The Rams may have been the healthiest, but their fans were probably the sickest.

wv wrote:

Scott Ritter:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syria-chemical-attack-al-qaeda-played-donald-trump_us_58ea226fe4b058f0a02fca4d

“…the American media and the Trump administration…has [mocked and ignored] the very illogic of the premise being put forward to answer the question of why President Assad would risk everything by using chemical weapons against a target of zero military value, at a time when the strategic balance of power had shifted strongly in his favor.”

This is the question that has been nagging me.

Why would Assad do this? And if he was going to do it, wouldn’t he have done a better job of it? I mean…despite the horrific results, it was a pretty crappy job, affecting a relatively small number of people by war standards, and targeting people whose death is to nobody’s benefit. The cost/benefit of this just doesn’t add up to me unless it is a PR move, and as a PR move, it isn’t Assad who benefits from it.

nittany ram wrote:

Zooey wrote:

Of course, once again, that has nothing to do with my argument which is that America is great except for the other people.

I can just picture you and Colin Kaepernick, drinks in hand, lounging around his heated pool in your 49ers gear laughing it up and ripping on America and everything we hold sacred.

You’re cute when you’re jealous, you know that?

I wrote a longer post in reply yesterday, and when I hit submit, it vanished and told me I had to log in – which I had been, otherwise there would have been no box for me to type in. Anyway, it’s always demoralizing to write an epic post and have it washed away.

So what I said, in a nutshell, is that Warren is still around. I must have liked her on FB because I see her posts frequently in my feed. The thing with Warren is she is on the defensive. I mean…she opposed the Repeal and Replace Tax Cut for the rich, and Gorsuch, and a bunch of cabinet appointments, but there isn’t much more she can do. She’s in the minority party.

As for hope? Well, help isn’t coming from within the party. They outflanked Ellison, and made it clear that they believe the problem isn’t their policies, but just that they got ambushed by Comey, and Clinton was damaged by Sanders as an establishment candidate, and by the chauvinism of his followers (hence “Bernie Bros”). There is no recognition there that Clinton was branded establishment because she IS establishment. They just don’t make that connection. Nor that when it comes to empowering women, Sanders offered $15 minimum wage (Clinton counter bid $12 reluctantly), universal health care (Clinton said “No way”), and free education.

Now what would empower women more? Those policies proposed by Sanders, or having a woman in the oval office?

Anybody with any brains can see that Sanders is better for women than Clinton. Anyone who thinks having a woman president would help women should just be asked to explain how much better black Americans are today as a result of having a “black” president. Let us not forget that #BlackLivesMatter was born in the second term of a black president. That’s how much symbolism matters.

So there is a new book out called The Destruction of Hillary Clinton that explains how her loss is was everyone’s fault but hers, and reinforces the status quo in the Democrat party.

Here is a good takedown of that argument (by the New Republic, of all sources). https://newrepublic.com/article/141865/deification-hillary-clinton

Bottom line: the only hope is that progressives keep pounding away and take over the Democrat party. Those pigs are not going to change course because people want them to. They will change course when their piece of the pie is threatened if they don’t change course, so they settle for smaller amounts of payola.

Lawrence O’Donnell: Did Putin mastermind Syria bombing, Trump/Putin charade? (VIDEO)

I think DeVega is right about what white liberals get wrong about racism to a fair degree.

But I think Bernie knows that even while he downplays it. Bernie is clearly committed to avoiding name-calling, and “gutter” politics, or the appearance of it. He relentlessly looks to forge alliances, and that’s to his credit, I think. So he knows full well a lot of Trump’s appeal is to racists, but he knows nothing is gained by saying so. That’s my opinion.

Diversity means different things.

I think a lot of people are just fine with racial and sexual diversity…as long as those people integrate.

They don’t really like cultural diversity. They don’t want their White “way of life” to be altered. So they’re all good with having diversity in the workplace, and in their advertisements, and the rest of it, but as soon as those people start choosing the music, and the menu, and the interior decorations….

Did you see this? You must have. It is the lead story on my news feed, and I assume on many other people’s.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/326463-trump-threatens-to-fight-freedom-caucus-in-midterms

Trump tweeted: “The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!”

The Muskrat in Chief just declared a Civil War. Whether the party follows him is another question. I assume the RNC will be a little more practical, but this kind of thing is troublesome for Republicans at the very least. And Freedom Caucus members don’t seem all that compromising and understanding. Shots have been fired both directions.

It’s a silver lining in these dark times.

I like Juju. He gets it done.

I am assuming that is without pay.

Does that free up cap space, or not?

I would love to download that man’s knowledge into my brain.

You know, every word of what he wrote in that interview strikes me as completely, obviously true. And yet, the man is an outcast in his own country, widely scorned, and largely barred from the media.

wv wrote:

————-

Well, wv-ram is, like, TOTALLY worried about Hav at guard and Grob at Tackle.

I dont think Hav is a guard and i dont think GRob is a Tackle. But what do i know. Apparently the OLine coach thinks he’s a miracle-worker. Or else the organization just feels stuck personnel-wize.

w
v

That is precisely my response.

They aren’t moving until after the stadium is built, and they don’t even have renderings of it yet. They will be another couple of years in Oakland no matter what, so they presumably won’t be up and coming at that point.

This move is interesting to me. I read elsewhere that one of the progressive groups was shouting that “Now is the time to push for single payer now that we have the momentum!”

And I think “momentum” isn’t actually a thing. For starters, the Ryan plan went down for a whole lot of reasons, mainly because the Republican party actually has some members in it who still cling to reality by the fingertips, and they weren’t willing to completely repeal the ACA. Of course, the Freedumb Caucus would settle for nothing less. It was obviously division within the GOP itself that doomed the bill. It had nothing to do with the Democrats, though arguably the pressure put on by “the resistance” may have prevented the Republicans in less insane parts of the country to refuse to go beyond the pale in destroying the ACA.

And if the Republicans can’t get their signature reason for existence accomplished when they control both houses of congress and the White House, how the hell are progressives supposed to pass single payer with the tepid support of an incompetent, sellout Democrat party that’s in the minority?

And doesn’t he risk losing and balancing out the embarrassing defeat the Reps just suffered, and further convincing the public that government can’t do anything right?

But I suppose if it is handled correctly, and he can control the message (which Sanders is actually pretty good at, now that I think about it – he doesn’t get diverted), maybe he can build up enough public support that people start to see Republicans as the problem, and send some out in 2018.

I will say this: Sanders has clicked and dragged the Overton Window’s left frame to the left. Things that could not even be talked about two years ago are now within the frame of “reasonable.” That’s not nothing. Say what you will about Sanders, he is now the most popular politician in the country, and he has opened up the game even though he hasn’t “won” anything yet.

Sidenote: Cory Booker, who got trashed for opposing Sanders’ Pharma amendment in January, has now co-signed another piece of legislation with Sanders to allow import of Canadian pharmaceuticals. Booker has been dragged to the left on this issue by pressure from the grassroots. There is some “safety” rules included in the new legislation that allow Booker a fig leaf to cover his earlier opposition to this which he will now doubt use as a defense when he runs for president in 2020, but…whatever. He moved to the left. Even that POS Schumer has moved to the left rhetorically.