#BlackLivesMatter activists shut down Jeb Bush campaign event in Nevada http://t.co/Ba9a8qQopL pic.twitter.com/bk7SKXUKp4
— Raw Story (@RawStory) August 13, 2015
Seema Mehta, for the Los Angeles Times:
A Jeb Bush town hall meeting Wednesday ended on a testy note, as Black Lives Matter protesters clashed with the presidential candidate’s supporters after he faced a series of challenging questions.
Bush, responding to a woman’s query about the disproportionate number of minorities killed by police and their treatment in the criminal justice system, said there was no question that racism still existed in the United States and that leaders needed to engage in communities that felt disenfranchised. He then turned to his education record as Florida’s governor, saying that achievement scores among minority youths rose during his tenure.
“I have a record of empowering people in communities that” were told “they had no chance,” Bush said, ending the town hall. He did not deliver a closing statement, as he typically does, and quickly made his way to an exit, greeting supporters along the way.
Behind him, a few dozen protesters raised their fists and began chanting, “Black Lives Matter!” A few Bush supporters turned toward them and chanted, “All Lives Matter!” and “White Lives Matter!” Two women — a protester and a Bush supporter — stood a few feet from the candidate with their middle fingers extended in each other’s faces…
JEB! also managed to tell a registered Republican who complained that his sister had been separated from their family for a decade that he “thought the nation’s policy of including adult siblings and adult parents was too broad”. Man can’t open his mouth without shoving a foot in it, can he?
Not seeing anything about this rally on the NYTimes or Washington Post websites yet, but maybe that’s a deadline issue. Because surely they wouldn’t avoid a chance to use the Repubs in disarray! template…
The Grey Lady did report, most delicately, that “a new slur has arisen from the Right“:
… Many who use the #cuckservative hashtag on Twitter espouse the view that the United States is shifting from a white-dominated country to one that caters too much to minority groups.
The radical nature of those ideas along with the pornographic connotations associated with “cuckold” have made the word a subject of hand-wringing among some conservative commentators.
“There is a community of conservatives who think Republicans should be racists,” said Jim Harper, a scholar at the Cato Institute. “I think there is probably a relatively sizable number of people out there who see the term ‘cuckservative’ as a valid criticism of conservatives.”…
***********
Apart from noting JEB! gets more than his looks from his dear MaMa, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Schlemazel
Ah yes, so the conservatives have a dog whistle for “race traitor”. It’s on the edge of audible though so it’s not really a dog whistle anymore. The more things change the more they stay the same
MattF
Jeb! is the foundation of the ‘deep bench’ of candidates that establishment Republicans love to allude to. But what we see in-real-life is a half-dozen middle-aged guys with ‘For Sale’ signs pinned to their shirts. And there’s an interloper who’s rewriting the signs to say ‘Kick Me’.
OzarkHillbilly
Anybody else watch the Perseids? We had a really nice clear sky here (I could see 6 of the Seven Sisters with the naked eye) but they were mostly ‘meh’, very sparse. I saw a few nice ones and 2 that were absolutely spectacular, nice glowing trails as long as my hand spread and one ending in a flash.
Baud
It’s really a dispute about how genteel the racism should be.
Baud
Test.
Having posting problems.
Baud
Weird.
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
That was my experience with the “best meteor show ever” a few years back. Maybe the people telling us about this stuff and I have different ideas about what ‘spectacular’ means?
Baud
Two items on my bucket list are seeing meteor shower and an Aurora borealis.
BillinGlendaleCA
Gawd, Mika’s going off about Hillary’s e-mails, CLICK.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
What else they got?
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel: I have seen a few good ones, and one that was absolutely spectacular (it was a Perseid) but that probably had as much to do with where I was (the Guadalupe Mountains, desert-5000+ feet) as it did with the meteors.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: As many times as I’ve been to Alaska, I’ve never seen the Aurora. On the other hand, I was out much at night sober.
Baud
@Baud:
Milky Way also.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: They talked briefly about the Trump/Paul feud and the Huff Post covering Trump in their Entertainment section.
OT: I got my compute stick upgraded to Win10 and installed.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I’ve only been to Alaska once. No Aurora. Was disappointed.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I’ve seen that in Moorea.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
What does that do?
Another Holocene Human
Huh, I was told right here on BJ that #BLM was an HRC campaign operation and/or Republican operation and that #BLM activists were too chicken/craven/lazyamirite to pressure GOP candidates, unlike those well-behaved DREAMers and gay activists.
Huh.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I used to travel there on business, Satan has an office up there.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: It’s a relatively low end computer(Intel Atom based) that you plug into your HDMI port on a TV or monitor.
Intel Compute Stick.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel: @BillinGlendaleCA: They are worth the trip.
Geoduck
Using BLM to push a “Republicans are in disarray” narrative would be rather disingenuous, since I doubt many people would identify themselves as both of those. “Republicans are out-of-touch overly-entitled racist doofuses” works just fine, though.
Matt McIrvin
Open fascism seems to be more and more popular in the United States (“race realists”, “neo-reactionaries”, people who think “cuckservative” sounds like a witticism). I guess Dave Niewert has been warning us about this for many years.
We’ve already basically got the death camps built; they just need to be retooled a little.
Randy P
@OzarkHillbilly:
We have a standing invitation to go to Finland, where part of the extended family lives, some of them above the Arctic Circle. Definitely on my bucket list to go one of these days and see the auroras.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
What does it let you do?
Anne Laurie
@OzarkHillbilly: Yup! Reposted from last thread:
Back from our quite successful meteor-watching expedition. Saw a good three dozen between the two of us, including one peach-tinted streak that ran across a good fifth of the skyfield, and finishing with a brilliant blue flare like a tiny incadescent bulb popping. I said that one must’ve been heading right for us, and the Spousal Unit said, If it keeps getting larger — duck.
Fifteen minutes’ freeway driving each way, to the weigh station just past the Georgetown exits. Not the most romantic venue, but it’s dark enough and extremely convenient to access. This time we didn’t even have to share the lot with any idling semis.
ETA: The Spousal Unit is the proper stargazer (he grew up in the MI boonies, I grew up in the Bronx). I asked him what that pretty bunch of twinkling stars in the center of our viewing area was, and he said those were the Perseids.
Despite the Boston tv weatherpersons’ promises, at 2am the sky over our house was star-free (even apart from the light pollution). The closer we got to the coast, the more the haze blew away — we could’ve driven another twenty minutes to the beach, but S.U. has to go to work this morning. (And I have to go to bed, now.)
Judge Crater
These Twitter threads as postings are tiresome. They’re hard to follow and, ultimately, who cares about what is being tweeted. It’s a retarded medium that dumbs down any kind of communication.
Schlemazel
@Another Holocene Human:
I must have missed that. WHo would say something that obviously wrong? I know a lot of people were upset that BLM went after an allie in a clumsy, counter-productive way but I never saw anyone here claim it was the action of the HRC campaign.
OzarkHillbilly
@Randy P: Gotta watch the sun cycles to see them. Finland…. dayum. I’m jealous.
Baud
@Schlemazel:
And on the internet of all places?!
Anne Laurie
@Baud: I’ve seen the Milky Way — mostly on various night drives through Canada on the road between Michigan and the East Coast.
After growing up where the stars were mostly a thing you saw in planetariums (I can identify Orion’s belt, but that’s it), seeing it for the first time when I was in college gave me a new insight into where those myths came from…
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: It turns a TV or monitor into a computer by just plugging it into the HDMI socket.
AxelFoley
@BillinGlendaleCA:
When you were there did you see Russia?
Baud
@Anne Laurie:
Right. When I was in grade school, I completely could not get the big deal about the stars and why people were fascinated by them in olden times.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Why is that better than other ways of using your TV as a monitor? Don’t TVs nowadays have wireless connectivity?
AxelFoley
@Another Holocene Human:
Heh, I heard that same thing.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: You have an open invite.
Gimlet
Since the prosecutors almost totally control whether the grand jury returns an indictment or not, I’m not sure what this changes.
California will no longer use grand juries in cases involving police shootings of civilians after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a bill Tuesday banning the secret deliberations.
The ban, which will go into effect next year, comes after grand juries failed to indict police officers who killed unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York, last year, heightening scrutiny of the process.
Under the new rules, prosecutors must decide whether police officers should face criminal charges for killing someone in the line of duty.
Baud
@Gimlet:
Accountability. Prosecutors can’t pretend the grand jury made an independent decision.
BillinGlendaleCA
@AxelFoley: Of course, it was clearly visible from my room at the Captain Cook.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: First of all, some TV’s and most monitors don’t have wireless connectivity, some monitors don’t even have USB ports(the UHD monitor I’m using right now doesn’t). Second it’s a full Windows(there’s also a Linux version) computer with onboard storage and the normal stuff you’d find on a computer.
ETA: It is using the TV as a monitor, this is just the computer part and it’s really small.
Gimlet
@Baud:
Thinking back to Ferguson when the DoJ refused to do anything either.
Just don’t believe this was a nonprosecutable event.
kindness
Yeay! At least the BLM folk are going after their actual opposition rather than their fake Bernie opposition.
Am I wrong to think that I don’t want the 2016 presidential elections to be about more than just this issue though? Yea, that would be mighty white liberal elitist of me, I know.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Though I really think it should go to the state AG, not the county DA.
Gimlet
It was decent of Jeb! after #BLM announced their intention ahead of time to protest the event, to let them in.
Punchy
If I wanted to see a meatier shower, I’d throw some ground beef at my spouse.
Baud
@kindness:
Agree. Up till now, attacking one’s allies has been verboten in liberalism. We’re in a brave new world.
Kay
I would just like to congratulate the vast majority of America’s school boards for refusing to buy these tablets and programs, and therefore NOT getting ripped off by Joel Klein and Rupert Murdoch.
Good job!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@BillinGlendaleCA: My impression is this new Intel stick is their version of a Google Chromecast and the like. Naturally Intel has put a little more horsepower into it since they want it to run Winders (or Ubuntu) and they want to sell more processors (as the traditional PC and dedicated table markets slowly die). It is trying to be more general purpose than the Chromecast though.
I’ve got a couple of Chromecasts, but I watch so little TV and movies* that they have been sitting for months.
What do you envision doing with the Intel thingy?
Thanks.
* – We’ve got Amazon Prime and one of the “benefits” is free video downloads. I’ve never downloaded a video from them.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Kay:
Is our school boards learning?
workworkwork
“There is a community of conservatives who think Republicans should be racists,” said Jim Harper, a scholar at the Cato Institute. “I think there is probably a relatively sizable number of people out there who see the term ‘cuckservative’ as a valid criticism of conservatives.”…
“Probably”? “Relatively”? “Sizable”? Wow, way to weasel-word it there, Jim.
But that’s why you make the big bucks, I guess.
Woodrow/asim
@Judge Crater:
Some of the most interesting and thought-provoking threads I’ve read have been via Twitter. For a variety of powerful reasons, a lot of critical and important conversations — and breaking news — comes from Twitter.
One example — because of Twitter’s short message nature, and tight integration w/SMS, a lot of the news from the Green Revolution in Iran could only get out via it. Twitter is a major go-to for discussions that include a broader swath of people than many other social networks (there’s a reason Facebook is frantically building “Lite” versions for markets where smartphone pickup is limited; Twitter wins in those markets because it’s so lightweight…)
Now — for me, I don’t work well communicating via Twitter. Twitter is poetry, and I work better in prose (or, more likely, I’m just long-winded!)
Yet I try to respect the medium for what it provides for everyone, not just what works for me. And it’s clear that, for a lot of people, Twitter is the go-to for a wide variety of conversations — which means that Sturgeon’s Law applies there, just like everywhere else.
oldster
“Bush, responding to a woman’s query about the disproportionate number of minorities killed by police and their treatment in the criminal justice system, said there was no question that racism still existed in the United States….”
Properly publicized, that boringly obvious admission will do a great deal of damage to Bush’s chances with a very large segment of the Republican base.
Since I think it is still very likely that he’ll be HRC’s eventual opponent, I am happy to think this may cause some of the mouth-breathers to stay home and not vote at all.
Patricia Kayden
“There is a community of conservatives who think Republicans should be racists,” said Jim Harper, a scholar at the Cato Institute.
And there are people who already know that Republicans are racists. Ain’t no “should be” in the mix.
BillinGlendaleCA
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: The primary use will be a digital photo frame, but I decided that having a general purpose PC in the bedroom would be useful. This seems like a good solution and is pretty unobtrusive. I also had a monitor that I need to use or dispose of.
Woodrow/asim
@AxelFoley: Funny how those folks aren’t on here commenting on how wrong they were about #BlackLivesMatter.
Really. Funny.
Another Holocene Human
@Matt McIrvin:
Yup, I mean you’ve got the Radio Rwanda wannabes like Mark Levine (sp?), Savage (Weiner), Sean Hannity, and Limbaugh: hate fear hate fear. Then you have Il Duce show up in the person of Donald Trump (“worship the corporation. worship the rich. hate the other. hate. hate.”)
These people are scary. Jeez, remember the Bush II admin? And frankly, these people are A LOT worse. They’ve embraced the hatred flowing within them.
Woodrow/asim
@BillinGlendaleCA: I love the idea of the Compute Stick. I’ve read some iffy reviews, and already have a media PC + Roku, so it’s something I’m gazing at, rather than hot on.
But yes, for older TVs (like the one I have), or for someone who wants to build their own solution, I think the Compute Stick, and some of the other, similar solutions out there, are great ideas. Good luck!
Another Holocene Human
@Schlemazel: Perhaps I misspoke. It was posed as “just ask questions” — “Funny how they never interrupt Hilary.” “If they were serious they would interrupt Hilary, but they didn’t, guess they’re not serious.” “So convenient for Hilary they went after her main rival.” “WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM ATTACKING BERNIE THE ONLY TRUE PROGRESSIVE ARE YOU SERIOUS YOU WANT HILARY TO WIN?!”
Forgive me for making an inference.
Oh, and on twitter and elsewhere on the ‘nets the charge was made explicit. Derpier places than this fine blog. Silly places. You wouldn’t want to go there.
Gimlet
@Woodrow/asim:
It’s too bad the cameras didn’t record the look on Jebs! face when activists grabbed the microphone from him and took over the event.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: Me too!
Another Holocene Human
@Gimlet: Go Jerry, it’s your birthday, go Jerry!
Iowa Old Lady
@Woodrow/asim: I don’t find twitter as good for keeping-in-touch stuff as Facebook is, but it’s terrific for breaking news. I was just over there looking at pictures of the Tianjin explosion.
Anyone can look. You don’t need an account. Just go to twitter and type the term in the search box.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: On a clear night in the Middle Keys, the Milky Way is spectacular. I didn’t bother with last night’s meteor shower — too cloudy here. I did see a really good one about 15 years ago that has left me wanting to see another. Definitely bucket list-worthy.
Woodrow/asim
@Another Holocene Human:
Trump scares me.
Not in a direct sense. But in what he enables. In what he’s unleashing in the American political system.
I just can’t laugh. I can’t be happy he’s out there doing the “wrecking ball” on the GOP. Because someone smarter, someone more sincere, someone more dangerous might just pick up what he puts down.
And then we will be fighting with someone who presents a flat-out horror show, and isn’t a joke candidate. It’s why we should be decrying Trump, instead of laughing. It’s why we need to remind people that his ideas aren’t just racist/sexist/the list goes on– they are absolutely toxic to everything America stands for, and wrapped up in mythology about America that so many believe uncritically.
This man is dangerous. And I submit we need to treat him as a danger, and take that danger a lot more seriously as Progressives/Liberals.
Emma
@Another Holocene Human: No, you actually didn’t. At least one person kept insisting that their attempt to disrupt a Hillary meeting where they were locked out by the Secret Service and subsequently had a meeting with Hillary’s staff was obviously choreographed.
Another Holocene Human
@kindness: I cannot believe that you, kindness, have never lobbied on an issue. You are a big fat liberal and there has to be some issue where you felt strongly enough that you took a day off work, loaded up the Subaru with literature, and drove to your state capital.
And when you were there you went straight for your local delegation, some of whom had to be your (shakes head) gerrymander district Dems, you had a chat, got your photo op, then moved on to that exurban Republican skunk you tried to keep from getting into office (you did calls with your friends at MoveOn for his young, energetic, underfunded opposition).
And then when that had taken most of the day, you looked up those names your local Rep said were on committees for your single issue and who actually controlled what went on the floor, so you lobbied them, whatever party they were, whatever city they hailed from, and you did your bestest even though you had nothing in common with them to change their position on the issue.
The point is that issue activists lobby “FRIENDS” and “FOES”. They goal is to get pols to articulate their actual stance and to urge them to modify their stance. It’s like Pokemon. Gotta catch ’em all. (Ash “Ketchum”, get it? Just realized this last week. I am slow.)
Kay
@Baud:
There is a big push and they’re all terrified because they’re told over and over “none of your children will HAVE JOBS OF THE FUTURE unless you buy our devices and programs”
We bought Chromebooks for 7-12 because they’re multi-use and have a lid. They’re a good value. The testing they will do on them is difficult- involves a lot of writing. The least we can do is give them a real tool with an actual keyboard instead of pretending it’s play. It’s not play. It’s hard work.
Also, it’s not a scientific sample but my son and his friends believe tablets are for “babies and old people”. That’s a direct quote. That might be the kiss of death for that product among them- a babies and old people reputation.
Gimlet
@Woodrow/asim:
we will be fighting with someone who presents a flat-out horror show, and isn’t a joke canidate. It’s why we should be decrying Trump, instead of laughing. It’s why we need to remind people that his ideas aren’t just racist/sexist/the list goes on– they are absolutely toxic to everything America stands for, and wrapped up in mythology about America that so many believe un-critically.
He reminds me of Muhammad Ali publicizing his bouts with only about a third of the necessary talent to back up his mouth.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Woodrow/asim: Basically the compute stick has the horsepower of a tablet, it’s not going to compete with a regular desktop.
Another Holocene Human
It’s almost as if #BLM is an idea, and people of conscience in various regions around the country like the idea, sign onto it, organize their friends and allies to make their own, independent but affiliated group, and each independent group plans their own actions, with some training, direction, and inspiration from the national group as well as from watching what other #BLM groups are doing.
Another Holocene Human
@Woodrow/asim:
Ted Cruz called. He said his ears are burning.
Baud
@Kay:
From what I read, tablets haven’t caught fire. I have a windows PC tablet which I like, but it has a detachable keyboard and is a real computer. I almost never use it in tablet mode because there is no good input mechanism without a keyboard.
dedc79
In a Boston Olympics thread a while back, there was a discussion in the comments about whether we had finally seen the end of publicly financed stadiums and arenas. The answer is a resounding no.
Thanks, Scott Walker.
Betty Cracker
Did the BLM folks who attempted to disrupt HRC’s event ever release a video of their conversation with her? If so, I can’t find it.
NonyNony
@Kay:
I’m not surprised, given that the smaller kids around here are the ones who mostly have tablets (because tablets seem to be remarkably easy to lock down internet access on compared to most computers).
But I have college students who lurve their Windows Surface tablets to death and you would have to pry them from their cold dead hands to get them away from them. (Of course, Surface tablets generally have keyboards.)
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: One of the things I like about the Surface 3 and Surface 3 Pro is a stylus can be used with them. No I don’t have one, but I can dream(I do have a note3 that has a stylus).
Another Holocene Human
@Woodrow/asim: There are some really, really racist commenters who showed up in the last two weeks who I don’t see on this thread and frankly, I’m glad.
Y’all know who I mean, not valued commenters who were maybe a little unreasonable on the NN16 issue but, you know, troll level one-sentence-comment exceedingly racist bilge. I have a mental list …/ of posters who will never be missed. (Never be missed.)
Another Holocene Human
@dedc79: Hey, stealing food out of babies’ mouths and books out of children of color’s hands to build a sportsball stadium for a private entity (maybe a university, if you’re Rahmbo, or to steal a privately own football team if you’re the governor of Maryland) is an old and cherished American political tradition!
I only hope that thing, when finished, is uglier than the UFO that landed on Soldier’s Field!
OzarkHillbilly
@Punchy: oof.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud:
BOOM.
What do you do with a tablet? Time wasters. And you can read books, but there are cheaper, more energy efficient items for that.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I have never used a real active stylus. Want to try it one day.
Another Holocene Human
Oh, I have seen tablets in use as input devices for Square at local businesses. It’s a little easier to choose your options and sign your name than on an iPhone, which is also an acceptable input device for Square. (I see phones with Square at festivals, farmer’s markets, you know, booths.)
Kay
@Baud:
They do a funny thing with their index finger to make the point- it’s really perfect because it’s exactly how little kids poke at tablets. You can imagine the chubby toddler-finger. I got it immediately :)
12 year olds are the only people who say “babies” in a way that drips with contempt. “Babies” is a nice word to most people! It’s a lot like how Chris Christie says the word “teachers”, actually.
Baud
@Another Holocene Human:
Mostly use it as a computer. Work and Juicing. I will occasionally watch a video on it, which is when tablet mode is most useful. But that’s rare.
debbie
The only outlet for their fear and anger. After the Supreme Court upheld SSM, Glenn Beck actually stated that tolerance and diversity had destroyed the Constitution.
Kay
@debbie:
It’s an awful-sounding word. I hope they use it a lot.
dedc79
@Another Holocene Human: i drove by the renovated soldier’s field a few years back. Wow.
Gimlet
Beyond what appears on standard news outlets, the feedback I’m getting from Republican friends tuned in to local meetings is the Romney theme that if the Democrats prevail, the moochers will be getting still more that they don’t deserve… and where is the money to come from for that?
Baud
@Kay:
Agree. Who thought that was a good idea?
Another Holocene Human
@oldster:
Sometimes JEB! says what he actually thinks, to his detriment.
Still, it will take more than acknowledging a basic reality to overcome his own history in Florida with Stand Your Ground, privatizing and over-testing public education, and so on.
Btw, to give some context, graduation rates and test scores are on an upward trend for many years, a secular trend. There is completely, absolutely no evidence that what Jebbers did to fuck up Florida’s once surprisingly progressive education system* has anything the fuck to do with increasing scores. (Kevin Drum’s leaded gasoline theory is far more plausible IMO.)
*-for the Southeast, lol, okay? and it’s a sad story, people got together to fix it and then JEB smashed it up. ironically Crist was a friend of schools and teachers but the deadenders put Lizard Scott back in there again
Also, hasn’t been mentioned, JE Bush was a major enemy of organized labor. Most union members in Florida, I think I can say without fear of contradiction, work for the public sector, and have disproportionately Black membership. (It’s a Right to Work state.) JEB stacked up the Public Employees Relations Committee, which is like Dept of Labor for union disputes on the state level–public workers, not private workers–with anti-labor people. They’ve been busy redefining what an Unfair Labor Practice is and so on. (Rick Scott has been raging against the courts because unions moved their disputes to the Florida state court system and have been winning because the courts were reformed in the 70s and the reforms haven’t been rolled back yet like they were in the Lege.)
Okay, I know this sounds obscure and all. But JEB, through his executive appointments to the Labor board and the Worker’s Comp board and so on has directly screwed over hundreds of thousands of workers of color who are union members in the public sector in Florida. We’re talking job losses, many of them illegal direct or structural firings, uncompensated injuries, undercompensated injuries, as well as the consequences of this, unsafe working conditions leading to permanent and unnecessary disability. Families devastated by loss of income.
By going after organized labor he has done more to hurt communities of color than anything else he’s done. (The criminal justice system was porky pig territory long before he rolled into town.)
And his supporters KNOW THIS. They’ll be the first to tell you that unions suck because they don’t let the boss reward the “best workers”, but instead work under seniority rules. Because under seniority a Black dude might have seniority over you, pick a nice piece of work over you, make more than you. And that’s just not raight.
Yoda Dog
@Judge Crater: I 100% agree but the tweeter seems to be a juggernaut. I feel like you and I are the last two luddites on the train. I just cant accept it though. It’s such a cacophony.
OzarkHillbilly
@Woodrow/asim: For my ownself, I’ll continue to point and laugh at them for the jokes that they are. They haven’t done anything yet that deserving of serious thought.
satby
@Baud: I saw my first meteor when I moved here to Michigassippi 7 years ago. Missed the one time the Auroras were visible (barely). So the Northern Lights are still on the list.
If you’re ever in this neck of the nation during a meteor shower you’re cordially invited to come watch here.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: Do you have a little stand to watch the video? My laptop (bought it when a lightning strike got the old Mac Mini, long story) does videos nicely in full screen mode and the keyboard is the stand. I’d hate to have to hold it during the entire video.
Tablets look fun on a train but otherwise … (or useful for commercial applications as I’ve said … some people use them to sign people up to vote online).
Another Holocene Human
@Yoda Dog: Twitter is not making money so … we’ll see.
Kay
@NonyNony:
I think schools should take their time and not get rushed or bullied into purchases because often adults don’t know how they use various tools. We have about 50% low income, a lot of them don’t have internet access at home, so the assumption was they don’t have internet access. I see a lot of low income teenagers and they ALL have data plans. It is literally the first priority for them. It still limits them but they’re all online. They do sending and such from their phone and longer work at school- drafting and research. They worked around it without us. They’re well past where we are.
debbie
@Baud:
An idiot who thought s/he was being clever. People who feel they’ve been cuckolded by their country.
Marc
Well, BLM got criticized for stupid tactics, and they changed them. We kept on hearing about how their protests “got people to respond” and all that jazz. So, maybe, the same principle applies here.
(And, given the sheer number of conspiracy theories peddled under that banner, complaining about counter-conspiracy theories is pretty amusing.)
I’m still concerned that the tactics used by the group are going to backfire, and not in a small way. Because this isn’t the first radical protest movement I’ve ever seen, and all of them seem to end up with that fate – hurting the cause that they’re based around.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud:
Wait, what?
Should I recalibrate my snark-o-meter?
PurpleGirl
@Kay: The NY1 story on this is that they are trying to sell the unit. Either way, I agree that it’s a win for education. Joel Klein may have been chancellor but he was there as the ultimate administrator his background being the law.
Baud
@satby:
Thank you.
@Another Holocene Human:
No separate stand. It’s the keyboard or the lap.
Baud
@Another Holocene Human:
Or buy a new one. I think there are some that plug into your TV now.
Kay
@PurpleGirl:
I’m ashamed of how many lawyers think they can run education. I can assure you the howls from lawyers could be heard at the moon if teachers were running the legal system. No fucking way. Wouldn’t happen.
I now believe teachers should “reform” the legal system. Why not? After that physicians can run quality control in manufacturing. Let’s “disrupt” some other professions.
Another Holocene Human
@Marc: Which ones?
Did Guerilla Girls hurt feminism? More than Patricia Ireland?
Did Michelangelo Signorile hurt gay liberation? More than Barney Frank helping to kill ENDA because trans people are icky?
Are you talking about actually violent groups? ELF, ALF, Weathermen? Because #BLM is not a leftist cell dedicated to the struggle through violent and non-violent means.
Are you talking about functional cults like the LaRouchies or MOVE Philadelphia?
I do recall the days when corporate gays at HRC and elsewhere would accuse us icky queer people of hurting the cause just by existing … but they were wrong. I did hundreds of in-person contacts, which is exactly what won this thing, and I think people related to the fact that I was different, and yet just the same as them.
I know some feminists accused NARAL of hurting the cause, but look at where we are now. I think the upper middle class feminist hive mind thing hurt and discredited feminism with Xers like myself more than anything. (I’ve changed my mind, natch. Long ago realized that feminism was bigger than whoever was in charge of NOW and whatever pseudo-scientific garbage they were press releasing this month.)
SLC distrusted SNCC and the Freedom Riders, and let’s face it, the Freedom Riders WERE crazy. They also ushered in truly radical change and galvanized a generation. In retrospect, they were the change that SLC had made possible. But at the time there was no little rancor between them.
I can’t think of a radical group that hurt the cause except for violent groups. Same goes for the RW, abortion clinic bombings hurt the cause and ended up scaling back the anti-abortion movement for a decade. (Sadly, they’re back.)
satby
@Baud: Or we could both take Ozark up on his invite and pick Watergirl up on the way. Party ;)
dedc79
@Kay: The New Yorker had an interesting profile of Greece’s Finance Minister in the last issue. He expressed frustration at the difficulty of discussing and negotiating over economic policy with what turned out to be mostly a room of German/EU/Bank lawyers.
Baud
@satby:
Do. Not. Tempt. Me.
Another Holocene Human
@Kay: It’s almost like there’s an agenda. I got out of high school right before Bill Gates started buying PCs with MicroShit software on them–what a humanitarian!–for schools and libraries. The library PCs were crap and in my mind a downgrade from the IBM terminals that had been ubiquitous. (This was when Windows versions had two digit year names and were unstable and sucked and IE sucked even more! And the nanny software on the PCs was often unstable as well.) Having grown up on Apple machines, far superior, I was pretty skeptical of the whole thing. It was “charity” aimed at growing the monopoly.
(The IBM terminals did have internet–text only–as well as other database services on them that at the time weren’t available on the internet (and some still aren’t, they’re subscription services). I learned how to use it, and so did my wife thousands of miles away, and I suspect many many other kids in our age range.)
Another Holocene Human
Heh.
Bullet Points From Jeb Bush’s Speech to Black People
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I can build a nice fire, set up the 6″ telescope, put up a hot tub, roast a whole pig, and get some white lightning. You guys can bring the dancing girls and boys.
Another Holocene Human
Decided to visit RawStory for a measured and reasonable response. Well, in between the endless Bernie bumper stickers on there, several posters (including some longtimers) absolutely tore apart this statement by Jeb!:
They are absolutely taking it apart and breaking it down piece by piece.
Another Holocene Human
This snark was too perfect not to share:
BobS
@Another Holocene Human: Up to this point (3 weeks after their Netroots Nation tantrum) they have been.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Another Holocene Human
@BobS: Aaaaand we have a live one.
Do tell me about how fierce white progressives saved youth of color from themselves, because Black people in America don’t know how to movement.
rikyrah
How come nobody goes to WHITE lawmakers, when some group like CODEPINK protests.
UH HUH\
……………
The Hill ✔ @thehill
Black lawmakers defend hijacking of Sanders rally by #BlackLivesMatter activists: http://hill.cm/Hbbx0PN pic.twitter.com/2OxnAVIIPW
rikyrah
@Kay:
tell it, Kay.
Kay
@dedc79:
We have a juvenile magistrate here who I see infrequently but I like him and I’ve always thought he was thoughtful. etc. I was in there about a year ago and he tells me really proudly how he wants to start a charter school for drug-addicted teenagers. He and the judge are planning on running this school in their spare time or something. He doesn’t know that this is a sore point for me, so I don’t jump all over him but I ask him a series of questions and he has given this no thought at all. I say things like “wow that sounds like a really difficult job- do you have a background or some experience?”
It just amazes me. The thing is, those two don’t even run that court very well. It’s slow and disorganized and people wait forever. They’re going to open and run a school for what are extremely vulnerable people just going in cold? They think this is easy and I think that’s because of the relative prestige or perceived prestige of the respective professions. I would never, ever think that job would be easy. I would assume it’s hard as nails.
rikyrah
Christie no longer sure about birthright citizenship
08/12/15 04:08 PM
By Steve Benen
Republican primaries can do funny things to politicians. It wasn’t too long ago that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), for example, supported comprehensive immigration and boasted about his support from Garden State’s Latino community.
Now that the Republican governor is running for president, he opposes the bipartisan reform package – “This path to citizenship stuff is garbage,” Christie said last week – and has no qualms about pandering to the anti-immigration elements in the Republican base.
Just how far is the New Jersey Republican prepared to go down this path? ThinkProgress flagged an interesting Christie quote from this morning.
In a radio appearance on Wednesday, conservative host Laura Ingraham asked Christie for his opinion on birthright citizenship, a topic he does not seem to have specifically addressed before. In response, Christie said he believed the policy may be outdated.
“I think all this stuff needs to be reexamined in light of the current circumstances,” he said. “[Birthright citizenship] may have made sense at some point in our history, but right now, we need to re-look at all that.”
I can’t vouch for the exact wording – I didn’t hear the interview myself – but if Christie seriously believes birthright citizenship is ripe for a “reexamination,” he’s adopting a needlessly radical position, especially for someone who tried to be mainstream on the issue up until fairly recently.
As regular readers may recall, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution doesn’t leave much in the way of wiggle room: the rights of American citizenship are given to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” The principle of birthright citizenship has been upheld by the Supreme Court many times since its enactment following the Civil War.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/christie-no-longer-sure-about-birthright-citizenship
gogol's wife
@Judge Crater:
Maybe it’s fine if you’re into it, but seeing these disjointed tweets all in a row on a blog is really annoying.
Another Holocene Human
@Kay: Ugh. At least when a prominent educator in my town opened a charter, she was an educator. The school’s doing okay, too.
Many of the charters open and fold up in quick succession. One principal charged hundreds of thousands on the charter’s CC of her personal expenses.
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: popular position with far-righties
BobS
@Another Holocene Human: BLM has spent several weeks doing a pretty shitty job of proving they do “know how to movement’. I’m glad they seem to have heard their critics and recognized the need to focus their aim more accurately.
You’re welcome, BLM.
shell
Okay, I may be obtuse, but what were they talking about?
Chris
@rikyrah:
“Birthright citizenship may have made sense at some point in our history, but then we started hating on immigrants and then they all started voting Democrat and that’s not okay!”
Steeplejack
@shell:
An immigration issue. Tweet quoted in the previous thread:
Chris
@Kay:
You’re reminding me of an offhand remark Newt Gingrich made four years ago or so when he said that we should just fire school janitors and let the kids do their job as some sort of character building exercise. (A janitor posted a pretty awesome comment on the news article I was reading it in, outlining just how many forms of machinery the kids would be expected to operate, how late the hours would run, how many things that are considered too dangerous for children they would have to do, etc).
“Pshh. I could do that” is increasingly what we’re encouraged to think about every working class job in America. (See also, fast food workers).
Matt McIrvin
@Woodrow/asim: I think it’s basically all about race, and US demographics. White people in the US correctly perceive that they are gradually losing power as the unquestioned kings of America. The election and re-election of an actual literal black President just drove the point home.
And there’s a subset of white Americans, larger than we like to think, who are really, really boiling mad about that. For a while, they mostly talked about it with euphemisms, or coded it as economics-speak about moochers and broke nations: the cycle that Lee Atwater famously described. But the euphemistic economics talk is actually getting less potent these days; Democrats recognize it for what it is a bit more than they used to, and you can’t get bipartisan support with it any more. Meanwhile, the far right is getting tired of it. They want to express their naked racism out in the open.
They’re not going to give up power without a fight. In some cases, a bloody fight.
I don’t actually think they have the majority of United States opinion any more. But they’ve also been good at rigging the political system to give superior leverage to the power they do have. And it’s conceivable that they still have enough that a sufficient victory could allow them to nail things down, and establish something like the white minority rule in apartheid South Africa. It’d take a lot of killing, of course.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
I wonder if it’s an occupational hazard for (some) lawyers. Because they know the law and work with the law, which in a sense is the “plumbing” of civil society, they get the idea that they could therefore manage or run the things the plumbing is in—e.g., schools, corporations, etc.—without regard to “subject-matter expertise.”
Just a thought. Would love to hear the lawyers weigh in. My only experience was knowing a lawyer years ago who did complicated wills, family trusts, etc., and thought he was a genius investor. (He wasn’t.) I don’t know exactly what the link was, but he seemed to think all of that was connected somehow.
redshirt
Dead thread probably, but I spent 3 hours outside last night for the meteor shower and saw approximately 200 or so. All types and sizes. Pretty cool. That said, I took about 2 hours of photographs and while I got some good shots of the Milky Way, I only got one freaking meteor in a picture. Unbelievable.
I saw one shooting star unlike anything I’ve seen before – it was dark. Brownish color, no fire. Might have been an optical illusion as it might have been the background milky way that caused the effect. Maybe.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Good News, Kay. They were nothing but crooks.
Peale
@Kay: Actually, I think if we could get the legal system like my civics teacher taught me, it would be a vast improvement. I support teacher disruption.
rikyrah
@Woodrow/asim:
You cannot unwrap Trump from the GOP. Now, plenty of us are very clear about Trump. Trump is not appealing to a SLIVER of the GOP. He is very much in the mainstream of the GOP. It’s the entire GOP. I’m willing to agree with all you say, but it’s not just Trump. It’s the entire party and who they are. I’m totally willing to say that, and have been saying it.
Donald Trump is not the only ‘dangerous’ one.
It’s the ENTIRE GOP.
shell
Sweet Jesus. I have given up on ll the cable news networks for awhile. This morning CNN gave a grudging few minutes on Jimmy Carters cancer diagnosis, then it was back to “TRUMP, TRUMP, ALL-TRUMP ALL THE TIME!”
I guess Trump is now their new Malaysian airlines story.
Steeplejack
@dedc79:
Quote from that Times article:
So let me get this straight: if I invest $250 in something and get back (or save) $6.50 a year, this is a good deal? Because I break even in 38 years? That doesn’t sound like a good ROI.
Elsewhere Walker is quoted (indirectly) as saying that the deal is “a sound investment that will return $3 in state taxes for every $1 invested.” That may be true—although everything I have read on the subject of public financing of pro sports facilities says not—but using the Bucks’ employees’ income taxes as a major selling point seems farcical.
And, of course, there is the bad P.R. angle that the $250 million the state is chipping into this deal is exactly the same amount that was cut from the University of Wisconsin’s funding.
BobS
@rikyrah: ???…I thought white progressives were the ‘dangerous ones’?
Steve From Antioch
Excellent news.
Good to see there is a non Sarah Palin wing of BLM!
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: I get the sense that a lot of the people here who are upset about these incidents are bothered that BLM (or various people claiming affiliation with BLM; it’s not exactly a monolith) weren’t being fair to Bernie Sanders, when he’s obviously far from the worst guy around on this and doesn’t deserve special criticism.
What they don’t get is that it’s not about being fair to the candidates, or about what anybody deserves. You don’t and shouldn’t expect fair treatment from activists if you’re running for President of the US.
These activists put pressure on Sanders’ campaign and actually got results. They probably wouldn’t have gotten results like that if they’d focused on anyone else in the race. I see it, to some extent, as a point in Bernie Sanders’ favor that that was the case.
BobS
@Matt McIrvin: Questioning Sanders is fine — he leaves plenty to be desired, especially with regard to his track record on foreign policy, e.g. Israel/Palestine, war in the Balkans, etc. as well as some domestic policy blunders like support for Clinton’s crime bill and No Child Left Behind. I think their tactics were ass-backward — leading off by antagonizing a lot of people who for the most part were already supportive of their goals and then subsequently (at least judging by their defenders here) insisting that the goals of BLM are the single most important ‘progressive’ issue of the day and that anyone disagreeing are deluded “emo progs” or “racist” is just fucking ignorant and a pretty weak foundation to build a movement on.
Kropadope
The person who posted the tweets about this last night also indicated that Jeb had met with them prior to their demonstrating at his event. Didn’t even want to give him some time to work through how to approach it, huh?
ETA: They may well have undone any good they accomplished by scoring the meeting to begin with.
kc
Thread’s probably dead, but I trust TNR didn’t tip Jeb off.
I wonder if we’ll start seeing some concrete policy proposals from the major candidates, not just lip service. Including the Republicans.
Of course Republicans might be too happy to say, “Yes, let’s privatize the police …”
BobS
@Kropadope: If the part about them meeting with Bush is in fact true, that appears to be a courtesy they didn’t extend to Sanders.
kc
@OzarkHillbilly:
I went out and looked for a while, at around 2:30. Saw two meteors, very close together, and then nada for 15 minutes. I decided to go back to bed, lest I wind up sleeping all day.
kc
@Betty Cracker:
No, my understanding is that they asked the HRC campaign to exclude the media and not to record the meeting.
kc
Kropadope
@kc:
Or discusses anything with relation to foreign policy (given that their only FP is threats and bombing).
Betty Cracker
@kc: They claim Hillary excluded the media and that they recorded the meeting themselves. They promised to release a video yesterday (a day later — needed editing maybe?) and then didn’t. Last I saw at least a couple of people were bugging them on Twitter and/or Facebook about that, but as far as I know, they haven’t released it. I’m really interested in seeing how HRC handled it. The lack of release makes me wonder why it’s being held back.
kc
@Betty Cracker:
Okay, thanks. I had read on some reporter’s Twitter feed the day of the event that the activists didn’t want to be recorded. I guess they just didn’t want anyone else doing the recording.
I too wonder why they haven’t released it. Not that I expect to show anything other than Hillary displaying her finely honed political skills. :)
Tree With Water
“Fox News chairman Roger Ailes on Monday reportedly told real estate tycoon Donald Trump to make nice with the powerful network or else “go to war.”
Someone not named Trump (and whose last name begins with ‘A’) must be feeling some heat to float such a story, one so at odds with The Donald’s version of that conversation.
rikyrah
@Another Holocene Human:
Thanks for this info
rikyrah
@Matt McIrvin:
it was the re-election of Barack Obama that snapped it completely for them.
never forget:
60% of White People voted FOR Willard Romney.
60%.
And, it didn’t remotely phucking matter.
Barack Obama beat his azz like he stole something – in both the Electoral College AND Popular Vote.
They were stunned.
THOSE PEOPLE told White folks that this Black man was THEIR PRESIDENT.
Applejinx
@Matt McIrvin: Absolutely. I think it says good things about Bernie that he was disruptable, and that he’s learned and incorporated the messages in a way he can sell to the rest of America.
I think it is OBSCENE that ‘randomly murdering black people at will’ is a ‘progressive’ issue, and this is why I’ve come to side with the initial #BLM tactics. I’m sure I’d be more butthurt if Bernie didn’t respond admirably (and no, it’s politically impossible for him to apologize to #BLM, his response was the best you could possibly hope for)
I think if Hillary’s people didn’t help this happen, they’re idiots. And they’re not idiots. But remember there are many people out there. There is not just a couple black people, upset. That’s sort of the point. And Hillary’s camp is more than capable of finding people to throw a little chaff Bernie’s way, in hopes of harshing his buzz. Now more than ever (and they will have seen this coming for some time).
There’s very little to be gained from #BLMing the Republicans. Don’t get yourselves killed, guys, okay? Original targeting did its job. Now we go from there.
Goal is to stamp out institutional racism, structural racism, and present the reality to the cultural racism, just like the gay marriage thing did. It’s time to say ‘This is done. Shame on you for tolerating it this long! It stops here.’
As you can see electing a black president didn’t magically do that so you’re just going to have to put up with white people on your side, as they should be. White people whitesplaining to other white people to wake them up out of their sedation and delusion, because it’s that obvious, and it’s waaaaay past time.
None of my black friends got murdered by police this year.
Yet.
Here’s hoping Bernie is allowed to bear the standard his way, and you can bear it your way, and we’ll all do our part. I figure Bernie must know how to talk to white people after being re-elected in white-ass Vermont so many times.
sukabi
@Kay: I think they just don’t want to use the word that libs have using to describe them… kochsuckers