So people who voted for Trump before will do it again. I think we knew that. It would be foolish to underestimate the Democrats' chances of blowing 2020, but if they do, it won't be because they didn't appeal to people who wouldn't vote for them anyway.
We've spent far too much time figuring out why people voted for Trump and what to do about it. There really isn't much mystery. The vast majority of people who voted for Trump were -- drum roll, please -- Republicans. They would vote for almost anyone with an (R) after his name -- which they proved by voting for Trump. A rather small number stayed home in 2016 rather than hold their nose and vote. There is reason to believe that that number will increase in 2020. The people who want that sort of thing knew what they were getting and came out in 2016 precisely because he was what he clearly is. There just aren't that many more potential Trump voters out there. They may be angrier when they come out in 2020, especially when they get a steady diet of baby-killing open borders socialism, but they're the same people and their votes count the same whether they are worked up or noy.
Tonto and the Lone Ranger were surrounded by hostile Apaches. The Lone Ranger looked at Tonto and says: "Looks like we're done for." Tonto replied: "Who is this 'we' you speak of, white man?"
Makes me think of the movie Solitary Man, with Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, and Parker Posey. Nice movie, glad I watched it, but no commercial movie producer could have put it out paying this cast what it could normally command. I've often wondered what the deal was.
That's all very true, but this post, at this site, wasn't designed to do any of those three things. There is simply no point in trying to explain why someone who could produce or believe this crude caricature is, in fact, wrong. The reasons won't matter.
In the outside world, such boob-bait for the bubbas may well do exactly what you suggest, but engaging it there on the grounds that it is wrong is equally useless. You need to do something else.
People who would never vote for a Democrat won't vote for one in 2020. The particular reasons this time don't matter, so there is no point in explaining why they're wrong.
I'm trying hard, but without success, to recall a recent image of someone who is not operating in a white supremacist context using the OK sign in a context where it would make normal, non-white-supremacist sense. I have seen it used in contexts where it seems to make no sense at all, which makes one wonder
My local bar association will be presenting a roast of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Knowing the crew involved, I was looking forward to a vicious catfight over who would get the lead role. (I have the plum male role of Antonin Scalia.) But the writers, taking a cue from RBG's answer to a question about the appropriate number of women on the Supreme Court, wrote nine scenes where RBG appeared, and the conceit of the show was that we were producing an opera about RBG and no one woman could do her justice, so nine different women were cast as RBG, depriving me of the catfight.
Having represented public universities in litigation for the last 25 years and attended both pretty-good public and elite private universities in my own education, I have been advising my grand-niece, who is in the middle of the application process.
She is an African-American girl of middle-middle-class status who has gone through a dozen years at an elite private school -- the name would be recognizable nation-wide -- and managed not to become an entitled little shit. She is surrounded by entitled or driven classmates obsessed with getting into the brand-name places: the major Ivies, the comparable SLACs, and good schools that have become brands for reasons other than their undoubted quality, e.g., Duke.
I get that Lowells are failures if they don't end up in Harvard, Witherspoons are failures if they don't get into Princeton, and if you're one of those science geeks who belongs in Cal Tech or MIT, you'll know.
I have advised her not to get caught up in this. I can, off the top of my head, name well over 100 high-quality public and private colleges where you can get an excellent undergraduate education. I mean that both in an absolute sense and, to a lesser extent, in a positional good sense.Through some additional research, I found that the number is roughly twice what I can name.
If you can get into a super-premium school, then, by all means, go for it. The regular undergraduate education at Princeton won't be noticeably better than the education you'll get at, say, Bowdoin or Gettysburg. (Why someone who can get in-state tuition rates would choose Duke over North Carolina unless money doesn't matter is puzzling to me.) The real advantage of going to Harvard is that you're surrounded by people who got into Harvard. Those connections can pay off, especially if you go into a line of work where connections are more important than objectively observable skills. But if you're going into a career that requires graduate education -- medicine, law, science, etc. -- the admissions office at the grad school or law school or med school knows the quality of the roughly 200 competitive schools and if you do well at Stony Brook or Fordham, you will get into a good program and be judged on how well you did there as opposed to where you did your undergraduate work.
I believe my grand-niece's first choice is still a brand-name school, where, on the numbers, she might get in and might not, but she has already got a few good options in her back pocket, and I think I have reduced her stress levels about the whole process.
The problem is that highly-selective colleges turn away thousands of applicants who would do at least OK once they got in. It wouldn't surprise me if many of the students involved in this fit that description. Once they get in, they would rarely flunk out unless they were total f**k-ups.
Although Murder She Wrote (to which my wife is addicted) is part of the Hallmark rotation, it is re-runs of what had once been a major network show. I was thinking about the Hallmark shows, all of which feature perky, civilian women in nice small or medium-sized towns, attractive enough to be plausible love interests but not hot enough to be distractingly sexy, who manage to be murder magnets. I'm convinced that you could swap the lead actresses among the shows without people noticing the change.
Incidentally, one of these days I'm going to pitch a show titled Murder Magnet. I know a few civilians who have been involved in a homicide as witnesses or relatives of victims. It's very stressful. It even gets to cops. So why not a show where some baker/librarian/garage sale maven ends up entangled in multiple homicides and has PTSD and therapy as a result?
I'd quibble with one point. If you're aiming for the type of career that requires graduate or professional education, like law, medicine, or science, the admissions departments of the schools are quite familiar with the high-quality "sub-Ivies," so getting into the primo undergraduate school is not as important as people think. If you're going into a "connections" field with few objective standards of quality -- say, becoming a political pundit -- then going to the elitest of the elite undergraduate schools is a bigger deal.
I've often thought that Hallmark ought to swap out the female leads in its various mystery series. Would anyone notice if Lori Loughlin replaced Allison Sweeney, who replaced Holly Robinson Peete (well, they might notice that), who replaced Constance Cameron Bure? Hell, I'd make it an annual thing.
I've recently lost 35 pounds by paying attention to the calorie (and sugar) counts of things I had been eating. Not all the time, of course. I still hit the BBQ joints, but I now have a better idea what I am thinking of eating and have eliminated or greatly reduced things that had been fattening me up for the slaughter. At the chain restaurants where posted calories counts are required, I have often been surprised to learn that what I thought was a healthier option wasn't, and have changed my selections accordingly.
Am I surprised that there hasn't been widespread weight loss? No. It's damn hard, even with information. But it's a lot harder without it.
Several years ago, the NYC Bar Association hosted a debate on pretrial publicity between Alan Dershowitz and then-US Attorney Rudy Giuliani. I didn't go because I couldn't figure out who was representing the anti-publicity side.
Also, on a lark, I called Cellino and Barnes after watching a commercial to ask which was Cellino and which was Barnes. They worked very hard to tell me which was which without saying that Barnes is the bald one. Their more recent commecials show which is which.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Oh Man! The Big Speech”
People would actually pay to hear a politician speak back then? Without it being a thinly-disguised campaign contribution?
On “Never Say Never NeverTrump: Dems Far-Left Fringe Will Re-Elect Trump”
So people who voted for Trump before will do it again. I think we knew that. It would be foolish to underestimate the Democrats' chances of blowing 2020, but if they do, it won't be because they didn't appeal to people who wouldn't vote for them anyway.
"
We've spent far too much time figuring out why people voted for Trump and what to do about it. There really isn't much mystery. The vast majority of people who voted for Trump were -- drum roll, please -- Republicans. They would vote for almost anyone with an (R) after his name -- which they proved by voting for Trump. A rather small number stayed home in 2016 rather than hold their nose and vote. There is reason to believe that that number will increase in 2020. The people who want that sort of thing knew what they were getting and came out in 2016 precisely because he was what he clearly is. There just aren't that many more potential Trump voters out there. They may be angrier when they come out in 2020, especially when they get a steady diet of baby-killing open borders socialism, but they're the same people and their votes count the same whether they are worked up or noy.
"
If prior form holds, it's about time for Trump to change that.
"
Tonto and the Lone Ranger were surrounded by hostile Apaches. The Lone Ranger looked at Tonto and says: "Looks like we're done for." Tonto replied: "Who is this 'we' you speak of, white man?"
On “Let Not the Sins of The Client Be Cast Upon the Lawyer”
Makes me think of the movie Solitary Man, with Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, and Parker Posey. Nice movie, glad I watched it, but no commercial movie producer could have put it out paying this cast what it could normally command. I've often wondered what the deal was.
On “Save Our English”
I actually prefer the other usages precisely because they are all rape, and the other usages tell us what kind of rape it is.
On “Never Say Never NeverTrump: Dems Far-Left Fringe Will Re-Elect Trump”
People who can say or believe such things will not be convinced by mere facts.
"
That's all very true, but this post, at this site, wasn't designed to do any of those three things. There is simply no point in trying to explain why someone who could produce or believe this crude caricature is, in fact, wrong. The reasons won't matter.
In the outside world, such boob-bait for the bubbas may well do exactly what you suggest, but engaging it there on the grounds that it is wrong is equally useless. You need to do something else.
"
With whom?
"
People who would never vote for a Democrat won't vote for one in 2020. The particular reasons this time don't matter, so there is no point in explaining why they're wrong.
On “Not OK With Losing OK”
I'm trying hard, but without success, to recall a recent image of someone who is not operating in a white supremacist context using the OK sign in a context where it would make normal, non-white-supremacist sense. I have seen it used in contexts where it seems to make no sense at all, which makes one wonder
On “American Sandwich Project – Reubens, Rachels, and Monstrosities”
The classic reuben is made with corned beef, but a pastrami reuben is a nice change of pace.
On “A lady, or subscribers?”
My local bar association will be presenting a roast of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Knowing the crew involved, I was looking forward to a vicious catfight over who would get the lead role. (I have the plum male role of Antonin Scalia.) But the writers, taking a cue from RBG's answer to a question about the appropriate number of women on the Supreme Court, wrote nine scenes where RBG appeared, and the conceit of the show was that we were producing an opera about RBG and no one woman could do her justice, so nine different women were cast as RBG, depriving me of the catfight.
On “Blessed Be The Sun Devils”
The school -- Horace Mann -- gave the family a stunning financial aid package. They really loved the kid. So do I, but I'm biased.
"
Having represented public universities in litigation for the last 25 years and attended both pretty-good public and elite private universities in my own education, I have been advising my grand-niece, who is in the middle of the application process.
She is an African-American girl of middle-middle-class status who has gone through a dozen years at an elite private school -- the name would be recognizable nation-wide -- and managed not to become an entitled little shit. She is surrounded by entitled or driven classmates obsessed with getting into the brand-name places: the major Ivies, the comparable SLACs, and good schools that have become brands for reasons other than their undoubted quality, e.g., Duke.
I get that Lowells are failures if they don't end up in Harvard, Witherspoons are failures if they don't get into Princeton, and if you're one of those science geeks who belongs in Cal Tech or MIT, you'll know.
I have advised her not to get caught up in this. I can, off the top of my head, name well over 100 high-quality public and private colleges where you can get an excellent undergraduate education. I mean that both in an absolute sense and, to a lesser extent, in a positional good sense.Through some additional research, I found that the number is roughly twice what I can name.
If you can get into a super-premium school, then, by all means, go for it. The regular undergraduate education at Princeton won't be noticeably better than the education you'll get at, say, Bowdoin or Gettysburg. (Why someone who can get in-state tuition rates would choose Duke over North Carolina unless money doesn't matter is puzzling to me.) The real advantage of going to Harvard is that you're surrounded by people who got into Harvard. Those connections can pay off, especially if you go into a line of work where connections are more important than objectively observable skills. But if you're going into a career that requires graduate education -- medicine, law, science, etc. -- the admissions office at the grad school or law school or med school knows the quality of the roughly 200 competitive schools and if you do well at Stony Brook or Fordham, you will get into a good program and be judged on how well you did there as opposed to where you did your undergraduate work.
I believe my grand-niece's first choice is still a brand-name school, where, on the numbers, she might get in and might not, but she has already got a few good options in her back pocket, and I think I have reduced her stress levels about the whole process.
On “Presidential Hopeful Andrew Yang calls for elimination of Daylight Saving Time switch”
I'm against Daylight Savings Time because the extra hour of sunlight fades drapes and outdoor fabrics.
On “Admission Scandal Snares Celebs Among Others”
The problem is that highly-selective colleges turn away thousands of applicants who would do at least OK once they got in. It wouldn't surprise me if many of the students involved in this fit that description. Once they get in, they would rarely flunk out unless they were total f**k-ups.
"
Although Murder She Wrote (to which my wife is addicted) is part of the Hallmark rotation, it is re-runs of what had once been a major network show. I was thinking about the Hallmark shows, all of which feature perky, civilian women in nice small or medium-sized towns, attractive enough to be plausible love interests but not hot enough to be distractingly sexy, who manage to be murder magnets. I'm convinced that you could swap the lead actresses among the shows without people noticing the change.
Incidentally, one of these days I'm going to pitch a show titled Murder Magnet. I know a few civilians who have been involved in a homicide as witnesses or relatives of victims. It's very stressful. It even gets to cops. So why not a show where some baker/librarian/garage sale maven ends up entangled in multiple homicides and has PTSD and therapy as a result?
On “Let’s Abstain from Mandatory Calorie Counts”
Now don't go spoiling everybody's fun like that.
On “Admission Scandal Snares Celebs Among Others”
I'd quibble with one point. If you're aiming for the type of career that requires graduate or professional education, like law, medicine, or science, the admissions departments of the schools are quite familiar with the high-quality "sub-Ivies," so getting into the primo undergraduate school is not as important as people think. If you're going into a "connections" field with few objective standards of quality -- say, becoming a political pundit -- then going to the elitest of the elite undergraduate schools is a bigger deal.
"
I've often thought that Hallmark ought to swap out the female leads in its various mystery series. Would anyone notice if Lori Loughlin replaced Allison Sweeney, who replaced Holly Robinson Peete (well, they might notice that), who replaced Constance Cameron Bure? Hell, I'd make it an annual thing.
"
When you're caught out, you're caught out. What makes it not "funny" is that it's not funny.
On “Let’s Abstain from Mandatory Calorie Counts”
I've recently lost 35 pounds by paying attention to the calorie (and sugar) counts of things I had been eating. Not all the time, of course. I still hit the BBQ joints, but I now have a better idea what I am thinking of eating and have eliminated or greatly reduced things that had been fattening me up for the slaughter. At the chain restaurants where posted calories counts are required, I have often been surprised to learn that what I thought was a healthier option wasn't, and have changed my selections accordingly.
Am I surprised that there hasn't been widespread weight loss? No. It's damn hard, even with information. But it's a lot harder without it.
On “Wednesday Writs for 3/6”
Several years ago, the NYC Bar Association hosted a debate on pretrial publicity between Alan Dershowitz and then-US Attorney Rudy Giuliani. I didn't go because I couldn't figure out who was representing the anti-publicity side.
Also, on a lark, I called Cellino and Barnes after watching a commercial to ask which was Cellino and which was Barnes. They worked very hard to tell me which was which without saying that Barnes is the bald one. Their more recent commecials show which is which.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.