The Frankish Reich

And in retrospect, what a deal we got! Herbert: the Rams have owned the LA market since the Chargers moved north. But the fate of the franchises is about to change. Fans like exciting QBs! This year it'll be Herbert vs. the carcass of Stafford, with a healthy serving of Stetson Bennett or Brett Rypien ...

Since "The Great Awakening" is a term right out of QAnon, I don't think I'm taking any risk of mischaracterizing it.

Or maybe they were refusing the QAnon-ade of "the great awakening." (That's what the linked video is)

Then go ahead and impeach him! It's not like anyone is stopping Kevin McCarthy from proceeding. Unless, of course, at least some of the members of his slim Republican majority don't want to go that route. That sounds like a Republican/McCarthy problem, not some kind of Democratic conspiracy ...

Every single time that Trump's claims of massive voter fraud have been scrutinized, they've collapsed. Every. Single. Time. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/26/politics/rudy-giuliani-georgia-election-workers/index.html Rudy does not contest that he made false statements about these election workers. Every court case the Trump campaign and its surrogates filed. The preposterous "Cyber Ninjas" audit of Arizona, funded by the Arizona Republican government, found that Biden's edge was actually a bit larger than what the official count showed. Remember Trump on CNN? "We have videos of people dropping off multiple ballots at 28 different locations." Where's that video? It doesn't exist. He continues to lie, lie, lie about this. At this point I can't tell if the people who still claim to believe him are just plain stupid or just plain dishonest. There's really no third alternative. That's why we're seeing a not-so-subtle shift from "there was widespread voter fraud" and "the election machines were manipulated" to "but they hid Hunter's laptop from us."

Two years ago = Summer 2021, still in the middle of the COVID worldwide economic slump. So not a good comparison. If you want to do a fair comparison, look at the economic picture in Summer 2019 vs. Summer 2023. You'll find plenty of fodder there, but you'll also find some very positive economic numbers too.

The campaign staffer mentioned as the person Trump showed a classified map to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susie_Wiles The daughter of former NFL guy Pat Summerall. What on earth is he doing showing (or even having) classified maps to campaign people?

"Doc" bringing the diagnostic skills.

I at first read this as a kind of self-parody, calling out "conspiracy" because a former White House chef drowned. A chef. Where's that Chef Jim guy? Did he change his name? Has he gone paddle boarding lately? But then I realized: if there isn't a conspiracy theory about it yet, there will be one next week.

Trump coming on strong in the rambling, addled old man derby. Iowa voter asks trump about a carbon dioxide sequestration pipeline. He's obviously never heard of such a thing and has zero idea what she's talking about, but that ain't gonna stop him from assuring the voter that he has a solution! Fox (!) alum (from back when Gutfeld was actually kind of funny) TV's Andy Levy summarized it nicely: “This is when you’re in school and the teacher assigns you a 500-word essay and so you just spend like 300 words bullshitting because you have no idea. ‘In this essay, I will’,” jokes co-host Andy Levy. “You just start throwing words in like solely to get the word count up. And that’s exactly what he’s doing. He does not have a clue what she’s [the voter is] talking about.” He has the best words! All 4 of them. And he's going to use them over and over and over again in every possible combination, signifying nothing. But he's a genius!

You assume that they will. That is, keep nominating Trump or one of his supporters. The Democrats did not "keep nominating Mondale" or someone like him after getting their butts kicked in 1984. The problem is that our political parties need to take a good old fashioned butt whipping in order to be dragged into fundamental change. The Trump model is unsustainable because, as we're seeing now, it is very much based on a cult of personality. It is difficult to find a policy core there. That's what DeSantis is learning now - he's trying to outflank Trump on the right on the culture war stuff, and it's not working. Sooner or later ideas do matter. So I choose to be an optimist.

I think that's right. The common theme was how their family lives were completely integrated into their professional/football lives. But Mahomes and Cousins are pretty unassuming guys off the field too. I thought Mariota was going to be the real deal. Maybe the difference is Mahomes (and to a lesser extent Cousins) become different guys when they are on the field on game day.

Here's the problem with the whole curriculum standards debate. DeSantis had a point. The left (as we understand it) believes that there is no such thing as a "neutral" curriculum. By emphasizing certain points and deemphasizing others, a textbook or a syllabus necessarily has a political point of view. The left thought standard curricula emphasized the "Great American Experiment" type of cheerleading for America at the expense of downplaying or ignoring the horrific abuses in our history and the role of non-white men in America. The 1619 Project was very open about this being the point. The DeSantis Republicans thought the new emphasis (which has, before and after 1619, been brought into middle school and high school learning plans) was too political. They ostensibly sought a rebalancing. But they no longer argued for a neutral approach. They essentially accepted the left's viewpoint, that there is no such thing as a neutral approach. In other words, to defeat critical race theorists, they had to become critical race theorists, but from the other side. American history curricula should therefore be aimed at, above all else, presenting the arc of American history in a triumphant manner. And sometimes that means downplaying the bad to emphasize the good. Hence we get things like, "the institution of slavery was abusive, but we eventually eliminated it, and indeed some slaves benefited from the skills they learned while enslaved." To me, and to many other people, that's jarring. And yes: stupid. There is a way to tell the story of how an entire race of people did not allow themselves to be defeated forever, that they threw off their shackles, and demanded to be respected as full Americans. This is not that way. This is a failed attempt at switching the balance. It is a ratification of the idea that there is no such thing as neutral history, and that it is the job of educators to choose a perspective, in this case a "conservative" pro-America perspective. I'm not ready to give up on a non-politically loaded curriculum. DeSantis and his ilk are.

Yes.

It's called party discipline. And it is easier to maintain that when you don't have MTG and Boebert on your side of the aisle. Do the Dems have their nutcases too? Of course. But Nancy never let them bring their idiocy to floor votes.

The pro-Trump talking points are getting a bit convoluted. Doesn't this amount to "there would have been no war in Ukraine if Trump was still President because Trump would have capitulated to Putin's threatened aggression."

keep defending groomers

How dare they make Ken into some kind of gay icon! Up till now he's lived for over 60 years as an honorable straight, platonic, post-gender reassignment surgery boyfriend to Barbie.

Really. The Washington Examiner still goes to him to comment? https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/politics/matt-schlapp-accuser-identity/index.html

After seeing powerline's writer Hinderaker (weirdly misspelled in some secondhand quote here) mentioned -- yes, he is a retired attorney who had a very respectable career and a sideline as a blogger. He would have been characterized (perhaps unfairly?) as a "Country Club Republican" back in the day. But like so many of that type, he gave up and gave in and learned to love the Trump Party.

Sometimes you have to set out a hardline starting point in order to have leverage in any subsequent bargaining. Imagine the opposite: "We are willing to consider no further NATO expansions." Would Putin take this as a "Hey, I guess I accomplished my goal. Maybe I'll keep that idea in my back pocket since now we know the West is willing to back down once the bombs fly." Or would he take this as "I guess we can retreat now and come to the bargaining table."

So the thread should be titled: Go Woke, Sometimes Lose Money, Sometimes Make Money!

Maybe you want to compare what I actually said to how you've characterized it. I thought you were better than this. I've actually asked for you to share your experience as an educator regarding some points of agreement or disagreement. This is the worst kind of response. What I actually said.

Go Woke, Cash In! https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/weekend-box-office-results-barbie-and-oppenheimer-post-historic-numbers/ We've already been through how woke Barbie is. Ol' Tarheel thinks they even feminized Ken! Back in his day, his Ken doll used to mount his GI Joe doll. I just saw Oppenheimer. It's a good film. Not great, but very good and very well made and acted. But it would be fair to say it is "sympathetic to communists." Or at least that it bent over backwards to be understanding about why people saw the appeal of the American (not Soviet) communist party. Including Oppenheimer himself. It is also critical of the post-WWII American powers that be for escalating the nuclear arms race. And guess what? Woke is winning!

So, in writing a high school social studies textbook with a chapter on Child Trafficking in the Modern World - a chapter that mentions the evils of that practice 100 or more times - would it be appropriate to include the lines I just suggested: "some trafficked children gained valuable job skills through their forced labor, and went on to productive careers working in meat packing plants or in the adult entertainment industry."