Slow Learners

by wj

Sometimes, I come across things that just totally blow my mind. This, from the Wall Street Journal:

The federal flood insurance program has paid more than $1.8 million between 1979 and 2015 to rebuild a single house in Kingwood, Texas. The house has been flooded 22 times since 1979
H/T FiveThirtyEight

The house appears to have any number of up-scale features. Including an indoor swimming pool . . . even when it isn't flooded. This isn't some poor guy who just can't afford to live somewhere else.

I'm not sure who I consider the slowest learner here. The homeowner, who is only now figuring out that he ought to locate elsewhere. Or the Federal Flood Insurance program, which has been willing to keep sinking money into a property which is pretty clearly located on an utterly inappropriate site. (Our Federal tax dollars at work -- since, of course, Texas keeps taxes low and lets the rest of us subsidize them for stuff like this.)

Comments

[wj]

Teach me to be careful what I wish for, Janie. ;-)

Well, I guess having two conversations at once won't hurt us.

[Girl from the North Country]

Crikey, it's like buses: you wait for ages, and then two come along at once!

[JanieM]

Oh well.........

This will teach me to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I started drafting a travel post a week or so ago and it got so involved that I never finished it.

*****

Flood insurance...anyone remember GWB going on about how the gummint would make sure people like Trent Lott would have their houses rebuilt after Katrina?

[wonkie]

Iceland and New Zealand for the beauty. I think th reasons why people pick certain places are more telling that wha tthey pick. For example, if I was a better person Id pick the Sudan to help refugees or China to rescue dog meat dogs.

[wonkie]

I think I got confused and put that on the wrong thread. I would not go to Texas.

[JanieM]

As to who's a slow learner -- this particular guy night have decided that he's sick of the hassle, but for a some people -- well, if you love living by the water (and who wouldn't!) and you can get someone else to keep paying for it, why not? /snark

[Snarki, child of Loki]

JanieM: or someone who figured out how to con the system and make a profit off of floods.

[CharlesWT]

Apparently, government, at various levels, is the slow learner since it continuously subsidizes people living in risky environments.

[wj]

Yeah. How come I could get Federally subsidized flood insurance when living where there are lots of floods. But not Federally subsidized earthquake insurance? How is that fair?

[Pollo de muerte]

I've posted this before, but as a reminder, the NFIP does not subsidize Florida. We get back in benefits 25 cents on each dollar of premium.

[CharlesWT]

Given the NFIP’s 50-year de facto monopoly over flood insurance, the emergence of a private flood insurance market will not happen overnight. However, congressional lawmakers can and should view Florida as a template for NFIP reform that can help it gradually to transform into the nation’s flood insurer of last resort.
Florida's private flood insurance market is a template for the country

[formerly known as cleek]

Apparently, government, at various levels, is the slow learner since it continuously subsidizes people living in risky environments.

voters are the slow learners. we could elect people to change this, after all. 'we' just haven't figured that out yet.

[sapient]

I've posted this before, but as a reminder, the NFIP does not subsidize Florida. We get back in benefits 25 cents on each dollar of premium.

Sorry - you probably posted a link too, and I missed it. When you have time, could you post it again? I'm interested in who pays for what to whom. I believe you - just want to look.

[CharlesWT]

we could elect people to change this, after all. 'we' just haven't figured that out yet.

Vote for libertarians. They would change it as a matter of principle. :)

[wj]

But there may be some question as to whether the straight libertarian doctrine is the alternative voters actually prefer. Just because the current approach is silly doesn't necessarily that any alternative would be superior.

[Countme-a-Demon]

I looked at the photo accompanying the article in the post and I'll bet if I rowed a FEMA dinghy up to each of the structures swamped over their floor joists, I'd learn that a good many of the owners identify as libertarians.

A few probably have Atlas Shrugged on their bookshelves and seek a galt's gulch to live at the bottom of, not even giving a thought to the risk of flash floods, except maybe to demonstrate they walk on water.

What bullshit. It's Texas.

I've driven the length of both coasts. Nothing but libertarians in homes cantilevered over water.

It wasn't subsidized flood insurance that "incentivized" Americans to settle and establish major metropolitan cities on coasts, river deltas, and America's flood plains.

Americans are full of shit, we are, always blaming someone else for tricking us into our decisions.

You show me a libertarian who wants you to move away from the water and I'll show you a guy who will swoop in with a consortium of developers and buy that land and structures cheap to build a marina, a yacht club, or plant good bottom land crops.

Bullshit.

[Pollo de muerte]

This was not the original link that I posted, but it has some good data:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/banking/romano-flood-insurance-program-could-be-under-water-without-florida/2258408

Irma may change the ratios somewhat, but even so we are not getting a free ride down here.

[CharlesWT]

...we are not getting a free ride down here.

Which should be the case for everyone.

[Pollo de muert]

I don't mind paying my own way, but don't ask me to subsidize NY and NJ and TX. Those states have enough money to cover their own risks.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Talk about slow learners, Lindsay Graham is on a par with John Wayne Gacy, who left clown paint and his DNA on the dead fucks in his crowded crawl space, and kinda liked it.

Attempted murder in full view.

Happy birthday, pigfuckers. Blow out the candles and follow Lindsay home to be frogfucked.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12276797/what-is-cassidy-graham-plan/

If McCain goes along, then I've lost respect for the North Vietnamese who coddled him.

His tumor gets treated on my ticket. Fuck him.

Don't do this, McCain, or I'll find your stinking grave at Arlington and desecrate it. I'll dig you up.

McConnell, of course, is nothing more than Lynddie England, torturing and killing for his murderous republican paymasters, his mouth downturned righteously in fake it-hadda-be-done-undertaker glee at the expected profit margins.

[Countme-a-Demon]

We're the slow learners:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/report-trump-using-rnc-campaign-funds-russia-legal-bills

We've no idea the virulence of the Evil we've elected.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Rocket Man, stolen from Eschaton:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hARDXYz2io

Amusing, until you learn that Shatner has been flirting with the neo-Nazi alt right.

I say he is a demented snowflake. Fuck you, Kirk.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Slowly learning:

http://juanitajean.com/i-know-exactly-how-you-feel-bro/

I think just a migraine.

[Countme-a-Demon]

I'm sorry, murderer Erdogan, that your thugs weren't permitted by our misrule of law to actually kill Turkish dissidents on American streets.

I don't know what is the matter with politically correct us.

Next time, have your thugs come to St Louis and help US murder BLM and our many other domestic enemies.

Start with that guy, Countme.

Love, Donald

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/09/did-donald-trump-really-apologize-to-the-president-of-turkey/

[Countme-a-Demon]

Learn this: The republican party, in all of its guises, is a psychopathic murderer. Each of its individual members and voters, regardless of gender, race, and religious affiliation, are cold-blooded killers. They raise their children to be merchants of death.

It's duped sympathizers are like the neighbors at Bergen-Belsen, going about their business covered in human ash and calling it partly cloudy.

from John Harwood's twatting feed:

"Trump adviser (Stephen Moore) Moore on unfairness of the healthy subsidizing the sick: "people want insurance for their own families, not other peoples' "

They will destroy Medicare too. Bloodthirsty Genocide.

How is it that Stephen Moore, a mere plague-carrying tick on the heaving carcass of a dead rat, has plagued this Nation for decades, and knows nothing of how insurance operates?

For the same reason that Charles Manson knew nothing about Beatle lyrics. Because he's a perverted fucking mass murderer.

He's an economist like Adolph Eichmann was the conductor for Thomas the Tank Engine.

Every meeting at the White House and on Capitol Hill with republicans in attendance, no matter the issue, is a reenactment of the Wannsee Conference. It's a joyful gathering of Soviet wannabe state murderers designing Holodomor.

It's an epidemic of conservative principles being applied throughout the government like the motile bacillus of cholera being applied in Yemen.

Ya notice how we NEVER hear a peep from so-called conservatives anywhere, ANYWHERE, about the dreadful pain of uncertainty of their millions of victims, unlike the outcry and outpouring of sympathy for jerks who refuse to bake a fucking cake for fags, or the stinking murderous Koch Brothers having to make minor adjustments in their "business models" to accommodate Obamacare.

Years of whinging.

[Countme-a-Demon]

The learning curve:

https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-wrecking-crew-even-trying-to-loosen.html

Makes sense though because republicans liars, cheats, and thieves believe the more their paymasters are permitted to lie, cheat, and steal, and why not throw kill in there too, the sooner true corporate personhood will be achieved and their murderous God appeased.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Charles Grassley is a cold-blooded killer because he promised to be a cold-blood killer during his political campaigns:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/chuck-grassley-graham-cassidy-bill

What, you think Hitler wrote Mein Kampf and then was going to back down from Lebensraum and the Holocaust?

A promise is a promise in pigfucker America.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Remember the republican lies about the states being the laboratories of Democracy:

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/09/republicans-sincerely-committed-equal-sovereign-dignitude-states

Horseshit, like every poisonous utterance that lying republican mouths vomit.

[cleek_with_a_fake_beard]

speaking of travel, but not on that thread...

commercial airlines are for little people.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/19/tom-price-chartered-planes-flights-242908

[wj]

If you've been living in the 1% bubble long enough (and Price, among others in this administration, clearly has), I suspect that you don't even realize that Cabinet Secretaries don't travel on private "company" jets. Literally, I doubt it even entered his head to fly commercial -- even at business (or first) class. It simply isn't something that happens in his life.

A competent administrative assistant at the Department might have clued him in, of course. But by now I suspect they, like their peers in the other Cabinet Departments, have all learned that trying to tell the new boss "how things are done" is counterproductive.

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-refers-to-country-that-does-not-exist-at-un-lunch

Nambia. Maybe he was referring to where stinking racist conservative republicans think the namby-pampys live.

I thought they lived on college campuses, but I could be wrong. Maybe they have their own country now.

But that's small beer. No, it's when he referred to "his many friends who are going to Africa to try and get rich."

Pat Robertson. Maybe he has friends looking for King Kong.

I wonder if the African statesman though to themselves, better put the hookers and baksheesh takers on high alert. Or maybe, they thought here comes more white American filth to rape our countries.

If I were them I'd have marksmen stationed at all of the airports and ready for when any of rump's corrupt, murderous friends, by which I suppose he means his family and his Cabinet.

Maybe Tom Price is over there thinking he's going to find a witch doctor to serve as his aide decamp at HHS.

Apparently Obama attended the meeting and when rump saw him he ordered the Kenyan boy to press his pants and then snubbed him on the tip.

Then he sat down in front of the President of Namby Pamby and asked for shoeshine and to send up a girl to his room.

Look what you have done, America.

Look what you have done.

I hope centrifuges around the the world are working overtime to process weapons-grade uranium for nuclear missiles aimed at us in self-defense.

[Countme-a-Demon]

I doubt Price sullies his patrician hands coming in contact with his lessors in the bureaucracy, bureaucrats being subhuman in his eyes.

Of course:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/reports-trump-trade-nominee-may-have-voted-illegally

[Countme-a-Demon]

Really? Rod Dreher has it anecdotally that American teenagers are spending much of their time engaging in anal sex:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-american-teenagers-are-not-interested-in-adult-activities-like-sex-drinking-2017-09-19?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

[Countme-a-Demon]

They are faster learners than we are. We're way behind the curve:

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12438994/jeff-mateer-lgbtq/

These people will murder the LGBT community. They will murder our gay family members, our gay friends, some of whom are members of the OBWI community.

Cakes? Fuck you. That's nothing. They will kill human beings.

Here's the odd thing, but it has precursors in the Nazi Party of the 1930s thru 1945. There are gay conservatives who will help the republican party and the crypto-Christian conservative movement murder their fellow gays.

It is American right wing conservatism that is the new infection, the news AIDS epidemic.

It's not spread by the exchange of bodily fluids. The bacillus is spread by word of mouth and across the fascist airwaves and in their fascist conservative churches.

Being gay or lesbian is not a decision.

Becoming a conservative who wishes to outcast and discriminate against the gay community and the black community and the Hispanic community and anyone and everyone connected with liberalism and the sick, the poor, the uninsured and the unfortunate IS a decision.

They have meetings and media and political action committees and politicians making the decisions to discriminate and murder.

Decisions that will be avenged once and for all.

AVENGED.

[Countme-a-Demon]

The republican party, with rump as its latest malign incarnation, is now Colonel Kurtz up the river, off the grid, purposefully cut off and beyond and abandoning all human decency, all rules, all protocol, all normal behavior forsaken for savagery, marveling at its own savage, primitive strength, the strength, standing on a pile of hacked off little severed inoculated arms.

Their methods are unsound. But frankly, I don't see any method.

Will they say he was a kind man? Will they call him a wise man?

He does it for them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C672_Fkzms

We MUST be Willard.

[Countme-a-Demon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKm36o0ZUWI

What kind of filthy, disgusting culture and country raises children to grow into mad mass murderers and celebrates and elects them as perverted, murderous freedom lovers:

Here they are, the Manson family, the city fathers of Jonestown, the Mommie Dearests of our sickfuck sadistic republican society, the Nosferatus of bloodthirsty tax-cutting bloodlust, the murdering pieces of subhuman dogshit, posing for their mug shots BEFORE they commit their capital crimes.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/09/the-cynicism-behind-graham-cassidy-is-breathtaking/

[Countme-a-Demon]

https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/09/please-just-go-golfing.html

Nambia, the Narnia of bloodthirsty republican wet dreams.

Nambia? Is that where the Namby-Pambys live that filth conservatives are always going on about, for whom American conservatives unzip their cocks to signal domination over.

I thought the Namby Pambys lived on college campuses, but maybe I'm wrong.

Ignoramus aside, the telling quote was this: "I have many friends who are going to Africa to try and get rich."

The assembled African leaders, knowing their prey, quickly returned to their countries to marshal their girl and boy hookers for rump Inc's pending visit and set up offshore accounts to siphon the money back to rump and his corrupt little get family tax free.

Not caught on tape was rump extolling our previous President to the African leaders: "That Kenyan bro of yours was the best nigger shoeshine boy I've ever seen."

[Countme-a-Demon]

Both Puerto Rico and Mexico should snub all visits by rump, in the first immediate case denying landing rights to Air Force One for his pending visit.

Puerto Rico should solicit emergency aid and massive infrastructure funding transfers from Russia and China in exchange for both countries being permitted to construct Naval bases for their Atlantic warship fleets, each on opposite sides of the island.

Mexico should solicit aid from both Russia and China, but should invite North Korean and Iranian diplomats as well to offer feasibility studies for basing long range ballistic nuclear missiles all along their northern border with the United States, with special emphasis on targeting red states where the main threats to world peace and stability have taken root.

Make America Great Again.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Rump supports foreign state-sponsered terrorism on American soil:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/erdogan-supporters-attack-protesters

[Countme-a-Demon]

After the states that established Obamacare exchanges and accepted enhanced Medicaid worked their asses off to improve the lot of their uninsured populations AND the states that didn't ignored their uninsured populations with chortling sadistic glee, now the former are having their hard work and funding stolen from them to carve out special treatment for those red welfare white trash republican queen states where the murderous confederate republican bacillae reside and who just declared bloody Civil War on America:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/21/five-cassidy-graham-state-funds-flow-analyses/

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09
/21/whaaaaaatttttt/

Cold-blooded killers.

All to humiliate the nigger Obama. Yes, the republican party is a white supremacist, Jew-burning murdering disgrace.

[Countme-a-Demon]

That second link is:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/21/whaaaaaatttttt/

[Countme-a-Demon]

Rick Santorum, whose family has been known to fuck its own pet dogs and cats for pleasure, natch, never passes up a chance to lead the charge on committing genocide on human beings:

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12447567/santorum-healthcare-graham/

[Countme-a-Demon]

McCain says he won't vote for the genocide bill.

Not because the bill would commit genocide on a large segment of the American citizenry .... that's seems OK by him and his murderous republican Governor of Arizona .... but because the "process" (there are no rules, there is no process, there is no government, as we have defined it for 230 years) isn't transparent enough for him about the the genocide that would ensue.

So, the fate of tens of millions of Americans depends on a terminally 80 year old plus individual. Those tens of millions now must undergo the torturous uncertainty, kind of like whether someone will bake them a cake or not for their weddings, but I don't know, this seems worse somehow, of hoping that McCain's own government-subsidized healthcare can keep HIM alive long enough to keep THEM alive.

Meanwhile, over at the EPA, we have a guy, Scott Pruitt, who has ordered himself to be protected by, what, a dozen armed security people, some of whom were removed from their duties protecting the American citizenry from the polluting ravages of his paymasters in industry to cover his murdering ass.

He says he's been threatened.

Since his ascension, like Beelzubub's to the seat at the right hand of God, to head up the EPA, this guy has given speech after speech threatening the lives millions of Americans, and gotten rid of regulation after regulation that protects individual human beings from the overt death threats issued by private industry via the toxins they want to release into the environment, most of the time without telling us what those toxins are.

This is par for the course. In these filth's view of things, the government is there to protect their, and only their precious butts.

They learned their statecraft and security procedures from the very-well protected Kim il-Jong of North Korea, Duerte of the Philippines, Erdogan of Turkey, and Donald Putin of Russia.

Meanwhile, Vladimir rump.

The rest of us are fucked.

Manafort got Pence the Vice Presidency.

Pence: "Who dat?"

"Thou shalt lie your virgin Christian ass off."

Verse three, chapter 2, The Book of Fuckyouonomy.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Ben Carson reclaims the stupid right wing from rump, momentarily, and endorses Moore Strange over rump's choice, Merely Strange, in that Senate race in the Confederacy.

Ben Carson: With every breath he takes, proving that the races can be equal in malign insanity and ignorance.

Sarah Death Panel: Proving with every breath that women can be assholes right up there with their male counterparts.

The patients who let this affirmative action malpractice king Carson operate on their brains ought to heed the next brain recall and check to see that he actually did something more than lay hands on them and pick their pockets.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Roy Moore, whose statues (depicting him drunk with his pants down around his ankles) are already being removed, said the other day that the Nation is faced with the threat of transsexual soldiers, members (or not) of our military, running amok in our public bathrooms, although I understand they already use private bathrooms, and what's with that?

He promised that, if elected, he would order those soldiers to remove their dresses and he would redeploy them, bayonets drawn, to stand sentry and bivouac inside the vaginas of our womenfolk (he would make his rounds for periodic inspections of said vaginas on weekends, when he isn't in Washington signing death certificates for the already born he plans to murder) to protect the unborn, even if the women are not pregnant.

However, the soldiers could still wear high heels, the better to stomp around all up in there.

They may also consume Viagra while on duty.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Ah, libertarian Heaven.

http://juanitajean.com/libertarian-face-plant/

The money always goes missing ... liberated, I believe they call it ... with these people.

And we're going to send 200 billion more down the Texas rat hole. I might trust McKinney to distribute it, but not the thieves who run the state.

Jeb Henserling, speaking for God, a privilege all republican filth seem to take upon themselves, said he doesn't understand why people don't just up and move (their mortgages will follow them like a snagged sea anchor, that's why) when their homes are underwater.

There are still refugees from New Orleans, the ones who weren't gunned down crossing the bridges to escape drowning, who were kindly resettled in Houston by Houstonians, and now they are underwater AGAIN.

I agree. I would resettle all of the black refugees in Houston in Hensarling's neighborhood, where people can afford an Ark for the next deluge.

Hensarling, who is scum, but even God I'm told loves him some scum, will reply that the Bible only permits two individuals of each species to board the ark, so sure TWO blacks, and two ONLY may move into his neighborhood, but keep them on another street.

The rest will have to go with the duck billed platypusses and the kangaroos, who missed accommodation on the first Ark for reasons, having to do with bullshit, too complicated to elaborate on.

[Countme-a-Demon]

George Clooney for President:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/george-clooney-opens-up-about-why-hillary-clinton-lost-i-never-saw-her-elevate-her-game?via=newsletter&source=Weekend

A presumptive elitist, he explains on point what a crock of shit the term "elitist" is as bandied about by lying conservative elitists.

He also nails rump, the racist who employees racists, despite the fact that we're supposed to breath a sigh of relief that he won because of the economy, not racist white nationalism.

Hitler won because of the economy too, not because he promised to murder the Jews and the gays, so I guess that was understandable too, am I right?

[Countme-a-Demon]

Here's what they are afraid of:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/23/damn-i-love-the-jag-and-the-jet-and-the-mansion/

Murdering Americans is easy when there is money on the line.

It looks like the entire Republican Congress will be primaried in 2018 by professional killers hired and monied by fascist donors with lots of help from the Kremlin.

[wj]

Well that's what happens when you decide to go with a very small pool of very rich donors. You become completely dependent, with very few options.

[Countme-a-Demon]

rump this morning called in thermonuclear strikes on several NFL teams.

Half-time shows were canceled.

Puerto Rico is in his thoughts, kind of like the taco bowl he ordered after midnight last night is in his colon.

Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un of North Korea couldn't get through to the dumb American, cheating, lying assholes we permit, on principle, probably because the Kremlin likes it, to oversee our credit history and simultaneously screw us over, to either view or freeze his credit, so he's thinking about an after-the-fact nuclear strike on America.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/09/experian-transunion-equifax-free-credit-report-online-hell/

I see his point.

America, the full of shit.

The republican freedom caucus in the House of Representatives will put forward legislation tomorrow assigning the entire mission of the Social Security Administration to a private consortium consisting of Equifax, Martin Shkreli, and a guy in a bathrobe named Rohrbacher living in his mother's basement, which happens to be a dacha in the exurbs of Moscow.

Please send your Social Security numbers to the following address: P.O. Box 666, Mar-a-Fucko Savings and Loan, Barbados.

As Ben Franklin noted: "Keep it? You lot, you ignorant rabble, are going to shit all over it."

Have I mentioned that I HATE.

[wj]

President Trump seems to be running practice scenarios for dealing with North Korea using the NFL. His signature approach to interactions doesn't seem to be working. As any of us could have predicted.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/09/24/jaguars-owner-joins-players-during-anthem-protest-in-first-game-since-trumps-nfl-remarks/?utm_term=.0a53497b3bca

I'm beginning to wonder. Does he realize that, while he quite possibly could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue without losing any of his supporters, attacking football is a whole different level of unacceptable?

[Countme-a-Demon]

"Does he realize that, while he quite possibly could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue without losing any of his supporters, attacking football is a whole different level of unacceptable?"

No, the goalposts have been permanently moved just for him. As a result, America is deep into sudden death overtime.

Maybe his buddy Belacheck can deflate the football and help rump cheat and lie his way through to a second term.

Maybe Mike Leach can kiss my ass.

Maybe Tyson, Ditka, Rodman, and Bobby Knight can fellate me at gunpoint.

[JanieM]

Does he realize that, while he quite possibly could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue without losing any of his supporters, attacking football is a whole different level of unacceptable?

I'm not convinced that attacking football is a bad idea for him. Surely a lot of football fans agree with him. I hope not as many as I think, but when has any optimism been justified about him or the people who elected him?

I'm actually wondering whether we'll get through today without instances of open fistfights (or worse) in the stands. Lots of beer, lots of anger and demonization....

It's a little confusing for me. I don't give a flying banana about football in the first place, and with the CTE news getting worse and worse, and a personal contrarian need to somewhat distance myself from the New England worship of B&B (not least because of their apparent friendliness with YKW), I promised myself I'd pay even less attention than usual this year, which almost takes it into negative numbers. But I've been reading about Colin Kaepernick and finding him very impressive. And if a bunch of Seattle high school football players have this kind of courage, maybe I should pay a little attention after all.

[JanieM]

Well, maybe I have to revise my estimate of Brady. I can't find the actual Instagram exchange and am not going to keep searching.

[Countme-a-Demon]

The deplorable base, missing dozens of points IQ on account of their sub-par genes, have gene envy for rump:

https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/09/reminder-about-trumps-eugenics-beliefs.html

He just appointed a guy to a high post in the Department of Agriculture whose top resume bullet point was his stint running the cabana at a country club.

I guess the expert going to hand out towels to agricultural extension officers for tips.

I mean even Heinrich Himmler knew something about chickens, mostly how to kill them.

If Aaron Hernandez had lived, rump was ready to appoint him as Concussive Brain Injury Czar in charge of the portfolio for removing brain injuries as a preexisting condition under all healthcare insurance schemes in the United States.

That he murdered human beings was the resume bullet point rump considered first and foremost in concluding Hernandez was the man for the job.

If mental illness is not covered under health insurance, then I conclude conservative whackjobs are shit out of luck.

I am so confident knowing that cold-blooded murderers Cruz and Paul voted against the genocide bill because the dead body count was not up to their immaculate standards.

Twenty-three million without health insurance, they scoffed. Call us when you get it up to 100 million and maybe we can do business.

Twenty-three million people's lives were saved, temporarily, because two killers thought mere mobile gassing vans were an inadequate compromise with socialists. Let's wait until we get the construction of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belson completed and then do this right, they told their paymasters.

I wouldn't put out Cruz with raw sewage either if he was on fire.

I'd use gasoline.

[Nigel]

Most uplifting was his call for more brain damage:

“When the ratings are down massively, massively. The NFL ratings are down massively. Now the number one reason happens to be that they like watching what’s happening….with yours truly. They like what’s happening.

Because you know if they hit too hard…Fifteen yards! Throw him out of the game! they hd that last week. I watched for a couple of minutes. Two guys, just really, beautiful tackle. Boom, fifteen yards!

The referee gets on television, his wife is sitting at home, she’s so proud of him. They’re ruining the game! That’s what they want to do. They want to hit. They want to hit! It is hurting the game!”

[Girl from the North Country]

No, the goalposts have been permanently moved just for him. As a result, America is deep into sudden death overtime.

At this stage, I think he is just playing permanently to his base, and they probably love this. They probably think there are too many damn n*****s in the teams anyway, and the ones that are there should be grateful for the money and the fame, and shut up and do what they're told. Hell, Trump said exactly that, and I bet his people loved it.

I'm starting to really fear a race war in America.

[wj]

When it was just Kaepernick, attacking his behavior probably was a plus for Trump. But by now, you have entire teams (including, earlier this weekend, an owner) kneeling. And the owner who donated a million dollars for Trump's inauguration just ripped into him for his comments.

Now, the NBA champions declined to come to the White House. And the protests are spreading to America's past time.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/09/23/as-catcher-bruce-maxwell-makes-statement-by-kneeling-for-anthem-before-game-against-rangers/

[Countme-a-Demon]

Yeah, but Curt Schilling.

[Countme-a-Demon]

https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/09/can-you-see-whats-wrong-with-this.html

Fuck him and his wife.

[JanieM]

God these people are pigs.

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

[hairshirthedonist]

You liberals don't seem to understand the dangers of modifying rituals.

[Girl from the North Country]

When it was just Kaepernick, attacking his behavior probably was a plus for Trump.

wj, I think you underestimate the latent malignancy of his base because of your own moderation and reasonableness. I say "latent" because I don't (or don't most of the time) think they are just racist monsters, but there is that potential in his core base, and he is doing everything possible to stoke it. Despite the widespread nature of the protests you refer to, the crowds booed the Steelers when they came on, and booed plenty of the other athletes too. I don't think (although obviously I hope) that this will do him too much damage. And the latent racism, once fully roused, will be/is terribly dangerous. Maybe you think my talk of a race war is alarmist - I hope it is. But this resurgently acceptable racism meeting energised and politicised black protest looks like a very dangerous situation to me.

[Countme-a-Demon]

It's not difficult to get up a vigorous white booing section in Pittsburgh if it is black athletes kneeling. Yes, that city, my fair city, like Middletown, Ohio, my birth city, has changed for the better like the rest of the country, but it isn't difficult to get an "It's the Blahs" sotto-voiced conversation going when the subject of what's-wrong-with-everything comes up.

We're already in a race war, not to mention a race TO war with at least four countries, with China and Russia readying their nuclear arsenals for whenever and wherever rump and the murderous republican party strike first.

These are brown Americans. I predict there will be a travel ban, another feature of the race war, on them too if too many flee to the mainland.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-devastation-of-puerto-rico/

This, below, at its root, is a race war too. For rump and his base and the republican Slavery Caucus in Congress, it's a way of completely erasing the nigger's legacy and punishing HIS politically correct multi-racial, multi-ethnic base, while throwing money at red pale-faced states.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/25/monday-morning-open-thread-once-more-unto-the-breech/

That it will hurt the republican party's underemployed drug-addicted white base, who have been led to believe they are rump's base, in areas of the country republicans themselves have hollowed out industrially on behalf OF themselves AS shareholders and themselves AS recipients of billions of dollars in campaign donations from ideological cretins and Ayn Rand sadists to keep their white base offshored, underemployed, and underpaid is the unique feature of contemporary conservatism:

All of their lessers are niggers. It's equal opportunity.

Don't think I'm defending the triangulating Democratic Party either here, as we sniff out the Goldman Sachs money pot too.

[wj]

Despite the widespread nature of the protests you refer to, the crowds booed the Steelers when they came on, and booed plenty of the other athletes too.

They did. Or at least some of them did. But it may be worth asking: How many of them did?

Certainly the racists (and others) feel emboldened, thanks to Trump. And they gave vent to their feelings. But in a crowd where, for example, half** have been Trump supporters, if 10% boo it's noticeable . . . but a far cry from total support.

Also, I suspect that the reaction will moderate over time. Trump will move on to some other passing twitter subject, and his followers will move, too.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, in time, Colin Kaepernick ends up playing again. The owners were unwilling to hire him when it was just (or principally) him. But now? A player kneeling is about as novel as getting wet in the rain. And he's good enough that there are teams which could use his talents.

** I pick a number totally at random. I actually have no clue what portion of pro football fans are Trump supporters. Nor any other sport, for that matter.

And no doubt it varies by location as well. When one of the Oakland A's baseball players took a knee this weekend, there were a few of boos, and one guy yelling "stand up!" But you could distinguish that one guy precisely because it was only one guy.

[JanieM]

I'm halfway through Sherman Alexie's memoir, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me. It's painful and beautiful and relentless and honest (to the extent that one can judge that based on words on a page from a stranger).

Pertinent to the present topic, he tells about how he got his parents' permission to leave "the rez" and go to high school in a nearby town. He was the first Indian in that school. He did well academically, athletically, artistically...had a white girlfriend for several years...

Then he observes that that county voted 70% or so for Trump, and he goes into a meditation about the times when, as a kid, he was subject to overt racism. There was far more kindness than hatred, he writes, but the bad times were:

...when certain white folks feared I was taking something away from them.

[snip]

So, in the context of the 2016 presidential election, does any of this sound familiar?

[snip]

And those white folks elected him because they believe they are victims. Yes, I am a Spokane Indian--an indigenous American--who grew up with white folks who think this country is being stolen from them.

Hahahahahaahahahahaahahahaahahahaha.

I haven't seen a better, pithier summary of what's going on in this country than the page where that passage came from.

Like GftNC, I'm worried, though I'm not sure an overt shooting war is where it's likely to end up. And hey, it looks like I was wrong in my expectation of fights in the stands at football stadiums yesterday.

[wj]

wj, I think you underestimate the latent malignancy of his base

GftNC, I think maybe where we diverge is not the malignancy of his base, but the size of his real base. I ran across something recently that may be relevant.

During the mid-1950s, Senator Joe McCarthy was chair of the House Unamerican Activities Committee. He was holding hearings, and finding communists anywhere and everywhere -- and ruining a lot of lives in the process. The country was pretty hysterical on the subject.

But then, he turned his attention to the US Army. The "Army-McCarthy" hearings are a textbook example of how going too far can blow up in your face. The US Army came out just fine; McCarthy never recovered.

I don't know if this particular dust-up will be Trump's equivalent. But I have no doubt it will come. And when it does, I suspect Trump's real base will turn out to be rather smaller than you (or he) expect.

[Marty]

There will be no fights in the stands to speak of.

First attendance is down units of stadiums having nothing to do with the protests. Second, most people see the whole discussion as a distraction to the enjoyment of the game and, third, the people who object to the protests will, in increasing numbers, just not be there.

I won't be, I won't pay to watch a game on tv and I won't buy any piece of paraphenalia that might enrich any player or owner.

I do think it is wrong to disrespect this country, but then I don't watch awards shows Emmys, Oscars anymore either. Or late night tv, Except Fallon sometimes if he can avoid being an add like the rest.

All of these things are paid entertainment that simply aren't entertaining anymore.

So I won't pay.

I wouldn't worry about a shooting war, Colin Kaepernick ain't picking up a gun. I'm pretty sure Colbert ain't picking up a gun. They are grandstanders that like attention, despite the fact that they accentuate and reinforce every divisive thing in our society. They are just the Trump mirror, not the solution.

[hairshirthedonist]

The anti-fascists are the real fascists. The anti-racists are the real racists. Or, at the very least, they're no better than the fascists and racists. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The fact that we have a babbling man-toddler as president isn't the larger problem. The lack of equity in our criminal justice system isn't the larger problem. It's equally people kneeling or locking arms or staying in the locker room during the national anthem (a funny history, that song has). It's equally comedians making fun of the man-toddler president.

The scales must remain in balance.

[Girl from the North Country]

Marty, just for clarity's sake, are you saying that you will be boycotting the games and the merchandise etc because of disrespect to the country/flag, or because they are no longer entertaining? Or both?

What do you say to the proposition that one of the things that disrespects the flag most is the confederate flag?

[Countme-a-Demon]

I simply cannot watch Chaplin's "Little Dictator" anymore.

It was so off the mark, for a mirror.

And THIS guy, such a distracting grandstander for the Kremlin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uhbUuEL-0k

Nothing entertaining about this, on reflection:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdQ9jh5GvQ8

[Countme-a-Demon]

Show off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4iPLutlYeY

Ingrate:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/race/how-america-snubbed-jesse-owens/

[Marty]

GftNC,

The confederate flag thing is just a stupid talking point. I live in a. neighborhood where every fourth hlus flus a Portuguese flag, French flags fly all over certain parts of the country. I was born in the south, I have a cultural history that slavery is only one part of.

I think the protests are inappropriate. The country and its basic values, which the flag and the anthem represent, is what enables progress. It's the wrong thing to protest.

So I don't care about some guys kneeling, at all, I would completely ignore them because, well, I'm there to watch a football game. Its entertainment. And now its not. I used to love the awarfs shows, good acts, a little comedy, heartfelt reactions from the winners and now its not.

So I don't watch nor pay when I can specifically not pay.

And no, Trump is not the source of this problem, Ferguson st am happened before he was President. So making him the problem is ridiculous.

Want to talk about the criminal justice system? Cool, not being addressed on your knee. The only person I have any sympathy for is Kaepernick, he doesn't make a million dollars a month anymore, sucks for him.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Rick Lowry explains how rump's grandstanding is so gut-level understandable to the gutless:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trumps-nfl-bashing-is-why-hes-president-2017-09-25?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

"And no, Trump is not the source of this problem, Ferguson st am happened before he was President."

"I have a cultural history that slavery is only one part of."

All of us do.

I can deplore that part AND sit down and enjoy biscuits and gravy.

And I'll bet the fact that he wasn't President when it happened and couldn't tweetsquirt some lighter fluid onto the fire from the White House sticks in his craw.

Entertainment and politics mixing. Someone tell Limbaugh and Alex Jones about this entirely new phenomenon.

[bobbyp]

More on Kapernick's contract here and here.

Financially, he's not hurting, but the fact that a guy with his talent is not playing is, well, telling. He is being whiteballed.

Protest is what got us here, cf, American Revolution, abolitionist movement, underground railroad, Civil War, labor unrest 1860's - 1930's, women's sufferage movement, civil rights, gay movement, etc. It's all well and good to believe that protest is "inappropriate", but that generally doesn't go down to well with the oppressed, because your message to them is essentially, "Sucks to be you."

[Pro Bono]

The US national anthem described the country as "the land of the free" when over a million of its people were slaves - approaching a fifth of the total population.

How does that represent progress? Why is it inappropriate for the descendants of those slaves not always to join in with the rest of the country's primitive worship of the song and the history it describes?

[Countme-a-Demon]

I go to a baseball game to watch baseball.

I don't go there to sing my protest while standing with hat off regarding my grievances with the British Crown.

And now during the seventh inning stretch, I'm made to stand and think, via the entertainment of "America The Beautiful" about my grievances with al Qaeda.

But I indulge it.

Play ball!

[Countme-a-Demon]

"Want to talk about the criminal justice system? Cool, not being addressed on your knee."

Well, it was addressed in the other direction in an election wherein a racist was appointed to lead the criminal justice system, as you acknowledged in your way when Sessions was appointed: "Sessions is not a good choice"

That some are mildly going down on one knee, and thus far leaving it at that, seems like a fucking lucky break for America and its criminal injustice system.

[Girl from the North Country]

So I don't care about some guys kneeling, at all, I would completely ignore them because, well, I'm there to watch a football game. Its entertainment. And now its not.

Sorry, Marty, but I'm still confused. If you don't care about some guys kneeling, and would ignore them because you're there to watch a football game, why is it now not entertainment? I don't understand.

And about the confederate flag v US flag question, surely French or Portugese flags are irrelevant? As far as I know, neither country staged a rebellion against the US and fought a war with it (based on a refusal to free their slaves). Or am I wrong?

[hairshirthedonist]

I'm pretty sure the French were a big help against that mean, old George III. I think I read that somewhere.

At the Jersey Shore, there seems to be a competition between people flying Irish flags and people flying Italian flags. I'm not sure why it seems to be particularly a shore thing, but it does, and I'd educatedly guess most of the people flying those flags are super pissed at the people kneeling during the anthem. It's all very confusing, no?

I share in GftNC's confusion over Marty's stance. The anthem's over before the game starts, so what's it got to do with the entertainment value of the game?

[hairshirthedonist]

Why is it inappropriate for the descendants of those slaves not always to join in with the rest of the country's primitive worship of the song and the history it describes?

I don't get that, either. People get very picky about the methods by which other people protest, even if they aren't blocking traffic or disrupting any other efforts. It's as though the way to protest, at least if you don't agree with the protesters, is to do something no one will notice at all.

The psychic disturbance of non-participation in a ritual is so beyond the pale.

[Marty]

The kneeling was not a problem, the two hour discussion of the kneeling is. The arguing over whether they should be "allowed" to kneel is worse(these are grown men breaking no laws), Trumps attack made it even worse, the reaction to that was even more stupid.

Worst of all, I'm not sure how many peep actually understand what is being protested. As for protesting where no will care, the Boston Tea Partiers didn't shut down the Saturday night dance, they through tea in the harbor. Want to protest the just e system, picket the courthouse.

[Countme-a-Demon]

When Rosa Parks moved to the front of the bus, some folks for whom keeping her at the back of the bus was only part of their culture said "Hey, we're trying to ride a bus here! This here is about getting my keester from Point A to Point B on a bus system, not about your rights, lady!"

Just so rump and his dupes: "This is not about free speech."

Which bookends with:

"It's not the right time to talk about climate change."

"This is not the right time to talk about curtailing the ownership of weapons or war in the hands of civilians and letting them carry them in public places."

However, it always seems time for conservatives at the dinner table, or anytime, anywhere to talk about cutting their tax cuts.

Shut up and pass me the corn. Just for once.

And don't ever fucking shush me again, rumpsters.

[Countme-a-Demon]

"As for protesting where no will care, the Boston Tea Partiers didn't shut down the Saturday night dance, they through tea in the harbor."

It's a well-known fact that the fiddle player for the Saturday night dance was dressed like an Iroquois squaw and war-whooping as he tossed the tea overboard. The owners of the tea and plenty of tea-drinkers in Boston found the behavior inappropriate and not a bit funny.

The dance was canceled. By American Puritans, who hated dancing too.

[Girl from the North Country]

It seems to me (and I think is one of the first rules of modern protest - the Boston Tea Partiers did not have 24 hour news) that you protest wherever will get the most publicity for your cause, and will stimulate the most discussion, in the hope that this will eventually lead to change. If you can cause discomfort to the enemies of your cause, so much the better, particularly if it drives them to say things which reveal, for all to see, the revolting attitudes at the heart of their beliefs. Looked at in this context, and since I think most people do understand what is being protested, these protests seem pretty reasonable.

[Countme-a-Demon]

What you don't know in America can be the oath to success and riches:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/doing-this-in-college-will-make-you-dumber-and-richer-2017-09-22?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

[hairshirthedonist]

Marty, it sounds like, based on your comment Posted by: Marty | September 25, 2017 at 02:46 PM, that you have a preference for a more targeted method of protest rather than a serious objection to what they're doing, and that you would advise them (assuming it's not just concern trolling) to do something you think is more effective.

I still don't get what it has to do with entertainment value.

[hairshirthedonist]

My fraternity membership just made me dumber. Oh, well...

[wj]

The kneeling was not a problem, the two hour discussion of the kneeling is.

So what you're saying is, the real problem is that the folks doing the pre-game TV shows are spending too much time talking about the protest? Because, as far as I can tell, the players simply took their knee (or linked arms with those doing so), and then went on with doing their jobs and playing the game. At most, they answered questions put to them later on the subject.

But it's not like the players were interrupting the game to wave signs, chant slogans, etc. They just made a brief symbolic gesture and let it go at that.

So the guys you are actually unhappy with are the sports commentators. Got it.

[wj]

The owners of the tea and plenty of tea-drinkers in Boston found the behavior inappropriate and not a bit funny.

One of my favorite (probably apocryphal; I think from a Disney show in the 1950s actually), had a scene of the wife of one of the Boston Tea Party participants, afterwards, opening the seams of this outfit to collect the tea which had ended up there during the course of the party. Because she loved her tea.

[Marty]

wj, yes and no. and hsh,

I can dislike three things, I'm not thrilled about the protest itself, wrong target.

I'm really irritated at the NFL reaction and the broadcasters for tiresomely discussing it and,

All that said, for what? It has no chance of accomplishing anything positive.

[bob mcmanus]

Ineffective Symbolism seems to be all liberals, Democrats, and even the black contingent of Democrats have right now. Obama, Clinton, pink pussyhats, kneeling will breed nothing but contempt i9n our adversaries.

You have to hurt them, cost them money. "Face" means nothing to Trump or NFL owners or cops...their true face is already out there, or at least the image they want to project.

When was the last time we had a serious urban riot like Watts or Detroit? I don't want to hear "well it didn't work." Rationality and consequences aren't the point...expressed rage is the point.

And why not? Is interesting.

[wj]

"Face" means nothing to Trump or NFL owners or cops...their true face is already out there, or at least the image they want to project.

Um, Bob, you did notice, didn't you, that the NFL owners** have pretty much all come out in support of their players on this. A couple of them even came out on the field during the national anthem and linked arms with their players. Maybe your ideology believes that it shouldn't have happened that way. But the fact is, it did.

** And, in a couple of cases, there were cops out there linking arms, too. Just FYI.

[Countme-a-Demon]

I remember when all we talked about was Janet Jackson's wardrobe function.

Let's see that one more time.

The news is a commodity. It's a business.

Therein lies the problem. I didn't tell anyone to make journalism a shiny entertainment object.

News is now entertainment and entertainment is fighting back by bringing us the news.

Like Amazon, let's be all things to all people. Gotta grow, baby.

Gotta say, though, I liked it when Johnny Carson worked Vietnam and Civil Rights into his monologue.

The producers and advertisers who sponsor the sports shows are the ones who think we would be entertained by the kneeling protests.

"Do we have naked girls tonight, fellers?"

"Not tonight, chief."

"Maybe the animal mascot will take an errant dump at the 50-yard line during the pregame."

"Well, but we have some players who are kneeling and rump is shooting his mouth off about it."

"OK. Get me in close with that on cameras three and four and we'll lead with it. Pull up the President's asshole Twitter feed in split screen and ...... go!"

Network vice president with his football ratings on the line, overheard in the green room: "You know, if this keeps up, the only thing that will save our bottom line is if ISIS attacks the kicker by drone on three and game."

[Countme-a-Demon]

"It has no chance of accomplishing anything positive."

This I might agree with.

I don't want to find out those kneeling players didn't vote last November.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Ain't no kneeling gonna stop this lot:

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12465124/neil-gorsuch-mitch-mcconnell/

The only kneeling they wanna see is in obeisance to them.

[bob mcmanus]

Um, Bob, you did notice, didn't you...

So what?

Face doesn't mean anything, which means symbolic or verbal displays can go either way.
Trump could verbally support Kaepernik and I wouldn't be impressed. It has to cost to matter. Direct action matters.

I'll start getting interested when players and owners refuse to play. Cops kill black, that city gets no NFL.

And I think I told you, I don't listen to the English language anymore (ok, old music) so don't watch tv and don't keep up enough with the spectacle of the day/week. Just what I skim at Slate Vox etc.

[russell]

All that said, for what? It has no chance of accomplishing anything positive.

everybody's talking about it. mission accomplished.

in any case, i'm still trying to get my head around the idea of rebuilding a house 22 times for $1.8M.

just another way that TX ain't MA.

[Pro Bono]

It has no chance of accomplishing anything positive.

It will accomplish something if it brings home to people like you (I mean that as a relative compliment) that there are a lot of people in the USA for whom the words of the national anthem do not make comfortable listening.

[CharlesWT]

The French revolutionaries wanted to turn society and country upside down and change everything.

The American revolutionaries were more like, "Go away and leave us alone so we can continue doing what we've been doing all these many decades."