Let’s be clear here: Ted Cruz is not just the worst presidential candidate to have on your side in a bar fight. He is the worst possible human being to have on your side in a bar fight. And it’s not only because when he speaks he sounds like Eddie Murphy doing his nerd character. It’s that everyone hates Ted Cruz, and they hate him for a reason. Not just Democrats, everyone. Ted Cruz is famously and vigorously loathed by everyone in his own party. Fellow Republican Bob Dole has been out of politics for like 20 years and even he takes the time to hate Ted Cruz.
"I handcuffed lightnin' and throwed thunder in jail"
Happy birthday to the greatest.
I grew up without benefit of color. I don't remember even meeting anybody with dark brown skin for the first 12 or 15 years of my life. But in 7th grade, I had a teacher/coach who showed us films of (then) Cassius Clay. He taught us that a man's ability is where everything starts because that will show you what's in his heart. If you get hung up on how he doesn't look like you or act like you or think like you - while you're busy with all the shit that doesn't matter, he'll be busy knockin' you on your dumb ass. On a playing field. In a classroom. At a job. Everybody's competing. Everybody can learn to do what it takes to win.
If you don't respect all of that because you refuse to see anybody else as your equal, you'll have a hard time being willing to do the work necessary to give yourself a shot. Then the only way you win is if the game is rigged in your favor. And that ain't winnin'.
Again, this by no means obviates the real threat from terrorism generally or ISIS specifically, but it makes the rhetoric on the GOP stage seem a bit hysterical.
Obviously one key difference here is that terrorist groups would like to kill many more Americans, and are surely trying to accomplish just that, whereas presumably your sofa is not plotting any major attacks. But the point is that the risk terrorism poses to everyday American lives is not where you might have thought it was from this debate.
America just doesn't have much of a domestic terrorism problem. Incidents like the shootings in San Bernardino are vanishingly rare, as violent extremist groups have very few adherents here. US intelligence operations make it very difficult for foreign terrorist groups to bring operatives into the US and plan an attack.
Former Virginia Governor Robert (Vaginal Bob) McDonnell will stay out of federal prison for a bit longer. HuffPo:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up the case of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), who in October urged the justices to review his multiple convictions on federal corruption charges.
The justices' decision to hear the case effectively allows McDonnell to remain out of prison at least until the court issues a decision -- which could arrive as late as June.
McDonnell's lawyers are trying to convince the court that the kind of "official action" federal law treats as corruption -- and that a jury agreed McDonnell committed while governor -- was no more than "routine political courtesies," including activities such as "arranging meetings, asking questions, and attending events."
"This is the first time in our history that a public official has been convicted of corruption despite never agreeing to put a thumb on the scales of any government decision," McDonnell's lawyers wrote in their appeal to the Supreme Court. "Officials routinely arrange meetings for donors, take their calls, and politely listen to their ideas."
I think we need to be ready for the Roberts Court to use this case to strengthen the link between Money and Speech. It seems like these guys need to establish precedents that reinforce the system of Legalized Bribery that's been evolving from what continues to look more and more like our failed experiment in self-government.
For a minute there, I tho't I'd accidentally surfed into a That Girl rerun. But anyway. Governor Nikki Haley, R-SC:
These things are never good and most often flat-out awful, so she gets a little credit just for having the guts to try, and by comparison, it's a shitload better than Rubio or Jindal, so there's that(?)
Conventional wisdom has it that this is mostly a message aimed at Trump on behalf of a GOP Establishment as they finally start to wake up and get worried that the Monster Of The Id that they created in the 80s and 90s and fed for 35 years has crashed through the fence that was supposed to keep it in the Democrats' yard and is now completely fucking up the GOP rose beds, shittin' in GOP swimming pools and sniffin' everybody's butt cracks - which is pretty much exactly what the "Libruls" (and the GOP's very own "moderates") have been trying to tell them would happen for those same 35 years. Because rational thinkers understand that you don't control people for very long. And - not to get too nerdily metaphorical on ya here - when you push somebody to tap into something that always includes that "dark side", try not to act so surprised when Kylo Ren shivs you through the fucking heart, Mr Solo. (hat tip = driftglass)
Anyway.
She makes the GOP's big point about immigration and terrorism, and how we have to be really reallyreally careful and even straight-up suspicious of new-comers and outsiders and people who're different from us. Then, not more than a few paragraphs later, she slides right into "nine beautiful souls" welcoming a stranger into their worship circle only to be gunned down because he turned out to be a terrorist jerkwad. Of course, she disguises it by glossing it over with how forward-thinking and courageous she is for having taken down that stoopid fucking flag (props for that BTW), but she's inviting that standard xenophobia inference, and she knows the people she wants to make the connection will make the connection.
This shit doesn't happen by accident, kids. That's some of the best code-speak ever.
She's not saying "stop being a buncha ignorant racist assholes". She's saying, "stop being ignorant racist assholes out in the open because that embarrasses me because I have to get you to vote for me".
In the end, she's telling people who're in open revolt against what they see as a party - that they've been taught BY THAT PARTY - to believe is being ruined by "Political Correctness" to be politically correct. She's demanding it.
I'd say the horse has left the barn, but that assumes the barn's still there as some kinda point of reference. You're in a bit of a pickle, Nikki.
