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softlynow

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by softlynow

  1. 2 hours ago, Bookman said:

    What criminal laws were violated?

    If we had a functional mob, we wouldn't need laws to get justice. Texans aren't what they talk themselves up to be. Everything's bigger but our balls, apparently. We repeatedly take it dry and ask for more. By the time the next national abortion/gay rights/trans rights/immigration/gun rights/police brutality story takes over the news all the anger and willingness to hold Texas Pubs accountable will be gone.

    The Capitol should be surrounded by angry people demanding heads on pikes.

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  2. Anything but simple majority rules in the Senate is silly. The filibuster wasn't in the Senate's original rules, and only came about because Aaron Burr was a moron.

    The Senate already protects minority interests by constitutional design. Either make the Senate more democratic in makeup, or in function. The former requires amendment, the latter apparently requires heaping largesse on West Virginia and Arizona. WV definitely needs federal help, Arizona not so much, but Dems need to figure out the cost of getting rid of this stupid rule.

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  3. 33 minutes ago, youdunnf'dup said:

    Pretty sure he was simply asking the Texans organization to keep the promise they made when they signed him long term. The first opportunity they got to break that promise, they did. Im sure he feels like he was sold a bill of goods so that he would agree to sign on the dotted line. Stop looking at this like “why should a 25 year old qb be able to have input on a GM hire”. The answer is, because he was told that was going to happen. That’s why. The only lesson here is don’t make promises that you can’t or don’t want to keep. 

    The lesson is when you realize something is rotten, move on. I've been a Texan fan, but had not read or heard anything about Easterby. Now that I have, and learned about the prosperity theology beliefs of the McNair's, the dysfunction and incompetence of the Texan administration makes sense. They've been taken in by a philosophy that is, in reality, simply meant to enable grifters, and they've now promoted one to Executive Vice President of Football Operations. A fucking conman preacher.

    Jerry Jones shouldn't be mentioned in a conversation with these clowns. He's 100x the owner that Cal is. If I had Texans gear, I'd be donating it in short order.

    Edit to add: Hell, he fucking looks like a conman pederast:

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  4. 6 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

    Well, that combined with Obama and the Dems' insanely stupid attempt to actually negotiate legislation with the GOP, thinking they could get some Republicans on board. 

    Major bi-partisan legislation was routine in every presidency up until the black guy took office. I don't fault Dems for not understanding that the first black president would make a third of the country completely lose their minds. I will fault them going forward if they don't use the tools at their disposal now to counter the GOPs madness.

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  5. On 1/8/2021 at 3:43 PM, Pip said:


    This is Tom Palaima’s schtick. Ignore him, he’s a grumpy old man howling at the wind.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    Yep. I took his summer intensive Ancient Greek class, and recall a negative op-Ed about Mack Brown Texas Football that summer (2001). I don’t remember the topic, but he was plainly anti-athletics. No doubt he finds an opening for his bitching at least once a year. 

  6. 14 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

    So we lost the game and it was completely my fault. 
    I got rewarded for my efforts by parents screaming at the refs causing the refs to stop the game- having my wife and mom almost get in altercations, and being heckled and screamed at by the parents on my team. 
    Fun times. 
    I’m trying to decide if I’m going to quit or not. I’ve forgotten more basketball than these fucksticks will ever know. When I say- it’s my fault that we lost I mean that literally. I let all of the kids take at least 4 minutes in the spotlight (32 minute game), mixed up al their positions and encouraged everyone to try something different. 
    We lost by 5 (28-23) against a team that only had 5 (we have 6- they didn’t have a complete spaz mine showed up) where their 2 best players were on the ball literally 100% of the time. 
    this is city league people- not select. 
    Nobody should give a shit but whatever. I didn’t want this job- they begged parents to volunteer and my wife signed me up over my strenuous objections. And now everyone else can coach better. Fuck it- let them I think. 
    My kid sucks. He’s better now than he was last year, but he doesn’t seem to like me coaching him (he says he does but I don’t see excitement or happiness on his face) and as much as I loved sports I’d just as soon he didn’t play because he does it in such a half assed and lackluster way that it just seems like a waste of everyone’s time. So I go out there and clap and encourage and instruct and bite my tongue as these dipshits and morons act like it’s game 7 of the nba finals. 
    It is literally absurd.  

    Have fun with the parents. Go Norman Dale and require 4 passes every possession, practices without a ball, bench a couple and play with 4 to end a game, hire an alcoholic to be your assistant, get thrown out and let the alcoholic finish the game.

    I’m only half kidding. My way to say “fuck ‘em” would be to finish the year my way, and not let them know they bugged me.

    Any way, good luck. You’re a brave one for doing it, a better parent than any of those others. 

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  7. 1. No more than one missed XP all year. 
    2. Zero games kicking off both halves. 
    3. Take the RZ FG most of the time in first halves. 
    4. Bijan with 15+ touches a game. 
    5. Wiley with 5+targets a game. 
    6. A 100% stop rate on 3rd and 17+.

    7. Proof that from time to time winning is actually sort of easy. 
    8. Zero staff members tied to the Briles rape regime. 
    9. Zero Sark dirty 6th sightings. 
    10. McConaughey buy-in. 
    11. Olds complaining about something new at DKR next year. I’m not exempting myself from this. 
    12. Pain. 

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  8. 23 minutes ago, UTEX_ME said:

    9 months is a long time.. post covid game 1 will be a sell out. 

    I don’t think it’s a given that we pack the place for the Ragin Cajuns, Rice or either Kansas. Seats will also be empty to see Tech if that game is late in the year and they’re garbage again. A Herman led ‘21 squad will be an easy ticket to get, especially so given our home schedule. 

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  9. 4 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

    Ok, maybe we don't want Urban as our new HC. This is one of several tweets liked by s Shelly Meyer. Others were about HQC and Zinc. 

    They’re content to remain in Ohio. I’m sure their shitty views don’t stop there. 

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  10.  

    Just now, Surly Bevo said:

    Urban isn't worried about his approach.  He IS worried about our school and our culture SUPPORTING his approach.  

    Fair considering the uneven way the summer was handled. Easy pitch to overcome that: Tom Herman had the primary input there, as you would once you sign *right* *here*.

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  11. 1 minute ago, TexArcher said:

    I need an announcement.

    An actual announcement.

    Very soon.

    The universe is 13.5 billion years old, and our solar system is 4.6 billion years old. Homo Sapiens is thought to have been around for 300,000 years. Agriculture has been a thing for 12,000 years and sports for 3,000.

    In that context I guess 5 days is “very soon.” See you Sunday. 

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  12. 12 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

    But she wouldn't allow M4A?

    She wouldn't reach the question because there aren't 50 Dem votes for M4A.

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    The "look, stupid leftist, you've got to be a smart strategist" stuff is always pretty fun when it becomes obvious that the smart strategist realizes he can't even get the compromise he wants out of Republicans.

    On healthcare, it has almost always been true that you will get no GOP compromise. Your missing the part where a Dem majority necessarily means that there are red state Dems. Call them anything you want, they're not likely to back many progressive bills.

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    The answer is to mobilize the base, win the Senate, and unify under the banner of popular policies that actually solve the problems we face.

    This is correct. Work needs to be done on the people's attitudes to get us to the point that progressive candidates in swing districts actually have a fighting chance. We just had confirmation that this isn't true. The fight continues, and I hope (though do not expect) for a better strategy to emerge soon.

    That typed, while we may be on a tangent, this is a thread about governing after the 2020 election. With a couple races left, in which Dems are not the favorites let alone progressive policies, it's obvious that progressive steps will not be taken by the incoming government. It's time to consider the best way for that government to actually improve the lives of its constituents.

    And a final aside: M4A has an enormous hurdle to clear in that even quite liberal people would be hesitant to see their own health insurance torpedoed for the uncertainty of what universal Medicare would become.

  13. 29 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    51 + filibuster reform gets it done.

    We're not getting ANYTHING from Republicans. We won't get Medicare expansion. We won't get a public option. We won't get additional funding. We aren't getting any steps forward with Republicans, so that argument makes no sense.

    It can't pass as long as we're under 51 in the Senate. Sure. Did I ever say we'd get it with a Republican Senate?

    A question I beg you to answer: Will Biden get HIS non-universal plan without 51 in the Senate? Will the centrists get their plan?

    Just need 50 + Harris for either filibuster reform or reconciliation. Manchin is a no-go on filibuster reform, so, file that away for later Congresses. Considering the VP is the gatekeeper for what gets through reconciliation, if Biden's plan can get 50, I'm sure his VP would allow it.

    I'm not sure whether it'll happen, should the Georgia races produce a couple of miracles, but the chances are higher than the zero that is M4A in this Congress.

  14. 2 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

    The far right racists were and are energized by the attacks, including dog whistles, against the left. They're not energized by attacks against the right, that's not how it generally works. 

    Not generally, no. But as you pointed out, the left is less than proficient at this. What starts as an attack on what is generally accepted as clearly racist and readily seen as "bad" can easily become an attack what is arguably racist and maybe not so bad to some, and then maybe a bit racist and "oh, come on, really?" The statue removal movement is an obvious example of that dynamic.

    Although not exactly on point, the #metoo phenomenon exemplifies why it's harder to just tell the left "ATTACK!" It gets out of control real fast. That people had to apologize for saying that an offensive shoulder touch wasn't as bad as rape shows how easily a leftist offensive pattern goes from pincer to mobius.

    Anyway, they're my people and they're often right, but very exhausting.

  15. 48 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

    Ah, I see your angle.

    But yes, the Democrats should yell as loudly about the far right as Republicans do about the far left and they should never stop. Being nice and worrying about decorum and appeasing their opponents more than their base has ended in complete and total defeat over the last two decades. The little chart I put together is fairly personal for me because I basically haven't moved in terms of what I believe in for the last two decades. I was the center 20 years ago (one of those mythological socially liberal fiscal conservatives). I'm basically left of most Democrats in office now in terms of how people actually think about politics in this country.

    But it's actually kind of frightening. The rightward movement isn't stopping and in fact is not even showing signs of slowing down. It will continue as long as the Democrats spend more time yelling at the far left than they do yelling at the far right.

    Do Republicans spend more time acting hysterical about the far left or the far right?
    What about Democrats?

    There's your answer right there.

    I would tend to agree, however Dems need to be fairly targeted in the parts of the far right they go after. Trump has exposed the ugly racist divide, and that part of the far right clearly 1. does not scare swing voters all that much and 2. drawing attention to them appears to have drawn more of them into the voting ranks.

    Dems absolutely need to stop worrying about AOC and the like, and, at the very least, keep criticisms of them out of the public eye. But consider a moment Bill Maher. He's exactly why Dems will never get their shit together. As bad as the Trump era got, he was always up for attacking the PC left. He'd even end a joke about campus silliness and go right into questioning why Dems couldn't protect their own when silly shit happens like in the case of Al Franken. He was the target of his own criticism and doesn't see it. They have no party discipline and never will, and show little awareness that they don't, why they don't and why they should fix that shit.

  16. 1 hour ago, bad_teammate said:

    No, what kind of stupid question is that? There wasn't 1 Republican vote for Obamacare w/ no public option. Idiotic question.

    You're really bad at this. Unless you can get 60 Senate votes, no M4A (getting it through Reconciliation is a pipe dream). Your question was "how would we know this" in response to my assertion that the ideal plan could not pass. We know this, and you just admitted you know this, and knew this before you asked you idiotic question, because . . . Republicans.

    So quit trying to gaslight me about your centrist boogeyman. You suck at it. I didn't even have to go to a previous page.

  17. 3 minutes ago, Llogg said:

    If the goal is universal coverage, and your plan does not provide universal coverage it is a failure. And a totally unnecessary one. There is an obvious solution that would benefit everyone except private insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital corporations. Closer to success is still failure.

    This is a cold way to view helping people with problems. If the ideal plan could never pass to begin with, should those that could be helped by incremental improvements be told that simply helping them but not everyone is "failure," so fuck it?

    As to the larger (side) conversation. This hammers home that the right just does every aspect of politics better, this aspect being radical flanking.

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  18. 1 hour ago, DonkeyCigars said:

    Are you essentially saying that doing nothing for those who sacrificed, did without, and responsibly met their financial obligations on one hand and on the other offering blanket loan forgiveness for people loaded up to the gils with bad debt from expensive and/or for-profit schools, not finishing their programs despite taking loans, or irresponsibly borrowing for low-value career paths is punishment for the Pubs? 

    No.

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    The above sounds very much like "let the Pubs complain we are doing this anyways and they deserve to eat the poop on this one!"

    Yes, this move would be politically advantageous for Dems, and can be done unilaterally. And we can type "shit" here.

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    That said, I like Biden's loan plan a lot as a start and would also like to see some reform in allowing student loans be discharged through bankruptcy. We can make sensible reform without being ridiculous.

    Reform requires control of both houses and the presidency or cooperation from Pubs. We will not likely see the latter except on reform that enriches the already rich, and the former is at least one election cycle away.

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