Sunday
Mar272016
The Commentariat -- March 28, 2016
Afternoon Update:
How Do You Say "Keystone Kops" in Flemish? Andrew Higgins & Aurelien Breeden of the New York Times: "The Belgian authorities on Monday conceded another enormous blunder in their investigation into the attacks last week on Brussels. They freed a man they had charged with terrorism and murder, acknowledging that he had been mistakenly identified as a bomber in a dark hat and white coat in an airport surveillance photo. The man, who was arrested on Thursday and charged on Friday, was released after three days in custody, during which some officials publicly vilified him as a terrorist. On Monday, the police said that the real attacker remained at large and they issued a new plea to the public to help identify one of the men who blew up a departures area at Brussels Airport."
Margaret Hartmann explains Trump's threatened to sue, well, somebody in Louisiana: "Donald Trump has been facing many unfair challenges in his quest for the GOP presidential nomination, from Establishment plots to derail his candidacy to shadowy forces that set the delegate requirement at the 'arbitrary number' of 1,237 (also known as math). Now the front-runner has vowed to fight back, after being cruelly robbed of ten delegates thanks to Louisiana's primary rules.... Of course, a winner like Trump has no use for that kind of logic. Everyone knows America's primary process isn't great, and threatening frivolous lawsuits is Trump's preferred method of fixing things."
Charles Pierce makes mincemeat of Nicholas Kristof. I couldn't agree more. I realize Kristof was off in Afghanistan or somewhere when several decades ago I was reading -- in MSM, BTW, not in the Daily Worker -- about the grotesque income disparity that was growing in the U.S. Now to pretend, as Kristof does, that no one in the MSM was fact-checking Trump or challenging his trumped-up Trumpisms is a de facto admission that one is not even reading the NYT editorial pages, much less most of the other mainstream outlets.
Jack Holmes of Esquire: Secretary of John Kerry says leaders of other countries are "shocked" by the American "circus of campaigning" wherein certain unnamed presidential candidates are talking "about banning Muslim immigrants..., surveilling Muslim neighborhoods and also water-boarding."k
Krugman has more on trade deficits in a blogpost.
*****
CW: If, like me, you are a bit hazy on the fundamentals of international trade, Irwin & Krugman are mighty helpful. I think I'd start with Irwin (I did, only because the Times published it earlier), because he's willing to write in terms that even Trump could understand -- if Trump ever heeded the advice of anyone other than himself. But, as he says, he doesn't.
** "Cutting the Trade Deficit Won't Make America Great Again." Neil Irwin of the New York Times explains macroeconomics to Donald (& Bernie): "Trade deficits are not inherently good or bad; they can be either, depending on circumstances. The trade deficit is not a scorecard.... In fact, trying to eliminate the trade deficit could mean giving up some of the key levers of power that allow the United States to get its way in international politics.... The choice is stark: A country running a trade surplus must either let its currency rise or let money flow back to its trading partners.... Money flowing into a country [-- the country with the trade deficit --] is usually considered a good thing.... Part of what makes the United States powerful is the great importance of the dollar to global finance. And part of the price the United States pays for that status is a stronger currency and higher trade deficits than would be the case otherwise." ...
... CW: In fairness to Bernie, I think he's more interested in what's in the trade agreements & how the deals will affect American workers, not in the size of the trade deficits they may maintain or increase. As Krugman explained a while back, modern "trade agreements" are mostly about intellectual property rights & international dispute settlements. ...
... Paul Krugman: "... the Democratic nominee won't have to engage in saber-rattling over trade. She ... will, rightly, express skepticism about future trade deals, but she will be able to address the problems of working families without engaging in irresponsible trash talk about the world trade system. The Republican nominee won't.... If you're generally a supporter of open world markets -- which you should be, mainly because market access is so important to poor countries -- you need to know that whatever they may say, politicians who espouse rigid free-market ideology are not on your side." ...
... Jack Mahoney has an excellent comment on Krugman's column, but I don't know how to isolate it, so you'll have to hunt it down.
... CW: All that aside, the most jarring thing for me in Krugman's piece is his lede: "There's a lot of things about the 2016 election that nobody saw coming...." There is? I would have said "there are," even though I acknowledge "a lot" is singular as a stand-alone term. So I went to grammarly, where I got an answer that made me feel better (link fixed).
"Interesting Times." Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "As the Republican Party collapses on itself, conservative leaders struggling to explain Mr. Trump's appeal have largely seized on his unique qualities as a candidate.... But the story is also one of a party elite that abandoned its most faithful voters, blue-collar white Americans, who faced economic pain and uncertainty over the past decade as the party's donors, lawmakers and lobbyists prospered.... While wages declined and workers grew anxious about retirement, Republicans offered an economic program still centered on tax cuts for the affluent and the curtailing of popular entitlements [CW: Grrrr!] like Medicare and Social Security." CW: Quite a good autopsy of the Republican party, even though Confessore doesn't explain why Trump's positions on immigration & trade are, among other things, stoopid. (See also Nate Cohn's post, linked below.)
... CW: To me, the most challenging job for Democrats is to explain why those policies are stoopid. I don't think the presidential candidates, much less most down-ballot candidates, are up to it. For one thing, it can't be done in sound bytes. When they try, as Clinton did in Ohio, they bungle it. This is the quote that stuck: "We're going to put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business." Her overall message was excellent. As Tim McDonnell of Mother Jones wrote, "That comment was immediately preceded by a promise to invest in the clean-energy economy in those places, and immediately followed by a pledge to 'make it clear that we don't want to forget those people.'" Besides, those coal miners would be much better off making solar panels in a nice, clean, well-lit factory than working underground in unsafe mines. ...
... Greg Sargent: "There is a lot of talk about how Ryan and Trump now represent warring opposites inside the GOP, and that's true. But if anything, what this polarity really illustrates is the paralysis of GOP elites in the face of Trumpism's appeal. Not even clever Luntzian messaging may be able to bail them out this time. Trump is peddling a scam, but at least it's a new scam."
E. J. Dionne: "In November, one of the most contentious campaigns in our history could end in a catastrophe for our democracy. A major culprit would be the U.S. Supreme Court, and specifically the conservative majority that gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013.... Before the Supreme Court undermined Voting Rights Act enforcement, radical changes in voting practices such as Maricopa's drastic cut in the number of polling places [in heavily minority/Democratic-leaning areas only] would have been required to be cleared with the Justice Department.... Arizona has shown us what could happen. We have seven months to prevent what really could be an electoral cataclysm." Thanks, Supremes!
Nick Gass of Politico: Fidel "Castro ripped into [President Obama] ... in El Granma, the official state newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, bringing up Obama's relative youth, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the role of both countries in ending the apartheid in South Africa and elsewhere...." When he was in Cuba, Obama did not meet with Fidel.
Presidential Race
Del Wilber of the Los Angeles Times: "Federal prosecutors investigating the possible mishandling of classified materials on Hillary Clinton's private email server have begun the process of setting up formal interviews with some of her longtime and closest aides, according to two people familiar with the probe, an indication that the inquiry is moving into its final phases. Those interviews and the final review of the case, however, could still take many weeks, all but guaranteeing that the investigation will continue to dog Clinton's presidential campaign through most, if not all, of the remaining presidential primaries." ...
I Want My Blackberry!... Hubris of the Luddite. Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton's email problems began in her first days as secretary of state. She insisted on using her personal BlackBerry for all her email communications, but she wasn't allowed to take the device into her seventh-floor suite of offices, a secure space known as Mahogany Row.... From the earliest days, Clinton aides and senior officials focused intently on accommodating the secretary's desire to use her private email account.... Throughout, they paid insufficient attention to laws and regulations governing the handling of classified material and the preservation of government records, interviews and documents show. They also neglected repeated warnings about the security of the BlackBerry while Clinton and her closest aides took obvious security risks in using the basement server [in the Clinton home in Chappaqua, N.Y]." ...
... CW: There are reasons for governmental rules & protocols. While sometimes those reasons are questionable or have become outdated, in this case they appear to have been well-justified. Clinton used her position as top dog to break those rules, & it has come back to haunt her in a way that could devastate the country if she loses the general election to Donald Trump because of her obstinacy. grandeur & unwillingness to adapt to the requirements of her job. Yesterday, I mentioned at a dinner party that Hillary had shortcomings, & the first thing one Democrat said was, "Yeah, the emails." Be assured she would pull similar dumb moves when everybody was calling her "Madame President." (Needless to say, President Trump would be many times worse than she in this regard.)
Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont challenged Hillary Clinton on Sunday to a debate in New York before the state's primary on April 19 and expressed concern that Mrs. Clinton might not debate him now that she is far ahead in the race to win the Democratic nomination." ...
... Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times on covering Bernie: "Unlike our colleagues, especially those who cover Hillary Clinton, we in the Sanders press corps rarely lack access to the candidate."
I'll sue your ass if you're mean to me!Wilborn Nobles of the New Orleans Times-Picayune: "Donald Trump threatened on Sunday (March 27) to file a lawsuit over the number of convention delegates he's being awarded in Louisiana following the state's presidential primary. In a tweet, he said he won the state but will 'get less delegates than Cruz-Lawsuit coming.' The Wall Street Journal, however, reported that Cruz might ultimately get 'as many as 10 more delegates' from Louisiana than Trump.... [Trump garnered the most votes in Louisiana's Republican presidential primary ... with 41.4 percent of the vote, beating Sen. Ted Cruz, who received 37.8 percent.... While they each earned 18 delegates on election night, the five delegates previously awarded to Marco Rubio are now up for grabs -- and the Wall Street Journal said they're expected to back Cruz. In addition, the state has five other delegates who are free to back whichever candidate they want, and are also more likely to support Cruz." ...
... @danpfeiffer replies: "He should sue his own campaign for not knowing some of the basics of delegate rules" Via Politico. CW: Dan Pfeiffer was President Obama's chief communications guy.
Nicki Rossoll & Jessica Harper of ABC News: "Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump blamed rival Ted Cruz for starting a spat leading up to a report in the National Enquirer claiming 'political operatives' are looking into rumors that the Texas senator had multiple marital infidelities.... 'I had nothing to do with it. The campaign had absolutely nothing to do with it,' Trump told ABC's Jonathan Karl on 'This Week' Sunday.... In an appearance on Fox News, Cruz said he doesn't believe that Trump had no involvement in the story's publication.... The National Enquirer allegations have not been confirmed by ABC News."
Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "There are clear stylistic differences between Trump, who tends to call anyone who disagrees with him stupid, weak, or disgusting, and Cruz, who, with a pitying smile, questions dissenters' motives, decency, and patriotism.... The party that talks loudest about American exceptionalism has given us a cast of characters that would be perfectly unexceptional in any backwater oligarchy. What the G.O.P. offers is a choice between two kinds of demagogues: one who insinuates and one who shouts."
Nobody Likes Him, Everybody Hates Him, Guess They'll Endorse Him if They Must. Jonathan Martin & Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "As [Ted] Cruz seeks to unite the disparate factions of the Republican Party that are bonded only by their dead-set opposition to Donald J. Trump, a high-wire act is required: welcoming the top ranks of the same establishment he has spent years excoriating while not abandoning the hard-line conservatives who like him in part because of his attacks on party leaders."
Nate Cohn of the New York Times: "... this year, blue-state Republicans have abandoned the establishment for Donald J. Trump. So far, Mr. Trump has won every non-caucus contest in a state carried by Barack Obama in 2012, with the exception of John Kasich's home state, Ohio.... Mr. Trump's blue-state appeal is a little hard to explain. It's well established that he fares best among less educated voters. Yet his strongest performance ... [was] in Massachusetts, a famously liberal state, where he won 49 percent of Republican voters. His appeal in historically Democratic areas is a reflection of strength among new Republicans -- whether they be white Southerners or white Roman Catholics and working-class voters in the North.... There is evidence both anecdotal and statistical that racism was another factor in the shift of some of these voters to the Republican Party." ...
... CW: Is this a fair statement? Ninety-nine & 44/100ths percent of people who vote for Donald Trump are pure racists.
Marco's Secret Slush Fund. Shane Goldmacher of Politico: "Marco Rubio's campaign is dead. His secret-money legacy lives on. No presidential candidate fighting for their party's nomination has ever benefited from as much undisclosed cash, and watchdogs worry the pro-Rubio group's unchecked activity serves as a dangerous precedent that will soon become common practice. 'It is now the model for a how a candidate can inject unlimited, secret, corrupting money into their campaigns to benefit their election,' said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a campaign watchdog group. 'That is precisely the kind of model that we do not need in America.'"CW: Thanks, Supremes!
Driftglass on the No-Labels cult of both-siderism. Wait till you get to the part that inspired today's rant. CW: And a reminder of why Al Gore lost the presidential race, one which has nothing to do with Ralph Nader. No, one cannot blame Nader for Joe Lieberman; Gore did that all by himself.
Beyond the Beltway
WOW! Greg Bluestein of the Atlantia Journal-Constitution: "Gov. Nathan Deal on Monday vetoed the 'religious liberty' bill that triggered a wave of criticism from gay rights groups and business leaders and presented him with one of the most consequential challenges he's faced since his election to Georgia's top office. In a press conference at the state Capitol, Deal said House Bill 757 doesn't reflect Georgia's welcoming image as a state full of 'warm, friendly and loving people' -- and warned critics that he doesn't respond well to threats of payback for rejecting the measure.... A steady stream of corporate titans ... urged him to veto the bill -- and threatened to pull investments from Georgia if it became law."
Christians Gone Wild. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "An Easter egg hunt hosted by Pez [in Orange, Connecticut,] turned into a shoving match on Saturday when greedy parents 'rushed the field' and allegedly left some children hurt.... General Manager Shawn Peterson insisted that Pez staff tried to enforce the starting times, but said that the parents were 'kind of like locusts.'" CW: Luckily, the Secret Service will be around for today's Easter egg roll at the White House.
Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." -- Matthew 19:13, New International Version
Jesus said, "Let the little children fend for themselves, and stay out of our way or we shall deck them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these, but the earth belongs to the strongest among us." -- Matthew 19:13, New Connecticut Version
Way Beyond
Salman Masood of the New York Times: "A powerful blast ripped through a public park in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday evening, killing at least 69 people and wounding around 300, including many children, rescue workers and officials said. The blast, which appeared to be caused by a suicide bomber, occurred in a parking lot at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, one of the largest parks in Lahore, said Haider Ashraf, a senior police official in Lahore." ...
... Shashank Bengali of the Los Angeles Times: "A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, which it said was aimed at Christians celebrating the Easter holiday. Pakistan, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation, has a small Christian minority. Officials said they had not confirmed if Christians were the target." ...
... Shaiq Hussain & Erin Cunningham of the Washington Post: "The death toll in a devastating suicide attack on picnicking families in the city of Lahore rose to 72, with another 230 injured, local media reports said Monday, as Pakistani authorities vowed to hunt down the Islamist militant bombers who claimed they specifically targeted Christians on Easter Sunday."
Steven Mufson of the Washington Post: The Belgian prison system "has become a breeding ground for violent Muslim extremists. Many of those involved in the Paris and Brussels attacks first did short stints behind bars for relatively petty crimes. And there these wayward young people met proselytizers and appear to have acquired a new, lethal sense of purpose.... For the past year, Belgium's Ministry of Justice has been planning to change a prison system widely seen as a school for radicals."
News Lede
AP: "After Syrian government forces recaptured Palmyra from the Islamic State group, Syrian antiquities experts said Monday they were deeply shocked by the destruction the extremists had carried out inside the town museum, with scores of priceless relics and statues demolished."
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Reader Comments (31)
... CW: Is this a fair statement? Ninety-nine & 44/100ths percent of people who vote for Donald Trump are pure racists."
Uh huh....just like Ivory soap! But even whiter.
What's wrong with the yuge group of Trump supporters? Don't they know a vote for him goes against their own self interests? That's the head-scratching question that keeps coming up again and again.
Yes, even the 1-percenters have a hard time with it.
According to William D. Cohan (Vanity Fair mag) Wall Street Finally Comes to Terms with " Donald Trump " noting that "...at a recent luncheon at the glitzy Hunt & Fish Club on West 44th Street, in Manhattan, Frank Luntz, the renowned political consultant and pollster, offered a group of influential Wall Street bankers—a deep-pocketed array of politically connected hedge-fund managers, finance vice-chairmen, and private-equity mini-moguls—a shocking dose of reality about the 2016 presidential election."
"...Luntz said that Wall Streeters could be forgiven for mis-underestimating Trump. After all, they have had little interaction with the people who now support him. His supporters don’t wear nice suits with expensive ties. They may eat at hunting and fishing clubs, but not ones that serve a Kosher rib eye for $61."
(Elsewhere I read—was it Kristof in the NYTimes? Why did the media miss the bigger picture and inadvertently play a huge part in the rise of DT? Some suggested, most of the media being of the 'middle-class' and working 'upward' amidst the Beltway/Wall St. power players and have been out of touch with little or no exposure to the anger of the struggling lower class. Or to borrow from Luntz above, "...they have had little interaction with the people who now support him." )
And Cohan concluded, "...The shell-shocked 1-percenters left the restaurant a little sick to their stomachs. Having nothing whatsoever to do with the delicious meal!"
P.S. to CW: The link took me back to the Krugman article and not a grammar site. But, rereading the "There's a lot of things..." line, I suppose 'of things' is a prepositional phrase and could be eliminated...the sentence still making sense without it. But, couldn't find the answer you did.
@MAG: Thanks. Fixed the link. You're on the right track. If the subject of the preposition is plural, use the plural; if the subject is singular (or "not countable," the term grammarly applies), use the singular. So, "There are a lot of grains of sand in the bucket"; "There is a lot of sand in the bucket."
On the main topic you discuss, Nicholas Confessore has a good piece in today's Times, linked above (assuming I didn't link some other article). AND he fingers Paul Ryan.
Marie
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/paul_fanlund/paul-fanlund-four-common-but-misguided-election-axioms/article_b6f26639-053f-5673-8b41-9052cd524044.html
Above is a link ( my clumsiness with links is only one reason I wouldn't be able to follows in Marie's footsteps) to an editorial by Paul Fanlund of the Capital Times (Madison.com). In the waning days of Reality Chex, I want to give him a shoutout for his columns, which usually reflect almost exactly what I would say if I were more articulate.
Marie, I hope you will let us know where to look to find any commenting you do in the future. Thanks again for all your work, and best wishes.
@Nadd2: I was going along with Fanlund & getting ready to link his column till he decided to "expose" Bernie for "parenting a child out of wedlock." Oh, for Pete's sake.
According to ChildTrends, "In 2013, 72 percent of all births to black women, 66 percent to American Indian or Alaskan native women, and 53 percent to Hispanic women occurred outside of marriage, compared with 29 percent for white women, and 17 percent for Asian or Pacific Islander women."
And no mention of this: “'He was very committed to being a parent,' a long-time Friend of Bernie's] said. 'And he scraped together the money to take care of him.'”
So for me, Fanlund can stay home & congratulate himself for not "having a child out of wedlock." Or so I assume. Who knows?
Marie
In the film "Philadelphia" Denzel Washington plays a lawyer who asks the Tom Hanks's character "talk to me like I'm a fourth grader." Irwin spells out the trade issue exactly like that: Banana land and Car land––and if Donald ever played "Candy land" as a kid maybe he'll process this information correctly. But many of us and I include myself are, indeed, a little hazy on all this trade business. Good to have Irwin and Krugman try to make it understandable.
From yesterday's day of Resurrection: "Vat do you zink happened to dat body, Fritz? Ve belieef in nossink bett da truths"...
Just when I think I have adjusted to R.C. being put to sleep I read safari's comments ( he's always the one who gives us interesting perspectives) and lose it. How wonderfully strange that all of us have connected by words alone. We have no idea what each other looks like; we can't have a drink with Ken & Achilleus and talk for hours; I can't put my arms around Victoria and tell her how very sorry I am that she lost her partner; we can't all throw a party for Marie and toast her with champagne. And yet–– here we are mourning the demise of something so close, so real and so much fun. I find that quite amazing. So––here's looking a you, kids––chin up and all that––who knows––we may meet one day and not even know it.
@P.D. Pepe - I am so touched by the last paragraph of your comment. You said it perfectly. I will miss this site, which has been an important part of my life for several years now, so very much. And I will miss all of you.
I do feel some lingering frustration that we all never got to "meet" but maybe that was for the best. Although I know you only "virtually" I will feel the loss. I wish all the wonderful commenters the best that life has to offer going forward.
Lastly, I want to give my thanks to Marie for providing so much information, wisdom and chuckles in this most excellent blog. And it is impressive that she is not letting down her standards but going out, as it were, in a blaze of glory. Marie, I will miss you most of all and wish you the very best. If you are ever in the northwest section of the northwest, please know that I would love to meet you and offer my hospitality.
Re: There is a lot of terrible grammatical constructions around these days.
One expects (and duly discovers) a plethora of irregular, not to say alarmingly atrocious grammar in the myriad badly written jeremiads that populate the blogosphere (right wing blogs seem to be especially prone to eyebrow raisings but I've seen a dismaying number of egregious errors amongst lefties), but to see such a basic mistake in the Times is, well, unforgivable. Sorry, but that's my take.
I know, I know, my house is not without blemishes. Back in the bad old days when I was a regular commenter on the NYT site (where I met the redoubtable Ms. Burns), when time was truly of the essence if you wished your comment to pop up among the first 20 or 30, I knocked off plenty of submissions with unfortunate typos (the dreaded "there, their, they're" triplets, still pop up now and again) and the occasional corkscrew construction (my section leader in a freshman course on English literature spent the better part of two weeks working on my propensity for passive constructions but now and then a few slip through or are unavoidable--still...).
But the endeavor required our attempting to read a piece, digest it, formulate a reasonable and reasonably well supported comment, and submit it, in just a few minutes and without the aid of an astute copy editor.
This, of course, was before the Times instituted its caste system for commenters and decided that some comments were more equal than others. But that's another story.
I suppose it's a holdover snobbishness, but my parents, who had little money, drilled it into us that education didn't cost you anything but time and hard work and if you didn't have dough, you at least could think and write clearly. And not be a dunderhead. So I have a built-in prejudice against bad writing. Especially in mainstream venues. I've always tended to withhold full approval if a piece was poorly constructed or ungrammatical. Not very kind, I know. I'm not talking now about commentary written in a hurry and without the benefit of editing.
In any event, if Krugman wanted to say "there's a lot wrong with the 2016 campaign..." that would be perfectly fine. But he didn't. *sigh* (And where is the Times copy editor, I may ask, in a superior tone...)
Such lexical laxity carries over into the world of political discourse which is why it's so amazing (still) to listen to our current president speaking in complete sentences with clarity and a knack for carefully crafted expressions bespeaking carefully considered thoughts. A further distance from the previous inarticulate, barely literate boob could be imagined only with great difficulty...until...DRUMPF!
The fourth (third?second?) grade level at which Herr Drumpf speaks, those stuttering sentence fragments peppered with depressingly repeated descriptors (amazing, stupid, worst, loser, fantastic, super-classy; the list is not endless; it's just endless repetition) indicate not only a stuttering, fragmented mind, but one on a repeat loop unable to accommodate changes of stance or adjustments in point of view based on new information. But there isn't any new information, is there? It''s all run through the same sausage factory and comes out as Drumpf breakfast links. Fast food for idiots.
The thought of four years of such pre-literate mumbling and stumbling triggers flashbacks of "Is our children learning". How would we make it through eight years?
So it's not just cavalier kvetching if some find a basic grammatical error in a Krugman column dispiriting. It's a desire to hang on to good usage as long as possible.
Now watch me bollix up some future perfect verb form later on today. I will have to have had a decent conditional perfect form to ensure assuagement of grammatical guilt. Or perhaps something in a cute pluperfect shade. Whatcha think?
PD,
If Herr Drumpf ever played Candy Land as a kid, he probably cheated. I'm sure he cheated playing Monopoly. Hell, he probably cheated at tag.
"Tag, you're it, you loser."
"You missed, Donny!"
"No fucking way Sherman, I tagged you, you lying bastard"
"You missed me and all the other kids saw it"
"You better say I tagged you or my dad will buy your building and evict you and your stupid loser parents. It'll be amazing! Then I'll get your dog too and he'll be mine and I'll take him for walks around whatever ghetto high rise your stupid family moves into and let him piss on your dad's car."
President Donny. Can't wait.
I must have skipped over Fanlund's mention of Bernie's child. It is not like him (Fanlund) to include this item. The Republicans would probably make hay over it, though.
MAG wrote: "What's wrong with the yuge group of Trump supporters? Don't they know a vote for him goes against their own self interests? That's the head-scratching question that keeps coming up again and again."
Quite.
I think it has something to do with Thomas Frank's question, "What's the Matter with Kansas?".
One essential truth rising from the bonfire of the current Confederate presidential campaign season (look closely at that bonfire and you'll see the Federalist Papers, the works of Enlightenment philosophers, and copies of the Constitution with the second part of a phrase from the Second Amendment and the Tenth Amendment cut out for saving) is that most Confederates don't give a Ted Cruz promise for policy or political philosophy. They care about gut feelings. The sound of Trump vowing to pound their enemies (foreign and--especially--domestic) into guava jelly is like the dinner bell to Pavlov's doggies.
They want a strongman who will "bomb the shit out of people" and take no crap; who will brook no inconvenient nuisances like the rule of law or decency or pansy-ass morality. They want action, dammit. They've been weaned on a diet of hatred and lies for decades and now they want to see some dividends on all that carefully contrived malice. They don't want to hear about fucking "supply side" or "Laffer Curve" or Grover Norquist's bathtub. They want blood.
And that's what Drumpf promises. "You don't make me the nominee, my brownshirts will riot. It's a promise."
Self-interest takes a back seat to the imagined self-respect they believe will be theirs when they're standing over the bloodied bodies of their enemies. The enemies Fox and every.single.Republican."leader" has been telling them about for the last 30 years or more. Enemies like all of us. Like blahs and immigrants and pain-in-the-ass women's libbers and tree huggers and civil rights activists and anyone who believes in climate change and science and facts.
Drumpf is just helping them write out the withdrawal slip from the account they've been paying into all this time. And it doesn't matter if bank manager McConnell and assistant manager Ryan are worried about the run on "their" bank. And shutting the doors won't help either. Trump has taught his troops that violence will get the job done.
And hey, he'll even pay their legal fees, so tee off, boys.
@Marie: The Confessore article is a good one (and does relate to Cohan's). What I found chilling was the proTrump slant of many comments. This get more frustrating every day.
There's a line in Confessore's article, "... In Mr. Trump, they found a tribune: a blue-collar billionaire..." as a rationale for his mixed group of supporters from both sides of the aisle and contrasting incomes. Guess that's the "he's one of us", the Joe Plumber personality that appeals to many.
One comment by a Linda M. proclaiming her vote will be for Trump caught my attention, she wrote: "This high income, high educated, high information voter plans to vote for Trump in the PA primary....." Aside from her political POV...alas, I do despair as the adverb once again bites the dust!
@Ak: Especially like your comment on commenting! We all try to write using correct grammar & spelling, but it's those damn fat fingers...and the tiny message windows that make it difficult at times to see that our thoughts and typing are of a piece. How well I know that painful groan that accompanies one's Click/Send as you see that you just messed up your clever comment with a fifth-grade error just as it zips out into the public view of the Internets. Not that Drumpf would notice!
@Safari. What you said yesterday! Exactly!
@CW: P.S. Grammarly had a good explanation...yours was even better. Must remember the countables!
Click/Send...hope all above is coherent!
@Nadd: the information regarding Sander's son by a woman he was having an affair with between his first wife and his second has been known and written about for some time. Hillary ain't gonna touch it, and if Trump tries he's begging to be exposed for his "lady shagging" more than he has been already. The fact that Bernie never walked away from his responsibility in caring for this son is all we need to know––for anyone to make anything out of anything else would be stupid and wrong.
@AK: some time ago I was talking to one of my neighbors––a woman who is fairly bright who mentioned that when Trump first started campaigning she was drawn to him. What, I asked, was the draw? "Oh, I liked the way he talked––you just felt confident that he was going to take care of things––make things better."
But––I asked––"you don't feel that way anymore?" "Oh, my gosh, no," she replied, "he turned into a complete buffoon."
I found her phrase, "turned into" interesting, as though he had been someone completely different to begin with. How we perceive someone sometimes shows our personal needs more than the actuality. How many yearn for that big guy in the sky to save the day––to make things better––to take away the hurt. Trump, unfortunately has led many people to believe he has the answers, and the bandages to make it all better.
I watch the people rally round during all the rallies–-so excited, so revved up, waving their banners, shouting their slogans...and know that I could never participate in that kind of adulation––maybe at one time, but no longer. Too old? or too jaded––maybe both.
Always thought "a lot of" number agreement depended simply on whether it could be replaced by "much" or "many." Another version of discrete v continuous.
The evil gotcha of Click/Send is alive & well. I did myself in!
Apologies for the third line.
Just wandered over to Charlie Pierce where he lays into Nick Kristof. He's not buying Kristof's sudden religion in the blame game for Trump's rise.
@Whyte: How about the confusion between the use of discrete vs. discreet?
@Whyte Owen. Exactly right. And as we say here in the South, same difference.
Marie
@MAG: Isn't "a high educated" person someone who went through school stoned? Or, as you suggest, someone who just skipped adverb class. Or maybe Linda M. showed up, paid attention when the teacher said novice writers use too many adverbs, & decided the solution was to turn adverbs into adjectives.
Marie
FYI: New opening sentence in the Krugman article online:
"There are a lot of things about the 2016 election that nobody saw coming, and one of them is that international trade policy is likely to be a major issue in the presidential campaign."
Intended Consequences.
It's becoming more clear that the segregation of Muslims in Belgium, economically as well as socially, and their apparent disparate treatment by the courts (stiff prison sentences for minor offenses), have played a role in radicalization. Prisons in Belgium are apparently a breeding ground for Islamic extremists who offer a sense of purpose to young guys who see no hope and no chance of breaking through into a normal life with a job and ties to the larger non-Muslim community.
But isn't this, in a way, what the Republican Party has been doing in this country to outsiders, to those Others who don't fit neatly into their plan of white, Christianist, Confederate control?
The ongoing scheme of voting disenfranchisement is just one part of their plan. The "War on Drugs" was begun by Nixon (linked last week) as a way to control blacks and anti-war protesters and its continued employment as a vital tool in the Confederate box of tricks has blighted inner cities.
And just when things look hopeless for these outsiders and they start to complain, Confederates and their aides-de-camp in the media attack them as anti-American and dangerous radicals.
It's perfect.
And let us not hear anything about unfortunate this and unfortunate that and unintended consequences. You can't take aim, for years, at the dyke with your NRA approved weapons cache then complain that there was no way to predict the ensuing flood.
In Europe, they get subway bombs. In America, we get Trump.
@Nisky Guy: Hilarious. Even funnier: the Times moderators, as they like to call themselves, dumped a comment I made about the grammatically questionable lede. My comment was very respectful, not at all snarky & addressed the actual topic of Krugman's piece as well.
In the last two weeks or so, I've commented about a dozen times on NYT op-ed columns. In every one I've gone out of my way to write like a goddamned nun. In every one except the Krugman comment I made this morning, I've been right on topic. Nevertheless, the "moderators" have dumped half of my comments. I think maybe the first two comments I made, they recommended as brilliant insights into the human condition. It appears that about then somebody got out the list of noisome troublemakers -- a list Akhilleus & were at the top of back in the day -- & they started dumping my comments for no apparent reason. Today they could at least pretend I was off-topic even tho some copy editor or Krugman himself agreed with me & changed the lede.
Marie
Looks like Georgia guv Nathan Deal (is that a great name, or what?) has opted for bucks over bigots. We'd all be as stoopid as a Trump supporter to imagine that bigotry has fled the scene as a result, but it seems holier-than-everyone-else bigoted Christianity did not win out over Mammon.
Heh-heh. Those crazy Confederates. They aren't good at much, but painting themselves into a corner with radioactive paint is one of their most prominent skills. At least it makes them easy to pick out. They're the ones with glow in dark brush marks on their asses.
@Marie: "Moderators" is an appropriate term. They can only allow a certain number of insightful writing into the stream, lest the readers start asking pertinent questions. "Wishy-Washiers" could be a reasonable substitute.
Drat, I was right before I changed it: Either "certain amount of insightful writing" or "certain number of insightful comments". Take your pick.
Here's a little insight into Drumpf from someone who could be considered a reknowned expert on the subject matter, "Trump's probably got a three-inch dick."
And some more about experiences going to school with him at the New York Military Academy.
Lastly, if you want to have some fun as the D's hairstylist.
Unwashed,
Not sure I want to even consider Drumpf's equipment, no matter what size. My brain is sending out a "Danger, Will Robinson" red alert.
But for some additional, decidedly less salacious, background, a sort of Portrait of the Asshole as a Young Cheapskate, here's a remembrance of a woman's not so memorable date with Drumpf many years ago.
(Spoiler: she had to pay).
L'apres midi avec le grand orange.
So a friend sent me a link to a story which had previously escaped my notice.
It seems Mitch McConnell has been "talking to" Herr Drumpf about violence at his rallies.
Haaaaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ho-ho-ho.
Turtle Man is lecturing Trumpy on being nice?????
McConnell, who would light a homeless person on fire so he could read Wall Street Journal editorials in the dark is wagging his turtley finger at Trump, complaining that he needs to straighten up and fly right?
It's like Sergeant Krupke warning the Jets to be good boys as they sharpen their switchblades.
Seriously, these fucking people don't own any mirrors.
uh, Ak: yur copie editer asleap? dyke? sic?
KATE MADISON IS HILLARY'S "COURT WHISPERER"!!!!!!
Today in Madison, Wisconsin Hillary gave a dynamite speech about the importance of Supreme Court nominees. Somewhere there hovered above the head of Hillary Kate's message "Remember the Supremes" and we here all say––TOLD YA SO!!
Whyte,
The use of "dyke" to describe a sort of earthen dam precedes its use as a synonym for a certain type of lesbian by centuries.
Copy editor wide awake .
Since I make my living as an editor, and have done so for more than thirty years, I like to think I know a thing or two about grammar. And so I, too, have occasionally submitted a comment to the Times regarding a grammatical error, always adding a further remark that was relevant to the article or op-ed. As I recollect, not one of those comments was ever published. I stopped and started posting on Twitter the most egregious mistakes, addressing them to what I assumed was the one copy editor left at the Times. My pet peeve is the misuse of "data" and "media," which CW picks up on, when the writer treats those words as singular nouns rather than plural. But when my daughter told me that even the professors at the very expensive college she goes to frequently get "data" wrong, talking about how "the data is," I gave up.
So I will leave here the comment I wanted to make to the Times, regarding Kristof's Sunday op-ed about media culpability:
Kristof quotes journalist Ann Curry as saying: "The media has been out of touch with the [working-class] Americans." My response to Ms. Curry is that the media, being plural, have been out of touch, not has been; and nice of you to finally notice.
Ak, I stand chastised. Blame my Louisiana upbringing that only knew them as levees. And Elizabeth, thanks on plurals, but you're correct, it's hopeless. I collaborated for four decades with doctoral and masters biostatisticians whom, with rare exception, I had to correct the use of data vs datum on manuscripts and grants. And don't forget to cringe with "criteria is."