Well, this should put that pesky “is Trump too openly racist to be president” question to bed:
Don King, and so many other African Americans who know me well and endorsed me, would not have done so if they thought I was a racist!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2016
Turns out boxing promoter Don King didn’t endorse Trump after all — he declined to endorse anyone. But he did say Trump is an “idol of America.” (Come to think of it, Trump does kinda resemble a golden calf — a golden-orangey steer, anyway.)
So there you have it, libtards — proof that Trump is, as he’s been telling you, “the least racist person.” Anywhere. Ever.
A Trump rally is scheduled to take place in Tampa shortly. Via the Tampa Bay Times’ coverage of the event, here’s a photo of the world’s worst super hero — Mexico Wallman:
Sharp as a brick too, I bet. Open thread.
debbie
Mr. Trump, that’s because you weren’t saying then what you are saying now.
tybee
about as sharp as a sack of wet mice
gene108
I’ve been watching The Weather Channel a lot over the lost few months. One thing I’ve learned is all the brutally cold winter weather we get comes from Canada. Cold air is Canada’s #1 export to the USA.
I therefore want to build a mountain range sized wall on our northern border to block all the cold air Canada sends our way.
America will never be cold again!!!
Jerzy Russian
Our new wall will be yuuuuger and classier than that wall the Chinese have. It will also be a bigger bargain too, since we are not even going to pay for it.
scav
Some folk really con’t distinguish whats flickering on the telly box and the stuff not actually controlled by their personal remote clicker. Let’s Make a Artful
Deal contestant wandering free-range again so cute in their footed jammies — wonder how he’s though to explicitly protect his back door as a political master-coup.
gene108
Donald Trump really impresses me. He blustered his way to a Presidential nomination of a major Party.
What troubles me are the voters, who rather vote for bluster than a candidates ability to actually govern.
I know people, who do no vote because they feel government is corrupt, does not help them and/or helps the wrong people – whether the rich with corporate welfare and tax breaks or lazy people, who do not work hard enough and mooch off of welfare.
But I have the feeling Trump voters are even more nihilistic. They are not too discouraged to just not bother, they are actively engaged to burn the whole thing down for shits and giggles, because their philosophy seems to be to rule or let the country go to ruin.
Ken
Is the “Wallman” guy supporting or mocking Trump? I could see him claiming the shirt was in support just to get in the rally, but secretly planning to make Trump and supporters look like idiots.
SiubhanDuinne
@gene108:
Otherwise known as the primary season.
(Edited.)
Baud
Your wise men don’t know how it feels
To be thick as a brick.
Elizabelle
Mexico Wallman. Oh gawd. That would be a great meme: take that body and costume and photoshop in whoever is supporting Trump or telling us they’ll be able to control him.
Paul Ryan: your face belongs there. John McCain: come on down. Mitch McConnell is already suited up.
schrodinger's cat
What is Trump going to do about the Canadian border and the air and sea ports? Close them down too. This entire wall thing is so asinine. Republican party is Caligula and Trump is the horse.
gene108
@SiubhanDuinne:
Good catch on the typo. The typo actually lends some deeper meaning (I hope)…
But, yeah, I’m not kidding about the Canadian wall. If it weren’t illegal for me to be President, I’d definitely incorporate it into my platform.
quakerinabasement
“Is the “Wallman” guy supporting or mocking Trump?”
Parody died a painful death.
Elizabelle
@Ken:
If so, that is snark with courage.
Betty Cracker
@Ken: Looks like he’s for real and that Trump supporters don’t need any help looking like idiots. But it would be kinda cool if he did a reverse Superman and tore off the Wallman suit to reveal anti-Trump slogans painted on his nekkid body. If that happens, bet it’ll make national news!
Mike in NC
After Drumpf sees the latest headlines in USA Today, the Washington Post, and NY Times, he’s going to be shitting bricks. Possibly enough of them to build a small wall.
MomSense
@Ken:
I think it’s cosplay for idiots.
aimai
@gene108: I listened to an interview with a pro-life twenty year old, holding her 2 year old “oops” pregnancy baby in her arms. As a teen mother (she said) lots of people had encouraged her to get an abortion but as a good christian she had refused. Now she is planning to vote for trump, even though lots of his anti woman statements are abhorrent to her, because he is saying he is “pro life.”
Here’s the thing, there are people in this country who are so brainwashed by right wing propaganda, and by their own rigid beliefs, that they simply can’t imagine ever voting for the Democrat in the race. It doesn’t matter who that person is, or what their policy prescriptions are on 99 issues if the 100th is not “I’ve changed my mind, accepted Jesus, and am becoming a Republican” they are not going to get these moron votes. Not everyone who is going to vote for Trump likes his flaunting showmanship or his ugly statements or his obvious crass behavior. But they will vote for him anyway because a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for everything they think they hate and despise.
The republican party has a certain baked in vote, and so does the democratic party. This race will always come down to getting out the base.
ThresherK
Who is the most Trumpy impresario that Trump has claimed supports him? Don King may well be the leader in the clubhouse. And like so many things, Trump is proud of something that shouldn’t be a point of pride.
(Race, gender, creed, political affiliation aside.)
germy
@gene108: Why not a line of electric fans aimed at Canada to blow back their cold air? We could run an extension cord across the border and make them pay for the electricity.
win win
schrodinger's cat
@aimai: I knew a devout pro-life Catholic who was a Democrat because to her being pro-life was not just about abortion she was also anti-war and anti-death penalty.
MomSense
@schrodinger’s cat:
I admit I’m a bit challenged when it comes to Chinese history but I’m pretty sure their Great Wall didn’t work. Has there ever been a wall that has?
schrodinger's cat
@MomSense: Walls and fortifications started being not so effective with the invention of better artillery last 200 years or so, before that they were quite effective. I have no idea about the Great Wall.
The reason Indians and Chinese fell back compared to the Europeans in the last 500 or so years was because they turned inward and stopped questioning their own dogmas and became insular and self satisfied.
germy
ThresherK
@germy: We could setup wind turbines before the border, and use that electricity to power the fans. It’ll pay for itself!
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I really wish my father were still alive right now. He died eight and a half years ago, so he never got to see the back end of Bush, which was one of his fondest dreams. He turned 100 two weeks ago. He said something once that I stole from him and say fairly often: I don’t understand what’s wrong with Republicans. They’re for everything that’s bad, and against everything that’s good.
That was ten years ago. I don’t know what he’d have said about the latest crop of anti-Obama horseshit, but I’d love to hear it. Anyway, I’d give an awful lot to hear what he’d have to say about Donald Trump, too. I know I’d come away with a few more pithy quotes…
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@MomSense: The Maginot Line? We all remember what a big hit that was, and how it stopped the Germans cold in World War I.
Unabogie
gene108
@aimai:
I’m O.K. with people not voting for Democrats, because they self-identify as Christian and don’t want to be associated with the faggot-loving-abortionplex-building-Democrats. There’s always some level of identity association with why we vote the way we do.
What concerns me is even when Republicans demonstrate no ability or interest in actually governing, they still back the Republicans.
It’s not always so, because Democrats would not have won big in 2006 and 2008, if Republicans (or Republican leaning Independents), disgusted with their Party, did not vote for Democrats.
But it seems a Republican can do serious damage to their states, whether as governors, legislatures, or in Congress, and they still keep winning.
In an earlier thread, someone posted about Republican Ted Poe (TX), who wants more money dedicated for Zika response in his district, but keeps voting against funding. There was a time, when this sort of blatant hypocrisy would actually hurt a person’s re-election chances. But he’ll probably cruise to an easy win this year. Link
It’s like we’re in some sort of post-reality, post-factual, and post-governing political wave, where identity politics matter more to people than what a politician actually does, once elected. And meeting the goal of identity politics is more important than things like job creation, improving education, balancing a state budget, etc.
dmsilev
I assume his origin story is that he was bitten by a radioactive brick?
Haydnseek
@schrodinger’s cat: More specifically, the southern end of a northbound horse.
boatboy_srq
@germy: Meh. Reopen the coal mines and put Massey Energy back to work, more like. Because we don’t need clean air or water or nuthin’.
gene108
@germy:
I don’t know, if that would work.
What inspired me was watching one of those BBC nature specials and the topic was the Himalayas. The special pointed out that the monsoon rains would have gone north through Tibet and China, but they were blocked by the mountain range. And the cold air from the north that would make northern India colder was also blocked by the mountain range.
I think a Himalayan sized mountain range would be the most effective deterrent to Canada dumping cold air on us.
I mean, if we could appeal to the WTO it’d be great, but Canada isn’t making a profit off of it…fucking socialists…
dmsilev
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): The Maginot Line did work, after a fashion. The Germans never actually bulled their way through it, and it probably would have held up reasonably well under direct attack. Instead, they went around it.
Same thing would happen to Trump’s Wall if it ever got built.
The Thin Black Duke
@gene108: It all makes sense once you realize that bigotry is a mental disorder, therefore nuance, logic and empathy are incomprehensible abstracts to these people. And hatred fuels their bigotry. You can’t negotiate with them, all you can do is outnumber them.
gf120581
@dmsilev: Right. The problem with the Maginot Line is not that it was an ineffective defense strategy, but that they basically left the back door wide open because (a) they couldn’t build it along the border with Belgium because the Belgians would be offended and (b) the Belgians wouldn’t build their own version of it along the border with Germany. So when the Germans invaded, they completely avoided the Maginot Line and invaded through Belgium…i.e the exact same way they invaded in WWI. Can’t say the French shouldn’t have seen this coming.
hovercraft
DL Hugley on AM Joy this morning ” George Bush was such a bad president we got Barack Obama, Barack Obama was such a good president maybe we’ll get Hillary Clinton”. I like that. And he also defended her saying that he knows how hard it is to be a black man and the only thing as hard or comparable is being a woman, half the crap she’s criticized for is because she is a woman.
boatboy_srq
@aimai: What bugs me most about people like her is that she doesn’t get that she made a choice. And that’s what pro-choixe is all about. She’d rather have her father legally force her to have those children than decide for herself. And she’s too scared to let other teens like herself face the same choice just because they might choose wrong.
philadelphialawyer
@MomSense: Well, that is open to question. The Great Wall worked pretty well when it came to preventing raiding parties from entering China. But it was not really all that effective at preventing invasions by large scale armies. (Of course, it was not built to stop individual immigrants at all, to the extent that that term even applies in historical context.) Some folks say even when the wall did not stop armies, that was b/c the ruling dynasty was in decline anyway, and not really the fault of the wall. Others say building the wall itself sorta compelled the border “barbarians” to organize themselves into better and larger groups, and thus was self defeating.
Complicating things even more, it is not like there is just one “wall,” instead there are a series of varying fortifications built over different time periods and in different places.
As for walls in general, I think there is a case that, militarily, they were effective in the context of their times. Hadrian’s Wall was, like the Great Wall, certainly useful at preventing raids. Much the same with other walls the Romans built. And walls were certainly effective before the development of gunpowder artillery, and even after. There are countless examples of large armies being stymied by city and fortress walls and fortifications. Even the Maginot line was not really breached, rather it was outflanked.
gene108
@MomSense:
There were periods, when the wall helped reduce invasions from nomadic Mongolian tribes. It wasn’t 100% successful all the time, but it did help fortify the northern border.
I think Genghis Kahn managed to blow past the wall, but he walloped every fortified place he encountered.
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think more important was the European creation of the nation-state. Whenever India and China were unified it was under the rule of a strong Emperor. As the indigenous Empire declined, smaller states started reasserting their independence.
Europeans were able to play one off against the other.
Even while at a bit of a technological disadvantage, India and China had the numbers to beat back European invasions, if they could have unified and stayed unified.
hovercraft
We just held a household vote and this is not gonna cut it for these ‘blacks’.
I mean even if had endorsed Don King really. I mean I’m sure even David Duke has a black friend.
Baud
You guys are selling me on the wall.
What are your views on monorails?
@hovercraft: I’ve always liked DL.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Canada already has big fans near our border. I see them every time I drive from Michigan to Toronto. Sure, they SAY they’re for power generation but they’re POINTED RIGHT AT US!
We’re on to your weather game now Ontario.
gene108
@gf120581:
The French defensive strategy against Germany was to funnel them to a choke point in Belgium. The Maginot Line was built to funnel the Germans into this choke point. There were issues of terrain the French felt there was no way the Germans could have gotten around, if they wanted to launch a massive mechanized attack.
The French largely ignored these areas, even as reports from the front kept saying that’s where the Germans were amassing. The French command figured it was all a feint. There was no way Germany could maneuver around the terrain.
Well, the Germans did maneuver around and massed their forces effectively on the French, British and Belgian flanks. So when the Germans launched their attack they caught the French off guard.
Germany put radios in all their tanks, so they could maneuver more effectively. France only had radios in a few tanks of higher ranking officers, so they could not coordinate a counter response as effectively.
If French command had taken the reports at the front seriously and redeployed their defenses, they would more than likely not so easily been overrun.
There were a lot of things that went wrong in the Battle of France. The Maginot Line was not the biggest problem.
c u n d gulag
If Don King was a jazz musician, he’d be known as Felonious Muck!
hovercraft
‘Donald Trump is a racist, Paul Ryan said that what he said is textbook racism. So what Paul Ryan is actually saying is that a racist is better than a liberal, and if you say that it’s because you’re not affected by racism. You can’t be a little bit racist you can’t be a little bit pregnant, if you’re in the car with me and I commit a crime and the dude in the car tries to pretend like he don’t know that aint gonna work, you’re a co-conspirator”. DL Hughley.
James E Powell
@gene108:
American voters, taken as a whole, do not have the knowledge or understanding required to judge a candidate’s ability to govern. The great majority of them would not recognize good governance. They want other things and most especially they want public figures who reassure them, who express and represent their worldviews and emotions.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@MomSense:
Not as long as there are ladders, or shovels. But what do I know, I’m not Donald Trump.
boatboy_srq
@MomSense: Depends what you mean. The Great Wall prevented disorganized banda of barbarians from taking China for centuries; Hadrian’s wall kept the Pics at at for a couple centuries; and the Maginot Line did indeed prevent Germany from crossing directly into France. Walls fail because attackers figure out attacks that make the walls ineffective; but mostly walls fail because they aren’t manned. Once Hadrian’s Wall had no garrisons the Scots had free rein over northern England, for example. People listen to tRump’s yuuuuge classy wall rhetoric and completely miss that he’s committing the US to decades of massive land force camped out on the southern border – and these days with the GOTea using the DoD as an employment program for Those People (preferably Over There) that’s a recipe for Things Ending Badly.
srv
Until undocumented democrats get artillery or we hire the French to defend it, The Greatest Wall should hold.
Ken
@Elizabelle, @Betty Cracker, @MomSense: I still think there’s an outside chance Trump will use his acceptance speech to reveal that he’s been pulling an elaborate prank on the Republican party for the last year. It explains everything.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@hovercraft:
I wouldn’t necessarily agree with DL here. There’s a lot of room between Colorblind Saint and Asshole Bigot. I live in that space, trying to get toward the former. Someone else has said that if you’re American you have issues about race. That rings more true to me. Almost nobody completely escapes their environment and upbringing. Especially on the deep unconscious level where we really make judgments about people.
MattF
An item about the Florida AG and her dealings with der Trump. Doesn’t look good.
We need to see stuff like this every day for the next six months. And we will.
ETA: And Trump seems to really believe that calling Senator Professor Warren ‘Pocahontas’ is an adequate response. I don’t think so.
Ken
@gene108:
As shown in a recent Cracked photoplasty contest, specifically entry #6 and this animated GIF.
Brachiator
@gene108: I don’t think that Trump supporters are nihilistic. Nor do they want to burn things down. They feel that they have been lied to, exploited, and ignored by both parties. They believe that Trump hears them and will give them what they want.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: Crooked Pam warmed up the crowd for Trump at the rally.
hovercraft
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
We all have biases the question is do you flaunt them and act on them. I think we all have those moments when you have a thought about someone because of who or what they are, the question is do you say it out loud or act on it.
john fremont
@aimai: This! It doesn’t matter that Trump supports torture, going after the families of terrorists, or carpetbombing, he’s still respects the value of life!! That’s all that matters to some of these voters.
MattF
@john fremont: Cruelty is a basic part of Trumpian ‘policy’. On bad days, I suspect this is a large part of what his constituency likes about him.
Woodrowfan
@gf120581: to be fair, they thought the Ardennes forest along the center part of the line would prevent tanks from moving through. Then the Allies could move troops north to stop the Germans in Belgium. Alas, the Germans DID make it through the Ardennes and not only bypassed the Maginot Line, but trapped British and French forces in the north. oops. The French mistake was counting on the Ardennes, not the fortifications to the south.
I see gene108 said it better.
Felonius Monk
@Brachiator:
And, one wonders what they will do when they finally learn that der TrumpenFarter is full of hot air and lies, too.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@hovercraft:
It’s the biases that bother me in this case. Unconscious bias affects who you hire, date, rent an apartment to, or trust. All of that happens below the level of rational and informed decision making.
We adults grew up in a world that was racist. More racist than it is now. To some extent we can overrule the biases that we absorbed from our environment. But some of it is just gut feeling, and even the overtly racially neutral can’t get rid of it. We have to treat each other fairly. That’s a moral imperative.
I think DL making a binary choice out of racist/non-racist ignores the great influence of subconscious effects. That’s why I worry about myself and others even when we know it’s wrong to ACT in a racist way.
Capt. Seaweed
Didn’t Israel build a big wall to separate the West Bank from the Palestinians? How’s that working out?
germy
@MattF:
Last night we were watching ABC evening TV news and they did a segment on a guy who donated to the Clinton fund and was appointed to something or another (I didn’t get all the details). They ambushed the guy in an airport and demanded to know why he was appointed. The man looked horrified. They said the information about the appointment came from Citizens United.
They really want to bring her down.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/clinton-donor-sensitive-intelligence-board/story?id=39710624
And so a low-info voter sees this on TV and thinks “So both sides do it.”
D58826
@Woodrowfan: And to show that some generals never learn a thing, the Americans got caught flatfooted in DEC. 1944 when the Germans pulled the same tyrick again. Battle of the Bulge
scav
@john fremont: It all becomes slightly clearer when the word ‘certain’ is present (if always carefull unspoke) before life. Tough on crime but don’t ruin that boy swimmer’s life for twenty minutes of action. Boys will be boys, but not if they’re playing in a park with a toy gun and don’t drop it within fewer than two seconds. Those sort of crimes have consequences. This use of the unspoke “certain” is required also for freedoms of religion, conscience and speech, not to mention deference to feelings.
gene108
@James E Powell:
I disagree.
I think prior to the last 5 years, if you effectively bankrupted your state, passed ineffectual laws that caused business to not invest in your state, and your state’s unemployment rate was worse than neighboring states, those would be good reasons you would get voted out of office.
Several Republican governors did just that after getting elected in 2010 and all but one got re-elected in 2014.
People may not know what good governance is but they did recognized basic competence in governing, which no longer seems to apply.
gindy51
@schrodinger’s cat: Almost to a person, the pro life folks I know are pro death penalty.
D58826
What ever else you can say about ‘old little hands’ he has a way of finding an opponents weak spot and going for it. Mitt is having his big confab in Utah and has been outspoken about his disdain for Trump. Trump tweeted that Mitt choked like a dog in 2012 so should keep his mouth shut. And Mitt took the bait hook line and sinker. He responded that he didn’t know dogs could choke. Well twitter is alight with dog on roof tweets. For once I agree with Trump – Mitt should just keep his mouth shut.
smith
@gindy51:
And quite a few of them would be OK with letting a mother die to avoid terminating a hopeless pregnancy.
Redshift
@gene108:
I think this part is true, but I don’t think most Republican voters are nihilistic (though most of their congressional caucus is.) I think, rather, that they have right-wing media telling them nonstop that conservatives are a clear majority of the country, so if the Democrats win, they must have cheated and are necessarily illegitimate.
gene108
@germy:
I wish the media would use the full acronym CUNT (Citzen’s United Not Timid). I mean no one refers to NASA as National Air sent men to the moon in 1969.
germy
@gene108: Republicans are very good at creating problems and then blaming Democrats for those problems. Their talk radio and faux nooz empire reinforces that logic. And so voters go to the polls believing the libruls caused all the mess.
MattF
@Redshift: Also, a lot of them don’t actually believe in democracy. So even if Democrats get more votes, that doesn’t really matter.
patrick II
@gene108:
Genghis Khan’s invasion of China at about 1211 the great wall was not what we see today, but mainly ramparts. He invaded through a weakly defended Juyongguan mountain pass. The battle was the Battle of the Badger Mouth.
Later, during the fall of the Ming dynasty to the Manchurians, the Manchurians simply bribed a rebellious general who let them through. Walls are always manned by people, the real weak point.
gene108
@smith:
As long as the mother in question is not the mother of their kids. Conservative principles seem to end, when they get adversely impacted.
germy
@Redshift: I saw a comment over at LGM about the GOP dragging their feet on budgeting for Zika eradication because of wanting the MSM to scare people up to election day (sort of like Ebola) and then suddenly the crisis is no longer discussed after they win.
patrick II
@Ken:
I think the “Wallman” is the real thing. He is standing there with that proud smile posing for pictures, with what looks to be his proud idiot son (he has the same smile) proudly smiling off to the left of him.
bemused
OMG, Mexico will pay guy is wearing a onesie!
I can’t even…
Redshift
@Felonius Monk:
Realize he wasn’t a True Conservatives and move on to the next savior.
The thing I really wish I could say to them is, “If you’re angry at the Establishment because they told you they’d repeal Obamacare and defund the EPA and impeach Obama and didn’t get it done, so you throw your support to a guy who makes even more grandiose promises with no hint of how he’ll get them done… maybe the problem is you.”
SiubhanDuinne
@tybee:
Stealing. Using.
hovercraft
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Yes unconscious bias affects everything but the studies and open conversation about it is the only way to get past it. As we all have it even people of color we must all strive to combat racism in all it’s forms together. Those of us who want to see greater equity have to speak up when we see racism, while still recognizing that we our selves still have a way to go. I have no problem with a white person or any person for that matter who says or does something that I perceive as racist so long as when it is pointed out to them they are willing to learn why they were wrong. I have no use for the I’m sorry if you were offended bullshit, listen to the aggrieved party and understand where they are coming from. That is how we get to a better society.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Too late, I quietly stole it hours ago.
Redshift
@germy: I’m sure some of them are hoping for that. There’s also the fact that they’ve descended to the level of applying the same “compromise means I get everything I want and you get nothing” they use with Democrats to other Republicans, so they think demanding disaster relief for their own district and voting against it for everyone else will somehow succeed.
amk
@Brachiator: aka clueless racist morons.
hovercraft
@gindy51:
Life is only precious when in your womb and at the end of your life when you choose to be put out of your misery. Everything in between is not their problem, they want t make sure you are born and then maintain your suffering at the end. If it involves your ‘choice’ they are against it.
D58826
@gene108: shorter version – rick santorium
dmsilev
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s been around for a while: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNAtGmQ6i3o
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
What do they want? Do they even know?
What I hear is that they want people they don’t like to suffer. Any other ideas?
Redshift
@gene108:
A Republican I know, when talking about local bond issues (that finance, you know, schools and roads and stuff) uttered what I consider the purest distillation of conservative philosophy I’ve ever heard: “It didn’t benefit me or anyone I know, so I voted against it.”
Zinsky
Were God only to open a giant sinkhole in Tampa, swallowing the hung-like-a-hamster Trumpie and his inbred minions, I would sing his praises forever!
Redshift
(Of course, it actually did benefit him, but I assumed an unspoken “directly” before “benefit.”)
hovercraft
@MattF:
Well democrats are not ‘real America’, they all campaign against the coasts. Unfortunately for them that’s where the majority of the population lives. The ‘American heartland’ is not representative of that majority.
rikyrah
Goldie Taylor ✔ @goldietaylor
Omarosa, Don King and Dennis Rodman don’t have enough influence in the black community to blow a grain of rice off the sidewalk…
7:27 AM – 11 Jun 2016
Redshift
@James E Powell:
That’s authoritarianism in a nutshell.
Redshift
Just so everyone’s clear, Don King didn’t actually endorse Trump (though Trump continues to lie about it even after King said that.)
Matt McIrvin
@gene108:
Widely believed, but not true; Citizens United and Roger Stone’s C.U.N.T. thing are two different organizations, and Stone named his in an intentionally deceptive/trolling manner.
The Citizens United suit came from the real Citizens United, though they were also attacking Hillary Clinton.
realbtl
D58826s remark about “old little hands” made me think of Freud’s classic Little Hans. I’m not a Freudian but this is just too good to pass up.
“When Hans was almost 5, Hans’ father wrote to Freud explaining his concerns about Hans. He described the main problem as follows: ‘He is afraid a horse will bite him in the street, and this fear seems somehow connected with his having been frightened by a large penis’.”
D58826
@germy: Can’t find the reference but saw this morning that one of the Fla. Goobers is telling the locals that he wants more money for Zika but in Washington he votes against the appropriation.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Very interesting article, thanks. I especially liked the comments that talked about Hillary’s thought process — that she evolved and deliberated rather than just leaping blindly into a new belief. It’s a skill, or gift, that she shares with Obama, and one which I admire very much.
germy
@D58826:
Fla. Goobers is telling the locals that he wants more money for Zika but in Washington he votes against the appropriation.
.
not surprised.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne: A sharp contrast to Trump yelling “Don King likes me!”
Benw
Trump’s pretty racist. Auto-correct on my phone just tried to change my initial misspelling of racist in that sentence to facist.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: I think you are looking at Indian history with a very Victorian POV. Coincidentally, I think that’s the problem with both Nehruvian and Hindutva POVs too. If only all Indians (or Hindus) were united British would not have won. India was never one unit administratively, Akbar and even Aurangzeb only reached the edges of Deccan. Malik Amber and Shivaji, respectively foiled their plans. The Marathas in turn were not able to hold their northern positions beyond what is now Madhya Pradesh for long either. There has always been an enduring North-South divide in the sub continent.
The British got the permission to establish their first factory in Surat during Jehangir’s reign (1612) and Bajirao II was completely defeated in 1818. The crown took over in 1857. The British were confined to Eastern India (Bengal) until the the 18th century. They were one of the many players on the scene. The Portuguese and the French were pretty peripheral throughout. So India was not like South America. The Marathas defeated the British in battle more than once but what they lacked were the institutions that the British had, including the professional army. The Marathas picked up the new ways of fighting from the Europeans and had many European mercenaries on their payroll. The major difference was the professional civil servants and army brass. Nana Phadnavis kept the British at bay by playing the major powers of the South (Nawab of Hyderabad and Hyder Ali and then his son Tipu) against each other and the British. The British succeeded in defeating the Peshwa only after Nana’s death.
Considering that even other European powers had trouble defeating Britain militarily in the late 18th and the 19th century it was a good showing by Marathas.
Their downfall was their success depended on one person and they did not have a way renewing that expertise. Even with the Sikhs, it was only after the death of Ranjit Singh that the British were able to defeat them and capture their territories.
bystander
@D58826: Texas pea brain Ted Poe. As I said earlier, why do these morons keep voting for their own executioner?
D58826
@smith: The stupid irony of this is that 2 lives are being lost. The child that would not have lived anyway and the very much alive woman. In addition any future children that she might have had are now foreclosed. But logic isn’t a real strong point here. I wonder if we would still have capital punishment if the Bishops had come out as strongly on that as they have on abortion.
D58826
@bystander: yep that was the one. Wasn’t he a horse doctor in his previous life. This isn’t his first public display of idiocy. Of course he has a way to go to catch up with Louie Gohmert and Steve King.
aimai
@rikyrah: I know, right? Its such a weird choice for Trump to make. Or, well, not weird but symptomatic. Its no different from his “look at my african american over there” line. He might just as well have walked down the street and pointed at the nearest AA person and claimed their endorsement. He doesn’t know the names of any actually influential AA people, just chose one, almost at random, who he did know.
smith
@D58826:
Or the ones she already has. This topic brought to mind a story from the 2012 campaign about the Mittster’s past. He was a high muckety-muck Mormon when a woman, a friend of his family, developed a life-threatening blood clot during a pregnancy and turned to him for counseling about possibly terminating the pregnancy. He advised her to take the risk and continue it. This, even though Mormon doctrine allows abortion in cases like this. And the woman already had 5 children. I wonder, had she died, if Mitt would have volunteered to explain to those children why Mommy had to die.
Just a little tale in case people might start thinking that Mitt’s current principled anti-Trump stand suggests that the current Mittbot build shows he is in any way a good man.
NotMax
Almost convinced Trump is running just to get the Secret Service to do renovation work and improvements on his cheesy tower for free.
Technocrat
@germy:
Love that article. This part was very interesting to me:
This is one of those subtle things about Clinton that isn’t – and probably can’t be – obvious to white people. Not that she’s “comfortable” around blacks, per se, more that she’s not uncomfortable around black people. When you spend your days around people who treat you like you have broccoli in your teeth, someone who sees you as a person stands out.
gene108
@D58826:
They want more money for their district and only their district. The rest of the country can burn for all they care. That’s how I read these sort of statements.
They want to be able to say “we slashed government spending” and “I provided for the safety of my district” all in the same breath.
The problem is mosquitoes are not very cognizant of political boundaries (stupid little fuckers) and can easily relocate their disease carrying selves to other districts.
Suffragete City elftx
@The Thin Black Duke:
That is terrifyingly true.
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
He’s probably assuming no one in his district will bother to look up his actual vote, so he can play the old I wanted to give you stuff, but Those Guys Over There wouldn’t let me!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@hovercraft: They wrap it up in various pretty bows about defending the innocent (the “unborn”) and the helpless (the elderly and terminally ill) and protecting them from “The Government” that would be more than happy to kill everyone because, well, just because. We can’t let people make their own choices about their own reproduction and the end of their lives because they might not make the “right” choice, as judged by these male outsiders.
It’s “God’s will” if a mother dies in childbirth, and it’s “God’s decision” about when to call someone “home to Heaven”. Between those two times, unless there’s some “Act of God”, then everything else in a person’s life is a result of “Personal Choices”.
If you wonder why God is so intimately involved in conception and in death, but absolutely disinterested and absent in the decades between, well, that’s just Satan getting in your head.
:-/
There’s no logic to it. It can’t be combated with logic in most cases.
What’s really insidious about this is that these far-right religious beliefs were much less common in the not-too-distant past. Preachers didn’t care about abortion. Prosperity gospel didn’t exist (or was a tiny fringe). Religion has been hijacked (here and abroad) in far too many cases.
I sorta wonder what is going to be the final bit of evidence to make most sensible people drop their Abrahamic religion like they dropped their belief in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. Figuring out that supernatural beings don’t sit on clouds; that males aren’t the source of life; that woman wasn’t created from a rib; that the Sun can’t be stopped in the sky; that Waters weren’t created before Land; that stars are like our Sun and that there are other planets kinda like our Earth; that Darwin was (mostly) right; that Einstein was (mostly) right; etc. hasn’t done it.
Creating a functional minimal genome cell didn’t do it. Finding life on other planets probably won’t do it. Would contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization? Maybe. But I’d like to think it happens much sooner than then!
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Old Broad In California
What’s bothering me now is that some Republicans I know, who initially were appalled by Trump’s vulgarity, are now beginning to rationalize their support for him. Exhibit A, the “no one accused Trump of racism before” meme (which Snopes disproved, http://www.snopes.com/donald-trump-racist-meme/ )
trollhattan
@bemused:
He’s straight outta Idocracy, it’s even shiny.
Can’t believe Donny’s wall thingy lives on as a meme, given it’s technically infeasible and would cost as much as a carrier fleet.
Iowa Old Lady
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Hyuuuge point in your favor. Hyuuuuuuge.
Ruckus
That steer is far more mange than golden or orange.
NotMax
@troillhattan
Walls are ancient tech. It’s the 21st century – force fields, baby!
Powered by Mexicans on stationary bikes.
:)
gene108
@Redshift:
Pretty much summarizes the thinking of folks I know, who vote Republican.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Rodman will secure the treasured Kim Jong-un endorsement. This is 12D chess stuff at work.
Kropadope
@MattF:
Well, it’s certainly taking hold among his supporters. My mom’s cousin is banging that drum hard in response to my posting Warren’s speech about the Republican assault on the independent judiciary on Facebook. Granted, he was probably already primed for that line of argumentation due to Scott Brown’s failed reelection campaign.
Why do Republicans hold onto to these arguments for years or decades, even when they never worked to begin with?
NotMax
@trollhataan
Chess? More like 11 dimensional solitaire.
MattF
@Old Broad In California: Snopes doesn’t mention Donald the Birther. I guess that’s not officially ‘racist’. I mean, the question was already out there… Right?
Germy
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: It will never happen because humans need to believe there is life after death. That after death they are reunited in paradise with loved ones who have passed. Most people can’t cope with the “after you die, you’re gone, that’s it” concept.
I wish I believed in an afterlife. I wish I had faith that when I died I’d see all the people I loved and lost (plus Elvis and Prince in duet!) but I simply don’t believe.
gene108
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
There are plenty of religious people, who have no problem with Darwin, exo-planets, etc. They are (1) not as shouty and (2) have a much smaller media platform, so they get largely ignored.
Stella
@germy: Oh the horror! Democrats appoint Democrats to government positions! You would never find a Republican appointing a Democrat to a government position! Was it even a payed job?
Doug R
@germy: We already have extension cords across the border
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Treaty
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Force fields! The nascent 21-foot ladder industry haz a sad.
Germy
@MattF: Anyone who followed Trump’s career from the 1980s onward is aware of his racism.
The fines he paid for discriminatory housing, the extra fines he paid for not complying with the original fine, the full-page newspaper ads calling for the execution of young men who were later found innocent…
hamletta
@gene108: Yeah, that’s a real childish view of theology. That’s what pre-schoolers think about God.
Half my church choir works at NIH. Belief in God and science aren’t mutually exclusive.
Mnemosyne
If I can brag for a minute, I was lucky enough to hear Ava DuVernay (director of Selma) speak this week, and among the many interesting things she had to say was that she doesn’t like to talk about “diversity.” Instead, she prefers to say “inclusiveness.” To her, “diversity” is a proscriptive word, like you need to have a checklist. Inclusiveness is more organic, looking around the room to see who’s missing from the conversation and inviting those people in.
Germy
@trollhattan: Would a moat be cheaper? “Just dig a deep trench and fill it with water and piranhas. It’ll be the DEEPEST trench. And we’ll make Mexico pay for the shovels”
NotMax
@trollhattan
If had edit function, would amend that to “cantaloupe-calfed Mexicans.”
Germy
@Stella: Who knows? But they carefully edited the segment to make it look sinister as hell.
Mike in NC
Waiting to see who Trump chooses as his Everyman – his “Joe the Plumber – to stir up his rallies. Oppressed hedge fund manager? One of the many lawyers he uses to cheat clients?
hovercraft
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
The only hope is this. It’s not happening fast enough, but polls do show people are against many of the insane abortion restrictions being proposed and enacted. The majority of people are also more receptive to giving people the right to choose how to end their lives, I think as the population ages and people see up close and personal how difficult it is see a loved one suffer, more people will come around. My father died in 2014 from CHF and alzheimer’s, making the decision to stop extreme measures was hard, but it was my mothers choice. 50 years of marriage gave her that right.
eclare
@Germy: I’ve always taken the approach that I didn’t really care that I wasn’t here before I was born, so I don’t think I’ll care too much when I’m gone.
Germy
(NY Times)
NotMax
@Mike in NC
Someone who it turns out doesn’t support him.
Mike in NC
@trollhattan: Supposedly Trump has attempted to downplay the Mexican Wall, deporting millions of people, and banning Muslims. Not being received well by his audience, who only want red meat.
Germy
@eclare: “I don’t mind dying, I just don’t want to be around when it happens” (W. Allen)
father pussbucket
If Trump is elected, Canada will pay for a wall.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mnemosyne: When we lived in Detroit and then a suburb, I used to think that talk about the value of diversity was just a way to try to talk sense into the racists. Because diversity can sometimes be a pain even in trivial ways. Here are these people who play different music at a different volume or make you struggle around a language barrier.
Then we moved to Iowa and holy crap, I miss diversity! That irritation is the flip side of stimulation. It expands my experience. It’s interesting. Also, I miss ethnic food, especially middle-eastern food, which in Detroit is readily available and fabulous. There are days when I’d kill for some schwarma.
tl;dr I miss diversity for my own sake. Call me selfish.
The Lodger
@Redshift: I’d like to invite them to a private five-card sporting event, myself.
NotMax
@shomi
That typo is a keeper.
Smorgasborg. Heh.
“All you can eat! Resistance is futile!”
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
did you see lmm on jeopardy last night? my husband said he was on.
hovercraft
@Old Broad In California:
Trump is surprised by GOP attacks calling him racist.
Redshift
@Kropadope:
It’s kind of like that guy who keeps repeating a joke that no one else laughs at, because he thinks it’s hilarious. If it was a rational argument (which is what liberals tend to rely on) of course you’d drop it if it doesn’t work, but it’s a tribal signifier; what matters is that it would have worked if more people were right-thinking.
hovercraft
@MattF:
No we ‘blacks’ never thought it was racist, not at all. We know that he is the least racist person evah.
Death penalty for the Central Park five, not racist.
MattF
I hesitate to mention this, but David Brooks has a pretty good column on why, e.g., Ryan’s attempt to negotiate with der Trump is doomed to failure. It’s not original, but it is clear and correct. No link.
SiubhanDuinne
@gene108:
Citizens United and Citizens United Not Timid are two separate groups. Both reprehensible but in different ways.
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
Was it a re-run, or did he appear a second time?
Villago Delenda Est
@Redshift: Which is a good example of not thinking things through, Unless you get a short term payoff that you can spend on hookers and blow, it seems, it’s of no benefit for you.
Idiocy, pure and simple.
Germy
(from RawStory)
trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
They’re all out there for our viewing and replaying pleasure. We need to continually drag out Donny’s desiccated public history–all 40 years–to shove it in the nation’s noses. “But Hillary is worse” is pretty difficult to defend against somebody who spent years spreading STDs at Studio 54.
Villago Delenda Est
@Iowa Old Lady:
You and Tony Stark.
JPL
I haven’t read the post yet, but wanted to share the new ad released by Hillary link
If it has already been mentioned, I apologize, but it is good enough to watch it twice.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
You rat-ba-
I mean, you mouse-bastard!
Ruckus
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
This. Absolutely.
We try to be better, to be less/not bigoted. We can get to be pretty good at the not being. But we have our upbringings and all of those who influenced us, both positively and negatively. That doesn’t just mean family, it means friends, coworkers, schools, churches, media, cities/towns……..
We can make positive decisions to be better but those interactions affect us, like it or not.
Villago Delenda Est
@Germy:
Property developers will say anything, do anything, to make a buck.
Fair Economist
@Kropadope:
I think it’s telling that the only counterargument they can make is a racist attack on Warren’s part-Indian heritage (verified by the Cherokee Nation, BTW). I would bang THAT drum relentlessly if anybody I knew was willing to make such a comment to me.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
I have no idea, since I hardly ever watch it. My husband was in a hotel restaurant where it was on, and he said it was one of those video questions, where he was on a video asking the question. But he couldn’t remember what the question was. I think it had something to do with the Tonys, so I doubt it was a re-run.
tybee
@SiubhanDuinne:
i stole it from Foghorn Leghorn
Doug R
@Baud: I think Monorails are one of the most perfect transportation systems ever built. That and people movers, no need for cars in city centers.
tybee
@dmsilev:
yup
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
I grew up in suburban Illinois, outside of Chicago, which was pretty white. My upscale neighborhood was white with a few Asian and South Asian families mixed in. Southern California was a bit of a culture shock, but I adjusted nicely and now I can’t imagine living somewhere that would be less diverse.
When my grandmother died in the early ‘aughts, I went back for the funeral and was driving around with my younger cousin from Northern California, who was in her early 20s at the time. At one point, we were driving alone in my rental car, and she turned to me and said, I have never seen so many white people in one place in my entire life. I think that had been building up in her all week but she couldn’t say it in front of the Illinois cousins, so she waited until we were alone because she knew that after living in California, I would understand like they never would.
D58826
@gene108: My fervently GOP/Reagan-ite antitax BIL, was out knocking on doors to raise school taxes when the district his kids were in was about to cut 1/3rd of its programs due to funding shortfalls.
hovercraft
@Kropadope:
During Brown’s re-elect campaign his supporters took to showing up outside her events with tomahawks and that went over really well, right?
Villago Delenda Est
JPL, there’s a missing close tag on your 160 it seems.
The kicker line in the entire briefing is “Don’t miss this once in a lifetime chance to give your hard-earned money to an alleged “billionaire”.
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
Huh. Well, if it was a new appearance, I know which “Jeopardy”-watching coworker will tell me about it. Yes, I’m also infamous at work for my Hamilton love and they tell me all about the appearances they see that I might have missed.
My latest “WTF?” moment was in McDonald’s where the tag line for their iced coffee was “Yawn Less. Smile More.”
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
That’s sort of my point. European nations started becoming one administrative unit by the 17th century. This gave them an advantage over other parts of the world. They were not settling conflicts between warring kingdoms within their own borders anymore.
Even Akbar and Arungazeb were not able to sweep away the smaller kingdoms within India, but they did – for a time – force them to recognize the Mughals as the main power center on the subcontinent.
I think even with weaker civil services, India could have defeated the Europeans, if the different kingdoms had worked together.
Travancore defeated the Dutch East India Company, in the mid-1700’s, driving the Dutch off the subcontinent. Then Mysore went to war with Travancore. Travancore allied itself with the British East India Company in response and eventually defeated Mysore. Though Mysore did have the support of the French, until 1783, when the Treaty of Versailles recognized American Independence and put a brief halt to Franco-British fighting; along with the French Revolution that helped to halt Mysore’s alliance with France.
If Tranvancore, the Hyderabad Sultanate, and Mysore had united, instead of engaging in a three-way war for domination of South India, foreign control of India could have been halted, at least in the South.
D58826
@JPL: ouch. I liked that one of the clips was from an interview on Faux news.
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
IIRC, the original argument was that she pretended to be part Native American to get the job at Harvard, but once the Cherokee Nation confirmed that she does, in fact, have Cherokee heritage, they switched to claiming that she was an affirmative action hire. Which, of course, is an argument that goes over really well with Obama voters. //
D58826
@Mnemosyne:
Put her on the ticket and you have another first (besides two women on the ticket) but her native American heritage.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mnemosyne:
I had that same reaction when we moved to Iowa. Then one of my grad students told me that when his ex-wife first walked across the ISU campus, she said she felt like she was the only white person there. She was from a small Iowa town.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: If only she had been the right kind of affirmative action hire: a legacy admission.
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
One point to extend yours: one of the things the British in particular were really, really good at was highlighting conflicts between groups and encouraging them to fight each other rather than banding together to fight the British. That’s why the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (aka the Sepoy Rebellion) was so dangerous to the British — the Brits gave the various groups enough reason to be individually pissed off at the Brits that they started working together and came very close to defeating the British occupiers.
(This all with the caveat that I realize I know less about Indian history than you and schroedinger’s cat do.)
Germy
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/media-joins-forces-and-asks-court-to-unseal-trumps-video-depositions-in-university-fraud-case/
hovercraft
This is just FYI , not intended to cause a fight.
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
I still like Tom Perez for Veep — not just Latino, but also a strong labor supporter.
But I didn’t see Biden coming, and he turned out to be the best Veep for Obama, so I’m willing to let Hillary pick the person she thinks will be her best teammate, not the person I like best.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: Why would they want to work together? The linguistic identity of most Indians (living in India) is far stronger than their Indian identity to this date. India is not monolithic if Europe were one country it would be like India.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: The British did use divide and conquer, but they used the divisions that already were in existence and still exist.
hovercraft
@Germy:
Now that’s just instigating. You know he’ll lash out at the media and the judge. It’s a conspiracy to make him look bad.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Yes, California has that horrible rule that says that independents have to ask the pollworker for a Democratic ballot. So horrible. So oppressive. I’m surprised anyone survived such a repressive process.
Hang on, I think I sprained an eye while I was rolling it …
JPL
@Germy: Are depositions normally unsealed?
schrodinger's cat
@gene108:Elaborating my point further.
Its not surprising really, Marathi is more than a 1000 years old while India is not even 100. Its not a wonder that the Marathi identity is stronger than the Indian identity. I can apply a similar analysis to almost any other linguistic group/geographical region in India.
hovercraft
Trump is bringing the races together.
germy
@hovercraft: When he attacked the MSM it was inevitable they’d take the gloves off and slap back at him.
@JPL: I don’t know.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: The Deccan sultanates were never a part of the Mughal Empire, either under Akbar or Aurangzeb.
hovercraft
@Mnemosyne:
Yes the were oppressed.
stibbert
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Hopefully, you know that the Maginot defenses were planned & built from 1927 onwards, & were a major part of Allied/German strategic plans in the late 1930s. That would be WWII, not WWI.
Fair Economist
@Mnemosyne:
Ouch! I sometimes find it useful to massage my head with my desk when deal with such absurdities.
Another horror in California is that they have so many ways to vote – you can mail-in early, mail-in the day of the election *and* vote in person. Having so many options *must* be suppressing the vote if your candidate lost.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, that guy is utterly full of merde–it’s super easy, has zero to do with the state because it’s a party rule, and while I’m on the topic, has he tried to vote in the Republican primary as a no-preference voter?
Better morons, please.
trollhattan
@trollhattan:
BTW, I so want to take his lunch money betting the final count will be “low single digits.” Moron or liar?
ETA currently 12.5%
Wapiti
@hovercraft: re: Pew saying Millennials are to blame for America becoming less religious.
My dad, at 85, is still active in his church, but thinks that some of the old members of the congregation are set in their ways and actively (but perhaps unwittingly) drive off potential new members. He mentioned hearing some older person telling a young person, “I don’t approve of your lifestyle,” and the young person’s reaction was to just not come back. He worries that the church cannot survive if it doesn’t find common ground with the millennials who are actually looking for places of faith.
The Thin Black Duke
@hovercraft: Thank you. Bottom line, you can yell as loud as you like, but if you don’t vote, nobody is going to hear you.
Ruckus
@Iowa Old Lady:
This is one thing that I’ve noticed about living in a large metropolitan area, diversity. People from all walks of life, from many countries of the world, speaking different languages and eating different foods. It’s amazing and wonderful and just plain fun. We don’t all have to be just one thing, we can be human and not photocopies.
gwangung
@hovercraft:
Um….10% of new under 35s voted? That’s a staggering number of no-shows, and seems way too many to explain from most conceivable “suppression efforts.”
Debsite
@The Thin Black Duke:
Right on, voting matters. But only if it’s fair and free, no monkey business.
Kropadope
@gwangung:
I think a lot of it can likely be explained by “Bernie already lost months ago.”
Chyron HR
@hovercraft:
That’s a funny way to spell “thank”.
aimai
@Wapiti: Right, religious institutions are no different from any other institution. If new, younger, members aren’t graduating into leadership roles right away, as soon as they hit their twenties, and the senior generation doesn’t step aside as soon as they are in their fifites or sixties,the organization will become imbalanced and hostile to new/younger members. You just can’t grow unless you are growing from the bottom.
Dalai Rasta
@boatboy_srq:
No, she wants the choice taken away from everyone because she’s afraid that having the example of other young people who chose differently might make her regret the choice she made.
aimai
@Kropadope: Why? The Bob’s insisted they didn’t believe that and would vote accordingly. And right up until Secretary Clinton clinched the nomination I was assured by all and sundry and the most virulent Bob’s that Bernie would win and “had a path to the nomination.” But even so if Bernie’s voters didn’t turn out to vote for him I don’t see how its the Clinton Campaign’s fault. Its weird to me the way the Bernie voters hold everyone and everything accountable for their behavior except Bernie and themselves. Clinton is at fault and a lousy candidate because Bernie is popular. And then Clinton is at fault because Bernie’s voters lose faith in Bernie. Then Clinton is at fault because Bernie’s voters don’t like her. And then Clinton is responsible for making Bernie feel good about Bernie and never mentioning that she is winning, or that she has won, until he is ready to concede.
Its so very freudian, this insistence that the woman in the race is behind everything/making everything happen/responsible for everyone’s feelings, and then at fault because everyone didn’t get a prize for just showing up.
Felanius Kootea
Got an email from Bernie today fundraising for Marcy Kaptur and Rick Nolan. I was pleasantly surprised that he’s trying to raise funds for others who share many of his views, so I gave. I had started out giving to both Bernie and Hillary but completely stopped donating to him after he said Hillary was unqualified. I think reality is slowly creeping in on him. He probably has a lot of debt to settle like Hillary did after the primaries in ’08 but I don’t know how he’s going to try to settle it all since he probably won’t want Hillary to help him out the way Barack did with Hillary’s debt.
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
One thing we do suck at is early voting — if you’re not a mail-in voter and you can’t get to the polls on Election Day, you’re usually screwed. There is one (1) place to early vote in all of Los Angeles county. It’s stupid as hell, and is probably one of the reasons our turnout is so low. We either need more early voting options or to make mail-in ballots the standard.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gene108: Tecumseh, also too:
“United we stand, divided we fall…”
Cheers,
Scott.
Kropadope
@aimai:
The unlikely occasionally happens. This is no worse than the people insisting that no one besides Clinton had a chance prior to Iowa.
Who said it was?
Sorry what language are you speaking? In English that’s “Clinton supporters hold Bernie and every individual supporter responsible for the bad actions of a handful of supporters while the media makes sure “Berniebros” is all any American ever hears about the Sanders campaign.
Sorry, this all sounds like the beginning of claiming that Bernie is at fault when Hillary comes up short in November. The people who don’t like her, by the way, felt that way well before the broader public ever heard of Bernie Sanders.
Ah, the iciing on the caricature cake. Benissimo!
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
You mean other than the multiple people in Bernie’s campaign who keep claiming that Hillary is only winning because of “fraud”?
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
My hunch is California is 80% of the way to mail-in for everyone, which will be interesting combined with automatic registration.
Those trying to claim voting suppression here do a profound disservice to the affirmative steps made in accomplishing the opposite. There’s plenty of the real deal to fight, should they actually care to make a difference.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Right, but that’s the point that gene108 and I are making — it’s easy for a smaller but united force to dominate a larger but constantly infighting one. Once the larger group unites, as India did in the 1940s, they can drive out that smaller force.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne:
Sorry, all I keep seeing are Clinton supporters claiming that Bernie’s campaign claimed something like that. Quote? Also, even if what you said was true, it doesn’t answer my question anyway, since the issue is about voters not turning up to vote.
Reading comprehension, it’s a thing.
Matt McIrvin
@hovercraft: I recall seeing some anecdotal reports about this on the day of the primary. Lots of enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders from young adults that reporters talked to, but most of them had no plans to vote or weren’t even registered, and didn’t seem particularly concerned about this.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@aimai:
Yup.
Bernie said several times before he got in the race (IIRC) that the only way he could win was if he got millions of small donations and if he brought millions of new or previously disaffected voters to the polls.
He did the first half but not the second.
Pew from March 8:
New Hampshire’s turnout for Democrats in NH was higher in 2008.
Bernie’s campaign was doomed because he couldn’t turn out huge numbers of supporters in Iowa and NH – he couldn’t even match the 2008 level. The race was over in early February by Bernie’s own measure.
It shows, again, what an amazing candidate Obama was.
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
For one, despite differences in languages most Indian kingdoms ended up encompassing multiple language speakers. The idea of India as a geographic entity did somewhat exist, even if it was not very strong, compared to Europe.
The Maratha Empire, at its peak, stretched from what is now southern Pakistan all the way to northern Tamil Nadu.
The kingdoms the 17th and 18th century Europeans encountered were not ancient. Indian kingdoms have emerged, grown over a few generations, run into other kingdoms and then either declined or have been conquered by their neighbors.
I do not think anybody was living under the notion only Tamil speakers could rule all Tamilians or Marathi speakers would rule Marathis.
There was some general understanding of a common culture that went beyond language or else no kingdom could have expanded and governed beyond its linguistic footprint. Travancore encompassed a number of Tamil speaking areas, such as Nagercoil, Tirunelveli, etc.
There was a cultural affinity that could have united neighboring kingdoms.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: Massachusetts is doing early voting for the first time in the general election this year. I’m interested to see how it turns out–it sounds as if a lot of cities and towns have gotten little guidance about how to run early voting and are still unprepared. My daughter’s former Girl Scout leader is the head of the elections board here; I wonder how she’s doing.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: India was never one administrative unit before the British, there were cultural affinities like in Europe. British were a part of the Indian landscape for 200 years before they became the most powerful force on the sub continent. They did not have the gift of 20/20 hindsight.
Your second pt about the British leaving in the 40s because Indians were united is not quite accurate either..
British left because the Indian armed forces were in open revolt after WWII, the resource extraction from India was actually costing more than it was paying. It was one of the campaign promises the Labor government had made. If Churchill had won, I doubt India would have gotten its independence in 1947.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
And neither Maurya empire made it much further than the Ghats. There are some geographic barriers that kept invaders from driving down into the Southern most parts of India from the North.
The Thin Black Duke
@Kropadope: The Rudeness is strong is this one.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: I think by the time Indian rulers realized the threat the British posed, it was too late.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Iowa Old Lady: The kid made the same comment when she saw my high school yearbook.
Woodrowfan
@Iowa Old Lady: my wife and I picked our neighborhood the same way. We could have lived in one of the lily-white ‘burbs further out from the beltway, but damn, they’re boring.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: True, most of Maharashtra and the western ghats region is pretty inhospitable and mountainous. That’s why Malik Amber’s and later Shivaji’s guerilla tactics were so successful.
Indian rulers made many own goals against the British. For example, after Bajirao I died and especially after the humiliating defeat of third battle of Panipat, the Peshwas became a ChiKobra (Chitpavan Koknastha Brahmin) clique, this was heavily resented by the Marathas, for example. The military leaders came to be chosen for who they knew rather than merit. Their orthodoxies killed them eventually.
The British army comparatively speaking was much more meritocratic.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think we can be 100% certain, if Churchhill had stayed in power he would not have granted independence.
During WW2, Indian leaders made an offer to Churchill: unconditional support for the British war effort, with a guarantee of independence once the war ended.
Churchill said no.
He’d rather sit on India and have limited support. He decided to expend resources quelling civil disobedience that was launched in the wake of refusal to entertain the idea of Indian independence, which could have been used to fight fight the Japanese.
The Japanese were rolling through British held territories across Southeast Asia.
India was the base of operations the Allies used in Asia.
Yet Empire was more important to Churchill than beating the Japanese, who were crushing British forces.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
True.
hovercraft
@Kropadope:
system is rigged
rigged
here are a couple of examples
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: I was reading a book about the Marathas by Gordon Stewart. He makes a pt that the Sardars of the Delhi Sultanate were Hindu Rajputs and those of the Deccan Sultanates were Marathas. The Rajputs never allied with the Marathas save a few exceptions here and there. Same is true about the Mughals and the Deccan Sultanates*. His point being that the north-south divide in India is even stronger than the Hindu-Muslim divide.
Mughals were Sunni and the Deccan Sultanates were Shia.
PurpleGirl
Haven’t finished reading the thread yet, but I want to mention that the Maginot Line was built during 1930s in the hopes it would prevent another invasion by the Germans. It was not built for World War 1 but in response to World War 1. Also is was not a wall per se, it was a series of military emplacements, bunkers, some wall-like fortifications, and obstacles. It was built of concrete. It was not a solid thing across the borders of France, Luxembourg and Switzerland with Germany.
Reggie Mantle
@The Thin Black Duke:
Really? You’re calling that rude on a blog where “go fuck yourself”, “fuck you,” “fuck off, troll” and “no one gives a shit about you or what you think” are what passes for rational discourse?
Chyron HR
@Reggie Mantle:
Reggie Mantle
@Chyron HR:
Just can’t stop lying, can you, Chyron? Guess you know you can’t win without it.
Please show me one post where I’ve said I was voting for Trump, without resorting to the “if you stay home/vote third party it’s a vote for Trump” dodge.
Oh, and without writing your own words in as a
and trying to pass them off as someone else’s. You know that’s dishonest, right? Or do you?
PurpleGirl
@gindy51: Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, of Chicago, was known for his consistent ethics of life stance. He was pro-life but also said that merely being anti-abortion was not enough. He was anti-war, anti-death penalty, believed that you had to be for more generous social supports, a more firm social support system.
Bobby Thomson
@Reggie Mantle: I’m sure you’re familiar with all internet traditions.
Reggie Mantle
@Chyron HR:
Still waiting, Chyron. Show everyone the post where I said I was voting for Trump. Come on, man, you say it a lot, surely you can find it somewhere.
Reggie Mantle
@Bobby Thomson:
“Strawmanning” is an internet tradition?
aimai
@Mnemosyne: haha! Yeah. I see Kropadope’s comments and the longer they are the faster I skip them. He and many of the rest of the formerly Bernie or Busters are heading for the Amnesia portion of the stages of grief. It comes right after death threats, doxxing, raging, accusations of fraud, explaining to everyone else how they need to “chill out” because Bernie would never do/say/think any of the things Bernie/Weaver/Jane have done/said/thought out loud. Then we get to amnesia, then we get to “we were always with the winner” and then, when Hillary does something to piss them off, we will go right back to “I told you so, Bernie was the one true leader! Bernie forever!”
aimai
@gindy51: Catholics are often pro life and anti death penalty, but Evangelicals aren’t.
aimai
@Matt McIrvin: We should have a Mass meetup.
Kenneth Kohl
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): WWII actually, but your point is still valid :)
henqiguai
@aimai(#241):
Everybody!?! All in a pile! Magnificent! Wait, that’s capitalized; were you talking about a ‘Massachusetts meetup’ or something? Yeah, a glass of wine, gettin’ sillier than I normally am, and hoping my daughter brings up an episode or two of Murder in Paradise season 1 on Netflix.
Kropadope
@hovercraft: Funny, neither of the articles you link to contain any quotes from the Sanders campaign, let alone quotes where they accuse the Clinton campaign of fraud. In fact the articles don’t even claim that Bernie made that accusation, but rather that he says the system is rigged. This is a more accurate characterization of what Bernie has argued and it is also true. The system is rigged (as in unfair) and this would be true regardless of the particular actions of participants in the system, whether fraudulent or not. The quote you posted is a person declining to make a fraud accusation.
Therefore, I stand by what I said, the Sanders campaign has not accused the Clinton campaign of fraud.
psychobroad
@schrodinger’s cat: Remark about Caligula and horse MASTERFUL! Where do I send your internets? :-)