I actually feel sorry for his dad.

I didn’t agree a whole lot with Ron, but I had respect for him. Though I didn’t necessarily share his principles, they were obviously deeply held and sincere.

Rand, on the other hand, appears to have no meaningful principles at all, and I can’t work out if it’s because he’s too dishonest or too stupid, and I have the sneaking suspicion it’s actually both.

Just another step toward making used-to-be-Twitter a safe space for cowardly fascists.

They’re like five year olds…

They’re sort of like the old Italian man in Catch-22:

“I was a fascist when Mussolini was on top, and I am an anti-fascist now that he has been deposed. I was fanatically pro-German when the Germans were here to protect us against the Americans, and now that the Americans are here to protect us against the Germans I am fanatically pro-American.”

The only difference is that, as you note, NYT’s focus is on their own gravitas. Their goal isn’t merely survival, but to maintain their image as an authoritative voice in national affairs. And they do that in large part simply by currying favor with whoever currently has the biggest coattails.

I’m often reminded of a bit on Top Gear years ago, when they were talking about “turbo” as a marketing tool in the 80s, when you could buy “turbo” sunglasses or “turbo” watches or “turbo” after-shave.

I dunno… in a way, that’s representation in its purest form - angry, stupid Republicans have one of their own in office.

Obviously because he’s a weak candidate (and has been from the very beginning) in what might well be the highest stakes presidential race in US history.

The debate didn’t suddenly create some notion of his weakness as a candidate - long before the debate, his prospects were already shaky at best, and the Dem establishment had already had to resort to basically trying to guilt trip people into voting for him.

All the debate did as far as any of that goes is drive home the point that people have been trying to make from the beginning - that he is and always has been a weak and uninspiring candidate at best.

And I’d say that rather obviously, if anyone’s repeating the mistakes of 2016, it’s the Dem establishment.

And on a bit of a side note - in response to the author’s smugly self-congratulatory view that the voters are mindless automatons who just blindly do as the media tells them, I would just like to offer up a hearty, “fuck you.”

Just the first of many, MANY more to come.

The Republican plan, rather obviously, is to take this election by whatever means necessary - fairly, or if that fails fraudulently, or if that fails by judicial fiat, or if that fails by force.

That’s the biggest reason I don’t even call this a revolution. It’s a coup.

Since the Heritage Foundation just overtly declared war on American democracy, complete with a thinly veiled threat of violence and bloodshed, it’s just that much more important that news like this is spread as widely as possible.

The fascists riding Trump’s coattails aren’t even hiding their intentions any more. We must not let them succeed in destroying the few remaining vestiges of American democracy, and the first step in that is keeping that loathsome lunatic Trump out of office.

No - piracy, since it always carries at least some amount of difficulty and risk, is easy to compete against. And in fact, paid services, including Netflix, have proven that over and over. All it takes is to offer dependable convenience and quality and to treat customers well. People are always willing to pay a reasonable price for that.

The problem is that piracy becomes difficult to compete against when, as Netflix is currently doing, you shift from a business model of providing good service under fair terms for a reasonable price to a business model of providing crappy service under onerous terms for too much money, because the greedy, selfish, short-sighted sacks of shit at the top want to make even more obscene amounts of money. That’s the point at which piracy gains enough of an advantage to outweigh its difficulties and risks.

And when that’s the case, it’s pretty obvious what the real problem is.