When I first saw Reynolds, I flashed on a Thanksgiving episode of “Roseanne.”

In the episode, DJ is taking part in a school play doing a modernized version of the old classic Pilgrim story, only with the Pilgrims being a little more “Pulp Fiction” and using (toy) machine guns to slaughter the Indians. When the play is done, only Roseanne and her family applaud with any vigor (largely because DJ did such a fantastic job of dying on stage) while the majority of the audience gives shocked but polite applause.

When the teacher comes on the stage, he’s a Native American.

One of the women in the audience comes up to Roseanne and asks if Roseanne’s as appalled as she is. And when the teacher comes over, Roseanne gives the play a thumbs up while the other woman expresses her shock. And she feels justified because her great, great, great grandmother was an “authentic Cherokee princess” to which the teacher points out that Native tribes didn’t have princesses. (Roseanne also comes back with “You’re busted. And your roots are brown.”)

My response to Jeff is this: When a MEAN-SPIRITED conservative dies, one who’s entire life has been spent vilifying others for the sole horrific sin of not being a conservative, then I have no problem celebrating that person’s death—even cheering for the person’s welcome into the nethermost pits of Hell. Like when Breitbart died. I had a comment removed from this very website because I was sincerely unapologetic in taking pleasure in the man’s death. When Thatcher died, I had no problem taking pleasure in the Iron Bitch’s demise, given her horrific treatment of anyone who was less fortunate than her (not to mention her government’s attack on the very existence of LGBTs); the only thing that tempered my glee was that it took so long for Lady Voldemort to shuffle from this mortal coil.

I was glad—no, ecstatic—when Falwell died—I hold him largely responsible for the millions who died from AIDS because he wielded his religious ideals as a club against the LGBT community. (When Pat Robertson finally croaks, I’ll be celebrating then too.)

That said, when principled conservatives, like William F Buckley Jr and William Safire, died, I felt no pleasure in their deaths. I didn’t agree with their politics but they were both incredibly open to discussion with political opponents, rarely devolving into personal attacks on them. They were highly articulate about their ideology and were pretty witty and even charming. Even when Barry Goldwater died, I didn’t feel any reason to be glad he was gone. Again, he was a principled conservative whose politics were largely anathema to me but he somewhat redeemed himself after chiding his fellow GOPers for their tying themselves to the Religious Right’s social agenda (which Goldwater thought was contrary to his view of conservatism—which wanted VERY limited government involvement). Given the current state of conservatism in this country, I don’t foresee myself feeling the least bit of sorrow or regret when any more right-wingers die.

But Beau Biden NEVER did anything to cause distress to anyone. And any self-described conservative who takes any pleasure in his death is a boil on the collective butt of humanity (and the sooner those people die, the better).

Antoinette wrote “The audience feedback, so far, has been against Joshua. He and his family are poison to the Republican Party. We highly, highly doubt these wolves in sheep’s clothing will be speaking at the Republican National Convention, or any conservative event.”

Yeah, well, there’s a LOOOOOOONG time to go before the RNC takes place. And, from a lot of the comments I’ve seen at places like ThinkProgress, there’ve been some pretty vocal supporters (note: TP uses Facebook for their commenting system so the site gets a lot of right-wingers popping up, especially when some of their “favorite” pop culture people come under attack by the “liberals” at TP; one woman in particular had some pro-Josh comments that almost read as though she didn’t have any problem with any child molesting—she had to do some serious backtracking with the comment to “clarify” what she meant).

As long as TLC sticks to their guns and keeps the Duggars off the network, we might never hear from these backwoods cretins again. But given how much longer it took for the network to do anything to the Duggars (when the story broke, the show was only pulled for about 5 days; on 5/22, my local cable guide still had the show scheduled for the morning of 5/27), I’m not reassured the show will actually be cancelled. It’s now been a full 9 days since the scandal broke and the show’s future is still merely “in question.” When the Honey Boo-Boo scandal broke (her mom started dating a sex offender), the network immediately cancelled the show—no ifs, ands or buts.

So, whenever there’s ANY sort of tragedy (mass shootings at schools, horrific climate events, etc), the CONservative motto seems to be, “Let’s not do anything while people’s emotions are inflamed.”

BUT, when people are no longer “suffering,” the CONservatives just pooh-pooh any actions because “there’s no need at this time.” IOW, kicking the problem down the road—just like they’ve been doing for the last 35 years.

Hey Sean! Remember that time you volunteered to be waterboarded for charity? Remember that time you never did follow through?

What’s wrong, Sean? Can’t find any time out of your “busy” schedule to get someone to waterboard you? Hey, I’ve got an idea. You’ve got a TV show that obviously needs something new since you can find time to repeatedly harangue the First Lady over a speech she gave a couple of weeks ago. Sooooooooo. How about you get some of our fine servicemen to come on your show and help you out with that little waterboarding stunt? Considering you have ample number of servicemen on the show to help you criticize the President, there should be at least one or two who know how to waterboard a suspect.

You FoxNoise guys do realize that there’s NOTHING in the 2nd Amendment protecting the SALE of arms?

All the 2nd says is “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state*, the right to KEEP AND BEAR ARMS shall not be infringed.” Nothing in there saying there’s a right to SELL guns.

*Despite what those “original intent” morons on SCOTUS decided in one of the more recent cases, those words DO still exist and the Founding Fathers’ wishes should be respected. (Yes, yes, I am aware that “original intent” only applies when the particular Justice decides it does; otherwise, his own interpretation is more important.)

In the meantime, an Alabama Unitarian pastor who attempted to marry a same-sex couple in a county probate office (after the couple had obtained a marriage license) was actually arrested and fined for it. Now, granted she was also accused of refusing to leave the office (which—last time I looked—was open to the public) and charged with trespassing (again—on public, government-run property) and those are the charges which resulted in the prosecution but really, how different is this from what the right-wing have been claiming about how they’ll “have to marry same-sex couples?”

Where are Hannity and O’Reilly with cries of “treason” against Trump? You just know that Trump’s words/actions—under a GOP President—would be labelled treason (especially if the words/action came from a Democrat).

I wonder if Mrs Paul (Hey Rand! How are her fish sticks?) is aware of where Rupert Murdoch’s last two wives came from?

From Wiki: Anna Maria Torv (wife #2) worked for Murdoch’s Sydney newspaper, The Telegraph, when they got married; she was 23 and Murdoch was 36. Then (a mere 17 days after that divorce was finalized) along comes Wendi Deng (wife #3) who, at the time, was working as a VP at Murdoch’s STAR TV; she was 30 and he was 68.

Maybe Mrs Paul would care to speak with Andrea Mackris about her, um, unique, relationship with Bill O’Reilly. Ms Mackris was in her late 20s/early 30s when O’Reilly began harassing her (Bill was in his 50s AND married at the time).

She is NOT a free speech advocate; she’s a provocateur plain and simple.

I wonder if she’d support speeches by Holocaust deniers? Or how she’d react if a neo-Nazi group took out ads condemning the “Zionist Conspiracy controlling America’s banks?” Something tells me she’d be leading the brigades to have such actions and speech banned.

(edited by moderator – no talk of violence allowed, even if you’re just kidding.)

My question is how many Manhattanites—or New Yorkers, in general—really need to know how to change a tire?

According to one study (https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/rudincenter/dynamic_pop_manhattan.pdf), of the 1.6 million commuters traveling EVERY DAY into Manhattan, only 16.2% (that’s fewer than 260,000) of them travel by car. Again—that’s COMMUTERS, mostly from the other boroughs or nearby cities in New York and New Jersey. Among local Manhattanites, the study says that 58% use mass transit—if they’re not walking or biking.

According to Census figures, only about 1.4 million out of 3 million households in NYC own any cars. In Manhattan, less than 1 out of every 4 households owns even a single car while, in Brooklyn and Bronx, just under half of all households own a single vehicle. In Queens, it’s nearly 2 of 3 and in Staten Island, it’s 5 of 6. But, compare those to the national average, where 92% of all households own at least one car (and 20% own three or more).

Personally, I can change a tire. That is, of course, assuming I can get the freaking lug nuts off. When you buy new tires, the mechanics use machines to tighten the lug nuts and they’re nearly impossible to get off WITHOUT the same type of machines. The last time I had to change a tire, it took me almost 45 minutes just to get the lug nuts off but less than 10 minutes to actually get the tire off and changed out and lug nuts and hubcap back on. (An earlier time, a couple of guys stopped and asked if I needed help. The guy who came over was seriously in better shape than I was—and a little bigger as well—and he had trouble getting the lug nuts off using my tire iron. He got his and still had to jump up and down on the tire iron to turn the nut.)

The idea that changing a tire is some “proof” of manhood is ludicrous. As far as tying a tie or knotting a rope, my dad’s favorite trick with the necktie was tie it once and when you’re done with it, just loosen it enough to pull it over your head, and you never have to tie the damned thing again. I haven’t had any reason to tie a necktie in literally decades (not to say I can’t but it won’t be perfect) and knotting a rope? For what purpose? If I don’t want to destroy the rope, I just tie it like a shoelace (depending, of course, on what and where I’m tying); otherwise, I just make a freaking knot and use a knife to cut the rope when I’m done. (It’s not like rope is all that expensive.)

Curious here. What was Gutfeld’s reaction to the Waco biker gang shootout?

Or was that different because white bikers?

It does seem funny (not the good kind, mind you) that FoxNoise seems to excuse “whites behaving badly” as “a few bad apples” but when it’s a “Blacks behaving badly,” the whole group is guilty by default (except, of course, for the FoxNoise “house n-words”).

Nope. Not buying it. Josh Duggar is a child molester, and there are only three truly effective ways of rehabilitating child molesters: 1) Death; 2) Castration (chemical or physical—but these don’t actually stop the urges; both merely change the manner of molestation); and 3) Life in prison (which very often leads to the first option—inmates, even rapists and murderers, are less than kind to child molesters).

What’s especially horrifying is that Duggar has three children of his own (1 of whom is a daughter).

Furthermore, the state trooper who Papa Duggar got to “talk” with Josh is currently serving a 55-year prison sentence (I believe it’s kiddie porn-related). AND, Papa Duggar waited a FULL YEAR before reporting to any authorities.

TLC cancelled the Honey Boo-Boo show because her mother was dating an alleged child molester—even after Mama stood up for him. TLC has NOT yet officially pulled the plug on the Duggar’s “reality” show (my cable guide still has episodes of “19 and Counting” and one of its spin-offs on the schedule for Wednesday morning just as it was listed more than 12 hours ago) despite the show’s heterosexual child molester’s presence.

It’s worth noting too that Huckabee isn’t exactly the model of parenting—given his son’s propensity as a teenager for torturing and killing animals (usually such behavior is seen as the starting point for serial killers)—so his support of the Duggars isn’t all that surprising.

For Huckabee to be playing his little “concerned Christian” act seems incredibly hollow. The Duggars (especially that b!c# of a mother) have had the audacity to attack gays as threats to children for well over a decade (you might recall the robocalls the b!c# made to defeat the LGBT protection laws in Fayetteville, AR)—all the while, they’ve had a real threat to children living among them. And his little blast about “protecting the innocent victims” is just bull. The records weren’t destroyed to protect the victims—they were destroyed to protect the predator.

Just for what it’s worth, has anyone considered the irony that the Duggars are some of the same far-right Christians who usually love to denounce Islam by bringing up the Prophet’s relationship with his youngest wife, the prepubescent Aisha. BUT when one of their own is molesting children (of unspecified ages—those destroyed records would’ve included the victims’ ages), they actually defend him and put it off to “youthful” indiscretions.

And Jayelle’s point about Huckabee’s lecturing the Obamas over the girls’ listening to Beyonce just points even more to Huckabee’s total lack of moral high ground (as well as his hypocrisy).

@ Sage: Exactly whom are you slurring? Ellen (and, by extension, Newshounds)? Or another commenter? Or the “good” folkkks at Red Eye and FoxNoise?

The pronoun “you” is never very good on a website where a number of people post (especially when at least 2 comments were made before yours). If you’re going to use an insult (especially a slur), then be man (or woman) enough to “name names” when doing so.

There’s an old saying (though no one is really sure who first said it) that goes “In war, the first casualty is truth.”

That could just as easily be reworded to apply to FoxNoise as “At FoxNoise, the first casualty is truth.”

So if van Susteren really thinks “Experience counts,” who does she think the GOP nominee should be? There’s not a single one of those bozos with the “experience” necessary to deal with ISIS.

It’s also funny because what “experience” did Dubya have? I mean, aside from his record of FAILED businesses before becoming Governor of Texas (a position which has very little real power*), Dubya didn’t have much to offer, aside from his last name.

(*Just for comparison, look at the Wiki articles for the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Texas. The former has a grand total of 485 words—including 12 footnote indicators. The latter has a grand total of 608 words—including only 1 footnote indicator. Both totals exclude the article titles, the “From Wikipedia” byline, and miscellany like “References” and “See Also” and “Content Boxes.” Going simply by character/letter count, the article for Lieutenant Governor has some 800 more characters than the article for Governor.)