Many thanks to dogged commentor Brachiator for a most enjoyable read, Chris Lehman’s LRB report from early June on “the race for the Republican nomination“…
It is a cliché of American electioneering for candidates to advertise their humble beginnings and unstinting ascent in the face of adversity… But the emerging field of Republican candidates for the 2016 presidential election is something else altogether. Of the dozen or so people who have declared or are thought likely to declare, every one can be described as a full-blown adult failure. These are people who, in most cases, have been granted virtually every imaginable advantage on the road to success, and managed nevertheless to foul things up along the way.
There is, for starters, George’s younger brother Jeb… Jeb has dined out for most of his career on his image as the clever Bush brother, but as his quasi-campaign heated up and the press started to ask questions about actual policies, he immediately undermined this unearned plaudit by saying he would have followed to the letter George’s catastrophic decision to invade and occupy Iraq. After realising that this was a position now seen as insane even by most Republicans, he tried to retreat from it with a series of flailing clarifications.
Jeb Bush’s own track record is terrible. He was elected as governor of Florida in 1998, touting his ambitious plan to ‘reform’ – i.e. privatise – the state’s underperforming schools. The actual returns of his ‘education miracle’ are equivocal at best: it’s hard to tell how individual schools are performing because the letter-grade system he instituted (from A to F) is recalibrated almost every year in an attempt to improve the figures…
Bush’s other accomplishments in office include two curiously complementary policy fiascos: signing the nation’s first ever ‘stand your ground’ gun law (the legislation that gave us the Trayvon Martin killing and countless other instances of unpunished citizen bloodletting); and prolonging the life of the severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo in a cynical bid to burnish his culture wars résumé. Also disgraceful was the disenfranchisement of Florida’s black electorate on his watch…
Bush’s long litany of failure merits close study both because, in spite of it all, he represents the sober, can-do face of executive GOP leadership, and because nearly every other candidate in the crowded Republican field recapitulates his slog into market mediocrity. Failure isn’t just an option for the vast company of Republican presidential hopefuls, it’s a well-trodden career path. Take Marco Rubio, a former protégé of Bush, who is often hailed as the great other-than-white hope for a party that fares badly among younger and Latino voters. On paper, Rubio presents as an American success story in the log-cabin mould: the son of struggling Cuban immigrants, he scaled the heights of the American meritocracy… But Rubio’s roster of actual achievements is notably thin – and sometimes disturbing. The Daily Mail recently revisited Rubio’s tenure as speaker of the Florida House of Representatives in 2007 and 2008, and found that despite declaring a net worth of just $8000 when he left the legislature, he had charged $160,000 to his party-issued AmEx card… In his 2012 autobiography, Rubio brushed off all this light-fingered expensing as the result of innocent inattention, and announced that he had arranged for all the improper charges to be repaid out of personal funds. But as Chris Ingram, a former Florida Republican political consultant, put it, ‘Marco Rubio has a well-established pattern of abusing other people’s money and lying about it.’ …
… The governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, an early GOP contender thanks largely to his appeal among hardline conservative voters in Iowa (whose caucuses are the first major event in the nomination process), is another textbook case in adult failure… Instead of perfecting his entrepreneurial pluck the fire-breathing young conservative (at Marquette he had displayed a photo of himself with Ronald Reagan in his dorm room) devoted himself entirely to Republican electoral politics. Here, too, he started out as a failure, running a doomed state legislative campaign in a mainly black, Democratic district of Milwaukee; he was trounced by 38 points. But then he hit on the foolproof formula that has helped him on his ascent ever since: sidle up to the 1 per cent, and run as their paid political retainer…
Most of the Republican frontrunners are perhaps grudging converts to the gospel of failure, having at least made a show of trying and trying again. The Texas senator and Tea Party darling Ted Cruz, though, is an ardent evangelist for the sacred mission of screwing things up for ideology’s sake… Almost alone in this year’s GOP presidential field, Cruz can claim a résumé that abounds in actual distinction: debating trophies at Princeton, a distinguished tenure as a Harvard Law student, clerking for the Supreme Court and then arguing cases before it as Texas’s solicitor general. The challenge he faces is that as a scourge of the liberal elite he must also diligently pander to every anti-intellectual, populist myth on the Tea Party right, in order to solidify his standing as an insurgent revivalist of the one true Reagan faith….
Read the whole thing for a full roundup; as Peggy Noonan would say: Let us savor. Lehman even predicts the entry into the race of the Adult Failure now polling at the head of the GOP pack… not that it was so difficult to see that coming.
satby
This is probably the main attraction for the base Republican voters, the knowledge that they can be represented by a spiteful candidate that’s as big a fuck up as most of them are.
Gimlet
OT but interesting
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has been indicted by a grand jury, multiple outlets reported on Saturday.
The indictments were handed down on Tuesday and will be unsealed Monday. Paxton faces three felony charges: two counts of first-degree securities fraud and a third-degree charge of failing to register with the state securities board, The New York Times reported.
Paxton is accused of misleading and encouraging investors to put over $600,000 in a technology company without disclosing that he received a fee on their investment and while serving in the Texas House of Representatives, The New York Times reported.
Gimlet
@satby:
I’ve heard it said when the “occasional” stinker was the Republican nominee, that one votes for the party rather than the individual. Probably applies to Democrats as well.
Right to Rise
Bush has one huge advantage that’s left unmentioned: a vast, infinite war chest of campaign funds to be used at his discretion.
Starting on Thursday, Jeb will begin to clear the field the fuck out.
But sure, continue to “misunderestimate” a Bush. Because that worked out so well for you guys from 1999 to 2008.
Get ready for the Rise of Jeb.
gogol's wife
@Right to Rise:
UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH! Enjoying Romney’s presidency?
RaflW
When you spend 30 years saying everyone in government is a loser, then you only get losers who want to be in government.
Gimlet
@RaflW:
Sounds a bit like “Those who can do, those who can’t teach”.
Right to Rise
@gogol’s wife:
I was never all that big on Romney, he was the best we could do in ’12 but we have a much deeper field now.
If we’re to win, we need to model ourselves on conservative parties in other parts of the Anglosphere: men like Stephen Harper, David Cameron, and Tony Abbott. Think internationally. True “reform conservatives”, hard-nosed realists who will make the budget math work and the country prosperous. Jeb fits that mold perfectkt as does my second choice of Walker.
Rubin has a good take on this here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/05/29/the-great-2016-divide-reform-conservatives-vs-reactionaries/
RaflW
@Gimlet: It’s Texas, they’ll just find another right wing a-hole to be A.G.
(I lived in TX for 14 years, I am a bit biased in my opinions of the state).
Smiling Mortician
@gogol’s wife: Somebody’s troll contract must’ve gone active effective August 1. Also, people aren’t having enough fun yet with the own-goal slogan “Right to Rise.” Really, JEB?
Amir Khalid
@gogol’s wife:
An old friend has returned to the Balloon Juice fold. ‘Tis a day to celebrate.
/Not.
Schlemazel
@Right to Rise:
wish I had been smart enough to have been a Bush sperm. Born into a family with money & connections so I never had to try very hard, never had to worry about failing because there would always be plenty of money & pull to get me out of it while letting other drown. I screwed up by being born to a factory worker & a home maker. My fault I guess and so I am jealous according to those folks.
RaflW
@gogol’s wife:
Either UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH is on much better meds now, or we have a new
trollvalued guest. One who uses such terms of art as “the Anglosphere.” Clearly we should all just quake at this gentleperson’s fine command of the Englishthing.TS
Anyone who mentions Tony Abbott in a positive light is definitely trolling – not to mention the decades long myth of right wing politicians being good at the budgeting – hahahahahaha
Right to Rise
@Smiling Mortician:
It will work just as well as “compassionate conservative”, “prosperity with a purpose” and “thousand points of light”. It’s a great-sounding slogan that swing voters will project their own wishes on to. Word is Peggy Noonan came up with it, that sounds about right.
gogol's wife
@Right to Rise:
Yeah, that sounds about right.
ETA: Whose was “prosperity with a purpose”? Hoover? Or was it Millard Fillmore?
Ruckus
@Gimlet:
One of the problems with conservatives isn’t that they don’t think what they do is wrong, it’s that they seem to consider it OK as long as they don’t get caught. And if they get caught and have enough money they can buy time, which at some point the prosecution will probably offer them a deal, which they can and will cop to. And if not, who on their side cares? All politicians are dishonest aren’t they? Especially those liberal ones. When I was 12 I was trying to think of a career. Thought what can I do that isn’t working in a shop/dirty environment/actual physical work. Preacher – No, I can’t fake sincerity all that well. Politician – No, I can’t stand that level of bullshit every day. It went on like this for a bit till I realized that actual work is OK. So I’ve been working too many hours at dangerous things for 54 yrs.
Right to Rise
@TS:
I got it form from Frum:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/republicans-british-election-conservatives/392852/
I’ve been following British and Canadian politics–conservatives are winning in both countries, and in Australia.
Schlemazel
@Right to Rise:
THATS HILARIOUS! Those guys would be branded as socialists here. Now a guy like Anders Behring Breivik or Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd might pass the smell test in the GOP bth those other guys? No way.
lol
@Right to Rise:
So you’re saying Trump will get the nomination?
Gimlet
@Right to Rise:
Brings to mind the image of scum on the surface of fetid water.
Right to Rise
@lol:
The people we’ve got backing us are the real billionaires, not media con-men like Trump.
Trump is a poor person’s idea of what a billionaire is like, and that’s all.
Trump is out by Labor Day. Halloween at the VERY latest.
The Bush campaign is preparing a dossier to drop on his ass as we speak. Remember, the old man was head of the CIA.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
Agreed.
And I thought that after yesterday I was going to be voted in as the resident asshole. Glad that stint didn’t last long.
lol
@TS:
Plus the approving cites of Rubin, Noonan and Frum. Maybe he’ll link a hot take from Douthat next.
RaflW
@Smiling Mortician: I am sort of amazed by “Right to Rise.” Outside of the billionaires club, does that name work at all? I think Hillary has already let us know how she will be dispatching that curiously self-exposing moniker from the jeb. campaign.
jl
@RaflW:
” UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH is on much better meds now, or… ”
Probably DougJ trolling. Probably he’s getting itchy not front posting as much.
I am going to assume that all recently arrived and new trolls are DougJ until I get good evidence otherwise.
Right to Rise
@RaflW:
Hillary is trailing Jeb in key swing states as we speak.
Schlemazel
@gogol’s wife:
Sounds like Hoover but, no. It actually a marketing tool for some Christian outfit, I am sure it is profitable for them has “A purpose driven life” for its money-grubbing whore.
I’d go for “Prosperity with a Porpoise” myself, sort of like “A chicken in every pot”.
RaflW
@lol: The only hot thing Douthat takes is a steak & frites. Daily, by the looks of things.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
As I said earlier, Jeb and Hillary can both campaign on the idea Jeb will back the Bush years! we’ll see how it goes.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Right to Rise:
No, you have a wider field; but a very shallow field.
Right to Rise
@gogol’s wife:
It was W.
Hoover had “a chicken in every pot”. Harding was “A Return to Normalcy”, I’m thinking we can make a version of the latter work at some point in the campaign, to sell the idea that after eight years of turmoil and gridlock, Jeb will change the tone and bring things back down to earth, to normal, to make the nation calm again. We need to be thinking along those lines for the general.
Gimlet
@Right to Rise:
Will Dubya campaign for him?
Right to Rise
@Gimlet:
W’s popularity is recovering nicely.
jl
@Right to Rise: And we speak over a year before the election. OMG, how low will HRC’s numbers go by then? She will get a negative percentage of the vote, for sure. I am scared.
As recent GOP presidential primary history shows, it is better to be in the news everyday making an ass of oneself, flubbing very simple answers to very simple questions, and raising UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH, than actually doing actual campaigning with actual voters that is not exciting enough to make the news every day. We liberals are doomed again. I give up and will go hide someplace now.
Schlemazel
god damn it is too early for this troll bullshit. 16 months of this assclowns mindless vomiting on threads is more than decent people should have to suffer. We lived through the Bush fiasco but this is just too much.
gogol's wife
Okay, it’s definitely DougJ.
jl
Definitely DougJ
@gogol’s wife: I guess psychic simultaneous typing at work. Brilliant BJ commenter minds running in the same gutter?
@Schlemazel: Well, hell, if it is DougJ, we don’t want to hurt his feelings. Throw the poor guy a bone.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Right to Rise: Shouldn’t take much to reverse that. Just remind folk what their 401k’s looked like in January 2009.
Right to Rise
@jl:
Hillary is the weakest candidate in the weakest field you’ve had in decades. Her record at State is atrocious and she spent most of her Senate days running for the Presidency.
People will see through it.
vhh
@Right to Rise: Tony Abbott’s popularity in Australia has been tanking for quite awhile. He barely survived an internal party challenge last year.
Kay
It’s much worse than that. He then started a national lobbying group to push his systems all over the country. He took his name off the lobbying group immediately before he announced because his lobbying group is involved in some very shady for-profit grifting in the K-12 “space”.
This reporter in Maine won an award for tracking the Bush edu-profiteering in that state:
There is a lot more. He’s hip deep in this profiteering off public dollars. Repulsively corrupt.
RaflW
@Right to Rise: Links?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Right to Rise: A Recession under every Bush!
BUSH-O-NOMICS! The Third Time’s the Charm!
BUSH: We’re there whenever peace and prosperity become a burden.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think the third one is the best.
Right to Rise
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Florida was BOOMING under Jeb.
Links to the polls:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/22/politics/hillary-clinton-marco-rubio-jeb-bush-polls/
The only one she can beat is the media clown who will be done by Halloween.
Trump is a dirty trick being orchestrated by the DNC or Hillary or both.
White Trash Liberal
@Right to Rise:
So how about Jeb heading a Bloomberg charity that donated millions for global abortion access?
Your favorite candidate has loser stink. All the money in the world can’t wash that off.
Major Major Major Major
I think DougJ is back finally.
ETA: I see I’m not alone.
Right to Rise
@vhh:
Yet he’s the PM, and Labour is out.
Australia’s economy has also done quite nicely in the past decade unlike other parts of the West, has it not?
Amir Khalid
@Right to Rise:
And if he isn’t? Or if he decides to run as a third-party candidate?
Right to Rise
@White Trash Liberal:
I really don’t care much about abortion one way or the other. What’s important is getting government out of my pocket.
Right to Rise
@Amir Khalid:
He’s done as in “out completely”.
Jeb’s about to drop a bomb on Trump Thursday that will knock him out of the race. Stay tuned!
Gimlet
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Don’t forget, he kept us safe for 7 years.
White Trash Liberal
I love it. We have a Jeb troll who is going to preach how the base deep down wants another Bush in the technocrat mold.
Holy organic fucknuts, that is stupid.
NorthLeft12
@Right to Rise: Yeah, look what Harper has done for Canada….oh, wait, that does not matter to you.The fact that he has been elected three times [two of them as a minority, only the last as a majority government] is all that matters to you.
The HarperCons are a close second in the polls now, but his re-election is not likely IMO.
RaflW
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yes, that gets to the serial shittiness of the Bush family leadership.
Gimlet
@Right to Rise:
The candidate we need in the deep field of candidates is the Republican fiscal guru known as the Governor of Kansas.
Right to Rise
@White Trash Liberal:
The base will fall in line. They always do. All Jeb has to do is say some nice things about Jesus and wag his finger at planned parenthood.
@NorthLeft12:
Harper will win. Again. Canada has had a booming economy under his leadership. And he’s shown how to stand up to Putin unlike Obambi.
White Trash Liberal
@Right to Rise:
I am not talking about you, you Frumguzzling douchebag.
I am talking about surviving Iowa and South Carolina when WND is describing Jeb as financing global abortion.
Major Major Major Major
@Right to Rise: Hey buddy, you gotta switch it up with punctuation or spelling or grammar. You have a distinctive style of writing, you know. Brilliant nym choice though.
ETA: Dead giveaway with the ‘Obambi’
Ruckus
@Schlemazel:
Also agreed.
What ever happened to the idea of not replying to trolls? In the hope that they would just go away. Or fuck off and die. Either is acceptable.
jl
@Right to Rise: Why don’t you put up a math front post? Those are fun.
My main fear about the 2016 presidential election is that it may be one of the greatest Constitutional crises of our history.
What if something’s happened to Jeb! and he has been replaced by Will Ferrell?
Think about for a minute the next time you see a clip of the supposed Jeb!
dmsilev
@gogol’s wife: I hope so. The alternative, that someone actually believes this stuff, is pretty depressing.
scav
Right to Rise a.k.a. Shit Floats?
Also, Bless. They’ve been saying that about the confederacy for how long now?
NorthLeft12
@Right to Rise: Okay, now I know you are just snarking. Touting a slogan because it was “thought up” by Peggy Noonan was a dead giveaway.
Thanks for the belly laughs.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I try not to get optimistic, and he has all the money and the media has convinced itself that at long last he is really and truly this time it’s real the return of the NortheasternModerateRepublican!, but I do think he could finish with an epic faceplant. God I hope so, and I hope Barbara lives long enough to see it
@Gimlet: Hey, in governance as in golf, you get one mulligan each game. Ask anyone at the Club
dmsilev
@Right to Rise:
Bookmark it, libs!
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: Chill, it’s just DougJ.
RaflW
@Right to Rise: Here’s Canda’s booming economy:
Amir Khalid
@Right to Rise:
And if Trump is still n the race on Friday?
ETA: Seriously, if Jeb thinks he can shame Donald The Short-Fingered Vulgarian into dropping out, Jeb’s got another think coming.
Emma
@Right to Rise: Florida had a massive housing bubble under Jeb. Then it all came crashing down. Boom my tochis.
And yes, I know whereof I speak. My house still hasn’t regained its full value,though I am doing better than most.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: Then DougJ’s sockpuppet will have been characteristically wrong.
Gimlet
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
OK, one mulligan for 9-11. How about Katrina, Iraq, the economic meltdown…
Joel
Trolls, feeding, etc.
RSA
@Right to Rise:
Us Americans? No kidding.
Major Major Major Major
@Joel: Oh come on this one’s fun!
gogol's wife
@Joel: @Major Major Major Major:
Plus we’re bored!
Brachiator
@Right to Rise:
I’ve never misunderestimated Jeb! I predicted early on that he was the GOP heir presumptive, because of his Establishment connections and appeal to the GOP base, especially religious fundamentalists.
But the LRB piece alerted me to one of Jeb!’s greatest weaknesses. As I noted in an earlier thread,
Dubya would pick mediocre friends and cronies like a Henry VIII confidently doling out badges to favorites, assuming that things would work out because of his divine right. Jeb may be brainier, but essentially sees himself as second-rate and so latches on to second-tier lowlifes who would do anything to cheat and claw their way to some benefit, and are always on the lookout for an easy, grubby deal.
To someone like Jeb!, the uber confident Trump is his worst nightmare. And although it might not be as easy as some think, I believe that Hillary Clinton can take him down if he ends up the nominee.
ETA: A blushing thanks to Anne Laurie for her acknowledgment.
Major Major Major Major
i wish A Guy was here to talk about pie
White Trash Liberal
@Joel:
I couldn’t resist saying Frumguzzling. Mea maxima culpa
Major Major Major Major
I kind of want to make a list of who fell for this and who didn’t, for future reference.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
Quite possibly. The writing does lack something though, makes me think DougJ but it really doesn’t have his level of creativity. Sounds a little to convinced about his subject. Of course given what he has to work with it would be hard for anyone to be in the least bit creative, positive, thoughtful, right…… What I see is that DougJ rarely plays the town idiot, while this one spot on for first place in the town idiot finals.
Gin & Tonic
@gogol’s wife: Well, you kids have fun. I’m drinking some wine and heading out to Waterfire shortly.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: He cited Noonan and MoDo and look at the user name, it’s classic beltway zeitgeist bullshit. All we’re missing is “Now, I don’t always agree with Krugman, but I think he was spot on when he said [insert misleading quote]”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: I don’t like Trump, but I could see him memorizing every name and number in this Politico article and flinging them at Jeb like monkey poo. He could get his followers to spit those names out like “Bill Ayers” and “Saul Alinsky” in twenty four hours. “Who’s this guy Oberndorf? Why is Jeb Bush worth a million dollars to him? “(Side note: “No Labels” con man John Hunstman is giving to Bush. I imagine at least in part to spite Romney)
also, did you know there’s yet another chicken billionaire is Arkansas? What the hell?
“poultry magnate”. I’m guessing the doors of Newport would not have swung open for him.
Ruckus
@gogol’s wife:
I can’t recall ever being that bored.
I’m sure it’s possible but then I’ve managed to spend an hour or so with belly button lint so there’s that.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: stoned, i hope
Gindy51
@Right to Rise: Money only gets you so far….
RaflW
@Major Major Major Major: Fell for it? Yeah probably not. We’re bored is about right.
Though I have been entertaining the idea that we’re being trolled by David Frum. All the Canada connections, the stuffy prose, and Frum is pretty much down to frumguzzling himself as no one else cares.
VFX Lurker
@Amir Khalid:
‘Tis indeed a day to celebrate…Troll-B-Gone. I enjoy this site a lot more with all the troll comments collapsed out of sight.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
Too obvious.
DougJ is better than that. That’s what I was missing. It’s too predictable, too easy, and yes too obvious.
Maybe it is him, and he is really, really bored. Really, really, really, really bored.
TS
@Right to Rise:
Australia recovered from the crash under a LABOR government. The economy has gone seriously down hill since Abbott and his friends got to be in charge. If you are going to make ridiculous statements stick to the USA, where the GOP seems intent on being ridiculous.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
Can’t recall every being bored while stoned. Nope, not once. Probably did play with lint though, at least once.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
@Right to Rise: You mean the Harper that brought a recession to Canada? Are you all high?
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: Maybe he’s rusty. It’s been a while.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
To Rusty to Rise? Rusty to the rescue? Rusty at the bottom of the sea?
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
You mean a first think coming?
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: This one time I came to visit my friend and he was laying on the floor over a notebook, the air thick with, y’know. He’d been recording 100 coin flips “just to make sure.”
Chris
Is “failure” really the right word to describe the iJeb! governorship if it accomplished what he was trying to accomplish?
The point of privatizing Florida schools wasn’t to improve their performance. The point of privatizing Florida’s schools was to privatize Florida’s schools.
The point of Stand Your Ground wasn’t to improve the crime situation. The point of Stand Your Ground was to give gun nuts a paper thin legalese justification to shoot black people with impunity.
The point of Terry Schiavo wasn’t to do what was best for Terry Schiavo. The point of Terry Schiavo was to burnish his credentials with the religious right.
And the point of disenfranchising black voters, of course, was to disenfranchise black voters.
From Jeb’s point of view, great success.
ETA: and from his voter base’s point of view, too.
debbie
After how many pops?
FlyingToaster
@Right to Rise: out of Scotty Rasmussen’s ass & into your ear, apparently.
You know, unlimited corporate cash only goes so far. Ask former Senator Centerfold.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Thank god the liberal media is finally giving these two some attention. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get my neocon war-mongering and embittered Obama-bashing until tomorrow morning, and then I’d have to wait till Monday for Morning Joe!
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
He wasn’t bored though, was he? His game may have been simple and useless, maybe, but his task had better real world implications than playing with belly button lint.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: How so? He decreased the lifetime of a piece of federal currency! ;)
Ruckus
@Chris:
One mans failure is another mans…… what? Yes he may have actually accomplished what he set out to do, as you well know that still doesn’t make him less a fool.
shell
@Right to Rise: Too bad Jeb’s idiotic ‘Right to Rise’ didnt work that well for Terry Schiavo.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
Right to Rise is talking about it plenty.
trollhattan
@gogol’s wife:
The correct call, to be sure. They must have installed its coin slot for the next cycle–gonna be a long, long election.
UNLIMITED COPROPHILIA!
trollhattan
@debbie:
All of them, Katie. (Hic)
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
OK it was a very small accomplishment. But you never know, there could be a study being done to find the number of coin flips it takes to wear a coin enough to have to remove it from circulation. He could have been adding to that. I know I’d have to be stoned (and well paid) to perform that study.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: He was worthy of curiosity as a possible DougJ specimen…
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: But that’s not how coins normally wear. I mean, if anybody has the science on this it’s the NFL, anyway.
God, construct a realistic scenario. /dungeonmaster
FlyingToaster
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, I’m wondering about that myself.
I swear, if Trump makes it to the nomination, we need to somehow get Ivana to make 1 — yes ONE — appearance on behalf of Hillary.
Just sayin’
SiubhanDuinne
@Right to Rise:
FTFY.
shell
Two good movies on tonight.
On TCM at 8- The Ghost and Mrs Muir.
On PBS- Fat Man and Little Man
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
/dungonmaster
Talk about
boredboring.bemused
MSNBC re-aired “Just Eat It”, a good doc which originally aired in April.
debbie
@shell:
Ah, I love The Ghost and Mrs. Muir! The only decent thing Rex Harrison ever did.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Derper, or diaper?
SiubhanDuinne
@Right to Rise:
LOL.
@Right to Rise:
ROFL.
@Right to Rise:
LMAO.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Derper. David Vitter isn’t in the race (yet).
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
That only works when David Vitter declares his candidacy.
ETA: Damn you, Roger Moore. Damn you to hell.
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
You have to move fast around here to get the obvious ones.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
At least we know it’s not from one of those Russian boiler rooms like BIP. This is some homegrown derp, right here. “As noted constitutional authority Governor Huckabee proposed the other day…” would never occur to somebody raised overseas.
SiubhanDuinne
@Right to Rise:
Dammit, RtR, do I have to fix everything for you?
Cervantes
@gogol’s wife:
George W. Bush.
How quickly you forget, you lucky thing, you.
shell
@shell: Oy. Meant this:
On PBS- Fat Man and Little Boy
Gator90
@Chris: Well said. The Dubya presidency is likewise often described as a “failure,” but what if Dubya went into office with the objectives of overthrowing Saddam Hussein, reducing taxes on the rich and otherwise redistributing wealth upward, gutting governmental regulations and oversight, and flooding the judiciary with right-wing militants? (And all the death, destruction and torture — those were just icing on the cake!)
trollhattan
Fuck, we lost a firefighter today at one of California’s many current incidents. Was from South Dakota. My condolences to his family and fellow crew.
SiubhanDuinne
@White Trash Liberal:
O/T, but does anybody know how to get red wine off an iPad?
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Do what I do: rinse it in chardonnay.
Roger Moore
@Gator90:
Even if those were his goals, he’d still be a failure for allowing 9/11, Katrina, and the bloody quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Jane2
@Right to Rise: Stephen Harper and Tony Abbott? Surely you’re trolling.
Kropadope
Re: Rick Perry
That’s what Republicans call efficiency.
trollhattan
@Jane2:
Peas in a (nasty) pod, those two. Does the one with the hawt daughters love coal more than anything else, or is that the other one? I can never remember….
Redshift
Schaivo was only an “accomplishment” for Jeb! if he ran in 2000. I doubt it would buy him any love from the evangelicals today. I may be wrong; they sure seem to love to be pandered to, but I suspect that alone want enough to get them to trust him.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
You have something against Midnight Lace? :-)
trollhattan
@Kropadope:
39th performance for 49th spending? That’s what’s called “winning!“
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
Would Pinot Grigio work? I’m out of Chard.
Gator90
@Roger Moore: The bloody quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan were fabulously lucrative for certain corporations and industries. Success or failure? Depends who you ask, I guess.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
Why would you want to get wine off of it? Isn’t one use for a pad to soak up things?
Kropadope
@trollhattan: And all they had to do is force the under-performing students to drop out.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yup, just wave an oak stave at it at the same time.
Tastiest ipad evah!
JPL
For such a poor campaigner, Hilary sure did show up Bush the other day. She certainly did come across as likable enough also.
just sayin
Uncle Cosmo
@White Trash Liberal:
I couldn’t resist saying Frumguzzling. Mea maxima gulpa.
Kropadope
@JPL: She’s a fine campaigner, particularly by means of attack. She’s not a great office-holder.
Germy Shoemangler
@debbie:
I recommend “Unfaithfully Yours” the Preston Sturges comedy from 1948. Rex plays a symphony conductor. It’s great fun, a great script.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I was curious to see if William Saletan was having any twitter reaction to his “GOP can’t be trusted to govern” column, so I looked at his twitter feed. He published his column Friday evening, based on hearing he attended earlier in the week.
He tweeted this on Tuesday, same day as he attended the hearings
The next day he tweeted this
So Republicans can’t be trusted to govern, and they need to lose the next presidential race, except for the guy who says Bush II was a great president, and who can’t figure out even how to lie about the Iraq War, and who hired Paul Wolfowitz. Is our radical centrist pundits learning?
gelfling545
@Major Major Major Major: Yes, I suddenly felt 7 years younger there for a minute.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Keep on it, Kay.
You keep us informed on issues like this.
Kropadope
@Right to Rise: Why Thursday? Doesn’t Jeb know not to introduce a new product in August?
Tree With Water
Lehman’s article serves to explain why I prefer democrats that chew and attack the GOP. They can even be effectively super polite doing it, as senator Warren has proven time and again. Just keep pounding, pounding, ponding, until the republican party shatters and is relegated to yesterday’s bad news, for good.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@debbie:
You only say that because you’ve never seen “Unfaithfully Yours” (the good Harrison version from 1948, not the crappy Dudley Moore version from the 1980s).
Davis X. Machina
@trollhattan:
It would never occur to anyone with an intact sensorium
Germy Shoemangler
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Preston Sturges was one of the greats.
Peale
@Gator90: Yep. Had to explain that to someone at work today complaining about that “Power Vacuum” we left in Iraq when that whimp Obama took us out and now there’s ISIS and we should have never left…Except I don’t look at ISIS as being a quagmire that is costing us all that much to contain. I think that’s the real threat of ISIS…what if it doesn’t go anywhere and we haven’t spend $100 billion per year to contain it through a huge occupation force on top of to the hundreds of billions we already spend to prepare to fight everyone from the Russians to the Andaman Islanders?
numfar
@Right to Rise:
I believe you’re confusing “deep” with “broad”. Nothing about ANY of the republican candidates is deep, except maybe for their pockets.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Germy Shoemangler:
Flawed, but great. His portrayals of Black characters really make me cringe, but he was one of the only directors who knew what to do with Joel McCrea.
Kropadope
@numfar: Or the pockets of their particular benefactor, as the case may be.
@Right to Rise:
Seventeen flavors of shit is hardly a deep bench. “Now in tasty diarrhea!!!!”
Germy Shoemangler
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
True about the way blacks were portrayed in old Hollywood. Do you remember the scene in W.C. Fields’ “The Bank Dick” when Fields finds himself in the teller line with the black guy? He does a galvanic double-take and grabs his hat!
I grew up with the edited TV version of the Marx Brothers “A Day at the Races” and it wasn’t until I bought the unedited DVD that I saw the whole gabriel scene, where they allude their pursuers by blacking up their faces.
Yikes…
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
Heard about that. Very sad.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne (tablet): @Germy Shoemangler: I remember watching Mr Blandings Builds his Dream House, which I’d always heard was one of the great comedies. The treatment of the housekeeper, by the film makers and by the other characters, just about ruined it for me.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ruckus:
That’s the Max iPad, not the plain old garden-variety iPad.
Germy Shoemangler
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Robert Benchley was one of the few Hollywood people to refuse to play that game. Every time a black character appeared in a film, he made sure they weren’t portrayed in the usual demeaning manner. He did rewrites, and didn’t take any shit from the studios.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Germy Shoemangler:
There were a few (sadly few) filmmakers who managed to avoid the stereotypes. Val Lewton’s “I Walked With A Zombie” is all about the damage done by slavery even after slavery’s end, and they made it in 1943. The director of “Christmas in Connecticut” avoided it, too. But, yes, it’s tough to be a liberal fan of Production Code Hollywood sometimes.
boatboy_srq
@Right to Rise: You’re absolutely right. Sloganeering is so much better than actual governing.
/snark
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You would probably not like Preston Sturges, then. He has entire setpieces that are cringeworthy today.
debbie
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
You are correct. I’ll have to see that and also Midnight Lace.
boatboy_srq
@SiubhanDuinne: Step one, remove the bottle.
Seriously, though, unless it’s penetrated the case, a dry/damp cloth should be enough. If it got in the case, a day standing on one edge (with dry cloth beneath) should be enough.
Tree With Water
@Peale: Face it. Hard questions of that sort aren’t usually broached because the democratic party was complicit in unleashing the Bush-Cheney War. Gephart, Kerry, Schumer, et.al., all bear a heavy guilt (whether they acknowledge it, or not, is a different question). In particular, Hillary Clinton bears a particularly heavy responsibility. After all, but for that support, she would have been elected POTUS in 2008. Had she been wiser in 2002-2003, her voice would have been heard around the world, and remembered with gratitude, whether or not the Bush-Cheney plot ever reached fruition.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I watched Palm Beach Story not long ago, I don’t remember anything that bad. but it’s been maybe twenty years since I watched Sullivan’s Travels. The Lady Eve..? What stands out is Eugene Pallett’s opening scenes, coming down the stairs belting out an old drinking song, then banging the silver to try and get his breakfast. I think that’s maybe my favorite Barbara Stanwyck role, after Double Indemnity. And of course her work on The Big Valley is in a class by itself.
boatboy_srq
@SiubhanDuinne: … and now we know how the wine got onto the iPad in the first place…
Kropadope
@boatboy_srq: I think it was a spit-take joke.
Mike in NC
Well, shit. The Right to Rise troll came and went pretty fast. DougJ must have had a dinner reservation someplace tonight. Disappointing to say the least.
But honestly, isn’t “Right to Rise” the stupidest wingnut PAC name ever? So much for JEB! being the smart member of the Bush Crime Cartel. Maybe he really needs a bottle of blue pills to rise.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Midnight Lace is my very all-time favourite good bad movie.
boatboy_srq
@Kropadope: Oh indeed. But the thought of iPad as coaster was equally funny – especially as over dinner SD was living on the thing (taking notes, pics, searching stuff). SPEAKING OF WHICH: for those who brought photography-capable toys to the DC meetup – when do we see the pics?
ThresherK (see "schmockenlocker")
@Germy Shoemangler: You had me at Preston Sturges.
PS The name I wanted to use, from “Miracle of Morgan Creek”, has put me into moderation.
It got past the Hays Code, but not Word Press. We are moving backwards as a society.
ThresherK Schmockenlocker
@Germy Shoemangler: You had me at Preston Sturges.
PS The name I wanted to use, from “Miracle of Morgan Creek”, has put me into moderation.
It got past the Hays Code, but not Word Press. We are moving backwards as a society.
Germy Shoemangler
What A Little Moonlight Can Do
Billie Holiday 1935
In honor of that big shiny thing in the sky I saw last night
SiubhanDuinne
@Kropadope:
It was, but I’m glad to know that my p0ker-face delivery works on the Internet.
Germy Shoemangler
@ThresherK Schmockenlocker: One of these days word press will figure out what FYWP means, and then we’ll all be fucked.
Omnes Omnibus
@ThresherK Schmockenlocker:
The Hays Code found calling an African American man “boy” perfectly acceptable; it now gets you smacked around by Amir Khalid. I call that progress.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kropadope:
It was, but I’m glad to know my p0kër-fāçê delivery works on the internets.
Also, FYWP.
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: The projection…it’s like the multiplex at the Mall over Memorial Day weekend.
Germy Shoemangler
@Omnes Omnibus: I remember in the Marx Brothers “At The Circus” Groucho is trying to get ahold of a wallet. An actress stuffs it down the front of her blouse. Groucho breaks the fourth wall to tell the audience “There must be some way for me to get that wallet without getting in trouble with the Hays office.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I cringe a little every time I hear the first line of “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” on the ’40s Channel.
rikyrah
told you, they were ordered to bring up anything and everything against Trump.
it’s going to get hilarious.
………………………………
http://www.nationalmemo.com/trump-documentary-the-donald-suppressed-free-at-last/
A documentary that Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, killed 25 years ago with threats of litigation is now available for all to view on the Internet.
Trump: What’s The Deal? paints a powerful and disturbing picture of a financial Dorian Gray whose public image bears little resemblance to his conduct away from the cameras, including hiring actors for $50 each to applaud at his campaign announcement.
In public, Trump presents himself as a businessman so skilled his deals are an art form. The 80-minute documentary peels back this façade. Hidden from public view, the documentary shows Trump manipulating politicians and the criminal justice system, pocketing millions in taxpayer welfare, not paying people he hired, doing some of his biggest deals with mobsters, retaining a cocaine dealer as his helicopter pilot, and evidently benefiting from having his sister working in the Justice Department before winning appointment as a federal judge. Former advisors and employees describe furious tirades that no one, not even his family, could escape
Villago Delenda Est
@ThresherK Schmockenlocker: One has to remember that FYWP isn’t concerned with obscenity, per se….it’s concerned with spam, and certain strings that are associated with spam. Which is why SoCIALISm was banned for so long, until the BJ front page staff (probably mistermix) mucked with it to allow “socialism” to pass through the filters, because on a blog that deals with politics, that one string caused many problems, just because it’s the brand name of a boner pill.
Germy Shoemangler
more svu
http://liartownusa.tumblr.com/post/123830445900/ice-t-law-order-svu-part-iii
Omnes Omnibus
@Germy Shoemangler: Did you get your blazer yet?
Germy Shoemangler
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes I did. Want to hear the story?
I’ll give you the condensed version.
Omnes Omnibus
@Germy Shoemangler: Go for it.
Bruce Webb
@Right to Rise:
Florida was BUBBLING under JEB. As in HOUSING BUBBLE. He just managed to schedule his exit right in time to grab some cash from Lehman Bros before both the Florida economy and Lehman crashed. He just managed to cash on on the last of a series of Florida Real Estate booms going back close to a century.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“Palm Beach Story” is one of the ones that bothers me most. The Ale & Quail Club using the two (black) bartenders to hold objects for target practice freaks me out, and it seems pretty clear that we’re supposed to think it’s hilarious that the bartenders are terrified because drunk white guys are blasting away with no regard for their lives.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@SiubhanDuinne: I no longer hear the first line of that song. The tune gets overlaid with the new words from 1979.
Germy Shoemangler
@Omnes Omnibus: Went to Jos Banks. Told them I was going someplace very hot. Needed some nice clothes. Slacks, shirts, blazer.
Guy found some nice shirts and slacks. Good fit, very lightweight. I asked “do you have any linen blazers?” He recoiled at the question and replied “No linen. We have these blazers, perfect for the hot weather. Our tropical blend.”
50% wool. I tried it on and started sweating. “It breathes,” he said. I politely declined and just bought the slacks and shirts. I walked a few blocks to a different store that had a linen & silk blazer. Perfect fit and extremely light.
Interestingly, as they were ringing me up at Jos Banks, the prices were severely marked down from the tagged prices; more than fifty percent off. Woman told me they’re under Mens Warehouse now, and so “we can no longer wheel and deal” as she put it.
lamh36
ATTENTION ATTENTION!!! My lil sister is at the hospital again! 3 days ago was a false alarm, but looks like baby Zoe is coming today.
Suzanne
Republicans and Libertarians love to vote for fuckups. They don’t like people who remind them that they, too, are fuckups. I recently lost a longtime friend who basically spent the last ten years making bad decision after bad decision after bad decision, then expressing alternating envy and resentment at me because I am not the fuckup that she is. When she votes, she votes Libertarian. I notice this with all these clowns. They’re highly mediocre, and they resent “the elite” and “intellectuals” because they’re insecure. You know what? Fuck that psychodrama.
Villago Delenda Est
@lamh36: Vacate the premises immediately Baby Zoe, or we’ll send the sheriff in there after you!
Germy Shoemangler
@lamh36: Excellent!
Suzanne
@lamh36: OOOOHHHHHH baby baby baby! My best wishes to your sister for a safe and easy delivery, and to you for all kinds of auntie snuggles soon!
Joel
@rikyrah: As long as Trump keeps spewing racist shit, he’ll float.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
Advance congratulations! Keep us posted and send pictures!
Omnes Omnibus
@Germy Shoemangler: I’ve got a silk and wool blend for summer. It’s quite lightweight, but then I don’t live in a truly tropical location.
brantl
@Right to Rise: If he’s like the rest of his family, his ‘rise’ is about an inch and a half. And that should be Reich to Rise, with the Bush family hisyory of Nazism.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
Blessings, lamh. Hope she comes soon (for your sister’s sake), and that she’s healthy.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Yikes, that’s just wicked.
mai naem mobile
What is it with the GOP and using Nazi sounding phrases. The first time i heard of Right to Rise, it reminded me of Reich Stag. Achtung baby. He-il Rei-ch!
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@SiubhanDuinne:
When Mel Brooks parodied that line in “Young Frankenstein,” Victor asks the question of an actual child, so it works.
Germy Shoemangler
@Omnes Omnibus: The only formal wear comfortable enough for extreme hot weather is a diaper and derby hat. Cigar optional. But our culture doesn’t permit it.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@lamh36:
Hooray! I can never blame babies for coming late (after all, it’s nice and dark and comfy in there), but I’m sure your sister is very tired of being pregnant in the summer heat.
Omnes Omnibus
@Germy Shoemangler: It does if you are David Vitter.
ThresherK Schmockenlocker
@Omnes Omnibus: I will grant you that. A victory for “things that are simply not done” is a victory for all, even white guys like me.
Strictly speaking, did the Hays Code address this kind of thing? Or did it simply omit any mention in its obsession to keep people chaste by maintaining that coitus could only be hinted at by that weird pre-Twister game of keeping a certain number of feet on the floor while a couple was falling onto a bed or a couch?
Germy Shoemangler
@Omnes Omnibus: Did you see Vitter on twitter after the supreme court ruling on marriage equality? Filmed himself eating chick-fil-a in his car.
The responses on twitter were truly hilarious.
schrodinger's cat
@Germy Shoemangler: What about seersucker for really hot weather?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Koch Brothers are interviewing for a court jester I mean Republican candidate
also, too, Carly Fiorina thinks things
schrodinger's cat
@mai naem mobile: That’s what I thought too. Very reminiscent of the third Reich.
Germy Shoemangler
@schrodinger’s cat: I asked about seersucker, but nobody had it.
Do you remember Rip Taylor’s old gag? He tells the audience “This jacket is seersucker. I’m the sucker who bought it at sears”
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Seersucker is hard to do well. Too easy to look like a cliche.
JPL
@Germy Shoemangler: You did good.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
ROFLMAO
And thank you I needed that!
schrodinger's cat
@Germy Shoemangler: Macy’s has it online. Do you have Macy’s where you live.
Germy Shoemangler
@JPL:
It was a struggle. I visited several places. None of them had lightweight blazers. Their tropical blends were suitable for the frozen north. But I got lucky and found one little place that had lightweight blazers in my size.
I think one reason men hate to “dress up” nowadays is because jackets and blazers are so heavy and uncomfortable. I look at photos from the 1930s, when men wore jackets and neckties to baseball games… but the suits look soft and comfortable. No polyester/wool blends. All lightweight linens.
SiubhanDuinne
@boatboy_srq:
I think there may have been a slight breakdown in communications between Elizabelle and me as to which of us was supposed to send photos to Anne Laurie for further distribution. I’ll send a handful of the best to her tonight.
Watch This Space.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: True. Southern gentleman of a certain age?
I had a seersucker shirt that I loved, was even cool enough for my trips to India, even the humid swamp that is Bombay in summer.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
Also too, is Zoë going to be little sister to Maddie, or cousin?
Germy Shoemangler
@schrodinger’s cat: There’s a Macy’s near by. Maybe I should have checked with them first.
That seersucker photo in your link looks good and comfortable.
I’ve bought everything I need for now, but in the future I’ll check with Macy’s.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@ThresherK Schmockenlocker:
Well, it took two years to finally be released—about the same time as Hail the Conquering Hero. Betty Hutton being pregnant after a drunken party was almost too much. The only thing that let it squeak through was that supposedly she’d “married” some departing GI in front of…a judge…a bartender…who knows?
The first movie with an actual unwed mother was People Will Talk with Jeanne Crain in 1951.
Ruckus
@Germy Shoemangler:
I remember as a kid that most men wore suits/ties except for real blue collar workers. Some of those suits seemed like they got cleaned once in great while. Seemed awfully stupid to go to the trouble and still look like you slept in your clothes, in a horse stable.
eric
@SiubhanDuinne: you want to really cringe…and this was not that long ago…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuLF5VY20_c
go to 2:50….
Germy Shoemangler
@Ruckus: And men carried handkerchiefs in their pockets, for wiping the sweat from their faces or blowing their noses. Does anyone carry a handkerchief anymore?
Seems weird to remove a piece of cloth from your pocket, honk a big plug of snot into it…. and then return it to your pocket. And yet that’s what we did.
MomSense
@Kay:
Colin Woodard is fantastic. A bunch of Bowen’s memos were leaked and they were so outrageous that it snapped a lot of apathetic people to their senses.
Another Holocene Human
@Germy Shoemangler: But those got washed at home.
Here in the swamp you see men walking down the street with a cotton terry cloth on their shoulder to wipe the sweat. What I’m saying is that it’s really humid out here.
Another Holocene Human
@MomSense: There must be a lot of Bowens in New England.
Suzanne
@Germy Shoemangler: I remember my grandfather carried a handkerchief and he used it a number of times to mop up my blood if I skinned my knees or something. Then put it back in his pocket. Weird. Just too weird. I don’t even like wiping my clean, freshly-washed, no-broken-skin hands on a hand towel.
Ruckus
@Germy Shoemangler:
Had an aunt who gave me a packet of handkerchiefs for xmas pretty much from when I was 7 to about 40. Three to a pack. I don’t remember what I did with them except I didn’t carry them, I remember that. I think mom gave them to goodwill.
Germy Shoemangler
@Ruckus: There were all sorts of rituals for men. Handkerchiefs, pomade, combs, shoehorns, necktie knots (windsor, simple, and four-in-hand) and straight razors (and later safety razors). I’m old enough to remember some of them, but by the time I reached adolescence that stuff was dying out, and so I never adopted them.
Germy Shoemangler
@Suzanne: Handkerchiefs were great for waving goodbye while hanging out the windows of steam locomotives.
Germy Shoemangler
@Another Holocene Human: In the 1920s men would arrange their handkerchiefs into little hats to protect their heads from the sun.
Omnes Omnibus
@Germy Shoemangler: Like this.
Ruckus
@Germy Shoemangler:
Have no idea where they are now but I had a couple of my grandfathers straight razors. No way would I have put one of those to my face. I would have just had to live with the shame of a beard. Oh wait I do that now. When I started shaving I used a safety razor. I have no idea what was safe about it. You could slice off a big chunk if you weren’t real careful. Small chunks even if you were. Brylcream, now that was the stuff. I think you could lube wagon axles with that crap. And you can still buy it. At one time I could tie a tie. I have no idea what knot I used, nor did/do I care one wit.
RaflW
@Germy Shoemangler: I still carry a handkerchief. But it is indeed for my brow, not my nose. I come from a family of prodigious perspirers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: My great-grandfather used to let my mom and her cousin shave him with a straight razor. They were about 12 and 11 respectively when this happened. Me, I wouldn’t let a pro near my throat with a straight razor.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Maybe their hands trembled less than his. After all not all of us were born to be surgeons.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: I know, trust, and love my mother. I would not let her shave me with a straight razor.
Anne Laurie
@Ruckus:
At my parochial high school, in the late 1960s, dress code from October through April was a navy woolen blazer, pleated plaid woolen skirt, long-sleeved white blouse. Our working-class parents didn’t budget for dry cleaning more than once or twice a season, so by mid-March those blazers were pretty ripe. The nuns would keep all the windows upon even when it rained.
“Summer” uniforms were dacron shirt dresses, which weren’t much more absorbent, but at least they were lighter (& short-sleeved).
When Mad Men first came out, one of the actresses talked about the period details — for example, working women got their hair “done” weekly, usually over the weekend, so the elaborate styles would get progressively deflated between Monday & Friday. The director actually scheduled shooting scenes to take this into effect. She was just glad that the stylists could recreate whatever ‘stage’ would be appropriate on demand, so at least she didn’t have to sleep in a helmet of curlers & satin & only wash her hair once a week!
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
The fashion cliche I remember is that seersucker is best worn by those under 12 or over 60… or for adults intending to act as though they were underage or past their prime. In the Northeast, at least, even Brooks Brothers seersucker was for Casual Friday / three-day-August workweeks only — what one wore before catching the train to the shore or the lake. Of course Southerners wore the stuff all the time, but then, flinty Northerners were pretty well convinced that the climate south of the Mason-Dixon line caused brain damage anyways.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
There was a pretty stiff dress code at my public HS in CA, much more so for the girls. Levis were absolutely verboten, I think they were considered the devils clothing. Girls could not wear pants, no one could wear shorts. No open toed shoes, sandals, flip flops or the like. I think they really wanted to have uniforms but I think enough parents were against that it wouldn’t have been worth it.
One interesting event was one guy had the words Miller Lite painted professionally in gold paint on the sides of his car (took up the entire side) and the school made a big deal of it, ending up expelling him when he refused to remove it. Parents took them to court as a first amendment case and won, I understand easily. That took a lot of the wind out of their sails.
Ian
This should be a headline of its own, not a small comment in the middle of a story.
Ian
@Right to Rise:
Jon Huntsman on line one.
Ian
@Right to Rise:
Your understanding of the United Kingdom is flawed. It is 4 countries, England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The conservatives only win in Northern Ireland and England.
Ian
@Right to Rise:
You either have a billion dollars, or you don’t.
Ian
@Right to Rise:
Compared to who???????????
karen marie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I guess she never heard the phrase “talk is cheap.” But then everything in this modern world is monetized, so why not speech.
Tyro
@Schlemazel: wish I had been smart enough to have been a Bush sperm. Born into a family with money & connections so I never had to try very hard, never had to worry about failing because there would always be plenty of money & pull to get me out of it while letting other drown.
My life would have to be pretty bad before I’d be willing to trade places with Marvin.
mr_gravity
@Right to Rise: I see this pattern where conservative candidates are always insisting that they have the answer but they can’t tell us any of the specifics just yet. McCain knew how to take out OBL. Mitt knew just how to fix the economy. Now Trump is going to make America great again.
And they still have not revealed their replacement for Obamacare.
I just can’t understand why they aren’t endlessly taunting the silly liberals with their common-sense conservative solutions.