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Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Roe v. Wade saved my daughter’s life.

Winlar: Hey! America!:

Minute Physics: How to stop structures from SHAKING.

Funny or Die: When u a Congressman and things get awkward AF at the outdoor festival.

The Atlantic: “Man-killing jobs” and environmental racism.

Young Turks: Fan to Alex Jones, “What about the trans porn on your phone?”

Trevor with Dahlia Lithwick: The politicization of Neil Gorsuch’s SCOTUS confirmation.

Egosurfer Dotard Трамп and His Associates in Crime:

WaPo: What is salmonella?

Trevor with Rep. Jim Himes (D CT-04): Why gun deaths are a uniquely American problem.

John Oliver: Retractions.

Sam Seder: Republicans say the darndest things on C-SPAN.

Minute Earth: Why do some animals eat poop?

David Pakman: Transphobe Alex Jones caught looking at transgender porn on live stream.

Midterms On The Horizon:

SuperDeluxe: Elon Musk as an Indie synth-pop song.

Sky News: Can people give up social media for 30 days?

Daily Show: DiscrimiNATION

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Comments

  1. 1

    Regulating Google because a government does not like the results, goes against the first amendment. “Congress shall make no law……..”

  4. 4

    A few minutes ago I listened to George W. Bush eulogize John McCain.

    And I realized that to all y’all HA libbies, y’all heard Hitler talking about Hitler. It was not a eulogy y’all were hearin’. It was introspection.

    One day, likely after Roger Dumbfuck Rabbit begins pushing up daisies instead of fertilizing them, y’all might realize that if everyone is Hitler, no one is Hitler.

    And then I’ll chose a different screen name.

  5. 5

    @4. Are you projecting because anytime you see any young black man, in your head, you only see a thug who’s guilty of something, so if something bad happened to him, he deserved it?

  6. 6

    Senator John McCain is more popular among Democrats than his own Republican Party after his death, a new poll shows
    https://www.newsweek.com/john-mccain-more-popular-among-democrats-republicans-after-his-death-poll-1100428
    ” Added together, 75 percent of Democrats thought favorably of McCain, versus 52 percent of Republicans.”

    I liked this comment
    “I can’t even understand what the GOP values anymore. It seems like the people who lie and bullshit the most get the most praise, while the people who fight for them but are willing to tell them hard truths get shit on”. It’s like the GOP has no idea that learning, betterment, and increased understanding are always ongoing and are almost never completely pleasant.

  7. 7

    All we’all HA libbies “realize” one thing for sure.

    Nobody anywhere ever heard the triumphant leader of the perverted child molesting Roypublican Party eulogizing a lifelong public servant and wounded veteran.

    Prizinint Bonespurs has better things to do.

    Trump won. Everything has changed. Elections have consequences. This really is who Republicans are now.

  8. 8

    Is it just me, or is all the news coverage of McCain’s funeral just too much? The guy wasn’t a saint or martyr, yet the media is treating him as such. He had skeletons in his closet that were never fully resolved, such as the savings and loan scandal back in the late 80s. Also, the treatment of his first wife by him was pretty damn shoddy.

    So, OK, the guy’s dead. Stop the lamentations already!

  9. 9

    6,
    Republican voters certainly can’t possibly consider changing the name of a government building from that of a long dead cowardly white supremacist Democrat to that of a recently deceased Republican hero.

    Because Republicans can’t possibly risk offending even a single cowardly white supremacist.
    So at least Dumbfuck has that going for him. Which is good.

  10. 10

    8,
    Almost all media, most Americans, and even perhaps a small handfull of PornSweat voters are desperate for any redeeming signs of human virtue arising from the BudgetBusting/PussyGrabbing/PornAbortion dumpster fire that is the Republican Party.

    As low as we have set the bar for Republicans, it still appears they will lose elections in November. So it is their duty to keep pushing it lower.

  13. 13

    @8 It used to be a universal social convention in this country that when somebody died you pretended to grieve even if you didn’t like them. It was called respecting the dead. But things have changed and some folks have no manners now.

    You’re one of ’em.

  14. 14

    @8 It should also be noted that McCain earned respect and admiration for standing up to thugs twice in his life: First his North Vietnamese captors, and then his party’s captors.

  15. 15

    14) Even then he put others first, like Everett Alvarez Jr, the first American POW in Vietnam. The Code of Conduct.

  16. 16

    Taking a day trip to Port Angeles on Clallam Transit’s Strait Shot bus, and a first in the several times I have rode it. Standing Room Only leaving Kitsap County. Trend in Transit buses is rightsizing, right size bus for the route. First time CTS’s biggest bus was too small

  17. 17

    Holding back ordinary mail for 8 years? Really?

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/palestinian-mail-held-for-8-years-finally-reaches-the-west-bank/

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: This is what it’s like to be treated as a conquered people. Nobody can be expected to put up with it forever. Palestinians have deservedly brought scorn and condemnation upon themselves with their terrorist actions. You can’t achieve peace with your neighbors by threatening to destroy them. But it’s also unrealistic to expect them to yield to the status quo. A middle ground must be found, which necessarily involves two independent states, and if the two sides can’t work it out themselves the world should do it for them.

  19. 19

    In which Laura Ingraham goes Stalinist.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/08/fox-news-host-laura-ingraham-suggests-government-take-facebook-twitter-like-public-utilities/

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: No, private media companies shouldn’t be required to give a bullhorn to the likes of Alex Jones, white supremacists, or neo-Nazis.

    Newspapers and magazines have been edited for generations to keep out liars, demagogues, rabble rousers, vulgarity, pornography, and others who violate community standards of decency.

    This is no different.

  20. 20

    Robert Reich argues that if Trump got into office by rigging an election he actually lost, impeachment is not enough, and annulment is the proper remedy.

    In legal terms, he’s arguing that such a presidency is void ab initio. In practical terms, it would erase his presidency from day one.

    Annulment means “all [his] appointments, actions and records were made without constitutional authority,” and therefore are null and void. “After all,” he says, “the Supreme Court declares legislation that doesn’t comport with the Constitution null and void, as if it had never been passed,” so there’s ample constitutional and legal precedent for such action.

    It would mean Gorsuch isn’t a Supreme Court justice. All of Trump’s executive orders are null and void. Legislation he signed is not law. It would be quite a mess, and would require much sorting out. It probably couldn’t completely undo the damage he’s done.

    But it would be a start.

    https://www.newsweek.com/robert-reich-if-trump-guilty-his-presidency-must-be-annulled-opinion-1092345

  21. 21

    Meghan McCain:
    “We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness, the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who live lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served.”

    “The America of John McCain is generous. It is welcoming and bold. She is resourceful and confident and secure. She meets her responsibilities. She speaks quietly because she is strong. America does not boast because she has no need to.”

    “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again, because America was always great.”

    Fuck you trolls. Fuck you.

  22. 22

    You people aren’t going remove Trump from office through the impeachment process or through some fuzzy “annulment” wet dream. The smart thing to do is run a decent Democrat, not some socialist idiot like Bernie or Lizzie, in 2020.

  23. 23

    19,
    She has the right idea. But like most klownsurvaturds blinded by the thick, stcky film of orange porn jizz, she missed the target completely.

    The internet should be treated like a public utility. Access should be neutral and unrestricted. Backbone bandwidth providers (not content providers) should be required to treat all users the same. Content providers, like all other forms of private media, have to live with the fickle preferences of consumers. TrannyPorn Perverts like Jones have only themselves to blame if their content is so offensive that providers can’t risk it.

    But, of course, that is exactly the opposite of what Republicans want. Their FCC has dismantled Net Neutrality. And they want to force people to watch FOX lies, Bigfoot porn, and Toddler Torture.

  24. 24

    “…a decent Democrat…”

    Why should we give a fuck who Russian commie spy assets think we should run? It’s none of Russia’s goddamned business who we elect President. By 2020 you’ll be in jail awaiting the pardon that will never come.

  25. 25

    @22 Where were you when we did run decent Democrats? Voting for warmongers and con men with the rest of the Republican electorate?

  26. 26

    “The smart thing…”

    …probably wasn’t trading away your patriotism and honor, and handing control of your political party to incompetent white nationalist perverts, in exchange for permision to tell crude racist jokes in the lunchroom and laugh at sobbing Guatemalan toddlers.

    “Smart” does not appear to be your thing. But the minute we need recommendations for “good Bigfoot porn” you freaks will be our first call.

  28. 28

    @1
    ….or, yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is unlawful, but Twitter not censoring someone from threatening ones life in a tweet is not unlawful?

    Eventually they did remove the tweeted threat.

  29. 29

    Dumbfuck @4

    I didn’t listen to Barak H. Obama eulogize John McCain.

    But I realized, only after you commenting @4, that to all y’all hillbilly racists, y’all heard blackie talking about Hitler. It was not a eulogy y’all were hearin’. It was the end of times. Which lead to y’all hillbillies giving birth to The Hump.

  30. 30

    “Are you projecting because anytime you see any young black man, in your head, you only see a thug who’s guilty of something,..”

    And especially threatened when he sees one so more successful than he ever could be or even dream to be.

    Leave it to a bitter old white man to turn a funeral into something so divisive. Not surprised Alex Jones didn’t beat him to the thought.

    Go fuck yourself Bob.

  31. 31

    @6 and yet the Dumbfuck Doctor goes of half baked and says what he says.

    Boy Bob, you are beyond a Dumbfuck….seek help.

  32. 32

    @8 I didn’t watch much coverage (because I don’t watch much of any TV in the last 3 years), but I think when you put anyone’s death on display like that, whether deservedly or not, you put one persons life above the other. I don’t think anyone’s death should be honored more than 10 minutes publicly – I don’t care who they are.

  33. 33

    “The smart thing to do is run a decent Democrat, not some socialist idiot like Bernie or Lizzie, in 2020.”

    You are kidding, right? It’s not that I don’t disagree with you, but you had Hillary, and she was decent enough not to vote for this Hump of a pig right now.

    Democrats could nominate someone desirably moderate or “decent” as you state, and most Democrats would probably prefer that, but Repukes would still tear that person apart with robocall ads, fear mongering politics, suppress voting, etc…..and you will still end up with someone like The Hump that we have.

    But I’ll take your little suggestion as a Freudian slip of acknowledgement that you think The Hump sucks too. But like an alcoholic, you should come out of denial and come to terms with reality that this is all your doing and the Repukilan politics of 2009 to 2016 gloom and doom and negative brainwashing

  34. 34

    @33 The Repukilan politics of 2016-present have brought me to a deeper understanding of how a man like Hitler managed to obtain power in an industrialized country like Germany. It’s not that people were stupid; they knew what they were doing. Supporting a leader like Hitler or Trump requires a venal indifference to the civilized norms that were pounded into us by parents, teachers, pastors, and peers from early childhood on. Fundamentally, it results from a refusal to grow up and be a responsible citizen.

  35. 35

    @2 “You people aren’t going remove Trump from office through the impeachment process ….”

    No, we aren’t. The American people are: “Disapproval of Donald Trump is at a new high, support for the Mueller investigation is broad and half of Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll favor Congress initiating impeachment proceedings against the president.”

    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trouble-trump-disapproval-high-63-back-mueller-half/story?id=57507081

    Impeachment is a political, not a legal, instrument. Trump will lose his defenders in Congress when his public support evaporates. He isn’t unpopular enough yet to be removed, but he’s getting there, and there are more revelations to come — Mueller is far from done. After it’s over, diehards like you will look like knaves and fools or worse.

  36. 36

    “He isn’t unpopular enough yet to be removed”

    Yes he is. All Senators, even Senate Republicans, have a more finely tuned instinct for self preservation than members of the House. The timing isn’t ripe just now. But just look at how far this criminal cabal has spiraled out of control in only 16 months. A whole lot of dominoes can fall with the mid terms. Why do you think the Republicans are already calling for violence.

  38. 38

    The real purpose of Christianity. Acquisition of property, slaves and other forms of personal wealth through mass butchery. It is no different from Islam and is descended from the same ancestral ideology. The basic purpose of the underlying belief system is to convince a population by any means to forsake their own prosperity and rights to live in favor of the people who would burn and flay their children alive if they refused.

    The entire purpose of the Abrahamic Religions is conquest, enslavement, and theft under threat of mass murder and institutionalized sadism. Essentially, capitalism at it’s most basic level.

  39. 39

    This Hump economy talk is really bullshit.

    I was just reading an article in the Hartford Courant – “A Blue Valley is Seeing Red”. Some 87 year old man says something like, ” I don’t care what the media is saying the The Hump economy is doing great”.

    Not sure what media he is looking at it because I don’t see any media saying otherwise (when they should).

    To the old fart (white guy) – tell me and show me the graphs or data of why the economy is doing so great. And show me how much different it is from the past 2009 to 2016. The only thing doing better (compared to 2014 to 2016) is the stock market. Oh and unemployment is down 1 big whopping percentage point, in what looks to be a steadily declining rate since 2010.

    The stock market and wall street is all bullshit to begin with, these guys are in the tank, as Lindsey Graham would say, for a Republican. It is overinflated, had to correct itself, and probably still needs a correction, and potentially we could see a recession. The first recession since the Great Recession.

    2 years of The Hump doesn’t make-up for all of today’s economy.

    We have dumbfuck and then we have more dumbfucks.

    I wish the Media would do there job to tell this old fucking fart the reality and not fantasy dream he lives.

    The only reason why the guy thinks that economy is great now is because for 8 years Repuke leaders said it was doing shitty when it wasn’t really doing that shitty.

    If I am wrong – someone show me that data not an article.

  40. 40

    @38 and cute little alter girls and boys. Sex rings. That’s why the right wing is drumming up all these pedophilia conspiracies. As soon as they learn something about themselves they don’t react by repenting, they react bye denial and then projecting or accusing the others of doing it.

    What a messed up fucking bunch. They like to Monkey things up.

  43. 43

    Your state is so deeply mired in debt that the only way out is for it to file for bankrupcty.

    What could there possibly be to lose from piling on more debt?

    What is Illinois Commitment?
    Illinois Commitment is a financial aid package that provides scholarships and grants to cover tuition and campus fees for students who are Illinois residents and have a family income of $61,000 or less. $61,000 is the current median family income in the state of Illinois. Illinois Commitment will cover tuition and campus fees for new freshmen for up to four (4) years, eight (8) semesters of continuous enrollment, and tuition and campus fees for up to three (3) years, six (6) semesters of continuous enrollment for new transfer students.

    Who qualifies?
    Illinois residents who are admitted as new freshmen or transfer undergraduate students under the age of 24, whose total family income is $61,000 or less. The student and the parent(s) on the FAFSA must both be residents of Illinois.

    https://osfa.illinois.edu/types-of-aid/commitment-faq

    I’m sorry, YLB, that Washington state didn’t think of this while your kids were still in school.

  45. 45

    Oh, and that’s another thing….ask that 87 year old fart about the Deficit. I’m sure he knows all about that too – that it’s going down and his grandkiddies are rich again.

  46. 46

    @39 “Some 87 year old man”

    Was he the guy shouting, “Keep government’s greedy mitts off my Social Security and Medicare!”?

  47. 47

    @43 nothing wrong with bankruptcy…..The Fucking Hump did it something 3 times….and he’s such a successful guy. What’s wrong with bankruptcy?

    Next – maybe you could give us all an education on how the federal deficit is growing today. Please I am so waiting.

  50. 50

    @43 God forbid that a state provides college financial aid to poor kids. In your world, if someone isn’t lucky enough to be born rich, fuck ’em. Someone has to pick up your garbage and mow your grass, right? Our contempt for you is well-deserved. You’ve earned it.

  51. 51

    @47 I believe it was four times, which Roypublicans shrug off as smart business. I predict there won’t be a fifth time, though. Russian lenders handle deadbeats a little differently than American creditors do.

  52. 52

    @ RR @ 48:

    @43 God forbid that a state provides college financial aid to poor kids. In your world, if someone isn’t lucky enough to be born rich, fuck ’em. Someone has to pick up your garbage and mow your grass, right? Our contempt for you is well-deserved. You’ve earned it.

    The worst part of that idea is that, the wealthy don’t even have to do any real work to get their degrees. They hire people to do their homework for them, they buy previously submitted essays and papers from some fraternity, they have all the freedom in the world to do whatever the hell they want to, while “attending” university. All daddy has to do to, is to buy a new wing on the gym, or just offer a large sum of cash to the endowment. The “Student” is just there to be babysat until he can find a “job” in one of their fraternity brothers dad’s banks or something. Even if they don’t Daddykins will always buy them that nice house, and a new Porsche or Koeneggsegg for their birthdays.

    Meanwhile, the people who go to University with the motivation to develop a higher level of education for themselves and are actually able to attend University by means of hard work and borrowing huge sums of money are being told to go get fucked. The people that are going to actually be the folks teaching school, designing new widgits and gizmos, mixing prescriptions and drilling teeth etc, are being excluded from doing so by the incredible levels of debt they must take on.

    You aren’t going to see stockbrokers kids, or bankers kids or real-estate magnates kids become anything but Lawyers or bankers themselves. They never become mechanical engineers or Doctors, materials scientists or public school teachers or pharmacologists. You never see a pasty-face Harvard frat boy sitting in a little half-cubicle with piles of papers on their desk and two lights on their phone. They’re immune from all of that by mere virtue of being someones kid, grandkid or great-grandkid. A lot of those people are in the 7th or 8th generation of incredible and nearly unlimited wealth. To them, the only measure of success is wealth. If one is born into it, one’s apparent “success” is already assumed to be predetermined. Anyone who doesn’t have this is a peon, a serf or just an easily replaced unit of labor.

    Meanwhile, many of the people who are actually interested in going into Law or Medicine as a profession for the simple reason that they are interested in it, simply cannot ever do so because they do not have that level of wealth to rely on. There is a huge amount of talent out there that is being washed out of the system simply because it cannot afford to compete.

    The rich have already shown, in every society and in every time, that they are more willing and desirous of walling themselves off from the chaos they create than to prevent that chaotic state from occurring in the first place.

  53. 53

    @52 “they buy previously submitted essays and papers from some fraternity”

    Reminds me of a story I heard in college, possibly apocryphal, maybe true, about a frat boy who searched the frat house files looking for a paper for a class he was taking, found what he needed, submitted it, and got it back from the professor marked up as follows:

    “This is a damn good paper! It earned an ‘A+’ when I wrote it 30 years ago, but you get only an ‘F’, because you plagiarized it.”

  54. 54

    @52 “The worst part of that idea is that, the wealthy don’t even have to do any real work to get their degrees. They hire people to do their homework for them, they buy previously submitted essays and papers from some fraternity, they have all the freedom in the world to do whatever the hell they want to, while ‘attending’ university.”

    No, the worst part is they become a CEO, governor, or president and then fuck up everything they touch.

  55. 55

    The Civil War gave us a good look at what political generals look like, and World War 1 gave us an even better look at what hereditary generals look like.

  56. 56

    Randy Rainbow tune is catchy but it’s an inaccurate take on the impeachment. The house does impeachment and then it goes to the Senate and in the Senate it can die in committee. The first set of impeachment charges against Johnson did just that. The Senate did not get going until after a second set of impeachment charges were brought by the House, all on something that later was judged by the Supreme Court to be totally in the Presidents power. Yes boys and girls the President can fire Sessions with or without the Senate being supportive. It’s that lil old thing called separation of powers. Which is problematic on the whole special prosecutor thing. If there is a prosecutor of the President it has to be the House of Representatives. In any case Randy suggest the house impeaches and the President packs his desk. Not the case. The Senate has to do it’s part in the coup. And then if the Senate votes for removal that is all. It’s entirely possible to impeach and remove a President and no criminal charges are ever brought. Randy seems to think that Trump could do a Nixon and I suppose that is so and I agree the possibility goes up after January 2019. And Randy seems to suggest Pence just goes away. He does not he takes the oath of office after the President Trump clears town. And before Nancy can take over by initiating a 2nd coup the Congress has to select a new Vice President. The tune though is fanciful, as the whole impeachment thing is farce, even if the Democrats won every Senate seat in November it’s still farce. Though it becomes more likely that Trump takes a page from Machiavelli and fires Sessions and Mueller, and tells the Dems in Congress ok I’m taking the gloves off come on. They do not proceed he wins. When they realize they don’t have the votes in the Senate and try sidestepping Trump wins. When they are forced to plough ahead and do not achieve a conviction in the Senate Trump wins. And then he will have a happy fuck in Marlargo. Maybe he will invite Randy Rainbow, but probably Randy is not considered to be one of the boys in the inner boy group of the locker room.

  57. 57

    @52 “The rich have already shown, in every society and in every time, that they are more willing and desirous of walling themselves off from the chaos they create than to prevent that chaotic state from occurring in the first place.”

    Who else would be buying up all the land that’ll still be above sea level 40 years from now while funding publications that indoctrinate the serfs to believe global warming is a hoax propagated by the Chinese because they want all the coal for themselves?

  58. 58

    I am surprised there is not more about the freeze on federal employees pay raises. Must be the whole McCain funerals and what not are drowning all that out. Hey Carl or is it Darryl have not complained about tx being all messed p and their daughter having to watch the numerous funeral processions instead of the muppets. Guess when the funerals help your politics even for a war mongering Republican then all is good politics.

  59. 59

    @5 The problem is that some young black men, some young Asian men, some young brown men, some young white men, ect are actually thugs who may well deserve what they get when practicing thuggery. It’s possible they may eventually get socialized, but all too often crime and thuggery actually do pay.

  60. 60

    @57 They would be more accurate to say the global warming hoax started by Margaret Thatcher’s government to fuck over the coal miners and their unions than what you are saying here. It actually was exaggerated truth then as it is now. Of course Maggie is one of them in the rich club you and I are not members of.

  61. 61

    @8 As long as he got flag at half staff on the day of his death, abd the day after at the White House that is about all the requires on the death of any member of congress. President’s do not have to celebrate their political enemies. McCain is solidly in the never Trump camp. The WH is probably more concerned with the mans replacement and has probably built up a fair sized long distance bill to various numbers in Arizona. The bottles of champagne are on ice for that announcement especially if it goes well,

  62. 62

    @9 Could e they do not care. As it is there is already a McCain Airfield. Kinda sucks when you are McCain number three with one admiral as granddad and then dad was the first son of an admiral who became an admiral. Becoming a sitting Admiral is an accomplishment. We gave back the Panama Canal Zone and the Senator railed on that perhaps he had visions of it being named the McCain Zone.

  63. 63

    @13,

    That’s rich coming from an arrogant and unmannerly bastard like you, Roger. You lecturing anyone on manners is equivalent to a meth-addicted whore lecturing a group of nuns on sobriety and chastity. It’s just tooooo funny!!

  64. 64

    @11 Knowledge is often kryptonite to Democratic politicians as well. Unfortunately knowledge as kryptonite is not often. Dumbness, and apathy triumph more often over kryptonite.

  65. 65

    @12 Only their own ignorance of fascism and NAZI can lead them to give Trump that much credit. Trump is not that terrific of an orator. He is not in the same league as Hitler. Nor does he have the same politics. Hitler was not a businessman while Trump is.

  66. 66

    @14 None of those thugs were ever tried for war crimes so they were honorable soldiers of the peoples republic of Vietnam fighting the imperialistic Americans. Totally honorable dudes. Would you have spent another 5 years in Nam to ensure those bastards at the Hanoi Hilton got what they really deserved?

  67. 67

    @58 “I am surprised there is not more about the freeze on federal employees pay raises.”

    I posted about it a couple days ago.

  68. 68

    @63 Somebody has to kick some manners into your ilk. If your mothers won’t do it, then we have to. I’d rather be chasing butterflies.

  69. 69

    @17 What exactly is it you would have the rest of the world do here? Intervene. Well that has worked out so well in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Maybe we should stay out let the two sides go at each other and resolve it themselves, and whatever agreement or outcome (even one Israel) should be good enough. Certainly your words are good for some old school Jordanian’s and Egyptians who wish to retake the conquered lands back, and well fuck the Palestinians as it’s not their territory but Jordan’s, Egypt and Syria who lost it in wars with Israel, rather than peace that would have been more equitable(?) for the Palestinian’s who would have remained Jordanian, Egyptian or Syrian citizens.

    So tell me how the world should intervene over 10 tons of mail (seems some organization in charge of international mail in the UN ought to be able to do something) should do. Specifically. Look forward to the discussion in the United Nations. Wonder what nation will veto the proposal in the Security Council.

  70. 70

    @66 “Would you have spent another 5 years in Nam to ensure those bastards at the Hanoi Hilton got what they really deserved?”

    Not worth 5 minutes of my time.

    But I think all of us would’ve spent 5 more years there to get our guys out, if that’s what it took.

  71. 71

    @67 I know though you were not very clear what you were posting about. I finally found a small news story on it on line, and said oh that is what the rabbit is talking about. Usually such a story would be a major story and it’s not. Whole lot of nothing, guess McCain is more important. Or maybe Dems are not for working class or Federal workers. Will they say anything during the annual budget battles? Hope so, not holding my breath though.

  72. 72

    @18 You mean the sanitized Norman Rockwell themes of cops might not be true if they ever were. Is Norman Rockwell’s American an idealized or sanitized version? Oh my!

  73. 73

    @19 Actually it is different. Particularly if those said companies are doing it so the government does not impose upon those corporations certain rules, or even break them up. If they are in fact imposing the governments rules because of things said to them by powerful Congressional members in the House and Senate and are now initiating censure, that is the government violating the first amendment, and like the phone companies which were told to operate as common utilities for said 1st amendment reasons, and others then the government cannot tell the internet companies to operate in any other way, but as common carriers that cannot make judgment calls on the speech over them as the government cannot make those calls. Nor should I have to stoop to the stupid and backass backward community standards of Paducah, Kentucky or that of Tehran, Iran. About time journalists wake up to the fact what happens to Alex Jones, Julian Assange, ect can happen to them.

  74. 74

    @20 Robert Reich argument is gibberish. usually I agree with Mr. Reich but on this he’s is dead wrong. There simply is no way to annul a Presidency. On taking the oath the person is President. The United States constitution was followed. The electoral collage met and did their thing in the various states and those votes were sent to Washington. The votes were opened in front of Congress and they were accepted (or challenged and challenge was resolved) and Donald Trump got a majority of the votes for President and was later sworn in. If one argues for annulment then it’s Congress that has to annul it and then meet and pick a President…ie the House meets and decides from the top 3 contenders. And well you get President Trump, stole the election fair and square. It has happened before as the founders did not entirely trust the people.

    Annulment while an interesting argument is bullshit and crises and would lead to oligarchy or more likely dictatorship. It would mean the end of the Republic and the American experiment ending as all Republics before have ended.

  75. 75

    @27 You mean Oxygen? I rather am partial to algae excrement. Being one celled plants they don’t shit at all though they collectively pool at the bottom of ponds on death, maybe to become petroleum or nutrients for algae or other lifeforms.

  76. 76

    @31 You help does not seem to be helping much. Then again it really is not help or meant to be. Look though loyal knight at the line of windmills. You shall be a tilting wonder, for our amusement. Do not let the mills unseat thou as we may not contain our hilarity.

  77. 77

    53,
    Thankfully those days are past. With all work submitted digitally combined with advanced text search, copy-pasta plagarism is no more. At least at legitimate institutions incomming freshmen and xfers are given a single warning up front explaining how such plagarism is defined, detected, and punished.

    Most of the search utilities and algorithms are in the public domain so reasonably intelligent students pre-screen their own work before submitting it, and carefully re-work any text not sufficiently “paraphrased”.

    Far more common these days is for students with money to buy work from an online thesis mill. For only a couple hundred dollars some fairly decent stuff can be had. Certainly good enough for a “gentleman’s C”.

  78. 78

    61,
    Decent human beings at least know when to shut the fuck up.
    But not you. And not your bloated gassey pornjizz hero or any of the rest of you Russian trolls.

    Trump won. Everything has changed. Elections have consequences. This is really who Shortbus is now.

  79. 79

    @33 When it comes to Hilliary Clinton I know I am just a voice in the wilderness here, but a lot of other voices agree with me. I will never vote for Hilliary Clinton even for dog catcher. Even with the sweetest loveliest white house intern giving me a fantastic bj I will not vote for her. I will not vote for her. And a lot of folks feel likewise, so she is a compromised candidate.

    I thought one of the most politically astute things Obama did was make her Secretary of State, had she been serious she would have accepted nothing less than VP. She could have been Obama’s McCain, and she was not so she was sidelined just long enough what little shelf life she had expired.

  80. 80

    @78 Why thank you and I welcome your hate. Too bad you do not post as yourself. You are just a cartoon. Now run along and play with little Elmer and the rabbit.

  81. 81

    @34 Doubt that it can amount to anything of the sort. After all Germany lost the first World War though it surrendered before it had to, political crises caused the surrender. The peace sucked. Italy won but the peace for Italy sucked and it brought about Mussolini. Germany was and is a multi party parliament. The unique features of the Weimere Republic are not present in the United States. It’s entirely possible WWII would have occurred in a different way in 1939 or later, the NAZI’s were actually right about the threat to the east. Hitler astutely sat down with Stalin. He got things set up for what he thought was going to be a border war with France and well it became a bigger war. Still no matter the government Germany would have been at war in Europe in the 1940’s probably against the USSR. Would the USSR have stopped at the Rhine possible, but only because they had overextended their supply lines and would need to rebuild the railway lines in Germany to their track size to continue on into France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

    While it could happen here, drawing conclusions that Trump is like Hitler and we are like Weimar Germany is just political posturing on your part. Or you really think your party is about to lose another election or elections? If that is your fear your problem is not Trump buy your own party the Democrats and what it is going to take for Democrats to win elections outside of the remaining fatherland.

  82. 82

    @71 “Usually such a story would be a major story and it’s not.”

    It was front page news on NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, USA Today, and Seattle Times, among others.

  83. 83

    @35 So if you think Trump is Hitler why hasn’t he fired Mueller and then quietly had him shot in an obscure basement or maybe park? Politically he should fire him. If not now if the Dems win the house he should fire Mueller. And say come on boys lets dance. If the Republicans win the Republicans in the house and senate will demand a report, and call it a day. The Democrats should call for a report if they win the House but won’t and instead the special investigation will be why Trump wins a second term. Maybe then he will fire Mueller. We need special agent Mulder to do this investigation, and maybe truth on the UFO stuff.

  84. 84

    @73 “About time journalists wake up to the fact what happens to Alex Jones, Julian Assange, ect can happen to them.”

    Only you would compare Alex Jones to journalism. Posting tripe like this is why you’re mostly ignored on this blog.

    No, Facebook et al. don’t have to hand a megaphone to fuckasses like Jones. If they do it because of some bleating congressman, that’s not a First Amendment issue, it’s old-fashioned yellow-bellied cowardice.

  85. 85

    @36 Because Mueller is more useful to them than not? As it is if there is a special counsel it should be under control on Congress which it ultimately has to be to do an impeachment. Mueller has all the problems of the last special counsel. He could have gone to the N(o) S(uch) A(gency) and asked for any and all packets and files passed to any Russians in or out of government. If the hacked Democratic files were sent to Russia the NSA would have them and much more. Mueller has not done that even to show the American public there is a case to have him on the case or if there is anything to the whole Russian collusion and involvement in the case and arrests of the Russian agents here in the US that have to exist should such collusion have taken place. Revealing Trumps handler who has to be here in the US to be at all useful. None of that so the whole thing is a charade and a waste of time, and a repeat of Whitewater that Democrats bitched about at the time against their guy, but we got to blowjobs a little quicker. And heaven forbid lordy lordy loedy if an American politician got a bj or their pussy licked!!!!

  86. 86

    @74 It is, as you said, an interesting argument. Reich is a lawyer; as far as I know, you are not, so he’s probably thought the question through in greater depth than you have.

    Couple things I didn’t know about him until I read his bio just now: He was buddies with Michael Schwerner in school, and dated Hillary Rodham in college.

  88. 88

    @80 I don’t think he hates you. It comes across to me as contempt for your vacuity. You don’t fit in very well with the intellectuals who populate this outhouse.

  89. 89

    @79 “I will never vote for Hilliary Clinton even for dog catcher.”

    I won’t either, unless it’s a choice between her and Trump, in which case it’s no contest. I don’t have to guess which side of that dilemma you came down on; you just told us.

    P.S., Are you actually blaming her for Bill cheating on her? If you are, that has Republican written all over it.

  91. 91

    @37 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act

    The problem is the statute is written broadly. It was meant as a tool to go after foreign agents who maybe spies, but there is a lack of proof. You can still hang this on them and show them the door. So Mueller is finding everyday corruption, but does have a big screwdriver here. He goes after the wrong person then congress will repeal or change the statute. Or eventually they will try it on someone and the person will make them try it and the court could tell counsel they ae speaking out of church or find the statute overly broad. or being used when another statute should be. Or the court will ask if the defendant is a spy and why are there not charges under the espionage act as there should be. It is also one of those charges most Americans are unaware of and say you are regularly delivering coffee to the Italian embassy or consulate you are technically a foreign agent and must register.

  92. 92

    @79 “She could have been Obama’s McCain, and she was not so she was sidelined just long enough what little shelf life she had expired.”

    Yeah, that explains how she won her party’s nomination and the popular vote in a presidential election. Kinda looks like she would have won the electoral vote, too, but for foreign interference.

  93. 93

    @37 Ordinarily the economy is doing well enough that Republican’s should keep their seats, pick up a seat or two in Congress and keep the house. If people vote their pocket book then Republicans will do just fine in the upcoming midterms.

  94. 94

    @81 “Germany … surrendered before it had to ….”

    You know nothing. The German army was decimated by the 1918 offensives, the Americans were arriving in force, the German people were starving because of the Allied blockade, and the Kaiser’s regime was facing revolution. It was over.

    You’re basically buying into the myth propagated by Hitler and others after the war, for political purposes, that the German army was “stabbed in the back” by politicians back home. That wasn’t true. The army was in retreat, short of manpower and unable to replace losses, could no longer be supplied, and had no offensive power left. By November 1918 it was completely on the defensive, and had it fought on — assuming the troops didn’t mutiny and the homefront didn’t collapse — the most it could have done was fight delaying actions to postpone the inevitable defeat.

  95. 95

    @68 Cartoon rabbits are poor purveyors of morals, A good start would be to openly use your actual name and identity, Moral persons are themselves when communicating. If they are not themselves they at least loose the moral authority to point out the loose morals of real human beings who maybe their neighbors and have other bad habits. You may though get some free fertilizer.

  96. 96

    93,
    Go with that. Please.
    It’s working wonders so far.

    But just so’s you know, your number this year is $2 billion.
    That’s billion, with a b.
    No party has ever raised and spent that much in a mid term. Never even close. And as of the last reporting period you are way behind. Not even half way there and your time is running out. Even washing Russian money through the NRA isn’t working like it used to.

    If you trailerbillies don’t put down that can of Keystone and pick up your checkbook it may not work out. And this year’s check needs to be a bit larger. About $100 more from every single one of you just to stay in the game. That’s your economy calling and your pocket book might not pick up.

  99. 99

    @70 Too bad we did not spend more time getting in with maybe a declaration of war. Of course that makes getting out a bit more complicated and there maybe more political willingness to do those things necessary to win. Technically we declared victory and left. Though that has meant on those rare times opponents have captured Americans troops have been held under even more appalling conditions than the Hanoi Hilton. Our female troops have been raped with no consequences to the culprits even after we reinvaded years later. The treatment of American prisoners of war by the North Vietnamese was horrific, and the Viet Cong correctly believed they could do it with no consequences. Rather like folks in an incident with a black hawk decades later, though frankly we killed a lot of people for dragging our guys through the dirt. Things sometimes happen to American troops because we are nice people that do not happen to Russian troops because the Russians are not nice people.

  100. 100

    @93
    “If people vote their pocket book then Republicans will do just fine in the upcoming midterms.”

    They don’t. They vote with their brainwashed shit for brains. They have know clue how to count their money and blessings. They rely upon Repukes to tell them how bad things are under Democrats, when in reality things aren’t as bad as they make it out to be.

  102. 102

    Have you heard of the public service student loan forgiveness program? It’s mostly an empty promise, and it’s apparently so rare for anyone to actually get loan forgiveness under this program, that a Western Washington University grad (now a tenured professor at an Alaska college) is making national news because he apparently has done it.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/30/this-man-joins-a-small-crowd-of-public-servants-to-get-their-student-loans-forgiven.html

    P.S., he kept his receipts, but still had to make more than the required number of payments because the loan servicer “lost” some of his payments.

  104. 104

    @103 You have not seen the Bellingham Herald recently. And ABC, CNN re not newspapers with a front page, Look for any continued coverage and it is not there, and where are the Dems getting some political woo woo on the issue.

  107. 107

    The problem is the statute is written broadly.

    I just have to assume that this is media nonsense that Shortbus is parroting back. He, or really anyone, should know better than to rely on J-school grads and the media-whore “experts” typically called on to talk political trash on television when it comes to the law.

    The term “overbroad” can get bandied about a bit loosely in these kinds of situations as a way to “sound” thoughtful. But that isn’t how appeals courts use it when reviewing a statute. The part Shortbus, and presumably Hannity and Tucker Carlson are missing is whether or not a fundamental right is implicated. In those instances, generally speaking, lawmakers are required to be careful and write statutes narrowly, often subject to certain legal tests. Obviously there are a shi ton of examples of criminal statutes that are quite broad, enormously sweeping in scope, and they suffer no challenge. It’s hardly worth debating that.

    So might FARA implicate a fundamental right? Perhaps. If so, we’d be talking about freedom of expression protections. But the thing is, FARA doesn’t limit or burden expression. At least not directly. FARA doesn’t prohibit foreign lobbying. That was actually tried and tossed a long time ago (Darn bill ‘o rights). So is asking a foreign agent who wants to engage in lobbying to register an impermissible burden? Not in the context of all the other kinds of regulations of overtly political expression.

    Anonymity has value in many contexts for encouraging expression, even in politics. But the courts have historically drawn that line at the polling booth curtain. As individual citizens we are denied anonymity when it comes to whether or not we are registered to vote, whether or not we cast a ballot, and whether and how much we might contribute to a political campaign. To suggest that denying anonymity to foreign agents seeking to influence our government would unduly burden their freedom of expression in that context is frankly laughable. Anonymity is not a fundamental right.

    Since it seems very unlimely that a fundamental right is burdened by FARA, Congress can write the statute as broadly as they like. And they have. The statute has been revised several times in efforts to narrow its scope, not at the behest of courts, but at the behest of the Congress.

    These Republican Presidential Campaign officers (along with dozens of foreign agents) who took money from foreign governments to influence our elections and to influence our government have pleaded or been found guilty because they broke a good law that serves us all well. Every crook complains that the law is unfair after they get caught breaking it.

  108. 108

    @94 Germany collapsed internally. The army was still on the front lines. There was revolution in Germany and there were some fears in France and Great Britain they could go the same way. Allied powers had not pushed the German’s back to the frontier and it was a long ways to Berlin.

    http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/armistice.htm

  109. 109

    @107 the act has been about espionage and always has been. It often boils down to what government one maybe an agent for. Friendly government and you might get fined and told to get the paperwork. It’s Russia oh my god you must be an agent even if you just deliver pizza. If dominoes drivers regularly deliver pizza to the embassy that local dominoes and the drivers are arguable agents. Also if RT is an agent of the Russian government then surely Canadian Broadcasting employees are agents of the Canadian government as is the BBC and its employees.
    The law is used selectively, and the current round of selectivity could involve the courts. The judge in the latest case does come across as somewhat skeptical either of the law or of Mr. Patton. Or of the use of the statute. Certainly the judge knows the statute is being used to target individuals dealing with some nations and not individuals doing similar things with nations that are perceived as friendly. And those nations citizens are less likely to fall under the same shade as a citizen of say Russia or the Ukraine something that federal courts do concern themselves with should defense counsel smell the coffee and actually defend their client. A defense of the statute is being used selectively and there are plenty of Americans and other not abiding to the statute as the government is perceived to be friendly or western could be a good defense, and actually truthful. Though frankly any defendant takes a risk as the basic statute is so broad even the pizza delivery guy can be brought under the statute. And originally it was put in place with the understanding the US government would go after actual spies with it, but you know Franklin Roosevelt was President maybe it went the way of the new deal.

  110. 110

    I get the impression this Republican doesn’t like blacks.

    “GOP official resigns after calling kneeling NFL players ‘baboons’”

    “Let’s see how the baboons get paid when white people stop paying their salaries.”

    “Tired of these overpaid ignorant blacks”

    https://nypost.com/2018/09/02/gop-official-resigns-after-calling-kneeling-nfl-players-baboons/

    I’m sure the white supremacists who lynched my dear friend the loon were taunting him, calling him a baboon and the N-word as they strung him up. SAD!

  111. 111

    @109 This gentleman is an actual spy from the USSR. The US government never had a strong case against him, and only the statute we are talking about could have been used against him, but in the real world it was better to turn him.

    He was a real foreign agent of course real foreign agents do not fill do not comply with that law, unless they are part of the embassy.

  112. 112

    109,
    You said (presumably because you were told) that the law was “broadly written”. Now you complain about “selective enforcement”. Either way you’ll come up empty handed.

    LE and prosecutors enforce “selectively” all the time. Nothing illegal or unconstitutional about that, per se.
    Are you saying this is “discriminatory” as it would pertain to federal civil rights law? Which protected class does the Republican Presidential Campaign Manager belong to?

    You and most of the rest of PornSweat’s fanboys are only succeeding in making yourselves look more like the whiney pussies you’ve really always been.
    Unfair? Every single convicted scumbag in the history of criminal law complains that it’s unfair.

    You’ll have to do a whole lot better than that.

  113. 113

    @108 Yes, Germany collapsed internally. It could not longer raise enough conscripts to fill the depleted ranks. Its people were starving because of the Allied strategic blockade. The whole object of a military campaign, Liddell Hart will tell you, is to destroy the enemy’s will to fight. There are many ways to do that besides battering against his front lines, although the German lines also were collapsing by November 1918.

    Let’s say the war had continued into 1919. The Kaiser has abdicated and Germany is led by a weak provisional government facing riots in the streets. Two million Americans have entered the front lines; the Germans have already taken a pounding from Pershing’s troops in the Meuse-Argonne. Now their troops have to endure another winter of privation. Desertions mount, mutinies break out. Meanwhile, the Allies are getting more troops, tanks, planes, and artillery. When spring comes, they assault the Hindenburg line and it collapses everywhere they push against it, because the German power to resist is almost entirely depleted. What happened in 1945 instead happens in 1919: The Allied armies cross the Rhine, march into Germany, and occupy Berlin. The German leaders kill themselves or are arrested. The German people, what’s left of them, with no army to speak of left to protect them, and weary to the bone, submit without further struggle. Then, if the Allies are wise enough to rebuild Germany, as they did after World War 2, the rightwing hotheads get no traction and a certain Austrian corporal finds no receptive audience for his aggrieved rantings.

    Germany didn’t surrender too soon; the Allies won too quickly.

  114. 114

    @113 “But in hastening the surrender, in preventing a continuance of the war into 1919, military action ranks foremost. This conclusion does not imply that, at the moment of the Armistice, Germany’s military power was broken or her armies decisively beaten, nor that the Armistice was a mistaken concession. Rather does the record of the last ‘hundred days’, when sifted, confirm the immemorial lesson that the true aim of war is the mind of hostile rulers, not the bodies of their troops; that the balance between victory and defeat turns on mental impressions and only indirectly on physical blows, It was the shock of being surprised, and the feeling that he was powerless to counter potential strategic moves, that shook Ludendorff;s nerve more than the loss of prisoners, guns, and acreage.” Strategy 2nd revised edition Lidell Hart Chapter XIV. page 204 last paragraph

    Seems Hart is saying though the chips were down the German’s could have continued fighting. The American insistence on unconditional surrender had already extended the war. Hart would have expressed doubts on the allies ability to supply the strategy you suggest into Germany. Just Ludendorff’s expressions of defeat baxkfired and opened the back door though it is unlikely the Allies could have done anything there until spring.

  115. 115

    Something interesting I saw at Gateway Transit Center in Port Angeles. The Dungeness Line, a state supported intercity bus operation, run under contract by Greyhound Connect. Usually it’s a minibus, but expecting a bigger crowd , an actual Greyhound bus. Probably first time in awhile a Greyhound bus has been that way. With Clallam Transit Route 123, could probably justify a Greyhound-type on the run, to handle passenger luggage. As the 123 carries passengers doing day trips, and in the summer, tourists and backpackers. Also a few on each trip I have taken, were continuing on to Victoria. CTS does a good job of helping them out, if the bus runs late.

  116. 116

    Interesting article comparing Cult behavior and Fat Donny’s devoted followers.

    Now, with that in mind, the idea that the GOP has, for all intents and purposes, been reduced to being a mere Cult around FDs tenuous personality is really starting to take shape. It isn’t so much that the Republicans have come to worship him a “Great Leader” (although many of them do apparently think of him in those terms), it seems to come out of the idea that the words “You’re Fired” could come to mean anyone under almost any circumstance and they’re utterly terrified at the thought that he might actually have this power. So they seem to think they are playing it safe. They’re just a bunch of chicken-shit cowards with no real depth of personality for themselves.

    They’re more terrified of losing their jobs, and the resulting loss of their own presumptive social status in relation to those careers than they are of being wrong about their devotion to his eminence. So they abase themselves at his feet and pledge their undying love and loyalty. They grovel like severely beaten dogs. To do otherwise is to come under threat of total destruction of their socioeconomic status.

    But there are limits to how much beating any dog will take and there are many dogs who will refuse to be abused at all, and not tolerate it when they see it happening to someone else.

    Now that we have an utterly ignorant and apparently psychopathic narcissist in the White House, that set of emotional response patterns have come to the surface. They are reacting in ways that seem unrelated to the real threat. They project their own feelings onto other people and ideals. They lie about events and refuse to admit they have been caught doing so. The racism, jingoism and the violent behaviors that inevitably result from all of that are bubbling to the surface, like the greasy, toxic scum that one would find if one were to boil raw sewage.

    He has surrounded himself with toadies and fellow criminals with the apparent notion that this would protect him from any retributions, legal or otherwise. He is now feeling that he is finally cornered. He isn’t responding to the various investigative pressures or the convictions of his staffers and associates as one would if it was all just political maneuvering by his enemies, he’s feeling the pressure of those walls that he’s built for himself over the decades closing in on him. He’s naked, and alone, and everyone hates him. He absolutely must be President. It is the only way he can remain protected from the forces he unleashed on the world. His ego and bluster isn’t enough to protect him any more. He’s fucked over a lot of people. Some of those people have the ability to move whole Armies around the world. Real ones, with tanks, aircraft, secret assassins and the like.

    He knows he’s caught, and it’s now only a matter of time before the cops come knocking on his door. The chickens are coming home to roost on the doorstep he himself built.

    The crimes he is being accused of have been up to now, mostly of the “white collar” variety. Bank frauds, insurance frauds, currency manipulations and real estate scams, money laundering etc. But there is a very high probability that they go far beyond that, and he is fully aware of this. He is reacting to these accusations as a child would react. That is, after being mostly ignored when sneaking cookies out of the jar or torturing the family dog for so long that once he is called out on those crimes he cannot help but believe that they couldn’t be real crimes at all, simply because he’s never been subject to any real scrutiny about them before. No one has ever told him NO before. Nobody ever taught him Right from wrong. He has never had his hands slapped, at least not in a way that would teach him the lesson. He is a petulant, spoiled child whose daddy didn’t love him enough. He has never been required to share those stolen cookies with anyone that he cannot manipulate into being a devoted follower and now, with those thefts and manipulations coming to light for everyone to see, he is becoming increasingly hostile and erratic. His personal psychosis is coming to the surface and becoming obvious for everyone outside of his little circle to see.

    His apparent allegiances to hostile foreign powers, his close associations with the principals of a known terrorist organization could turn out to be something seriously dangerous to the Republic. There are enough people, not a majority mind you, but a large enough minority who would cheerfully sign on with that organization to wreak havoc on the public, all while claiming to be protecting it from the apparent “hostiles” they are attacking. Those “hostiles” could be anyone. For now, they’re brown-skinned people, journalists and scholars. But that can be easily broadened onto anyone who has some association with such people. There is a substantial portion of the population who would be more than happy to follow the Leader into whatever Hell he leads them into.

    During the last few days of Hitlers life, he was more dedicated to the notion that he had been betrayed than anything else. He ordered his own troops to attack his own people, kill the deserters, and destroy anything that they had left that would maintain whatever civilization they believed they still had. In the end, he sought revenge on his own followers for not being dedicated enough to his vision. Even as the Russians were almost literally knocking on his door.

  118. 118

    @114 “Seems Hart is saying though the chips were down the German’s could have continued fighting. ”

    No, that’s not what “feeling powerless” means. Cripes, you know how to look up a book most people have never heard of, you search through it to find the relevant quote, and then you don’t understand what you read. Hart said the mind of the enemy commander is determinative. The war ended when both the Kaiser and Hindenburg concluded Germany couldn’t go on. But it’s also relevant — to his calculations — that German troop and civilian morale was collapsing. At that point, both effectively resigned, and left it to underlings to negotiate peace.

    “though it is unlikely the Allies could have done anything there until spring”

    Did I say differently? Cripes again. What did I write in #113? “Come spring” What does that mean?

    We seem to have a reading comprehension problem here.

  121. 121

    @ RR @ 119:

    In other words, Trump is another David Koresh with matches nukes …

    Fixed that for ya.

  122. 122

    More proof the GOP is a party of racists:

    “Carla Maloney, a Republican county official in Pennsylvania, has resigned after it was revealed that she’d written Facebook posts referring to kneeling NFL players as ‘baboons.'”

    https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/09/03/republican-official-pennsylvania-resigns-nfl-kneeling-nr-vpx.cnn

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: As a veteran, I’m not keen about using the flag, anthem, or other patriotic symbols as protest vehicles; but I also think we must look beyond any affront we may feel to the issue prompting the protests — white cops wantonly killing black people — which is the raison d’etre for the protests (society has ignored the issue far too long). About this, Republicans are either clueless, in denial, or don’t give a damn; I think it’s mostly the latter.

    Reminds me of someone I once knew who said, “If I don’t like the way you say something, I won’t hear what you’re saying.” The response goes something like this: “The way to get a mule’s attention is to smack him between the eyes with a two-by-four.”

  125. 125

    Happy Labor Day, everyone! The pay may be meager, the benefits nonexistent, the job security zilch, and the working conditions unfit for pack animals, but at least some of you don’t have to work today.

    (Frankly, I prefer being a capitalist and goofing off every day, but that’s just me being realistic about who our system rewards and who gets screwed.)

  127. 127

    Postscript to #123: It’s hard to argue that Trump isn’t inspiring his followers to threats and violence.

  128. 128

    @121 In my original post, matches were meant as a metaphor for nukes.

    It’s a little subtle, so I understand why you might have missed that on the first pass. I expect it totally confused our trolls, if they’re around, although they appear to be taking the day off like the rest of the working class (I include Doctor Dumbfuck in that category because he only recently retired, whereas I’ve been a useless leech for going on two decades).

  129. 129

    Huffington and Seattle Times report Paul Allen is contributing money to help Republicans keep the House.

  131. 131

    @129 So by default he is a NAZI and racist? I don’t see that in this case, looks like a rich guy supporting the party that is most advantageous to him and his company. And the Democrats want to emulate that other party to get Paul’s cash. Of course Paul and other business men expect certain results, that generally are not good for workers, the poor, you people don’t need health care, you don’t need government assistance, ect.

  132. 132

    @118 While the back door was open into Germany it would be spring or later before the Allies could get there, geography is impossible to get around, meanwhile the Germans would have time to throw a defensive line. Meanwhile the slog on the western front would have continued in the wasteful ways that Lidell Hart loathed. Other than the initial German attack the western front was not a war of maneuver. The spades came out and the trenches built and in the years from 1914 to 1918 it was a long slog, and at minimum it would have remained that all the way to the Rhine. I don’t know if with 5000 tanks ect that the allies could have fought al the way to the Rhine before the losses would have brought them to the peace table. The allies abundance actually worked against them as they could not figure out how to effectively use the abundance. These armies are not mobile armies. They are still dependent on marching on foot and horses. It took Grant 1864 and the beginning of 1865 to finally get Lee to surrender, it took that long to get an army of 50,00 down to about 26,000 and Lee down to essentially not having an army to lead. There is no reason to believe the slog from France and Belgium back to the Rhine would not have been that kind of slog and most likely the German armies would only have been reduced and not annihilated and ready to fight on the other side of the Rhine if the allies could get across. The allies were not capable of ding any kind of the 60 or 100 mile drives in one day that Rommel or Patton were capable of in WWII. Fortunately the German government collapsed though perhaps a false impression things were bad, but they had not been defeated in the field. American insistence on unconditional surrender certainly lengthened the war, and contributed to a poor peace. As it is the flu of 1918 and 1919 likely would have stopped the allied army in its tracks, and made both sides unable to do any offensive fighting.

  133. 133

    Trump is authoritarian but he is not by any means a fascist. He in no way has reduced individual freedoms, and made the government number one in everyone life. He has not made corporations do the governments bidding, but the government doing corporations bidding like any good Republican.

    He still faces an election in 2 years and a couple of months. He is not IlDuce or Der Fuhrer. And you are all free to mock his orange hair, ect.
    Trump is not a socialist, and he certainly is for reducing government which a fascist is not into. Fascist insist on full employment if you are unemployed we got a job for you, and you will like it.
    There are no new FEMA camps or any new holding locations for illegal aliens. And a fascist President would never insist on the return of an former SS guard to Germany. No the guy would be made a hero of the fatherland. With apple pie of course.
    There will be an election in 2020. Just that kills your claims the President is a fascist. Even if he hangs our with Fascist leaders like Kim of North Korea, US Presidents have hung out with fascist like leaders for decades. Franco of Spain. Sadam Husein of Iraq was our fascist puppy until our ambassador told the man it was perfectly ok for Iraq to invade Kuwait, we do not care. Maybe the ambassador though he meant way northern Kuwait like the part in Iran. It does seem Sadam had realized we would get upset over the invasion he would not have done it, or he would not have stopped on the Saudi border and his tanks would have been half way to Riyadh before the Saudis would have given the US permission to come to the nations aid. (Though Jimmy Carter had set up a protocol that we would aid Saudi Arabia whether the Saudis wanted our help or not, gotta keep the oil flowing.) Maybe the Saudi’s would have been more willing to fuel our planes on arrival. Still US Presidents deal with authoritarian leaders and some are out authoritarian friends and some are real fascists.

  134. 134

    @131 “So by default he is a NAZI and racist?”

    Who said he is? You brought that up, I didn’t. Those are your words, not mine.

  135. 135

    @132 “I don’t know if with 5000 tanks ect that the allies could have fought al the way to the Rhine before the losses would have brought them to the peace table.”

    The Germans did it in reverse, over the same terrain, with less than half that many tanks, in May 1940 in just two weeks. Based on that, I think we can make some inferences about what the Allies’ growing combat power would have done to the Germans’ dwindling defenses had the war dragged on into 1919.

    Granted, many of the 5,000 tanks the Allies planned to throw against Germany in the execution of “Plan 1919” would have been lost on the long road to Berlin, but there was a strong replacement pipeline behind them. One must also consider that the tanks of 1918-1919 were mechanically less reliable than those of 1939-1940, their logistical support was more primitive, and their lack of radios hampered their battle effectiveness. But for all that, one need only look at Cambrai to visualize what a vastly larger tank force, using improved tactics, likely would have achieved against an exhausted German army that still lacked effective weapons and tactics against armor. And it wasn’t only tanks they faced; by 1918, the Allies had nearly complete air superiority, and of course, large manpower and logistical advantages. And the overarching naval blockade.

    Germany lost the war in 1914 when the French army stopped them at the Marne. The German war plan depended on achieving a quick victory, and when that failed, a Plan B had to be improvised. Most of their effort went into a search in vain for a way to break the trench stalemate. They didn’t have unlimited time, because the Allied blockade would eventually ensure Germany’s defeat if the Germans couldn’t come up with a war-winning strategy. They tried, but all their efforts — u-boats, airplanes, poison gas — fell short. In the end, it was the blockade, not the efforts of the Allied ground troops, that won the war. All the troops in the trenches had to do was hold fast until Germany was starved into submission. Allied victory never depended on a land victory, but by 1918, that was in reach, too.

    Here is how Liddell-Hart described the end in his book “The Real War”: “August 8, 1918, is a date which grows ever larger on the horizon of the historian … after August 8 [the German] dreams [of renewed offensives] vanish. There is an abandonment of any idea of returning to the offensive and … no adoption of an alternative strategy. … Only when it was too late did [Ludendorff] formulate the design of a purposeful evacuation of France as a preliminary to a fresh campaign beyond the frontier. By then, however, the moral collapse of the German Command had spread to the German people.”

    The Germans had achieved their greatest breakthroughs of the war in the spring of 1918, yet by summer, were suffering reverses that “unhinged the mind and morale of the German Supreme Command [and] led the Kaiser to say, ‘I see that we must strike a balance. We are at the end of our resources. The war must be ended.'” Not only was their offensive power exhausted, they could not defend their frontiers. The key phrase here is, “We are at the end of our resources.” It was the blockade that accomplished that and forced the Kaiser to conclude, “The war must be ended” on the Allies’ terms.

    In his epilogue to that book, Liddell-Hart wrote, “What caused that astonishingly sudden collapse and surrender of Germany …? To arrive at a satisfactory answer it is not sufficient to analyze the hectic weeks of negotiation and military success which preceded November 11 … if the historian of the future has to select one day as decisive for the outcome of the World War he will probably choose August 2, 1914 … when Mr. Winston Churchill, at 1:25 a.m., sent the order to mobilize the British Navy. … For the navy was the instrument of the blockade, … and that blockade [was] the decisive agency in the struggle.” He goes on to question whether, if the war had gone on, could have broken through the German trench lines even with the reinforcements that would have been available in 1919, although I think that ironically — for Liddell-Hart was the ideological father of modern armored warfare — he insufficiently credited the advantage the Allies by then had from their tanks and their ability to overcome trench lines as demonstrated at Cambrai.

  136. 136

    @133 “He in no way has reduced individual freedoms”

    Tell that to the children separated from their families, the babies dying in ICE camps, and the hundreds of American citizens being detained in ICE jails based on this administration’s claims that they faked their citizenship papers.

    Tell that to the woman murdered by a white supremacist, and the journalists (two in the last week) whose lives are being threatened by rightwingers incited by Trump’s rhetoric.

    His administration’s abrogation of net neutrality imposes a constraint on my freedom of access to information on the internet.

    His Supreme Court appointments threaten to take away women’s freedom to control their own bodies.

    His fossil fuel policies may force me to breathe polluted air.

    And I’m certainly not free from the threat of gun violence arising from policies that give homicidal maniacs easy access to weapons of mass murder.

    What “freedom” do LGBQT people have from discrimination in employment, and even in shopping, under Trump’s bigoted policies and messaging?

    But most important of all, how can we be sure of our elections, and that the people leading us are those we chose, when Trump is attacking the very foundations of our democracy by supporting vote suppression, gerrymandering, and interfering with investigation of hostile foreign interference in our elections?

    He certainly isn’t protecting the right of dissent and protest against injustice, or doing anything to protect the lives — much less freedom — from white police violence run amok. Under this administration, a black man with a TV remote isn’t safe in his own backyard.

    No, I don’t trust this man to protect my freedoms. I think he is the single greatest risk to my freedoms that exists today.

  137. 137

    In Russia we too have freedom. We able to think and dream of Sky Daddy and gun. Vladimir say, everyone free. Free to choose type of vodka and potato. Vladimir free – he ride with no shirt on pony. Everyone love pony. Many American should come to Russia. So you see how beautiful Russia is.

  139. 139

    134,
    Yeah. I thought that was weird too.
    Why woulda Republican like Shortbus accuse Allen of being a Nazi or a racist just because he gave a little money to Republicans?
    What’s he trying to say?

  140. 140

    136,
    He’s started seizing passports too.
    A huge tell. Obvious to anyone with a shred of common sense.
    And yet Republicans like Shortbus pretend it isn’t happening.
    Just like good Germans.

  141. 141

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  143. 143

    @141 Everyone here is a high earner or rich capitalist. We don’t need your pennies. Take your spam elsewhere. Thanks.

  145. 145

    @134 You are pretty fast and loose in what you call people particularly Republicans.

    Your current fixation is claiming that you and others on here are intellectuals. an intellectual is an individual therefore they must be on here as themselves. Arguable Goldie and his minions could fit that definition as they are on here under their names and even have bios. Something that can be checked in the real world. I’m on here as myself and I’ presenting arguments. The statements I’m a republican are amusing and elicite a Voltaire’s smile. See you at the solon.

  146. 146

    @118 @135 Maybe you should actually read Mr. Hart’s book and you are ignoring a factor called the Spanish flu. There is no reason to believe that the methods of warfare would have changed in 1919 to suddenly become the methods of WWII which were in fact a response to the morass of WWI. AS was the US benevolence in victory with such things as the Marshall plan after WWII, though the Soviet Union was also a factor, and in WWI the Germans had defeated the Russians, though there were still German armies in the field in the east in November of 1918,
    At the end of the war the Kaiser slipped out of the country and Hinderburg well he was ignored. He wanted to keep fighting and give the new civilian government a chance to pull itself together and to negotiate a truce. That is a good thing but it led to a bad peace. The allies would have suffered the same problem that in large part stopped the German’s early in the war, overrunning their ability to supply their forces. The allies did have a bit of good luck when Patton got across the Rhine over the last bridge. There is no reason to believe the Allies would have had the same good fortune in WWI. The Belgium flooded their side of the river and the Germans likely would have done the same in some areas. The fact that at the precise time agreed to in the armistice the Germans stopped firing indicates they were not a defeated force and were still capable of fighting. Yes the allies would have had a preponderance of equipment. They already had that and were unable to use the abundance to defeat or annihilate the German armies in the field on the Western front. The armies were just too big. It likely would have taken the allies all of 1919 to push the German’s back to the Rhine, and both sides would have been hit by the Spanish flu…the allies being hit first in the spring just as they would have started the offensive a quarter or half of the army with the flu. (PS and Woodrow Wilson did come down with the flu while at the peace negotiations, and that flu probably lead to his later health issues.) I am just saying the war could have continues with just US casualties being higher every day than the worst day in Vietnam, just from illness. And the French were not in better shape than the German other than being able to call in troops and supplies from the colonies.

    And you seem to be perfectly to ignore the war you participated in. The North Vietnamese were not defeated and we had superior forces in place and bombed North Vietnam, and yet they were able to recover from Tet and did an invasion of the south soon after we declared victory and went home.

  147. 147

    @136 And everything you listed were happening under President Obama, or being done by that administration (Ie by the US government) and it was ok then.

    WE have racists in this country. Some are even black. Some are even Democrats.

    ICE or it s predecessors have existed for decades, and have separated family members on a regular basis. Ordinary police in every county of the US separates families on a regular basis.

    The Russians and others interfered in the elections of Barrack Obama perhaps to his advantage. It was nothing new, but Obama knew about it and did very little. Except to interfere in a Russian election, which frankly might be the only way you get Putin and the Russian’s to back off of our elections. Lot more effective than talking points or sanctions with the Russians who are not always nice people.

    Lot of crying and calling Republicans terrible people, but nothing for what Democrats are actually going to do given the reins of power. Or if they win the house. The Democratic leadership is all well we have no plans to impeach Trump if we take the house. Nancy Pelois is not going to come out and say that and is going to be very reluctant to let that happen should she become Speaker, especially if the Republicans retain the Senate. I have doubts that Nancy is going to survive the coming leadership challenge at the opening of Congress whether Democrats retake the house or not. She should probably graciously step down or announce her stepping down now. I know it’s not going to be graceful and she may maintain and become speaker again. It will not be pretty and will expose for a time the schisms in the Democratic party, might even expose a racist or two.

  148. 148

    LOL! Does boob still have the black guy on the pea brain? Illinois?

    I’m sorry, YLB, that Washington state didn’t think of this while your kids were still in school.

    Oldest is graduated, youngest will be starting junior year at the end of this month and that year is paid for.

    We don’t anticipate any issues with our youngest finishing.

    So weak boob, but thanks for your concern. Too funny!

  149. 149

    147,
    These are just flat out lies.

    This an old and worn out tactic of the far right to attempt to persuade by combining these kinds of lies with false equivalence.
    The lies, by themselves, are unworkable and easily dimissed. The false equivalence alone does not produce an urge to action, but rather only indifference.

    But combine the two into this formulation:
    “WHADDABOUTDATIME”/TiredZombiLie
    +
    “Corrupt duopoly”/”both sides”
    =
    BURN IT ALL DOWN AND VOTE FOR A RUSSIAN OUTSIDER!

    And you can actually stand a chance of scamming some incurious dullards preoccupied by sports/gaming/porn/etc into voting for the latest flavor of “outsider” Republican.

    Shortbus, now that you understand how you have been conned and duped (again) perhaps you’ll lay off inviting any of us to join you on your side of teh stoopid Orange Event Horizon. You decided that, being kinda dumb, lazy and slow of wit, adopting a “cynical” personae was a type of “cool” you might just aspire to. The “cynical” personae biases you toward embracing certain lies. By choosing the bleak cynicism about politics you chose the lies you would believe. Now that you landed on that choice you are stuck defending the consequence.

    Embrace Trump. Embrace the racism. Embrace the corruption. Embrace the incompetence. Embrace the $1 billion annual deficits. Embrace the $15,000 desks. Embrace “JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US”. Embrace PornAbortion payoffs with Russian money. Embrace $75 million payoffs to “fix” DOJ investigations. Embrace finger rape. Embrace “alternative facts”.

    After all Trump won! Everything has changed. Elections have consequences. And this is really who you are now.

  150. 150

    @145 “You are pretty fast and loose in what you call people particularly Republicans.”

    I only posted that Paul Allen is donating money to the Republicans. You conflated that into a claim that I’m calling him a “Nazi.” You’re the one who’s playing fast and loose.

    ” … claiming that you and others on here are intellectuals”

    HA is a liberal blog featuring timely topics and a forum open to all which is known for attracting highly educated intellectuals of diverse persuasions who engage in lively debates of issues of the day.

    “… an intellectual is an individual therefore they must be on here as themselves”

    Who says? You? It’s certainly not one of HA’s posting rules. It didn’t apply to the author writing under the pen name “Mrs. Silence Dogood,” so why should it apply to me (or anyone else)?

    ” … Goldie and his minions … are on here under their names ….”

    Goldy was reported to the police as a child molester and had a truckload of manure dumped in his driveway. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

    “I’m on here as myself”

    That’s your choice. Not wise, but you’re not a wise person, from what I’ve seen. But you probably don’t have much to worry; liberals don’t do that kind of stuff.

    ” … and I’ presenting arguments.”

    And I’m answering arguments. Three quarters of the time you’re just trolling. When you do that, you’ll get the rebuff you deserve.

  151. 151

    @146 “Maybe you should actually read Mr. Hart’s book”

    This is what I mean by trolling. I owned a copy of his book and read it so many times the binding broke and the pages fell out, so I threw it away and bought another one. I knew exactly where to go to find those quotes, took me less than 30 seconds, because I’ve read that book more times than you’ve probably cracked a Bible. This is what you call an argument?

    “There is no reason to believe that the methods of warfare would have changed in 1919 to suddenly become the methods of WWII which were in fact a response to the morass of WWI.”

    I don’t doubt you’ve read his book, too, at least the one you referenced (“Strategy”; I own a copy of that book, too), but that doesn’t mean you comprehended what you read. The trench line may have been static, but the tactics weren’t. They evolved as the war progressed. Both sides threw their nations’ best brains and their national resources into searching for ways to improve battlefield outcomes. On land, the decisive instrument was the tank, and the decisive tactic was to use them as a concentrated force, like a spear point, instead of just another supporting weapon for the infantry. World War I saw innovations in weaponry and tactics from start to finish. The Allied victory was a near thing. It could have gone the other way. If there’s one salient thing that people who read military history and study war come away with, it’s the large role played by luck in victory or defeat. That’s something every politician needs to understand, and few ever do, before embarking on military adventures. Never has the need for sober, reflective, and cautious leadership been greater than it is now in a nuclear-armed world.

    “At the end of the war … Hinderburg … was ignored”

    You post nonsense like this and expect to be taken seriously?

    “The allies did have a bit of good luck when Patton got across the Rhine over the last bridge.”

    It wasn’t the last bridge, it was one of two still standing, and Patton didn’t capture it, the 9th Armored Division under General Leonard did. Patton crossed at farther south — on a pontoon bridge — at Oppenheim, which was not the key crossing. It was 9th Armored’s crossing at Remagen that caused Eisenhower to alter his plans, and shortened the war.

    I’m not going to reply to the rest of your comments in that paragraph, other than to say they’re rife with inaccuracies. You don’t have a very good grasp of either history or military operations. I’ll give you a “gentleman’s C” for effort, for reading the book. I see no need to classify your book report; this is the kind of disinformation I’d happily feed to our enemies.

  152. 152

    @146 “And everything you listed were happening under President Obama, or being done by that administration”

    No.

    “WE have racists in this country. Some are even black. Some are even Democrats.”

    True, as far as it goes, but there’s a stark difference in how the two parties deal with racists. The Democrats, as a party, don’t tolerate them; the Republicans, as a party, tolerate them — and Trump, a racist himself, welcomes and defends them. He’s who Republicans are now.

    “The Russians and others interfered in the elections of Barrack Obama perhaps to his advantage.”

    You either peeled that off the wall or pulled it out of your ass. I’m not interested in knowing which.

    “Lot of crying and calling Republicans terrible people”

    Who did you see crying? Not me. But we call Republicans what they are. Yes, they’re terrible people — even to each other. One of the liberal enjoyments here on HA is watching Republicans eat each other alive. That’s been going on for as long as this blog has existed and I’ve been commenting here. I was commenting on it back in 2004.

  153. 153

    @149 “Embrace the $1 billion annual deficits. ”

    I’m sure you meant $1 trillion. These days, $1 billion is chump change. Hell, in a few more years, a house in Seattle will cost $1 billion, and Amazonians will be able to afford them. Say, brother, can you spare $5,000 for a Starbucks coffee?

    Don’t worry about the deficits or debt. Trump has set us on a course toward inflation, and inflation wipes out debts. Trump is God’s gift to borrowers.

  154. 154

    153,
    My bad. Missed that. Thanks for the catch.
    Still hard to write it out like that, I guess. It’so insane. The culminating acheivments of modern movement conservatism are an utterly unsustainable budget trajectory and a court packed with FedSoc Robots.

    Both circumstances demand a legislative response. Just in time for the modern movement conservatives to pack up and abandon legislating in favor of vigorous tonguing of the orange anus.

  155. 155

    @154 “utterly unsustainable budget trajectory”

    Not really. All they have to do is debase the currency. And then, suddenly, the inflation-adjusted $7.25/hr. minimum wage is 50 cents an hour, and the guy who was making $25.00/hr. is making $1.72/hr. And, of course, pensions and cash savings get wiped out; but hard assets like real estate retain their value. The manipulators win twice.

  156. 156

    The GOP sheep are so enamored of conspiracy theories I’m surprised they can’t spot the real conspiracies — against them. Did they really believe they’d get to keep their token tax cuts?

  157. 157

    “And you seem to be perfectly to ignore the war you participated in.”

    That’s hardly possible. I live with it every day.

    “The North Vietnamese … were able to recover from Tet ….”

    Wrong. Tet was fought by the Vietcong, who suffered a disastrous defeat from which they never recovered, and ceased to be an effective fighting force. From then on, we were opposed by North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regulars, who were better trained and equipped than the VC, who were locally recruited (and conscripted) irregulars.

    The NVA infiltrated from the Ho Chi Minh trail at various points along the South Vietnam/Laos and Cambodia borders, and the U.S. government — which deemed North and South Vietnam separate countries — considered that an invasion of one country by another. The invasion you’re referring to is the Easter Offensive of 1972, which came across the DMZ via Highway 1 (running north-south) and from Laos via Highway 9 (running east-west) to converge in the coastal plain of Quang Tri province, and from there rolled up the ARVNs — who put up little resistance — as they struck south along Highway 1.

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