Every news cycle we're talking about respecting soldiers, the flag, the national anthem, Confederate monuments, whatever -- is just a net loss. Any of the totem and symbols of nationalism and white identity are Republican playing fields, and they make all the rules and the refs/media are hapless idiots.

There's really no point. Let's just learn our lesson and move along and don't get distracted the next time Trump starts selling Trump branded tchotchkes at military funerals while trying to grope the widow. It's tempting to assume that's fertile ground to criticize him but always remember the Democrats and the left are somehow the real villains in that story.

Yea that cowboy hat didn't make any sense

Which reminds me, stop calling them "Gold Star families". It's very weird to start creating classes of citizenship based on relationship to military service, and every center-left dip**** Tapper-type who constantly fellates The Troops in an attempt to seem patriotic is moving us one step closer to Blood and Soil nationalism.

That Sartre quite about arguing with disingenuous people really is the take home lesson of 2016.

NYT has a new-ish feature where they highlight articles from other places on the web on a certain subject, organized by right/left/center, which I appreciate for the quick view it provides on what the deplorables are thinking. Today's subject: PHONECALLGATE

hahahahahaha wow (but to DVaut's point, yep, hey guys Trump is trying to be a patriot and that's what counts, unlike that Divider In Chief Obummer who hated America)

i think it's really scary and definitely 4d chess that, right wing wackos thought obama was literally a foreign agent sent from kenya who founded isis and is a secret muslim, he is lying to you constantly and you cannot trust anything he says because he's practically demonic, he wants to destroy white people and christianity. this is what a huge segment of the right actually believed.

and trump is just one piece on the board who parroted this set of ideas created by somebody and then ended up literally being a foreign agent sent to bring down america from the top and destroy nonwhite people and islam, that's clearly what he appears to be, for some reason, that's what's being peojected and i'm picking it up somehow.

so am i being ****ed with? i mean i know i'm being ****ed with, but it could be a mega 4d chess strategic destabilization plot from a crew of top genius game theory russians (who didn't call david sklansky, sorry david. although maybe you could be in on it idk, your posting is definitely suspicious) putin put in a room somewhere with the goal of bringing down america in front of all our eyes and there's nothing we can do about it but sound like morons recounting insane lists of what trump is wrong about like conspiracy theorists and anybody uninformed can just shrug and be like, "eh, that's what those other guys were just saying, both sides are the same, jill stein/staying home ftw"

Wait Trump's trying to call ALL families of soldiers who died? I thought he called the 4 who died in Niger. If I were a cynic I'd say he did it to try and stave off some negative criticism of not saying anything and playing golf for 2 weeks afterward.

In any case, even if you want to give Trump total maximum credit for calling the families then he's only got himself to blame for these last few days. The Congressman correctly reported the message and lets assume the wife did take it the wrong way. Then Trump should have put a conciliatory message about how these messages are hard and sometimes its hard to say exactly what you want to say and he meant no disrespect etc. Instead he said the woman made it up only to reverse it a couple of days later.

I know what the Gold Star is, but do American primary school teachers also give kids 'gold stars'? "Gold Star families" always seems weird to me, because I can't quite separate the two practices.

And Dvaut is obv correct that the whole patriotic troop-respecting pantomime is a standard for Dems to fall short of, not one for Reps to meet.

He's spinning the calls as something no previous President did, as if it's yet another thing that the brilliant Donald John Trump thought up.

Last I saw WaPo called most of the families who've had servicemen die under Trumps presidency and about half received calls.

Not surprising many of the non called were of color.

I always ask myself if the American veneration of the military is in part caused by the fact that the US never had to fight a modern war on their own soil. When we look at the insane overreaction the US had to two buildings collapsing on 9/11 one can only what the reaction might be to a US city laid to waste.

in case you missed the huckabee interview:

It’s a non-issue he used to deflect from questions about the soldiers killed in Niger.

This may be true for police, but there is definitely a category of old rich guys who never served in the military but who have a sincere fetish for all things military. It's part and parcel of their enthusiasm for all things they regard as manly and tough.

In general, I find that active and retired soldiers have much more reasonable opinions about the military than old rich guys do.

Tonight on Hanity: John Kelly’s big hard dong.

YES IT IS SO MUCH THIS YES

You could argue that Americans are a bit soft. Most of us as a country have never really experienced suffering. For our entire lifetimes, America was the most powerful country in the world. You`d have to be from the Depression Era to remember when it wasn`t.

Think about it for a second. Most other countries have gone through or are going through worse stuff for longer than the two buildings that fell on 9/11. Poland was wiped off of the map at the end of the 18th century and stayed off of it for over 100 years. The colonization of Africa resulted in European powers tormenting the indigenous people on the continent. The ME has been in turmoil for God knows how long.

What did we experience compared to that? A country spat on an island that wasn`t even a state at the time and two buildings were destroyed by planes. Sure that`s bad but it`s nothing compared to what the rest of the world has experienced. We have two oceans and relatively good relationships with our neighbors protecting us from foreign invasion.

Anybody who hasn't watched Rachel's show tonight very much should. The Trump administration incompetency led to the deaths of the 4 men in Niger. This is 100 times worse than what happened in Benghazi, and we wont hear a single ****ing word about it from the hypocritical ****s on the right

I dunno. There are a lot of times and places where the military has been worshiped to one degree or another. I'm not sure that it's not that modern western continental Europe isn't really more exceptional in this regard than the US.

Mother ****ing scum sucking cock sucking traitor. Scum sucker cock penis **** lick cock ass.

http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-c...erence2017-10?

Christ did she ever take a long time getting to the point in her opening though. 20 minutes to say something she could have said in 5. Fifteen minutes of "Chad's a military player in the region."

American deployed personnel killed by terrorists in Africa

High-level staff conducting official work over private email servers

Shady dealings with Russia

Warmongering in ME including massive surge in civilian drone-strike deaths

Goldman Sacchs exec running the economy

Avid use of executive orders to bypass the cumbersome legislature

Welcome to the Rachel Maddow show

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