“We now go live to East Whereever, Oregon…”

Oh, great.

It has me very worried…

Me too. Libs would never admit Kamala is right-wing. But I’m certain if she wins then as president the dems will use terms like “tough”, “pragmatic”, and “she shows resolve”. Any pretense of the dems pretending to be decent is gone. They’ve gone mask off and it creeps me out. They’re done pretending to give a shit about homeless Americans or non-American lives. Be it at the US/Mexico border or in Gaza or in Lebanon etc. Ever since I first voted in the 1980s - I’ve noted that the dems have pretended to care about things like human rights. Reagan liked to say stuff like the US was a shining city on a hill. Up until recently dems might even have mentioned that very phrase with warm nostalgia.

In many ways mainstream dem messaging is clearly far to the right of where Reagan’s rhetoric was in the 1980s. The only exception - of course - is Ukraine. I think a Reaganesque pol running as a democrat would not only never get close to the presidency - he might even be unelectable as a California state senator. He wouldn’t nearly be right-wing enough.

I thought the statement would be very long but this is the whole thing…

Hassan Nasrallah was a terrorist with American blood on his hands. Across decades, his leadership of Hezbollah destabilized the Middle East and led to the killing of countless innocent people in Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and around the world. Today, Hezbollah’s victims have a measure of justice.

I have an unwavering commitment to the security of Israel. I will always support Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

President Biden and I do not want to see conflict in the Middle East escalate into a broader regional war. We have been working on a diplomatic solution along the Israel-Lebanon border so that people can safely return home on both sides of that border. Diplomacy remains the best path forward to protect civilians and achieve lasting stability in the region.

I know the message is pure politics and designed wholly for an American audience but it’s still makes me annoyed when American politicians start a statement of a foreign situation with a mention of American suffering.

Even if they create a filibuster exception (or kill that fucking thing) and they pass a law - this method is 100% guaranteed failure. The GOP justices will say the law is unconstitional and the GOP easy-peasy kills it dead. The dems will never do it - but to pass a Roe law - they must pack the court first. As far as I know - Kamala and the entire dem machine is pretending that’s not true. Meanwhile the media like MSNBC plays along like passing a law without court packing is possible.

It’s all kabuki. Everything in the US is so fucking dumb.

Way

I know endorsements aren’t worth a bucket of warm piss but it’s still funny.

can’t the pawn just kill the knight to avoid the king having to move back/forth?

No. It’s double check and double check is (very) nasty.

Absolute perfect pitch and could play any song off the radio hearing it just once.

I wish I could do that. I’ll just say - I have the ability to play an very easy song very badly after I get the chords off the net and I practice it a lot.

My mom was massively into Zepplin and could play every one of their songs to perfection.

She played guitar?

“This isn’t Led Zepplin, Led Zepplin is badass. Led Zepplin did In My Time of Dying.”

I wonder what today’s equivalent of that is.

I was in middle school when the album came out and it didn’t like it much because - as young people do - thought of them as my band. And what was my band doing with an album that didn’t sound like them. The only thing seemingly in common was Plant’s voice. But as time went on - I liked it more and more. It’s a shame Bonham died and the band ended. I wish they had put out a few more albums. Hell - even one more.

The writer has a serious case of American exceptionalism brain.

I emphasized my favorite bit. Americans aren’t readers.

Contrary to the common belief, Americans are not less historically conscious than Europeans; in fact, the reverse is true. The Franco-Prussian War or the Italian wars of unification were roughly contemporaneous with the American Civil War, yet the former events are largely relegated to academic works, whereas the latter continues to create an unending flood of popular overviews, biographies and unit histories — with Abraham Lincoln being the most written-about figure in American history.

The entire quip is ridiculous. I’ve never even visited Europe as a tourist so I can’t say what Europeans know or don’t know. But Americans are incredibly incurious about history and pretty much everything that isn’t entertainment or pop culture.

The eval bar is key. +1 for your opponent isn’t awful. Like I said in the body - black is a gm so it’s 100% playable at that level. For me - I also wouldn’t resign at Kc7 but I’d certainly be having no fun. I like my king ensconced in a corner behind pawns until the end game. Defense is a real weak point for me.

Whatever happens in the elections - the libs will be insufferable. They’ll forget or “forget” that in 2021-22 Biden and the dems could have passed federal laws to protect voting and electoral systems. Plus Biden’s pick for AG, Merrick Garland, has been a truly terrible choice on voting and everything else. The libs will whine about third party voters and they’ll rant with rage that Russia was involved somehow.

If by some miracle the dems win big and GOP fuckery isn’t possible - President Democrat and the DC Democrats still won’t pass federal laws to protect voting and electoral systems. And Kalama’s AG might be Garland 2.0. Time is a flat you know the thing.

I’m a broken record but I think Georgia could be the whole enchilada. Imagine Kamala wins there but…

• The GOP with zero evidence says there are “issues” with ballots.

• What are there non-existent issues? Where’s the evidence for these non-existent issues? Of course nothing matters. The GOP is playing games in that state and/or other GOP controlled states. They want to pause and then overturn one or more Kamala wins via the GOP justices on the supreme court.

• The very second the court says it will review a bullshit case - the GOP might as well demand DC shutdown that day so Trump can have a tickertape victory parade. He’s won.

In a state like Georgia I think the chance of GOP fuckery is 100% even if Trump wins there. Whining about Georgia could help the GOP create more chaos in other states.

Georgia’s Republican-controlled State Election Board is trying to give local officials the power to decide on their own whether something untoward happened during the balloting, which could slow the process of identifying the winner.

[…]

At issue this year is whether county election boards in Georgia are free to use their own discretion in certifying election results. The Republican-controlled State Election Board voted 3-2 last month to expand the powers of local officials, enabling them to certify results after having conducted a “reasonable inquiry” into their accuracy. There was no definition of what a “reasonable inquiry” entails.

[…]

But Democrats caution that the new rules could disrupt the hard-and-fast timetable to certify elections in Georgia. Furthermore, local election boards have never had that kind of authority, and they are supposed to perform merely the straightforward task of adding up the vote totals, Democrats argue. If anyone alleges fraud occurred in an election, the proper place to test the claim is the courts, they add.

[…]

A poll conducted last year found that only 22% of Republicans were highly confident that the votes in the 2024 presidential election would be counted accurately, compared with 71% of Democrats.

This soliloquy is from the tv series Black Sails. Captain Flint tells his lover how he got his name. He’s ambivalent about being a pirate. I’m in the middle of watching the series. It’s my favorite scene so far.

“I told you of my grandfather who raised me. A fisherman in Padstow. Well, in his youth he was a deckhand on a privateer off the coast of Massachusetts. And one night he was alone on the late watch at anchor in the Boston Harbor when he sees this man climbing out of the water and onto his ship. A stranger. Now, my grandfather thought about ringing the bell, but curiosity got the better of him. The stranger approaches my grandfather and asks him for a little rum.”

“Man said that he’d fled his fishing trawler. Accused of killing another man. And when asked his name, the man simply replied Mr. Flint. This stranger, he never said whether he was guilty of the killing or why he chose that ship or where he was bound, he just… just sat there. Eventually, he asked my grandfather for a little more rum from below. My grandfather went off to fetch it, but when he returned… the man was gone.”

“My grandfather was in Boston for a month after that. Never heard a word about a killing or a fugitive at large. It was as if the sea had conjured that man out of nothing and then taken him back for some unknowable purpose. When I first met Mr. Gates and he asked me my name… I feared the man I was about to create. I feared that someone born of such dark things would consume me were I not careful. And I was determined only to wear him for a while and then dispose of him when his purpose was complete. And I thought of that story.”

“Am I ready to let him go?” (Sighs) “Truth is… every day I’ve worn that name I’ve hated him a little more. I’ve been ready to return him to the sea for a long time.”

he is extremely selfish and MAGA atracts exactly a huge part of this selfish chauvinistic white population.

In early/mid 2017 - I left liberalism. In two words: Sebastian Gorka. News broke that there was a Nazi in the White House so I assumed he’d resign or get fired. Surely that had to happen. What a quaint thought that seems now. After some time had passed (About a month? Two months?) I realized two things that made me sick to my stomach. One, Trump wasn’t going to ask him to resign. Two, the democrats weren’t going to demand he resign. I could see how utterly useless the democrats would be in dealing with Trump in general.

In fact - I assume that in private in 2017 DC dems focused on what they considered the silver lining of Trump’s presidency. They figured they’d do well 2018 and in 2020 after Americans realized who they elected. Of course that was nonsense. Trump’s base knew who he was - that’s why they voted for him! In the end and up to now - I’ve been 100% unsurprised that the DC dems were not only shortsighted but idiots as well. Libs would never admit it but I think some of them still realize that if not for covid - Trump would have won a second term.

Old man rants at smiles at cloud.

-–

I’m not actually old-old but I’m getting there.

I agree. When he was recovering from covid - he wanted to leave the hospital and do a reveal to show he was wearing a Superman shirt underneath. And when took his reality tv-like triumphant return to the White House via Marine One - I’m not exaggerating when I say I thought he might have a stress-related health problem right then outside the White House. He looked sickly and struggling to breathe. But he was in denial and the hogs loved it. Their hero returned.

When he nearly got assassinated - his raised fist was an insane display of courage. And then - all things considered - he had fairly dignified exit from the stage to his armor-protected vehicle. It was in no way like the movies where the Secret Service agents are pushing the president along because every second counts. And in another un-movie detail - I think he even managed another raised fist before they finally managed to get him in the car. It’s impossible to know what he was thinking in the aftermath but I think it was possible his massive adrenaline rush made him forget that actual reality is not like reality tv. When you die in reality - that’s it. You’re actually dead.

And then when he turned on his tv - even in his right-wing media bubble he must have felt awful when it was clear a huge number of people didn’t care very much about him or they were lamenting the fact he didn’t die. After the shooting - I’m unaware of any grandstanding and boasting Trump did about it. And I assume not only has he been ruminating that he nearly died - he’s probably also thinking you can only avoid the Grim Reaper only so many times and at 78 - he’s not going to live forever.

What happens when neither candidate has any juice?

This kills the crab.

-–

Ninja edit

Okay. I sorely need knew meme material. I’m constantly using stuff that no other Hexbear has used in ~5 years.