holy fuck, that's the biggest pony tail ever

You just know that sign makers offer a grammar/spellcheck as part of their package... and then deliberately ignore errors when people don't pony up.

I wonder if he "corrects" brand names e.g. Starbucks.

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Good and interesting stuff in there.

I think Sharpe is right that this escalation happened for a pretty silly reason (known blowhard and mouth-runner Trump runs his mouth, news at 11), and the NFL vs Trump skirmish detracts from the root issue that Kaepernick was trying to bring attention to a year ago.

On the other hand, I kinda agree with the other guy that maybe bringing attention to that skirmish will also bring attention to the original issue, so maybe it is a net good thing.

Yeah, the owners aren't going to give a fuck until shit lands on their doorstep. Yeah, calling people a "son of a bitch" rates at about a 2 on the "Trump just said what?!" scale. Sharpe's cynicism about how we got here makes a lot of sense.

I didn't care about Kaepernick sitting for the anthem a year ago enough to pay attention. I wasn't against it. I didn't think the was trying to "disrespect" the flag / soldiers / country / whatever, but I wouldn't have really cared if he was. Aren't people allowed to be anti-war? Opposed to mindless nationalism?


Fast forward to today. The billionaires that Sharpe mentioned who donated big sums to Trump's campaign finally get upset when his shit lands on their door. His (comparably tame) "Twitter attacks" on the NFL kick off a dog-and-pony show that may possibly have been cunningly intended to distract from the much more weighty stuff that Kaepernick was trying to draw attention to in the first place, but I seriously doubt that Trump is that clever.

However, something good did come of it: I went from "meh" to paying attention. I went back and listened to Kaepernick's interview about why he was sitting for the anthem from a year ago (embed below), which I didn't watch at the time. I heard a rational, honest, and eloquent young man calmly and clearly explain what he was doing and why he was doing it.

He saw injustice, and wanted to do something about it. He had access to a soapbox that very very few of the people on the receiving end of that injustice have. So, he made up his own mind to do something to try to get conversations started. He was surprised and confused that anyone would see his actions as disrespectful towards soldiers / military, and was later persuaded (by a Navy SEAL) to kneel as opposed to sit for the anthem in an effort to make that more clear.

He seemed aware that he can only control what he does -- not how people will try to spin it, and not how people may react to it. And he also clearly accepted that his actions could have consequences, and that he didn't want to rope anybody else in to acting with him unless they were prepared to accept those consequences also.

So, yeah. Some good came of this recent escalation, even if it came for the wrong reasons. Because some of the people that get drawn in to the dog-and-pony show might decide that they care enough to go back and take a deeper look at it, like I did. And when they look deeper, they're going to see Trump's standard, everyday twitter nonsense on one side compared to a lot of more rational stuff like, say, perhaps actually listening to words of the person that got the ball rolling on the other side (Kaepernick, and others). I like the way that scale balances out.

Yeah, Trump is a complete tool. Guilty of all the stuff Maher said about him. Given that kind of "competition", what would the Democrats have to do to get those 20 states to flip their direction?

I can take a stab that that one, Bill -- he's sitting right next to you. If the Democrats had chosen Sanders as their candidate, I guarantee that at least some of those states would have gone blue on election day.

Firm, registered Democrats? They'd all happily vote for Bernie in the general, just like they will vote for Hillary.

Undecideds, moderates, and young people? Drastically more likely to vote for Bernie than Hillary. A huge segment of the voting population is disgusted with the two major choices, and would happily flock to a candidate that has a proven track record of honesty and integrity, instead of the dog and pony show that we have now.

Firm, die-hard Republicans? Maher is right; there is a certain percentage of people that would never vote Democrat. But, I don't think that number is above 50% of the population even in the reddest of red states. But even for many of those people that are completely dissatisfied by Trump, from their perspective Hillary is NOT a better option.


Let's consider how all the arguments against Trump play to that specific audience: (note that the responses are what *they* think, not necessarily what *I* think)

Trump is a womanizer / misogynist / predator. Yeah, and Clinton is married to a worse one who disgraced the Presidency while he was in office.

Trump lies constantly. As opposed to the Clintons, who would never lie. For example, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" (Bill), "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" (Bill), and "I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time" (Hillary).

Trump has no experience with government and would make an incompetent president. What's worse: a crooked / corrupt Washington insider that knows how to game the system, or someone with no experience?

etc. etc.

Hillary goddamn Clinton is NOT going to be seen as a reasonable alternative to Trump to those people. No matter how much he goes off the rails. No matter what crazy, foul, contemptible shit he says or does. No matter how many skeletons you dig out of his closet. Why? Because they are convinced (reasonably or not) that the Clintons have done just as much questionable shit and more, they are perhaps just better at covering it up.

But if the Democrat candidate was Bernie Sanders, I'm sure a lot more of those hard-line Republicans would be way more tempted to vote blue in November.

She is: This entire thing, and all of the clips like it, and all the media coverage she's received for the past year are a political-strip-tease. She's only doing this to set up the strongest possible position in 2020/24. These are planned dog-and-pony shows.

It should matter more that she's not actually doing anything here, but judging by the comments she doesn't have to bother.

Because the Origami didn't work
We gave you dancing lessons
Because the dancing lessons made you bored
We bought you a guitar

Because you said it made your fingers sore
We found you a pony
Because the pony broke your leg and ran away
We got you drums

But the drums annoyed our neighbours so
We gave you cooking lessons
And the cooking lessons made you fat
We bought you running shoes

If you hear this
Please
We love you Tommy
We know it never was
About Origami

Because you took the shoes and ran away
We gave them your description
Now we haven't heard a thing in weeks

Because we don't know where you are
We're putting out this song
Because we think that you might hear
And know where you belong
So what did we do wrong?

If you hear this
Please
We love you Tommy
Please come home we've
Left your room
Exactly
Exactly

And if you ever hear this song
Know we send our love
Take your origami skills
And make a paper dove
Send a message home
We promise not to teach you
We don't care what you've done
We hope that this will reach you..

If you hear this,
Please
We love you Tommy
We won't ask you
Anything
We won't be angry

I think Cenk is getting a little bit overexcited at around the 5:30 mark, when he thinks that these polls show that America is center-left, as opposed to the long-standing belief of Fox News that America is center-right.

What I think they show is that America is much more radically anti-"sleazy politician" than ever before.

Trump has the biggest portion of the republican side of things, because he is clearly NOT a normal politician, and however you feel about him you must admit that he is not an "establishment" kind of figure. Sleazy? Sure. But not "sleazy politician". Cruz doesn't appeal to the republicans that like Trump, because he is closer to being a "sleazy politician".

On the Democrat side of things, it is a similar picture if you just go by opinion polls rather than delegate count. Hillary is another "sleazy politician". Even among Democrat-leaning respondents, a high percentage of people polled prefer straight-shooter NOT establishment-friendly Sanders to Hillary, precisely because of that. Democrats are tired of sleazy politicians too.

To be fair, the Democrat side is less divided, because a lot (possibly most) of the real pro-Sanders people will hold their nose and vote for Hillary over any of the opposition, if she is the nominee, even though they would (greatly) prefer Sanders.

Trump supporters will *never* vote for Cruz, especially now that Colorado and Wyoming just gave all their delegates to Cruz without even bothering to allow their residents to vote. Cruz doesn't actually *have* any supporters -- the GOP is only trying to persuade Republicans to vote for him so they can deny Trump the delegates needed to lock up the nomination and go to a contested convention -- at which point the GOP will have no further need for Cruz and ditch him like a used condom. The few registered Republicans that want Kasich are very likely to NOT vote for Trump if he is the nominee, and will likely be similarly displeased with whichever asshole the GOP tries to shoehorn in in the event of a contested convention.

So yeah, the Republican side of things is a real clusterfuck. But the likely nomination of Hillary for the Democrats seems like a very big mistake to me, mitigated only slightly by the dog and pony show that is their opposition in the GOP.

I still want to see President Drumph.

The fact that he represents the biggest trainwreck that American politics has ever faced is precisely *why* I hope he gets elected. The system is already a hopelessly broken dog and pony show; maybe the faster we shit on its grave, the faster it becomes blatantly fubared enough to prompt the amount of revolutionary outcry needed to fix it.

Even if *that* doesn't happen, though, Drumph has already started the self-destruct timer on the GOP. That *desperately* needed to happen -- but the impact will be all the better if he beats out the GOP "great white hope" establishment candidates like Rubio. Drudge Report even claims that Mitt Romney will "enter the race" or possibly run as an independent (propped up by GOP $$$) if Rubio and Cruz don't make up ground.

I don't see the GOP surviving much more of this, which is a very positive outcome. So, thank you Drumph, and keep up the good (by which I mean abysmal) work!

And see, this is what makes you a great person. Just imagine if you HADN'T been there to roll joints for your friends -- sorta like It's A Wonderful Life. Without you, your friends would have been trying to make a pipe out of a plastic bottle, a Bic pen, some tinfoil and Elmer's Wood Glue. They might have succeeded, too, much to everyone's horror when the foil rips and they inhaled burning coals of pot directly into their lungs, leading to them dying terribly! But they never built that hellish contraption because YOU were there to roll joints for them instead! And teacher says every time a bell rings, some stoner just tried to make a pipe out of an apple. See? It really IS a Blunt-er-ful life!

I'd just like to say a word about dabs and the partaking thereof: Jesus Christ these things are like getting kicked right in the third eye by one of those horses from My Little Pony. Like maybe the blue one or something. I dunno, I'm pretty high right now, but I'm sure there's a blue one. Anyway, yeah, dabs . . . fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

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This achievement has earned you your "Golden One" Level 18 Badge!

My Little Pony: the gateway drug to being a full-blown Furry. Just one look at Rainbow Dash and the next thing you know you're buying a fur suit and jerking it to big-titted vixens.

Mmmm . . . big-titted vixens . . .

I'll, uh, be in my bunk.

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3 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

Maybe it's a regional thing? The dog is certainly called a sheltie here in Australia. I did a google image search for sheltie, and only got dogs and no ponies... but the dictionary says it applies to both and just means they're from the Shetland Islands.