The Frankish Reich

Exactly. This is what I’ve been trying to explain to the lowbrow Trumpies here.

https://www.ft.com/content/a0a4fb08-40cc-4627-a58f-b3a8d2d0e009?accessToken=zwAGH1UwRNrgkdOgpPsIQMxGJ9Olj7Oo0tDgCQ.MEYCIQChxhfA2SBamOb_Y_c0vQwPJmzXo0fHfucpW2v_dBGr2gIhANMcXEtBzZqY7R0Z9RkAZMkEoGMSy5P49MRnprFYWvAH&sharetype=gift&token=75895b79-b6c8-4e1f-a3ab-dc4d87161131 Some insight from, of all places, the Financial Times (London). The 2011 riots started exactly this week, on August 6, after police in Tottenham killed a Black man, Mark Duggan. Most rioters are male — indeed, riots are an assertion of masculinity. And riots both require and build group identity. People tend to riot with people they feel connected to. Those ties can pre-exist in real life, as in a small town like Southport. Or they can be forged online, then deepen during a riot, when a rioter’s personal identity merges with the group identity. Transgressing social norms with other people creates a particular bond. That happened at the January 6 riots in Washington. Heather Tsavaris, a former senior terrorism analyst in the US State Department, studied livestream footage filmed in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt hotel, where rioters gathered after the violence. She noted “a palpable sense of community, connection, and belonging . . . These people had come to be together with others who were like them. They chatted about where they had flown in from, how they were thrilled to be meeting other ‘patriots’, what this event meant to them.” Riots make rioters feel less lonely. That sense of connection may have been particularly welcome in early 2021, after months of Covid-19 lockdowns. The ‘riffraff’ and ‘rational actor’ theories are constant, but who espouses them depends on the nature of the riot Forging group identities requires what sociologists call an “Other” — an enemy who helps define your own group. That enemy can be Muslims, as now, or Jews, as in past pogroms. In some riots, the “Other” is the police. When people argue about the aims of riots, there are typically two rival theories, which are doing battle again this time. One theory is that rioters are mindless “riffraff” who must be punished. The other is that they are rational actors with grievances that must be addressed. The “riffraff” and “rational actor” theories are constant, but who espouses them depends on the nature of the riot. In 2011, when many British rioters were poor non-white people, conservatives called them riffraff while the left defended them. Now that white rioters are attacking Muslims, the roles of prosecutor and defender are reversed. Ian Dunt, author of How to Be a Liberal, is propounding the riffraff theory: “It’s not about immigration, or integration, or Islam. It’s about a bunch of violent thugs blaming Muslims for a terrible crime, being instantly disproved, and then continuing with their bull#### anyway.” Meanwhile, rightwing academic Matthew Goodwin rationalises the riots: “What this is about, is that people don’t feel safe in their own country.” The rational-actor theory of riots has gradually surpassed the riffraff theory among social scientists, especially after the 1960s black inner-city American riots, when many liberals sympathised with the rioters, notes criminologist Tim Newburn of the London School of Economics. But he adds that the rational-actor theory omits something: “Not all riots are focused, or not primarily focused, on some desire to bring about social or political change.” Quite simply: rioting can be joyous. Take the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969. They had a rational justification: LBGTQ people were fighting police harassment. Yet there was more to it. Decades later, Stonewall veteran Martin Boyce, speaking on the podcast Making Gay History, described the scene at dawn after the riots: “I saw this queen who was exhausted, bruised a little, I believe, and couldn’t go on any more, was just on a stoop, exhausted but at peace, because near her was a cop who was also exhausted, that made no attempt to bother her. The riot was really over. Still, the street was glistening. It was one of the most beautiful things I ever saw. The whole street just like diamonds, but in reality it was broken glass, the smell of the smoke of burning garbage cans was there, all those smells that a riot make[s], even a certain kind of sweat. It was ugly and beautiful.” Sympathisers are now interpreting the British riots as political speech, a violent version of, say, American civil rights marches. But the alternative reading (not entirely mutually exclusive) is that rioters riot because rioting is fun. In that case, the parallel to today’s rioters can be found outside politics — in British football hooliganism.

Coming to a city near you. If you live in Trump Country. Jesus, intoxicants, and Trump. Starting in April in Gonzales, La., and stopping in six other midsize Southern cities through late July, Rock the Country offered a vision of the MAGA movement in pure party mode. The shows felt like Trump rallies without the former president, unburdened by policy talk, speeches from lesser-known G.O.P. players, and the buzz-kill tendencies of Mr. Trump himself, who tends to noodle at the lectern like a jam-band soloist. What remained was a snapshot of a maturing American subculture, with unwritten conventions rivaling those of Deadheads or Swifties, and a dizzying mash-up of hedonism and piety, angry rebellion and beer-guzzling pursuit of happiness. The conservative movement once proudly defined itself in opposition to the recreational drug use of the leftist counterculture. At Rock the Country, a cannabis tent did a brisk business in prerolled joints and Delta-9 space pops. Another company sold gummies containing a “proprietary mushroom and nootropics” blend, the packaging said, for a “mind-bending experience.” Bud Light was the conspicuous sponsor of a two-story outdoor bar. A lighting rig facing the stage had been designed, an organizer told the crowd, to resemble a cross, a reminder that “the true hope for the United States is Jesus Christ.”

Exactly. That's what I pointed out when people first started posting this tracking thing.

You'll get your cheap gas and bread after all. Be careful what you wish for, anyone?

You made me look to see who the OP is here. And yeah, you kind of have a point ...

Because tips are taxable income in the tax code. Congress would have to change that. You might as well ask why Mike Johnson's House hasn't approved a bill to make that change. By the way, it's horrible policy, whether it's coming from Trump or Harris.

Sometimes they are! If done right. It’s called parody. Satire. A joke.

PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. You are a loser.

Point 2: "Confidential Memorandum" dated August 10. It is August 10. Somehow an old North Carolina curmudgeon who lives on a football fan forum was on the Confidential distribution list.

Of course I watched it. The first one posted here starts with Trump saying "do we have a doctor." But turnabout is fair play. The RNC pulled it with Biden.

So that's it. Election fraud. I thought the idea was that the Dems watch the early returns and then manufacture fake votes to catch up. Do they do that with polls too? The denial is pathological.

Thanks. I tuned in late.

OK, so a loss. Did it look relatively minor?

The slow on the uptake thing here is troubling. OF COURSE it was editing to make it look like Trump froze. And of course many of the Biden wandering around clips were editing to make it look like he was literally lost. And "many people are saying" is the favorite line of one particular candidate who wants to say something without saying it.

1. Did anyone who is likely to play in Week 1 get hurt? 2. Did McD get a good look at some marginal players fighting for a roster spot? If No and Yes respectively, I count this as a win.

I don't know, but many people are saying that.

Look who gets to play the Cheap Fakes game now!

Sorry. Forgot about you over/under bet on Bills/Challenges/Won-Lost

Yeah, I think it's safe to assume that any loser (me) still watching the 4th quarter of a preseason blowout game is pretty familiar with the Damar Hamlin story.

Nothing like getting that challenge flag protocol ironed out in the 4th quarter of the first preseason game.

Yeah!

I am waiting for the I AM SO DONE WITH THIS TEAM post.

Son of Steve Buechele, ruiner of my 1991 MLB fantasy team. Not that I hold a grudge or anything.

^^^Doesn't get it