I can tell how exhausted I’m getting by my reaction to the news from Montana: So now we’ll have outrage from the left, scoffing at pussy reporters in glasses from the right, a lecture on the historical perspective from some egghead, and then the attacker wins the election.
Hope it doesn’t go that way.
I have to hit the phones today, so here’s this: A look at a California couple who believe, deeply, in “chemtrails.” A sympathetic Guardian reporter (like the guy who got roughed up) tries to understand where this brand of crazy comes from. He’s not entirely successful. As in vaccine panic, much is based on what people say they feel is true.
On edit: And here’s a really good, data-packed but still human story about the fading American dream in Michigan, by my colleague Ron.
So, a dustup in Montana, dust in the wind in California, and the CBO score for the tax-cut bill — that should be enough for you guys to talk about.
coozledad said on May 25, 2017 at 8:59 am
And Jeff Sessions lied on his application for his security clearance as well as lying in his confirmation hearings. The south ain’t quit fighting the Civil War, and now they’ve finally got a foreign ally.
https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/867501097841291264
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Peter said on May 25, 2017 at 9:15 am
What surprised me about the Montana WWF event is that two Fox reporters were there and backed the reporter’s story. Maybe this crossed the line, maybe they were too shocked to remember the company line, maybe with Roger gone they can stand for themselves, but holy cow.
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coozledad said on May 25, 2017 at 9:23 am
I guess we IS Russia now.
https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/867684782620241920
I hear people suggesting Ryan won’t seat Gianforte if he wins. Bullshit. Anyone licking Trump’s arse doesn’t care if another fuckwit comes to DC.
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Suzanne said on May 25, 2017 at 9:23 am
Oh, the chemtrails. Those have been around for years. These conspiracies have such staying power because you cannot prove a negative. Try, right now, to prove that I have not died. There is no proof of it because it hasn’t happened. You can’t prove it, unless I am standing in front of you, alive, and even then, if you truly want to believe I have died, you can always claim I am a look-alike. Try proving I am not.
The world is incredibly complex. Odd coincidences happen which means the world isn’t stable like we all want to think. If one nut job with a gun can stand in a window with a gun and kill the President of the US as he drives by, or some DNC staffer can be murdered just walking down the street for no apparent reason, what other horrible things can happen? So, we believe the conspiracy. It gives us someone to blame, takes away the uncertainty of life in which stuff just happens with no rhyme or reason, and gives a sense of control knowing that if we can just get to the heart of the conspiracy and find out who did what, we have a chance of stopping more bad things from happening.
The interesting thing is that when good coincidences happen, it’s God or some higher power; bad things are some nebulous conspiratorial nemesis. For so many, it’s never simply that crap happens, good, bad, or indifferent. That is life.
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jcburns said on May 25, 2017 at 10:02 am
All we are is dust in the wind. (Kansas taught me that in 1977.)
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 25, 2017 at 10:48 am
Don’t forget tacmarks on the backs of highway signage. When the NWO moves in, they’ll reverse traffic to English-style road use, and their assault vehicles will scan and read the shiny labels on the backside of the federal signage to deploy.
http://imaginativeworlds.com/forum/showthread.php?18297-takamarks-road-signs-for-troops
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 25, 2017 at 10:52 am
From the end of yesterday’s thread this morning: Sherri, I suspect you and I could fill a thread with our respective non-identical but mostly overlapping rants about the now re-invented Mark Driscoll. Hey, at least you got him out of your neighborhood! But he’s baaaack and mustering his . . . guys. And their wives. Phoenix, I think.
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Jakash said on May 25, 2017 at 10:58 am
Yeah, JC @ 5, that’s never made for a very uplifting eulogy, but it’s pithy and spares one a lot of theological deliberations!
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Danny said on May 25, 2017 at 11:28 am
I’m in LA on business and last night, an elderly Australian couple stuck up a conversation with me at dinner. They asked what I thought of Trumo and I told them I was politically agnostic regarding him and thought it would all work out given the checks and balances in our republic and that enough people will not. cooperate with him and that everyone just needed to chill out. They then told me they like Jeb! And then the woman quietly admitted she still thought Obama was a Muslim. I had to chuckle at that.
Oz, got to love those opinionated blokes.
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Danny said on May 25, 2017 at 11:31 am
Oh and they asked me if Melania was Russian to which I thought, that’d be an interesting twist on the Manchurian candidate theme.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 25, 2017 at 11:38 am
Nancy, Ron could have written his story anywhere within stone’s throw of me in Ohio (but you knew that). I think the missing element, though, would be to compare in 1977 what a starting out full-time reporter made to what Kyle’s drawing now, and then pulling that question back through what it takes to find and get a job identical to the one Bryan started with today. The ’77 reporter would probably earn less than the GM employee then, but to get the GM full-time full benefits position today is both educationally and statistically much harder now.
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Julie Robinson said on May 25, 2017 at 11:47 am
This, from the Michigan story: “Instead of jobs, jobs, jobs, the mantra should be pay, pay pay. Ballard said. “We should focus on median wage,” Ballard said. “It doesn’t get nearly as much play as the unemployment rate.””
Yesterday a Cabinet official said the high number of food stamp recipients despite lower unemployment proves that unworthy people are getting assistance to which they aren’t entitled. But if you’re working two part-time jobs at minimum salary, you aren’t making enough to live. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
The other one that got my blood boiling was the report that a 64 year old earning $26,000 would pay over $16,000 in health care premiums under the proposed plan. That almost describes my sister, who uses up her COBRA eligibility at the end of the year. She has two more years before she qualifies for Medicare and a host of major medical issues. How will she live? My mom is already helping her, but as she said, when she dies, so does her income.
Oh, and at the same time, they are proposing Medicaid cuts.
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coozledad said on May 25, 2017 at 11:55 am
The Trump Administration puts everyone at risk.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/05/25/uk-cuts-off-us-from-manchester-attack-intel-over-leaks?via=desktop&source=copyurl
When NATO begins their moratorium on intel sharing with the US, we’ll be sitting ducks.
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Suzanne said on May 25, 2017 at 12:01 pm
Sitting ducks, indeed, which may have been the plan all along.
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Jolene said on May 25, 2017 at 12:02 pm
And then the woman quietly admitted she still thought Obama was a Muslim. I had to chuckle at that.
There is nothing funny about this.
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brian stouder said on May 25, 2017 at 12:16 pm
not funny, indeed.
I mean – for Heaven’s sake!
President Trump is arguably, proveably a paid agent of a hostile foreign power; and he has placed several high-level foreign agents in his administration…not elast of which – his son-in-law.
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Heather said on May 25, 2017 at 12:17 pm
The insistence on clinging to beliefs that are demonstrably false for reasons of ideology or to make sense of the world, as alluded to by Suzanne–I know it’s a known psychological phenomenon, but how do we fight against it? It really scares me.
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Sherri said on May 25, 2017 at 12:21 pm
Checks and balances aren’t working so well for people getting harassed by CBP just because they happen to not be white. Checks and balances aren’t doing so much to save people as the trump administration destroys the Obamacare exchange market through uncertainty and deliberate undermining. Checks and balances aren’t protecting us from Jeff Sessions declaring that the DOJ won’t do anything to investigate police departments blatantly violating civil rights, or restarting the War or Durgs. Checks and balances can’t do anything about the fact that the trump administration is not interested in appointing people to actually run entire sections of the government, content to let them do nothing.
It’s easy to chill out from a position of privilege, Danny.
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Danny said on May 25, 2017 at 12:32 pm
Oh scold, scold, scold. Whatever.
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Heather said on May 25, 2017 at 12:38 pm
“Whatever” perfectly captures the prevailing sentiment of the privileged when it comes to the problems faced by everyone else.
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alex said on May 25, 2017 at 12:46 pm
Troll, troll, troll. Whatever.
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Sherri said on May 25, 2017 at 12:51 pm
You stay a good little German, Danny.
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Bitter Scribe said on May 25, 2017 at 12:53 pm
ICE agents in Ann Arbor eat breakfast in a cafe, then go into the kitchen and arrest three workers, apparently because they had accents and weren’t carrying their work permits with them. They were looking for someone else, but he wasn’t there, so they decided what the hell, let’s just grab everyone with a Spanish accent.
Lawyers, Guns & Money compared these guys to the Christoph Waltz character in “Inglourious Basterds.” I have a hard time seeing where they’re wrong, except maybe for the keen intelligence. What kind of person do you have to be for your idea of a law-enforcement career to consist of hunting down desperate dishwashers?
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Danny said on May 25, 2017 at 1:02 pm
And another thing, I’ve been up since 4 am on a three-hour conference call with Europe, (before coffee!) and now I drive back to SD for meetings until 5 pm and then get to finally see my wife on our anniversary. I can’t remember the last time I worked less than 50 hours and my weeks frequently slip into 60-hour ones. So screw your “privilege” builcrap.
I work my ass off and though I am frequently bemused by politicians, I simply don’t have the time nor inclination to get worked into a big hairy lather like some of you do every frickin’ day with every goddamn news story that you intuit somehow portends the end of the world.
Really you need some perspective. Not much is going to change and what does will get changed again and probably back to how everyone here thinks it should be and then you’ll all be happy campers, as much as that will ever be possible.
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Sherri said on May 25, 2017 at 1:05 pm
Yeah, Danny, you’re the only person who works their ass off. Get your own fucking perspective.
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Sherri said on May 25, 2017 at 1:13 pm
Stop just recording, consider doing something: https://qz.com/991167/our-phones-make-us-feel-like-social-media-activists-but-theyre-actually-turning-us-into-bystanders/
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Scout said on May 25, 2017 at 1:14 pm
The couple in that chemtrails article are clearly casualties of the age of information inundation. They’re people who can find out just enough to send them down a rabbit hole but not the rest of the story to actually sort out what is fact and what is utter bullshit. That was one of the more convoluted reasons to voting for Trump that I’ve heard, but I guess it’s become apparent that we are not an especially intelligent population overall.
I know people who are chemtrails true believers. Every time one of them posts something, I just put science links in the comments without saying anything else. One of them is a friend we went to Santa Fe with a couple years ago; Deborah met her. She’s such a food purist that she will literally get sick if she eats a cookie.
What’s most upsetting about the Montana story is that violent PoS will probably win. In the age of Trump, bodyslamming while politicianing is a feature not a bug for the GOP inclined.
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Julie Robinson said on May 25, 2017 at 1:16 pm
And yet, Danny, you DO seem to be worked into a big hairy lather by anyone challenging your beliefs. Funny thing.
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Heather said on May 25, 2017 at 1:17 pm
I’ll tell my friends who are facing the potentially deadly disastrous consequences of losing their insurance that they just need some perspective.
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Scout said on May 25, 2017 at 1:23 pm
“And then the woman quietly admitted she still thought Obama was a Muslim. I had to chuckle at that.”
Yeah, we all saw what you did there.
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David C. said on May 25, 2017 at 1:52 pm
Howzabout asking the woman if she’s fucking stupid? No more effective than a chuckle, but it gives her more to think about.
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Jakash said on May 25, 2017 at 1:53 pm
Yeah, Danny, I’m a “live and let live” kinda guy, so I don’t partake much in the commenter-bashing that sometimes goes on in the ole friendly confines of nn.c. *But…*
Not a whole lot of defense around here lately from realistic conservatives for either Dolt 45 (how could there be?) or the draconian right-wing program to make the rich richer and screw most everybody else (and the rich, for that matter, when it comes to the environment, and assorted other issues that affect *everybody*.) Now you chime in out of the blue with a joke about folks delusions with regard to Obama and the helpful advice that those trusty checks and balances will take care of everything.
“Not much is going to change” As others have noted, easy to say for a guy suffering through 3-hour conference calls rather than 6 hours waiting in line to see a dentist (to cite a recent example.) You work hard. Good for you. Privilege is relative. But we, the ones worried about the millions targeted for getting the shaft under Il Duce are the ones who “need some perspective.” Got it.
I understand that watching a bunch of liberals whine all day can be grating. I know, because watching a born-on-3rd base grifter like Rumpelthinskin whine so much is grating to me. Sorry for the condescension and presumptuousness, but I’d think somebody as smart as you are would at least be able to notice that this administration is far from business as usual. If the mean-spiritedness and short-sigtedness of the legislation being proposed is fine with you, I’d at least think you’d have some concerns about the dangers to the U. S. inherent in the Commander-in-Chief’s incompetence. Disappointed! Though I certainly realize you couldn’t care less.
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Deborah said on May 25, 2017 at 1:59 pm
Can I just say I love you? I read comment #9 and then went out to grocery shop for our stay here up on this lake in Northern WI. I came back after lunch to read some great responses. Made me feel so much better.
I don’t want to sound ungrateful to our host out here but this Memorial Day weekend is going to be an eye opener into how the 1% lives and parties. It’s not a good feeling, knowing how many people are barely scraping by and looking at losing their healthcare to boot. I’m going to need a nice long retreat at an austere monastery after this.
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brian stouder said on May 25, 2017 at 2:54 pm
Let me just say – the title for the last post (“President Lear”) was tremendous, all by itself!
And aside from that, RUN – don’t walk – to see the Ron French article that Nancy linked in today’s post.
It is clearly written, enlightening, and more-than-a-little thought provoking.
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Judybusy said on May 25, 2017 at 3:01 pm
Jakash, I just began reading the book Born on Third Base. Danny, I’d love it if you’d read it and get back to us. I count myself among the priviledged because my race and fairly stable family life growing up. I also don’t have a learning disability or any other disability. I was smart enough to go to college and lucky enough to find a career I love. I am a lesbian, and the biggest price I paid for coming out is that my dad no longer talks to me. So it’s not all unicorns and rainbows, but I have a beautiful wife, many super friends, and active volunteer life. Sure, I had to apply myself–still do!–but I had a nice wind at my back to whole way through.
I began to write another paragraph about how so many people are vulnerable, but Sherri said it all very well at #18.
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coozledad said on May 25, 2017 at 3:11 pm
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/142917/republicans-colluded-russian-hackers-subvert-2016-election-now-beyond-dispute
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Charlotte said on May 25, 2017 at 3:54 pm
Pins and needles here in Montana. Apparently, some of the county voting officers are getting calls from folks who want to change their ballots (not legal here in MT), while the Ya-Hoo crowd are making noises about reporters being pussies etc. Livingston has been solid for Quist for months, so hard to say what the temperature is out there — but Gianforte is an asshole, which has never been a secret, and he’s very much disliked.
Oh and Peter@2 — local Fox news isn’t that partisan, at least not out here, and small markets like ours tend to be where reasonably new broadcasters get hired. Didn’t surprise me that they vouched for the situation — although I was relieved.
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Jakash said on May 25, 2017 at 4:10 pm
Coming on the heels of the back-to-back hand-batting episodes, this reference to the black dress for the visit to the Pope is mean, but funny!
“What’s up with Melania’s widow outfit? Well, you know what they say. Dress for the job you want!”
https://twitter.com/jenspyra/status/867482712906575872
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Jeff Borden said on May 25, 2017 at 4:15 pm
I suppose checks balances may work within our borders, though Congressional Republicans seem perfectly willing to overlook pretty much anything if it helps put their draconian policies into place. There’s no moral courage to be found in their ranks.
More terrifying to me is what’s happening abroad. The loudmouth in chief is destroying our credibility. He’s blabbered about Israeli and British intel, told the thug dictator of the Phillipines about the location of our nuclear submarines, sneered at our NATO allies about their need to pay up and refused to endorse Article 5, which muse give Putin a woody.
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Sherri said on May 25, 2017 at 4:41 pm
The 4th Circuit says no to Muslim Ban the Sequel: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/federal-appeals-court-largely-maintains-freeze-of-trumps-travel-ban/2017/05/25/395aa394-365b-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html
What will the Supremes do? I doubt the 9th will say yes.
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Suzanne said on May 25, 2017 at 5:06 pm
I’m with you, Jeff. Today, Trump took digs at our NATO allies, which Putin would love to see weakened. I have no doubt. But, you know, he’s making Russia, oops, I mean America Great.
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coozledad said on May 25, 2017 at 5:22 pm
Does Trump know where those Mercedes are manufactured?
What a prion infested dumbfuck.
https://twitter.com/mathieuvonrohr/status/867828649302642688
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adrianne said on May 25, 2017 at 5:32 pm
Found out through Facebook that Greg Gianforte is from my hometown, King of Prussia, Pa., and graduated from the local public high school in 1979. Apparently a well-known hothead from way back.
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coozledad said on May 25, 2017 at 5:35 pm
Yup. He’s a white nationalist and associated with a Christian Identity movement group. If anyone should be getting their face mashed in, it’s him.
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David C. said on May 25, 2017 at 5:48 pm
You’re right, Charlotte. In every market I’ve seen, Fox affiliate local news is the same as local news from any other station. They all follow the same formula.
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basset said on May 25, 2017 at 5:49 pm
1977 reporter pay… I started at TV9/10 in Cadillac in December of ’77 as a one-man-band reporter, shot most of my own film and it was film, not video. $155 a week and I think the local newspaper reporters made more. Minimum wage was a dollar-sixty IIRC.
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Rana said on May 25, 2017 at 5:51 pm
A friend of mine in the California environmental scene addresses the chemtrails obsession here: https://www.kcet.org/shows/earth-focus/why-do-people-believe-in-chemtrails
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basset said on May 25, 2017 at 5:54 pm
Inflation calculator says that’s $610.33 today. I suspect that’s more than a similar job in a small market pays now and you’d have to tweet and post on Facebook on top of it, not to mention writing and editing for multiple shows and the station webpage.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 25, 2017 at 6:43 pm
Editor to basset’s non-hypothetical reporter on Skype conference call from a distant city: “And Snapchat! You gotta Snapchat, I hear all the kids are on that.”
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 25, 2017 at 6:51 pm
There are times our little neighborhood bar here reminds me of this scene from “Goodfellas,” and yes, I’m putting a five-star language alert on this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E84VqqCPI7w
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Sherri said on May 25, 2017 at 7:02 pm
Basset’s comment about local TV reporter pay reminds me of this story from a few years ago about the dress all the female TV meteorologists were wearing: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/11/24/fashion_advice_from_women_meteorologists_and_why_they_all_wear_the_same.html
And here’s a more recent story about viewers upset when a female meteorologist showed bare shoulders on air: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-mg-ktla-weather-woman-dress-liberte-chan-20160516-snap-htmlstory.html
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susan said on May 25, 2017 at 7:27 pm
Oh dear, the other video from Tumpline’s papal visit…
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Deborah said on May 25, 2017 at 9:16 pm
Sort of off topic:
So basset, you got me wondering what my Lutheran teacher salary of $4,800 in 1973 would be equivalent to today and it’s as follows: $4,800.00 in 1973 had the same buying power as $27,267.61 in 2017. At the same time my then husband was also a Lutheran teacher of course he made $7,500 (both right out of college) but as a male teacher he deserved so much more (snark). Anyway in 2017 dollars his salary would be: $42,605.65. So all in all we were not nearly as poor as I thought we were, compared to some young couples today.
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alex said on May 25, 2017 at 9:19 pm
I notce a difference in the Fox local news. The female anchors are all Ellie Mae Clampetts but not as shapely or comely and all of the on-air “talent” (if you could call it that) is not even third rate in a market that’s not even second rate.
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Sherri said on May 25, 2017 at 11:44 pm
Yeah, nothing to worry about here, nothing really changes.
http://www.mtv.com/news/3015794/jeff-sessions-should-scare-you/
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 7:24 am
sherri: Their orange lord is just a couple more microstrokes away from smearing his shit on the walls. He’s the embodiment of their rank perversity.
https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/867958949659541508
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basset said on May 26, 2017 at 8:13 am
Let’s all chip in and buy this, get it fixed up and help Joe K start a charter business:
https://new.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/103459_a-list-celebrity-and-icons-memorabilia-auction?rows=120&utm_source=Auction+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=catalog&utm_campaign=20170525gws_ded
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basset said on May 26, 2017 at 8:15 am
Ehhh, that’s the auction front page, here’s a better link:
https://new.liveauctioneers.com/item/52960731_elvis-presley_s-private-lockheed-jetstar-jet
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Deborah said on May 26, 2017 at 8:20 am
I’m sorry Charlotte, for you and the rest of us. The shitty Republican won. Something is really wrong in this country.
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Connie said on May 26, 2017 at 8:21 am
Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 25, 2017 at 6:43 pm
Editor to basset’s non-hypothetical reporter on Skype conference call from a distant city: “And Snapchat! You gotta Snapchat, I hear all the kids are on that.”
I’ve been hearing exactly that from the youth and teen staff at the library.
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brian stouder said on May 26, 2017 at 9:15 am
Well, we’re hurtling toward the end of the school year, plus our oldest daughter’s graduation (had the party last week), plus her impending departure for IU at Bloomington, plus our youngest daughter’s culmination (leaving elementary school and going into middle school)….and the News of the Day has been disheartening – but let me just say, if you can catch the series “Anne with an ‘e’” on whatever channel it is (Netflix?) – do so!! It is a wonderful series
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brian stouder said on May 26, 2017 at 9:16 am
…(and a pleasant diversion)
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4dbirds said on May 26, 2017 at 9:19 am
Danny has always been a troll. If not a troll then one of those pathetic conservatives who really, really wants liberals to like him as the “he different, he’s smart” kind of friend. Pardon me while I throw up a little in my mouth. Danny has to work long hours and attend MEETINGS friends, so don’t tell him he doesn’t deserve his privilege. I found this post a few years ago right off of Nancy’s blog links. I think it sums it up pretty well. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/
Also, who cares if President Obama was a Muslim? Freedom of religion and all that?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 26, 2017 at 9:30 am
Is there a “right” way to be conservative on this board? Or is there a right way to be “resisting”?
I’m getting lots of chatter and presumption from my ministerial colleagues that we all have to “stop pretending America is beautiful” and I’ve got church members who say I should “stop citing the liberal media on anything, they lie about everything!” There’s too much boundary policing all over the place right now, in my opinion, with folks jumping in on Facebook comments and blog posts far beyond this generally genial site insisting that someone is “agreeing with me the wrong way” or that “dissent must look like this, with these words” and that those already tagged as on the wrong side cannot be agreed with or must not really be agreeing with any part of “our” program.
People are complex, and we don’t always come across as our best selves in this format. I really don’t want to spend much time talking about how anyone has presented themselves; I do like trying to figure out from these boxes and blips what moves people, where we have common ground, and how that can help us advance. Trump does terrify me, on a daily if not hourly basis; assumptions about federal spending and tax policy make me nervous; our culture regularly horrifies me, and I haven’t even seen the new “Pirates of the Caribbean” yet.
But the enjoyment I get here is figuring out where Sherri and I actually do agree at times, and wondering where that might even intersect with Pilot Joe’s commitments. When passions get high and expletives intense, I just back away until things cool down. Re: the “Goodfellas” clip above . . .
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 9:31 am
It’s like Eric Sevareid said when he was reporting from Nazi Germany: there’s a sickness in this country. A lot of it is weak old men fetishizing the violence they wish they could inflict on “others”; the dark southern mystery of the wedding of God and hate coming to full ripeness among the soon-to-die.
We were at an NAACP fish fry a couple of weeks ago, and a crampmouthed elderly white woman drove up and bought two plates. About fifteen minutes later she came back and demanded the return of her money because “The cole slaw spilled in the baked beans.” She pitched a complete shit fit while the guy running the till just handed the bitch her money. There was a moment of instruction there about the gulf between the God of the book of Acts, and the inimical god of the woods, the one who compels you to fear so hard you start shitting your pants when it gets dark.
The only comfort for the rest of us is the degree of hate they have for their own sorry tribe. It’s a bitter place inside those homes, one that takes decades to scour from memory, if you make the decision to leave as a human being.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 26, 2017 at 9:32 am
Connie, I stuck my foot in Snapchat, and pulled it back out. That’s a platform I doubt will be top of the food chain in another two years, anyhow. What I can’t get over is how much of my professional communications are all now through Facebook Messaging. Young, old, visitors to worship, longtime members notifying me of deaths, office check-backs — that’s what I just shake my head at. And wonder what’s next! But I’m ignoring Snapchat . . . if I covered breaking news, though, I might have to wrestle with it more. What IS “breaking news” anymore, though?
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Danny said on May 26, 2017 at 9:56 am
Yeah, I’m a troll for telling a couple of Ozzies to remain calm and then chuckling in disbelief at the one of them believing a false meme about Obama, especially since it doesn’t matter anymore and never really did since, first freedom of religion and second, he won two terms as president.
I know that using the apoelation”troll’ all makes perfect sense to some of the passive-aggressive little hate-mongers here, but most of what I said is bearing true in this very thread as at least one person noted that another federal court has supported the immigration ban and yet another person found the time to get worked up about Melania’s attire for fucks sake.
But by all means, carry on. Some of the smarter, more even-keeled souls here undoubtedly get what I was saying and at least grudgingly agree.
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Joe K said on May 26, 2017 at 10:00 am
Thanks Basset but while the load star is one cool jet, those big things hanging from the wings are fuel tanks, it drinks jet fuel big time.
Now find us a good King Air-200 and we can at least break even.
Just returned Thursday from a 5 day vacation at Disney, my owner let us use a 310 for the cost of fuel so my wife, her sister and her husband flew down, hot, muggy, but had a great time.
Currently in Champaign Illinois, then back to Auburn, South Bend then a drop off In Charlavoix.
Have a great weekend all, and take a second and remember what this holiday is really about.
Pilot Joe
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brian stouder said on May 26, 2017 at 10:01 am
What IS “breaking news” anymore, though?
News that is new enough not to have been argued with, yet.
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 10:03 am
Some of the smarter, more even-keeled souls here undoubtedly get what I was saying and at least grudgingly agree.
The appeal to white consensus. He’s fumbling in the dark to find a switch to cut off a well-deserved excoriation.
He’s pure thug party.
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basset said on May 26, 2017 at 10:03 am
On this day in 1967: Sgt Pepper’s released.
On this day in 1927: last Model T Ford manufactured.
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 10:04 am
I don’t think there’s a right way to be a conservative or a liberal. What I do, what I’ve always tried to do, is determine what my values are, where my hard limits are, and periodically check to make sure my time, talent, and treasure are being spent in pursuit and in alignment with those values. I was doing it long before the election, but the election was a clarifying event: it made clear to me what some of those hard limits, those non-negotiables were. One of those is to no longer remain silent in the face of dismissive comments about the other, and to call out the sexism and racism I in see around me.
That may not make me popular, and people may think I’m a shrill bitch, but I no longer care. I’m sharing my experience, strength, and hope, as they say in the church basements. Jeff(tmmo) do agree on a number of things, but just as his experience in the Ohio Valley colors his world, my experience colors mine. The difference is, his experience is validated, related in multiple major newspaper articles, and mine is not. People like Danny still don’t believe that sexism is a big deal. Even people like you, Jeff(tmmo), will attempt to explain sexism in the church to me and “not all churches.”
I’m tired of being silent and waiting. I’ll be honest. I’ve stopped going to my church for a while. The vestry and the priest seem unwilling to engage the issue, to address the conversation of what the divisions of the election meant, hoping everyone will just all get along. Well, I won’t just go along anymore. I’m done.
Danny can be Danny. I don’t care. I’m going to be me. If that pisses too many people off, well, Nancy can tell me to get lost, and I’ll go.
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 10:09 am
Danny’s a fool at the dog ends of his self justification. That kind of craven whinging is just the body beginning to wheel to the floor.
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 10:10 am
Sherri: Give them hell. They’re gonna fry in it anyway.
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Danny said on May 26, 2017 at 10:10 am
People like Danny still don’t believe that sexism is a big deal.
A nice straw man that has no basis in reality.
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 10:14 am
Danny, the last time time I talked about my personal recent experience with sexism, you told me that it wasn’t sexism, it was me. When we’ve talked about sexism in the workplace, you’ve assured us that none of the women who work with you think there’s any hint of sexism.
That straw man has some real substance.
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Heather said on May 26, 2017 at 10:16 am
Danny, you used the word “scold” in response to Sherri’s comment, which I must point out is a very gendered choice, in that it suggests she is a nagging bitch. And I don’t think pointing out your lack of introspection regarding privilege is “hate-mongering.” If anything, your response shows we hit a nerve.
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 10:18 am
It’s hateful to disrespect his hate.
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Julie Robinson said on May 26, 2017 at 10:24 am
Sherri, you keep being you. Not being you will not bring peace. I’m gonna keep being me too, and that includes posting political stuff on Facebook. I got unfriended yesterday by saying Trump hadn’t learned kindergarten lessons when he shoved the Montenegro PM. She said it was rude. Rude, to point out someone’s rude behavior? Conservatives are quick to label liberals as snowflakes, but in this case it applies the other way. She was only an acquaintance and won’t be missed.
On a happier note we’re headed to Bloomington for a niece’s wedding reception, a rare family gathering that isn’t centered around a funeral. Rain is mostly in the forecast, so we’re taking games.
I’m pretty sure I’m way too old to get Snapchat. All those dog ears and tongues over faces? Doesn’t that get stale after the second or third time? Or is it really about sexting.
Baked beans and coleslaw sound like a delicious combination of contrasting flavors and textures. There’s just no satisfying some people.
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brian stouder said on May 26, 2017 at 10:33 am
basset – your calendar is better than mine!
For today’s highlights, mine notes that the last “I Dream of Jeannie” episode aired today in 1970; Hank Williams Jr was born in 1949, and the Apollo 10 astronauts returned to Earth in 1969, after ‘a successful dress rehearsal’ for the eventual moon landing
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 10:36 am
Danny, do me a favor. Read the article I posted about Jeff Sessions before you talk about checks and balances again. Yes, the ACLU is busy suing the administration, but the administration has 11000 lawyers to the ACLU’s 350. There are no checks and balances on the discretion Sessions has about what to pursue and what not to. He is free to harass immigration lawyers who showed up in the airports to help people being detained with threats of legal action using obscure areas of the law. The ACLU is trying to throw as much as they can at the administration to keep them on the defensive, but Sessions can easily do the same.
And checks and balances are only norms. Norms mean nothing to that bunch of soulless Republicans in Congress, who are abdicating any pretense of responsibility to the country or the constitution.
Privilege doesn’t mean you didn’t work to get where you are. Privilege means you are free to ignore all this secure in the knowledge that no one is going to come after you, because you are the right sort of American.
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Danny said on May 26, 2017 at 10:57 am
Danny, you used the word “scold” in response to Sherri’s comment…
No it appeared below Sherri’s comment and certainly included her, but also Jolene and Brian (who is male) and then the later ones from both genders that were inevitable (and in evidence). You are reaching for sexism as is Cooz always (always) reaching for racism. This falseness diminishes your arguments.
And it is still unbelievable how my relating of unsolicited dinner comments from two elderly Australians has upset the apple cart so severely in this thread. It points to a certain unhingedness that can only find nurture in a biased, comfortable little bubble. Hell, Cooz couldn’t even stand you all for a while as he was so tragically hurt by his perceived lack of lock-step agreement. What an infantile little ideological fascist he is that many of you continued to coddle in the face of his direct;y calling Sherri, Brian others and EVEN Nancy…wait for it.. RACISTS!!!
And though I do not intend to belabor this longer today (and mostly have not on Nancy’s site in recent years), I will not enable and support such fragility that comes from such a brittle outlook.
Good day.
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Heather said on May 26, 2017 at 11:01 am
Again, just swiping away the validity of others’ lived experiences like only a white man can. And a classic “that’s final word” for good measure.
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 11:01 am
I have been called many things in my life, but fragile has never been one of them. Not even when I was in the absolute pit of depression, not sure whether I wanted to live or not. So, go ahead, Danny, fight your brave fight against the oppressive snowflakes here.
I know where I stand, and where I think lies oppression.
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 11:04 am
You’re a racist, Danny. Now get back to that 50 hour workweek.
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Heather said on May 26, 2017 at 11:06 am
Same, Sherri. I just call ’em like I sees ’em. And even a lot of liberal men have a fucking tantrum if you point this shizz out to them.
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Jolene said on May 26, 2017 at 11:19 am
And it is still unbelievable how my relating of unsolicited dinner comments from two elderly Australians has upset the apple cart so severely in this thread,
It wasn’t relating the story that bothered me; it was saying that her comment made you chuckle. The idea that Obama is a (Kenyan-born) Muslim and is, therefore, unqualified to be president and, moreover, a decent or trustworthy person is, in my view, one of the worst political calumnies ever put forth. It is an indication of irrationality, prejudice, and hatefulness on the part of the speaker. In other words, not funny.
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Jolene said on May 26, 2017 at 11:20 am
Missing word: Not, as in not a decent person.
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Jolene said on May 26, 2017 at 11:26 am
Was it a shove or wasn’t it?
Short version: There were assigned positions for the photo, so the question is whether how DJT got into his spot was or was not rude. Everybody has an opinion.
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 11:43 am
Scalzi on Carson’s “state of mind” and poverty and rags to riches: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2017/05/25/the-poverty-state-of-mind/
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 26, 2017 at 11:47 am
Trump is the guy who bumps forward in the double lane drive thru at the merge, in his H3, even though it means they’ll give him the bag with two Happy Meals meant for the sedan now behind him.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 26, 2017 at 11:51 am
Sherri, I know there’s sexism in churches, because I’m in one myself. I just hate to see you give up on organized religion because most of us clergy tend to the hesitant and cautious (and that’s not a defense, it’s a rueful self-indictment).
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 12:09 pm
I won’t say I’ve given up yet, Jeff(tmmo), but I find I just can’t sit there right now. I don’t know what the answer is, so I’m waiting. One possibility is to go into Seattle to St. Mark’s, where the atmosphere is different.
It’s not that I’m unwilling to break bread with people I disagree with; I’ve been doing that for years at this church. It’s not even that I’m a lone voice at this church; there are others who feel as I do about things. What I have a problem with is the church, of all institutions, refusing to engage on what I regard as the great moral issue of our current time: who is my neighbor? How do I love my neighbor as myself?
If we won’t even talk about it, then why are we there? Certainly, a big part of my problem is rooted in my experience growing up in white southern evangelical culture and never fitting it, and it’s like PTSD for me to sit through a service right now. I’ve tried, and can’t do it.
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brian stouder said on May 26, 2017 at 12:15 pm
Jolene’s link was good, and as a bonus, lead me here –
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/05/24/we-need-a-final-solution-british-columnist-tweets-then-deletes-after-manchester-bombing/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.533637b066db
An excerpt:
Katie Hopkins, a conservative writer for Mail Online, invoked it in a tweet responding to the explosion at an Ariana Grande concert Monday night, which killed 22 people and injured dozens of others. The Islamic State claimed responsibility, saying one of its “soldiers” had carried out the attack.
The tweet was directed to Phillip Schofield, host of the British news show “This Morning,” though it was not clear what he said to prompt it.
“22 dead — number rising,” Hopkins wrote. “Schofield. Don’t you even dare. Do not be part of the problem. We need a final solution. #Machester”.
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Julie Robinson said on May 26, 2017 at 12:24 pm
Sherri, I can tell you that sometimes pastors don’t speak up because they’ve been forbidden to do so by their councils. Our daughter has experienced this more than once, sometimes about rather innocuous plans. And as a woman pastor she had a difficult time finding any position at all. She is working as hard as she possibly can to attract more open-minded members and place them on her council, but it’s an uphill battle. She’s also pushing more Bible reading, as she’s been shocked at how little many of her long-time parishioners know of its contents. She hopes the combination can change things.
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 12:27 pm
Sherri: Check out what Dr.Barber’s doing. Morality can’t be in a box anymore. The box is the goddamn problem. When the country is falling apart, the box is a hardened shelter for the ignorant.
If you want to take solace and strength from the power of love, I can tell you as an angry atheist, it helps to march with the Jews, Muslims, Gentiles, Queers, and the people who built this country through torture and forced labor, and have fought and died for a United States half this country has turned its treasonous backs on.
This memorial day (Not goddamn “confederate memorial day”) we can remember a patriot and one of the early casualties in the war against Trump, Richard Collins III.
http://www.essence.com/news/bowie-state-student-killed-richard-collins-university-md-hate-crime
That shit is terrorism, and every.Fucking.Republican. is an enabler. To hell with the soft peddlers of that evil heresy. They’re beyond the reach of light.
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 12:33 pm
Julie Robinson: I used to be a bartender at the restaurant this woman ran while she put herself through Div school. She’s always had to fight her church to do the right thing. I’m thrilled just knowing I’ve been in the presence of such a hero. You go, Val!
http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/bishop-again-officiates-at-same-gender-nuptials
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Suzanne said on May 26, 2017 at 12:39 pm
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mercynotsacrifice/2017/05/25/greg-gianforte-toxic-christianity-looks-like/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=FBCP-PRX&utm_content=mercynotsacrifice
Interesting. I did not know Gianforte is the Western states version of Ken Hammm
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 12:49 pm
Cooz, I know about Dr. Barber, and what he’s been doing long before this past election. He’s amazing.
Julie, I’m pretty sure that pressure from the diocese is not the issue here. The bishop here is pretty progressive, and the diocese has joined with the ACLU on suing the city of Seattle on homeless sweeps, for example. There are members of our church who don’t like the bishop or the progressive nature of the diocese, and refuse to have any of their pledge go towards the diocesan assessment, though fewer than there used to be, as many of the people who were really unhappy about the diocese over LGBTQ issues left. We now pay our full diocese assessment, as a result.
St. Mark’s vestry adopted the following back in December: http://www.saintmarks.org/serve/volunteer/justice-ministry/renewing-our-covenant/
Our vestry looked at it, said, yes, we agree with it mostly, but we’re afraid it’s too far for our church.
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basset said on May 26, 2017 at 1:13 pm
Danny, let’s see that birth certificate before you go. And pull that bottom lip in.
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Julie Robinson said on May 26, 2017 at 1:17 pm
Sherri, it’s not the higher-ups, it’s her own members.
Cooz, your friend is probably ending her career in the UMC, but we’ll welcome her over at the ELCA.
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 1:28 pm
Treason.
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/868120562496921600
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 26, 2017 at 2:00 pm
Or the Disciples of Christ, where you don’t have to spend as much on vestments (sorry, Julie!). As you can tell watching Dr. Barber preaching, we’re robed, stole-d, suited, t-shirted, Hawaiian shirted . . . whatever works for you. I’ve never tried the clerical collar thing, but some of my female colleagues say they wear them but mostly for hospital visits, because it helps to make them visible to staff. As in not invisible!
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nancy said on May 26, 2017 at 2:07 pm
Hillary dropped the mic at Wellesley today.
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4dbirds said on May 26, 2017 at 2:26 pm
Yes, let all the white people chuckle instead of doing something about racism. We white people have been stealing, raping, killing and enslaving black and brown people since we came ashore here in America. We benefit from that violence to this very day but no, Danny isn’t a racist, he’s gotten ahead because MEETINGS.
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Deborah said on May 26, 2017 at 2:45 pm
I love Franken. The illustrator who painted the cover of his new book is represented by a friend of mine in NYC. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=A3EkNj9JD54
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 26, 2017 at 2:52 pm
I’m just not sure I can feel good about a 72 year old running against a 73 year old in 2019, but 55 doesn’t seem as old now as it did when I was 30. And if we do the reboot with the then-77 year old still gunning from the sidelines . . . wow. Pence v. Gillibrand would be 59 v. 52: it’s not like conservatives could say “but she doesn’t have enough experience!”
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Jakash said on May 26, 2017 at 3:15 pm
“I will not enable and support such fragility that comes from such a brittle outlook.” So concludes Danny’s diatribe. I’d have preferred “Harrumph!” to “Good day,” but that’s just me…
Yes, sexism and racism are freaking OVER people! Have been for quite a while, didn’t you get the memo? When that’s the starting point for one’s analysis of a situation, it’s not surprising that one might find that arguments including those factors might be eagerly dismissed. Do folks here occasionally overshoot the mark? Sure, and where is that not the case? But the reason Sherri and Cooz can “reach” for examples of sexism and racism is largely because … Surprise! … there are a lot of examples out there. Such as claiming that folks believing the Obama Muslim meme “doesn’t matter anymore and never really did” That meme both indicts our sitting president, quite explicitly, as a fantasist, racist and liar AND represents very nicely the “facts don’t matter” nature of much of his electorate. It matters a helluva lot — it’s essentially what put the charlatan on the map, politically, with dire consequences that play out every freaking day. I don’t care about him chuckling at it, if he’s incapable of seeing the damage — I marvel that he evidently thinks we should be chuckling along with him.
We’re the snowflakes, but Dolt 45 is so insecure that he still talks about the election results in random, inappropriate settings and shoves folks out of the way to scramble for his all-important spot in a freaking photo. We have a brittle outlook? What’s more brittle than deciding tax cuts are the only legislative priority that one’s party has any interest in? Fragile? How about seeing your favorite Supreme Court justice die and responding by saying “That’s it. The Constitution, precedent, logic, fairness notwithstanding — there’ll be no replacement until WE get to decide who it is?” THAT’S fragility.
Jeff (tmmo) asks: “Is there a ‘right’ way to be conservative on this board?” Cooz’s broadsides aside, I think that Jeff’s reasoned posts get a fair hearing here. Because he IS (largely) a conservative and definitely not an “I like what he has to say” Trump voter. But, on several occasions Deborah has asked for the thoughts of some of the conservatives here, when it comes to some of the more egregious things proposed or decided by the Republican-controlled executive, legislative and judicial branches of late. The responses to her inquiries never seem to show up. To me, a conservative could distinguish her or himself by simply being consistent and being as upset about the abuses of this administration as they were of the shortcomings of the previous ones. By commenting about those scary Russkies, the deficit, taxpayer money being lavished on the first couple’s living and weekending arrangements, indications that the Maximum Leader has no idea what he’s talking about, emoluments, nepotism and any of a myriad of issues where they’d have been railing about Obama had his administration been even remotely similar in its incompetence and cynicism. I guess we’ll have to keep waiting to see if there’s anything these Washington folks can propose or do to kneecap the not-so-well-off, poor or elderly that will cross a line for the good Christian Republican folks happily awaiting Armageddon…
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 3:40 pm
Comey: stupid, gutless, or complicit?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-story-of-the-phony-lynch-email-grows-bigger
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 26, 2017 at 3:57 pm
The health care policy debate has me debating whether or not I can credibly call myself a conservative anymore, at least in a political sense. The whole “Obama must fail” position from day one put me at cross-purposes with most GOP policies, and in the sense that conservatism . . . I thought . . . was primarily about conserving tradition and values that are core to maintaining community, starting on the most local scale possible first: establishing a solid national health policy that was both credible and economically feasible is a theoretically conservative position. The right/GOP/conservative movement decided on some level to say that any federal health insurance involvement was “socialism” (fighting an old battle over again) and that somehow you could translate market economics into the medical world of buying and selling service.
Which you can, in some areas (plastic surgery, LASIK eye procedures, many other elective operations), but the baseline question of access to care and support of health promoting prevention and intervention services: those can’t be a marketplace, consumer driven issue. Most of the GOP has decided it not only can be, it must be. Well, I’m in opposition to that.
I still lean towards equality of opportunity more than I worry about equality of outcomes. I disagree with privatizing profit but socializing risk, and I am skeptical of creeping credentialism and professionalism being used as a tool to protect jobs inside the guild, but think unions are in general a good thing except when they get as moribund and self-centered as bad management was. I believe you can be for protecting the vulnerable and against the death penalty without contradiction; I get edgy whenever I hear people parroting the line about “the bulk of health care expenditures is at the end of life,” not over any non-existent death panels as much as an attitude about what it means to define a “life worth living” by someone else’s terms. I am both for and against physician assisted suicide in ways that I could explain, but it would take a long time. And I think we need to honor and support family life and could do so on a public and civic and community level without swerving into the ditch of “and families must look exactly one way and no other.” When I talk in church circles about our own complicity in not just racism but racial hate and oppression in real physical terms, and why that means there’s still an unpaid promissory note around reconciliation and reparations, the first thing I hear is “I thought you were a conservative?” because it’s assumed that those who talk about Jesus Christ and repentance and redemption, using those particular words, are always racist, while progressives “always” are more general and inclusive and vague in their theological statements (which just shows they haven’t read much Nadia Bolz-Weber). And I do think that steadily escalating tax totals and inflating unpaid obligations are going to bite us hard at some point, and am not willing to dismiss Margaret Thatcher’s observation that “sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.”
So to be perfectly fair, I’m not sure how to be conservative anywhere. And partisans of both ends of the spectrum are quicker than they used to be to use harsh language to maintain message discipline. In the vast mushy middle, I’m not sure what to say when I find myself sitting in a crowd with agreement around one issue and overhear my neighbor talking about anti-vax stuff, or in another setting with a common theme we’re all smiling and nodding at, and then someone makes a comment about “Christians who” and it seems everyone smiles and nods at that, too. If reading history helps my perspective in anything, it’s that the tidy labels and dualistic factions of all the eras before us crackle and crumble with cross-cutting fault lines on closer examination. Heck, Kropotkin and Emma Goldman and John Reed and Norman Thomas couldn’t all agree on a program, let alone Rauschenbusch and Niebuhr and Barth even filtered through Dr. King didn’t point to a particular path to the Beloved Community.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 26, 2017 at 3:58 pm
And y’all are very patient with me for all that. Thank you, and a happy & meaningful Memorial Day weekend to one and all.
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 4:10 pm
Jeff(tmmo), I’d just point out that conservative opposition to a national health care policy is not a recent anti-Obama development. They’ve consistently opposed it since Truman first proposed it after WWII.
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brian stouder said on May 26, 2017 at 4:22 pm
Jeff – very well said!
I had a whole long response, and lost it. Suffice it to say, my theory is that there’s nothing inherently wrong with “conservatism”; but ever since Oxy-Rush (et al) became the am-radio Pope of conservatism (so-called), and took over the magisterium of “conservatism” – the word means something hostile and hateful and “I got mine” and (yes, I’ll say it) hateful and small-minded
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Danny said on May 26, 2017 at 4:27 pm
But, on several occasions Deborah has asked for the thoughts of some of the conservatives here, when it comes to some of the more egregious things proposed or decided by the Republican-controlled executive, legislative and judicial branches of late. The responses to her inquiries never seem to show up.
Not true. Deborah asked a number of months ago about health care to which I responded (in a very non-conservative pigeon-hole way) that I think it is a basic human right, especially in the richest country in the world and that we should go to single-payer. Deborah probably remembers this.
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Bob (Not Greene) said on May 26, 2017 at 4:33 pm
Jeff,
What I can’t get past, ever, is anyone who condones cruelty. Too many people who identify as “conservatives” — the labels are worthless, quite frankly — seem to require suffering from others. I don’t understand it at all. I don’t know how it benefits them or anyone else. This mania for removing access to affordable health care for the poor and for women; the unshakable belief in shredding social safety nets for the poor, the elderly, the sick; the irrepressible urge to disenfranchise people of color in order to retain the power to make those people’s lives miserable — there’s no gray area for me. There is right and there is wrong. And people who seek to do those things deserve all of the contempt and all of the outrage thrown in their direction. My fear is that eventually it’s going to come down to violence, because raw power is the only thing many of those people who seek others’ suffering understand. I’d stop worrying about how to be a “conservative” and simply worry about being on the right side of history.
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Bob (Not Greene) said on May 26, 2017 at 4:37 pm
I should add that it’s not just the “people who seek to do those things” that are the problem for me, but also the people who allow those things to happen because they are part of whatever political tribe they identify with. If whoever can’t find it in themselves to condemn those actions and act to remove from power those people who are responsible for such policies, is complicit, a collaborator.
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Icarus said on May 26, 2017 at 5:06 pm
I may lose whatever good will I’ve earned here but when Inread Danny comment “the woman quietly admitted she still thought Obama was a Muslim. I had to chuckle at that.”
I took it as “I cannot believe people still think that” and figured had to chuckle because what could you really say to that? You’re not gonna change her mind nor educate her. Best you Can do is ruin her evening and perhaps yours through confrontation.
Now I wasn’t aware of Danny’s troll rep. Also the reason I keep coming back her is this site keeps me “woke” to things I should be better aware of like how it is no laughing matter.
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LAMary said on May 26, 2017 at 5:11 pm
Back in January, when I started my new job, I knew in two days I hated it. They started hating me too and withing the month I was gone. Mutually agreed bad fit. This week I started a new job and I don’t hate it and they seem be ok with me. Thank goodness for severance pay, unused vacation and sick pay, and unemployment. Anyway, I’m now at a big hospital in LA recruiting again. It’s in a neighborhood that borders on Thai Town, Korea Town, Little Bangladesh, and an Armenian/Russian neighborhood. No one is bothered by me noting that the anagram of the hospital’s name is Britney Spears. Hollywood Britney Spears Medical Center.
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 5:23 pm
Yah, LAMary!
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Jakash said on May 26, 2017 at 5:36 pm
Now that you mention it, Danny, I think I recall that comment, so you deserve credit for that and one should never say “never,” as I did. I apologize.
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Danny said on May 26, 2017 at 5:59 pm
Icarus, thanks. That’s exactly what I meant about the chuckle and I clarified that later in this thread.
Jakash, thanks too.
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 6:17 pm
Jeff(tmmo), when and why did you identify as a conservative?
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 6:40 pm
Let’s hear some more about those checks and balances: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a55299/justice-department-mortgage-company-veteran/
trump is too empty to be evil. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is the monstrous evil, and Mitch McConnell, the Fucking Piece of Shit, was more concerned about shutting up Elizabeth Warren than about the fact the Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III lied during his confirmation hearings. Or that he’s a racist, but that’s hardly unexpected.
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Julie Robinson said on May 26, 2017 at 6:40 pm
LAMary, I’m so glad you got through to the other side! Sounds like you had a rough few months.
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 6:46 pm
A competent woman losing a job to an incompetent man is not an anomalous Election Day surprise; it is Tuesday in America.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/hillary-clinton-life-after-election.html
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David C. said on May 26, 2017 at 6:58 pm
I wish I was this kid when I was a kid.
https://twitter.com/MasonCrossBooks/status/867687194718351360/photo/1
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Deborah said on May 26, 2017 at 7:26 pm
LAMary, I had a job that I realized the first day that I had made a huge mistake taking. I told myself that I’d keep it for a year even though it made me sick to think that I’d have to do that. As it turned out I could only stand it for barely 6 months. There’s nothing worse than sticking out a job situation where you know it’s not the right fit.
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Sherri said on May 26, 2017 at 8:01 pm
Google claims that it would be too expensive to provide the wage data the Dept of Labor is asking for, citing $100k.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/26/google-gender-discrimination-case-salary-records
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Suzanne said on May 26, 2017 at 8:33 pm
I’m with you Jeff(TMMO) @ 110. I used to consider myself conservative, all about fiscal responsibility, not going for change for the sake of change, etc. But since Obama’s election, I gave up supporting conservatives. They are the entitled ones. I can’t tell you how many people I know who will rail against the welfare mothers & lazy millennials but are at the front of the line for handouts for themselves. The likes of Rush & Hannity & Beck & Franklin Graham have turned reasonable people I know into people who I believe wouldn’t bat an eye at Muslims or gays being rounded up. They’d rather let people die than to let liberals win.
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Jolene said on May 26, 2017 at 8:41 pm
I took it as “I cannot believe people still think that” and figured had to chuckle because what could you really say to that?
Fair point. This is a reasonable reaction and perhaps I should have thought of it. But, really, people who hold such thoughts are not a benign presence in the political firmament. It’s that kind of thinking that’s brought us to our present sorry circumstances, It might not have been the right moment to offer a different perspective, Danny, but your retelling didn’t convey (to me) the idea that you found the Aussie woman’s view disturbing or contemptible, which it is.
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Colleen said on May 26, 2017 at 9:27 pm
Bob(not Greene) @115, that is how I feel. To me, so many of those who identify themselves as conservatives are just…mean. They don’t seem to think something is real if they haven’t experienced it themselves. There is just a lack of empathy and caring, and an almost gleefulness at making already difficult lives even more so.
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 9:38 pm
Nope, Danny’s a troll, and you can try and normalize racism and sexism all you want, but the party he belongs to and the views he espouses are incongruous with basic principles of human justice.
If this were 1952 Russia, Danny would be justifying his adherence to the authoritarian party by saying “It’s all going to be alright. There’s not that much murder of Jews and Chechens, and Stalin’s just another guy in charge. He’s a dude.”
It’s remarkable how it’s primarily the men on this site who bring the consensus back to some fucking cheerless white fuckery. You get the impression there’s even a defensive testicular crouch.
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 10:03 pm
I’ll take this opportunity to remind you that Danny suggested it would be better if I were dead, and retracted it, because that’s the Republican way. You beat up a reporter, and you apologize, obliquely. You starve a child to death, and you mourn him. You deprive an entire sector of the population of the means of self sustenance, and you call them niggers.
I’ll tell you another thing about a California tub of shit who dares to call me a fascist. My family paid in blood against Hitler. This is the foundation of my rejection of the Republican party. You don’t know what it’s like for a hardscrabble southern family to lose their breadwinner to little white supremacists combing Naples for downed allied pilots.
You’re another west coast flake and a stain. And the dumbfucks who try and normalize you are a goddamn cosmic disease
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 10:11 pm
Seriously. Fuck you Danny. You are a feast of suck.
https://rurritable.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/sermonette-in-a-dead-tongue/
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beb said on May 26, 2017 at 11:08 pm
Jeff’s question about how to be a conservative on NN.c is difficult to answer because the people in Congress have moved the goal posts so far to the right that what were run-of-the-mill conservatives have become centrists or even center-left people.
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coozledad said on May 26, 2017 at 11:17 pm
There’s only on party that willingly subverts our national interests to Russian foreign policy aims. We can’t sustain the traditional Russian aims of pogroms and a warm water port to challenge the British navy. That’s where they’re stuck. Trump is stuck in his diseased ass, and the Republicans are rotting with him.
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coozledad said on May 27, 2017 at 7:58 am
Traitor scum. Firing squad.
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/868256213582196738
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