Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[RedKing]

It's Bernard. Not that that's much better.

In a classic example of the Left not being able to get out of its own fucking way, Sanders' appearance in Seattle the other day was disrupted by the local BlackLivesMatter chapter, who stated they were there to "hold Sanders accountable for his actions".

Because, y'know...that time that he gunned down a fleeing black teen. Or tased an unarmed black man. Or roughed up someone in his Bernie Sanders Policemobile.

Fucking morons are the bane of every grassroots movement. Way to take a valid grievance and make it a farce.



On Hillary, let me be clear -- I vastly prefer her to anyone likely to win the Republican nomination. (I'd be interested to hear more out of Kasich and Pataki, but they're never going to win). But there are a number of people on the Left that I would prefer to Hillary. And in a cycle when the Republican party seems determined to run the most unelectable fucktards they have in their stable, it seems like a vast wasted opportunity to run yet another "safe" pro-business, security-state centrist when there are genuinely progressive candidates that could have run.

Granted, I realize there's a counter-argument that if you run a true progressive and make the election a closer contest, you are increasing the risk of getting a Walker or Huckabee or (dare I even say it) Trump into office.

[Lord Shonus]

"Ulysses".

Ulysses was actually Grant's middle name. When he entered West Point, the records officer somehow left off the first name and added a middle initial of S, which Grant decided not to have fixed when he realized that Ulysses S. Grant got him nicknamed "Sam" (as in the patriotic icon Uncle Sam, derived from U.S. being both his initials and the initials of the country) while Hiram Ulysses Grant would have gotten him the nickname "Hug".

[smjjames]

"Ulysses".

But yeah, "Bernie" is dorky even over here. It's what people used to use to give people dorky names even when I was a kid/teenager. Except pronounced Böööhrnie.

Ulysses would be an unusual name and probably was back then as well, but I don't see it as dorky.

@ RedKing: Chris Christie seems like he has a bit of Teddy Roosevelts personality in him, not the adventurer part obviously, though he seems more 'talk loudly and carry a big stick' than 'talk quietly and carry a big stick'.

Edit: Honestly, I'm not sure what part of Teddy Roosevelts personality would be in there, he just somehow seems a little bit like a modern day Teddy Roosevelt.

"Ulysses".

Ulysses was actually Grant's middle name. When he entered West Point, the records officer somehow left off the first name and added a middle initial of S, which Grant decided not to have fixed when he realized that Ulysses S. Grant got him nicknamed "Sam" (as in the patriotic icon Uncle Sam, derived from U.S. being both his initials and the initials of the country) while Hiram Ulysses Grant would have gotten him the nickname "Hug".

Clever of him, really clever.

[scriver]

Ulysses was actually Grant's middle name. When he entered West Point, the records officer somehow left off the first name and added a middle initial of S, which Grant decided not to have fixed when he realized that Ulysses S. Grant got him nicknamed "Sam" (as in the patriotic icon Uncle Sam, derived from U.S. being both his initials and the initials of the country) while Hiram Ulysses Grant would have gotten him the nickname "Hug".

Heh. That's pretty cool.

Ulysses would be an unusual name and probably was back then as well, but I don't see it as dorky.

Ulysses is one of those names that would probably have been ridiculous back then (or now), but are cool in hindsight. It's super pretentious and stuff. Then again, the 19th century was super weird when it came to names over here in Sweden, so maybe it was over the sea as well, and it would've fit in.


As for Bernard, that's much less dumb to me at least, by virtue of having much more weight-of-use behind it. It might not be a "cool" name or anything, but neither is 99% of all names.

Anyway, that was all from your daily scriver-interrupts-ameripolitics-to-talk-inane-stuff episode.

[RedKing]

Yeah, Christie lost me for good at the "You can't enjoy your freedoms if you're dead" remark. That's the hallmark of a "oh god sky is falling, quick give me all the power and i'll save you" kind of guy. Couple that with the political bruiser mentality, and you get a guy I don't want anywhere near executive authority.

EDIT: 19th century America had a hard-on for names from antiquity.
If you were upper-crust, it was Greek and Roman names. My ex-wife had a great-great-great-great-great grandfather named Lysander.
If you were poor and barely literate (and Anglo-Saxon), it was pretentious Biblical names. Which are hard enough to spell when you ARE literate. In my family tree, we had Hepzikiah, Ezekiel, Zephaniah, Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego (the last three a set of triplet brothers). We also had a guy named Cassandra. No idea what that was all about.

[Strife26]

I wish Trump would declare he is also a candidate for the Dem primary.

2016 Ballot

[] Donald Trump (R)
[] Donald Trump (D)
[] Donald Trump (I)


I can't support Christie if he's going to talk about expanding the security apparatus even more than it already is.

[SirQuiamus]

In related yesterday's news, D0nald "She was shooting blood out of her eyes like a thorny devil!" Trümp's paste-eatingly insane comment got him thrown out of a wingnut gathering organized by Erick Erickson, of all people. In any other guy's campaign this would be considered the absolute nadir, but there is no limit to Trump's stupidity and no end to the liberal Schadenfreude fest.

[smjjames]

Yeah, Christie lost me for good at the "You can't enjoy your freedoms if you're dead" remark. That's the hallmark of a "oh god sky is falling, quick give me all the power and i'll save you" kind of guy. Couple that with the political bruiser mentality, and you get a guy I don't want anywhere near executive authority.

Is that what he said at the debate? Because I didn't catch that. Also, political brusier mentality like the way Teddy Roosevelt was? Maybe it's just me trying to fit him into a definition hole I'm more familar with. Not that I'm a massive fan of Christie or anything.

Anyways, traffic-gate (why do we always add -gate to scandals these days? lol) being directly his fault or not, theres other evidence that he is a political bully.

In related yesterday's news, D0nald "She was shooting blood out of her eyes like a thorny devil!" Trümp's paste-eatingly insane comment got him thrown out of a wingnut gathering organized by Erick Erickson, of all people. In any other guy's campaign this would be considered the absolute nadir, but there is no limit to Trump's stupidity and no end to the liberal Schadenfreude fest.

They are evidently not his strain of wingnut though, and insulting the guy certainly didn't help either.

Also, even you British think it was about her having her period? lol. Trump would be an absolute nightmare for a campaign manager. Though I find it hard to imagine that a serious and competent campaign manager would want to manage Trumps campaign.

[smjjames]

Do people actually think that Watergate was something to do with water, not the name of a hotel?

*shrug* I know it's a hotel though.

It's just one of those meme things that take on a life of their own.

[RedKing]

The best was when Trump put out a statement calling Erickson a loser and giving out his personal email address.
Cue Erickson reading hate mails a few hours later like:

“Why don’t you just marry the [n-word] in the White House if you’re going to reject Mr. Trump? … You’re no better than the [c-word] who lives in the White House.”

But no, let's not call Trump's supporters "crazies", that would be unfair. To crazy people.
I'd call them the smegma of America's collective asshole, but that would be an insult to...well, you get the picture.

EDIT: I want there to be a scandal about a security gate let unattended, and then a scandal that the original scandal was manufactured. That way we can talk bout Gategategate.

[Helgoland]

Do people actually think that Watergate was something to do with water, not the name of a hotel?

You mean the Watergategate scandal?

[RedKing]

So what are we calling this? Bloodgate? Cause that actually sounds kind of badass.

[Bauglir]

Do people actually think that Watergate was something to do with water, not the name of a hotel?

You mean the Watergategate scandal?

Naw, convention with the "-gate" suffix is that if it's being added to a word that already ends in "gate", you drop the one at the end of that word before adding the suffix. For example, "Watergate" yields "Watergate", "Gate" yields "Gate", and "Gategate" yields "Gategate". Notably, this applies regardless of pronunciation, so that "Frigate" becomes pronounced "frih-gayt".

[Helgoland]

How else would you pronounce that?

[smjjames]

I'm surprised that he hasn't yet gotten into legal trouble* over pulling that kind of stunt with the release of personal information. Also, it makes you think 'Is he going to pull that kind of shit with world leaders that he doesn't like?', pulling that on a fellow candidate, okay fine, he's just flinging mud 19th century style, but doing it on a private citizen is a whole other thing.

*Obviously the first answer to that is that Graham, being a candidate as well, wouldn't want to get tied up in a legal fight. As for Erickson, well, it's the same as one person trying to pick a fight with a corporation, they have money, you don't.