The Frankish Reich

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."

I think you're missing my point. Which I though was pretty clear. Would anyone ever think it's appropriate to say "some trafficked children benefited from being trafficked by learning marketable skills?" Of course not. And that's what slavery was: human trafficking. On a mega, state-endorsed level.

That's why I'm a bit more cautious about making long-term political predictions based on demographic changes. Party positions change in response to demographic changes. Sean Trende (I think still at realclearpolitics, even though that site has been in decline for a while) does a great job of analyzing this.

And some trafficked children gained valuable skills. Guatemalans 13 year olds who otherwise would have led an impoverished life were trafficked to Ohio where the learned the job skills and discipline in meat-packing plants that may lead to gainful employment as adults. We must definitely refer to this when discussing trafficking of children. Some others learned skills that may be profitable in the adult film industry.

I tend to agree. The problem I see in the Republican Party: there's a huge nostalgia element in everyone's campaign. From the obvious ("make American great again") to the more implied (a focus on bringing back old industry instead of new, on traditional values, and of course the whole anti-woke industry). That's a hard sell for people who have no memory of any such "golden age" that the Republicans are trying to bring back.

Jason Aldean is doing just fine. I suspect that his management was well aware that his video would cause controversy, followed by a reverse backlash making him even more popular within his core/target audience. https://capcity.news/cheyenne-frontier-days/2022/07/23/photos-jason-aldean-gabby-barrett-and-john-morgan-kick-off-frontier-nights-with-raucous-show/

I'm gonna go with "a world in which your political opponent is busy committing federal offenses."

Aging people do, of course, turn more conservative. So that tempers the effect. There was some discussion a few months ago about how millennials appear to be more dug in than prior generations in their liberal views, but I'm not convinced. Having said that, the turn in the Republican Party away from the core issues that typically drive changes in political views (taxes! you make more money as you get older) may be making the Republican pitch to aging millennials more difficult ...

You missed the footnote to the Boycott Woke campaign. *Boycotts do not apply to star athletes from "your" team who have endorsed products otherwise subject to boycott. See Allen, Josh and Gillette. Boycotts also do not apply to corporate-owned beers associated with "your" team's fanbase, even when such corporate beer producers are otherwise subject to boycott. "Buy American" rules are similarly suspended in such situations. See Labatt's, Blue and AB Inbev.

I don't blame DeSantis and the others for at least addressing the obvious upcoming shortfalls in social security. Something needs to be done; something will be done. There's only 3 possibilities: 1. Raise taxes on somebody. 2. Trim somebody's expected benefits. 3. Make somebody work longer. But this is such a 1990s way of doing politics. Remember the Clinton era, Simpson-Bowles, committees to study/recommend changes, all that "good policy" stuff? All that "we're all adults here" number crunching stuff? That's not how we do it anymore. Trump will have a field day ignoring the problem and telling Republican voters that DeSantis wants to take away their social security. And then if he somehow makes it to the general, Biden will have a field day saying the same thing. It's the new politics. Ignorance is bliss. Lie to the people that "I will fix it" (details TBA).

Same here. I refer to it as a riot for that reason. But as I've explained here before, it wasn't just a riot. The riot was part of a larger plan to intimidate Pence and Congress in order to delay certification and to allow the diabolical Eastman plan a chance of succeeding.

Right, back when you played with Ken he was always a macho man.

Well there's some fine logic for you. Joe Biden is currently unpopular because his performance as President has been poor. Which, of course, makes it impossible that he could have received 81 million votes in 2020, before he had an opportunity to prove that he is up for the job. Applying the same reasoning: - I saw a recent poll saying Hitler is the most hated man in history, which obviously proves that the Germans did not in fact elect him 90 years ago. - Jesus is now very popular in Italy, so it is inconceivable that Romans had him executed 2,000 years ago. This is the crap many people read. And then quote it without even taking a moment to notice the absurdity.

Leave it to Big Mollie to have the stupidest take of all: Even if one were to make the assertion that you can fight to end child sex trafficking while still supporting LGBT “rights,” the devil in the details would be in trying to separate the predatory part of perversity, and perversity from mere preference. This is of extreme importance when it comes to children, who are the prime targets of today’s LGBT agenda and who, because of their dependence on adults, will always bear the brunt of their parents’ choices. To falter even a little from setting traditional and objective moral standards for raising healthy kids is to invite into one’s mind a plausible excuse for failure that will by default come to fruition. So Mollie walks right into it. Being for LGBT rights somehow means you are in favor of child sex trafficking. So I guess the people decrying this film as right-wing propaganda have a point?

Exactly. Fake Outrage is a thing on both sides.

You just might be gay if ... .... you're a guy who's seen the Barbie movie and don't have a daughter under 12. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/jack-posobiec-disney-world-instagram-backlash/

In other words, a nobody.

I have heard the movie is good, but that it ignores the fact that some trafficked children did learn valuable skills that will make them more employable in adulthood, like how to cut and pack meat, etc.