Seems like politics is getting pretty serious. but my brain is continuing to go bye bye. pretty sure it will all be gone in about 5 years. I don't really have anything serious to say or insights to share except the immigration thing is awful.

politics is at an 8 and probably rising. my brain is at a 1. my brain is like zzzzzzzzzzzz. see you guys later.

Well I hope some of you reach a certain level of maturity you wouldn’t believe what my family went through to make sure jimmy carter could win. But I know you don’t care because you’re the smart ones in your estimation.

I don't know much about history, but one thing that always sticks out in my mind is Jimmy Carter putting solar panels on the White House, and Reagan getting into office and ripping them down.

How different the world might look had they stayed up and America stayed the course with that effort.

Koch Brother trying to spike public transit so more people use cars

Freedom isn't free....

I do wonder if this ties in with that terrible Atlantic article about getting rid of the NY Subway system and replacing it with an underground freeway of driverless cars

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/06/1...c-transit.html

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Troll of the Week:

You know at least one VA elementary school will counter by naming their school after Donald Trump.

Oh f*ck off David Brooks

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/06/1...eparation.html

First Stephen Miller made fun of Hispanic janitors at his high school and was universally loathed since a young age. I guess you could say he was a victim of the stifling conformity at a liberal high school but my experience with high school is its far less political than college so more than likely he's just been a racist a hole his whole life.

But good job trying to blame Republican cruelty on liberal college kids, the source of all our societal woes, apparently.

Second, f*ck off this this conservative critique of statism bs. Trying to turn this issue into some critique of liberal state power when the resolution of Republican cruelty is going to be state power as well.

Third the only reason you have any relevance at all is because you depend on these 30% of the population psychopaths to have electoral relevancy. Own it for once.

Well, if nerds were not such insufferable pussies they wouldn't get bullied, amirite?

lol triggering the libs is one of the main goals of conservatism

They are not mutually exclusive.

It's becoming more and more clear to me that people are dangerously stupid and need to be actively managed with targeted media and propaganda.

We had a good run there where liberal textbooks, newspapers, the nightly news, govt missives, PBS etc. balanced out people's natural inclination to fear and loathe out-groups. Republicans for their part never went completely overboard with the dogwhistles, and behind the scenes were at least somewhat humane to most of the people who washed up on our shores. Mostly because they wanted the cheap labor. Foreign adventures another story of course.

So people were kept at a contained level of loggerheads. The elites had lines they wouldn't cross - because they knew the outcome would be a giant runaway train of white hot rage. FoxNews tried to toe the line. But their greed for eyeballs was too strong. 20 years of right-wing brains in that pressure cooker eventually left the whole machine open to be hacked by its own product.

The R vs D elites stalemate we enjoyed for many decades was suboptimal in a lot of ways. But a wise president once said "Things can always get worse."

I don't like super hero movies. Everyone is like "Avengers is so good though, you have to see it." Avengers was my comic book growing up - but I still don't want to see the movies.

Anyway I've now seen the end of two Avengers movies in hotel rooms. They're the exact freaking same - everyone flies around and fights off 7000 scary but apparently utterly useless bad guys at once, the shield guys are mostly useless but help a little, someone dies - which is literally the only drama - since they announced someone was going to die before the damn final battle.

Somehow in the middle of all the chaos they find time to save one kid or one family trapped in one building that's falling. Are we supposed to think no one else died in all the carnage?

It's just ****ing stupid. Not once did I feel the tiniest bit of dramatic tension to anything that was happening. Maybe I should watch these movies the other way - watch the first part then skip the boring final battle.

Gears Ground

Dr Stange is different in a good way in that the ending isn't centered around a punch fight

The United States is shamefully cruel to it's own native-born poor. Any discussion of an issue like welfare with a right winger ultimately reduces to, "let them starve." It's not the least bit surprising this same group of people would have no concern for the well being of foreigners.

The only reason this hasn't happened sooner is that someone who was willing to do it was never an option in a Presidential race.

Bush at least talked about kinder, gentler nation. Just the change in rhetoric makes a huge difference.

George W. Bush pushed for the 2006 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act which would have given amnesty to 12 million people. It passed the Senate, but I think the House ****ed it up - Dennis Pedo Hastert.

Or were you talking about GHWB. He was actually the "kinder and gentler" guy I think.

W was hardly great, but he may not have even been to the right of Bill Clinton or Obama on immigration.

http://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Geo...mmigration.htm

W was possibly the #2 or #3 WOAT, but he was randomly ok on some issues and was apparently just a ****ing moron vs. an awful guy. Trump is a way bigger moron and the absolute worst guy.

W, like his father, might have actually been a pretty moderate Republican if it weren't for 9/11. He wasn't really that much of a war on poor people guy and really wasn't a war on immigrants guy. But 9/11 happened and he really ****ed up the world and America. ICE is part of that. God damn, imagine if Trump were potus on 9/11.

Yeah. It was unfortunate he bought into the “reverse domino” theory of set up one middle eastern US friendly democracy in a Muslim majority nation and it will lift up the whole region. But he was pretty good at not being a race baiter in terms of rhetoric even after 9/11.

Yeah and he didn't just avoid race baiting, but proactively spoke out about the need NOT to demonize Muslims after 9/11. It was really important.

My read on W is the same as dth's -- someone who tried to do the moral thing most of the time, but was just too stupid and easily manipulated by his advisers.

I guarantee Trump is. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if his buddy Putin cooked one up.

If the Trump admin isn't reminding you enough of the holocaust, here's what's happening in Italy:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/w...o-salvini.html

I’m at another hotel with not much to do except an attached casino. I couldn’t find any video poker. So I sat down at a big video slot machine, put in $20, played one max spin at $2.40, won $57, decided I was hungry and not in the mood to watch it slowly drain to zero, cashed out and got some food.

What’s up with this tax BS? Just to cash out?