#ScaredyScare | #WhatTheyVotedFor
It would seem ironic if, in the end, Republicans managed to make “patriot” the new “communist”. More than political irony, though, the strangeness of the Trump White House is such that we really cannot afford to skip the part that wonders if perhaps the president’s latest twitshit tantrum really does intend its darker implication.
At eight minutes after the hour, Hugh Hewitt went there with a line about whether the Democrats nominated the Republican nominee.
It’s been a pet thesis, counting up the bizarre things Republicans might say in order to explain themselves after the Trump presidential bid is over. One is that this was somehow the plan; don’t ask. The other is that Hillary Clinton’s election is illegitimate because Republican voters were denied a say in their nomination process.
It was a joke, and then, well, they’re Republicans. Little hints. Charlie Sykes on All In last week, for instance, simply saying that Donald Trump doesn’t really represent the Republican Party; we know what he means, but conservatives lack nuance about some things, and this easily qualifies. Kyle Cheney’s report for Politico on RNC sympathy for delegitimization includes a committeeman from California explaining the Republican outlook: “Should Hillary get ‘elected'”, Shawn Steel wrote, “she is immediately delegitimized”. His explanation is that “Wall Street Bankers” are involved in a “massive Left Wing Conspiracy”. That’s right. American bankers … and Communists.
And Hugh Hewitt, at eight minutes after the hourα, offering his analysis of the debate for msnbc, defended Mr. Trump’s invocation of a conspiracy theory and voiced the question of whether Democrats nominated the Republican nominee.
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α 19 October 2016, 20.08 PDT.
Cheney, Kyle. “RNC members agree with Trump: It’s rigged”. Politico. 18 October 2016.
This is fun. Peter Montgomery, for Right Wing Watch, the day after Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012:
Not only did Obama win big, but voters in Maine and Maryland embraced marriage equality, and Washington seems likely to join them. Minnesota voters rejected a Religious Right-backed attempt to put anti-gay discrimination into the state’s constitution. Tammy Baldwin was elected to the Senate, where she will be the first openly gay member.
Well before all those results were in, it was clear that the night was not going according to what Religious Right leaders had thought was God’s plan. At 10 pm, Tony Perkins and Jim Garlow held a phone call briefing for pastors. It was a very subdued affair, with representatives of the state marriage campaigns trying to sound hopeful about the then-uncalled outcomes in their states. Perkins and Garlow also held a Wednesday webcast on the “aftermath and aftershocks” as the scope of their Election Day drubbing sank in. “The problem in America is sin,” said Garlow. But, he said, “we have no problem that the next Great Awakening cannot solve.”
The tendency after an election defeat to avoid blame by casting it elsewhere was in full flower the day after the election. Rep. Jim Jordan, a Religious Right favorite, described Mitt Romney as “the most liberal Republican nominee in history” who had “waffled” on abortion, had passed a health care bill as governor, and had a hard time convincing conservatives on his commitments on taxing and spending. Perkins criticized Romney for not campaigning on issues of life, marriage, and religious liberty, even though Obama used them to appeal to his base. Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway agreed, saying Republicans had not done enough to draw the contrast on social and “moral” issues. Regarding the marriage wins, Perkins blamed Obama in part, saying the president’s policies have had “a shaping influence on the culture.” He and others also blamed marriage equality proponents’ financial advantage ....
.... Some Religious Right leaders sought solace in faith that God is ultimately in control. “America as we know it may have signed its death warrant tonight,” said Garlow during the pastors’ briefing. But not to worry, he said, nations come and go, but God’s kingdom is forever. Perkins said FRC and its allies would continue to stand strong in the face of “an increasingly hostile culture.”
Others looked forward to the next political fight. Pollster Conway predicted that 2014 would bring, like 2010’s Tea Party wave, a conservative resurgence and called for candidate recruitment to begin now. Perkins agreed that conservatives have never had a stronger “farm team” and touted potential conservative candidates for 2016, including Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, and Mike Pence.
Yes, indeed, a genuine Kellyanne Conway sighting, as the pollster reminded Republicans, as we hear every election, how things would go better if they would just become more misogynistic, homophobic, masculinist, Christianist, supremacist―you now, whatever counts among Republicans as family values and morality. It’s also worth noting, in addition to the farm team standouts, the presence of Tony Perkins of Family Research Council.
It’s just an interesting contrast. Kellyanne Conway, in her role as Donald Trump’s campaign manager, has undoubtedly drawn a contrast on social and moral issues. Mr. Perkins, for his part, was last heard explaining, “My personal support for Donald Trump has never been based upon shared values”.
It probably embarrasses sufficiently to suggest that had I been paying attention―
Colombia’s center-right government and the Marxist FARC rebel group signed a peace deal on Monday to end a half-century war that killed a quarter of a million people and once took the Andean country to the brink of collapse.
After four years of peace talks in Cuba, President Juan Manuel Santos, 65, and rebel leader Timochenko―the nom de guerre for 57-year-old Rodrigo Londono―warmly shook hands on Colombian soil for the first time and signed the accord with a pen made from a bullet casing.
―this wouldn’t be such a surprise.
Alright, then: Congratulations. Good luck.
Something about holy shit goes here, or perhaps I overstate myself. That I did not expect this in my lifetime only suggests I never cared to attend closely enough that I could reasonably expect a thing about how it goes.
Still, I’m pretty certain we’re supposed to be impressed.
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Murphy, Helen and Luis Jaime Acosta. “Colombia, Marxist rebels sign accord ending 52-year war”. Reuters. 27 September 2016.
It is true I really, really don’t understand the bit about how software gets to decide, arbitrarily, when to function or not.
Obviously, that’s not really the case, but I don’t get why simple functions like writing proper data to files randomly escape various applications’ faculties. It would seem that the basic functions of the software ought to include working properly, but as people I know in the industry remind, that’s just not fair. Making software is really hard, and nothing is written to standard because there are no standards despite the fact that the industry has formal standards.
This is not necessarily, then, a software issue. Rather, it seems a matter of the business model.
Nor am I being fair; not all software is written to the nickel and dime prime directive informing the decisions of the tech sector in general.
Look, if I’m doing something really complicated? Yeah, occasionally the software is going to glitch up. But I’m sorry, while software is really, really hard to do, that line becomes something of a head scratcher when the issue is why saving files properly is somehow too much to ask of software.
Because I don’t understand this. The best work-around at present is stop production and wait for the update. Spending for alternative software is not always feasible.
Honestly, if expecting your application to properly save data is asking too much, look, I’m not going to drive a stake through your heart, or anything, but come on. What’s the problem? You and I both know the answer isn’t to say that software is hard to do. We both know this is a problem has to do with the business model.
The joke used to be, Good enough for government work. These days it is, Good enough for the tech sector.
This is what it comes down to: Creating software is essentially a matter of setting billions of switches properly according to intricate designs. It is not worth the investment to actually do this properly.
Update: It would seem a bug believed fixed seven years ago is once again in play. Workaround: Figure out which non-alphanumeric characters―especially Unicode resolutions like u2026 (ellipsis)―do or don’t write properly to image file comment data. You know, where you might put copyright information. Good luck. [8 Aug. 2016]
Nor have I any clue what to do with this.
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Image note: The evolving proletariat ― Detail of Bug Martini by Adam Huber, 14 July 2016.
The headline above John A. Tures’ blog entry for Huffington Post might seem definitive: “Experienced Republicans Are Losing, Because GOP Primary Voters Are Less Experienced”. But the subsequent paragraphs do not support the statement, at least not in that context.
25 years of political experience didn’t seem to matter to GOP primary voters this year. They appear more enamored with the likes of businessmen Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson, neither of which either served a day in political office, or even ran for office prior to this year. Last week, Perry found himself with one percent of the vote in a CNN poll, well behind the front-runners Donald Trump (32 percent) and Dr. Ben Carson (21 percent).
In fact, Perry had never polled as high as two percent in any GOP primary survey nationwide. He fared poorly in Iowa, according to Qunnipiac University’s polling. And he’s doing worse in New Hampshire, in the NBC News/Marist Poll.
Huffington Post politics editors Paige Lavender and Mollie Reilly cited gaffes from the 2012 Republican election primary, as well as anemic fundraising. But Perry is hardly alone. Experienced GOP candidates across the board are suffering, failing to even notch double-digits in the polls, while politically inexperienced candidates like Trump, Carson, and Carly Fiorina alone make up more than 50 percent of the polls, outnumbering the other 14 Republican candidates combined. Inexperienced candidates are getting six times as many votes and experienced candidates.
Is the party that touted the political experience of their own candidates in the past (Nixon, Goldwater, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr., Dole, Bush Jr. and McCain) suddenly not valuing the political experience of a candidate? If so, why?
Unfortunately, that portion of the setup is a little less than half the entry. The point is not to denounce the article or author for apparent failure; rather, we might remain hopeful and continue to tune in.
You know. We hope.
Meanwhile, in the Bluegrass State:
David V. Moore and his fiancé went to the Rowan County Clerk’s office, armed with a copy of that Supreme Court ruling, in addition to Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear’s executive order requiring all county clerks to issue marriage licenses. In the video, employees appear to ignore the legal documents provided, continuing to refuse the couple’s request for a marriage license, while the Clerk Davis hid in the back of the office.
Writing on his Facebook wall, Moore says, “We were denied a marriage license on Monday, July 6 at the Rowan County Clerk’s office. Kim Davis is at the end of the video, but we turned it off at her request.”
The recording shows the men entering the clerk’s office and waiting patiently while other residents — including people who came in after the couple — are served. Staff at the counter refuse the men’s request and tell them that Clerk Davis is “busy right now.” Then employees called the police, insisting that the couple’s supporters stop filming the anticipated rejection.
A police officer arrives at the office toward the end of the video and speaks with employees. When Clerk Davis finally emerges from her office (around the 11 minute mark), she tells the supporter to “Put your phone away.” The two continue to bicker for a moment before the video ends.
Kentucky law does not forbid filming any interactions with public officials in a public place.
(Browning)
Oh, and you know there’s more.
Sometimes, the unsaid really is that important.
This is something worth considering:
Pope Francis avoided altitude sickness in La Paz, Bolivia, but he may have woken Thursday with a ringing headache anyway.
The day before Bolivian president Evo Morales gave Francis a large garish cross carved into the shape of a hammer and sickle – the symbol of Communist unity between workers and farmers.
That’s a bit bang-on-the-nose for his holiness, who has been branded a Marxist by Rush Limbaugh, and dogged by claims that he is a radical with dreams of toppling the global economy.
To be fair, a communist is typically defined as a member of the party, which denies the existence of God. That’s not Francis. But the pope is indeed a bit of a radical with dreams of a fairer global economy. In a much-anticipated papal letter released by the Vatican last month, he warned “every living person on this planet” about the reckless pursuit of infinite growth and boundless, buyable pleasures.
(Dokoupil)
Every once in a while, conspiracy theories arise among conservative Christians having to do with Catholics, communists, and other groups, such as Wiccans, as one iteration had it, trying to redefine morality and destroy Christianity in the New World Order.
The question of whether or not Pope Francis is a “card-carrying member” of the Communist Party is pretty much a distraction. In truth, a Christian’s command to seek from each according to ability and give to each according to need predates Karl Marx (1875), Louis Blanc (1851) or Étienne-Gabriel Morelly (1755).
He diagnosed it as “the deification of the market,” and argued that if we hope to flourish, we need “a bold cultural revolution” in the way we live and work. But by Thursday morning, Francis was busy pushing back on the c-word.
“When I talk about this, some people think the pope is a communist,” he told a gathering of peasants and workers, according to the Associated Press. “They don’t realize that love for the poor is at the center of the Gospel.”
One wonders about politics, and whether the straightforward Biblical truth would simply make too many Christians’ souls explode in confusion.
Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet; and distribution was made to each as any had need.
Critics who worry that Pope Francis is communist are missing the point.
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Image note: Pope Francis is presented with a gift of crucifix carved into a wooden hammer and sickle, the Communist symbol uniting labor and peasants, by Bolivian President Evo Morales in La Paz, Bolivia, Wednesday, July 8, 2015. Apart from the carved hammer and sickle, Morales gave Francis another politically loaded gift, a copy of “The Book of the Sea,” which is about the loss of Bolivia’s access to the sea during the War of the Pacific with Chile in 1979-83. Morales said things ahve changed with this pope and the Bolivian people are greeting Francis as somone who is “helping in the liberation of our people.” (L’Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP)
Dokoupil, Tony. “Is the pope a communist?”. msnbc. 9 July 2015.
Weigle, Luther, et al. The Bible: Revised Standard Version. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1971.
More often than not, Alexandra Petri is a useful target for recreational ridicule. Still, though, nobody is without their moments. We dig ourselves holes; it sounds silly of me to note that Petri wrote a decent―hell, actually good―article, since I’m quite certain this is well within her capabilites. After all, you don’t reach the Washington Post without some skill.
Once you have the job, that’s when you can sit back and cruise on a vapid pretense of wit.
See what I did, there?
Oh, come on. At least she isn’t Jennifer Rubin.
Right. Petri:
America gets more assurances of unconditional Love and Approval in the course of a single candidate speech than many WASP children get in the course of their entire childhoods, and we turn out okay, although years later we bring this fact up indignantly during Thanksgiving dinner and start sobbing for no reason. My point is: America does not need this.
But the people who run for president, and the people behind them, beg to differ. The people who listen to speeches, they seem to feel, will absolutely wither up and die without hearing how remarkable the American way of life is, and how special the American dream has proved to be. If that does not come up at some point in the speech, paired neatly with fears for Our Children, these fragile listeners will run from the hall in tears and you will lose their votes for good.
Otherwise why do they insist on doing this?
She does move on to Shakespeare and kidney transplants, but her headline, “Rand Paul and Ted Cruz secretly gave the same speech” not only reads well, but proves true.
This Is 