The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    The Accidental Revolution

    A funny thing has happened to the Revolution on steroids that was supposed to take us by storm. The complaints that would define us turned out to be lukewarm after all (seems whites in flyover country were less than worried about jobs, and the need for free education hasn't been dominating the front pages (yet?), while others like $12/$15 minimum wage are less than likely to get a national listening under current government).

    But several issues have gained traction - some old, some new, some red, some blue... #MeToo may be receiving some deflection, but it appears it's real beyond pink pussyhats and the casting couches of Hollywood. Even Fox had a heretic on its CPAC review, and tried quickly to veer off into "poor accused men", before going viral.

    #RussiaGate is now in full scandal mode with domestic and foreign indictments, full charges against Manafort, Gates in full confessional flip mode, and the Nunes Memo now rebutted and exploded all over GOP faces.

    #BlackLivesMatter is a thing - the smear job against black athletes has finally failed, and worries about blacks' security and well-being have gained prominence over traditional canards about the troops and the needs of sport fans, while Michael Steele just blew the racist club out of the CPAC water.

    #SandyHook has grown up to be #StonemanShooting, and the all-powerful NRA has its yarbles shrivelling up faster than a Yeti's in permafrost. For the first time in generations, the need for real security has trumped that of blessing the 2nd Amendment - #BoycottNRA has taken hold. And this time it threatens to bring out a whole cohort of first-time teen voters to express their rage - something that hasn't happened since McGovern's campaign in the twilight of Vietnam after the 26th Amendment passed.

    And yes, worry about immigration is still there even as #Dreamers have proven to be a unifying issue - Americans still seem to have a sense of fair play about kids dragged to another country, and similar to guns, it's likely to be a youth issue especially.

    But don't confuse first-timers with a small isolated group - there's a lot of shared communication and interests among high school students and recent grads, with about 16 million public & private high school students, and 24 million 16-24 year-olds registered in school (not counting those working). So each year, nearly 4 million new graduates exit high school, and about 4 million new 18-year-olds eligible to vote - over 50% minority - or about 2.5% total registered voters, or 2.8% those who voted. Combine that with a good Rock the Vote effort and issues that attract, and that more than compensates for recent vote depression in swing states.

    But combine disgruntlement on several fronts - harassment of women, mistreatment of blacks, using millions of poor innocent Hispanic kids as bargaining chips, and the validation that yes, Republicans have both been gerrymandering the vote and colluding/conspiring with Russia to overthrow the election - well, there's enough on the table to sway multiple large demographics (including the majority female cohort) and rock the population at large. While typically national issues may not affect good local candidates, when it gets too much, the "throw the bums out" spirit takes sway. And with the Parkland shooting & surrounding immoral influence, more and more male leaders found abusing their positions of power towards women, a general treasonous leaning towards Russia spreading from the White House through the House of Representatives to various supporting organizations, and now a bizarre claim that high schoolers shouldn't even be safe from attack in school, it's leading towards a perfect storm.

    [And expect this flippant attitude towards homeland security and real lives7 to affect traditional support for our troops abroad - once people see how unserious you are about matters close at hand, they start to guess the real situation in the field.]

    More, one of the charges against Manafort is getting EU officials to anonymously lobby US politicians. There's little doubt this will at some point extend to various figures in the media and other domestic supposedly independent figures actually being on the GOP payroll (possibly Russian at the same time) - it's already happened with the NRA, it's highly suspected of Sean Hannity, it's been guessed that Lindsay Graham is being blackmailed and Dana Rohrenbacher is in someone's pocket. Wikileaks is discredited, Greenwald is suspect. But most of these are little surprise. Who's next?

    Looking forward to the next scandal, on and on into November this year and further into 2020 - there's a lot of momentum, more scandal than you can follow or shake a stick at, and a lot of new consituents to win over. Except they'll choose the issues they want, not necessarily what we offer. Bring on the Revolution - or as many as it takes.

    Comments

    "Amazing leadership" says Broward County sheriff - Jake Tapper's having nothing of it. Maybe the media will start asking these tough questions, such as "how come the police get all this equipment and money, but can't seem to keep us safe, but still manage to abuse unarmed suspects?" The new reputation says they know how to shoot to kill when unnecessary, but don't know how to defuse a desperate situation. Instead of fighting #BlackLivesMatter, maybe they'll finally admit they have a serious problem, whatever the crime they're dealing with. (The number of police rapes ain't too pretty either - don't imagine the evolving #MeToo contingent will be too supportive).


    #BlackGunDeathsMatter - it's all going to converge. The NRA is beyond dishonest, 2/3 of the supposed principles on the right are dishonest. Peeling them back like an onion.


    Mona Charen was booed when she criticized Republican sexism and racism. Michael Steele was called a token. Both events happened at CPAC. CPAC chair Matt Schlapp defended the man who made the slur against Michael Steele. Schlapp was bold enough to say this to Steele’s face during an interview on Steele’s show on Sirius-XM. The Republicans are insane. Republicans criticize college students for suppressing free speech, yet they will boot anyone who criticizes Trumpism.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/24/michael_steele_vs_cpacs_matt_schlapp_on_comment_he_was_picked_rnc_chair_because_he_was_black.html

    There is an organization of black youth and young adults formed to oppose the Stand Your Ground Law in Florida. Perhaps they can form a connection with the Parkland students


    I think I referenced the first 2 in the diary.


    I just keep coming back to this, big picture, it's important to keep in mind that Trump is not really running the country but distracting it from paying attention to how the executive branch is really being run. This has a laundry list of proof:

    Donald Trump’s CPAC speech is a reminder that he’s not really in charge of his White House

    He riles up crowds, but nothing he says actually matters or reflects administration policy.

    By Matthew Yglesias  @ Vox.com, Feb 23, 2018

    So it's important to also think about: would it be the same with, say, a Pence administration?

    Even his affect on CPAC is something one should think about. He and his memes are obviously quite popular with the current attendees. But from that one cannot surmise that this would continue to be the case for years to come.

    First, they aren't all populists in that CPAC club--far from it. The ones that aren't are just not able to express their displeasure right now. 

    Second,the ones that are populist may not like Trumpian memes in the future. For a man that pretends to be an expert on how to get high ratings, he clearly struggles like a old man with constantly returning to the same old same old that worked for him before rather than keeping up with the pulse of what's new. (Same for Fox News where he gets most of his clues) He thinks like this: broadcast TV. Broadcast TV is dying as I write, dying! Death has actually moved on to target cable TV. Ironic that Russian trolls and bots know this very well.


    There is no longer a Conservative philosophy. The Conservative movement exists only torture Liberals

     

    “One way to be effective as a conservative is to figure out what annoys and disturbs liberals the most, and then keep doing it.” —Dinesh D’Souza, “Letters to a Young Conservative”


    Well, that in a way makes sense because conservative "ideology" is to "conserve" the supposed old ways of doing things that have been supposedly repeated and supposedly worked well over millenia, and to fight against new ways of doing things and change or "progress". I.E., no progression, please, everything you need to know is right here in the Bible. Or a strict literal reading of the Constitution. Is why the whole idea of evolution is anathema.


    I think this post is me moving on from just Teh Donald - it's looking like the whole GOP structure will crumble over time, even if they manage somehow to get Pence in instead. That doesn't necessarily mean the Dems survive intact either...


    yes, I saw that, you are definitely trying to figure out what are the real true vox populi memes. (Not coincidentally, is also the assigned job of Russian trolls? Though they are just basically wage slaves, probably not much incentive to be that good at it.) wink


    No, I got a good deal - Putin's paying me above minimum wage. Oops, whistle blowing, gotta get back in line...


    Send him back for regrooving - natch.

    Wonder if anyone from Firesign Theater is stil churning out xontwnt...


    The Euro-commies must be supplying you with plenty of meth to keep these altered reality fantasies bubbling out for the cause. Gates' and Manafort's charges have nothing to do with Russsia and Mueller is no closer, than he was at the beginning of the witch-hunt, to producing any evidence of Trump/Putin collusion. The rest is repackeged old investigations from long before the election. It's obvious that you and your commie friends don't like our Bill or Rights but millions of Americans do and will defend them.

    You’re confused you are thinking of 2016 Conservatives. 2017 Conservatives love Euro-commies. Try to keep up. The liberals are the anti-commies now,


    Sure, you and your patriots can go find a schoolyard to shoot up - that's "defending" all right. Or give a gun to a 2-year-old - that's also part of the American way. As for Mueller, I guess indictments mean nothing to you, including Trump's ex-campaign manager with a huge number of financial and political ties to Russia among others (do you know his phone was tapped for the better part of a year? oops..., bet that makes for fun listening on bored days), while several other ex-Trump officials are now cooperating with the investigation.

    But just keep spouting the Putin line - "nothing to see here, move along" - it's served you so well these last couple of years. Maybe you & Nunes can get a room, and talk yourselves to sleep about what genius his memo was and how unfair it was it got shredded on release.


    The gun ownership rights supporters I refered to have already defended everyones rights from these commies by electing republicans to most state houses and most of the federal government. Your comments about shooting up schoolyards and arming children are just sick. Mueller's inditement of Manafort doesn't include any reference to Trump, Putin, Russsia or even Manifort's earlier dealings with Russian investors because they are not connected in any way to these charges. There is certainly something to see here but it's not the Mueller dog and pony show of second and third tier unknowns dragged out for the fake news media. The Nunes memo exposed the slime trail of corruption leading directly to the main actors in that conspiracy, Obama, Rice, Comey, the DNC and the Red Queen herself. The FBI has started a formal internal investigation and with most of the Clintonites partisans banished from the agency we might see calls for prosecution of the people responsible for this corruption in high places.

    What's with this commie nonsense? Have you gone off your meds? At least the snowflake insult could piss liberals off but this commie bullshit is just too bizarre to  find a target. You're losing your grip on reality and you really need to find help.


    It's like a lapse into the agitprop of late summer 2017, when Antifa was the big enemy, I recall the slur "commie" was used against them. Snowflake has stayed on, still seems quite common (tho I don't think it very cogent, I don't find it a very precise stereotype at all, kinda murky)  but I think you are indeed correct that commie has totally lost any punch it had long ago as it now has so many varied usages and targets. Though I will still argue that the "socialist" thing hurts Bernie Sanders. (And where the heck is Antifa hate? So forlorn.)


    It seems more like a lapse back to 1930 or the McCarthy era. Most of us are older here, perhaps he is too, so he might be remembering reading the John Birch anti-commie conspiracy theories in his youth. It feels so retro in this day and age I can't even get angry at the insult.


    Remembering? I have trouble figuring out he's a digital sample.


    Identifying antifa as commies isn't a slur it's a fact. The antifa tactic was hatched by the fourth Comintern in the USSR for use by the commies in Germany during the 1920's. They used political violence and branded anyone who opposed them Fascists. Their extreme violece backfired on them driving many people to the Nazis for protection. Todays antifa was ready to inflict extreme violence but the conservative groups backed down from and canceled their planned large scale demonstrations to difuse the threat. Racist has replaced Fascist as the brand they use to smear anyone who opposes them which shows that they haven't diverged at all from their commie roots.

    I think you're confusing Antifa with Latifa - a common mistake, don't worry about it...


    Hold it there fella.
    The political violence of the Comintern you are referring to was actually violent. In the sense of people going out in the city they lived in and killing other people. Just like the Brown Shirts chasing them down in the streets to mow them down.
    I prefer Nazis who know a thing or two of how they got to the fantastic place their previous efforts have left them.

     


    People who follow Marxist teaching and champion destruction of the Bill of Rights but think they aren't commies have long been know as useful idiots. Claiming to be a far left liberal puts you in bed with commies who are bent on removing your right to keep and bear arms but that is only their first goal on their road to a warped utopia.. You haven't been attacked as a deviant ammosexual yet for owning guns but the collective won't forget you. Snowflakes are a recent phenomenon of bewildered Clintonites stuck in denial and now advanced TDS. Their support for the ends justifying the means to undermine an election shows they are Pinkos too.

    You have lost it. The GOP is now the defender of the commies.CPAC put a fascist on the stage. There are no patriotic Trump supporters.


    Congrats - when your world is falling apart and you concoct an even bigger universal theory of why your dopey ideas have no roots.

    Perhaps you and the supposed owners of the term "progressives" can get a room and decide whether we're neolibs or Marxist Pinkos or in some bizarroland, both.


    I feel like I'm reading a book on Dali symbolism to understand his paintings. If you have to explain your insults they're really not working. And without effective insults there's nothing left to your posts.

    The famous melting clocks represent the omnipresence of time, and identify its mastery over human beings.   The swarming ants in Dalí’s pictures and sculptures are references to death and decay, and are reminders of human mortality and impermanence.   The crutch is one of Dalí’s most important images and features in many of his works. It is first and foremost a symbol of reality and an anchor in the ground of the real world, providing spiritual and physical support for inadequacy in life.   Dalí’s elephants are usually depicted with long, multi-jointed, almost invisible legs of desire, and carry objects on their backs. These elephants represent the future and are also a symbol of strength.


    It's a complete fail, he even forgot to  include the sharia and coal parts which this guy did, but then this guy forgot the guns.  The straw men are getting to be too complex, now they are going to have to become cowards too. It's difficult to make cowards an enemy to fear....overall it's a tough job defending a demagogue whose ideology is narcissism.


    I feel drawn to songs to script this conversation: "Sharia, Sharia Baby", anything by Coal Porter and Noël Coward, of course "Lawyers, Guns and Money" and "Turkey in the Straw". Perhaps a mashup called "Dem-a-go-gue-da-vita".
    (trivia: did you know "In-a-gadda-da-vida" was really a mumble-jumble "In the Garden of Eden"?)

    Plus Peter Gabriel's Supper's Ready, where "we watch in reverence as Narcissus is turned to a flower..."

     


    FWIW I noted with extreme interest how Bannon has mentioned awe and fear of the #MeToo movement in more than one article I've read. He was basically saying that it could upset all conventional wisdom about the electorate, be a real game changer. This sort of thing is what he looks for as a political operative, it's the how of how he helped impossible candidate Trump win. Not arguing that he's a genius at spotting this sort of thing, just pointing it out.


    He and Manafort seemed to be working different ends of the wealth stick - how did they get along in the campaign?


    Don't know.(But if I see something, I'll say somethinglaugh)


    Really? shy wallflower such as you?


    Not about the campaign but there's some interesting stuff in the Reince Priebus mini-memoir by Chris Whiipple at Vanity Fair about how he felt about the optics of the Comey firing and the Mueller stuff:

    While Priebus and Bannon watched the fiasco explode as the pundits excoriated the Trump White House on every cable news show, Kushner did a slow burn. He was livid, furious that the communications team could not defend Comey’s firing. Bannon blew his stack. “There’s not a fucking thing you can do to sell this!,” he shouted at Kushner. “Nobody can sell this! P. T. Barnum couldn’t sell this! People aren’t stupid! This is a terrible, stupid decision that’s going to have massive implications. It may have shortened Trump’s presidency—and it’s because of you, Jared Kushner!” 

    Here he seems to be worrying about them fighting back against getting labeled as friends of the gangsta lobbyists--Manafort &Gates--which is, after all, a classic definition of "the swamp": 

    But Bannon warned that the hounds had been loosed. “You’ve got Mueller’s team, which has got 19 killers who are all experts in wire fraud, money-laundering, and tax evasion,” Bannon said. “Doesn’t sound like collusion to me. But they’ve got unlimited budgets and subpoena power. And here’s what we’ve got on our side: two guys who’ve got legal pads and Post-Its.

    “It’s like [certain members of the administration think that] no one took down the Gambino family,” Bannon continued. “Mueller’s doing a roll-up just like he did with the Gambinos. [Former campaign manager Paul] Manafort’s the caporegime, right? And [Rick] Gates [Manafort’s deputy] is a made man! [George] Papadopoulos is equivalent to a wiseguy out in a social club in Brooklyn. This is like a Wagner opera. In the overture you get all the strands of the music you’re going to hear for three hours. Well, Mueller opened with a bang. He totally caught these guys by surprise. So if you’re not going to fight, you’re going to get rolled over.”

    Makes clear to me that for Bannon populism, the last thing you'd want is to have anything to do with those DC swamp type guys like Manafort, you'd be happy with all variety of heartland nuts, but no sophisticados. Manafort's an internationalist cosmopolitan, is he not? cheeky Bannon is still a true believer in MAGA, he's not for elitist meddling,rather he'd like to see all out public trade war with China if not real war.


    Oddly it seems Bannon is overall getting defined as "non-criminal" - vicious in his own way, but still some kind of attention to the rules. Which would place him in the minority among that crew - some of them too stupid to even know there are rules, some of them too immoral to ever even care.


    Don't forget health insurance, when they tried to take it away without a decent replacement all they got is a ton of  trouble.

    Trump won swings promising a great new system. Clear to everyone now: turns out all that was there was a bunch of nothing.

    How the GOP could be so clueless that this is of utmost importance as the army of contract workers grows and to small business is beyond me, that they wouldn't end up eventually having to pay the piper for such nonsense, fiddling with people's lives. Things seem quiet on this front right now but  that's an illusion, trouble is brewing like this: Scott Walker wants to prop up the state's individual market with a $200 million program that would compensate health insurers for high-cost patients so they don’t hike premiums for everyoneThere's a sort of mini-death spiral inherenent just time to put Obamacare in certain areas in misery just in time for the November elections. We're soon going to start seeing stories about pre-exiting condition nightmares again. Then there's all the clueless Trump fans on disability and Medicaid, which will have more and more experimentation, including some requiring work for benefits?

    Some Dems will undoubtedly be running on something like this. and Bernie will be yelling about his alternative which will have an as yet unknown effect depending on how he does it.

    I should add that this GOP Congress dumped this mess to move on to the tax bill so they could look like they did something for November. And I am seeing lots of stories that people so far seem happy with the changes. But I suspect once April 15 rolls around and many see the bottom line, that will no longer be the case as big flaws are found, it is happening already.


    Except from what I see, come the following April there'll be a big fat $24k deduction - not exactly small change, getting close in spirit to guaranteed income...


    Immigration is on the menu for sure now:

    Now, the court’s action is likely to push the debate beyond the midterm elections in November, as lawmakers in both parties often seek to avoid making highly controversial policy decisions just before they face their constituents at the ballot box.

     from

    Justices Turn Down Trump’s Appeal in ‘Dreamers’ Case

    By ADAM LIPTAK and MICHAEL D. SHEAR 12:13 PM ET @ NYTimes.com

    • In an unusual move, the Trump administration had asked the Supreme Court to hear the case before an appeals court had ruled.
    • The court’s move came amid a complex battle over immigration and the program at issue in the case, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

    Dems are stuck with having to continue to fight a myth of a giant Federal conspiracy:

    “They railroaded him,” said Steve Blair, a retiree who worked in mines run by Mr. Blankenship when he was the chief executive of the Massey Energy Company, once the largest coal producer in central Appalachia. “The federal government turned everybody loose to testify against him, just to get rid of him.”

    Mr. Blair, 61, wearing a West Virginia University cap, forked up his steak and eggs at a Bob Evans restaurant recently in Logan. The town, once a Democratic stronghold, is emblematic of how vehemently voters in Appalachia have rejected the national party: Mr. Blair voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but four years later, the sitting president lost the Democratic primary in Logan County to a protest candidate in a Texas prison.

    A burly man who is certain in his views, Mr. Blair had a ready explanation for the long decline of the coal industry. “One word: Obama,” he said. “I was put out of business by Obama.”

    from

    Jailed After 29 Men Died in a Coal Mine, He Runs for Senate

    By TRIP GABRIEL @ NYTimes.com, Feb. 26

    In West Virginia, the name of Don Blankenship, former head of Massey Energy, can evoke hopes for bygone prosperity or the anguish of a deadly disaster.

    Somehow Dems have to make it clear that Trump and the GOP Congress IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NOW no matter how much they pretend not to be?

    Tough with the Mueller investigation still going on to use as a whipping boy about deep state conspiracy to derail? The sooner he finishes the better? I am not sure, haven't really thought this out, just throwing it out there.


    And it just keeps getting better!  Yea!  Nothing like a pushback to a backlash to light things up ....


    White Women in the Rustbelt Are Turning on Trump

    By Ronald Brownstein @ TheAtlantic.com, Feb. 8

    Support from majorities of white, working-class women powered Trump’s midwestern wins, but those voters are souring on him in office—providing Democrats with a complicated opportunity in 2018.

    Cited because, is not the average poll article:

    [....]To better illuminate patterns of Trump’s strengths and weaknesses, Gallup provided The Atlantic with more finely grained demographic results in 13 battleground states where there were enough interviews to analyze his ratings in detail: six across the Rustbelt (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota) and seven through the Sunbelt (Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado). These findings underscore both the persistence of the demographic divides over Trump—and the continuing tug of regional variations. With congressional elections increasingly pivoting on voter attitudes toward the president, both dynamics will frame the battle for control of Congress this fall [....]


    Brownstein’s last paragraph:

    Gallup’s findings on Trump clarify the hurdles Democrats must clear to recapture the House. Job one is generating strong turnout from the minorities and young people most alienated from him in all polls. Beyond that, these numbers suggest Democrats must solve two intertwined demographic and geographic puzzles by winning more blue-collar women in the Rustbelt and more white-collar whites in the Sunbelt. Trump’s tumultuous tenure has provided them an opening with those voters—but no guarantees of pushing through it

    Winning white votes continues to be the rate limiting step. If Trump is given credit for benefits people see with the tax cuts, Democrats may find it harder to win House seats. Black and young voters need to vote heavily in this midterm election.

    Edit to add:

    Factions of BlackLivesMatter are registering votes in black communities. They have even used screenings of Black Panther as registration sites.


    "No one asked us" - view from UK looks a lot like that in the US, except "spanner" for "wrench" and "ou" instead of "o".

    I was thinking that Merkel let in 1 million Arab refugees and it nearly blew up the EU, certainly set Germany off-kilter, while we at about 4x Germany's size had been letting in a half million Mexicans a year for 15 years. This has shifted now, including fewer Mexicans arriving, but with Indians and Chinese arriving at about 100,000/year each, which may exacerbate some of the same issues. Though you might think these groups being better educated would be better than the low-educated immigrants (especially illegal) that Mexico has provided. If the Indians & Chinese instead compete against higher wage earners and depress middle class salaries, that will generate another kind of revolt. Many people have an issue with immigration - not just from racism or isolationist tendencies. Ignore at our peril.


    Immigration is an issue we need to consider with more nuance but there's a difference between the Arab/Muslim immigrants in Europe and the Mexican immigrants in America. The issue is cultural and how easy it is to assimilate given the cultural beliefs of the immigrants.

    I suspect I'll be accused of anti-Muslim bigotry for this post but /shrug who cares. Mexicans are very close culturally to Americans while Muslims are not. Mexicans are mostly modern Christians. Muslims mostly believe in some version of fundamentalist Islam. They're like Christians before the reformation and secularization. I'm no advocate of religion but integrating people with a similar religion to the religion of the culture is easier. Christian nations and even the church accept the idea of a separation of church and state. The polling is clear that large majorities of Muslims do not accept that value that has become fundamental in European and American cultures.

    There's also conflicts over free speech rights. European nations accept the right of citizens to criticize anyone and anything. This is not a fundamental value held by a majority of Muslims most of whom support blasphemy laws. There are also conflicts over women's rights with Muslim immigrants so often from countries still mired in an extreme form of patriarchy.

    The issue with immigration in America is mostly about scapegoating Mexican immigrants for the loss of jobs. In Europe there are substantial cultural disagreements on the core beliefs of modern liberal societies that hinder assimilation and integration.


    Pre-emptive on this comment: big generalization for fun purposes, riffing off your comment.

    To paraphrase George Bush: culture change is hard work. We "new world" nations like say, the Americas and Australia, were created by the iconoclasts and outcasts from the "old world". It should therefore be tougher for the old world countries of 1,000-yr standing,not just nations but also past empires, like England,France or Spain, to do culture change. New world countries that separated from past empires in one way or another are instead supposed to thrive on it. Germany is a special case because of twice being humiliated in relatively recent world wars,and then the winners attempted to remake it, even fought a "cold war" after the hot one to influence the direction the change would take. Japan is a mystery in regard to this except that: it's a tiny island on which not many people can fit.  Which takes us back to: England.

    We are all prejudiced about what cultures we would like to see continue: I for one admit that when I saw the photo illustration of Percales' Hail Britannia link, my immediate gut reaction was: wouldn't it be sad if all that disappeared. When I wouldn't feel that sad if all old timey culture disappeared from Germany or even France.

    The only conclusion I will make right now: if everybody assimilated Anthony Bourdain would be out of a very lucrative brand. cheeky


    P.S. throw in that Putin is most definitely trying to recreate a Russian empire of some kind.

    And that: our borders with Canada and Mexico are pretty artificial and only recently created in the scheme of things. (And we bought Alaska fair and square, no war!)

    Edit to add: if we hadn't added Hawaii, our 44th president would have really would have been a furriner!

    And then there's Puerto Rico..... laugh


    You live in Arizona. Mexicans aren't culturally close to those in Georgia or Nebraska or Indiana.

    I think the "loss of jobs" is to some extent just papering over being confronted with too much change. For part of the country. Parts, like those coasts, are coping just fine.