14 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread”

1. King Arthur: Old woman!

   Dennis: Man.

   King Arthur: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?

   Dennis: I'm 37.

   King Arthur: What?

   Dennis: I'm 37. I'm not old.

   King Arthur: Well I can't just call you "man".

   Dennis: Well you could say "Dennis".

   King Arthur: I didn't know you were called Dennis.

   Dennis: Well you didn't bother to find out, did you?

   King Arthur: I did say sorry about the "old woman", but from behind you looked…

   Dennis: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior.

   King Arthur: Well, I am king.

   Dennis: Oh, king eh? Very nice. And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever gonna be any progress…

   Peasant Woman: Dennis! There's some lovely filth down here… Oh! How do you do?

   [Dennis joins the Peasant Woman in the nearby filth patch]

   King Arthur: How do you do, good lady? I am Arthur, king of the Britons. Whose castle is that?

   Peasant Woman: King of the who?

   King Arthur: The Britons.

   Peasant Woman: Who're the "Britons"?

   King Arthur: Well, we all are. We're all Britons, and I am your king.

   Peasant Woman: Didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.

   Dennis: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy, in which the working classes…

   Peasant Woman: Oh, there you go, bringing class into it again.

   Dennis: Well, that's what it's all about! If only people would–

   King Arthur: Please, please, good people, I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?

   Peasant Woman: No one lives there.

   King Arthur: Then who is your lord?

   Peasant Woman: We don't have a lord.

   King Arthur: What?

   Dennis: I told you, we're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as sort of executive officer for the week…

   King Arthur: Yes…

   Dennis: …but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting…

   King Arthur: Yes I see…

   Dennis: …by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs…

   King Arthur: Be quiet!

   Dennis: …but by a two thirds majority in the case of more…

   King Arthur: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!

   Peasant Woman: "Order", eh? Who does he think he is?

   King Arthur: I am your king.

   Peasant Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.

   King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.

   Peasant Woman: Well, how'd you become king, then?

   [An angelic choir begins…]

   King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [singing stops] That is why I am your king.

   Dennis: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

   Arthur: Be quiet!

   Dennis: You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

   Arthur: Shut up!

   Dennis: I mean, if I went around saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

   Arthur: [grabs Dennis] Shut up! Will you shut up?!

   Dennis: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!

   Arthur: [shakes Dennis] Shut up!

   Dennis: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!

   Arthur: Bloody Peasant!

   Dennis: Ooh, what a giveaway! Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about! Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?

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   1. Thank you….😄

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   2. It is impolitic to say, but the term "moistened bint" is sorely underutilized.

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      1. Right?!

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         1. That's too good not to be PoddyMouth's next pseudoname!

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2. Apparently, the polls that matter have been released, and the evening entertainment on September 13 will not be preempted.  VICE says

   the next Democratic presidential primary debate in Houston on Sept. 12 will be capped to one night with ten candidates.

   Steyer got to 2% in three qualifying polls, not the four set as the standard.

   Bennet's response, according to US News:

   Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado also fell far short.

   In a memo, Bennet's campaign lamented rules that have "created a reality show with unending coverage on process rather than substance."

    

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   1. No one gives a crap about substance. Other than some persnickety people.
      The eventual nominee will move towards the center and then Congress will start the sausage-making process.

      It is all about winning.

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      1. Nah.
         Substance is crucial and wins elections and votes.

         Remember Senator Miles? All content all the time. That guy was great.
         Oh- and President Dukakis? Or President Gore? Smart guys contenting all over the place.
          

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3. Mattis: “we’re better than our current politics”

   “Nations with allies thrive, and those without them wither,” he wrote. “Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy.

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   1. Well, nothing but respect for the guy's active service and career.
      But he's wrong  – we are not better than our current politics.

      But we have been and can be again.

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4. Never-Trumper Peter Wehner reflecting on the state of the Republican Party:

   …what exactly might Mr. Walsh’s appeal to Trump voters be? If they want to support a provocateur who makes racially incendiary comments, they already have their man in the Oval Office.

   One thing Mr. Walsh does have that the president does not is the ability to apologize. Whether one believes his apology is sincere or an affectation, the product of genuine remorse or opportunism, an exchange on Monday between Mr. Walsh and MSNBC’s John Heilemann is worth watching: Mr. Walsh speaks candidly about how his differences with various people over policies led him to say things that were, as he put it, “horrible.”

   In that sense, Mr. Walsh is a cautionary tale. We live in a time of acute bitterness and acrimony, where people’s first (and second and third) impulse is to brutalize, insult, embarrass and demean those who hold different views. The purpose of language, as they see it, isn’t to clarify or enlighten or reason together. It is to inflict the maximum pain possible on other human beings.

   Joe Walsh has done that over the course of his political career. So has Donald Trump. They are cut from the same rancid cloth. That they personify the Republican Party today is still, for some of us at least, a source of shock and shame.

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5. This may just be a bridge too far even for Senate Republicans 

   https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/459190-trump-officials-say-children-of-us-service-members-overseas-will-not

   The sentence continues “get automatic citizenship.”

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6. Trump is having a bad news day:

   A new Quinnipiac University poll has plenty of bad news for Trump — from his 2020 matchups with Democrats, to his own personal image, to his biggest asset in the 2020 race: the economy.

   The poll shows him trailing all five Democrats tested by between nine and 16 points. He trails Joe Biden 54 to 38, Bernie Sanders 53 to 39, Elizabeth Warren 52 to 40, Kamala D. Harris 51 to 40 and Pete Buttigieg 49 to 40. These represent his biggest deficits to date against all five candidates, according to RealClearPolitics’s compilation of polls.

   The poll also shows his approval/disapproval declining to 38/56, with just 27 percent approving of him strongly and 50 percent disapproving strongly. That’s the worst those splits have been in Quinnipiac polling since February 2018.

   Yes, it’s still about the economy, Stupid!

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7. Republicans (including Trump) are sweating the Congressional special election in North Carolina.

   At a retreat with top GOP donors in Wyoming last week, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy broached a growing concern for senior Republicans: a crucial, do-over election for a North Carolina congressional seat.

   “This race is about Donald Trump,” said Jim Blaine, a senior adviser to Bishop's campaign. “Dan's embraced Trump 100 percent.”

   The election is serving as a testing ground for Trump’s 2020 message and strategy. Bishop has worked to nationalize the race, labeling McCready a “socialist”

   he Republican National Committee jumped into the district earlier this month, aiding Bishop’s campaign with get-out-the-vote strategies they plan to deploy in 2020 for Trump. The RNC has spent $1.5 million across the state to date, including spending for another special election on Sept. 10 in solidly Republican territory.

   Collectively, the National Republican Campaign Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to McCarthy, have pumped roughly $4 million into the race. And the conservative Club for Growth has spent more than $500,000 backing Bishop.

   But so far, that may not be enough:

    …it also underscores concern about early-vote totals, which show the GOP falling behind. Through Monday, 54 percent of early votes in the district had been cast by Democratic voters, compared to 41 percent by Republicans. At the same point before the 2018 election, Republicans had a 46 percent to 42 percent lead over Democrats.

   Trump is scheduled to swoop in Sept 9th for a campaign rally the night before the final day of voting.  I'm sure he'll brag about the "millions" of supporters that showed up.

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