Official "Politics Belongs In the Soapbox" thread

[Dr Sardonicus]

A fine example of good ol' fashioned political propaganda made the Chicago Tribune:

Illinois Republicans pull Facebook post calling 4 Democratic congresswomen ‘The Jihad Squad’

Top leaders of the Illinois Republican Party launched an effort at damage control Sunday after a social media post echoed President Donald Trump’s criticism of four Democratic congresswoman and went further, referring to them in a movie-type poster of being a “jihad squad” and contending they believe any criticism is racist.

Pic may be seen here.

[ewmayer]

I just realized I must've accidentally hit 'edit' rather than 'reply' on DrS's above post yesterday - apologies! Material more suitable for Soapbox in any event, though.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

So Emma plays a kind of female Boris Johnson? :) (As Moon of Alabama put it re. BoJo's ascension of the greasy pole to the UK PM-ship, "The Ukraine elected a comedian for president. Great Britain felt a need to top that. The members of the ruling party thus chose a clown to become the UK's next prime minister.")

"Elect a clown / Expect a circus" bumper stickers in various styles have been on offer here in the good ol' USA for some time now.

Latest round: Il Duce has allowed his Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates to resign for publicly disagreeing with Il Duce's lies counterfactual statements, and other sins, and will nominate the servile Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas to replace him.

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

it's more of a trust-in-government thing.

Because they've never misled us before, right?

[Dr Sardonicus]

If they made a movie about this, they could call it Hypocrisy Now.

Trump ‘rodent’ tweets ring true at Kushner-owned apartments

BALTIMORE (AP) — Davon Jones doesn’t have to look far to see the irony in President Donald Trump’s tweets that Baltimore is a “rat and rodent infested mess.” His apartment owned by the president’s son-in-law has been invaded by mice since he moved in a year ago.

“I don’t know how they come in,” Jones says. “Every time I catch them, they come right back.”

Jared Kushner’s family real estate firm owns thousands of apartments and townhomes in the Baltimore area, and some have been criticized for the same kind of disrepair and neglect that the president has accused local leaders of failing to address. Residents have complained about mold, bedbugs, leaks and, yes, mice — plenty of mice. And they say management appears in no hurry to fix the problems.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Hard to believe, but at least one Administration official is trying his hand at poetry! To wit, trying to rewrite The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli dismisses the "world-wide welcome" and "Mother of Exiles," insisting the inscription is about people coming from Europe who can "stand on their own two feet." Earlier ideas put forth by this Admin tell us this means from countries like Norway, and people who have money and college educations, and who speak English. Yesirree Bob, sounds just like the folks coming through Ellis Island around the time (1903) the lines from "The New Colossus" were placed in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.

In fairness, the "world-wide welcome" and "Mother of Exiles" aren't in the inscription, so Mr. Cuccinelli may not be aware of them. And it is true that Emma Lazarus did have Europeans particularly in mind -- specifically, Jewish exiles fleeing persecution (e.g. pogroms) in Czarist Russia. However, these were people fleeing for their lives, much as people today are fleeing from Central America, Mexico, and points east.

I am reminded of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Newspeak, and the mutability of history.

I am also reminded of the last panel in "MAD Magazine interviews a John Birch Society Policeman" (#97, September 1965). The interviewee is in a glee club singing the famous lines from "The New Colossus." As best I can recall, it went like this:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddle masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
And we'll send 'em right back, send 'em right back
Send 'em right back to youuuu!
You wretched refuse --
You foreign garbage --
You dirty commies --
We'll send 'em right back to you!

Ahh, I miss the old MAD. Since they didn't take ads, they were free to be as in-your-face as they pleased.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Sports commentator Mike Florio has tried to excuse Colts fans booing Andrew Luck off the field when word got out that, out of the blue, he was retiring.

Sure, I can understand their being upset and feeling like booing. But isn't one of the hallmarks of adulthood the understanding that there is all the difference in the world between feeling like and doing? I am brought to mind of First Corinthians 13:11, which (in the KJV) says

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

The commentary ends with the following:

Maybe they’ll eventually regret it. Maybe they should. Or maybe those who are so quick to condemn them should ask themselves how they’d feel in that same intent [sic], and whether they’d be able to navigate the nuances of booing Luck or booing the Colts or booing Irsay or just booing because they’re pissed off and need to vent?

Unless and until the American sports fans has [sic] more options beyond “cheer” and “boo” for their in-stadium arsenal of reaction, rare and unusual and upsetting circumstances like those that unfolded last night will definitely draw a reaction, and the reaction won’t be cheering.

Maybe they’ll eventually regret it? Maybe they should? "Because they're pissed off and need to vent?"

Fans do have more options than cheering or booing. In this instance, they could have shown a bit of self-restraint and, say, bitten their tongues and looked at their shoes. That would have clearly shown their dismay while they still acted like civilized adults.

I know, there are those who say that manners don't matter. I disagree. And it is possible that our society had already become sufficiently uncivilized before Il Duce was elected that the fans' reaction to the unexpected news of Andrew Luck's retirement would have been the same in any case. But I can't help wondering: Has the ongoing effort to "define deviancy down" by constantly downplaying Il Duce's endless succession of infantile temper tantrums seeped so deeply into our culture that it has become "normal" to try to excuse the inexcusable?

[ewmayer]

Re. Andrew Luck's shock retirement - unlike his predecessor Peyton Manning, the Colts front office never invested in the kind of O-line you want protecting your franchise QB, instead letting Luck rely on his mobility and physical size and strength to get the job done despite the resulting pounding he took. I mean you have an absolute physical specimen like Patriots star TE Rob Gronkowski retiring only a few years older than Luck due to the same kind of "my body just can't take it anymore", which tells you no matter how big and physical your QB, you need to invest the relatively modest sum needed for a quality O-line if you want him to stay healthy. How has Tom Brady managed to play for nearly 20 years as an NFL QB? In his case he was never fast enough to be ramblin-scamblin kind of QB so it's a combination of the Patriots invsting in a top-tier O-line, Brady being smart and avoiding taking unnecessary punishment, and taking really good care of himself in the off-season. Even so he did lose a full season earlier in his career due to having blown out a knee, and he's of course been fortunate in not having further major injuries, because a lot of what happens on the field is unavoidably beyond one's control.

Re. your Trump-related surmise, bit of a reach, don't you think? NFL fans have never been known as a genteel bunch. You take Mike Florio to task for excusing the booing Colts fans, then you do pretty much the same thing with "It's Trump's fault!" Maybe the booing fans were simply a bunch of assholes.

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

But isn't one of the hallmarks of adulthood the understanding that there is all the difference in the world between feeling like and doing?

Fans do have more options than cheering or booing. In this instance, they could have shown a bit of self-restraint and, say, bitten their tongues and looked at their shoes. That would have clearly shown their dismay while they still acted like civilized adults.

Aging is automatic. Maturation is not.
They could have chanted his name, as a thank you for past entertainment at the price of his long term health. Anyone who plays football competitively puts his health and life at risk. Can't really fault them myself for making a prudent decision to get out alive and still somewhat functional. Concussions, sprains, strains, torn ligaments, broken bones, CTE, paralysis, etc. All reasons why while baseball teams can play double headers, football teams need several days to recover.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tim-gre...ew-2019-08-25/

Then again, some fraction of the fans were probably former players themselves at some level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-c...and_behavioral

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Re. your Trump-related surmise, bit of a reach, don't you think?

No.

Originally Posted by ewmayer

... you do pretty much the same thing with "It's Trump's fault!"

Except I didn't say anything of the sort. I was merely pointing out that the commentator was trying to excuse the fans' boorish behavior, and wondered if the, ah, lack of forthrightness about the president's frequent boorishness has "normalized" this practice. Those who publicly try to pretend the man is anything other than a narcissist and a sociopath, would be the ones at fault in my surmise. Seeing you so badly afflicted with IDDS (Il Duce Defensiveness Syndrome) that you rush to defend him from "attacks" that weren't even made, though -- you've got 'em beat.

I would however add one other character to the "at fault" list, whom I am ashamed at not having mentioned before. I will go so far as to cast him as the villain of the piece: Adam Schefter, who apparently considered getting The Big Scoop to be more important than allowing Andrew Luck the opportunity to make the news of his retirement public himself. The reason that fans knew about Luck's decision was that at 9:28 PM, during what was to be Luck's last game, Schefter tweeted as follows:

Filed to ESPN: Andrew Luck has informed the Colts he is retiring from the NFL, per source. There will be a press conference Sunday to make it official, but Luck is mentally worn down, and now checking out.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 25, 2019

Well huzzah huzzah, at least he got the facts right, which is something that all too often goes by the boards in the rush to be first. On the other hand, reporters are supposed to avoid making themselves part of the story.

Adam Schefter is hereby ordered to watch Roman Holiday twenty times in a row.

[kladner]

I am not a sports fan. When I saw the news of a an NFL player retiring at 29(?), my reaction was, "He's smart to get out before he is a totally crippled, brain-mush wreck."

In the small SE Texas town where I lived through 9th grade there was a player on the High School football team who took a hit which left him comatose for a day or two. After he recovered, he went back on the field, took another hit, and was dead on the field. His parents' reaction was, "It would not be fair to keep his younger brother from playing football just because our older son died." That's Texas High School football fanaticism at its finest.