Florida State Seminoles

[hedge]

Peggy Noonan:

The problem with the Freedom Caucus people is and always has been that they do not have the numbers to win, to dominate. America, a big, broad place, doesn’t like them. They represent a tendency within the party in which they are seceding from “the establishment,” “the swamp.” They think throwing snares and making Congress ungovernable is progress. It isn’t progress but nihilism, and it is connected to the endless loop of performance art that has taken over our politics. Once, you had to be a legislator and pass bills. Now you just have to play a legislator on media. You do TV hits, enact indignation, show you’re the kind of tough person who gets things done. You don’t have to do anything.

If that is your business model—and these people are in business, and fundraising off this week’s spectacle—it isn’t bad for you if Republican leadership flounders (they’re squishes anyway) or the Democrats take over (you get to be the fiery opposition.) They tell themselves they are speaking truth to power, but real conservatism involves an ability to see and respect reality and to move constructively within it, nudging it in desirable directions.

Many of them are stupid and highly emotional, especially the men. Most have no historical depth. If they have little respect for institutions, it’s because they have no idea how institutions help us live as a nation, and they’ve never helped build one.

They aren’t serious and don’t have a plan, only an attitude and a talking point. They present themselves as freedom fighters, but that isn’t what they are. I would actually like Rep. Lauren Boebert if just once she would identify herself during roll call as the member from Late Weimar. Or Rep. Matt Gaetz insisted his name be recorded as The Devil’s Flying Monkey.

[eCat]

I agree they don't have a plan

to believe they represent a minority of people is hard to take at face value

The reason McCarthy is in the running as speaker is that he is essentially a moderate democrat who cut a deal with Trump to play deaf and dumb when it comes to congress going after him if Trump threw his support behind him. He went to Mar a Largo to cut a deal with Trump.

There is not massive number of conservatives who are particularly thrilled with McCarthy and the only reason any GOP congressman is pushing for him is because they believe he'll rubber stamp any spending or war bills that come up which appeases a large number of people in congress.

[hedge]

you don't believe they did that

when there is a mountain of actual proof its happened?

Look, anybody from either side can pick whatever ostensibly apocalyptic event or politician or policy or whatever they want to get outraged about. I think Trump was a dangerous criminal who broke multiple laws and actively attempted to overthrow a legal election. You shrug your shoulders and say I'm deranged (TDS). Your hair (well, your scalp) is on fire b/c "the government" is trying to silence "the opposition." I'm like "Dude, it's Twitter and Facebook, who cares?" I think Jan. 6th was an attempted coup and would be perfectly fine with putting anyone who entered the Capitol that day in front of a firing squad. You think it was a nothing burger and that "who cares anyway, they didn't succeed." You think UK is the greatest college hoops program of all time and I know you're full of shit (it's UNC).

The list of things I and people like me are pissed off about that you and those like you are completely indifferent to (and vice versa) is very long. I mean, look at IB. Every goddamn topic that comes up in here he somehow twists into a result of feminists and no-fault divorce, and everybody else thinks he's full of shit. There really isn't much difference b/w that and whatever we think is the most outrageous person or event of government conspiracy that's EVER HAPPENED EVER!!! I doubt at this point in our lives either of us is going to change. Yet somehow the world keeps turning and nothing seems to be that much different than it ever was, at least not for me. But the main point is, there's plenty of stuff to be outraged about. I'm happy with the stuff I've chosen to be outraged about and you seem to be similarly satisfied that your outrages are the real outrages. Maybe we'll live long enough to find out which one of us is right. But I hope not. I just thank god that neither of us have no-fault divorce anywhere on the list...

[Jungle Rat]

E is a little feisty today. I like it.

[hedge]

I'm glad eCat wasn't as politically aware when he was 25 as he is now, else Tipper Gore's (with the help of plenty of congressmen) campaign to ban explicit lyrics from music would've made his head explode...

[Jungle Rat]

No internet then in Podunkville,KY

[sardis]

Everything going on as normal with or without a speaker of the house.

[innocentbystander]

you don't believe they did that

when there is a mountain of actual proof its happened?

Look, anybody from either side can pick whatever ostensibly apocalyptic event or politician or policy or whatever they want to get outraged about. I think Trump was a dangerous criminal who broke multiple laws and actively attempted to overthrow a legal election. You shrug your shoulders and say I'm deranged (TDS). Your hair (well, your scalp) is on fire b/c "the government" is trying to silence "the opposition." I'm like "Dude, it's Twitter and Facebook, who cares?" I think Jan. 6th was an attempted coup and would be perfectly fine with putting anyone who entered the Capitol that day in front of a firing squad. You think it was a nothing burger and that "who cares anyway, they didn't succeed." You think UK is the greatest college hoops program of all time and I know you're full of shit (it's UNC).

The list of things I and people like me are pissed off about that you and those like you are completely indifferent to (and vice versa) is very long. I mean, look at IB. Every goddamn topic that comes up in here he somehow twists into a result of feminists and no-fault divorce, and everybody else thinks he's full of shit. There really isn't much difference b/w that and whatever we think is the most outrageous person or event of government conspiracy that's EVER HAPPENED EVER!!! I doubt at this point in our lives either of us is going to change.

No you are not going to change. I get it. But I'm not full of shit hedge. Everything I said about the law and why women initiate these divorces are spot on.

There is no conspiracy here. I'm not trying to get you to turn around, that is never going to happen. I've given up on you and rat. But that doesn't mean that I don't have valid points that very correctly identify what the problems are in this country. That is why I go into so much detail and why I am so careful about the language I use in describing why things are serious problems.

Look, I am very happy to hear that your adult daughters are both married. That is great. I hope that they both stay that way. But that doesn't mean that I am full of shit. Your situation is more the outlier now, the exception and NOT the rule.

[innocentbystander]

The Russian people should be natural allies of the west. Yes, they are a cold and gloomy people, as you would expect from a race on the edge of western civilization, but they're certainly every bit as much European in terms of culture and blood as any of the Nordic countries. Yes, you have to question something in their national soul that they let themselves be duped and brought to their knees by what would become the Soviet party, but I guess they weren't much better off under the czars.

That is exactly what Ayn Rand said about her people. There is not much history in Russian government that they can take pride. None really.

The beef with Russia has always been about their authoritarian government, not the people, and Putin is totally a creature of the worst elements of the Soviet apparatus. Once he and it are gone, maybe Russia can join the real world. I'd welcome them...

I would welcome Russians as friends too hedge, but their culture and the way they look at the world is vastly different than ours.

Much of what Putin does is guided by being Russian Orthodox. Aside from small pockets of Greek culture in the USA, Orthodox Christianity is a pretty foreign concept to US citizens. But being Orthodox does have a huge impact on how you look at the world around you and how you look at your people. Like I said, the closest thing we have to that is Greek culture. I have never met a US citizen who was Greek that didn't see himself or herself as Orthodox FIRST AND FOREMOST, Greek a very close second, and then US citizen far down the line. Its just a very different outlook on life. For Russians, particularly Russian-Americans, its a lot of that.

Now for the Russian citizens, their lives are vastly different than ours and its not just Putin's authoritarianism predicated on his Eastern Orthodox beliefs. Its other things. For one thing, land in Russia is virtually infinite. Infinite. They will never fill that land, not in a hundred million years. Never. So because there is so much space, they have a very different attitude about dealing with people that they don't like. They just leave. Leave. If an asshole moves next door, you call that person and asshole, and you leave. You can live anywhere else in Russia and they will never find you. And you don't have to help them NOT be an asshole. You just give up on them the way I have given up on you.

Alcohol. Sure we have serious problems with that in our country. But we don't have anything on Russia. We don't typically have entire villages where the men drink themselves into a trance of total alcohol psychosis the way they do in Russia. But once again, that is also a product of geography. The closest we have to that level of psychosis is the people who live (year round) in places such as Alaska. That is our Russia. The natives (who live there) work their ass off during the summer months, make enough to live, and are completely drunk all winter because.... what difference does it make? You are snowbound and stuck. You are wherever you are and you aren't leaving. And its dark. And you are miserable. Time to drink. Just like Russians.

Moscow has more billionaires than pretty much any other city on the earth. Its not surprising, the most industrious and inventive Russians found it incredibly easy to make vast fortunes given the limitless abundance of resources Russia, resources that could never be completely plundered. They are limitless. And yet this vast wasteland of drunk, Orthodox, childless people, (most of whom are dead at 60) have a collective GDP that is less than the state of New York. Its basically their 0.1% who own everything and do all the hard work (work like 90 hours a week) and they throw silly, albeit necessary, well-formed jobs to the peasants who work as little as possible so they can spend more time getting drunk. And the Billionaires remain Billionaires and the other 99.9 have nothing but a vodka bottle. That is Russia.

I don't see a whole lot of overlap there in Russian culture and American culture. We have an American dream. There is no Russian dream outside getting drunk and dying young. We used to have kids and grandkids. They have basically none. Americans think of a brighter future, their future. Russians live for the day, because they are all dead tomorrow. Its basically an 11 timezone country with 160,000,000 alcoholics with borderline personality disorder.

[Tree]

Like most world leaders of powerful countries, Putin is a gangster. He's more depraved because they've had the West creeping to their borders since the first cold war ended and they don't have the money to pretend to give a shit about an advanced society and put countries on their payroll like the US. If Putin is a 10/10 thug, I'd say Trump, Biden, Hillary, Obama, Bush, Cheney, etc are all an 8. Trump is also a conman without the same connections as the others so he's slightly more dangerous.

[hedge]

I was hoping McCarthy would give a shoutout to Buck Owens, and he just did...

[hedge]

"The reason McCarthy is in the running as speaker is that he is essentially a moderate democrat who cut a deal with Trump"

Anybody who cuts a deal with Trump is not a moderate democrat...

[innocentbystander]

"The reason McCarthy is in the running as speaker is that he is essentially a moderate democrat who cut a deal with Trump"

Anybody who cuts a deal with Trump is not a moderate democrat...

Who in this congress is a modern-day, moderate, democrat? Name that person. I am waiting for that Sister Solja moment from any of them to denigrate/attack/disavow the asshole, illegal alien activist, who chased my democrat Senator (now independent Senator) into the bathroom when all she wanted to do is take a shit in peace.

[innocentbystander]

I was hoping McCarthy would give a shoutout to Buck Owens, and he just did...

With 14 votes and still nothing, perhaps the message being sent on McCarthy is clear, GOP, pick another one.



I think McCarthy probably will become speaker, but only when the tiny opposition tires of being in opposition. I don't know when that will happen.

[hedge]

"Much of what Putin does is guided by being Russian Orthodox"

I know nothing about Putin or the Russian Orthodox church, but I can guarantee you Putin is a complete atheist. He's a cruel, Machiavellian ruler who will use any tool, i.e., the church, to achieve his ends, but he's not a fool, i.e., he doesn't believe one word of that idiotic bullshit, and I'm sure he laughs at those who do. He's like a crack or heroin dealer who doesn't use the product himself. He knows it's poison, but he also knows that you're addicted to it, so he's happy to provide it, laughing all the way to the bank. He doesn't care if you die from it, there's no shortage of fools that will follow to instantly take your place before your corpse has gone cold. Like Marx said, religion is the opiate of the masses. Putin (and so many others) have merely weaponized that insight in order to gain secular power. And highly successfully. At least the priests actually believed it. Well, kinda. Some of them, anyway. Well, maybe a few...

[Tree]

too many i.e.'s and commas

[hedge]

Too few brain cells in your case...

[hedge]

I edited that post, see if you like it better now..

[Tree]

what is this '...' shit? just put a period like everyone else.

[hedge]

Marjorie Taylor Green is a little bowling bowl of a woman. She's 5' 1" and I guarantee you she's be pushing 150 lbs...