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by Ugh

Because why not, eh?

I forget who said that capitalism needs to be kept safe from the capitalists, but gee ABC, what did you think you were getting?

Also, too, I'm spending way too much time on the twitters, and encountering some very special people.

My kids are casting Harry Potter spells on each other and I feel old.

Me me me, it's all about me!

Thread of openness.

353 thoughts on “Thread Thread Thready Thread”

  1. Also, too, I’m spending way too much time on the twitters, and encountering some very special people
    LOL

  2. Absolutely hilarious to watch people who are so cheek-clenchingly offended about a bunch of black athletes “disrespecting” the flag by exercising their right to free speech by kneeling during the anthem rush to the defense of Roseanne.
    I mean, the off-key rendition, spit, and crotch-grab was only twenty-eight years ago…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls1YVhcLD2c

  3. and only five years ago, Roseanne was saying “too bad trayvon was unarmed, or GZ would be the dead one”
    i pity the fool who makes Roseanne his political champion.

  4. The all-around prevailing attitude seems to be, “Free speech for me, but not for thee.”

  5. “Executives shocked when horrible racist makes horribly racist comments”
    Honestly, on the one hand I can get with the idea that if there is sufficient demand for something a supply will arise, on the other hand, JFC are you really willing to do that for a buck?

  9. The all-around prevailing attitude seems to be, “Free speech for me, but not for thee.”
    The all-around prevailing attitude seems to be, “Everything good for me but not for thee, and everything bad for thee and not for me.”

  11. “Free speech for me, but not for thee.”
    if only.
    but no, Roseanne is still tweeting away.
    (and even that has nothing to do with “free speech”)

  12. If I were an NFL player, I would invent increasingly subtle gestures to protest racial injustice. No kneeling? Maybe I’ll just slouch a bit, after announcing publicly that, if I seem to be slouching, I may or may not be protesting racial injustice. (Wink! Wink!) Maybe I’ll gently rub my belly, or blink a bit more often than is normal, or purse my lips ever so slightly.
    How much nationalist-ritual regulation is the NFL up for? Let’s find out!

  13. CharlesWT, there is no first amendment right to have a TV show.
    True. And people should be called out for being dickish. But there seems to be too much willingness on all sides to try to smother any speech they don’t like.
    But unlike countries who’re our “more civilized” superiors, we not at the point of tweet and go to jail.

  14. Just saw a meme:
    “Rosanne made a joke. Just like Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmell, The View, Stephen Colbert, Anthony Atamanuik, Jimmy Fallon, etc. make jokes and make fun of Trump and his supporters. I guess it’s not funny when a conservative does it.”
    “Just like” is bearing a heavy load in this well-considered formulation. And, gee whiz, didn’t she make a bunch of “conservative” jokes before this one –ones that were even in the script for her show? Somehow, she didn’t get fired for any of those jokes. What could be going on here?

  15. What could be going on here?
    Let’s see…. How about: Jokes about liberals aren’t as cutting as jokes about conservatives, because . . . something. So comparing them isn’t valid.
    But anyway, racist comments are (somehow by definition) conservative, so objecting to them is an attack on conservatives.
    (I think it’s a bad sign that I’m getting to where I can imagine the “reasoning” of these nut cases. Aaaargh!)

  16. But there seems to be too much willingness on all sides to try to smother any speech they don’t like.
    I love how libertarians obliterate counterarguments by the sheer overwhelming force of their deeply delusional assumptions.
    The smothering of free speech in the workplace is a feature, not a bug. Ask any union organizer.
    …but yes, “all sides.” What ‘effing BS.

  17. And people should be called out for being dickish. But there seems to be too much willingness on all sides to try to smother any speech they don’t like.
    Nobody is smothering Roseanne’s speech.
    the off-key rendition, spit, and crotch-grab was only twenty-eight years ago…
    Jeez I am getting old.

  18. Since it’s an open thread, here some … entertainment?
    A character named Max Linn has been in the news in Maine for several months. The first splash I saw was early this year, when he announced that he was running in the Republican primary for Angus King’s US Senate seat.
    There was drama from the beginning, at first focusing on his wandering and sometimes unsavory political history (see linked article). Then the drama switched to the fact that his petitions to have his name placed on the ballot had invalid names — dead people, forged signatures, you know the drill.
    There were a couple of rounds of Sec’ of State decisions and finally a court case, where it was ruled that his petitions were fraudulent enough so that he could no longer be a candidate.
    But — ballots were already printed. So people will have to be told at the polling booths that if they vote for him, it won’t count.
    I happened to be in Augusta yesterday for an appointment and errands, and there were signs all over the place for … Max Linn?
    Yes indeed, he is still campaigning. Acc’ to the article, there is no law against it. And votes for him still won’t count.
    For the record, it’s too late for him to run as an independent, and anyhow, to do that requires 4000 valid signatures, whereas he couldn’t even get the 2000 required for party-primary candidates. And AFAICT he’s not campaigning as a write-in, either.
    Some people do live in a world of their own.

  19. There’s a difference between free speech and unchallenged speech. The US Constitution protects the former, not the latter.
    There’s a difference between free speech and sponsored speech. The US Constitution does not require anybody to sponsor speech.
    There’s a difference between pro-Trump speech and racist speech. In theory.
    That is all.
    –TP

  21. But there seems to be too much willingness on all sides to try to smother any speech they don’t like.
    Roseanne Barr’s speech-in-question was on Twitter, not on TV. she’s still Tweeting. and it’s still terrible.

  22. Once you re-imagine government and law as mere component products of the social no more or less autonomous and determinative than religion or the economy then the practical differences between legally protected/unprotected speech and socially protected/unprotected speech becomes much less important but much more interesting.

  23. Jokes about liberals aren’t as cutting as jokes about conservatives, because ….*crickets*
    HA!
    Don’t you know? The entire “politically correct” nonsense was started as a dig BY liberals, on leftier-than-thou people, decades ago!
    Guess who didn’t get the joke?

  25. I’ve played for years on mixed race sports teams.
    I frequent a local bar that is mixed race and among the many friends there are gay men and lesbians.
    It’s not difficult for me to imagine the brand of speech smothering that would ensue if some jackass decided to call someone an ape or a fag in those settings as some sort of juvenile conservative baiting of this republican ass wipe made-up bullshit called “political correctness”.
    You can sue me later for your medical bills, you fucking racist, whomever you are.
    One thing I know you aren’t is a southern racist Democrat because all of them long ago joined the lynch mob called the republican party.
    The speech we ought to be grateful for is Valerie Jarrett’s civilized, peaceful response to Roseanne’s twittertwatting racist free speech.
    It should have been handled this way:
    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fight+breaks+out+on+the+geraldo+rivera+show+over+race
    At least those butthead white supremacists, now among mp’s racist paramilitary base, had the guts to show up in person to deliver their racist, anti-Semitic speech so Roy Innis could deliver HIS response with his fists.
    The speech we ought to be grateful for is Barack Obama’s continuing his SOTU speech after racist Joe Wilson called him a liar from the cheap balcony seats, instead of Obama taking a revolver out of his pocket and shooting Wilson in the head, and watch the latter fall out of the balcony dead at the feet of the seated republican assholes.
    The speech we ought to be grateful for is Barack Obama’s gentle, civilized jokes in racist lout birth-certificate-liar Donald mp’s direction at the news banquet. He could have come down off the podium, strode thru the audience and beaten mp to a pulp with a baseball bat and we wouldn’t be currently cursed with the racist republican party in that fuck’s suit in the White House today.
    It’s 2018, people.
    Stop it.
    Jackie Robinson doesn’t have to indulge the racist jackasses on the Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals any longer for fear of upsetting Branch Rickey’s integrationist apple cart.
    He made it. So has Valerie Jarrett. So has Huma Abedin. So has Michelle Obama.
    Any further racist remarks like Roseanne’s is not an experiment in free speech.
    It’s suicide, and I’d be happy to help with that.

  26. Thanks for posting this. I was trying to write something about this, but this post is much much much better.
    But I though I would give you what I was trying to write in point form, not that I’m any closer to figuring any of this out.
    -Everything I see (at first) references Roseanne’s tweet about Valerie Jarrett. True for everyone?
    -However, the tweet was one of a barrage
    https://www.vox.com/2018/5/29/17404972/roseanne-clinton-conspiracy-trump
    -R also has to focus on not being a racist
    http://deadline.com/2018/05/roseanne-not-racist-valerie-jarrett-wikileaks-tweet-abc-cancel-1202400218/
    and blames it on Ambien
    https://gizmodo.com/roseanne-blames-ambien-for-her-racism-then-deletes-the-1826413719
    -note the ‘I didn’t know she was black’ defense in that article. various thoughts about how that defense works
    as well as a host of other reasons
    https://people.com/tv/roseanne-barr-feels-misunderstood-after-racist-tweet/
    Barr also placed blame for the cancellation on Wanda Sykes, a consulting producer on the sitcom who announced on social media that she would “not be returning” to Roseanne following the first tweet about Jarrett.
    “Her tweet made ABC very nervous and they cancelled the show,” Barr said in response to a fan’s tweet.
    -so why the focus on the tweet about Jarrett?
    Several possibilities raised and discarded, leading to final conclusion: the problem with intersectionality is that it raises lots of questions, but doesn’t answer any of them.
    Wanted to work in this from the maker of Ambien
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/05/30/roseanne-barr-blames-ambien-zolpidem-drug-real-side-effects/654683002/
    Sanofi, who makes Ambien, tweeted a response Wednesday morning: “While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.”

  30. Not sure why I couldn’t make a link with the text “On the 1%.” So I gave up and posted the URL to auto-link.

  31. I miss the days when I knew practically nothing about tv people except what show they were on, lots I only knew by their character name.
    Really big stars I knew who they married.

  32. I miss the days when I knew practically nothing about tv people except what show they were on
    you and me both
    Flamethrowers coming to schools
    my niece’s ex and his buddies like to go out in the desert, get a buzz on, and blast away with flamethrowers.
    it’s a thing.
    everybody needs a hobby. just take it outside, please. way outside.

  33. Anybody else done any axe-throwing? That seems to be getting to be a popular-ish thing, enough to be commercially viable.

  36. “those who own the country ought to govern it” – John jay, founder, co-author of the federalist papers, first chief justice
    the idea is as old as the nation, and older
    united states of property

  37. Damn John Jay, and damn everyone who won’t .. etc, etc.
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-poor-person-economy-commerce-secretary-rich-cabinet-appointments-a7803096.html
    Even Wilbur Ross was poorer than vermin mp thought, and thus unworthy, having lied on the resume he submitted for entry into the Forbes 400.
    I’m ordering the book on Buchanan/Calhoun as we speak.
    I can own that book. Also the automatic weapons, the flamethrowers, and the axes of Evil.
    Seems a foolhardy oversight by the Jay/Buchanan/Calhoun/Koch/mp 1% (now we know who thrives on the smut) to allow me those items of property, given the comeuppance they deserve.
    You have to start drinking pretty early in the morning to put one past me, har.
    Of course, Gates, Buffet, and the oncologists, among others, will be spared because they haven’t, for the most part, confused their wealth and property with their dicks, by which I mean they don’t think of their earned good fortune as an instrument by which to fuck everyone else.

  41. That Naked Capitalism piece is a real hoot. I should just watch Westworld and ignore all this stuff. Watching humans and apparent humans slaughter each other is far less disturbing.

  42. “those who own the country ought to govern it”
    There’s a passage in GB Shaw’s writings that I’ve been looking for as a response to this and other things that get said around here. Since I haven’t found it (yet), I give you Smeagol and Gollum:

    ‘But the Precious holds the promise,’ the voice of Smeagol objected.’
    ‘Then take it,’ said the other, and let’s hold it ourselfs. Then we shall be master, gollum.

  43. Marty’s ax-throwing/drinking and wj’s previously-mentioned broad-sword fighting brings this to mind
    Videos like this are always amusing. Notice that the “chain mail” shirt is actually knitted cloth, not steel. You can tell because real chain main doesn’t work like that at the elbows. In fact you only do short sleeves precisely because it won’t bunch up and let you move. (Also, you have the shirt draped over your belt, not just the belt cosmetically around your waist. Because otherwise the weight will make it impossible to raise your arms.)
    No doubt folks who are really experts at martial arts have similar caustic things to say about the fight scenes in movies, too.

  44. California, as we are all aware (some delighted, some irate), tends to get to new trends first. So here is a little something to amuse you all:

    “Republican” has slipped to the third-most popular party affiliation — after no party at all [emphasis added]

    It’s been visibly coming for some time. Aided, no doubt, by the fact that our “top two” open primary system means that you don’t have to register with a party in order to vote in the primaries. (Except the Presidential primaries, where the national parties are able to insist.)

  45. No doubt folks who are really experts at martial arts have similar caustic things to say about the fight scenes in movies, too.
    I did a year’s class on Beowulf (in the original language…that was part of the point) in grad school. One of the guys in it was a Society for Creative Anachronism buff. He told us how there was a big debate over whether the spears mentioned in Beowulf were thrown with one hand or two (the poem doesn’t say, although IIRC there is some idea, maybe from actual physical remnants, of how big they were).
    He was on the two-hand side; he and many of his buddies couldn’t possibly control a big spear like that with only one hand.
    He was a great guy, but he wasn’t very big, and he wasn’t much of an athlete, and I always wondered why he thought he should judge the physical fitness and talents of medieval warriors — probably doing hard physical work of some sort for their entire lives — by his own puny capabilities. I’m pretty sure he couldn’t dunk a basketball either, but that didn’t mean no one else could do it.

  46. “I did a year’s class on Beowulf (in the original language…that was part of the point) in grad school.”
    Lectures and discussion in Old Ænglisc? Wild!
    Hollywood almost always messes up historical details. One of the most common (for ancient periods) is how surprisingly late stirrups were invented. You’d think, from a modern perspective, that they’d have been around since 1000BC, but there’s a *reason* that chariots were so popular back then, and that ‘mounted lancers’ didn’t really take off until late antiquity.

  47. He was a great guy, but he wasn’t very big, and he wasn’t much of an athlete, and I always wondered why he thought he should judge the physical fitness and talents of medieval warriors — probably doing hard physical work of some sort for their entire lives — by his own puny capabilities.
    No argument about this at all (how could there be – you were the only person who knew him), but as a side issue it’s always astonishing when you look at old armour (in, for example, the Tower of London if I recall correctly) and see how short they mostly were. I suppose it was mainly nutrition, even for the upper classes, but it really is astonishing when you see it IRL.

  48. No doubt folks who are really experts at martial arts have similar caustic things to say about the fight scenes in movies, too.
    I’m no expert, but at the height of my training in escrima I had a pretty hard time with any fight scene involving a weapon – not because I expected realism, but because my trained awareness was telling me that the “attacks” were no danger. They were all either aimed over the opponent’s head or were too far out to connect with anything but the opponent’s weapon. The instant after the weapon started moving I had already decided that the attack could be ignored with no danger and had started paying attention to something other than the weapon (distance, weight distribution, targets of opportunity). So when the hero reacted like the fake attack was serious it created a sense of dissonance that was distracting because the lack of real intent seemed so obvious.
    I’ve never been close to qualifying as an expert in the martial arts, but several years of having weapons coming at your head with anything close to real intent teaches you a few things.
    Another side effect of that training: I can spot a blunt edge on a prop sword without even trying, and then it stops registering as a blade and my mind starts treating it as a nasty club instead.

  49. How do you throw a spear with two hands?
    The only way I can visualize is sort of an underhand toss from the side, which doesn’t strike me as very effective.
    Plus, I’ve always wondered about throwing spears. It seems like kind of a one-shot tactic, with the added disadvantage that the other guy gets the spear if you miss. Maybe there’s more to it, somehow. Did they have 30-spear magazines?

  52. How do you throw a spear with two hands?
    I don’t know, but Wikipedia says that “As a weapon, it may be wielded with either one hand or two.”

  53. From cleek’s link, regarding Saving Private Ryan. The piece goes on to rip it a good one, which is fine. I didn’t have any opinion about the historical accuracy of the film (I don’t expect it), but I was dismayed at the thought that I might have been so terribly wrong about the basic physical reality depicted, particularly during the beach landing. I’m glad to find out that that wasn’t the problem with it.

    After a truly extraordinary opening – probably the most realistic battle sequence ever filmed…

  54. my trained awareness was telling me that the “attacks” were no danger. They were all either aimed over the opponent’s head or were too far out to connect with anything but the opponent’s weapon.
    And because actors are typically trained in fencing (if they have any training at all) they use broadswords like they were foils, with their shields acting as counterweights. It’s actually gotten a bit better in the last couple decades. But any movie from before 1970 is simply laughable.

  55. Hurstwic living history group on the viking spear. I usually find them to be well informed if not quite as adept in weapons practice as the more active European HEMA groups.
    Don’t think that spears were thrown two-handed, but they were definitely wielded both single handed with shield and double handed for more reach and control when used without a shield.

  56. Notes (I guess the memory of Beowulf reignites the scholarly urge)
    1. The point of saying it was in OE was to answer the expected question: why would you spend a whole year on Beowulf? Answer: because it was a language course, too. But as with my high school Latin, we weren’t expected to be able to converse in it. (It did count as one of the three languages one had to show “proficiency” in for the PhD. “Profiency” meaning the ability to translate a passage with a dictionary at one’s elbow.)
    2. Spears are a big deal in the poem.
    3. Per GftNC on the size of the people who wore the armor: this is also true of artifacts of Revolutionary times in the US. But without having time to search, I’m pretty sure the phenomenon is an on-again, off-again thing over the millennia, and does indeed depend a lot of diet. In any case, you can’t make a straight-line extrapolation from average height now back through average height in 1776 or 1500 to get a clue what it was in (Beowulfishly) 1000 AD.
    And Spud Webb could dunk a basketball even though he was all of 5’7″. My OE pal wouldn’t, as a friend of mine one put it, have been able to dunk on a 9 foot basket if the fate of the world depended on it. (The rim of a normal basket is 10 feet off the ground.)
    4. The poetry of the Rohirrim in LOTR is modeled on OE poetry, in meter and alliteration patterns.
    5. I once did a semester-long class on War and Peace. Obsessives will obsess, and apparently I’m not the only one, because it was a full (and very good) class.

  57. I came close to being a medievalist. Had been admitted to one Ph.D. program for it but got a better offer from another school that took me in a different direction with my studies.
    Love Anglo-Saxon poetry, but if I were to dump that much time into a Northern European language for historical research, I’d go for Old Norse so I could do double duty with Icelandic.

  58. anybody into ballistic slings?
    a question I would not ordinarily think to ask, but, we seem to be in archaic weaponry territory…

  59. one of the three languages one had to show “proficiency” in for the PhD. “Profiency” meaning the ability to translate a passage with a dictionary at one’s elbow.
    I recall being appalled to discover that I could get credit for German by passing a test where there was sufficient time to look up every single word which was not a cognate, do a literal translations, and then follow up with a free translation. I know German better than that, but it made passing the test a walk in the park. One wonders why they bothered.

  60. The language test was a feature in fields where much of the important scholarly research was published in a language other than the student’s L1. Candidates in one of those fields would have to show that they could keep up with new developments in the field and work through important journal articles on their own.
    For most, though, it is a formality of the qualification process.

  61. On historical weapons, armor and their use these are some very interesting Youtube channels
    Knyght Erand (spcialist on armor)
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1T4KJG1L_kTrP9RcdU5Csw
    Metatron (specialised on Roman and Japanese armor and weapons)
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIjGKyrdT4Gja0VLO40RlOw
    scholagladiatoria (historical martial arts)
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt14YOvYhd5FCGCwcjhrOdA
    Skallagrim
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3WIohkLkH4GFoMrrWVZZFA
    Lindybeige
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pgQfOXRsp4UKrI8q0zjXQ
    Also interesting: shadiversity
    (don’t won’t to break the 5 links limit)

  62. I suppose it was mainly nutrition, even for the upper classes, but it really is astonishing when you see it IRL.
    Childhood illnesses, which could keep someone bedridden for months or a year or more at a time also stunted growth.
    As for diets, after the potato introduced into Europe, a great many people spent much of their lives eating almost nothing else.
    But any movie from before 1970 is simply laughable.
    At least, they stop putting silencers on revolvers.

  63. @nous at 12:43 PM: I’ve been a hobbyist bladesmith for at least 10 years, and prop blades in movies and tv are huge distractions for me. I can tell they are props, and not sharpened, and in many cases, not steel. The Lord of the Rings was funny this way – they’d switch from a steel blade to a lighter prop made out of some other material. So you could see that the “same” sword was actually at least two different objects.

  64. How do you throw a spear with two hands?
    I believe it’s possible to use some atlatls two-handed

  65. Historian Alexis von Tunzelmann had a long running column devoted entirely to historical (in)accuracy in films – quite entertaining:
    https://www.theguardian.com/film/series/reelhistory
    Also available as a book: “Reel History: The World According to the Movies”
    My favourite war films:
    Paths of Glory (Kubrick)
    The Thin Red Line (Malick)
    Das Boot (Petersen)
    The Pianist (Polanski)
    La Grande Illusion (Renoir)
    Army of Shadows (Melville)
    Au Revoir Les Enfants (Malle)
    Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo)
    Black Book (Verhoeven)
    All Quiet on the Western Front (Milestone)

  67. Whew favorite war movies
    Ivan’s Childhood, Come and See, Cranes are Flying
    Human Condition, Fires on the Plain, River Fuefuki, Ugetsu?

  69. Looks like today is hitting a bunch of my nerdic obsessions (WWII combat rhetoric and representation – check).
    Just had a long discussion about The Best Years of Our Lives with a friend on Memorial Day. Going to go back and watch Mrs. Minniver and it back-to-back this summer to bookend the war and get a better feel for how it might have affected Wyler’s sensibilities.

  70. Clearly spears can be wielded with both hands. It was specifically the throwing I didn’t understand.
    Based on a quick lookup on wikipedia, it seems the atlatl would always require two hands, and is quite effective. I still wonder about the loss of the spear though.

  71. Two possibilities:
    Forward hand to support and guide; backward hand to propel.
    Using both hands to hold the spear above the head to throw it.

  72. Using both hands to hold the spear above the head to throw it.
    Consider the velocity and range obtained by a ball thrown one-handed overhand, versus what soccer players manage using both hands above the head. Shoulders and the muscles around the joint are “designed” to favor the one-handed approach.

  74. Terminology gets tricky here. Both the atlatl and the spear are propelled by a single arm, though both could employ the other hand for support or preparation.

  76. I’ve always suspected a great deal of spear-throwing expertise on this blog. It’s pretty much the only reason I’ve stuck around.

  77. All this pilum-and-atlatl talk reminds me: I once read somewhere that Ben Franklin advocated equipping the Continental Army with bows and arrows, in light of the low accuracy and slow rate of fire of muskets in his day.
    True or apocryphal, the story makes me wonder whether my right to keep and bear arms allows me to acquire a crossbow and lay in a supply of arrows, today.
    –TP

  78. crossbow’s aren’t that fast, but they do have advantages of power and less need for training.
    There’s a whole set of youtube videos of some guy demonstrating shooting arrows at a high rate (eight arrows in eight seconds?). A stunt, but entertaining.
    Now, if you could rig up a rapid fire fully-auto crossbow THAT could be interesting. But not very practical to haul around along with the small gas engine needed to run it.

  83. I love that guy’s guttural laugh.
    Glad to see Sebastian Gorka found work, now that his treason enterprises are on temporary hold.
    Apparently Oncology doesn’t yet return enough on investment to draw that guy’s ingenuity and inventiveness into some useful enterprise.
    Of course, he’d have to lose the throaty machine gun ha-heh-ha when delivering the bad news at bedside.

  85. Until the advent of repeater rifles, the mounted Indian warriors could turn a soldier into a pincushion while he was reloading.
    I vaguely recall reading that it took quite some time for individually held firearms to surpass the longbow in effectiveness.

  87. Wow. Thank you CharlesWT and Hartmut. Real life cannot possibly match the variety of “hidden worlds” YouTube has to offer. And it’s always delightful when you stumble into one by mistake, as I did when I wrote “crossbow” when I meant (like Ben Franklin, probably) “longbow” a la Robin Hood.
    On a COMPLETELY different subject, I can’t resist sharing the most delightful YouTube video I’ve stumbled across this year:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2snTkaD64U
    I’m no opera buff, so no surprise I had never heard of Elina Garanca. What did surprise me, on doing a bit of surfing, was discovering that this sexy, sultry Carmen is actually a stylish, charming, blonde Latvian mother of two.
    –TP

  90. I meant to add, the Mongols also demonstrated the power of the mounted archer.
    because they had stirrups.

  91. A problem for gun control:
    with enough determination, you can kill a person with almost anything you can get your hands on.
    murder is still illegal.

  93. with enough determination, you can kill a person with almost anything you can get your hands on.
    an ObWi challenge: choose your weapons.
    I say marshmallows.

  94. Ah, the days of wine and Brett Bellmore.
    they laugh and run away
    like a child at play
    with a howitzer

  95. I say marshmallows.
    Sugar is far too obvious a killer.
    I vaguely recall reading that it took quite some time for individually held firearms to surpass the longbow in effectiveness…
    But the expertise required was/is far less.

  96. I say marshmallows.
    You’re aware that marshmallows are considered a significant choking hazard for children, right? Adapting that threat to grown-ups is left as an exercise for the student…

  97. But the expertise required [for using firearms] was/is far less.
    Which was, overwhelmingly, the reason that national armies adopted them. It allowed raising much larger armies, and eliminated the need to have, as England did, every village hold regular practices with bows.

  99. because they had stirrups
    Parthian mounted archers seem to have been effective even without stirrups. See the Battle of Carrhae.

  100. I had to google “Parthian” and remind myself how little I know about history. (Sadly, I still probably know more than most people – a low bar to hop over.)

  102. Parthian mounted archers seem to have been effective even without stirrups.
    stirrups make you even better.

  104. An old saying has it that it takes 7 years to master the bow, 7 weeks for the crossbow and 7 days for the arquebuse.
    An important factor for the decline of the longbow was the near extinction of the trees they were made from (on the red list even today in Europe).
    A breakthrough for firearms was the invention of ways to produce synthetic saltpeter thus becoming independent of the near monopoly of Venice. Early pyrotechnical textbooks were full of warnings about merchants (in particular Venetian ones) diluting the stuff and provided testing methods.
    But some princes used up more gunpowder for fireworks than the military in major battles.

  107. I sometimes give small onager kits to grade-school age kids, along with some small Nerf balls to use as ammo. Gets them using simple tools, then they get to chuck harmless stuff all over the house. Moms generally hate it, which only adds to the appeal.
    I used to work with a guy who did the punkin chucking thing every year. Those guys take it pretty seriously.

  108. Mom: What’s that, Timmy.
    Kid: It’s an onager kit, Mom, so I can catapult stuff all over the place.
    Mom: Who gave you THAT?
    Kid: Some older guy with an earring. He had them in his man bag and was giving them to all the kids. He told us to knock ourselves out. Mom, what does “knock ourselves out” mean?
    Mom (reaching for her cellphone): You no never mind. Does this man have a name?
    Kid: He told us to call him Uncle Tonoose. He plays the bongos in the park.

  110. He told us to call him Uncle Tonoose. He plays the bongos in the park.
    LOL
    it’s true, I have been known to play bongos in the park.
    I have a question about Uncle Tonoose. Here is the “Uncle Tonoose meets Mr. Daly” episode from the Danny Thomas show. Uncle Tonoose is supposed to be Thomas’ eccentric ethnic uncle from Toledo, while Mr. Daly is Kathy’s regular old standard issue American dad.
    When the episode begins, Mr. Daly is unpacking his suitcase for his visit with the Thomases. He reaches into his suitcase, like, four or five times, and each time he pulls out more ties.
    How many fucking ties does this guy own? He’s bringing, what, 10 or 20 ties with him, for a family visit? Is he a tie salesman, and he’s bringing the sample case along, just in case he has an opportunity to do a little business while he’s on vaca?
    Is he staying, like, for five months? How many ties can you wear in a day?
    If you ask me, Tonoose is not the oddball here. Just saying.

  111. Also, too, IMO Hans Conried is one of the truly unappreciated geniuses of the 20th C.
    The man was the voice behind Snidely Whiplash, for gods sake.
    Some say the pure in heart will be the last ones standing, my money is on the pranksters.

  112. Uncle Tonoose…now there’s a walk down memory lane. All those early TV shows were…I dunno, sort of what the world was made of. Danny Thomas. The Honeymooners. I Love Lucy. Arthur Godfrey. Art Linkletter. The Mickey Mouse Club. Spin and Marty! The Wonderful World of Color! The Lone Ranger. Maverick. The Rifleman. Lassie. My Three Sons. Father Knows Best. Bronco Lane.
    Sheesh. Where did the time go?
    Probably everyone knew this but me, but Halle Berry’s name came from Halle’s department store in Cleveland. When I was little, Halle’s had commercials on TV at Christmas time about Mr. Jingeling. I can still sing the chorus, but since you can’t hear me, YouTube provides:
    Mr. Jingeling, how you tingeling
    Keeper of the keys
    On Halle’s seventh floor we’ll be waiting for
    You to turn the keys.
    Okay, so looking that up reminds me of all the more local Cleveland stuff…..Captain Penny. Dorothy Fuldheim.
    And so it goes.

  113. I had the worst/best crush on Shari Lewis when I was nine years old.
    It killed me every time she rubbed noses with Lamb Chop.
    Charlie Horse.
    She grew up in the Bronx.
    Janie, did you get a show called Popeye and Knish in Cleveland?
    He was a Pittsburgh puppeteer. Not great.
    But Saturday mornings, in my baseball player jammies, were first Tarzan Theater movies, two in a row, and then Popeye cartoons hosted by Hank Stoll and his puppet Knish.
    Then Chiller Theater on Saturday nights late with Chilly Billy Cardilly.

  114. Mr. Daly was played by William Demarest, who for awhile I believe, held the record for the number of character actor parts he played in movies and TV.
    He played tough guys on either side of the law in the 1930s and 1940s.
    Come to think of it, I had a crush on Marjorie Lord, too.
    I’m betting the tie thing was an old vaudeville piece of business.

  115. Saturday mornings I couldn’t wait for Fury, My friend Flicka, Lassie,and Sky King back to back.

  116. anybody here into siege engines?
    The first present my husband ever gave me was a huge Taschen book of the complete paintings and drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci, because I told him I’d always had a thing for his drawings (as opposed to his paintings). I’m sure you know he designed siege engines, as well as other instruments of war. The drawings are utterly wonderful – I can’t find a really good link, but while I was looking I found this wonderful thing – archers and siege engine in one! I have no idea who Thomas the Slav was, though, or where Blachernae was, I’m now going to go and look it all up!

  118. Count — I don’t remember getting Popeye and Knish. But I don’t remember Saturday morning cartoons all that vividly — it may be that I never got the habit because of my night-person/sleep late in the morning tendencies, which manifested pretty early……
    We got channels 3, 5, and 8, all from Cleveland, and later our world got ever so much wider when we also started to get channel 12 from Erie.
    Remember making your youngest sibling get up and change the channel? 😉 Mine still remembers that, let me tell you.
    Ozzie and Harriet. Sea Hunt. Sky King, yes, and I’m sure we watched Fury but I don’t remember it as well. Bonanza — though that started a little later than some of these others (1959, acc’ to Wikipedia).

  119. The Donna Reed Show. Our Miss Brooks. Leave it to Beaver. Dobie Gillis. Jim Bowie. Kit Carson. Rin Tin Tin. Captain Kangaroo. Howdy Doody. Bat Masterson. Gale Storm. Ben Casey, and the great “who’s better, Ben Casey or Dr. Kildare” debate among 7th or 8th grade girls.
    There was one series set in a high school…I can picture the actor who played the principal, but I can’t remember his name, or the name of the series. Anyone got any ideas?
    I’m especially bemused this morning at the memory of the glorification of all those frontier heroes…….
    Sometimes, when people talk about “TV” and movies they’re watching these days, I wonder how anyone has enough time in the day to know all these shows, and work a job, and run a household, and raise kids. Then I start in on a list like this and realize how much time can be sunk into screens while real life still rumbles along. Besides all this TV, I went to school like everyone else, and spent *huge* amounts of time reading, and playing outside, and hanging out at Grandma’s place with my cousins.
    Though sorry, Count, not playing baseball, though I desperately wanted to. They wouldn’t let me, because you know, a certain kind of “plumbing” (to quote a phrase) means you’re incapable of certain things…and why should you care, as long as *some* people get to do it? I did play a couple of summers of park league softball when I was about 13. All the other girls were 16 or 17, and so sophisticated…….and so much better at softball. They made me the catcher because no one else wanted to do it.

  120. The Rebel(a guy so stubborn, tough or something that he wore a Confederate uniform in often Confederate unfriendly venues), The Virgins, Cheyenne, Gunsmoke, The Cisco Kid, Paladin, Roy Rogers, Davy Crockett, Danial Boone, etc.
    Gunsmoke started out on the radio. William Conrad had the voice, but not the statue for TV.
    We didn’t have a TV until about the mid-’50s so I remember many of the radio soap operas.

  122. Sometimes, when people talk about “TV” and movies they’re watching these days, I wonder how anyone has enough time in the day to know all these shows, and work a job, and run a household, and raise kids.
    The other day I was talking with my grown son who asked, “How did you do everything when we were small?” and rattled off a list of things from doing stuff with kids to keeping the house in repair to a career. I pointed out that watching TV wasn’t on his list of things that I did.
    I wonder sometimes if my general take it or leave it attitude towards TV is because at a critical young age I lived in a rural area where there were only two channels, both fuzzy because the transmitters were 60 miles away. Long before cable and satellite, obviously. The library, OTOH, was and is hugely important to me.

  123. Okay, so I’ve probably asked this question before, but since we’re reminiscing about fifties TV I’ll ask it again and maybe someone who hasn’t heard the question will know the answer.
    In the early eighties I was working as a programmer in Milwaukee and ended up debugging some code that a vendor had sold my company (long story, and weren’t those the days?). In a comment line just before the logical end of the program, the programmer wrote:
    “Pop goes the fil-um, good night.”
    This made a light bulb of memory go on in my head — it was the ending tag line of some kids’ TV show, surely a cartoon, that we watched in the fifties. But I couldn’t remember what show. I’ve been asking people ever since, and once Google came on the scene I started asking Google too, but have never gotten an answer.
    The programmer had it exactly right in that “film” was pronounced with two syllables.
    ??????????????????????

  124. I’m often surprised to find out that commenters here are older than I am. Without specific information telling me otherwise, I tend to assume a given person is a young wipper-snapper, relatively speaking, to some degree. This is a youthful-presenting group (in a good way – not with folly and hubris).

  125. Janie: There was one series set in a high school
    I remember two: “Room 222” and “Welcome Back, Kotter”. I’m betting you’re thinking of the former. Michael Constantine was the principal; when last seen, he played the father in “My Big, Fat Greek Wedding”.
    Fifty years ago today, I might well have been watching 3 Stooges shorts and Rocky and Bullwinkle reruns on some local (Boston) TV kids show. Not “Major Mudd”, I think; that was weekday mornings. There was also a sci-fi-ish puppet (not cartoon) show called “Stingray” which appealed to the nascent engineer in me because of the cool submarine.
    Tip of the hat to The Count for the revelation that Uncle Tonoose was Snidely Whiplash.
    In the evenings of that period (exercising my newly-acquired English) I remember watching the original Adam West “Batman”, the “Beverly Hillbillies”, and a show called “Family Affair” which I still believe was subliminally responsible for my career choice. (It featured an “engineer” who lived in a luxurious apartment on 5th Ave and had Sebastian Cabot for a butler.) This was all after the evening news, of course, which featured the daily Vietnam body counts between the sports and weather segments.
    –TP

  126. TP — You’re just a youngster. 😉
    Both those series (per Wiki) came on the air after I started college, from which time I watched very little TV for the rest of my life. Well, if by very little you include infinite M*A*S*H reruns, several years of Hill Street Blues, some Gilmore Girls, etc.
    This show was earlier (50s/60s, not 70s) than those. I will try to ferret out the name of the actor I’m remembering — he was in a lot of things over the years.

  127. About the only time that I remember my father laughing at a cartoon was when Dishonest John tunneled into a fort, came up inside the armory, struck a match for light, and blew the place up. When the smoke cleared, DJ appeared tattered and smoldering and said, “I’m smoking more now and enjoying it less.”

  132. I’m sure you know he designed siege engines, as well as other instruments of war.
    Da Vinci designed a simple bridge that could be assembled on the spot by a couple of guys from tree limbs. It is the essence of genius.
    Check it out.
    “Pop goes the fil-um, good night.”
    That is how all of my mother’s people pronounced it. New York / New Jersey regional dialect, particular to a certain socioeconomic class, of a particular time.
    If you were NYC / NJ lower middle class in the first half of the 20th, chances are that’s how you pronounced it.
    Also – favorite code comments:
    One guy I worked with began all of this error handling stuff with the comment “GNASH YOUR TEETH IN DESPAIR!”.
    Another guy annotated a particularly opaque sequence of code with the suggestion that it be treated as a primitive religion – don’t try to understand, just chant the right words in the right order, or else you will be visited by plagues.
    When I was a kid, Warner Bros Looney Tunes, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and the Little Rascals were my world. I’ll probably be watching them someday in the day room of the old folks’ home, laughing my fool ass off.

  133. My favorite western remains Maverick — at least the ones James Garner was in.
    But the image that sticks with me is the intro to one that had the cavalry racing out the gate of a fort, pealing off right and left. I think there was a bugle call playing. No clue what the show was, or even whether it actually featured the cavalry troop.

  134. The … FUGITIVE, brought to you by Quinn Martin Productions.
    I still watch episodes on Netflix, but the voice- over at the beginning and end are so melodramatic that it makes me laugh now.
    I wanted to be him. Skulking about in borderline jobs, his collar up, on the run, leaving town by hitching a ride in the back of a truck, or on a greyhound, on the scent of the one-armed man.
    Yet another woman, and the indefatigable Lieutenant Girard, left behind in the nick of time, before love and prison can cramp his style.
    Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Cochise, Have Gun, Will Travel (in which Richard Boone once shot a guy and the victim rolled over and over for at least twenty feet, on completely level ground, at which point my Dad let out an “Aw, c’mon!” from his easy chair in the den.
    Topper.
    The Real McCoys. Luke and Little Luke. Sugar Plum. Walter Brennan with that scene-stealing hitch in his get-along demanding to know “Where’s Hassie?”
    Ask Pipino … he knew.
    Richard Diamond, Private Detective, in which we were introduced to the legs and the sultry voice, but nothing more, of his answering service gal, a very, very young Mary Tyler Moore.
    Yes, the Donna Reed Show. Now, there was an actress who fugitive Richard Kimball would have remained in town for, perhaps forever hiding in a hay loft, with Donna Reed sneaking away from her family and bringing him soup, sympathy, and solace.
    I can still watch the Dick Van Dyke show and Andy Griffith like they are freshly made.
    I perfected Dick Van Dyke’s somersault over my Dad’s ottoman and would land directly in front of the TV in a sitting Indian pow-wow position, my chin settled in my hand and ready to watch.
    Sea Hunt. Jeff and Beau Bridges as kids.
    Ozzie and Harriet. The entire family and the rest of the cast, except for buddy Wally Plumstead with the silly laugh, were preternaturally soft-spoken. It was almost spooky, the quiet civility of it, even when they were perturbed, coming from a family, as I did, where “Pass the salt, please” could be a spoken bill of thinly-veiled recrimination.
    Excepting when my mother said it.

  135. Yup, Bugs Bunny and Our Gang, the latter on Saturday mornings, too.
    And Rocky and Bullwinkle. Fractured Fairy Tales.

  137. wj, at first I thought of Rin Tin Tin. But there’s no scene quite like what you describe.
    Boots and Saddles is a little more like it…but maybe still not quite the thing.
    While I was looking for those I was reminded of some other great themes…
    Bonanza
    Mystery
    …as well as of a very depressing opening that didn’t faze me a bit when I was a kid: The Rifleman. Little did I know where we were heading.
    *****
    GNASH YOUR TEETH made me laugh out loud. You gotta do something for laughs while you’re writing code, right?
    And the DaVinci bridge is beyond cool. I’m going to send that to a couple of people I know who will enjoy it immensely.

  139. Fractured Fairy Tales
    The princess kisses the frog and turns into a frog.
    “They lived happily ever after, but they croaked every night.”

  141. GNASH YOUR TEETH IN DESPAIR!
    I have a program that I still use occasionally, written in C originally at Bell Labs circa 1976, then modified by folks at Yale, Berkeley, and Purdue, moving from one machine/compiler combination to another multiple times, before it fell into my hands. Some of the comments about work-arounds for various compilers are interesting.
    (Yes, you read that correctly. C code some of which is >40 years old.)

  142. The Da Vinci bridge is amazing. Thanks russell.
    In Florence, they had an exhibition of built Da Vinci machines, smaller scale, in wood, that you could actually operate. It was really interesting, and you could see (as with the bridge) the simplicity and therefore the brilliance of the mind that had devised them. But unlike the bridge you couldn’t have made them with branches lopped off a nearby tree.

  143. Also – favorite code comments:
    i maintain some code that has the following comments:
    “Are you tired of inhaling noxious gas?”
    and
    “Beware the many-chinned man.”
    they appear in the middle of functions and there’s no context for either of them.
    my Saturday AM was Little Rascals, Woody Woodpecker and Loony Tunes
    I wanted to be him. Skulking about in borderline jobs, his collar up, on the run, leaving town by hitching a ride in the back of a truck, or on a greyhound, on the scent of the one-armed man.
    i started watching that show during a summer at college. i watched it every day for three months. i so wanted to be him. screw studying to be a worker worker drone. i wanted to be On The Run! he didn’t look hungry or bored. he had shit to do, places to be (or, to get away from at least). sign me up!

  144. As to this from russell:

    “Pop goes the fil-um, good night.”
    That is how all of my mother’s people pronounced it. New York / New Jersey regional dialect, particular to a certain socioeconomic class, of a particular time.
    If you were NYC / NJ lower middle class in the first half of the 20th, chances are that’s how you pronounced it.

    The code was written by someone working for a company in Emeryville, California, in the late seventies/early eighties. Since practically everyone had stars in their eyes about California when I was growing up, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if the coder was a transplant from NY/NJ.
    On the other hand, since it was a quote from a TV show……..I swear it was!……..the coder’s rendering might just have been because of the TV show’s pronunciation.
    Sigh. I keep a list of these mysteries — threads of memory or reference that I can’t identify — and this one is certainly the longest-lasting — since about 1982!

  145. In this part of the world “fillum”, as I think we would write it, is a Geordie pronunciation – what my wife would say.

  147. Yes, you read that correctly. C code some of which is >40 years old
    I miss working in C. A really simple language, in the end, and you can do anything with it.
    Just the facts, ma’am, no syntactic sugar, no tricky bits under the hood. what you see is what you get.
    50 years from now, there will code running machines doing useful stuff in the real world, in C.
    and, COBOL. go figure.

  150. I miss working in C. A really simple language, in the end, and you can do anything with it.
    my current task is writing a REST microservice… in C. what Java + Spring could accomplish in literally one single-word annotation, takes 30 minutes of boilerplate C. and string manipulation (crafting JSON, filling in HTTP headers, constructing URIs) takes ages.
    my kingdom for a StingBuilder

  151. my current task is writing a REST microservice… in C.
    ok, that is a bit like building a car from a pile of sheet metal and a pair of pliers.
    ritchie and kernighan would probably say, “well, first build a string builder!”.
    easy for them to say.
    that is a weird language choice for that purpose. python not an option? if too slow, maybe golang?

  152. what Java + Spring could accomplish in literally one single-word annotation, takes 30 minutes of boilerplate C.
    There are places for C. Mostly embedded places, where predictable hard real-time behavior is necessary and hardware is minimal. Last new C code I wrote was for this gadget. I’m sketching out designs for a cheap fencing scoring box, the code for which will be in C.
    OTOH, my bedside appliance — “clock” seems too simple for all the things it will eventually do — is a Raspberry Pi. Quad processors clocked at over a gigahertz, a gig of main memory, full Linux. Unless I get into local speech recognition, none of my code there is going to be in C.

  153. This is a youthful-presenting group (in a good way – not with folly and hubris).
    Pretty much everyone seems (a) willing to at least consider embracing change and (b) generally optimistic. Those are two things that too often disappear with age. Even the Count’s rants seem (to me) to come off as oddly optimistic.

  154. I’m immature for my age.
    I’m still thinking we can work it out, but maybe only after the considerable carnage it will take to dispatch the ratf*ckers among us.
    Let them eat poisoned cake.
    I’m going to be in NYC for two-plus weeks this month and I’m going to find these guys at the 14th Street subway station:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSEi8QsG3Bg
    Count me in on working it out but count me out until these ilk are liquidated:
    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/giuliani-trump-can-probably-pardon-himself-has-no-intention-to-do-so
    What izzat … constitutional Jazz? The improvisational make-it-up-as-we-go-along bullshit of America is entering its end game.
    What happens when a banana republic goes bananas, or to paraphrase Soupy Sales (see how I wedged the old TV show theme into this), “For whom will the banana cream pie cream?”
    Republicans are going to be very sorry that after 230 years they made up an individual right to own and bear pies out of the poorly punctuated pigshit of the Second Amendment.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIRmqMRSXAs
    One day, once the conservative mp menace has been dispatched, depantsed, and deported, we can come together. But not until they feel my disease good and hard.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V8VUKiO794

  155. The Trump administration looks likely to take a run at invoking national security to prop up coal and nuclear electricity generation.
    I don’t give it much chance of standing up in court. The last time these were invoked was during the California fiasco in 2000-01. Then, local authorities were declaring states of emergency. This time, local operators seem to be saying “What emergency? The grid is fine.”
    I may be biased because I pay a lot more attention to the Western Interconnect than to the power grid in the rest of the country. (The US has three very largely independent power grids — the Western, Eastern, and Texas.)

  157. Trump has figured out (or someone has figured out how to explain it to him simply enough for him to grasp) that invoking “national security” lets him do lots of stuff. It may be totally bogus; usually is. But Congress gave Presidents a lot of authority, in the (previously justified) expectation that they would use it judiciously.
    The long term effect will, I suspect, be that Presidential discretion gets reined way back. But meanwhile, things look to get seriously trashed.

  158. “in the (previously never justified) expectation that they would use it judiciously.”
    Fixed that.

  159. several years of Hill Street Blues
    russell has jokingly proposed that our new ObWi motto should be Damn John Jay, and damn everyone who won’t…, and everybody knows how much I love that. But under current circumstances, I rather favour the old Hill Street Blues one at the end of the preliminary morning briefing:
    Let’s be careful out there!
    Although, which is more suitable for the Count, I seem to remember that in the first series it was:
    Let’s do it to them before they do it to us!

  160. My recollection is that “Let’s be careful out there” was the original catchphrase. “Let’s do it to them…” was used in later series by the replacement desk sergeant.

  161. How funny, my memory is the other way round, with a desk sergeant who was replaced for reasons I can’t remember. But my memory is quite likely to be faulty these days!

  163. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/signs-of-sophisticated-cellphone-spying-found-near-white-house-us-officials-say/ar-AAy65tD
    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/trump-thanks-secure-phone-too-inconvenient-lock-him-up.html
    The man’s got to communicate.
    With his base, the Russians.
    But he also needs to tweet out messages on jobs data, for example, before the official releases so that his vermin crime family can place their bets in stock market futures in bourses around the world.
    The Hill Street Blues desk sergeant was replaced because the actor who played him died, sadly:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Conrad

  164. Marty, care to offer up an example of a previous President who invoked “national security” as nonchalantly, against allies, as Trump? (“Never” would imply all of them have. But let’s start slowly….)

  166. For those of you who have taken up watching Korean dramas, Netflix is streaming the Netflix Original Life, a Hill Street Blues like police drama. It has a larger ensemble cast and better production values than Korean police dramas generally have. Perhaps Netflix wrote the production company a very large check.

  167. What izzat … constitutional Jazz?
    no, man, jazz can be free, but it’s always sensible.
    “making shit up” is not the same as improvisation.

  170. And now I’m feeling pretty minimal in my programming. I can write mainframe Assembler (got a project doing that in hand). I can read and tune, but not write, CoBOL. And a bit of html. Not that much to show for a career in IT.

  171. “invoked “national security” as nonchalantly, against allies, ”
    I’m curious why “against allies” is the criteria required, or nonchalantly for that matter. The last two Presidents abused the latitude provided by Congress. It was never a good idea.

  172. I’m afraid I’m being exceptionally forgetful today. What invocation of national security did Bush or Obama use, in circumstances where there was minimal, if any, actual national security involved? Did either one invoke national security to start a gratuitous trade war, and I’ve just failed to remember?
    And “against allies” was offered because it is not obvious, at least to my limited understanding, how we are at national security risk because we trade with allies? Do we think Canada will refuse to supply steel or aluminum if we get into a war? (Even a stupid and unjustified one.) Seriously?

  173. “National security” or not, all presidents are inclined to play this “cut your nose to spite your face” game of tariffs. Obama’s tariffs on Chinese tires cost consumers over one billion dollars, about one million dollars per job saved.

  174. All Presidents do it a little. As with many things Trump, the difference in magnitude is so large as to become a difference in kind.

  175. Autarky
    “Autarky as an ideal or method has been embraced by a wide range of political ideologies and movements, especially left-wing creeds like mutualism, Council Communism, Syndicalism, Democratic Confederalism, and Populism. It has also been used in temporary, limited ways by conservative and nationalist movements, such as the American system, the Meiji Restoration, Juche, and traditionalist conservatism. Fascist and far-right movements occasionally claimed to strive for autarky in platform or propaganda, but in practice crushed existing movements towards self-sufficiency[2] and maintained extensive capital connections in efforts to ready for war and genocide[3] while allying with business elites”
    Fascist economic relations were like complicated. Beside every SS Colonel were his industrialist father and banking uncle, using force and coercion to make advantageous and provisional deals.
    Autarky is a questionable and controversial left problem, Corbyn’s ambivalence toward Euro integration being the most obvious example, unless you’re following Italy.

  176. wj, you said that in general it was a good idea, I disagree. Each President has pushed the limits of their powers. I have pretty much always objected, and do now.
    You could probably find me objecting about Obama’s imperial Presidency. Sucks when it’s not your guy doing the things you want done.
    But it isn’t new and certainly not a difference in kind.

  177. Obama was confronted with a legislature which, as an open political tactic, opposed everything he did regardless of its merits. He sometimes used executive powers to overcome this to an extent which displeased that legislature.
    Trump has a docile legislature, but his policies are so insane he has to abuse executive powers, and lie about their purpose.
    These are not the same thing.

  179. Marty: …certainly not a difference in kind.
    Marty,
    Name an action that He, Trump could take that you would consider to be a “difference in kind”. Fire Mueller? Pardon His son? Pardon Himself? Anything?
    –TP

  180. Holder and the FBI protected Clinton, they limited the investigation of gun running and they limited the investigation of Benghazi, all on Obama’s orders. It would take pardoning himself to be a difference, much less in kind.

  181. they limited the investigation of Benghazi
    ya know, the GOP is currently running all three branches of the government right now.
    if you have information on Benghazi that they weren’t able to figure out, thanks to Grand Emperor Obama’s illegal meddling then you should probably scoot on over to DC and tell them all what you know. i’m sure they’d love to pull out ol Hillary again for some mid-term fan service.
    come on, do your party a favor, Marty. tell them what you know.
    unless… say… maybe the whole Benghazi thing was just one of the bi-annual fauxpanics the GOP lights up in order to keep the base riled and ready to donate. or maybe it was just a way to keep “conservatives” from finding something about Clinton to like, in the run-up for the 2016 election – you know, LIKE THEY FUCKING SAID IT WAS.
    sheesh

  182. Yore probably right cleek, it’s amazing how outraged people can be over not so outrageous stuff, like negotiating trade policy.
    Like it’s the first time we had a trade disagreement with Canada.

  183. wj, you said that in general it was a good idea, I disagree.
    Actually, I don’t believe I did say it was a good idea. Since I don’t think it was — for precisely the reason that it can be abused.
    I did say was that it hadn’t been abused on anything like the same scale as Trump has. And I haven’t yet seen anything that convinces me otherwise.

  184.  What invocation of national security did Bush or Obama use, in circumstances where there was minimal, if any, actual national security involved?
    Almost every single time the term “national security” has been used to justify anything – usually an outrageous power grab by the executive, shameless undermining of civil liberties or militaristic ‘realpolitik’ i.e greed – it has fuck all to do with the actually safeguarding the nation from a real threat.

  185. you know what?
    obama was actually a really good president.
    trump is so far proving to be a really crap president.
    and whenever i hear ‘benghazi’ i look for the tin foil hat. do you really want to be that guy?

  186. russell, I feel exactly the same way every time I hear collusion. And evrry time I hear someone day Obama was a good President. Do you want to be that guy? Tin foil abounds.

  187. The Martygism:
    Did Thomas Jefferson exceed presidential executive authority with the Louisiana Purchase? Could be.
    Therefore, anything that Trump has done is not out of the ordinary.

  188. I could go along with Marty’s take on degree vs kind, but this….
    Holder and the FBI protected Clinton, they limited the investigation of gun running and they limited the investigation of Benghazi, all on Obama’s orders.
    Is pure unmitigated bullshit right out of Infowars.

  192. I’m confused. If there was something to hide/investigate about Benghazi, how did years of Congressional investigation fail to uncover it? And, of course, if there wasn’t there would be no need for Holder to limit anything.
    I don’t have the impression that our government is so adept at keeping secrets that even marginally competent Congressional investigators could fail to find a smoking gun after all that effort . . . if thete was one to be found. And, of course, they never did.

  193. I am always amazed at the hills that Marty wants to die on. But given they all start with the sincere conviction that Obama was the worst president EVAH!, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised…

  194. I feel exactly the same way every time I hear collusion.
    numerous contacts between people in trump’s campaign and russian nationals, in the interest of cooperating to advance trump as a candidate, are established fact. call it what you will.
    if trump, personally, actually goes down, it will likely be obstruction.
    because he’s a moron.
    And evrry time I hear someone day Obama was a good President. Do you want to be that guy?.
    i am that guy.

  195. I am always amazed at the hills that Marty wants to die on.
    marty seems to want to think he’s not taking a side.
    marty, you’re taking a side. a poorly chosen one.

  196. I am taking a side, against the Democratic demagoguery that is destroying our country as a pathetic and irrational reaction to losing the election.
    A year and a half later. Despite all the analysis, there simply has to be an explanation where not just Trump but Republicans are more evil and corrupt or certainly they would have lost.

  197. if you think this is all about feeling all butt-hurt because the (D)’s lost the election, your head is further up your butt than you realize.
    carry on as you wish.

  198. what i expect and in fact require of trump’s supporters and defenders is that they allow the mueller investigation to proceed to its conclusion, and that they accept and live with its outcome, whatever that is.
    because that’s what i’ll be doing. because accepting and abiding by the rule of law is better than having us all run around killing each other.
    if trump’s people think anything less than that will, remotely, be countenanced by the rest of us, the shit is going to hit the fan.
    if folks don’t like it, next time don’t elect a fucking crook.

  199. Was there collusion between Trump and Putin, in the sense of a deal by which Putin would help in the election and Trump if elected would deliver specified favours in return? No, almost certainly not. Putin wouldn’t trust Trump to keep a secret like that.
    Did Putin want Trump to win the election? Yes. Did he do everything he could to make that happen? Yes. We know both those things for a fact.
    Why did he want Trump to win the election? Because it’s in the interests of a hostile power for the US to have an incompetent and readily corruptible president.
    Should the US be investigating to what extent its own nationals were involved in Russia’s efforts to influence the election? Yes of course it should. You want to make it as hard as you can for Russia to choose the US president.
    Is Trump incompetent? Yes, obviously. He prefers watching propaganda on television to reading actual briefings. In terms of having the faintest idea of what he’s talking about he’s the worst president of my lifetime by a vast margin.
    Is Trump actually corrupt? Evidently foreign governments think negotiations with him go better if they help out his family business interests. And Trump, like Bush, decides with his gut not his brain. He may not even know whether a sweetener actually influences him. Which to my mind means that it does.
    To be fair, I should add that Trump’s gut hasn’t yet done anything as disastrous as Bush’s did. If Mueller could keep it that way, that would be an unexpected blessing for us all.

  200. Putin wouldn’t trust Trump to keep an agreement to deliver favors. But if he has leverage?
    I expect Trump is capable of keeping his mouth shut about bribes received, for example. Or past participation in money laundering.

  201. But it isn’t simply that Marty believes that butt hurt Dems are trying to pull down Trump, according to Marty, Holder and Obama, _before the Dems lost the election_, were conspiring. It’s turtles all the way down…

  202. To be fair, I should add that Trump’s gut hasn’t yet done anything as disastrous as Bush’s did. If Mueller could keep it that way, that would be an unexpected blessing for us all.
    The jury is out on that. Incarcerated children, where a US Senator was denied entry to see them, massive and underreported casualties from Hurricane Maria, 500 civilian casualties (reported by the Pentagon) from military operations abroad (which seems to be another subject of selective outrage in the IOKIYAR category), an attempt to dismember NATO in support of fascism, trade wars …
    The casualties are piling up.

  203. I expect Trump is capable of keeping his mouth shut about bribes received, for example. Or past participation in money laundering.
    He certainly knows how to keep his tax returns secret.

  206. Not trolling.
    “June 28, 2012 – The House of Representatives votes 255-67 to hold Holder in criminal contempt of Congress. This is the first time in American history that the head of the Justice Department has been held in contempt by Congress.
    July 6, 2012 – The White House and the DOJ announce that Holder will not face criminal prosecution under the contempt of Congress citation.”
    White House interfering directly in the prosecution of the Attorney General.
    Obama protects 10’s of thousands of documents under executive privilege.
    Oh wait, this can’t be, he never had a scandal.
    Finally, some underling writes report and falls on his sword to protect Holder and Obama.

  207. The White House and the DOJ announce that Holder will not face criminal prosecution under the contempt of Congress citation
    …following a precedent that goes back at least to St Reagan.

  208. If very very few people are talking about a “scandal” (or were talking about it at the time) it’s not really a scandal. Iran-Contra was a scandal. Watergate was a scandal. The Monica Lewinski affair was a scandal.
    Use words according to their meanings, and your points might make more sense.

  209. trivia:
    know who else was cited in contempt of Congress?
    Anne Gorsuch, mother of current usurper Justice, Neil Gorsuch.

  210. This is the first time in American history that the head of the Justice Department has been held in contempt by Congress.
    The first time that Congress has asked the Attorney General to prosecute himself? So either the 82nd Attorney General was uniquely criminal, or the 112th Congress was uniquely politicised.
    Everything we’ve learned since 2012 confirms that it was the latter.

  211. meh, embrace the openity
    GE, from production facilities thru sensors in pipelines to shipping ports manages more daily data (Internet of Things) in its natural gas cloud services than Facebook. Temperature, viscosity, flow. But also some of the accounting, shipping, storage, futures market.
    More than Facebook every day. And this is a large division of GE, but just one of many, and GE has competitors.
    I wonder if by looking closely at natgas throughput, the numbers, one could tell when there was a storm, or a tech had a sick day. But these are other databases, along with Facebook and google and amazon, to be collated and aggregated and munched as the…
    …the whole world is being monitored and recorded in real time…
    …and the AI learns.

  213. ranked for severity, F&F would appear in the low 600s on the list of things Trump has personally done while in office.
    that the House branch of the Stupid Party got together to throw a tantrum about a pseudo-scandal manufactured in order to damage Obama isn’t exactly news, or proof of anything about Obama.

  214. Oddly there were only 67 votes against that
    Most Ds boycotted the vote in protest at the blatantly politicised process. Did you not know that, or did you forget to mention it?

  215. Marty is trolling.
    no, he’s not. he’s all in on this stuff.
    i invite everyone to go look at the substance of the issue for which holder was held in contempt of congress.
    and you know what? obama’s not the oresident anymore. bill clinton’s not the president anymore. hillary’s not the president, nor is she secretary of state.
    donald trump is the president. his latest caper is asserting that (a) he can’t obstruct justice because he is the chief executive, therefore the feds all work for him, so he’s really running the investigation, so therefore how could he obstruct it, and (b) even if he was charged with something, even though he won’t be, because he has done nothing wrong, he can just pardon himself.
    he has out-nixoned nixon. which takes some doing.
    he’s a crook. he’s a crook, the investigation will land where it lands, and we will all deal with whatever comes out of it. which could basically be almost anything.
    i didn’t vote for the guy. this is not my mess, i just have to deal, like everyone else. including all of trump’s fans and supporters.
    suck it up, buttercup. next time don’t vote for a crook.

  216. Someone riddle me this. If Attorney General Holder was suppressing information at the Justice Department . . . why hasn’t Attorney General Sessions made it available to Congress now? It’s not like any Democrat could stop him.
    For that matter, why hasn’t Trump’s State Department made public all the horrible facts about Benghazi? Wouldn’t it be great for Republicans to prove that they were right all along? So why haven’t they?

  218. Marty is “all in” on “(Republican) policies”, he tells us. In pursuit of those “(Republican) policies”, any attack on any Democrat is justified, because if any Democrat has any power at all, those “(Republican) policies” are likely to be thwarted. And that would make Marty’s butt hurt.
    Furthermore, any malfeasance, incompetence, or outright criminality on the part of He, Trump must be defended, because no price is too high to pay for “(Republican) policies”.
    Does anybody see the common theme here?
    –TP

  220. unfortunately, it wasn’t a decision about the thing that troubles us here. they punted on that one.

  221. Votes in the House do not make a scandal. General public outrage does. I was wondering how long it would take for Marty to bring up F&F, since that’s usually the go-to for “conservatives” when anyone says that Obama’s was a (relatively, at least) scandal-free presidency.
    Trump is so bad that the scandal meter is way out of calibration, or perhaps has even blown a fuse. He’s exhausting.

  223. unfortunately, it wasn’t a decision about the thing that troubles us here. they punted on that one.
    Yeah. Given that Kennedy wrote it, I suspect he decided this wasn’t the case he wanted to use to set the precedent banning discrimination against same-sex couples and negotiated this as a placeholder. It’s really an invitation for the lower courts to tee up one or more other cases that lack the (apparently) open hostility showed by some of the Colorado commissioners.
    I also view this as an indicator that Kennedy will be back next term.

  225. Will Saletan on Twitter:

    Set a toddler loose in your home, and you’ll discover what needs to be childproofed. Set Trump loose in your government, and you’ll discover what needs to be crook-proofed.

    (ht BJ)

  226. Question for wj:
    If it turns out that tomorrow’s “non-partisan” primaries in California result in races where 2 Republicans advance to the general with single-digit vote percentages, will you be glad or sorry?
    –TP

  227. Mostly, and regardless of that outcome, I’m sorry that we haven’t (yet!) combined open primaries with “single transferable vote”. The open primary was a good idea . . . which, as happens, is proving to have some flaws when actually put into practice.
    Think of California as just the latest in the states-as-experimental-sites thing. It will take us a few tries to get it right. But once we do, I suspect that whatever we come up with will get adopted in much of the rest of the country.
    It would be nice, of course, if we managed to get it perfect the first time. And if folks like Nunes get re-elected this year thanks to the scenario that Tony lays out, it will be unfortunate.

  229. wj: … it will be unfortunate
    Benjamin Disraeli allegedly once remarked:

    Well, if Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that would be a calamity.

    I mention that because calamities begin as misfortunes most of the time.
    Imagine what would happen if, come November, you and everybody else in CA could only choose between two Republicans for governor, because the platoon of Democrats running in your jungle primary split about 70% of the vote fairly equally among themselves. What odds would you give on “single transferable vote” becoming law in the next 4 years?
    Experimentation is all well and good, as long as any “unfortunate” consequences of the experiment can actually be undone. In the long run, of course, they will be undone in most cases — which would be fine if
    1) people lived forever; and
    2) you discount all the fuss and bother, meanwhile.
    I acknowledge that Californians — Democrats as well as Republicans — had every right to play with fire in the noble cause of “non-partisanship” or “bipartisanship” or whatever. If they decide they burned themselves, well, maybe they will figure out that “partisanship” is what elections are actually about.
    –TP

  231. Colorado’s mail-in ballots for the June 26 primaries go out today. Unaffiliated voters will get both a (D) and an (R) ballot, but can return at most one. I have a bet with my neighbor that few voters will screw up and return both; he expects a massive error rate.

  232. Top two primary is a really dumb idea.
    Absolutely. IF you accept the premise that political parties, as institutions, are important for a democracy. Something, it might be pointed out, that our Founding Fathers didn’t believe.
    The question for those arguing for “free association” has to be: What about those who choose not to associate? Should they be denied a say in who can be nominated? Bear in mind that, in California today, they outnumber all but one of the political parties.

  233. The question for those arguing for “free association” has to be: What about those who choose not to associate? Should they be denied a say in who can be nominated?
    They could sign the petition to get an independent candidate on the ballot. Is that not possible in California? Or should I say *was* it not possible?
    I would say that if you’re going to allow an effectively unlimited # of candidates on the ballot, you should at least have some kind of run-off system instead of taking only the top two, who could get in with 9% or 7% of the vote, etc.

  234. Tony, it’s entirely possible to change our current experiment. Or abandon it entirely. So far, a majority of the voters don’t seem inclined to abandon it altogether.
    We shouldn’t be surprised if it takes an unhappy result to convince people that we need to change something. That tends to be true for any proposed change.
    Will the change take longer than you (or I) might prefer? Sure. Will there be negative consequences meanwhile? Possibly. For example, it is entirely possible that thete will be no Republicans up for Governor or Senator in November. Which is expected to reduce turnout among Republicans. Whether or not you consider that a bug or a feature kind of depends on who you favor in the down-ballot races.

  235. They could sign the petition to get an independent candidate on the ballot. Is that not possible in California?
    There’s nothing to stop an independent from running in the primary. And a couple are.
    As for the general election, there is a provision for write-in candidates (i.e. someone other than the top two). Their name won’t appear, but votes for them will be counted.
    Which suggests that, if Democrats are sufficiently unhappy with a choice of two Republicans, or vis versa, they are not totally without options.

  236. I would say that if you’re going to allow an effectively unlimited # of candidates on the ballot, you should at least have some kind of run-off system instead of taking only the top two, who could get in with 9% or 7% of the vote, etc.
    In Colorado, you can get on the general election ballot as a candidate for President for $5,000. In 2016, IIRC, there were 22 candidates. I have a friend who fancifully claims to be a member of the Cocktail Party, dedicated to drinking one’s way through election season. I’ve offered to put up $50 towards getting him on the ballot, and making phone calls looking for 99 other people who think that’s a reasonable platform. If I were to win the lottery, I’d just do it, for the purely selfish pleasure of watching his reaction on the Skype call when I told him, “The Cocktail Party’s on the ballet in CO, you for Prez and me for VP. The one-page web site’s up. How many votes do you think we can get?”
    Getting on the ballot for a Congressional office, or for a state office, is considerably more difficult. Being a member of one of the recognized political parties is an enormous step up.

  237. “why hasn’t Attorney General Sessions made it available to Congress now? It’s not like any Democrat could stop him.”
    Because during the end of his Presidency when no one much paid attention, Obama was forced by the courts to release them.
    Then Trump came in and said we should move forward instead of look backward. Besides, a couple of ATF people got fired for it, gave up a few dealers and now when they find one of those guns it’s “no big deal”.
    Dumba$$, that helped a lot.

  238. The actual scandal is us, that we’re sitting around talking about whether “Fast and Furious” was a scandal [can you actually describe that “scandal in your own words, Marty?].
    What’s really a scandal is that we’re not all flying down to Texas, where Jeff Merkley was, to ask WTF is happening with these kids whose parents valiantly tried to come to the US to save them from pervasive gang violence and certain murder.
    I gave you a link from National Geographic, FFS. Let’s get it together and decide right now to say something to our representatives, and to each other, and to our twitter friends, and facebook people: We do not tolerate this Nazi bullshit.
    No, we don’t tolerate it. And any of us who can do some street protests, we need to do that now. Maybe show up in Texas? Maybe grab some friends, and take a sign somewhere else. I’m an introvert, but I’m going to figure out something to do (besides call my Senators, which I’ve already done. Tom Garrett, my Congressman is a bust.) by this weekend. Because I’m done. Aren’t we all done?

  240. Bush: adopted torture as government policy. Invaded Iraq on false pretences. Started two wars with no idea how to end them. Asleep at the wheel while the financial system blew up…
    Trump: knows nothing. Lies, boasts, demeans. Uses his office to make money for his shady businesses. Separates children from their parents as a matter of immigration policy…
    Obama: a terrible president because, er, he withheld some documents about what law-enforcement guys in Arizona had done for a while. Documents which Congress has now had for two years and made nothing of.
    Seriously Marty?

  241. Absolutely. IF you accept the premise that political parties, as institutions, are important for a democracy.
    I would accept that premise. You do not? Please do name one nation with a fully functioning form of democracy that does not have political parties.
    I would say that fact pretty much extinguishes Something,
    Yeah. Just what is extinguished here?
    it might be pointed out, that our Founding Fathers didn’t believe.
    You mean the same FFer’s that formed into political parties before the ink was dry on the document? Seriously? The document pretty much lays down institutional arrangements that mandate two dominant political parties.
    The question for those arguing for “free association” has to be: What about those who choose not to associate?
    What about them?
    Should they be denied a say in who can be nominated?
    They are not “denied” anything. They can nominally join the party to participate in the nomination process. They can form their own party (pssst…THEY DON’T DO THIS!!!!). They can retain their individual purity by abstention. They have agency. They have choices. If the goal is to increase ‘participation’ top 2 does not cut it.
    Bear in mind that, in California today, they outnumber all but one of the political parties.
    Bear in mind most of them don’t participate at all. If they don’t care, why should we?

  242. hey, hey, wj, how many deep red states have adopted “top two” today?
    NONE!
    Think about it.

  243. Documents which Congress has now had for two years and made nothing of.
    That is indeed a puzzler. I can only surmise they exceeded the Constitutionally mandated scandal quota, and could go no further.

  244. Then Trump came in and said we should move forward instead of look backward.
    Asserts facts not in evidence.

  245. Well Obama did expand one of those two wars, he even claimed it. Then had no plan out. In fact ran on the premise Bush had used resources for the wrong war. And we’re still there.
    So is that one Bushes or Obamas?

  246. Marty,
    Was offing Usama bin Laden something you object to? Was backing off Tora Bora to gear up for Iraq a good “(Republican) policy”? Do you support or oppose He, Trump’s “(Republican) policy” of shoveling billions more into the Pentagon?
    My new slogan is
    Make America Decent Again.
    I bet you agree with it. But I suspect that “decent” means something different to you than it does to people who think a “(Republican) policy” of separating asylum-seekers from their children is indecent, and that a president who asserts he has the power to pardon himself is not (r)epublican.
    –TP

  247. I blame Bush for getting us into multiple “boots on the ground” messes overseas. I blame Obama for not getting us out. I expressed concerns during primary season that Clinton, likely to be relegated on domestic matters to caretaking Obama’s legacy, had shown a tendency to such overseas misadventures. Trump said many things, often contradictory (but included things like snatching troops out of Europe, the Middle East, and South Korea, not of which seems to have received any serious consideration post-election). A pox on all their houses. But I voted for Clinton because I believed she would be a stout wall against an insane Republican Congress on domestic matters.
    To date, I am surprised that Republican leadership in Congress were themselves surprised that kicking millions off their health insurance, a debt-funded tax cut, and an environmental policy based on propping up coal and nuclear turned out to be broadly unpopular. Enough so that getting a simple majority together has proven difficult.

  248. wj: What about those who choose not to associate? Should they be denied a say in who can be nominated?
    “Nomination” is like the “formula” for Coke or Pepsi. It is a private “association” deciding, privately, what to offer to the general public — which then gets to decide which “formula” it likes better. You want a say in what Coke’s (or Pepsi’s) “formula” should be? Buy stock in Coke (or Pepsi). You want a 3rd “formula”? Buy stock in Dr Pepper. If you choose not to, you are still free to buy whichever beverage you prefer, when you get thirsty.
    I wish that “we” could come up with a voting system wherein, if you vote in a particular party’s primary, your vote automatically goes to that party’s ultimate nominee in the general election. Will that drastically reduce participation in primaries? Sure. But any party that hopes to win the general election will have a strong incentive to nominate somebody who can attract “independents”.
    Under such a system you (wj) would need to gamble that your chance to help nominate a “moderate” Republican outweighs the risk that your vote will help elect a RWNJ in the general. That would put you in a tough spot, but would it be any tougher than the spot Donald or novakant would be in?
    The true “partisans” — the voters who are not squeamish about locking in their votes ar primary time — would doubtless include sapient, and Marty. And me. And McKinney, I bet. And the general election might come down to a SJW vs RWNJ contest. And, oh happy day, the “independents” would pick the winner, being by far the biggest voting bloc (if you’ll pardon the expression) under my proposal.
    BTW, it’s my strong preference that Government stay strictly out of the business of facilitating “primaries”. But I would happily endorse Government making public facilities available to political parties if we could get “lock-in” in exchange.
    –TP

  249. Was offing Usama bin Laden a partisan goal? Was it Obama’s incredible intellect or superior sleuthing capabilities that made the difference there? He single handedly halo jumped into Pakistan and took him out?
    I am actually against increasing the Defense budget. I think the surplus generated by the tax cuts should pay down the debt and expand social security.
    I think separating asylum seekers from their children while processing may be the best solution to protecting some of the children. The specific accommodations need to be acceptable and timelines shortened.
    Every President in my lifetime believed their power was essentially unlimited.
    Trump can’t figure out how to be powerful for real. Clinton was a philanderer who used the power for easier, Bush used it for revenge, Obama used it for personal gain, Trump is not capable of figuring out how to use it except for personal aggrandizement. He’s like the skinny kid that becomes Mr Olympia, kicking sand in everyone’s face because he can.
    He’s a douche but probably not a dangerous one. Meanwhile some of the stuff he signs is ok with me.

  250. To date, I am surprised that Republican leadership in Congress were themselves surprised that kicking millions off their health insurance, a debt-funded tax cut, and an environmental policy based on propping up coal and nuclear turned out to be broadly unpopular.
    One of the serious risks of getting into an information bubble is that it makes it real easy to assume that the whole world thinks the same way you do. Until actual implementation abruptly means that all those real people start paying attention to the insanity you have been spouting. And are moved to express their views at the ballot box. Awkward, that.

  251. I think separating asylum seekers from their children while processing may be the best solution to protecting some of the children. The specific accommodations need to be acceptable and timelines shortened…
    They gave you special access to approve the program, did they ?
    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/sen-jeff-merkley-turned-away-from-border-facility-for-children.html
    It is blatantly clear even from this side of the Atlantic that the thrust of the policy is punishment rather than child safety.

  252. Maybe not so clear from a closer up view. This isn’t a new policy.
    The only policy change is that they don’t deport you as a first option, they detain and prosecute if you’re denied asylum. That change I disagree with strongly.
    What happens while you are detained is the same as it was under the last administration, for safety reasons for the children.

  253. “Under such a system you (wj) would need to gamble that your chance to help nominate a “moderate” Republican outweighs the risk that your vote will help elect a RWNJ in the general. That would put you in a tough spot, but would it be any tougher than the spot Donald or novakant would be in?”
    I haven’t read all the thread, but I already do this— that is, lock myself into voting Democratic despite often disliking them. It occurred to me sometime back that we put way too much stress on the duty of individuals to vote and not nearly enough stress on the duty of parties and politicians to be worthy of our votes. This is where you get all the ridicule and disapproval of people too pure to vote and much less criticism of the politicians and parties for low turnout. We owe them our support. They owe us nothing except to be better than the other party. I personally accept that when November rolls around you have three choices—Democrat, Republican, third party or not voting where the last two are effectively the same. So the Democrats use this to argue that you have a moral duty to vote for them. Republicans prefer a low turnout and you don’t hear as much from them about how everyone must vote. From them you hear claims about people voting who supposedly aren’t citizens.. The system, including the moral browbeating on the Democratic side, is in the interest of the people who run the parties as they are— that’s the Iron Law of Institutions at work. I suppose that goes back to Milton. Better to reign in Hell, etc….
    Whether there is some mechanical fix to this I don’t know.

  254. This isn’t a new policy.
    that’s utterly disingenuous.
    yes, Obama could have legally done things the way Trump is, and for the same reasons, but he didn’t.
    that’s the difference. same rules, different interpretations and implementations.
    for another example: the rules for using your position as President for enriching yourself and your family while you’re in office were the same for Obama as for Trump; Trump is interpreting them differently.

  255. I think the surplus generated by the tax cuts should…
    There is no surplus generated by the tax cuts. The tax cuts have increased the deficit.
    The last time there was a budget surplus was at the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Because he increased taxes.
    Let’s leave discussion of how to spend a surplus until there’s some prospect of its happening. It would be wrong of me to advise you to hold your breath.

  256. Was offing Usama bin Laden a partisan goal?
    Yes. The question of what to do if bin Laden were found in Pakistan came up in one of the debates between Obama and the Republic candidate McCain. Obama said the US should act unilaterally if necessary. McCain said it shouldn’t.

  257. The actual scandal is us, that we’re sitting around talking about whether “Fast and Furious” was a scandal
    bingo
    I think the surplus generated by the tax cuts
    show me the money

  259. And, while we’re on the subject of his majesty Donald I …
    https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/05/law-professors-torch-trump-memo-624157
    “The Office of the President is not a get-out-of-jail free card for lawless behavior,” the professors wrote in their letter, obtained by POLITICO. “Indeed, our country’s Founders made it clear in the Declaration of Independence that they did not believe that even a king had such powers; they specifically cited King George’s obstruction of justice as among the ‘injuries and usurpations’ that justified independence. Our Founders would not have created — and did not create — a Constitution that would permit the President to use his powers to violate the laws for corrupt and self-interested reasons.”…

  260. Maybe not so clear from a closer up view. This isn’t a new policy.
    The only policy change is that they don’t deport you as a first option.
    No, the (or, at least, one major) change is that it is now applied to families who have NOT entered illegally, but have merely showed up at a regular border station and duly applied for asylum. They haven’t broken they law, they’ve followed it to the letter.

  264. I think the surplus generated by the tax cuts should pay down the debt and expand social security.
    Others have addressed this, so this is poor form on my part, I suppose. But, Jesus H. Christ on a Ritz cracker, what the H.E. double-hockey-sticks are you smoking, Marty?

  265. Just remember, people: Marty is better-informed than the average Republican. Also kinder, gentler, and less inclined to venerate He, Trump.
    If that doesn’t scare the bejeesus out of you …
    Make
    America
    Decent
    Again
    ITMFA
    –TP

  266. as long as we’re not demanding that our representatives give clear and direct statements about Trump’s assertion that he is above the law, we’re doomed.

  268. Trump is not capable of figuring out how to use it except for personal aggrandizement.
    For “personal aggrandizement” please read (a) making money for himself and his kids, and (b) trying to stay out of jail.
    I agree that Clinton abused his office. For that, he was impeached and disbarred.
    Bush is lucky he avoided being called to account for war crimes. Obama wanted to look forward, not back.
    Obama has… made lots of money by writing books and giving speeches. Like every other national figure I can think of.
    Trump’s fate remains to be seen.

  269. No, the (or, at least, one major) change is that it is now applied to families who have NOT entered illegally, but have merely showed up at a regular border station and duly applied for asylum. They haven’t broken they law, they’ve followed it to the letter.
    This is a plain fact.

  270. curious, i googled “Ryan tax cuts surplus”.
    this showed up:

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government swung to a surplus of $214.3 billion in April, primarily reflecting the revenue from that month’s annual tax filing deadline.
    The Treasury Department reported Thursday that last month’s surplus increased 17.4 percent from a year ago. The April surplus reflected both an increase in tax revenue and a decrease in the costs of certain health care and benefit programs that were pulled forward to March.

    that’s not unusual, since taxes are due in April.
    the article concludes with:

    For the first half of this budget year, the deficit totaled $385.4 billion. This marked 12 percent jump from the same period last year, an increase largely driven by the tax cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the budget deficit this year will total $804 billion, a $140 billion increase from last year. The yearly budget deficit is projected to approach $1 trillion in 2019 and remain above that threshold for the foreseeable future.

  271. Thoughts on listening to Time Has Told Me and re-reading the biographies.
    I massively relate to this guy, except for the three albums thing. Wherefrom does this damn compulsion to do stuff come from? Why ambition and disappointment? I blame socializing, and not enough reading. I have always been careful to repress any early stirrings of creativity
    What we got is the lyrics and music, the voice. There is a whole lot more here than shy and withdrawn, there’s observation and empathy and compassion and sometimes optimism.
    Been thinking about, listening to, similar but different writers, well geniuses, Drake and Townes vZ and Guy Clark, the different kinds of nouns these three use as metaphors. Clark is in a world of objects and things and tools ie Randall Knife Boats to Build; Townes uses relationship and feeling words as material in a very abstracted mise en scene with place words mountain river but not the nature lyricism Drake likes.
    I do go on.

  272. IIRC, Louisiana also has a “jungle primary”.
    Those LA types just got mixed up, I guess.
    Those who think that they have the perfect electoral system need to bone up on Arrow’s Theorem, and adjust their expectations accordingly.

  273. Consider the following scenario:
    1) Mueller indicts He, Trump.
    2) Next day He, Putin pulls the trigger on an international provocation He has been holding in reserve against such an emergency.
    3) Americans dutifully rally around “our president” in light of the crisis.
    4) He, Trump rides the wave of “patriotism” long enough to pay His master back by pulling the US out of NATO, say.
    5) Republicans rejoice.
    Any bets on whether He, Putin is too dumb, Americans are too smart, or Republicans are too honorable, for this scenario to be impossible?
    –TP

  274. “No, the (or, at least, one major) change is that it is now applied to families who have NOT entered illegally, but have merely showed up at a regular border station and duly applied for asylum. They haven’t broken they law, they’ve followed it to the letter.
    This is a plain fact.”
    Pretty much just what I said. Those people used to just get told to go home. Now they get held. That’s the difference. I object. They should just get told to go home.

  275. Marty, do you disapprove of granting asylum in all cases, no matter what? Or do you have very specific conditions under which you think it should be granted, and if so, can you elaborate on what they are?

  277. The other day I wrote that America, the murderous conservative vermin among us, who must be destroyed, is the kingpin of gunrunners in the world.
    http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/06/nras-active-participation-mexican-crime
    The Mexican government should send assassins across the border to hunt down and kill American gun purveyors, manufacturers and gunshop owners, and the NRA officials who officiate over the pigfucking republican party, all of whom who supply the arms.

  278. Count,
    why should the Mexican government “send assassins”, when they could just remotely drone-strike gun shows terrorist arms depots?
    It’s just so much easier to mess with the video and claim “they looked islamic, see??!?”

  280. They should just get told to go home.
    I take it the real Marty meaning here is “they” should be denied entry to the US of A ON THE SPOT.
    For those who claim to worship “the rule of law” (cough, cough) it might do once and while to actually, you know, look it up.

  281. Pretty much just what I said. Those people used to just get told to go home. Now they get held. That’s the difference.
    no.
    people attempting to enter the country without a proper visa used to be sent home. with their kids. or, they may have been released into the local community, depending. also with their kids. now they are held, without their kids.
    but those aren’t the people that were actually being discussed.
    the people being discussed were people who present themselves, at the border, at an official point of entry, and apply for asylum based on a credible (to them at least) fear of harm. all in compliance with US law.
    folks requesting asylum are and were *also* often held by USCIS, sometimes in a detention center, sometimes in a hotel. until Sessions’ policy changes, those folks were not separated from their kids. now, they are.

  282. No russell, if they were held they were separated from their kids. The incidence of people being held is what has changed.

  283. Marty,
    As a naturalized citizen, I have two things to say to you:
    1) The US is my country at least as much as it is yours; and
    2) You, the execrable Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, and nativist yahoo He, Trump sure talk a lot alike about people who want to become Americans.
    WTF do you mean by “The incidence of people being held is what has changed” by the way?
    –TP

  284. He gives the tune a 6 out of 10. The lyrics aren’t memorable, but you can dance to it. Maybe grab a pussy or two:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozz7K-QNF4Q
    Deport his kneeling nigger Mexican rapist, faggot ass from this shithole full of republican animals and for God’s sake, separate that poor kid Baron from him, because we don’t know what sort of conservative molestation is going on there.

  286. No russell, if they were held they were separated from their kids.
    Do have cites for any of these assertions you make, Marty. Do you think there’s no way to detain families in facilities for families?

  287. Marty: No russell, if they were held they were separated from their kids.
    hsh: Do have cites for any of these assertions you make, Marty. Do you think there’s no way to detain families in facilities for families?
    I don’t have a ton of time for doing someone else’s homework right now, and it’s hard to find any hard data in a hurry, just lots of assertions. But this post from the Detention Watch Network gives the lie to Marty’s categorical “if they were held they were separated.” Because clearly, there was in fact a period where holding families together in family detention facilities was seen as a step down from the prior practice of not holding them in detention at all.

  288. There’s also this.
    So…any evidence that these people who are focused on immigration are wrong and that in fact “if they were held they were separated from their kids” would be welcome.
    Or, what hsh said.

  290. NIS policy, and subsequently DHS policy, has consistently been that, if an adult relative or qualified third party was available, minors would be placed with them rather than held in an institutional setting.
    accompanied minors were to be held with parents apart from the adult population.
    you can look it up.

  292. From that same short mishmash of a piece:
    The U.N. human rights office has called on the Trump administration to “immediately halt” the separations, saying “detention is never in the best interests of the child and always constitutes a child rights violation.”

  293. From here:
    Are children being taken from their parents after they cross the border into the United States?
    Yes. On May 7, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Justice Department would begin prosecuting every person who crossed the Southwest border illegally — or at least attempt to prosecute “100 percent” — even if some of them could or should be treated as asylum seekers, as the American Civil Liberties Union has argued.
    My emphasis.
    This is a vicious policy perpetrated by vicious, cruel people.

  294. Corrected a missing tag-ending, and with that I’m done multi-tasking for the night and especially done wasting my time arguing about whether vicious cruelty is vicious or not.

  295. Seeking asylum is not a crime.
    in many cases, neither is entering into or remaining in the US without proper documentation.
    this bullshit appeals to some people. to the degree that those folks vote, they probably vote for trump.
    he knows his audience.

  296. I think it’s important to be as precise as possible in what we object to. To repeat, the directive to arrest anyone attempting to enter the country without documentation is what I object to as I said upstream.
    The basic policy to separate children from parents who have been arrested is a perfectly logical policy, and not new.
    The result is unnecessary and, thus cruel, separation of children from parents.
    However, every time there is a big to do about a policy that turns out to be not precise HE gets a free pass for ten more lies because, see THEY just exaggerate everything. Besides are we supposed to put these people up in a Holiday Inn? HE already condemned the separation, it isn’t his choice, that’s all fake news.

  297. first, you seem to be under the impression that everyone is defending obama-era immigration policy. Obama was a freaking hard-ass and I think his policies were crap. trumps are just worse.
    prior to 9/11 normal practice was to not detain families at all. after 9/11 we all lost our minds and decided the thing to do was to hold families, typically in reprised jails run by private companies, see also hutto detention center.
    accompanied minors are in a weird gray area. there is clear law about unaccompanied minors, see Flores v reno. minors arriving with adult family members are, perversely, kind of a legal jump ball. DHS handles them based on internal policy.
    the things that have changed under sessions are the expansion of the use of for-profit holding centers, for everyone, the decision to detain everyone rather than release non-dangerous arrivals pending their status hearings, and the decision to pursue all cases – including asylum applications and civil violations – as criminal cases.
    the net result of all of that has been the increased separation of parents and children. among other things.
    I object to holding asylum applicants and civil violators, whether adults or children, in detention for more than one or two overnights.
    I object to separating children from family members in any case other than criminal incarceration, full stop.
    I object to the use of private for-profit prisons, whether for civil or criminal detention, for immigration violations or any other violation.
    hope that helps.
    regarding trumps objection to separating families due to “Democrat laws”, the fact that Trump is a lying sack if crap is a given. if he is talking, it can be assumed he is lying, any further discussion of the veracity of his statements is superfluous.
    background.
    background
    ICE policy

  298. repurposed, not reprised, jails.
    if there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s a freaking machine that thinks it knows what I really meant to say.
    I spell better than it does, too.
    jumped-up pile of sand.

  299. that’s all fake news
    “fake news” has become the term of art used by trump and his fans to dismiss any information they don’t care to engage.
    to me it is, prima facie, an indication of bad faith.
    if you want to claim you’re not picking a side, then don’t pick a side.

  300. Marty, it looks to me like you are ignoring my comments at the moment (there was one before my 02.37 above), but on the offchance you aren’t, I’d be grateful if you could just confirm whether you are against granting asylum in all cases, and if not, what the exceptions are.

  301. “I think it’s important to be as precise as possible in what we object to.”
    Now you tell us.
    Then, regarding those precision revenue surpluses flowing into the Treasury as a result of the tax cuts and your wish that SS be shored up with them:
    http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-gop-social-security-20171130-story.html
    http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-social-security-20180605-story.html
    To be precise, the entire point of the tax cuts is to drown the baby in the bath tub, not merely one precise part of the baby in the bath tub .. those parts of the baby you might find adorable … the entire baby, including SS and Medicare.
    The republican party has been precise about these goals for 50 years. Any attempt to deny that fact is precisely horse manure.

  302. Yever notice how these types never, or very rarely re-enact the Gettysburg Address or the signing of the peace at Appomattox:
    I wonder if South Carolina re-enacts the Battle of Fort Sumter? Or, didn’t enough humans die in it to make it fun for dumbasses.
    http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/06/civil-war-reenactors-shoot-old-timey-weapons
    In coming decades, American conservatives, spurred on by the NRA and the republican party, will precisely re-enact school and church shootings with misty-eyed nostalgia.

  304. Y’all do understand the last paragraph of my last comment was “what they say” right?
    GftNC, I think there are many legitimate reasons to provide asylum. We have a whole process around it.

  309. I think it’s important to be as precise as possible in what we object to.
    OK, following directions:
    I object to treating people who have committed a civil offense** (the equivalent, legally, of a traffic violation) like they are felons. I object even more to treating those who have committed NO offense (i.e. asylum seekers) like they are criminals.
    After all, for all you hardened criminals, when you have gotten a traffic ticket, were you clapped in jail (no bail allowed) and your children put into foster care for the duration? It would, after all, be a significant deterrent (as AG Sessions would put it).
    ** If you think illegal entry ought to be a felony, take it up with your Congressman. Because at the moment, it isn’t a felony, or even a misdemeanor — like it or not, that’s the law.

  310. As I said, thanks Marty.
    But looking back, what confuses me is this:
    “No, the (or, at least, one major) change is that it is now applied to families who have NOT entered illegally, but have merely showed up at a regular border station and duly applied for asylum. They haven’t broken they law, they’ve followed it to the letter.
    This is a plain fact.”
    Marty: Pretty much just what I said. Those people used to just get told to go home. Now they get held. That’s the difference. I object. They should just get told to go home.
    So what it looked like you were saying was that anyone applying for asylum should just get told to go home (presumably where they came from), thus avoiding the whole cruel mess. Now, I fully understand that my head is full of cotton wool at the moment, and I may not be following this discussion adequately (it wouldn’t be the first time), but if you don’t mind me asking another question, what do you think should happen to people (and their children) obeying the law and trying to claim asylum?

  311. Marty: Y’all do understand the last paragraph of my last comment was “what they say” right?
    Here is that last paragraph in its entirety:

    However, every time there is a big to do about a policy that turns out to be not precise HE gets a free pass for ten more lies because, see THEY just exaggerate everything. Besides are we supposed to put these people up in a Holiday Inn? HE already condemned the separation, it isn’t his choice, that’s all fake news

    What I have italicized is obviously the “what they say” part.
    What bugs me is the other part. It reads to me like it’s in Marty’s own voice. And, to be precise, I’m not saying it’s wrong. I just want to know (precisely) who it is that “HE gets a free pass for ten more lies” FROM.
    Could it be from the same people for whom the most imprecise (not to say inaccurate or fabricated) accusations against Hillary amounted to proof that she was the most corrupt politician in the history of the universe?
    Could it be from the rabid right-wing media? The feckless “mainstream” media? The Russian trolls on Facebook? Who?
    Could it be from “the American people”? Maybe. But I refuse to believe my fellow Americans are such simpletons as all that.
    –TP

  312. HE already condemned the separation
    “oh look what you made me go and do” isn’t much of a condemnation.

  315. HE already condemned the separation????
    Marty,
    That’s as bad as the tax cut surplus.
    Will someone explain again why I’m supposed to be nice and respectful of these views?

  316. From the TAC piece:

    We might note that such martial meritocracy is common to this day. According to a 2009 report, some 119 service members, having fought for the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan, received their citizenship posthumously.

    If I wasn’t depressed before, I am now.

  317. byomtov: Will someone explain again why I’m supposed to be nice and respectful of these views?
    Because you can’t call a spade a spade in the Voice of Moderation, Bernie. You have to coldly symbolize it as a snow shovel.
    Actually, seriously: “views” deserve no respect whatever. “Views” have no feelings to hurt. “Views” have no inalienable rights. “Views” stand or fall on their own factual and logical merits. Affording respect to noxious “views” is nutty, not moderate.
    Persons do deserve respect. (Even animals do, though some might argue not.) The trouble on the internet is that it’s hard to separate persons from their “views” because their “views” are all we see. Nonetheless, I suggest that “respect” is NOT what we give to persons when we shrink from condemning their deplorable “views”.
    –TP

  319. “Will someone explain again why I’m supposed to be nice and respectful of these views?”
    Because the Commander of Cheese and his Cheetos, Cheese Whizzes, and politically correct Curds and Whey can’t effing handle anything but constant and slavish crotch shampooing:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYQaP3rfhXY

  322. Commander of Cheese
    the term “Freudian slip” was invented for just such an occasion as this

  324. meanwhile…
    there seems to be a widespread belief that poor people sit around spending Our Hard-Earned Money on gummy bears and Colt 45, and making their lives just that much more difficult will spur them to get up offa their @sses and get jobs.
    we call it “making them free”.

  325. You know how you’re always saying that (some) people should be paid more, russell, particularly the working poor? Yeah…

  327. I was mildly surprised he even remembered that there was as War in 1812. That he knew that the White House got burned was even more surprising. But that he didn’t know who we were fighting? Not so much.

  328. Maybe there’s a memorial/picture/plaque somewhere in the White House commemorating the burning, and he sees it every day. Or maybe he heard it once upon a time and since he never forgets an injury………

  332. OK Tony,
    Persons do deserve respect. (Even animals do, though some might argue not.) The trouble on the internet is that it’s hard to separate persons from their “views” because their “views” are all we see. Nonetheless, I suggest that “respect” is NOT what we give to persons when we shrink from condemning their deplorable “views”.
    I agree that people deserve respect, so I’m not going to just randomly call them names.
    But when they start self-assuredly citing all sorts of bogus facts to defend Trump and Republicans, then I’m going to be critical. And if I call someone’s views idiotic, then it’s not going to take too long before they conclude I must think they are idiots – an accurate conclusion.

  333. I refuse to believe my fellow Americans are such simpletons as all that.
    But the fact is that Trump has an approval rating around 42%. Forty two out of every hundred of your fellow Americans are willing to say that the approve of the job he’s doing as president.
    One of those forty two realises what a slug he is, but they’re rich, he’s acting for the rich, they don’t care what he’s like.
    Another one realises what a slug Trump is, but although they’re not rich, some of his stupid policies, on coal mining say, are benefiting them, so they don’t care what he’s like either.
    Another four or five realise what Trump is like, but they’ve got some absurd notion that increasing the deficit creates a surplus, or that the mad US system for funding healthcare could be made to work if only it weren’t for Obama. It doesn’t matter that much to them how vile he is because they think enough of his policies are a good idea.
    Some few more have noticed that Trump is a lying, bullying, self-aggrandising ignoramus, but they think that doesn’t matter because some of his opponents are sometimes insufficiently precise when pointing out his deficiencies. I’m going to assume that, despite what Marty says, this group is statistically insignificant.
    And that leaves thirty five out of every hundred Americans who actually think well of Trump. Simpletons, they must be.

  334. And that leaves thirty five out of every hundred Americans who actually think well of Trump. Simpletons, they must be.
    A year ago, 24% of Americans still believed that the Bible is the literal word of God. And per the headline, that’s a record low.
    Broadly speaking, I am not militantly, or even mildly, anti-religion; in fact, there are a couple of spiritual traditions that I would be very tempted by if I weren’t such an utter anti-social old crank.
    But I think anyone who is sure she knows what’s going on in the universe is by definition delusional. (Yes, I know the feeling is mutual. But wait 1,000 years, if we haven’t destroyed ourselves by then, and see what physics, medicine, and biology say about the quaint scientific beliefs of the 21st century.) The % of the population that believes that the Bible is the inerrant word of God is for me a pretty good floor for judging delusion.
    When I think of it that way, the level of approval for President Clickbait in this country is a little less surprising, if no less depressing or disappointing.

  335. Yes, but children are indoctrinated in religion by their parents
    Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.

  336. Simpletons, they must be.
    most people don’t think about politics all that much. to a lot of folks it just seems like a bunch of people shouting at each other about bullshit. politicians as a class rate somewhere just below used car salesmen in the public mind.
    people have other stuff to do. if the situation is not actively biting them on the behind, politics is background noise. these days, loud background noise, which just adds to the annoyance level.
    if the situation *is* biting them on the behind, they are most likely just going to vote for the other guy, whoever that is.
    trump is just being trump, and the lights still come when they flip the switch. do you approve of trump? yeah, sure, whatever.

  337. i’ll also say that my thinking lately is that six more years of Trump is more likely than not. which I find profoundly disturbing, and which I think will be highly damaging to the nation.
    but it is what it is.
    whatever mueller comes out with will either lead to his impeachment, or not. if it does not, must folks will just be glad it’s over and done with, and will be happy to move on.
    if the economy continues to not suck, he’ll get another four.
    if the (D)’s can find a truly charismatic candidate – another Bill Clinton or Barack Obama – maybe different story. I’m not sure who that would be.
    I really have no idea what the country looks like after 8 years of Trump. once that level of clownish malice and venality becomes acceptable, I’m not sure how you walk it back.
    we should have sent Nixon to jail, and we should have surrendered Bush and Cheney et al to the Hague.
    we did not, and did not want to. it was “time for healing”. so now we have trump.

  338. Just as an aside, if we had surrendered Bush to the Hague we would probably be in the 6th year of Romney.

  339. Yes, but children are indoctrinated in religion by their parents
    Who ever said otherwise? I don’t get the logic of “yes, but…” as a response to what I wrote.
    On the other hand, I know an awful lot of people for who the indoctrination slipped off like a loose-fitting glove once people got to adulthood. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a minority overall, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a sizable one.
    Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man. That might have been true for Ignatius, but no one in the Catholic world I grew up in was quite up to Ignatius’s standard. Even the Jesuits I know aren’t that good in these degenerate times.

  341. Just as an aside, if we had surrendered Bush to the Hague we would probably be in the 6th year of Romney.
    If we had surrendered Bush to the Hague, there would have been a much bigger mess than two terms of Mitt Romney. Coup, widespread violence, whatever.
    So, a “time for healing” was probably the best available option at the time.
    My point overall is that most people don’t give enough of a shit about the public institutions they live under to care all that much about what Trump does. If they’re making their bills and the lights are on, he’s as good as anyone else.
    We’ll see what happens.

  342. We’ll see what happens.
    Yeah. A big problem is that many of the effects of what he’s doing (or isn’t doing) won’t show up in a timeframe or with sufficiently obvious causality for there to be much in the way of electoral consequences. For example, undermining the DOS or the EPA isn’t going to affect people in their daily lives soon enough or in ways that they’ll be able to connect the dots. Or, if there is an observable, short-term causation, the people who support Trump will largely accept a Fox News, alternative facts-based narrative that absolves him of any responsibility. It will still be Obama’s fault or some such bullsh*t.

  343. Just as an aside, if we had surrendered Bush to the Hague we would probably be in the 6th year of Romney.
    My alternative history is Hillary wins the 2008 Dem primary and Presidency, then loses to Romney in 2012, who then loses to Obama in 2016.

  345. the people who support Trump will largely accept a Fox News, alternative facts-based narrative that absolves him of any responsibility.
    the biggest problem facing the country right now, IMO, is that we do not share a common understanding of basic, factual information.
    not just different opinions, but different realities.

  346. the biggest problem facing the country right now, IMO, is that we do not share a common understanding of basic, factual information.
    Agreed. We have lost track of the old truth: you are entitled to your opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
    I suspect that, unfortunately, we will continue to have problems until reality up and smacks one group up side the head and forces them to pay attention. Which, sooner or later, it will.

  347. “the biggest problem facing the country right now, IMO, is that we do not share a common understanding of basic, factual information.”
    This is true, but mostly we don’t have a common acceptance of who the sources of authoritative information are, and aren’t.
    Fact based decisions are rare in politics, and even in life. Data is processed, statistics are created, the conclusions from those statistics are treated as facts when, too often, the conclusions are subjective.
    Just an example: the climate is changing is a fact, by how much is a conclusion from data gathered, what we need to do about it, at what pace, is an opinion. Most people state the opinion as fact, and when questioned quote the conclusion and never actually get to the data.
    The argument, with “science deniers”, is about the opinion, and, sometimes, the conclusion using a number of scientists as the authority.
    But they are the authority only as far as the data model goes. When the study says that z outcome has x probability with y confidence then the next discussion steps into conclusions and opinion where the appeal to authority is less relevant.
    So people pick the conclusion that supports their world view.

  348. wj: We have lost track of the old truth: you are entitled to your opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
    That’s YOUR opinion, of course.
    Marty: … the climate is changing is a fact, by how much is a conclusion from data gathered …
    I am honestly unable to figure out the limits of this distinction. Data gathered by my eyes, looking at an array of pixels, lead me to conclude that Marty is a fact. But I could be wrong, I suppose.
    Seriously, Marty, I do agree that it’s worth distinguishing between data, inferences, and values. But it’s worth noting that “inferences” at one level become “data” at a higher level. That the world is made of atoms is an inference from certain data, for physicists; taking the inference as data is what allows chemists to infer how CO2 is formed; that becomes a “fact” for biologists, engineers, climate scientists and so forth. Someday, even “values” may be reduced to “inferences” from “data” — if the world really is made of atoms, of course.
    –TP

  349. mostly we don’t have a common acceptance of who the sources of authoritative information are
    Yes, the two phenomena are related. They may even be the same thing, i.e. we have different understandings of what things are factual, because we have different understandings of who is in a position to accurately determine what is so.
    Either way, it’s FUBAR.
    Regarding climate science, my OPINION is that we don’t do anything about it because (a) it’s scary and we don’t want to think about it, (b) humans are basically lazy in the sense of being prone to inertia, and (c) people who are at risk of losing a whole lot of money have placed a very large finger on the scale.
    We’ll see who is right. Or, more likely, we won’t, our grandkids and their kids will.
    In the short term, there will be opportunities to monetize the situation in any of a number of ways, and no doubt folks are hard at work running the numbers even now.

  350. So people pick the conclusion that supports their world view.
    This conclusion does not negate the “fact” that some conclusions are, in my opinion, “wrong”. Frex, most would agree that racism is wrong. Solutions range from “do nothing” to reparations.
    Somewhere in there, somebody is “right”.
    Similarly with global warming. Finally, after decades of argument, it would seem that carbon fed global change is a reality. Ask the DOD. Ask any insurance underwriter. Again, solutions range from “shrugs shoulders” to radically lower our standard of living.
    Global warming is the mother of all collective action problems.
    Come what may, somebody shall be proven right, and it will become a “fact”.
    The death and destruction in the interim is, apparently, just noise.

  351. The argument, with “science deniers”, is about the opinion, and, sometimes, the conclusion using a number of scientists as the authority.
    In the olden days the deniers tried to argue their own “facts”….I mean, I once had a discussion with a person who claimed that we don’t have excessive carbon pollution since carbon is heavier than oxygen, and therefore we would all be suffocating…but we aren’t…SO TAKE THAT, LIBS!
    You don’t see that so much any more. Inhofe didn’t hold up a snowball in the Senate chamber last year. CHECKMATE, CONSERVASUCKS!
    The facts (you know, actual data) also show that this trend is accelerating.
    The hypothesis is we shall observe X, Y, and Z (rising sea levels, warmer temperatures, mass execution of conservatives). This hypothesis is a prediction, not an opinion. It is a scientifically falsifiable hypothesis(it will happen or or won’t).
    We could do something about this. Tragically, we most likely will not.
    That’s my opinion.

  352. JanieM: my point, in so far as I had one, was that belief in fantastically implausible religious tenets is something drummed into people from an early age. (Any believers who cleave to whatever happens to be the one true faith, I don’t mean yours, I mean all the others.)
    Whereas no one polled has been taught as a young child to believe in Trump. They’ve come to it of their own accord.

  353. Pro Bono: (Any believers who cleave to whatever happens to be the one true faith, I don’t mean yours, I mean all the others.)
    I am SO stealing that.
    –TP

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