I don’t want to belabor this gay marriage thing, but at the same time, it irritates me the way they squat over the whole narrative of what the institution even is. That’s why I liked this piece in the WashPost, which shows in graphic form how closely tied not to religion and culture, but demography and the economy.
I learned this when I wrote about marriage for Bridge a couple years ago: You want people to get married? Make them middle class in the first place. But in the absence of an economy that can accommodate them, it’s really difficult to convince poorer people that they’re better off married than single. (Even though, yes, some of them — some of them — would be. Might be.) So, you want people to get married? Tend to the economy first. The rest will follow.
Such good bloggage today. Sorry I’m a day late on this, but I really liked the column about Chris Christie that everyone’s talking about. It illustrates something I always tell my writing students (not that I have any at the moment): When the facts speak for themselves, let them.
Other lying politicians tend to waffle, to leave themselves some escape hatch. You can almost smell it.
But Christie lies with conviction. His hands don’t shake, and his eyes don’t wander. I can hardly blame the union leaders who met with him for believing him.
Such an elegantly simple accusation: He lies. And yet so uncommon in modern political reporting. No one wants to lose access. I guess the Star-Ledger editorial board doesn’t care anymore.
You may have heard about Ask Bobby, the Jindal campaign’s Twitter-chat effort. Why do politicians make this mistake over and over? They think they’ll get respectful questions, and they get this:
How does it feel to have done more damage to Louisiana than Hurricane Katrina and the levee failures did? #AskBobby
— HumidCity (@HumidCity) July 1, 2015
and this:
Given the current condition of Louisiana state finances under your admin, are you jealous of Greece? #askbobby
— Blue Gal/Fran (@bluegal) June 30, 2015
and this:
#AskBobby – @BobbyJindal
Is the cognitive dissonance of having a biology degree and being viciously anti-science overwhelming?
— NonProphetess (@nonprophetess) June 30, 2015
It’s entertaining, anyway. Scroll away.
Stephen Colbert dropped in and out of metro Detroit, and left this behind. It’s brilliant. Watch.
Finally, there’s a hot new band playing in Detroit this weekend. They got some good ink today.
Almost the long weekend. Enjoy.
susan said on July 2, 2015 at 1:51 am
One of the neat things about the punk rock pig roast piece is that the writer never mentioned the gender make up of the Deadly Vipers. Nice ink, indeed.
152 chars
coozledad said on July 2, 2015 at 7:38 am
In this case it would have been wisest to wait for marriage until the couple could afford a house with safe room. With padded walls.
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2015/07/extreme-marriage-sadz-meltdown.html
208 chars
Jeff Borden said on July 2, 2015 at 7:48 am
God bless the Newark Star-Ledger. Donald Trump rolled through Chicago earlier this week to address a capacity crowd at the City Club. Both newspapers went gaga over the blowhard, who even angled a full Tribune editorial board meeting. He was treated with far more respect than his status as a rodeo clown deserves and no one had the stones to write a sentence like the guy in Newark, even though this vulgar, racist, self-promoting hack has as much chance of being president as me.
If Bernie Sanders comes through town, he’ll be lucky to get a fraction of the kind of worshipful coverage Trump received.
The news business just keeps doing the limbo. . .how low will it go.
678 chars
coozledad said on July 2, 2015 at 7:52 am
And via Juanita Jean, here’s Tom Delay’s assertion that the DOJ is greenlighting a list of TWELVE NEW PERVERSIONS. Well I hope for the Former Speaker’s sake one of them is FUCKING THAT CHICKEN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=13&v=HUhoTzJ5Rvc
249 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 2, 2015 at 7:57 am
Quinnipiac says today that in Iowa, Bernie is up to 33% vs. Clinton’s 52%; the Tribune will have to take notice.
112 chars
alex said on July 2, 2015 at 8:11 am
Lady from Ellettsville has probably been watching too much Tom DeLay.
Ellettsville. Those were the “townies” when I went to school in Bloomington, the resentful schmucks having to serve the sassy offspring of the well-to-do in the cafeterias and wipe up their barf and diarrhea explosions in the dorm lavatories. No wonder she’s having a meltdown. The “educated fools” are running the whole country, not just the local economy. What a horrifying revelation.
461 chars
adrianne said on July 2, 2015 at 8:21 am
Tom Moran, the editorial page editor at the Newark Star-Ledger, is a gem. That’s the kind of editorial everyone should be writing about the other clowns in the GOP clown car – they’ve all got some incredible baggage. Against that raft of grifters, what do they have on Hillary? Endless boring emails about life in the State Department. A whole lotta nothing.
358 chars
beb said on July 2, 2015 at 8:28 am
Without disputing anything Jeff B. says @3, the fawning over Trump by the Chicago Tribune might have something to do with Trump being (inexplicably) in second place in the GOP horse-race polling. I can’t help but wonder if Trump’s baldly racist trashing of Mexico and Mexicans has anything to do with his strong showing in the field of 16.
It must be my browser since I couldn’t find any graphs on the wapo article about marriage and income. This browser also makes the Free press’ web page all but unreadable. Their grid of stories are empty boxes, the top five articles, which does show up, lead to pages with black text set on dark gray backgrounds. Why would you even think of having a dark gray background? Is it so hard to create a static web page for people with older browsers and since when does 6 years constitute an “older” browser?!!! At least this browser doesn’t split up words here like my state-of-the-art browser at home.
Loved the questions asked of Bobby Jindal. And really, are these people living so far up their asses that they don’t know to expect to be flooded with snark and/or vicious hostility?
1129 chars
alex said on July 2, 2015 at 8:36 am
The fawning over Trump by the Tribune might also have to do with the fact that the ginormous building across the street from the Trib has TRUMP in ginormous lettering across it.
177 chars
brian stouder said on July 2, 2015 at 9:07 am
Tom Moran, the editorial page editor at the Newark Star-Ledger, is a gem.
Not to be too much of a fan-boy, but let me just say, Ms Maddow had him on her show last night, and it was really good stuff.
And, not for nothing, she did indeed have Dahlia on the show the other evening, after the Scalia Spectacular – and it was good stuff, too. (Ms Lithwick was cited in a footnote on one of the Justice’s opinions)
Just sayin’
443 chars
Ann said on July 2, 2015 at 9:12 am
The POTUS was also taking questions on twitter yesterday, and I would not recommend taking a look at #askPOTUS. Lots of hate, which I suppose the posters would also call snark. I also realized the extent to which commercial ventures and trollers in general can use a twitter feed like that to promote their totally unrelated agenda, since the hashtag is going to generate a lot of views.
389 chars
Jolene said on July 2, 2015 at 9:26 am
Not only is Sanders moving up in some polls, but he is attracting large crowds. Last night in Madison, WI, 10,000 people came to hear him. A couple of days ago, it was 5,000 in Denver. Apparently, the strategy is to build grass roots support in the liberal cities. I think I saw that he’s planning to be in Portland, OR later this week.
336 chars
Jolene said on July 2, 2015 at 9:34 am
I glanced at the #AskPOTUS convo too and was amazed at how few real questions there were. I didn’t read the whole stream, but much of it was just people goofing around–asking about his haircut and what he was doing to bring Zayn back to One a Direction. He only answered about 10 questions, and one was about peas in guacamole.
328 chars
Deborah said on July 2, 2015 at 9:54 am
Another thing my rightwing sister said in her email yesterday is that she loves Trump and wants him to keep blabbering away because he speaks his mind and isn’t politically correct. She says he’s not competent to be pres, but not to worry he won’t get nominated.
262 chars
Julie Robinson said on July 2, 2015 at 10:02 am
Thanks for that link on Christie; it affirms what I felt instinctively about the man. I suspect that behind closed doors he’s mean and obnoxious. And I can’t wait to sit down and watch the Colbert link, we’ve been missing him mightily. Alas, I’m in a sprint to get ready for company two weekends in a row along with a family reunion, so it’ll have to wait.
Nice press for the Vipers. What happens to the group in the fall?
425 chars
jcburns said on July 2, 2015 at 10:17 am
I feel for your attempts to parse text on dark grey boxes Beb, but the sad truth is it probably only looks that way on your (work) browser. I think we’ve reached the tipping point where most web project development teams say “it’s not worth it for the last few stragglers” and have ripped out support for Internet Explorer 6 and 7 and are enjoying faster page load times and fewer coding contortions. Less back pain! Advil consumption is way down!
Standards are nice! And yes, it is a lot of work to provide code just for a version that insists on driving on the other side of the road.
So, ahem, on behalf of web page designers everywhere, please demand your workplace downloads and installs a nice shiny new version of Chrome or something. It’s way more secure, for one thing! You’ll be glad you did.
808 chars
brian stouder said on July 2, 2015 at 10:37 am
OK – so I went to Faux-News to see what the rumors were about the Navy Yard shooter (happily, this appears to have been a false alarm), and tripped across the stupidest thing I’ve seen in a long while –
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/07/02/police-take-to-social-media-to-warn-about-faux-gun-cell-phone-case/?intcmp=latestnews
A “Die-phone” faux-gun cell-phone case?
373 chars
Sue said on July 2, 2015 at 10:46 am
Jolene, you have to remember that Madison’s nickname is The People’s Republic of Madison, so even though school’s out, a crowd of 10,000 isn’t surprising. I wish he would have stopped by Milwaukee and taken a stroll around Summerfest. That would have been some creative campaigning.
284 chars
brian stouder said on July 2, 2015 at 10:50 am
I begin to think that the Donald is really a joke (or else a really severe mid-life crisis; or maybe he’s really a Democrat), since you could not INVENT such a completely ridiculous personification of all that is wrong with the Republican party’s world view, then him
267 chars
alex said on July 2, 2015 at 12:17 pm
At this stage in the game in the last election, nobody thought Obama stood a snowball’s chance in Hell either. People gradually abandoned Hillary for him because of his authenticity. Think it couldn’t happen again?
214 chars
brian stouder said on July 2, 2015 at 12:22 pm
Alex, I believe you’re referring to Bernie, and not the Donald, and I agree.
Although frankly, Bernie looks old, and if he splits Hillary – then we could get stuck with who-knows-who…unless Senator Warren jumps in, and electrifies everyone (like a plugged-in toaster into the swimming pool)
295 chars
alex said on July 2, 2015 at 12:25 pm
And by the way, the video to which Cooz linked at #2 has been scrubbed from the Intertoobz. Bet the freakout she’s having now is a whole lot worse than the one she recorded. Here’s betting media probably showed up at her door.
227 chars
alex said on July 2, 2015 at 12:34 pm
Of course I was referring to Bernie. And Hillary looks old too. So?
67 chars
Deborah said on July 2, 2015 at 1:13 pm
I personally don’t think Bernie has a chance in hell of being elected. Sure, I like a lot of what he says and so do a lot of people who are to the left of me. I just don’t think there are enough to pull it off. We could be in the sad, sad position of having a Republican president, and I don’t want to chance that. I was electrified by Obama before he was even a Senator, I think a lot of people were too. Maybe that’s because I lived in Chicago at the time, but I fell in love with him when he spoke at the 2004 convention when I didn’t even know he was a Chicago guy. I think Elizabeth Warren would be a much better candidate than Bernie, but again I worry that she wouldn’t be able to pull it off either. Hillary already has a big machine behind her and right now I think she’s our best hope, and partly because she’s closer to the center. Of course, what do I know?
869 chars
Kirk said on July 2, 2015 at 1:24 pm
Alex@22:
I just now watched it (well, part of it. Life’s too short).
69 chars
beb said on July 2, 2015 at 1:58 pm
Bernie Sanders is 71. He’s 6 years older than HRC and his age does give me some concern. (After Reagan I prefer my presidents breathing…) Bernie is running for the Democratic nomination just like Hillary so there won’t be any vote spliting as their was when Ralph Nader ran as a third party. As the electorate is pretty firmly divided already between Dems and GOPs it’s not likely that any GOP candidate will win over Dem voters. The worst fear is that dems will sit out the election, but the starkness of what dems stand for versus what GOPs stand for and there’s little chance of that happening either. Bernie has waged many campaigns Hillary not so much. Elizabeth Warren has waged fewer campaigns than Bernie but since they are advancing much the same economic politics I would go with the experienced campaigner. Something to consider about Hillary is that in 2008 she supposed to be invincible but Obama came along and gave a better more populist platform and trounced her. Hillary’s supposed to be inevitable in 2016 but Bernie’s strong early showing is knocking the legs out from under her.
JC, I’m not running IE6 or 7. I have Firefox 3.4.2 which dates from 2009. It’s old but not that old. It runs fine on a lot of sites. It runs NN.c perfectly just not http://www.freep.com or DetNews (which are, after all, peas from the same pod. And it’s not about download speeds it’s about not parsing these two pages correctly.
Standards are nice, as you point out. I just wish people would write to the standard then all my complaints would go away.
1553 chars
brian stouder said on July 2, 2015 at 2:14 pm
Alex – if Bernie’s hair was combed, and/or if he used hairspray so it didn’t always look like bed-head – then I’d agree.
HRC is no spring chicken, but she looks like she’s plugged-in.
Anyway, in a meta sense, I still think John Kasich is the dark horse who might win the whole enchilada
292 chars
alex said on July 2, 2015 at 2:25 pm
The video’s back! Really, it was gone for a while. I swear.
Deborah, I was familiar with Obama too having lived in Chicago and I wasn’t scared of him. But I remember a lot of people who were scared of him and they were freaking out when he started overtaking Hillary in popularity because they thought for sure he couldn’t win.
Sure, I’d rather have Hillary than any of the Republicans and if the election were today, probably so would most of America. I would even feel sorry for her if she lost her second bid to another Dem, but I wouldn’t be sorry for the country. Just the other day people were lamenting that we’d never see another president like Obama again in our lifetimes. I’m not so pessimistic. We can make it happen.
736 chars
brian stouder said on July 2, 2015 at 2:47 pm
A good point, Alex. Obama’s ascent was electrifying; and he and HRC (and WJC, at a different moment) made trips into Fort Wayne, which was very cool. (the music they played on the sound system at the Grand Wayne Center while we awaited WJC’s appearance included the Monkeys’ “I’m a Believer” – which was especially funny, I thought)
I suppose we’re due for a more boring personage.
My hope is that HRC is sufficiently ‘old hat’, while still being the first woman President of the United States
499 chars
jcburns said on July 2, 2015 at 3:45 pm
What I was trying to say about download speeds is that when you have to put in a lot of extra code to support older browser versions that aren’t really truly standards compliment, then the page loads more slowly for everyone. And Firefox 2009-ish is indeed not as bad as IE 6 or IE7, but it has some quirks that are infuriating, and I suspect you’re seeing the results of those quirks when you go to the Detroit papers’ sites.
Could they have used simpler pages with fewer bells and whistles, get faster load times, and be correctly displayed across a wider range of browsers? Yep, you’re right, they could.
609 chars
Kirk said on July 2, 2015 at 4:23 pm
Alex@28:
I liked both Obama and Hillary in 2008 but voted for Hills in the primary purely because I thought a white woman had a much better chance of winning than a black man.
177 chars
brian stouder said on July 2, 2015 at 5:04 pm
A great article which decimates the idea that the South fought for “states rights”, and addresses many other misconceptions (not to say ‘traitorous lies’)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/01/why-do-people-believe-myths-about-the-confederacy-because-our-textbooks-and-monuments-are-wrong/
313 chars
alex said on July 2, 2015 at 5:23 pm
The lessons of 2008 are why I wouldn’t dismiss Bernie out of hand, Kirk and Brian. People are so sick and tired of inauthenticity (and Hillary has been as guilty of this as anyone) that when they see someone who’s a real-deal citizen legislator they go nuts for it. If you’d asked me a few months ago, I wouldn’t have given Bernie much hope, but the more I see of him and learn about him the more I’m impressed. And this is despite the media refusing to give him a fair hearing and advancing the narrative that he’s an unelectable old crank with “socialist” baggage.
566 chars
Joe K said on July 2, 2015 at 6:26 pm
Kirk,
You do know that if a Republican made that statement he would be labeled a racist.
At least by some here.
Buy the way really glad the gay rights got past, it’s about time, I know that shocks some to hear me say that but, and this is just my opinion, I thought the rainbow flag picture in place of the flag of Iwo Jima, was in poor taste, so many soldiers gave there lives on that rock I just thought it was disrespectful.
Also if Hillery gets elected, won’t she be older than Reagan when he was sworn in? Could be wrong,
Happy 4th
Pilot Joe
553 chars
Dexter said on July 2, 2015 at 8:00 pm
In 2008 I was intensely following politics and was leaning towards Obama over HRC, then while researching everything possible about Obama on Google I found a speech he made that was just crazy. He was advocating taking Iran out by any means possible if they ever did anything to ruffle Israel’s feathers. As I recall, Obama said nukes were “on the table”, which was the vernacular of that time.
Now here’s what happened right after that: That speech simply disappeared. After I posted on a blog about that speech, I was called a liar a few times because there were simply no links anywhere. Either it was false to begin with or so inflammatory Obama’s people scrubbed the internet of any traces of it. It has never reappeared, and remains a mystery to me.
What it did for me however was get me on HRC’s bandwagon for the 2008 primary here in Ohio. I voted for Obama in the general of course. Even though McCain was spouting such hawkish promises I would never have voted for him, I resent the fact that Obama promised to close Gitmo and never did it. He seemed to have been told to sit down and STFU. Last week was Obama redemption week and I was so glad to witness it.
1186 chars
devtob said on July 2, 2015 at 8:12 pm
Best case, the Vipers will all attend UM with Kate. Second-best, they attend colleges in MI and can continue to get together and make great rock.
Without interfering with their studies too much, of course.
OTOH, their album could easily qualify for an A+ senior music thesis project for all of them.
305 chars
brian stouder said on July 2, 2015 at 8:28 pm
I thought the rainbow flag picture in place of the flag of Iwo Jima, was in poor taste, so many soldiers gave there lives on that rock I just thought it was disrespectful.
I don’t disagree.
While it is not the same as the damned Confederate battle flag flying over an official state capitol – the state that was the FIRST ONE to commit treason against the United States of America (and the rainbow flag is not a human-hate-symbol, but instead a human-aspirational symbol); still, lots of soldiers did die for that rock, just as hundreds of thousands died to keep the United States united.
602 chars
Kirk said on July 2, 2015 at 9:13 pm
Joe, I would label him a pragmatist, as I was.
46 chars
Jolene said on July 2, 2015 at 10:15 pm
Obama still wants to close Gitmo, Dexter, and has been working to bring down the number of people there. But, like so many other things he wants to do (gun safety, immigration reform, repeal of the Cuban trade embargo, greenhouse gas regulation to name a few), he has been blocked by Congress. I’m fairly sure that Congress actually passed legislation preventing him from moving them to the American mainland, which is crazy. The cost of incarcerating them in Cuba greatly exceeds what it would be here, and no one has ever escaped from a supermax prison.
555 chars
alex said on July 2, 2015 at 10:55 pm
Joe, the soldiers at Iwo Jima risked their lives for freedom. What difference does it make whether it’s freedom to marry who you love or freedom to hold a KKK rally or freedom not to be pregnant by a man who raped you? The fact is you can’t be arrested in this country for having your own opinion and that’s what counts.
320 chars
Jolene said on July 2, 2015 at 11:07 pm
An article about the reaction to the restaged flag photo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/07/01/iwo-jima-marines-gay-pride-and-a-photo-adaptation-that-spawns-fury/
185 chars
coozledad said on July 3, 2015 at 7:25 am
The photo of the flag raising at Iwo Jima was itself reshot a couple of times.
It’s a symbol, more than anything else, and it served its purpose. Now it’s become a golden calf for people who can’t truly wrap their heads around what the war was about. Additionally, it’s been co-opted by people whose reflexive system justification mirrors the military/religious mysticism and racial purity doctrine of wartime Japan.
The war was about what happens when nations are duped by militarists and military goods producers and choose to set themselves on the trajectory of annihilation. If anyone placed a premium on patriotism, valor, blood, and”homeland”, it was the Germans, Japanese and Italians.
Bob Sherrill would have said those statues were for the people who never left home. The relatively small proportion of combat soldiers already had their personal graven images to contend with.
Gays were murdered in the thousands during WWII and beyond, and as symbols go, it’s appropriate. They even died at Iwo Jima. Someone needs to bone up on the history of every goddamn navy, ever.
1093 chars
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 3, 2015 at 8:27 am
Kasich will never, never win the Presidency. He’s got so many people angry to the point of fury who are technically “on his side” in Ohio, even on his own team in Columbus, I just can’t imagine he’s going to take flight. It’s his personal style of contempt and derision that makes Christie look like a Zen monk; he just covers it somewhat better in public.
Portman, now, could make a run for it, but he just doesn’t covet it enough to light up the donor base. And a man I’d drop almost anything for just to sit and chat with him about kayaking or prison reform or historic preservation. One-on-one he’s even more electable than he is speaking to a crowd, and that’s an unusual quality: but I sadly respect his unwillingness to live for years riding a buzz-saw.
763 chars
alex said on July 3, 2015 at 12:13 pm
Glad to hear it from you Jeff. I was beginning to worry that he might get drafted at the eleventh hour like they tried to do with Mitch Daniels the last time around when the clown car was spinning hopelessly out of control and Mitt Romney was hanging on for dear life.
Well it looks like Hills has another semi-serious contender in Jim Webb, who’s spoiling for a fight over the occupation of Iraq that he correctly predicted would be a fiasco while she blindly followed the herd. Even so, the Dem primary is shaping up to be one about serious issues in contrast to the that of the Donald and company.
604 chars
Sherri said on July 3, 2015 at 12:58 pm
I don’t think Webb is a serious contender. He has no base in the Democratic party. He’s a Republican who switched parties and won a Virginia Senate seat, but he didn’t run for re-election. That was his only election. His only other involvement in government was as Secretary of the Navy under Reagan. His base is Southern working whites, who are Republicans.
Yes, he was right about Iraq, but this election is shaping up to be about the economy, and he’s got nothing there.
476 chars
Deborah said on July 3, 2015 at 2:17 pm
I could live with Webb if he was the Republican contender, but only if that were the case. I’d of course vote for the Democrat but if the Dem lost and Webb were to win, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
We were sitting out on our patio eating breakfast this morning when a big, fat, happy raccoon came out from behind the garden shed and sauntered through the yard heading over to us. We skedaddled (spelling?) into the house because raccoons can be mean and carry diseases. It didn’t look rabid or anything, just curious and probably looking for a handout. It seemed pretty tame. It took off back to the garden shed when we moved quickly. After we were out of sight we watched it come back out, continue through the yard around the building and out towards the driveway on it’s merry way. We think the raccoons are keeping the skunks at bay, at least we hope that is the case.
883 chars
Dexter said on July 3, 2015 at 2:37 pm
Now here’s something I did not know until today: I had WJR 760 on today and fill-in host Warren Pierce interviewed a store-owner who sold flags. The man thought the Stars and Bars will rise again, just not for a while as manufacturing and sales of that flag have ceased. Here’s the news, at least to me: Not only can the US flag fly 24 hours and not have to be lowered at sunset, the flag does not have to be illuminated at night. Here I thought these flag-wavers were violating the law…nope, no more, and not a violation for years now.
540 chars
brian stouder said on July 3, 2015 at 4:10 pm
I think Webb would like to be the Vice President of the United States. Twenty years ago(!), when I was a dedicated reader of Proceedings magazine, I had a very high opinion of Webb; and 10 years before that (!!!), the guy I loved was Jack Kemp.
That book about the Republican party was very good, and the thing it ultimately chronicles is a basic American political question: are rich people our betters? Do rich people really “know” the right thing to do, while guh-mint (by definition) is always oppressive and an impediment to our righteous elite class?
I’ll give Donald Trump 100 points for being genuine. He is an unapologetic racist xenophobe elitist bastard….and some people LOVE that!! Listen to the Flying Monkeys of the right-wing airwaves, and they’ll TELL ya – ‘Trump tells it like it is, ’cause he’s already rich and isn’t behold’n to anyone.
And they have one point – Trump is a GENUINELY terrible human being….and as his polling suggests, that might appeal to 10 or 12 percent of voters….but 50+% also say they would NEVER, EVER vote for that guy!
This is why Kasich concerns me more than a little. I hope and trust that Jeff is right, and the Ohio electorate – which is absolutely indispensible to a Republican presidential victory – has had a belly-full of that guy.
On the other hand, President Obama seems to believe Scott Walker is a genuine threat to win the presidency. Scott Walker is simply too young, I think, to be president; young chronologically (47 years old), and young in terms of life experiences. How much of the world has he seen? How much has he learned and thought and grappled and re-thought?
Indeed, one could argue President Obama was awfully ‘young’, by those same standards, and I would agree, more or less. But whereas President Obama had seen some of the world, and tasted how diverse it is, from Hawaii and Indonesia and Kansas and Hawaii and Illinois, and then succeeded academically and then politically, Governor Walker is pretty 2-dimesional. He’s seen Wisconsin, and he’s succeeded politically, there. But how much has he learned, and how far from his comfort-zone has he ventured?
Indeed, America may well WANT simple, two-dimensional, plain vanilla, middle-of-the-pack intelligence in the White House.
2302 chars
alex said on July 3, 2015 at 4:16 pm
I would think if you could legally burn your flag you could leave it out overnight or until it disintegrated for that matter.
Raccoons coming around in daylight could have distemper, so be careful, especially if you have unvaccinated pets, Dex.
248 chars
David C. said on July 3, 2015 at 4:21 pm
Webb’s only constituency is Real Americans™, AKA the DLC, Tweety, Cokie, and the rest of the beltway gasbags. His purpose is to be Hillary’s minder and to make sure Bernie Sanders doesn’t drag her in a direction they don’t want her to go. He’ll have town halls with 20 people attending and it will be covered like it’s 20,000.
332 chars
brian stouder said on July 3, 2015 at 4:21 pm
Here’s an easy-peasy quiz, supposedly taken from US Citizenship tests. It’d multiple-guess, and you’ll get all 10 (or at worst, 9 of ’em)
http://wane.com/2015/07/03/could-you-pass-the-u-s-citizenship-test/
208 chars
David C. said on July 3, 2015 at 4:29 pm
9. Dyslexia got me. I read how old do you have to be to serve as President instead of vote for President. I got the right answer to the wrong question.
151 chars
coozledad said on July 3, 2015 at 6:09 pm
The Obama family “fuck you, wingnuts” offensive has opened a new front. Now the kids are old enough to go out and splode some heads.
http://gawker.com/tmz-cool-teen-malia-obama-is-a-girls-intern-1715638972
They’re like the house of Mecklinburg-Strelitz, but they’re spreading butthurt instead of hemophilia.
311 chars
brian stouder said on July 3, 2015 at 8:58 pm
A great link!
13 chars
brian stouder said on July 4, 2015 at 12:01 am
Just watched Cooz’s video linked in post 4, where the disgraced Tom Delay warns the NewsMax crowd about 12 “new perversions” coming down the pike.
In fact, he uses the word “coming” again and again and….. hey, wait a minute!
229 chars
Dexter said on July 4, 2015 at 12:01 am
Colbert is warming up,in Monroe, Michgan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWtc27OpWys
86 chars
James said on July 4, 2015 at 3:41 am
“[T]hey’re spreading butthurt…”.
An unfortunate choice of words.
71 chars
Dexter said on July 4, 2015 at 4:03 am
Brain cramp…I forgot nance had already linked Colbert-in-Monroe.
As a child I loved fireworks. After I returned from the war I had a lousy attitude about such celebrations and for a few years I boycotted 4th of July displays. As the years rolled by I began appreciating a nice outing with the kids , watching July fireworks, culminating in the July, 1975 kick-off to the bi-centennial on the mall in Washington, DC. My gawd, you never done seen such a thang. For over an hour, a constant barrage of fireworks. Just before dark, a helicopter flew over, low. A buzz went through the thousands…everybody was convinced it was President Ford. I distinctly saw a man in a suit waving at everyone from the helicopter. If it was an impostor, so be it. It means little now. Ford is the only President I ever saw and I saw him three times, once in Fort Wayne and another time at a UM game. (G. Ford, captain, Wolverine football, class of ’35). Anyway, now I am back to not giving a good damn if I ever see another fireworks display. One year the damn locals were shooting flaming rockets into the air and one landed on my house roof, just burning away. Garden hose rescued us that night.
1196 chars
brian stouder said on July 4, 2015 at 9:36 am
Dexter – I think I saw Gerald Ford here, too – at the Coliseum, yes?
68 chars
beb said on July 4, 2015 at 11:48 am
I think we have a Darwin Award nominee!
http://boingboing.net/2015/07/04/man-mocks-alligator-alligator.html
While the death of anyone is a tragedy, it’s hard to feel sorry for someone who 1) ignores a sign 2) ignores a personal warning and 3) taunts
happy fun balllarge vicious animals. And he’s young enough that he probably hasn’t reproduced, thus removing his DNA from the gene pool.410 chars
Deborah said on July 4, 2015 at 5:28 pm
Hope you’re all having a great 4th. We’re gearing up for a picnic with grilled burgers and corn on the cob, with beer, of course. For dessert it’s grilled buttered cherries on double chocolate gelato. I think there’s a salad in there somewhere too. Have a good one!
265 chars
Sue said on July 4, 2015 at 10:53 pm
Happy 4th, everyone!
BTW, Wisconsin exploded this weekend. EVERYONE is pissed. You’ll probably be hearing about it soon if you haven’t already.
I hear the state’s slogan has gone from ‘Wisconsin – Open for Business’ to ‘Wisconsin – None of Your Business’.
They finally crossed the line in a way that can’t be excused or explained away. Except of course no one knows whose idea it was.
http://www.lakelandtimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=10&SubSectionID=68&ArticleID=25113
482 chars
Dexter said on July 5, 2015 at 2:12 am
brian: That’s it. I remember security was present, but there were no pat-downs or personal searches. The Coliseum wasn’t filled, but there was a large crowd.
160 chars
coozledad said on July 5, 2015 at 8:21 am
Republicans having to try and rewrite history again, so as not to look like the douchesticks they are.
http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2015/07/hope-for-americas-future.html
171 chars
coozledad said on July 5, 2015 at 9:20 am
Sue: Republicans don’t want records of their transactions. They always come back to bite them in the ass:
http://juanitajean.com/not-the-honorable-greg-abbott-nooooooo/
169 chars
beb said on July 5, 2015 at 3:44 pm
we really to reform the definition of bribery to include the appearance of bribery. Neatly $800,000 from insurance company with business before the state government. Even a blind dog knows that’s bribery.
204 chars