of all good Americans. In 50 days, we can and will prevail. /9
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) September 14, 2020
I am 83 years old, but I am also that 5 year old, looking out at a dusty American flag and reciting those words, “With liberty and justice for all.” Only now, I know their true meaning after a lifetime of fighting for them. So fight with me. Stand up. Vote. /end
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) September 14, 2020
On The Road – Captain C Goes to Japan: Tokyo 1
japa21
Yes it can. No it can’t. Good Morning.
Baud
True. With the exception of the Civil War, past atrocities were bipartisan. We shouldn’t dismiss the difference.
debbie
We’re up against an awful lot.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the facile dismissal of science, and I just wish someone in the media would ask Trump if he realizes he’s dismissing the same science he’s depending upon to get us to Mars.
Baud
tom
Thank you George.
randy khan
George Takei has been a really amazing voice the last few years.
cmorenc
Among the most disturbing things is how many of the folks around us in our everyday lives *support* the orange Mussolini, despite the unambiguous revelations about how depraved, irresponsible, untruthful, greedy and narcissistic Trump’s fundamental character is. And these folks seem to live in an impenetrable bubble oblivious to anything other than that Trump taps into some ugly inner rage they feel about “others” and gives them permission to express it.
Percysowner
@debbie:
He’s a monster, who wants the world to go his way and expects it to conform to whatever he happens to want at the time. He’s a kid who never grew up, throwing a tantrum while holding on to the levers of power and surrounded by MORE kids, or adults who have decided that giving him everything he wants is to their advantage.
Baud
Kay
The cancel culture warriors are promoting a “debate” with Joe Rogan as moderator:
This is considered an unbiased, open minded moderator among our self-proclaimed public intellectuals.
So edgy and cool! He says “fuck” when he’s on Hannity promoting his podcast!
Joe Rogan, who apparently doesn’t know how “a primary works” proclaims that “the party” chose Biden when what happened was voters chose Biden. Why are the cancelling tens of millions of Biden voters?
Baud
@Kay: White men are inherently unbiased. When they support Trump, it’s because they made a thoughtful considered judgment about the issues.
Same with the primary. How can voters choose our nominee when so many of them aren’t white?
OzarkHillbilly
In an attempt to engage in some light reading, I’ve been perusing the pages of Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands. We can always say, “At least we aren’t Belarus in ’42-’43.”
ThresherK
@Kay: Joe Rogan to moderate a debate?
If Phil Hartmann were still alive, I’d rather he did it than Rogan. Okay, also rather Hartmann than Todd, Stephanopolous, or basically anyone in the last two decades.
Soprano2
Ooohhh, this is another one of my pet peeves. Literally no one ever asks white men if they’re voting for another white man just because he’s a white man! Everyone else’s vote is questioned, are you voting for a woman just because she’s a woman, are you voting for the black candidate just because he/she’s black, and so on. Literally only white males are allowed to vote for another white male and have it assumed that their vote is given because they believe he’s the best candidate for the job. It’s a huge blind spot in the news media’s culture, this assumption once again that “white man” is the normal, default person who is always granted the benefit of the doubt over everything.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Trump was at a “Latinos for Trump” event yesterday.
I asked myself, where are the White Guys for Biden events?
Soprano2
@Kay: This “cancel culture” stuff is such bullshit. Every time I see someone on FB saying they aren’t going to watch the NFL or NBA anymore because the owners are “allowing” the players to put logos on their jerseys and kneel without consequence, I ask them “But doesn’t that mean you are trying to cancel the NFL/NBA? I thought cancel culture was bad!” I have not yet had one person answer me or try to defend it. They all know it’s bullshit.
Brachiator
@Kay:
We have a ton of public commentators. We haven’t really had public intellectuals for a while. I don’t know much about Rogan. Whenever I have read him or seen him speak, I realize that there is nothing there and quickly lose interest.
It was good to read George Takei’s Twitter posts. A great message of hope to start the day with.
Soprano2
@Baud: I saw that. Yet another super-spreader event where Trump is trying to kill his own voters. Who does that?
And yeah, there are never “Whites for xxx” events, because all the events not labeled with a specific group are just assumed to be for white people. It’s a huge blind spot in our whole culture, how “white” is always assumed to be the default for everything. I’m a white person, and I’m aware of it. I can only imagine how people who aren’t white feel slapped in the face every day by it.
rikyrah
Of course it can get worse. It has been worse. I have written that I looked at the time with Dolt45, through the lens of what my ancestors went through as they watched the hopes and dreams that they had post-Emancipation and Reconstruction evaporate as they saw the onslaught of Jim Crow.
But, I consider myself in a better fighting position than they were then, and fight, we must.
I think it’s quite obvious that the right wants to erase all the gains of this country since Brown vs. Board.
It’s up to us to fight them on it.
I believe in the American Experiment. I am willing to fight for it.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Cause they are majority non-White.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: I’m with you. Shoulder to shoulder.
The Oracle of Solace
In Takei’s childhood, both major parties collaborated in maintaining white supremacy. It has taken three generations for one of these major parties (the Democrats, for those who aren’t keeping score) to reach the point where a majority of its members and voters are either directly impacted by institutional racism, or ideologically anti-racist. Yet we will still hear claims that the two parties are the same, or at least insufficiently different, as if Takei’s life experiences don’t matter.
geg6
Thank you, Mr. Sulu! I just love George Takei. And I agree with him. I’m taking a day off from all the gloom porn here at this blog and all the others I usually read. It’s almost as annoying as the crap from the Trumpsters. I have my own fears but I’m tired of dwelling on them and I’m not going to today.
In a couple hours, I’m going to pick up my allotment of postcards and starting work on them tonight. And then, in a few days, I’m going to request another hundred. Positive action is going to be my focus today.
Dorothy A. Winsor
One of my book clubs met yesterday and discussed Brad Meltzer’s THE LINCOLN CONSPIRACY, about a historical plot to assassinate Lincoln before he was inaugurated. I thought we might wind up talking about how the country was so divided both then and now, but we wound up talking about racism. It was a profoundly depressing experience.
One woman choked up talking about the inconceivable evil of slavery. A few minutes later she said she also couldn’t understand racism. When she was growing up, they had a black housekeeper and they treated her like one of the family. She said it never would have occurred to her to tell the housekeeper she couldn’t use their toilet.
A friend of mine gently pointed out that maybe that wasn’t so straightforward. We have diversity in this building, but it’s between residents (all white) and staff, a big portion of whom are latinx. The woman with the housekeeper says she treats the staff just like she treats her friends and thinks of them in the same way.
And that was typical. No one there was a raving user of the N-word, but they were blind.
Immanentize
@rikyrah:
In the end — not in percentages but in numbers — didn’t Hillary get more white person votes than POC votes? I can’t find the vote count analysis, but I’m pretty sure that’s true.
A Ghost to Most
@cmorenc:
His base is just as depraved, irresponsible, untruthful, greedy and narcissistic as he is.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: We all have our blind spots.
OzarkHillbilly
Those were race traitor votes. They don’t count either.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: In some people’s eyes, race traitors are worse.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Donald Trump tweeted he wanted Rogan to host a debate – after Rogan endorsed Donald Trump and has spent three months saying Biden is senile- and a former NYT journalist and a current Intercept journalist believe Donald Trump said that because Donald Trump is interested in a free exchange of ideas.
Their efforts to be cool and contrarian have turned them into morons. They can no longer make the simplest evaluations of a series of events or people.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: it’s sad to think that there really are people who, deep down, think that way.
Most of the front pagers at LG&M are a bit off, but I smile everytime Loomis describes Arlington National Cemetery as “the confiscated lands of the traitor, Robert E. Lee.” That is what an actual traitor looks like.
charlucklesWe
@Kay:
JFC. Is it too much to ask of my fellow white middle-aged males that they stop embarrassing the **** out of me? We’re given the keys to the kingdom and then not only do we screw it up, we continuously whine about it.
Brachiator
@The Oracle of Solace:
Today’s google honors Felicitas Mendez, a dark skinned Puerto Rican woman who, along with her husband, won a landmark case to desegregate California schools. A number of groups who understood oppression joined the lawsuit, Mendez v Westminster. Thurgood Marshall filed an amicus brief in the case and then California governor Earl Warren ordered that California public schools and public spaces be desegregated. This was 1947 and the victory here was a precursor to the 1954 Brown decision and to later civil rights battles.
The fight for justice continues, and we get to be a part of it.
Kay
Long overdue for Donald Trump to be interviewed by a Donald Trump fan. That never happens.
I don’t think they listen to the show. They have some vague idea it’s “edgy” and they know it’s popular and hugely profitable so therefore “good”, but they missed the whole part where Joe Rogan announced, based on absolutely nothing, that Biden is senile and he was therefore voting for Trump.
hueyplong
When you translate “cancel culture” into “Stop noticing that our position is unpopular,” it all becomes a lot clearer.
It’s not “cancel culture” to declare that, based on a string of misrepresentations (often referred to as “lies”), someone has blown his credibility.
NotMax
It may be because I went on a Monday or a boat had not yet been unloaded; unusually glaring difference of inventory at Costco yesterday. Suspect it’s a temporary hiccup in supply. Maybe related to freight flight schedules impacted due to west coast smoke and ash?
Fresh chicken – none at all. No breasts, no thighs, no drumsticks, no wings, nada.
Fresh beef – about half the usual selection.
Fresh lamb – none.
Fresh pork and fish aplenty. Much of those locally sourced.
.
Bare bones selections in the cold cuts and cheeses aisles. I happen to be a big fan of the Kirkland brand sliced seasoned roast beef, which was absent.
Fresh veggies in the cooler room about one-third the variety normally stocked. Whole lotta special priced, about to reach sell-by date dips and spreads.
Hit and miss with canned goods. No canned mushrooms. One the other hand a 12-pack of canned black beans (not Goya) was marked down to four bucks and change.
Kay
Yes, he’s the voice of the cancelled masses- Theil Capital is never heard from. Silenced!
A multimillionaire (Rogan) interviewing another multimillionaire (Weinstein) where Rogan endorses Trump is a view that is never expressed. God, the bravery of these freedom fighters! I get misty about the First Amendment just thinking about it.
AA voters should NOT have cancelled these media and corporate moguls. How dare they elect Joe Biden.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: Light reading indeed.
clay
@Kay:
Unfortunately, it wasn’t based on nothing. I mean, no, it wasn’t based on any evidence or reality, but it WAS based on a months-long smear campaign against Biden perpetuated by members of the Online Left and the Trump campaign*. And now those same groups are the ones promoting Rogan to be a host. Hmmm, what was Glenn saying about ‘insular’ again?
*But perhaps I repeat myself?
Charluckles
@Kay:
Go on! I am loving this. F-bomb Rogan.
Hazmat
Long-time lurker here. geg6 or others, if you don’t mind sharing, what postcard campaigns are you finding to work on? I saw that Postcard Patriots are not doing postcards right now, and Postcards to Voters has very limited campaigns. I’ve been doing letters for VoteForward, but I have a bunch of blank postcards left from 2018 and would like to write more if needed!
Kay
@clay:
But Theil Capital and Joe Rogan don’t have any choice! How can you deny the millionaire podcaster and financial manager demographic A CHOICE?
This is America’s journalistic elite. Donald Trump blathered something on Twitter and they’re SO contrarian and open minded they’re willing to ignore the entire context and boldly call for a debate moderated by a Trump endorser. Interesting! Americans exist to keep them “interested”. We live to serve.
rp
Greenwald has reached Trumpian levels of dishonesty and general awfulness. I guess he collected enough coins/rubles and has leveled up.
mrmoshpotato
Sums up my feelings quite well.
Kay
@clay:
I mean, come on:
They’re supposed to be journalists. Why don’t they read anything before talking about it? Both of these people are paid half a million dollars a year and their only fucking job is to read and opine and scold the rest of us. They can’t even do that competently.
dmsilev
Speaking of insular media idiots, the Post has an op-ed with the splashy title “I never considered voting for Trump in 2016. I may be forced to vote for him this year.” (no link), with the author “fearing the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party” more than all of Trump’s pathologies. Oh no, the Democrats are losing the heartland voters with their leftist leftisms. Except…
“Right wing media hack twists herself into rhetorical pretzels to justify her inevitable vote for right-wing candidate” makes for a less dramatic headline.
Kay
@mrmoshpotato:
Now we’ll be treated to two weeks of lectures on how Joe Biden is “afraid” to “debate” Donald Trump on the Trump fan show by the cancel culture crowd.
They’re fucking insufferable people.
Baud
@dmsilev:
In tomorrow’s Post, “Why I can’t vote for centrist Joe Biden,” by Democratic superdelegate Nina Turner.
catclub
Danielle Pletka is not Rightwing, she is FAR rightwing Bomb iran Nutty.
Shawn in Showme
@Kay:
Joe Rogan made $30 million with his podcast last year.
clay
@Kay: Gee, I wonder if Trump would agree to debate Biden for four hours on, I dunno, Nicole Wallace’s show*? He’s a coward if he doesn’t! Sorry, I don’t make the rules.
*Now that I would watch.
catclub
@Baud:
I think WAPO is falling down on the job of ‘do not publish nutbars who write editorials”
Kay
I regret to inform you I have become embroiled in yet another yard sign controversy. I swear I am NOT instigating this. I hate yard signs- I hate talking about them, I hate buying them, I hate picking them and up and carting them around but I cannot free myself. Every.Fucking. Day. Democrats with the yard signs.
A faction wants to give them away. What happens when you give them away is Republicans come get them and throw them away. So now I’m being portrayed as some greedhead sign profiteer for insisting they ask for a donation. Literally every person makes a donation. Happily. Eager to help. But I’m supposed to piously turn this money down, which is just not how I’m built :)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@geg6:
This. This is why some commenters leave and never come back. This place is getting as bad as LGM
Baud
@Kay: They’re insufferable because they know they can’t lose. Joe is “afraid” if he doesn’t go on Rogan’s show. If Joe goes on Rogan’s show, he was successfully manipulated into doing so. If Joe appears weak on Rogan’s show, Trump wins the media cycle. If Joe appears strong on Rogan’s show, Trump tells other emotionally fragile white guys how Joe doesn’t respect them. If Joe wins the election, they all get the benefits of Democratic governance.
They are smug because they are operating from a position of strength. All we can do is get our people out and win the election, and then the next several elections after that. That’ll wipe the smirks from their faces.
Brachiator
@dmsilev:
Which does Pletka prefer, Trump’s incompetence or his corruption?
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: WATBs all.
VOR
@rikyrah: I used to think Conservatives wanted to roll the clock back before the New Deal. Now I realize they want to roll back The Enlightenment. Many would be perfectly happy with feudalism under King Donald.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Shawn in Showme:
I think Kay’s talking about the writers of the articles she linked to
mrmoshpotato
@catclub: Obligatory “Fuck John ‘Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran’ McCain.”
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: Not the Danielle Pletka who spent 10 years as a staffer for Jesse Helms?
Baud
@Kay:
Cancel them.
yellowdog
@Kay: The first scheduled debate is in a week. Let’s see if the shitgibbon shows up for that one first.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Rogan is a nobody’s nobody. No reason for Biden to go on his show.
Sounds like a win for everyone.
Baud
@Brachiator: I know. There’s zero chance it’ll happen. I’m just explaining their psychology.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
Careful. You don’t want to overcook the outside of the signs before the insides are done. May I suggest getting reverse-seared in another yard sign controversy?
Shawn in Showme
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Gotcha.
Just wanted to point out, however, that Rogan is the most popular media personality among white males. Of course there will be serious noises made in the corporate media about him being a debate moderator. We’re fighting a political battle. The other side is waging a battle for cultural supremacy.
clay
@Baud: Remember how Biden gave an decent-lengthed interview with Charlamagne tha God, and people only quoted three words of it (“You ain’t black”)?
That’s 100% what these people want from Biden going on Rogan’s show. Some brief clip that can be taken out of context and plastered on the airways.
There’s literally no upside for Biden.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
Your point was that it won’t matter re:election, which I agree with, but Rogan isn’t a nobody, as much as I and others despise him. Lots of famous people have gone on his podcast and as Shawn noted above, he made $30 million last year from his podcast. That’s not what a “nobody’s nobody” would make.
I’m hoping that this latest move will help kill his show. He’s a toxic fool who never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t believe in or wouldn’t soon. He has disputed and denigrated commonly accepted concepts like toxic masculinity, for example.
germy
It can get better.
Vote these people out:
Brachiator
@Baud:
Fair point. The best way to beat them at their game is not to play it.
Omnes Omnibus
No, they’ve already lost that battle. That’s why they are so enraged. There are mixed race gay couples on TV selling bathroom cleaner. It’s not edgy; it’s normal.*
*I am not saying we are post-racism, post-sexism, that trans-people are safe to be who they are everywhere, etc.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Shawn in Showme:
“Cultural supremacy”? With Joe fucking Rogan of all people? That’s a laugh lol
I’ll never understand why he’s popular. He’s an idiot and a piece of shit. I mean, I do understand, but I’m not entertained by him
Baud
I don’t listen to Rogan at all, but my understanding is that most of the time he is not political on his show, but when he does talk about politics, he’s got the stereotypical white male world view.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
He engages in a lot of conspiracy theory bullshit under the guise he’s “just asking questions”. He even used to believe the moon landing was a hoax
He’s also a vile transphobe too
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Wasn’t he the host of some TV game show?
I suppose that he has achieved some fame, but I have only seen a couple of YouTube clips of his recent stuff. There’s nothing there. By comparison, Alex Trebeck earns $10 million a year from Jeopardy, but I am not interested in his opinion either.
Bottom line. Biden may be interested in reaching out to the people who watch Rogan, but this does not mean that he needs Rogan to do that.
Kathleen
@Kay: Because they’re African American.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
It’s not the landings, the Moon is a hoax made up to explain the tides.
//
Kathleen
@Soprano2: I think it’s malice.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Isn’t part of friendship helping each other to see our blind spots?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
Rogan is suggesting some shadowy party elite actually chose Biden, not the vast majority of primary voters in states that look far more like the national electorate than say, Iowa or New Hampshire primary voters? Wherever might he have picked up those talking points?
The Intercept crew– hold on to your wigs and keys, folks– is all over this idea that the roid-addled homophobic racist should moderate a debate. And Lee Fang is arguing on twitter this morning that “white natioanlism” is a strawman that those same shadowy elites use to cling to power.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Fake Moon! SAD!
ETA – also (too) the Moon is a total loser. Dump will not be dating it in 10 years.
germy
WaterGirl
@Hazmat: Hey, long-time lurker!
We have a list of things we can do in the sidebar – it’s the middle item under Election Action! – and one of them is writing postcards for Flip the West.
Election Action!
Political Fundraising
Taking Action: Things We Can Do
Voting Plan Illustrations
Check out the list – there’s a link to Flip the West!
Kathleen
@Kay: I don’t think they’re morons. I think they’re quislings.
Kathleen
@Kay: Bari Weiss retweeeting Glen Greenwald. The Juxtaposition From Hell.
mrmoshpotato
@Kathleen: Have you considered the possibility of moronic quislings?
NotMax
@WaterGirl
As you asked for a report if seen, between 2 and 3 a.m. (-ish) blog time Recent Comments was running as much as 15 minutes behind. As well, a delay in comments showing up on a page ranging from small to as much as five minutes, requiring multiple refreshes. When such a delayed appearing comment did appear it was timestamped at the time it showed up rather than the time Post Comment was clicked.
Cannot speak to how much longer the funkiness may have lasted as collapsed into napland very shortly after 3 a.m. blog time.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
One might say the relationship is destined to crater.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Couldn’t Biden say something like, “Rogan already says he’s voting for Trump and spreads Trump campaign lies about me to his audience. I won’t agree to let him moderate a debate for the same reason I won’t agree to let Sean Hannity moderate a debate. How about the League of Women Voters instead?”
That wouldn’t be weak — it would be truthful, at least to anyone who isn’t already on the Trump bandwagon. I get that Rogan’s audience isn’t the same as Hannity’s (they’re younger, for one thing), but Rogan has made biased declarations against Biden. It’s absurd to act like this is a legit offer.
ETA: On the other hand, since Biden is in the lead, he shouldn’t agree to any more debates anyway, so there’s that…
Gin & Tonic
I hope President Joseph R. Biden awards George Takei the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Kathleen
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Gee where else have we heard that elite manipulated millions of votes to ensure Biden victory?
Kathleen
@mrmoshpotato: Not when it’s regarding Weis and Snowald and the rest of the Intercept scat spreaders.
Shawn in Showme
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
We’ve already lived an even more absurd reality. Just replace the words “Joe fucking Rogan” with “Donald fucking Trump”.
Immanentize
The South Dakota AG “deer strike” story is getting weirder!:
Brachiator
@germy:
Yes, in a world where an idiot like Trump can become president, a moron like Rogan can be a choice for a debate moderator.
And instead of a debate, Trump and Biden could arm wrestle, or play a video game.
germy
@NotMax:
If I’m in an older thread, the recent comments will show only up to that thread. If I switch the the main balloon-juice page, or the most recent thread, then recent comments will be more accurate.
rp
@Kathleen: Sometimes being Jewish is really embarrassing.
germy
@Brachiator:
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: Ah, “Bloodlands”. I remember getting that on audiobook and listening to it on my daily commute over the mountains. It was a traumatizing experience.
Yeah, Belarus and Ukraine both got thoroughly shafted, both prior and post WWII.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: It’s definitely on rocky ground.
NotMax
@germy
The only page I make use of to view them is the front page and that was (once again) running behind.
Gin & Tonic
@Miss Bianca: Not a book I’d ever call “light reading,” but an excellent work of scholarship. Snyder is formidable.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: Sounds like Ravnsborg and Volek are good friends who have their stories straight.
Immanentize
@NotMax: Maybe the high speed boat didn’t get unloaded or the internet cargo plane was delayed because of west coast smoke?
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
(best Snagglespuss imitation) Sheer lunacy, even.
Citizen Alan
@Brachiator:
He was the host of Fear Factor, which I wouldn’t even dignify enough to call it a game show. It featured wretched fame whores who were willing to go on national television and eat pig rectums for the chance to win a piddly $10k. And what’s worse is that in interviews after FF was cancelled, Rogan himself showed nothing but contempt for the contestants on the show that made him famous who he referred to (in a foreshadowing of his Trump support) as “losers.”
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: But it took them quite a long time….
Ravnsborg took Volek’s personal car home? Volek — at a crime scene! — told the deadly driver, Ravnsborg to just go home?
ETA. Why hasn’t the AG just gone all no-vowel and spell his name Rvnsbrg? We would all pronounce it the same way, probably.
mrmoshpotato
@Immanentize: Clog in the series of tubes?
Gin & Tonic
@rp: Speaking of which – Ukraine has blocked entry to foreigners (due to COVID.) A large number of Haredim have been trying to get to the Ukrainian village of Uman for a Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage. They flew into Kyiv and were not allowed to exit the international zone of the airport, so they left, went to Belarus and tried to enter overland. As they were blocked at the border, they decided to remain there and prevent anyone else from crossing.
mrmoshpotato
@Citizen Alan:
Quotable
OGLiberal
@charlucklesWe: That drives me nut as well – the constant complaining, the grievances. (and, yes, I’m a white guy) And their godhead is the chief whiner. They make posters of him with his head on John Rambo’s body but the dude is just one big whining complaint machine who can’t even do the thing he’s most recently famous for – telling people “you’re fired” in person. This is the white man’s (and many white women’s) ideal man?
Shawn in Showme
@OGLiberal:
You have to fight the culture war with culture warriors you’ve got.
Brachiator
@Citizen Alan:
Wasn’t he the host of some TV game show?
I live in Southern California. This was mild compared to some foreign TV games shows I’ve seen on the international channels here.
But yeah, that’s the Rogan I remember. Didn’t he have more hair?
So he had contempt for the contestants. Projection, I suppose.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: The Mad Haredim of the New Year! What a crazy story!
germy
Maybe they saw it on facebook
Brachiator
@Immanentize:
Was it a crime scene at that time?
This thing is strange and tragic. Don’t they have some supposedly independent agencies investigating it?
The Thin Black Duke
Maybe it’s me, but courting the idiots who listen to Joe Rogan doesn’t sound like a winning strategy for Biden.
Ksmiami
@japa21: America only survives if the Republican Party dies…
Keith P.
@Brachiator: I saw him perform live back when he had hair and did Fear Factor. I only think he’s a so-so comedian…he got into it with a mother-daughter pair who decided to sit *at* the stage and heckle him, and it detracted from the whole show, as he went into Diceman Mode. If someone ever releases the tape of that one, he’ll have a few unpleasant news cycles.
Immanentize
@Brachiator: The police guy told Ravnsborg to go home after they found the body. That is a crime scene (an accident investigation is treated like a crime scene even without a dead guy). And the dead guy’s cousins say there were lots of state police cars and an ambulance there the following morning after? Ravnsborg was told to go home.
There was a report that the NORTH Dakota State investigators were going to help, but now it looks like Kristi Noem is handling the investigation? So unclear about independent investigation.
Gin & Tonic
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2:
Because if you try that he’ll flip his shit and start screaming in your face about “the race card”. If you’re lucky and he doesn’t have a loaded gun handy.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Now if they’d just stop playing banjo during communion.
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
That is exactly what George is talking about. Humans will build an opponent to feed their worse fears if one doesn’t exist. Racism is that opponent to many in this country. It will never go away completely but it can be controlled to a large degree or it can be exploited massively, by notion and fear. Conservatives are exploiting that, building that, and shitforbrains is the villain and the exploited here, history is his helper and his downfall.
Elizabelle
Sorry the formatting is such a mess. Cut and paste, and the transition from “text” to “visual” did not take.
Link for the Fallows article: The Media Learned Nothing From 2016
The press hasn’t broken its most destructive habits when it comes to covering Donald Trump.
Link for the AP story he takes on in the first example. Dueling versions of reality define 1st week of fall campaign
Anyway, I think the Fallows article is superb — it’s preaching to the choir, WRT jackals, and probably deserves its own front page post. He is so clear about the usual practices that allow Trump and other liar/sociopaths to do a complete end run about professional reporting.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
I think the more likely reaction would be befuddlement
Matt McIrvin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There was a move he made there that I thought was really interesting: he referred to the Democratic establishment as “the far left”. The anti-anti-Trump leftists are making a play to define themselves as the new center, rather than as the true left radicals. “Extremism” in that scheme now means you want justice for black people and other marginalized groups, not that you’re a Marxist who wants to destroy capitalism.
It’s a more explicit alliance with the Trump right, to my mind.
I’ve been seeing signs of this coming for a long time.
SiubhanDuinne
@mrmoshpotato:
From harsh mistress to total loser just.like.that.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Oh, I’ve seen this particular type of shit-flipping in person.
John S.
This is how wingnuts “own” the libs.
They throw out some ridiculous notion, amplify it through their puke funnel of surrogates and friendlies, and the next thing you know we have half a thread talking about Joe “tripping balls” Rogan moderating a presidential debate.
This notion is less worthy of discussion than suggesting Insane Clown Posse moderate a debate in full makeup with an audience of Jugaloos attending.
ETA: Having ICP moderate would actually be FAR better.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: . You also broke the margin.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl:
WAVING!!?????♂️
Comment 121 broke the margin. I will catch y’all later!
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: That’s a fascinating insight.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: Not sure what “breaking the margin” means, but I should have broken the excerpts into 3 or so passages.
The edit window seems to allow less time in the last 2 or so days.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
So what, they flip out if somebody suggests that they’re playing the race card except for whites? What’s their justification/counterargument?
Immanentize
@John S.:
I thoroughly support this suggestion.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
Interesting. It’s in the same vein of anti-“identity politics”. Though these people are pretty niche and unimportant
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: breaking the margin means you used a string of characters without a space so long that it runs far off the right side of the normal margin — especially difficult for mobile users like me. It wreaks havoc with commenting, editing, etc.
dnfree
@rikyrah: As a young white person who grew up in a small Midwestern town that had few black people, the Civil Rights movement of the later 1950s and 1960s was the defining event of my youth. Everything following that (anti war, women’s rights, gay rights, etc) was built on that foundation and that courage, and to me on that foundational peaceful resistance. We can’t let it be taken away.
Geminid
I wonder how many of Joe Rogan’s audience are registered voters. I suspect less than the average of their demographic cohorts.
germy
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
Not to his fanbase. I agree that Biden would not benefit from appearing on his show. My point was only that he’s popular. His podcast is the most popular in the world
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator:
No, you’re thinking of Joe Rogaine.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay: Rogan’s a good one, it’s very likely Rogan is stuck being a talking head on You Tube for the crap he’s said. His show dies because You Tube decides he’s too edgy there an’t to many career options open for him because most HR departments are going to think “well there is a harassment lawsuit waiting to happen”. This is why they are so worked up about “cancel culture” because they are terrified of it.
germy
Tonight on ABC
Kathleen
@rp: I feel that way alot about Irish Catholics (Hannity, O’Reilly etc).
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
The moon isn’t actually real! It’s just a projection the Lizard people project in the sky to mind control us all! //
Barbara
@Matt McIrvin: I have no fucking clue what people like Lee Fang want, except to maximize their own power. Maybe that’s why they are so obsessed with defining and analyzing the power dynamics of the apparatus that they tried but failed to take over. All I can say is that, like Glenn Greenwald, whatever Fang’s latest theory of power is, women and African Americans are on the outside, and should be grateful for whatever crumbs Fang and his band of superior intellects are willing to throw our way. No, I am not surprised that they can’t see this.
MomSense
Well fuck. Staff member at my son’s school is presumed positive. Whole school released. This is in a county with a .4 positivity rate.
Several other schools have released students, too. We are not even a full week in.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@germy:
Will definitely not watch. I’ve heard ABC tends to be the most right-wing among the networks. It’s owned by Disney and I get that it’s a corporation, but I’ve never gotten the impression that Disney is run by wingnuts and find it hard to believe that Disney would run ABC this way
trollhattan
@germy:
Puke.
Mainstreaming the Cletus Safari–do not want.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Immanentize: The whole thing is weird. The man who was hit apparently had crashed his vehicle into a field/haybale in that area and gone home, then walked back out toward his vehicle:
Family of victim seeks answers
“In an interview with Dakota News Now, Boever’s cousin, Nick Nemec, provided other details about the crash. Nemec said Boever had crashed his pickup into a hay bale prior to Saturday night’s accident. After the crash, Nemec gave Boever a ride back to his home in Highmore, about a mile-and-a-half away. Nemec said he and Boever made plans to fix the pickup on Sunday morning. But Saturday night, Boever decided to go back to the truck. Nemec did not know why Boever returned to the vehicle Saturday night.”
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: Ah. Thank you. Anyway, will break future long comments up.
ETA: Oh! Sorry! Did not see you’d already put up today’s SD AG developments. Well, this one has links.
AND: the South Dakota AG’s story now becomes even more whack! The Washington Post story today.
South Dakota’s attorney general said he thought he hit a deer. The next day, he found a dead man’s body in a ditch.
Yes. That “he” is Ravnsborg, personally.
And the link to Ravnsborg’s statement on the “tragic incident.”
Ravnsborg now saying his car was too badly damaged to drive; he did call law enforcement. The country sheriff himself responded — Mike Volek. They did not find a deer, or poor Mr. Joe Boever (who was probably already done for).
Sheriff Volek lent Ravnsborg — with his 8 speeding convictions — his personal vehicle to drive home.
And then Ravnsborg returns to the scene the following day and — finds the body! With his trusty chief of staff at his side (was helping to return the loaned vehicle.) They were looking for the poor wounded deer.
According to Ravnsborg’s statement, he immediately drove to Volek’s home and reported the body.
And then the Sheriff told Ravnsborg to go home to Pierre, immediately. Like, yeah.
I guess we know why he was not in his office on Monday.
Finds the body himself, around 11 hours after the incident. Uh huh.
Maybe it could have happened that way …
CarolDuhart2
@MomSense: MomSense, hope your kid is okay-but oh my God.
catclub
I was just wondering if Rogaine is a sponsor of his podcast.
trollhattan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
“News” was once network prestige programming and not required to turn a profit. Your Cronkite/Brinkley era.
Those days are gone.
e.g., The only reason the McCain spawn is on The View is ratings jumped upon adding her to the lineup; they had waned after the prior token wingnut left. Conflict=viewership=higher ad rates. SAD!
Elizabelle
@MomSense:
What not a surprise. Hope all is well with your son and his classmates, and the school staff.
germy
I agree with Harry
dnfree
@Dorothy A. Winsor: they don’t know the history after slavery—reconstruction, Jim Crow, redlining, and all the rest. And too many don’t want to know it.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: I’m not the least bit surprised.
patroclus
It is not entirely accurate that “nobody” stood up for the Japanese Americans in the events surrounding Executive Order 9066 and the internment camps in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor (even while it is completely accurate that Japanese Americans lost their homes, property and were horrendously treated during that time). Congress did, in fact, activate the Tolan Committee (which had earlier studied migratory patterns of Americans in the wake of the Depression and Dust Bowl) in early 1942 and it held hearings about the proposed internment policy in California. The problem was that it was set up too late and the military theater had already been defined and the dislocations had already started by the time it got going. Nonetheless, the hearings were held and the Committee made two salient recommendations: (1) to set up an Alien Property Custodian (as had been done in WWI); and (2) to create what became the WRA (the War Relocation Administration). They sent their recommendation to Sam Rayburn, who forwarded them on to Secretary Morganthau at Treasury and both entities were created. Now, the APC was set up too late to actually record much of the Japanese Americans’ property and they really had to be wealthy enough to hire a lawyer to do that for them, but at least some property was registered and later protected after the war. And, the WRA started out badly (despite the efforts of Milton Eisenhower) and actively repressed the citizens initially, but over time, it improved conditions in the camps, actually relocated many Japanese Americans to the interior of the country and much greater freedom and facilitated the recruitment of many who served honorably in the armed forces. The U.S. thus distinguished itself from the Nazis and their concentration camps and did not treat the internees nearly as badly. Small comfort, yes, but there were some good people in the 1940’s who, at least partially, helped ameliorate the situation.
Gin & Tonic
@germy: I think I have to wash my hair then. Or dry it. Or comb it. Or something.
Immanentize
@MomSense: I’m so very sorry. Your son was on to the problem a week ago! Did he get approval to just speed up and finish?
Gin & Tonic
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I’m going to go way out on a limb and suggest alcohol may have been a factor in both men’s actions.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MomSense:
Hope you, your son, and the staff member will be ok. I’m not sure how schools are going to stay open
Baud
@MomSense: I hope the presumption proves incorrect.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: How did Volek get home Saturday night if he lent the dude his car?
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly:
I have done the exact same thing.
Still haven’t finished the book. It’s too much all at once.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ruckus: Yes, exactly. A leader can stir up racism or tamp it down.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Must-miss TV.
Elizabelle
@Brachiator: We are told that it was not a crime scene at the time. That they’d not been able to find the “deer.”
Ravnsborg found it the next morning. He drove back into Highmore to gas up the borrowed car, drove west again in direction of sheriff’s home (which was close to the accident site), and he and aide stopped to see if any “deer” was visible.
Surprise!
Ravnsborg’s car was towed, once he’d borrowed the car and left. Big, bright lights on tow trucks, but no one found Mr. Boever then, or was looking for him.
Suspect he was dead after the high speed impact, but how awful if he survived a while, and Ravnsborg wouldn’t ‘fess up about his “deer.”
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Matt McIrvin: Pretty much. It’s also occasionally the reaction when you look at the line up for a convention, of any sort and see a rainbow of pale, male faces and ask why everyone they have speaking is white and male. I especially love it when its a panel about gender or diversity in whatever industry.
https://allmalepanels.tumblr.com/image/173092199999
Jay
Chyron HR
Do Bernie’s bros sincerely believe that he got a majority of votes and/or pledged delegates in 2016 and 2020, but the superdelegates conspired to steal the nomination from him?
Does Bernie himself believe that?
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: Not stated. Guessing he responded in his sheriff’s vehicle (would need the comms equipment); his home is near the incident site. He drove the AG to his own home, lent “Speedy” the personal vehicle. Not stated if the sheriff ever returned to the incident site that night. A tow truck had been called; they were anticipating an hour’s delay in its arriving.
I guess it’s possible this could have happened as the AG said, but it’s kind of far fetched.
Also, I guess we’re depending on the sheriff for any reports on whether the AG was impaired.
Why was the initial story so different from the AG’s statement? It is highly interesting that HE was the one to find the vic. That is something that was known when No Mask Governor Noem was putting out her story Sunday. Or was it??
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chyron HR: Bernie got the righteous votes. Which he and his believers seem to think did and will count for more… somehow.
Jay
MomSense
@Immanentize:
He opted for remote learning and has been emailing and talking with his principal to work out the details. I think it will end up that he just finishes by the holidays and then he will decide what to do about college. His before times gap year ideas are not going to happen any time soon. Ugh.
There are students from 22 towns in three counties at his school so this is going to ripple out in unpleasant ways.
germy
On “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” they always feature both sides of the spectrum: Chris Christie on the republican side, and on the democratic side… Rahm Emanuel.
This is what passes for acceptable discourse on corporate news.
Baud
@Chyron HR:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just One More Canuck
@John S.: Love this idea, but OO and BillinGlendale would have a sad
frosty
@OzarkHillbilly: Really good book but, um, light reading it’s not. So far there’s no government program to cause a famine and starve millions of us. Is there?
(Yes my snarkometer is calibrated and I understand your premise.)
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Deleted.
JPL
@germy: There evening news is number one. How’s that make you feel.
H.E.Wolf
Good news! Postcards To Voters is limiting their campaigns because they are doing a huge push to write to Democratic voters in KY, to elect Amy McGrath to Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat.
Here’s the preamble from 2019: https://twitter.com/DemocratWit/status/1158911780250427392
I’ve written 24 so far. :) Would love to have your help! Time to make inroads on our postcard inventories….
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: I deleted that comment since it was screwing up the margin, but I copied it first in case you want to try again.
Just Chuck
@Matt McIrvin: They’ve been referring to mainstream Democrats as DFH’s ever since there were H’s. Hell, they made the word “Liberal” toxic for a few decades. It’s wearing off for everyone not already in the cult.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Thanks, WaterGirl. I have a copy, too.
Will maybe put it up again tonight, in shorter segments. Gonna head out for a while now.
Many apologies for screwing up the blog’s formatting.
But do read the Fallows article. He is such a clear writer and thinker.
JPL
For my next reading adventure, I plan on downloading Caste. It might be time to ask trump whether he thinks whiteness is more important than democracy. That is where we are headed.
MisterForkbeard
@Chyron HR: I think the idea is that because of the superdelegates who’d publicly pledged the entire contest was essentially invalidated as rigged.
Basically, if Hillary starts with a 200 vote lead then the contest was never legitimate to begin with – she was always portrayed as the leader before any substantive votes had taken place and that tampers with the entire race.
It’s really weak tea – Hillary would always have been in the lead anyway, and she was the presumptive favorite for obvious reasons.
Barbara
@Chyron HR: I have been reading a biography of J.J. Rousseau, and the introduction made a point that I found to be really engaging. Rousseau, of course, is full of contradictions, and these contradictions were noted and debated and used to criticize him even during his lifetime. But as the author says, he believes that it is ultimately much more constructive to engage and battle and explain the contradictions in a theory of government or civil society than it is to pretend that the evidence of real life cracks in your perfectly coherent theory don’t exist.
And I just have to ask myself: Why does Glenn Greenwald and company (including Sanders) keep shortchanging analysis of the power of race and gender to distort social and economic outcomes?
patroclus
Moreover, the lawyers who represented Fred Korematsu certainly stood up for Japanese American rights and, even though they famously lost their case, the opinions in that case were excoriated for decades as horrific examples of non-justice and, as more and more people became aware of them, a strong impetus was created that ultimately resulted in the reparations paid to Japanese American survivors in the 1980’s (in an effort led by Jim Wright and the Dems). In addition, at the time, the original orders applied to not only Japanese Americans but also Italian Americans and German Americans too. Francis Biddle at Justice was successful at eliminating the targeted sanctions at the German and Italian Americans (the famous case was Joe DiMaggio’s Dad in San Francisco would have been affected). Rayburn and some at Justice were just unsuccessful when it came to the Japanese Americans. Takei is certainly right to complain about what happened, but to equate everyone with the demagoguery of Earl Warren is not entirely accurate.
JPL
@Elizabelle: I’m sure the governor will be able to manage the
investigation.cover-up.I wonder if they are paying off his relatives for their pain and suffering.
Baud
@MisterForkbeard:
Somehow, it didn’t bother Obama in 2008. It’s more than weak tea. It normalized a conspiracy theory against Democrats that Donald Trump is using right now in his pursuit of fascism.
Citizen Alan
@Jay: This. What happened to George Takei and the other Japanese-America internees was a travesty. But I’m convinced that when the truth finally comes out, the treatment of Latinx refugees in Trump’s camps will be shown to have been worse by orders of magnitude. And if Shitgibbon wins, I truly believe he’ll expand the concept to citizens. He’s already floated the idea of using internment camps to “solve” the problem of homelessness.
JPL
@Jay: On day one, the entire administration needs to be referred to the International Court for investigation.
frosty
@NotMax: Per your earlier comment, perhaps the boat carrying the internet tubes for your area was delayed?
@Immanentize: I am way too slow this morning!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@JPL:
Not if we vote like hell
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@JPL:
They all claim that. NBC Nightly News claims the same thing
PJ
@Elizabelle: I once hit a deer with the car I was driving – I was probably going no more than 35, it darted across the road right in front of me, bounced off the front of the car, got up and took off. I stopped to see if there was any damage to the car (there wasn’t), but I was pretty shaken up.
That incident couldn’t have been more sudden from my standpoint – the deer was not in my field of vision as I approached, and I only had time to slam on the brakes just as it hit the car. But there is no way in hell – even if I was completely soused – that I could have mistaken that deer for a person, or vice versa. Ravnsborg is lying through his teeth.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@germy:
My father watches Meet the Press and actually takes it seriously!
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
More accurately, “At least we aren’t Belarus in ’42-’43, YET.”
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
The most generous interpretation is that he was sufficiently drunk that he genuinely didn’t know what he hit, and the sheriff only thought he was helping to cover up a DUI. Even in that case, it should cost both men their careers and result in the AJ winding up in prison.
Roger Moore
@dnfree:
The history has been suppressed, at least in typical American school history. There’s a brief section on Reconstruction as told by Lost Cause believers, in which blacks just weren’t ready for political power and the carpetbaggers and scalawags who were exploiting them eventually got run out of power. Then there’s nothing at all about race relations until the Civil Rights era, when blacks reclaimed their equality and everything has been hunky dory since.
trnc
Seems like that explicitly stated bias would be immediately disqualifying.
ETA: This was meant as a reply to Kay’s comment #10
trnc
@Baud:
If you became a journalist, you could get paid to ask the Biden campaign that question.
Hazmat
@WaterGirl: Thanks WaterGirl! Somehow I missed the Flip the West link in that long list!
Roger Moore
@patroclus:
There were also a handful of politicians who actively stood up for Japanese Americans, like Gov. Carr of Colorado. But the sad truth is that internment was broadly popular.
The story of Gov. Carr is instructive. He opposed internment and said the internees were citizens whose rights deserved to be respected, and a substantial fraction of the internees there decided to stay in Colorado after the war. But that was a very unpopular position, and standing up for it cost Carr his political career.
laura
@Citizen Alan: When the truth comes out about how this Administration treated asylum seekers and immigrants and their stolen children FOR PROFIT there will be a stain that wont scrub out for the foreseeable future. And there damn well be a Nuremberg Trial for each and every depraved participant as an initial step to right the many wrongs.
trnc
@mrmoshpotato: That made me laugh.
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
“Of course I’ll help cover up the fact that you were driving drunk, and quite probably speeding. Here, take my personal car and drive yourself home.”
Yutsano
@germy: Meh. It’s Spokane. Her re-election is not in danger.
trnc
The first one is on Sep 29.
https://www.debates.org/
Matt McIrvin
@clay: Furthermore, it’s a smear campaign capitalizing on Biden’s visible disability–his stutter, which through decades of practice he works around with extraordinary grace, but you can tell he’s doing it.
I consider that aspect particularly despicable.
Hazmat
@H.E.Wolf: Thank you. I’m in.
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: You know what else strikes me?
Sheriff Volek got the AG off the site before the tow truck driver showed. The sheriff took care of the call himself (OK; could say it’s because he — conveniently — lives very close).
But no other witnesses to whatever state the AG found himself in. Out of here, AG. I’ve got this.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
This is so true! We don’t watch much TV at all, wife is a news-aholic and so we do try to watch some CNN and MSNBC in the evenings, often while I cook dinner and then while we eat and drink, from 7ish to 9:30ish. Lots of ads, and depending upon our linkage speeds, some nights we can only manage the audio feed.
But seeing the gay and/or mixed race couples with happy kids in the commonplace commercials really hits my sweet spot. I started watching TV before Black stars were welcome on most TV shows, in the 1950s and ’60s! I know, to someone born in the late 1990s or the current century it seems hard to believe, but when liberal hosts like the Smothers Brothers, or Laugh-In had Black superstars on, it was really hugely controversial.
So seeing those blended families of all types in commercials means the bigots have already completely lost the cultural wars. Now we just need to keep the pressure on them.
dnfree
@Elizabelle: and James Fallows has been preaching this for a long time. I remember when he was right about the Iraq war, too.
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
I agree. The whole thing has the feel of Sheriff Volek wanting to take care of the event quietly only to have his work undone when it turned out the AG hit a person rather than a deer. That’s why I think the AG may actually not have known he hit a person and why I’m pretty sure that if he did know he didn’t tell the sheriff.
dnfree
@Roger Moore: I read a book a few years ago called “America Aflame” that covered the pre-Civil-war, war, and reconstruction from a more sociological point of view, as opposed to the recitation of battles I learned in the early 1960s. Quite enlightening and enraging and discouraging, because it tied in so directly with where we are now.
https://www.amazon.com/America-Aflame-Civil-Created-Nation/dp/1596917024
Bill Arnold
@Kay:
Somebody should half-seriously propose a debate moderated by Daniel Dale, or somebody else with no tolerance for bullshit and with a quick mind.
WaterGirl
@Hazmat: I searched for the word “postcard” and it jumped right out at me. :-)
Captain C
@catclub: They might think they have to keep up with the FTFNYT.
AlaskaReader
@Shawn in Showme:
Nope
Mart
My buddies parents who learned they no longer owned their farm in WA after being released from the concentration camps, had to reinvent their lives. They moved across the country to find work losing contact with their family and community. They were attacked by several neighbors after they received their $20K each in reparations from the Reagan administration. If those neighbors are still alive, they are Trumpers.
Captain C
@OGLiberal: He has the appearance of being a rich asshole who says what’s on his mind, has lots of power, shits on the libs, and gets laid by whatever women he wants, when he wants. That’s all they care about.
J R in WV
@frosty:
No famine, so far! This dictatorship intends to use a plague to accomplish the same goals, though… so no big difference so far as I can see.
Plus, if there is still food on the shelves, but you have ZERO money left from the pandemic, is that a famine or
unlucky economic consequences?ballerat
@Elizabelle: Uh huh, indeed. He needed the 11 hours to sober up.
He figured his chances were better to show up the next day sober, “find” the guy he hit the night before and then call it in.
It’s been done before.
I wonder what the Sheriff will ask the AG for in return? Nothing that will bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice, I’m sure.