Anger and fear.

Alex and I know a lot of the same people in Fort Wayne, and every so often we talk about them. “Why is X so angry?” a typical exchange might go, where X is a well-known right-wing – no, far right-wing – conservative. “They have everything they ever wanted — GOP supermajorities in the state legislature, control in both houses of Congress, a replacement for Scalia who’s even more hard-line and young enough he might sit on the Supreme Court for another generation. They have a president who’s only held back by his increasingly desperate staff, and Mike Pence warming up in the bullpen. And yet, they’re furious pretty much all the time.”

We rarely have an answer. This is just how we email and text back and forth.

I was thinking about this over the weekend, doing the drudgery of reassembling the kitchen and cleaning up the construction dust. And I thought about a woman I once knew a little, an online acquaintance, who said there were two primary emotions that drive us, love and fear, and she tried to choose love whenever possible. I made a case for anger, and she countered that anger was just a different form of fear. I thought she was full of shit, but now I think she was on to something. The debate over guns is shaping up to be a big fear festival.

Speaking of Indiana, here’s a typical story from the northernmost southern state, about an older gentleman, self-identified as a veteran and a member of something called the Oath Keepers, who has parked his heavily armed self outside one Fort Wayne high school, handgun and AR-15 at the ready, to keep the students safe. The school district knows he’s there, but he’s not on school grounds and there’s nothing they can do about him.

I don’t think it’s a wild stretch to speculate that this gentleman thinks of himself as a “sheepdog,” and in fact, when you google “oath keepers” + sheepdog, look what turns up? Yes, the O.K.s think of themselves as protectors of we dumb ol’ sheep, who think that going around unarmed is a sensible way to live your life.

So who lives in fear? Who spreads fear? I know lots of people like to refer to firearms as penis proxies, and maybe they are, but when the NRA talks about “hardening” American schools, they’re using fear to sell guns (which is maybe the only reason to buy a gun, when you think about it), and if its corollary, anger, works, then why not?

I don’t fear a mass shooting, except abstractly, the way I fear being flattened by a wrong-way driver on the freeway. I ride my bike through neighborhoods in Detroit that some of these Oath Keeper pussies wouldn’t enter in an armored car, and I’ve never felt threatened.

No wonder they’re angry all the time. Of course, they’re getting old, too. Nothing like the damp breath of the grave to send a chill down one’s spine. Especially when so many young people are showing no sign of giving a shit about you and your sheepdog posturing, so that you’re reduced to shaking your cane at them:

Very amusing, both of those. These kids will have their hearts broken by the pace of political change sooner or later, but they’ll still be trying.

So, what’s the bloggage?

Mona Charen, as rigid a right-winger as you could ask for, is booed at CPAC and leaves the hall with security. Why? Because she criticized the president.

CPAC was crazy top to bottom, but you guys have already been over that.

Alan is calling me downstairs for a consult on shelf placement in one of the three closets he rehabbed this weekend. The work just keeps on coming.

Good Monday, all.

Posted at 4:14 pm in Current events |
 

57 responses to “Anger and fear.”

  1. David C. said on February 25, 2018 at 4:39 pm

    Fear pretty well sums it up. I hear the gun nuts at work talking about how unsafe they feel without their guns. At least once a month, a suggestion shows up to allow those with CC permits to carry their guns to work. The answer, fortunately, is always a polite version of “are you fucking crazy?”. I hear the same guys talking about the ghetto in Oshkosh. I’ve been in every neighborhood and I’ll be damned if I know what they are talking about. The only run down area is where the students at the university live. They always talk with such bravado, but they seem frightened of their own shadows.

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  2. Deborah said on February 25, 2018 at 5:50 pm

    My right wing sister’s husband is scared to death of Minneapolis, and I’m talking about the downtown area. I don’t see anything scary about it at all. He’s afraid to even be in a moving car. I don’t get it at all. He’s not a gun nut that I know of, he hunts so he must have a few.

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  3. Heather said on February 25, 2018 at 6:27 pm

    HAHAHAH afraid of downtown Minneapolis! That is a good one.

    Of course I think when these types are afraid, they mean “afraid of people who are not white.” I remember my stepmother’s visiting brother-in-law insisting he and his family move to a hotel when he spotted a black person from her window in Evanston, IL.

    I’ve been bike-riding and walking in Chicago for 25 years at all hours of the day and night, and I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’ve felt unsafe. Of course, certain neighborhoods are very dangerous, but no one seems to be interested in doing anything substantial to change that.

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  4. brian stouder said on February 25, 2018 at 6:56 pm

    That guy near North Side is an absolute cake-taker. I remember seeing those morons in the parking lot near Glenbrook, “guarding” the recruiting office.

    The very first question that the fellow cannot answer is – how does he decide it’s time for him to “act”? And if awful-awful ever actually DID come to pass, and this guy actually decided to “act”, wouldn’t the police shoot him, too?

    Also – if the guy fires his assault weapon and – ohh woops! – hits a kiddo, then what?

    PS – and, if one of our kiddos tells off a United States Senator, I’d shout “You Go, Girl!!” (or boy!)

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  5. Jolene said on February 25, 2018 at 7:26 pm

    PS – and, if one of our kiddos tells off a United States Senator, I’d shout “You Go, Girl!!” (or boy!)

    The responses to the Todd Starnes tweet that Nancy posted were quite impressive. “Buy her ice cream” sticks in my mind, but there were many others.

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  6. Suzanne said on February 25, 2018 at 8:07 pm

    Why are they so angry? Ever wake up from a dream in which you are in a terrible fight with someone or dream that someone is trying to kill you, and you can’t turn off the emotion, as you lie on your bed, heart racing, breath shallow, even though you know none of it was real?
    The right wing got all riled up against Obama for 8 years and then spent the entire campaign spewing anger against Hillary. They got their wish of controlling the government, but they can’t turn off the anger & fear. It’s now their default. Fox & Rush have to keep pushing it to keep the money rolling in. The NRA needs a new bogey man to keep gun sales at a fever pitch. Scared, angry people buy guns & listen to right wing media. So, they invent enemies, usually people of color to keep the cycle going (People out here in the rural environs are amazed that I go to the Southside Farmer’s market in Ft Wayne alone. Or shop at the Aldi on S. Anthony alone. Or stop at the Walmart on the South side of Ft Wayne alone. “Aren’t you scared??”)

    Oddly enough, now the right is turning on the Florida cops over this school shooting. Apparently, blue lives no longer matter.

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  7. alex said on February 25, 2018 at 8:11 pm

    I remember when I first moved to Chicago, people in Fort Wayne would say “Why would you want to be there? Aren’t you afraid of getting shot?” Even in the 1980s many had the misperception that every inch of the place was gangland, and I think some of these yokels have an even more warped perception today thanks to incessant bad-mouthing by the NRA. I couldn’t get them to comprehend that I felt safe on the streets 24/7 precisely because the streets were always busy and populated and no one would dare to pull any shit, unlike sparsely populated places where criminals don’t have to worry about any witnesses.

    But this fear thing’s been brewing here for a long time. I remember a work luncheon not long after I relocated to Fort Wayne in 2005 and the topic du jour was child abduction. I interjected that I thought my colleagues were watching too much CSI or something because nobody abducts children; children have a greater chance of getting struck by lightning. I’d already noticed that children weren’t playing outside anymore like they did when I was growing up and that parents would sit in their cars with their children at the end of the driveway waiting for the school bus to show up, which never happened in my childhood.

    Interesting piece about the supposedly phony trend of helicopter parents in the WaPo today. She gets off some funny lines, but the writer doesn’t understand that it’s possible for parents to feed their kids Doritos and Mountain Dew for breakfast and also not let them leave the house unchaperoned:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/stop-telling-parents-not-to-coddle-children-you-wouldnt-like-the-alternative/2018/02/23/d843d54c-0d57-11e8-95a5-c396801049ef_story.html

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  8. beb said on February 25, 2018 at 9:00 pm

    The other WTF story coming out of CPAC was the lecture on immigration given by a CATO analyst. The analyst was trying to explain that areas with heavy immigrant populations have less crime than elsewhere but he kept getting shouted down by people who knew better. It was crazy because CATO was trying to given science base information but because it confronted people’s opinions they weren’t having any of it.

    Mona Charen wasn’t just attacking the President, she was saying that Republicans weren’t doing enough to oust sexual predators and harassers. It’s hard to say whether people were upset that she criticized Trump or all the people who believe in their right to beat up their wives.

    While seems true that conservatives live in fear it’s well to remember that that fear comes from Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and the NRA. These corporations make their money pandering fear.

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  9. Deborah said on February 25, 2018 at 9:48 pm

    LB and I saw Black Panther in 3D this afternoon, we enjoyed it. Super hero movies are usually not my cup of tea, and this one had a lot of violence like most of those kind of movies do. But it was different and visually beautiful. The art direction was top notch, the colors and patterns were dazzling, costumes were amazing. I liked the way they brought Oakland, California into the story and all the women were strong characters, which is rare. I thought Angela Bassett was the best looking person of the bunch. I’m ambivalent about 3D movies, wearing the glasses over my glasses is clunky and it always takes me about 25% in before I get used to the effects. All in all it was very entertaining.

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  10. Linda said on February 26, 2018 at 4:43 am

    I am old enough to remember when fear had a reality base—usually, in the 50s or 60s, when somebody bought A gun—singular—it was because a crime happened to them or somebody they knew. Now, people want to justify buying a gun or several for home, car and work, and it’s triggered by something they read on Facebook. And they live in gated communities, where nothing ever happens.

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  11. ROGirl said on February 26, 2018 at 5:20 am

    I have been on the receiving end of anger that I have concluded was motivated by fear and insecurity (family members, people I have worked for), and it is painful and destructive.

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  12. ROGirl said on February 26, 2018 at 5:33 am

    A palate cleanser:

    https://www.thecut.com/2018/02/dolce-gabbana-drones-runway.html

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  13. Linda said on February 26, 2018 at 6:29 am

    Also found my self in the middle of a weird Facebook culture war over the weekend. Again, somebody had a thing about someplace banning candy Easter eggs. Again bullshit. Cadbury placed the word Easter in a less prominent place, and we’re accused of taking Easter out of the holiday. Facebook acquaintance was going on and on about how it was because “people are too offended about everything,” when in fact she was the only butthurt party. My guess is Cadbury is trying to stretch the candy egg season, because now they start selling them right after New Year’s.

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  14. alex said on February 26, 2018 at 7:27 am

    Mona Charen grants an interview to Slate. And dumps a steaming load of both-siderism but gets in some good licks at Trump and Republicans just the same.

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  15. Suzanne said on February 26, 2018 at 9:02 am

    Alex, that Slate article is interesting and, as I have said many times, I think much of Trump is the GOP courting the fringe just to get the votes, not realizing that people out here in flyover country really, truly, absolutely believe the garbage spewed by Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Rush Limbaugh, and their ilk. It’s like somebody told a sick joke and the so-called Conservative “elites” assumed everybody in the room knew it was just a joke only to discover that most of them thought it was the gospel truth.

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  16. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 26, 2018 at 9:24 am

    Ooof. The one uplifting note here is: “If I weren’t a journalist, I wouldn’t think twice about it,” Madan said.

    The sharp grace of knowing that, if your mother says she loves you, check it out. Or if the social media says it’s somebody you trust saying it . . .

    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article201938144.html

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  17. Jeff Borden said on February 26, 2018 at 9:36 am

    Despite what the despicable Dana Loesch said, it is gun sellers who love a good mass shooting. The ammosexuals flock to the gun stores and gun shows in the wake of a slaughter, eager to stock up on firearms lest the massacre prompt some slight movement on gun control. Check out this story on the turnout in Tampa, Florida.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/business/gun-show-tampa-parkland.html

    To my eyes, American conservatism is dying. It no longer is a check on liberal political philosophies, but is rapidly evolving into outright white nationalism where hatred of the “other” is the driving force. This movement is aided and abetted by our supine Congress, which averts its gaze from the ugliest elements of the right if it means elected officials can serve the donor class and ensure their own reelection. The silence of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan is damning. The only voices we hear challenging the rightwing orthodoxy are those who have little or nothing to lose such as Jeff Flake.

    I don’t live in fear of dying by gun shot. I fear what our nation is becoming or, perhaps, already has become.

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  18. Jakash said on February 26, 2018 at 1:29 pm

    From the mm Jeff’s link @ 16: “The motive behind the hoaxes was not clear, but someone sought to create alarm.”

    We have a Maximum Leader whose main defense against any legitimate charge is lying about it and then crying “Fake news.” We see that Russians have been indicted for their efforts “to promote discord in the United States and undermine public confidence in democracy.” It doesn’t seem too hard to recognize the motive behind the hoaxes in that story.

    It certainly fits right in with today’s topic — fear. I’m seldom afraid of something terrible happening to me on the streets of Chicago, but the fact that “This is sort of the very, very beginning of something that could be much darker.” and that “‘fake video is just about here,’ with tools that will make it easy even for amateurs to create images that are totally false but look real.”? Uh, that’s pretty scary.

    It also fits right in with what seems to become more and more apparent. For my whole lifetime, and long before it, there was a relatively honest battle of ideologies and methods between those who thought government could be a force for good, and wanted to use it to help the “common folk,” and those who thought government was intrinsically bad and mostly just got in the way of the vaunted, free-market-loving individual who wanted his/her taxes lowered. At a certain point, it became evident that the demographics in this country were going to tilt ever more clearly toward the former view being ascendant. At which point, the Republicans simply seem to have settled on cheating as the most efficacious solution to that problem. The Supreme Court in 2000, swift-boating in 2004, blatantly stealing a Supreme Court seat in 2016 – 17, voter ID laws to suppress the vote, gerrymandering, etc.

    When one knows that the *legitimate* news is going to be bad for one’s own side, and there’s no honest way to address that reality — cheating, by creating doubt about *all* news must start to look like quite a fine idea…

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  19. Sherri said on February 26, 2018 at 2:26 pm

    My experience is that anger is a manifestation of fear. I grew up with a very angry mother, and eventually I figured out it was because she was very fearful. I’ve learned with my own anger issues to look for the fear behind the anger. Sometimes, anger is the appropriate reaction to a situation, but the constant rage against the world kind of anger is really fear, I think.

    The right wing, whether it was Republican or Democrat at the time, has stoked that fear for a long time.

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  20. Bitter Scribe said on February 26, 2018 at 2:35 pm

    How amusing to see Todd Starnes and Laura Ingraham, who spent eight years heaping abusive scorn on a president whose shoes they aren’t fit to tie, get the vapors about how terribly, terribly uncivil those kids were to Marco Rubio. After all, the brats survived their brush with the Second Amendment; what more do they want?

    (And seriously, how did that callow little twerp Rubio ever get to be considered “the Republican Obama,” anyway?)

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  21. Scout said on February 26, 2018 at 3:15 pm

    Ed of Gin and Tacos fame is hitting the big time these days. This is an excellent piece and it details what needs to happen. We need a gunsense monolith equal to the ammosexual/NRA monolith in order to stop bringing a butter knife to a literal gun fight. Or as Ed said “Emma Gonzalez’s “We call B.S.” must begin to upend Charlton Heston’s “from my cold dead hands.””
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/02/21/to-beat-the-nra-think-like-the-nra/?utm_term=.155e8ab9f012

    In other news, there was this Onion/SNL worthy quote from Cadet Bone Spur: “I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon, and I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too.”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KMA3-pGgTs

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  22. Colleen said on February 26, 2018 at 4:54 pm

    I remember when the talk was about putting the baseball stadium downtown in FW and lots of people were adamant that they would NEVER go there, because downtown was far too dangerous. Of course now that the stadium is there, it sells out most games. I had people ask me if l left my porch furniture out at my south of downtown home in the Fort. In the 18 years I lived in that house, the only things that happened were a tabletop grill getting swiped from the back yard, and my husband’s unlocked car being gone through. Hardly worth arming oneself.

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  23. Sherri said on February 26, 2018 at 5:52 pm

    I see Jay Inslee confronted trump today. Good for him. This may raise up talk again of his being a candidate for President in 2020. Inslee was my Congressional Rep, and is in his second term as Governor, and let me say, no, Jay, don’t run. He’s mostly harmless, but he’s totally ineffective. He’s shown no ability to craft a legislative agenda and get it through the legislature, which seems to mostly ignore him, from what I can see. His signature issue is the environment, but I can’t tell you anything he’s accomplished there. He’s proposed a carbon tax, which went nowhere.

    He is tall, though.

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  24. alex said on February 26, 2018 at 6:04 pm

    This just in: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oath-keepers-militia-schools_us_5a943603e4b0699553cae52a

    On the local news this evening, they read select comments from viewers regarding the nut job setting himself up as a sniper outside one of our local schools. Alas, the majority of comments were from people who are all yay rah ‘Murican about it.

    The guy looks like a total creep and a loser. Obviously doesn’t have a job or much of a life. I wouldn’t want him around me, armed or otherwise. They featured Mark GQ denouncing his efforts.

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  25. alex said on February 26, 2018 at 6:19 pm

    More about the nut job embarrassing our pitiful city: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/oath-keepers-want-armed-members-volunteer-schools-after-parkland

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  26. David C. said on February 26, 2018 at 8:15 pm

    So that he’s allowed to stay means you have to give a shooter one shot before you can do anything? Does that make sense to anybody?

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  27. alex said on February 26, 2018 at 8:50 pm

    He’s on “public” property. Note how the police department is chickenshit in its comments and the school system, although more courageous, is also reticent. They’ve got a live one on their hands, another LaVoy Finicum eager to go meet his maker in a blaze of glory just like his suicide bomber counterparts across the ocean, and this is all the better they can do.

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  28. Deborah said on February 26, 2018 at 11:23 pm

    “we should start talking about mental institutions” is this man really the president? https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-mental-institutions-parkland-shooting. Didn’t Reagan put an end to institutions that help people with mental illness because it cost too much?

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  29. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 27, 2018 at 1:27 am

    There are not words enough for the contempt I feel towards a person who would assert after the fact that they, unarmed, would have made a building entry with an active shooter inside.

    Such as our putative chief magistrate, pontificating about his relative courage to armed if feckless deputies. Vile, self-absorbed, heartless cretin. People should have flung notebooks to the floor and left the room at that sort of display of sociopathic self-congratulation.

    Sorry, I’m having a very bad day.

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  30. Suzanne said on February 27, 2018 at 7:08 am

    Jeff, I hear this sort of talk far too often from gun lover, 99% of whom never served in any branch of the military. But they love to talk about the good guy with a gun & how they would be able to stop a shooter. So to them, Trump’s words don’t ring hollow. It’s exactly what they themselves are saying.

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  31. alex said on February 27, 2018 at 7:29 am

    Colbert to Trump: What are you gonna do, stab them with your bone spurs?

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  32. susan said on February 27, 2018 at 10:38 am

    Oh right, Dumpth is gonna run in and save the day, as he did at one of his Merde a Lardo grift…er…uh “charity” events.

    This unrelenting fucker…

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  33. A. Riley said on February 27, 2018 at 11:03 am

    It’s getting really weird out there. My own sister (whose nutcase husband is the problem) keeps posting meme after meme about how guns are the only thing saving civilization — and the memes keep getting crazier and crazier. WTF?

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  34. Mark P said on February 27, 2018 at 11:06 am

    Just remember, whom the gods would destroy…

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  35. Sherri said on February 27, 2018 at 11:30 am

    Remember the William F Buckley quote about how he’d rather be governed by the first 400 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty at Harvard?

    I think I’d rather be governed by the first 400 names in the Boston phone book than by the current administration, as long as those 400 weren’t Republicans.

    (Of course, WFB would never have wanted any such thing, because he was as racist as fuck.)

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  36. Connie said on February 27, 2018 at 12:32 pm

    Speaking of racist as fuck. Had a complaint on my voicemail this morning about an upcoming music program with a jazz group, program related to the Michigan humanity commission’s choice of a book about Malcolm X’ childhood. Basically the message said she was going to give me a chance to justify holding a program celebrating Malcolm X before she wrote her letter to the editor.

    So I am assuming that she considers Malcolm some kind of bad guy. This however is the Great Michigan Read for this year, selected by the Michigan Humanities Commission.

    Our program info says this: One title, one state, and thousands engaged in literary discussion. This year’s Great Michigan Read selection is “X: A Novel” by Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon. This book explores the Michigan roots of Malcolm X, including the early life experiences, both good and bad, that molded him into one of the most prominent leaders of the twentieth century.

    Join us for an afternoon of 1940s jazz with The Spangler/Smith Quartet. Enjoy an all-star performance while getting to know the music that played such an important role in Malcolm X’s youth.

    Open to Teens and Adults.

    The Great Michigan Read is presented by the Michigan Humanities Council with support from Meijer and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

    This concert is generously sponsored by the Jazz Foundation of America and the Friends of the Library.

    So, please explain to me what she would have against Malcolm X. Cause I don’t have a clue. He’s black? He was Islam?

    And btw lady, you are definitely racist.

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  37. beb said on February 27, 2018 at 4:06 pm

    connie, for some people being black or Muslim is enough, being black and is beyond the pale.

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  38. Sherri said on February 27, 2018 at 5:03 pm

    I certainly hope Dems have learned this.

    “The lesson Democrats have learned politically is that they’re alone,” health economist Harold Pollack observed at healthinsurance.org. “They’re not going to get Republican support. They’re not going to get stakeholder support for some of the most critical things.” Following seven years of sabotage by the GOP, he predicted, “Democrats will be much more ruthless the next time around.”

    And this does sound like an intriguing way forward on healthcare.

    http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-medicare-extra-20180227-story.html

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  39. Dave said on February 27, 2018 at 5:14 pm

    Connie, you have to wonder what she even knows about Malcolm X. She probably saw Malcolm X and quit reading after that, she read right past the Great Michigan Read. In what manner does she want you to respond?

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  40. Jolene said on February 27, 2018 at 5:22 pm

    A distraction: For Oscar season, the Post has put together a quick, interactive game that allows you to click all the Best Picture movies you’ve seen.

    I first posted this on FB, where Dorothy took it. I thought I had a good score at 51, but Dorothy beat me with 67. Clearly, I have made not made the right choices in life.

    Check it out here.

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  41. David C. said on February 27, 2018 at 6:07 pm

    Every gun nut I know always talks about “my training”. As in, “I know what to do in a live shooter situation because of my training”. I think their training consists of killing paper at the gun range and playing “World of Warcraft” on the Xbox. None of them have been any closer to war or live fire than black Friday at Walmart.

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  42. Bitter Scribe said on February 27, 2018 at 6:34 pm

    Now the Oath Keepers are making a whole big honking deal out of “guarding” schools.

    I’d feel better about this if I knew that the only people they could shoot would be themselves, in the foot or whatever. But you just know one of them is going to snap or get startled or something, and some kids will get hurt.

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  43. Deborah said on February 27, 2018 at 6:58 pm

    Trump is nothing but a fatuous chickenhawk.

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  44. alex said on February 27, 2018 at 8:34 pm

    Why are they so angry? Despite owning Congress and the White House and the Supreme Court?

    Because we still don’t concede them or their Fox News gibberish any legitimacy or accept it as normal water cooler talk. I remember some of these assholes being livid right after the election that we weren’t paying appropriate deference to the newly elected president. And they went batshit when you’d point out how respectfully they’d behaved toward the previous president whom they felt they didn’t owe any respect.

    They know they don’t hold any claim to legitimacy and it eats their ass to no end.

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  45. Jakash said on February 28, 2018 at 1:34 am

    I don’t know about “the right choices in life” — seems instead like it makes me some kind of a twit — but I clocked in at 73 on that movie list, Jolene @ 40. I may have seen a couple more old ones that I’ve forgotten, but I didn’t take credit for any I wasn’t sure about. What can I say — we love movies and prioritize seeing good ones and ones that are nominated for Oscars, while missing lots and lots of others. The most recent “Best Picture” I haven’t seen was “Oliver,” and I’m not really sure whether or not I saw that, at some point. We’ve got 3 left to go out of this year’s nominees for BP…

    Anyway, that was quick and fun. Thanks for posting it!

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  46. Jerry said on February 28, 2018 at 3:35 am

    I managed 41 on the best picture quiz – mainly because of a clean sweep of the sixties. Just goes to show when I was a cinema goer. Though even there I’ve seen some of them on the TV.

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  47. ROGirl said on February 28, 2018 at 5:46 am

    If they give up their anger, what’s left? Nothing.

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  48. Deborah said on February 28, 2018 at 6:42 am

    I got a surprising 65 on the BP watching quiz. I started out dismally but as I went down the list I found I had seen quite a few.

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  49. Suzanne said on February 28, 2018 at 6:43 am

    If they give up their anger, Fox & Rush & Hannity & the NRA don’t make money, so they have to keep pushing that narrative. Trumpers are people who work hard & play hard but critical thinking is not a skill they excel at. So when their media, the only ones they listen to because you can’t trust anyone else, and their pastors, and their congressional representatives tell them they are under siege, that liberals want to close down their churches and make their children gay, they believe it.
    And the money pours in…

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  50. Jolene said on February 28, 2018 at 8:01 am

    Very impressive, Jakash. You beat Dorothy’s 67.

    I try to see the best picture nominees too, though this year I am behind. Will try to catch them on TV in the next few days.

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  51. Jolene said on February 28, 2018 at 8:08 am

    Dick’s Sporting Goods has just announced that it will
    halt sales of assault-style weapons
    , large-capacity magazines, and all gun sales to people under 21. I think this will be seen as a big deal.

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  52. Suzanne said on February 28, 2018 at 8:28 am

    Jolene, I think Dick’s changing the way they do business is a big deal.

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  53. Connie said on February 28, 2018 at 9:25 am

    In response to your questions about the Malcolm X program lady. I returned her call and spoke to her voicemail. I told her about the Michigan Humanity Commission’s Great Read program and gave her my direct line number. She has not called me again. I hope her letter to the editor is now about the STATE choosing a Malcolm X book.

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  54. Connie said on February 28, 2018 at 9:30 am

    Also, I added the New York Times to my paid subscription list the other day. Supposedly at half price. So what comes after the NYT and the WASH Post? I have given some thought to Talking Points, but I have no idea what is behind their paywall and no one has ever sent me one of their links that I could not read. So not there. What do you pay for?

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  55. Icarus said on February 28, 2018 at 9:39 am

    I got a 24 on the movie test which is better than I expected. The genre of movies I tend to consume (SciFi, Horror, fantasy, etc) don’t generally get a lot of Oscar nominations. There are some movies that I wasn’t sure if I’d seen or just heard enough about and seen enough clips that it feels like I saw them (Terms of Endearment, Ordinary People) so I left those out and also left out the ones that I might have seen a remake (Around the World in 80 days) but not the actual oscar winner.

    even with every maybe I still wouldn’t get a passing grade on this one.

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  56. Icarus said on February 28, 2018 at 9:49 am

    One comment on Right Wing Barbie’s page post, titled Give away your Second Amendment rights and you will not get them back likened it to smoking:

    Although I am not a smoker, just look where that issue is now. All they wanted was no smoking on aircraft….yeah right…..now smokers can barely smoke in their own homes…Once they have their foot in the door, they want more!

    He has a point. Smoke from cigarettes tends to find its way to nearby nonsmokers and bullets somehow keep finding school children.

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  57. susan said on February 28, 2018 at 10:49 am

    I was surprised I had seen as many of those movies as I had, because I am not movie aficionada: 16

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