This take from last Friday(!) aged like an open pack of thawed squid left in the parking lot of a South Florida bait shop:
Tucker: Why not settle this war, return energy prices to normal, and stop the economic catastrophe we’re facing?
Macgregor: I think the Biden administration is now trying to figure out how they retreat from the dumb position they’ve taken at this point.https://t.co/aKDERdzICH
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) September 12, 2022
MacGregor is an anti-Semite, misogynist, racist and xenophobe, so naturally Trump tried to make him an ambassador and, failing that, appointed him to the West Point board.
Carlson and MacGregor won’t eat a heaping plate of crow now that Ukrainian forces have Russia on the run, but they may be setting up a narrative to deploy if Putin tries to crash the world economy to get out of his current jam. No mystery about who will get the blame.
Open thread.
Baud
Wouldn’t crashing the economy lower energy prices?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
From MacGregor’s Wiki:
Pure evil is the only way I can describe such a man. And he was an army colonel. Imagine being such a POS that Trey Gowdy thinks you’re awful
Old School
@Baud:
It worked for Trump!
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
That part’s true. He’s acting as a flack for Putin.
eversor
It’s a cultural argument. The US is woke. Russia is pro traditional gender roles and pimps Christianity. Thus Russia must win. Jesus and gender roles demand it. The US must also lose, it’s woke. It’s the same reason they jumped on Orban the moment he said Christianity is the key and most important thing of The West (Christianity is the Jewel of The West) and then brought the hammer down on woke.
It’s religion, all the way up and down. Always was. Always will be.
lowtechcyclist
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I realize there’s no bottom for these guys to hit, but that’s still some world-class POS action.
lowtechcyclist
@eversor: Man, you’re like Dennis the Peasant. You’ve got your axe to grind, and everything’s really about that.
Nettoyeur
@Baud: Guess one reason why gasoline prices decreasing in US…
@Baud:
Old School
Well, when the topic is bad takes, what can you expect?
Betty Cracker
@Baud: In the short term, it probably would, but it might also destabilize NATO countries and allow Trump or a Trump-like figure to slither back into power in the U.S.
West of the Rockies
Carlson is the E.coli in the garden salad of life.
scav
Republicans: now sounding less reality based than Russians.
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
@eversor: You really need to get some new material.
WaterGirl
Shorter (pick one): Ukraine doesn’t matter. The people of Ukraine don’t matter. Defending your democracy doesn’t matter.
Fuck these people.
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist: Eversor is a dick, but he’s not wrong that the right wing Christianists love them some Orban. And also some Putin.
stacib
Wait a minute – did Tucker just admit that Biden had nothing to do with rising energy costs, and that it’s primarily due to the war???
West of the Rockies
@eversor:
Person, a lot of folks here agree with the general point about religion being frequently harmful to humanity, that it is often used to control and deceive, but you needn’t make that point with every other comment.
livewyre
Anytime I start to worry that my philosophical approach is too monomaniacal, well…
MattF
So, it’s the Jews. That explains that.
dmsilev
@MattF: Somehow, it always comes back to that, doesn’t it?
Old School
@WaterGirl:
They do, but when the trade-off is paying $10 more every time you fill up your gas tank….
livewyre
@dmsilev: Sure puts blaming everything bad on religion in a different light.
topclimber
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: Why should he get new material when he gets to be mentioned in something like 25% of subsequent comments every time he spews?
EarthWindFire
May? Please. These people sing look what you made me do more than Taylor Swift.
cain
So, why has the ADL and even more – AIPAC been quiet about the kind of shit that is happening? I mean the right wing is marinating in anti-semite behavior. You would have thought that one word out of those guys and they would cause GOP to STFU. Yet.. crickets. Especially given the fact that Israel’s nuclear shit might be on the line.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You mistake cause for effect. Religion is the definition of a culture’s morality, not the definer of the culture’s morality.
You talk like you think Patriarch Kirill is some kind of malevolent sky wizard who has the Russian under his spell like Saruman in Lord of the Rings.
cain
@Old School:Some of these americans will be ready to give up on Democracy if gas would go down to $.50 a gallon like the good ol days.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@WaterGirl: Even shorter version Tucker Carlson “Chamberlain was right”.
scav
If whoeveritis ever had a different point, no-one would recognize him and he’d be bereft of any social interaction. And many of us would suffer a catastrophic pastry deficit.
Cameron
@cain: USA is about to deep-six the Iran nuclear deal. Wingnuts are in favor of that. Sounds like that ‘enemy of my enemy’ thing. I’m sure once Iran is told to fuck off, Americans can get back to their primitive in-fighting.
Steeplejack
Speaking of bad takes, Maggie Haberman reveals in her book—coming out tomorrow!—that Trump told a bunch of people in late 2020 that he wouldn’t leave the White House.
Omnes Omnibus
Part of Macgregor’s issues stem from the fact that, despite having been one of the army’s rising star intellectuals in the ‘90s, his career stalled out at Colonel. And people like McMaster, who got his first fame in the same battle as Macgregor, got stars. Maybe the promotion boards saw something they didn’t like about Dougie.
ian
@cain: And yet the gas went down and those same Americans are still willing to give up democracy. Makes you wonder if they were just looking for excuses the whole time.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Hey, let’s be fair. Chamberlain was wrong for a lot of good and sensible reasons. Tucker’s still doing his William Joyce impression, and is way overdue to be de-platformed (I can only hope in the manner of the de-platforming of Joyce in 1946).
RaflW
Of course now that MMFA has got this trending, if you search twitter, the Maga-bots are all saying “Tramp should appoint MacGregor as Sec. Def if he wins in ’24.”
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s pretty bad given how far up the ranks Michael Fynn got.
Joe Falco
@stacib: Even if that is where Tuckjob’s logic is headed, you’ll never get him to admit. Is it any wonder he’s Putin’s favorite American
assetcommentator?Chris Johnson
How can anybody not see that it’s not bad takes but literal enemy action? How is it not starkly obvious that the fucker’s literally working for Russia as part of their propaganda wing?
People are so determined to be like ‘maybe they’re just really really stupid, ha ha look how dumb they looked’ when it’s not about being dumb at all, it’s enemy action. Just fucking own it.
MisterForkbeard
@stacib: No, no. Biden caused the Ukrainian war, don’t you see? By not being strong enough to scare Putin like Trump surely would have, and by also not being weak enough to immediately give Putin what he wants and to let Ukraine be pillaged and raped.
Definitely all Biden’s fault.
topclimber
@Cameron: A source would be helpful here.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Chris Johnson: That’s why I keep comparing him to Lord Haw-Haw.
MisterForkbeard
@topclimber: Was going to say, I hadn’t heard that. The last I’d heard is that this nuclear deal is weaker than the last one… which, DUH, no one trusts us to stay in it and we unilaterally blew up the last one, so we don’t get as much.
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack: Steve Schmidt is a mixed bag, but his take on the Haberman “reveal” was solid:
Yep. Maybe Haberman and other Beltway hacks got tired of laundering wingnut trash like “Clinton Cash” and decided to leverage their positions as reporters to accrue information they could use for their own book side hustle.
Baud
@topclimber:
@MisterForkbeard:
Geminid has been following that closely. Hopefully he will weigh in. As I understand, the new deal has the same 2025 expiration date as the old deal, so that’s a large part why it’s weaker.
Ruckus
@West of the Rockies:
Fucker Carlson is far worse than that!
He’s the hospital they take you to for emergency surgery and they get the charts mixed up and do 10 hrs of plastic surgery on and make you look like him. And you went in because of appendicitis and they don’t touch your appendix.
He’s the new car you buy and when you turn the key to drive away in your brand new $45K car it catches on fire and locks the doors.
OK I’m out.
Bill K
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Quit picking on Neville! But seriously, Chamberlain did a good job with the hand he was dealt. The French and British had almost no military at that point. All he could do was bluff and bluster and he still managed to get enough concessions to piss off Hitler.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Macgregor was pretty damned good at everything he did. He was an effective commander and respected leader. But then when it got to the point where being a political animal comes it, he came to a dead stop. McMaster had also been passed over for his stars a couple times for being an iconoclast (like Macgregor) but that was it. They made him wait for his stars. They just told Macgregor no.
Flynn was obviously to mask his insanity while in uniform.
Roger Moore
@eversor:
I think it’s more about the cultural views you outlined than religion per se. It’s true the right wing churches have adopted those cultural views as their de facto theology, but it was the cultural views that formed their religious views, not the other way around. That’s why so many other churches vehemently disagree with their cultural views, and why their views on some of those issues, like abortion, have radically changed within my lifetime.
Tony G
Astonishingly, the worst people in the world tend to congregate together and support each other. The name Douglas MacGregor rang a bell, so I did a quick lookup. Back on March 31st, about six weeks into Russia’s “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine, MacGregor was a special guest on the radio show of Gary Null — a snake-oil salesman who often speaks highly of Tucker Carlson. Since February, Null has been mixing his usual anti-vaxx broadcasts with broadcasts supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He gets at least 5 hours a week on “leftist” NYC radio station WBAI. I’m old enough to remember when the “counterculture” figures like Gary Null were young. Many of them (who haven’t died yet) have turned into just awful people. A generation of swine, as the saying goes.
Ruckus
@scav:
That’s OK they weren’t reality based in the first place.
Baud
@Bill K:
He messed up with the whole “peace in our time” quote. Instant meme that overshadowed reality.
Baud
@Tony G:
It’s not that astonishing. It’s been a long-term project of the GOP to bring those people together to gain power.
Betty Cracker
@Chris Johnson: The “bad take” comes into play when that moron MacGregor says on Friday “things are going very, very badly” for the Ukrainians and they’re “desperate” and less than 48 hours later, Russians are throwing their rifles down, stealing civilian clothes and fleeing on stolen bicycles ahead of Ukraine’s stunningly successful offensive. There’s nothing mutually exclusive about those two being Putin’s cockholsters and also being catastrophically wrong about what’s happening in Ukraine.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m actually a little sympathetic to people who are unappreciated. But Benedict Arnold’s excuse was also that he was not appreciated. There’s only so much that can justify.
Cameron
@topclimber: You mean paranoia isn’t sufficient? Well, shut my mouth. (I probably spend far more time than it’s worth at Antiwar.com and responsiblestatecraft.org, but neither of those sites seem to have any confidence in a nuclear deal with Iran.)
Cameron
@Tony G: Gary Null is still around? Jesus, maybe some of his phony remedies actually work.
scav
@Ruckus: Yes, but I was just easily amused by the parallel “news” “discussions” posted today. Detect Obvious is my only superpower.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ya think?
Those boards seem like they aren’t paying attention all that much but I think they actually do. And notice when someone is a stone fuck up who thinks their shit doesn’t stink. I saw that in the navy. It can take a while to get noticed in a not all that positive career way but when you get noticed, things seem to not go all that well for a complete fuck up.
Ruckus
@Baud:
He might have known how and played the game well enough. Or maybe he wasn’t a total fuck up before he hit his peak.
The military is sometimes funny on who they think can actually do the work, and sometimes it’s based upon just staying out of the limelight, doing well enough to get by. And it isn’t just officers. It works up and down the line. Of course one does have to somewhat stay out of the limelight, pimping one’s own ass usually doesn’t go over all that well.
AWOL
@Tony G: Bernard White—if he hasn’t been arrested—is an anti-Semitic grifter. That station’s been an utter cesspool for twenty years. They work against the Democratic Party 24/7/365, especially Amy Goodman.
PBS actually gave that ludicrous turd Null a show a few decades back.
From what I’ve heard, Null considers himself above paying for services done for him by others and had/has a harem of groupies hanging at his UWS grifter’s palace.
C Stars
I’m having a hard time mustering any kind of surprise that Bow Tie Guy had on a racist guest and/or had a horrible take on current events. It’s weird how there’s no consequence for being just flat-out, objectively wrong in the Trump Party (no longer GOP, I think). Or, well, maybe what I mean to say is that it’s not weird.
Anyway after church yesterday we all sat around writing postcards to potential voters in Georgia. Not officially sponsored or organized by the church, mind you, but there they were on the front lawn: tables, chairs, pens, postcards and stamps, and a carafe of coffee.
topclimber
@Cameron: I haven’t looked at RSC in a while but after a quick review of google news headlines I see the Israelis want a tougher deal, the Germans think the Iranians should take the offer now on the table, and others suggest they will do nothing until seeing how our midterms turn out. Perhaps they don’t want to put their asses out on a limb by signing only to have a GQP Congress kick them again?
cain
@ian:
Too many of us darkies walking around all “freedom like” in their neighborhoods.
Chris Johnson
@Tony G: And are they also friends with Jimmy Dore, and Caleb Maupin?
Sounds like you’re just listing off the unofficial Russia News. How surprising that sources like that would be pushing both antivaxxer stuff and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Next you will tell me they think a civil war is inevitable.
cain
@Cameron: That’s really fucked up – deep six the Iran deal – a deal that the U.S. negotiated. Crazy.
Chris Johnson
@Betty Cracker: See, this is what I’m saying. Not moron. He might know perfectly well how things really are, but he is telling a pack of lies for effect. The idea that he believes any of it is not proven.
cain
BTW y’alls – I was just looking at our fundraising tracker – it’s absolutely stunning that by in large – we not only meet these fundraiser goals, but we beat them by 2x. Just stunning.
Cameron
@topclimber: Not just GOP (cue Bob Menendez!). As far as I can tell – and I will confess I have a very biased viewpoint – there isn’t going to be an agreement. There will probably be some sort of military strike that will turn Iran into another North Korea: a country that realizes its only security is in actually having nuclear weapons. Just one more piece of the planet falling apart…
ETA: It seems to me that the only diplomacy USA engages in is gunboat diplomacy, whether it’s bullying, threats, proxies, or outright military intervention. This isn’t Joe Biden, it isn’t Republicans, it’s the way this country conducts itself. As long as Americans believe the fantasy of the ‘indispensible nation,’ the ‘rules-based order,’ the ‘leader of the free world,’ we are contributing to the death of this planet.
eversor
@Roger Moore:
Yet their views are backed by their book and their Christ. And they are the majority. You’re arguing at this point that the Republican party is great, because Liz Chenny and Adam Kizzinger are the real Republicans, and the rest are all doing it wrong.
Until people accept that the ideology is wrong and Christianity lead to Conservatism, which lead to Republicand Party, which lead to Trumpism we are all just fucking about. Nuke the core ideology from orbit.
Christianity is going to die, that is set in stone. It’s going to be viewed as some odd sort of mix of Greek mythology with a side of “Genocide, on a worse scale than Hitler” and that’s going to be the end of it. And I say that as a son of a Holocaust survivor. It’s followers are going to go down in history as at best good Germans screaming no true Scottsman who collaborated.
matt
why not surrender to Russia and let them be in charge of US media?
Jeffro
“Conservative” (aka extremist, fascist, MAGA) viewpoints only hold up in their own disinformation bubble. When compared to the slightest bit of reality, they just look childish, selfish, and stupid.
“The Ukrainians are losing this war.”
“Climate change isn’t real, and even if it were, it isn’t being accelerated, much less caused, by human beings.”
“We’re going to cut taxes and raise revenues!”
And so on, and so forth. They’re just incredibly dumb and they don’t care to learn anything, either.
The Moar You Know
@Cameron: they already realize that. It’s not like they’ve ever stopped the work. While I’d personally prefer that they don’t have them, they’re going to and you really can’t blame them after seeing what happened to their next door neighbors.
Omnes Omnibus
@eversor: A bigot says what?
Baud
Wapiti
@Ruckus: Of course one does have to somewhat stay out of the limelight, pimping one’s own ass usually doesn’t go over all that well.
I worked for a 2-star who advised me, “If you don’t toot your own horn, someone will just use it for a piss funnel.”
UncleEbeneezer
Finished David Simon’s series We Own this City (Note: link is to a review that has some mild spoilers) last night and it was really good. It has much the same feel as The Wire but this time it is a true story about the incredibly corrupt Baltimore Police Dept. It even has a couple actors from The Wire. It also features Wunmi Mosaku, who you may remember from Lovecraft Country (and who I may or may not have a total crush on) and she is superb once again.
Anyways, if you are looking for a good, in depth look at how fucked up US police departments can be, this is a really great watch and only six episodes.
Cameron
@The Moar You Know: Well, we could actually re-sign the agreement that Iran honored (at least as far as the inspectors and our own intelligence services thought) and we didn’t. We could. But we won’t. Gotta show the world that Uncle Sam’s got them super-steel cojones, y’know?
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: My HMO was at risk for that until this weekend. Tony Evers got involved and it got resolved. I am glad for personal reasons; I don’t cross picket lines but I have a physical coming up later this month. I need the physical before my doc will renew my blood pressure meds. Crisis averted though.
C Stars
The other day I asked here if anyone knew of anti book-banning merch that benefits actual anticensorship organizations. I found this recently, it’s the shop for the National Coalition Against Censorship. I like these designs, thinking the purple tee shirt might be in my future:
https://alagraphics-gift-shop.myspreadshop.com/uabb
Betty Cracker
@Chris Johnson: Again, there’s nothing mutually exclusive about being an autocrat’s shill and beclowning oneself on TV. Baghdad Bob didn’t intend for his presser announcing that the Baathists had driven US forces away from the city to include the sound of gunfire and approaching tanks, but there it was. Yes, it looked stupid. Yes, it was propaganda. Propagandists step on rakes too, and pointing that out doesn’t make their intent any less repulsive or elide the seriousness of the situation, IMO. YMMV.
The Golux
I’ve never used the pie filter. Now may be the time.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: TBF the Ukrainians have a horrid task ahead doing something with all the captured armor, “To start with, we don’t have nearly enough tank parking spaces and support services are swamped and cannot clean the interiors–do you have any idea how bad Russian tankers smell?” said the Ukrainian general in charge of acquired munitions.
MaryLou
How can a guy who ended his army career at the rank of Colonel be qualified to be on the board of West Point? I know the Air Force Academy is a problematic nest of Dominionists, but have always admired West Point. Are they corrupting that too? How about Annapolis?
At this point, the Putin apologists need to be called out for what they are: traitors.
Ruckus
@Wapiti:
There’s tooting your own horn and then there is mounting a fog horn on top of your head.
I think in the military one has to be aware of advancing requirements to advance but then there is standing there screaming about how great you are, all the while not knowing jack or shit, and continuously stepping on your own dick. They really aren’t the same….
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nice.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Cameron:
@The Moar You Know:
I think that’s absolutely ridiculous. Joe Biden is not Donald Trump
Faithful Lurker
@The Golux: Neither have I but I just pied eversor. I understand his complaint but he whines incessantly. And has he ever lived in a country where there are no Christians and Christianity or Judaism has no roots? It’s an eye opener
edit: I shouldn’t assume eversor is male. Sorry
Geminid
@topclimber: You can look up “JCPOA talks” and find current stories.
WaterGirl
@topclimber:
MOST EXCELLENT POINT! He wins, we talk about his subject and reward his bigotry every time we respond or refer to him.
catclub
I bet you mean ‘who they will try to blame.’ — Biden.
But in some cases the American people see through those efforts. They blamed GWBush – correctly – for the terrible economy during much of Obamas first term. Biden took a hit when gas prices soared early this year, but I think people know that it is Putins war.
WaterGirl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: yep, that’s pretty much it.
Omnes Omnibus
@MaryLou: Full colonel is nothing to sneeze at. He also has a PhD in IR from Virginia. And as I noted above, he was seen as one of the army’s top intellectual. His resume is pretty damned good. The problem with him is that he is a pro-Putin, right wing nut.
Ruckus
@The Golux:
I have two people in the pie display case.
One you would very easily recognize.
The other has been in there for a long time and I’ve not seen him in what seems like forever. It is an extremely nice feature.
trollhattan
Meanwhile, in Russia, it seems the long arm of the Ukrainian military is keeping busy.
https://twitter.com/ChuckPfarrer/status/1569427642482302977?cxt=HHwWgoCxrYWI3ccrAAAA
An airfield IN Russia this time, not occupied Ukraine. No idea what weapons were used.
Cameron
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Huh? Joe Biden is very different from Donald Trump. But American foreign policy is based on militarism – Trump rolled over for Putin because Putin flattered him; same as with Lil’ Rocket Man, so Trump was actually out of step with American foreign policy. That doesn’t make him some kind of good guy, it’s just further proof that he’s a moron.
eversor
@Omnes Omnibus:
Bill Barr did for the Jesus! Alito did it for the Jesus. Trumpers did it for the Jesus. They all said so!
Or, are you a fan of good Nazis, Germans, Republicans, Trumpists, and “no such Scottsman” tropes? Cause I’m guessing you are and you’d sell those you care about out in a nanosecond rather than take offense. Let me guess, you wake up and think “to my glorious friends across the isle that are trying to kill me”. It’s cute.
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus: Similar weirdass combo of circumstances that give us First In Class at West Point Mike Pompeo. If there’s a more worthless pile of flesh I can’t name him, even among strong competition.
Subsole
@lowtechcyclist: In fairness, he pretty accurately summarized the dynamic.
I mean, modern conservatism is a giant temper tantrum born of insecurity. Insecurities tied to feelings of deep inadequacy. They are basically having a midlife crisis/breakdown. They hold those feelings of inadequacy at bay behind a massive wall of bravado, bluster, and sneering hypermasculine posturing.
They are soft, weak little people who torment everyone else to make themselves feel powerful because they know, on some level, they cannot compete in a world lit by the mind.
So instead they try to drag us back to a world lit only by fire. A world that looks a great deal like Russia, like Hungary, like every atavistic nationalist throwback. They cannot survive in the large, safe tribe that comes with modern liberal democracy. So they reach for the small, sad, speed-bump-that-thinks-it’s-a-mountain tribe of ethnonationalist theocracy.
They do not want to live in this world. Russia tried to live in the old world, the world lit by fire. And ended up as cordwood.
Now, I disagree that Christianity is entirely to blame. Partially, that’s because these people would twist ANY religion to excuse themselves. Look at the Hindutva of Modi’s India if you doubt that.
We can argue about religion, but I think he has a pretty clear grasp on the animating pathologies that bind the Moscow-Limbaugh axis.
Omnes Omnibus
@eversor: A bigot says what?
Subsole
@Old School: They do, though.
The Orthodox Church over there functions like old-school, third-branch-of-government-style church. Like, Bad Old Days church.
Alito’s church.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: The most transparently awful one was when they tried to blame Obama for gas prices going up relative to how low they were right after the entire global economy crashed.
livewyre
Somebody’s hard at work trying to split off voters. Look at this character and tell me he’s convinced enough of his cause to go lone-wolf and burn some churches himself. Sure knows how to take advantage of a venue, though.
Subsole
@dmsilev: It always come back to that because 90% of these dimbulbs’ conspiracies (indeed, 90% of their thoughts) are just warmed over slop from the early modern/Victorian era Europe.
And, historically, who do the Euros blame for everything???
UncleEbeneezer
@The Golux: Come on in, the
water is finepie is delicious!HumboldtBlue
Subsole
@cain: I am not Jewish, culturally or genetically.
But it strikes me that Bibi’s Israel is not Sharon’s.
It is wise to remember advocacy groups only ever speak for themselves. No matter how much they love (or think they love) a community.
delphinium
@Baud:
Yikes to this part in the article-can’t imagine having to work under conditions like this on a daily basis:
topclimber
@Geminid: Kind of hoping you had done that already.
Subsole
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Moscow’s more Court of the Crimson King than Tolkien, if I had to guess…
catclub
@Matt McIrvin:
The crazy thing that I have never understood is how gas prices went sky high in the summer of 2008. It should have been the case that (at least the US) economy was already cratering, which should mean low demand and lower prices. Something something about market manipulation is often shot down.
The Pale Scot
@Ruckus:
Dodio-doe, there’ll be no nose job
Said dodio-doe, no nose job (smarter than that)
Gin & Tonic
@The Golux: It’s easy enough simply to ignore trolls.
Dan B
@Gin & Tonic: Wits the fires in the mountains, no rain for months, unhealthy air in the city, and much of the news it was a day for me that needed less screeching about evil Christianity. 😈
The quiet is soothing.
Uncle Cosmo
Instant misquoted meme, you meam, I meam mean. Chamberlain read out the text of an agreement he and Hitler had signed – a fairly innocuous, nay upbeat, declaration – and said, “I believe it is peace for our time.” (You could look it up.)
And don’t yinz get all anachronistic on me. Very few world opinion-makers had any idea what they were dealing with in Hitler. Prior to Munich, the Nazis’ only actions of international importance were the remilitarization of the Rhineland the beginning of overt German rearmament – and many outside the Reich didn’t consider these especially unjustified (rectifying “excesses” of the 1919 Versailles peace treaty) or particularly threatening to the international order. Many outside of Central Europe thought the German-speaking residents of the Sudetenland had a case for joining the Reich. Mussolini, head of the only other Fascist regime, came to Munich trying to broker a peace deal; he like Hitler was a Great War combat veteran, and it was presumed no one with that sort of experience would risk a repeat of that carnage.
Hitler’s first action that specifically threatened the international order was seizure of the rest of Bohemia and Moravia (and setting up an “independent” Slovak state) in March 1939. At that point Chamberlain lost whatever illusions he had left about “doing business with Hitler”, and promoted rearmament and diplomatic resistance, culminating in guarantees to Poland that kicked in with the German invasion the following September. He may have been late to wake up but he was by no means alone.
Faithful Lurker
Why is omnes omnibus pied in my comments? I love omnes and look forward to his/her comments.
zhena gogolia
@Faithful Lurker: If you pie somebody, then anyone who replies to them is also pied (when they’re replying to them, not in other comments).
JPL
40 subpoenas issued and 2 cell phones taken from trump associates.
How many of those receiving subpoenas met with trump today
nytimes twitter feed
The New York Times on Twitter: “Breaking News: The Justice Department has seized the phones of two Trump aides and issued 40 subpoenas seeking information related to the 2020 election and Jan. 6. https://t.co/b2Z18E1i9T” / Twitter
Omnes Omnibus
@Faithful Lurker: I know what I did.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
To be fair, Kirill is malevolent as f**k.
JPL
@HumboldtBlue: yup 40 subpoenas issued and 2 cell phones confiscated.
That might be cause for a rush trip to DC
Scout211
@HumboldtBlue: Is Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (her full name), part of that group? Please, please, pretty please?
JPL
@Omnes Omnibus: So trump met with several people out on his golf course, and I recognized Eric and Nunes. Several said Hannity and his attorney were among the group. Anyway, if Hannity was issued a subpoena, would justice frown on his meeting with trump?
just askin
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@West of the Rockies: With apologies to all the other species and non-lethal varieties of Escherichia.
Redshift
@Gin & Tonic:
The entire history of the internet would suggest otherwise. It’s possible to ignore trolls and everyone who quotes them in reply, but it wastes effort and attention, so why do it? The pie filter is a beautiful thing; if you know you’re going to ignore a troll, then why not automate it?
HumboldtBlue
@Uncle Cosmo:
Fantastic comment, reminds me I have an awful lot to learn about the run-up to the start of the war.
Betsy
@Betty Cracker: Wow, that Schmidt take really nails it.
It explains a lot.
I despise agreeing with him.
coin operated
@delphinium:
There were a few reasons I got out of nursing in the late 90s and this was top o’ the list. Nursing went to shit about 5 seconds after the birth of the HMO…everything became a number and staffing was the first to take a hit.
StringOnAStick
@Ruckus: My grandfather was a captain in the US Navy. I was trying to get some information out of my dad about an antique from his early service years, and he told me my grandmother had destroyed all of her husband ‘s service records in a rage over his being denied “Admiral track”. Lately it’s come to mind that it isn’t unreasonable to suspect that part of why that happened was her outrageous drunken behaviour in seriously inappropriate circumstances. Though the story about making enlisted men drag a drunk and passed out Howard Hughes off their lawn in the middle of a raging party is entertaining.
Dan B
@JPL: Is Garland noticing all the love we’re beaming at Zelensky and trying to keep up?
/s
Love this news from DOJ!!!
HumboldtBlue
@Scout211:
I am not sure, but let’s hope so.
Tony G
@AWOL: Yeah, I still tune in to WBAI from time to time, out of nostalgia of when I used to listen to it in the early seventies when (at least to my teenage brain) it seemed interesting. There’s occasionally something interesting on it, but most of it has been pretty bad for many decades.
Scout211
Wikipedia tells me its’s Amy Kremer’s group
Scout211
I’m in the doghouse for too many links. Please release me?
Kathleen
@matt: Oh, wait…..
JPL
@Dan B: His trip to his VA golf club is beginning to make sense.
Scout211
@HumboldtBlue: I have a comment in moderation but the head of Women for America First is Amy Kremer. Long-time tea party and MAGA activist.
Amy Kremer Wikipedia.
rikyrah
About this live action Little Mermaid
Disney is a marketing BEAST
a BEAST
I tell you.
They couldn’t get better marketing for this movie than those TikTok’s off those little girls finally seeing themselves represented. When I tell you that I’ve been doing the Ugly Cry looking at these videos.
https://twitter.com/OldElnora/status/1569415692432048131?s=19
And, then the longer ‘leak’ of Halle….she KILLS IT
https://twitter.com/OldElnora/status/1569371203025993729?s=19
UncleEbeneezer
@JPL: Come through Merrick!!
SiubhanDuinne
AG Garland’s DOJ hasn’t been lazy:
This from FTFNYT. Nice to know they’ve been busy. Even during a holiday week. Even during a week with a lot of other breaking news. I’m very reassured by this.
J R in WV
@cain:
Why, when I was a boy back in the 1950s and the parents took us all for a driving trip to see all the battlefields across the eastern US, I remember Dad paying $0.19 a gallon for regular gas at a crossroads in NC. He said it was because of a gas war between two stations at the crossroads. Hmmm.
And just this afternoon I paid $3.79 a gallon for hi-test right here in Good old West Virginia. Sounds like a steal, doesn’t it???//s
Somebody is stealin’ that’s for sure!
Baud
@rikyrah:
A little Disney CRT for DeSantis to chew on.
Dan B
@JPL: And the people he’s meeting with at the golf course: McCarthy, Junior, Hannity, Trusty (? Tucker?), etc.
UncleEbeneezer
@Redshift: I just saw and played (music with) an old friend who was visiting from Chicago, over Labor Day. His wife has become embroiled in online fighting, gaslighting and harassment that now has her suffering serious mental health effects (to the point of brief hospitalization). She’s always been extremely argumentative (I actually had to unfriend her for being a relentless Bernie-Bro girl in 2016) and she may have always had mental health issues, but the online dust-ups definitely played a major role in her recent struggles and has my buddy worried sick. Trolling shit is no joke.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Ruckus:
This describes the stagnant career of my god-bothering, Bible-thumping brother-in-law. He blew up and didn’t make LCDR because he was a moral scold about the behavior of his brother officers while on liberty (as was learned by his sister from naval aviators while she lived at Fallon).
He was at that dread Tailhook event, and we suspected there was something that related back to that.
Mallard Filmore
@rikyrah: The twits at Twitter won’t let me see these, as the permission to view is limited.
Elizabelle
The NY Times story is delicious.
Subpoenas out for Dan Scavino and Bernard Kerick, named in the story. And a whole lot of other people. Shall we have a betting pool? Please, please, please: Ginni Thomas. This round is a lot about the false electors scheme. Also:
JPL
@Dan B: I only recognized Nunes and Eric, but I have no idea what his attorney looks like.
We should know the cover story tonight after Tucker’s and Hannity’s broadcast though.
Redshift
@JPL:
Well, that would explain all the “Biden’s Gestapo DOJ threatening 40 Trump associates” I saw when I went hunting yesterday for an earlier instance of the Tucker Carlson nonsense in this post. Funny how Fox knew about it before the news was widespread. (And of course their implication was that people were being “rounded up” (i.e. subpoenaed) solely because they were Trump associates, not because they had done anything.
Faithful Lurker
@Omnes Omnibus: Okay, that makes sense. But I miss seeing all of you comments. I might have to untie that person.
StringOnAStick
@Dan B: Funny, an emergency golf game that required Lord Dampnut to fly in clothes he would have slapped Jr. for; hmm. Sounds very mob-like. He does realize that there are outdoor microphones just as effective as the finest interior bugging model, right?
JPL
@Redshift: So are Tucker and Hannity on the list? One can only speculate.
Geminid
@topclimber: This is an important story and worth following, so I took my own advice, looked up the topic, and came up with an article in Al Jazeera dated today with the heading “What are the latest issues stopping an Iran-US nuclear agreement?” (author Mazar Motemedi).
The Iranians have refused to negotiate directly with the US so the other five JCPOA parties- China, Russia, Germany and France acted as middlemen throughout the talks in Vienna. The talks concluded some weeks ago but Iran then balked at signing the draft agreement. Then the “E-3” parties, that is Germany, France and the UK, submitted what they described as a “final offer” to Iran. From the Al Jazeera story:
One sticking point seems to be Iran’s insistence that an International Atomic Energy Agency probe into unnaccounted-for traces of nuclear materials at three sites be shut down.
The article goes on to describe the ramifications of US domestic politics on the process.
The author also cites two leaked IAEA memos, one of which said that Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate with its probe calls into question the peaceful nature of its nuclear program. Iran has maintained throughout that its program has no military intent, and cites a Fatwah by the late Ayatollah Khomeini that prohibits acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Redshift
@UncleEbeneezer: Yup. And that’s why the pie filter is so brilliant. It lets you protect yourself instead of requiring the site administrators to police everyone. It’s true that alone wouldn’t be enough for bigger social media sites where people can do stuff that harms you out of your sight, but for a discussion forum like this, it does the job better than anything else I’ve seen.
Ruckus
@StringOnAStick:
Navy my own self.
Ships captains can change rather often and we got a new one who was rather refreshing. He took all the bullshit that normally goes on as if it was the joke that it is. He was actually a human being, something that not all captains seemingly want/try to be. A few days after he took over I got a call from the ensign who I answered to basically screaming at me to get to the captain’s cabin before I got beheaded. I went to his cabin and knocked on his door, “Come in,” I did and he asked what I was doing there. His tone and newness on board told me that I should play it straight. So I told him that I had been ordered to get my ass up to see him before I got busted. The look on his face said it all so I told him that I’d been told he was pissed because he wanted something and we hadn’t fixed what he wanted, which was his phone moved, if possible. (understand the phone mount is welded to the
wallbulkhead – sorry, only been out for 50 yrs) I told him why I was there he stated he’d only just told the XO about 2 minutes ago and said it wasn’t in any way critical. There were only 3 people between the captain and myself and the story went from when someone can to get your fucking ass up the the captain, he’s fucking pissed off at you. I told him what I was told and he just shook his head. Every time I saw him after that he was always “Hey Ruckus, how’s it going?” to the absolute horror to those 3 men, and I always answered “Just fine captan, how’s your day going?” And he always gave me that sideways look that said “how do you think, look who’s following me like little puppies?” We got along great.Doug R
@StringOnAStick: They didn’t even bother to bring golf clubs. In the rain.
Dan B
@Faithful Lurker: You can just “toggle” (bottom of comment) to see the comment.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@SiubhanDuinne:
Things seem to be heating up. On a related note, what ever happened to Sarah Kendzior? She seems to really dislike Merrick Garland, accusing of him of being an accomplice to Trump’s corruption. In this recent interview from June:
It seems almost like Kendzior has gone off the deep end here
HumboldtBlue
@rikyrah:
The Twitter handle restricts who can view, so they are unavailable to us.
UncleEbeneezer
@Redshift: Copious “blocking” on Twitter and FB works very well too.
Elizabelle
@Redshift: I love the pie filter.
I also greatly appreciate that some commenters do battle with the trolls, and putting the objections on record. Omnes, for example, with calling out bigoted remarks. (Substitute “Jew” or “Muslim” for someone’s screeds, and see if that doesn’t bring back memories.)
Pushback is important. Otherwise, the awful comments can be attributed to us, as a blog community as a whole. And that is not fair.
Elizabelle
Not to mention Avalune’s wonderful art. The cupcakes.
Dan B
@Doug R: And, HORRORS!, no golf shoes!!!
Sure Lurkalot
@rikyrah: Those links are restricted but I followed one that you posted earlier and watched several vids of kids watching the trailer…the joy was palpable on their faces. Thanks so much!
Mike in Pasadena
@The Moar You Know: Our second Iraq adventure led by “mission accompliished” W Bumblefuck taught would-be autocrats and dictators exactly the wrong lesson, “If you surrender your nukes and other powerful weapons, you are fucked.” For the slow learners, the Republican’s bestie Putin is teaching the same lesson again. Ukraine gave up the nukes on its territory after the USSR collapsed and look what it got them.
Roger Moore
@Uncle Cosmo:
My impression is that Chamberlain knew Hitler was up to no good but thought the UK needed more time to rearm if it wanted to be able to win militarily. So he thought he was being smart by buying Hitler off and avoiding an immediate war. He just didn’t grasp that Czechoslovakia had a good, if not huge, military, defensible borders, and a big armaments industry. The time gained was nowhere near as valuable as that material advantage.
UncleEbeneezer
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Ah yes, Garland is clearly an accomplice to Trump which is why DOJ is investigating Trump’s: Chief of Staff (Meadows), Asistant (Navarro), Attorneys (Guiliani, Powell, Clark, Eastman), Scott Perry etc. and investigating the false electors scheme and fundraising for 1/6. In addition to investigating Trump himself for Espionage Act and Obstruction by stealing documents and moving them to MAL. I mean, isn’t that exactly what an accomplice would do?
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
Wake up, sheeple!
rikyrah
@Mallard Filmore:
go to TikTok and
search Little Mermaid Reaction Videos
and be ready to cry
Dan B
@UncleEbeneezer: Garland is aiding Trump by making him a martyr, MARTYR I TELL YOU!!!
livewyre
@Elizabelle: I’ve gone various ways on this over the years, but this is exactly how I see it now – while it hurts us to rise to provocation on its terms, we can’t let it define the discussion or scatter the community either.
How exactly to do that is something I’m still studying, and this has been a surprisingly instructive example. It appears that the way in which we’re being provoked parallels the broader campaigns to poison and subvert democratic consensus – wedge groups off from each other; divide and conquer.
Even if it’s not being done by a professional troll farm or out of ideological rancor, the net result is that we are being abused. This behavior is a form of attack on the well-being of others. Its characteristic motivation is as conservative as conservative gets; namely, the conceit of telling others what they are. That’s what gives it away. And it will not stop – not by any amount of ignoring on the part of isolated individuals – until it is put to a stop.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@UncleEbeneezer:
Exactly. I checked her Twitter and it doesn’t seem like she’s talked about Garland since earlier this year. I remember in the early Trump years she was quoted here quite a lot and she is a scholar on authoritarian regimes. I think somewhere along the way she either lost or mind and/or became a grifter
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
There are a number of people who think she went off the deep end a long time ago.
But she also has rabid adherents. Hell, I got blocked by @Stonekettle a couple of weeks ago for questioning something she said. He accused me of attacking her
JPL
@Roger Moore: same He did miscalculate but had he not, Hitler might have taken England. IMO
Elizabelle
@livewyre: Good comment. I hope John somehow sees it.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah:
I have no interest in seeing this. I never saw the cartoon. I will probably order it just to make the racists cry.
Villago Delenda Est
MacGregor is obviously a total idiot. You know, like Fuckyo Rose.
Lyrebird
True. You used a more accurate word though, and when we are talking about Ukrainians under fire, it seems especially wrong to be slamming all Christians. I think Adam linked some kind of source pointing out that at some points the churches in E Ukr were the only orgs getting aid to people there, not Red Cross, etc.
YMMV.
MisterDancer
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Sarah Kendzior got a LOT of good press when Trump was elected, in no small part because she was warning of a number of things we see, today.
However, she fell (I think) into the same trap people like Nate Silver fell into — their field of study and awareness was, in fact, far more narrow than they were able to understand about themselves. They keep having to pump out opinions and ideas to support their new job as public figures, and sometimes that doesn”t work. Worse: the people telling them, to be blunt, their shit don’t stink way outweighed the people trying to warn them off pushing their opinions past their capability to support them. Having the “Bad Guys” attacking them in waves after waves, esp. given what I’m sure were horrific misogynistic attacks on Ms. Kendzior, I’m sure did not help.
That leads, in the end, to a hardening of opinions and inability to say “I made a mistake” or “I’m sorry”.
And specifically — there was, and still is, a lot of belief that the Justice Dept. — be it Muller or Garland — are the stop-gap for Authoritarian. For a host of reasons, I don’t agree; someone earlier today mentioned how minorities/marginalized groups are FAR more cynical about the role of Judges, and Justice, in America, and I think some of this is Kendzior applying that mainstream “but the Justice Dept. must fix Democracy” approach, on top of this weird (to me) belief that said Justice efforts must be open to the public — recall Rep. Adam Schiff’s criticisms of the DoJ’s silence and apparent lack of action.
At the end, I think she’s disheartened by all the unfair attacks and thus missing real criticisms, and stuck in the belief that only a very public and aggressive attempt at Justice will work. I personally think that’s far more performative than useful, far more about making the public “feel good,” about retribution — or the appearance, thereof.
And Justice shouldn’t be about making the masses feel good. That way lies a real and true darkness.
MisterDancer
@Omnes Omnibus: Whew, Stonekettle. That’s someone who’s opinions just…curdled.
The Trump years made a lot of people popular, and I don’t think they all aged well, sadly.
(And y’all wonder why I post so rarely, here!)
Baud
@MisterDancer:
You could say the same thing about the Bush years.
MisterDancer
SO MANY.
SO TRUE.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MisterDancer:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Jeez what happened to Stonekettle? Another name I hadn’t heard about since like 2019 or so
Geminid
@Uncle Cosmo:
@HumboldtBlue: I think the best book I’ve read on the runup to the Second World War- and one of the best history books I’ve read on any topic- is Anthony Summers and David Fisher’s The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazis-Soviet Pact, 1939-1941 (1988). Summers and Fisher based their book on extensive research they had done for a BBC documentary.
The book actually starts in 1938 with the Munich Agreement, and traces the intricate process by which Europe’s worst enemies made an alliance that set the stage for the the Second World War. It also describes Chamberlain’s diplomatic efforts during this period, and not to the Prime Minister’s credit. The book follows developments until Russia’s alliance with Germany ended abruptly with Operation Barbarossa.
A key turning point was an intimate dinner at a posh Berlin restaurant, in July of 1939. Attending were two German Foreign Ministry officials and two Russians from their Berlin embassy. One of the Russians, a Mr. Astyakov, had a medium nominal rank but was known Stalin’s man at the embassy. Over after dinner brandies the four discussed the two countries’ trade talks and then carefully explored the intentions of their two governments. The senior German official finally asked Astyakov if wider cooperation was possible. Oh yes, replied Astyakov, there is no reason that all issues between us cannot be resolved.
Five weeks later the German Foreign Minister flew to Moscow and in 30 hours negotiated the infamous Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. At one point Molotov told Ribbentrop he needed to consult a higher authority on an issue. He stepped through an open door to the next room and was back in minutes with an answer. Stalin had been monitoring his Foreign Minister the whole time.
The treaty was signed, Ribbentrop flew back to Germany and three days later Hitler launched his invasion of Poland.
Miss Bianca
@West of the Rockies: every *other* comment?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MisterDancer:
I think that’s a very good point about experts who have a narrow expertise and try extrapolate it to other subjects which doesn’t always work
Elizabelle
Hope this is not a bad take by me, but I don’t think Garland and J6 are going to stop their operations or any subpoenaing to comport with our sacred elections.
That’s kind of the whole issue of this round.
Of course, the FTF NY Times (which held story on W’s wiretapping until after an election, long after the voters could weigh in) was bleating about this. Mildly. Their blurb:
rikyrah
For those who couldn’t see previous links, try this one:
Lai💔 (@normanination4) tweeted at 5:31 PM on Sun, Sep 11, 2022:
As I stroll on TikTok, I keep seeing parents video their children reacting to The Little Mermaid trailer. So instead of focusing so much on the negative, I thought I’d show a thread of the little black kids who are excited to see their favorite princess look like them.
(https://twitter.com/normanination4/status/1569091173305974785?s=02)
HumboldtBlue
@Geminid:
Thanks a million, that’s much appreciated. I’m currently reading Checkmate in Berlin, which is, oddly, the story of Berlin in the immediate aftermath of the war, written by Charles Milton.
The Russians behave exactly how you’d expect the Russians to behave.
Scout211
@rikyrah: Also, Buzzfeed has a story up with some of the videos posted in the story. Sweet!
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Mr. Stonekettle’s opinions came up here a few months ago after the Utah Democratic Party convention declined to nominate a Senate candidate and endorsed Independent Evan McMullin instead. Stonekettle had said this meant the end of the Democrat party in Utah. I disagreed but other jackals agreed with him, vehemently.
We had a very fun discussion.
FelonyGovt
@rikyrah: That’s adorable and so overdue. ❤️
Elizabelle
DOJ OK with Trump-suggested Special Master. WaPost:
Scout211
DOJ open to one of Trump’s picks for special master.
ETA: Elizabelle got their first. Both posted at 8:06. :)
Elizabelle
I just hope none of them are as gruesome as the Clinton Cash NYC FBI office. Although, I trust AG Garland, and he and his team likely know them well.
Sure Lurkalot
I hope not either because truth be told, it’s always election season in America. Some of our problems might be resolved if we had tighter time frames for campaigns and elections. Like the myriads of health care solutions across the globe, we could learn from example.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: oh god I love those!
Elizabelle
@Scout211: It’s important news. Fine to hear it in stereo.
JPL
@Scout211: Not sure what this means, since justice is going to appeal extreme rulings.
Scout211
@Elizabelle: Do you think this was meant to push her into a corner? It would really be an obvious political move for her if she ignores Dearie and picks Trump’s other, more political pick.
Elizabelle
@Sure Lurkalot: Totally!
HumboldtBlue
@rikyrah:
This video was made for you.
Elizabelle
@Scout211: No idea. But DOJ knows what the documents are at this point, I would suspect, and may have decided that the judges will agree that they should not have been filched by TFG.
Just get it away from that hack in Florida. I hope her intervention works out badly for her, in the long run. Fools rush in …
Scout211
New DOJ thread posted by AL.
Elizabelle
More from the WaPost story:
In a second filing Monday afternoon, Trump’s lawyers said they oppose the Justice Department’s two special master candidates, retired judge Barbara S. Jones, who acted as a special master in an investigation of Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani; and Thomas B. Griffith, a retired appeals judge for the District of Columbia Circuit.
They did not explain their opposition in detail, only saying that “there are specific reasons” why they do not want those nominees. The lawyers said it would be “more respectful” to explain their objection to these candidates in a different venue, rather than in a public court filing.
The Justice Department countered that the special master should have federal judicial experience and that Jones, Griffith and Dearie would be acceptable choices. The only person not included on that list was one of Trump’s proposed candidates, Paul Huck Jr., a former deputy attorney general for the state of Florida.”Judge Jones, Griffith and Dearie each have substantial experience, during which they have presided over federal criminal and civil cases, including federal cases involving national security and privilege concerns,” the Justice Department’s filing said. “The government respectfully opposes the appoint of Paul Huck, Jr., who does not appear to have similar experience.” [WaPost bolding]
Elizabelle
@Scout211: Oh good. Thank you for the head’s up.
Scout211
@Elizabelle: Can you repost this to the new thread for a fresh discussion?
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well played.
Steeplejack
@Redshift:
Classic Ron White: “I had the right to remain silent. I did not have the ability to remain silent.”
Elizabelle
@Scout211: Yes. Good idea.
Ohio Mom
@rikyrah: That linked worked! Very moving to watch the girls’ faces change from “Okay, watching the Little Mermaid trailer” to “Whoa, do I believe my eyes?” to “YES!!!”
Jay
@Roger Moore:
While the Czech’s had a ‘great’ armament industry, and a viable military, they did have one problem.
Strategy and tactics at the time called for a mix of fixed fortifications and mobile groups.
All of the Czech fortification lines were close to the Border in German Majority areas, of whom, many had been subverted by the Nazi’s. So were their military/industrial areas.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think Kendzior was the one who thought the Russians had paid off Nancy Pelosi to help Trump skate. She thinks this about a lot of people.
Cameron
@StringOnAStick: Oh, c’mon – he’s hoping he can distract from the passing of QEII. “Me-me-me!{
Tony G
@J R in WV: I’m old enough to remember when the nation freaked out after the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo pushed the price of gasoline to the unimaginable level of 50 cents per gallon. Of course people were paid a lot less in those days. (And we all wore onions on our belts …)
topclimber
@Geminid: Belated thank you for doing the work.
Paul in KY
@cain: Cause AIPAC is controlled by Likud & they loves them some useful idiot American right wingers.
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: The jump from bird colonel to 1 star is a big one & job performance isn’t the only thing they look at.
Sure glad the asshat Putin licker didn’t get a star. Hoping Pres. Biden will order Flynn returned to active duty so he can bust him to PFC.
Paul in KY
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Alan Dershowitz is no ‘modern day Roy Cohn’!! Jeezus. He’d be like a Ronco version of Roy Cohn (at the most).