The Soccer/Politics Mash-Up

The US is through to the elimination round of the World Cup, which means we are at risk of exposure to Sudden Onset Soccer Expertise at least through early next week.

Folks have wondered about the sudden media interest in soccer from people who normally disdain sports. Interestingly, a seemingly unrelated survey from the Pew Research Center provides a hint of an answer; from a WaPo discussion:

Proud to be an American? You’re probably not a true liberal.

...

Michelle Obama took some heat in 2008 for saying that, "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country..."

As it turns out, that sentiment isn't all that unusual on the far left of American politics. According to a new Pew Research Center study, only 40 percent of consistently liberal Americans say they often feel proud to be Americans.

The other 60 percent say that doesn't describe them.

Far be it from me to question their patriotism, but no kidding. The WaPo also notes that Solid Liberals have another distinctive quirk:

The poll also shows many liberals don't liken themselves to your average American. Just 51 percent say they feel as though they are "typical Americans" -- as compared to three-quarters of conservatives and at least two-thirds of all the other groups.

And the soccer connection? Isn't it obvious? The Solid Libs in the media love soccer because the Great Unwashed could care less. Rooting for America provides a special thrill because, unlike in, e.g., the Olympics, we will inevitably get our asses kicked and the Hegemon will get its comeuppance. Win-win!

HMM: The AllahPundit makes the same point in his lead:

Poll: Only 40% of “solid liberals” say they often feel proud to be American

Via WaPo, so that’s why lefties in my Twitter timeline were cheering when Germany scoredon the U.S. today.

No, I’m kidding. They didn’t cheer. They just said we had it coming and shook their heads sadly.

Just so.

Comments

[daddy]

Kill The Whales Eagles.

[MarkO]

Where else can one win by tying or losing?

It's just so European.

[jimmyk]

It's just so European.

In the NHL a team could clinch a playoff spot by losing in OT, for which they get one point, much to the shame of the sport. I guess one could argue that change came after all those Europeans came over to the NHL.

[Extraneus]

From the previous thread...

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

The first two comments to this thread are epically good!

[Eric in Boise]

It's just so European.

Metric football has always reminded me of these EU committee meetings where things go back and forth for what seems like an eternity, but in the end little or nothing of substance is accomplished.

[Jeff Dobbs]

jimmy:
In the NHL a team could clinch a playoff spot by losing in OT

Man, this would have been the time to drop in my balls/goals goofing around.

#LetsDoThis

More saving. More doing. That's the power of Home Depot.

[narciso]

Rove is just being Luis Suarez

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/06/mark-levin-to-tea-party-basher-karl-rove-clown/

[Stephanie]

Just walked in from Home Depot. Y'all following me around?

[Old Lurker]

Procrastinating? Me 4.

Goal is to reprogram my Comcast Xfinity Remote so that I can skip 30 seconds of commercials at a time like I can on my Verizon FIOS at home.

Yes...my list is down to that.

:-)

[Porchlight]

Where else can one win by tying or losing?

It's just so European.

Lol.

Chuck Klosterman, hardly a righty, also had a good soccer takedown in 2004. It was in his book but The Wire excerpted it:

http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2010/06/opinion-flashback-klosterman-s-2004-takedown-of-soccer/24006/

Soccer fanatics love to tell you that soccer is the most popular game on earth and that it's played by 500 million people every day, as if that somehow proves its value. Actually, the opposite is true. Why should I care that every single citizen of Chile and Iran and Gibraltar thoughtlessly adores "football"? Do the people making this argument also assume Coca-Cola is ambrosia? Real sports aren't for everyone. And don't accuse me of being the Ugly American for degrading soccer. That has nothing to do with it. It's not xenophobic to hate soccer; it's socially reprehensible to support it. To say you love soccer is to say you believe in enforced equality more than you believe in the value of competition and the capacity of the human spirit. It should surprise no one that Benito Mussolini loved being photographed with Italian soccer stars during the 1930s; they were undoubtedly kindred spirits. I would sooner have my kid deal crystal meth than play soccer. Every time I pull up behind a Ford Aerostar with a "#1 Soccer Mom" bumper sticker, I feel like I'm marching in the wake of the Khmer Rouge.

[anonamom]

Proud to be an American?
I've never really cared for that word. Maybe has something to do with twelve years of parochial school.
For me, it's GRATEFUL to be an American.

Stephanie, how'd you get rid of the migraine?

btw, psuedophed and alka seltzer are great for sinus headaches, because the pain is from inflamation, but are unlikely to touch a true migraine.
(go ahead, tell me it was that!)

[Porchlight]

Metric football

LOL again.

I love the FB freakout re: the Coulter column. So predictable.

[GMax]

There are ties in American football.

[Try Hang Gliding]

I know the Wall Street Journal thinks we should all be soccer fans. And that was before the World Cup. They give just as much coverage to some obscure European league as they do our own pro sports. I think the NBA finals merited two paragraphs this year.

[Stephanie tortoise not the hare]

Three hydroxyzine, sleep for 5 1/2 hours and it's down to feeling like I've got a cat on my head instead of a great dane and the light sensitivity is gone as are the auras. A nap before dinner and another 3 pills to sleep tonight and it might just disappear.

[Happy, happy, joy, joy Ignatz]

Pet peeve alert;

the Great Unwashed could couldn't care less

[Porchlight]

Yes, Gmax, but not in the playoffs - they just keep playing overtime until sudden death. And you certainly can't advance in the playoffs if you lose.

Single-elimination. Lose, you're done. You can't get lucky based on what the other teams are doing.

[Jeff Dobbs]

The Washington Free Beacon has been on a pretty good soccer snark roll...recent headlines and snippets:

OBAMA GOES THERE: Refers to Soccer as 'Football'

President Obama referred to the sport of soccer as “football” during a press conference in Brussels on Thursday, raising questions about his commitment to America.

Soccer = Socialism

The World Cup is great because, like the election and reelection of Barack Obama, it gives American hipsters a chance to partake in unironic expressions of patriotism.

Soccer: The Single Greatest Threat to American Exceptionalism

The World Cup, rather, is a working model of President Obama’s foreign policy vision: a world in which America has no special role, where inferior countries are no longer humbled by American greatness, where every country is exceptional, and free shots on goal are not earned, but given away as a handout to those who have mastered the art of falling down.

John Kerry's Soccer Obsession is Undermining America

Secretary of State John Kerry undermined the interests of the United States on Friday by discussing soccer in an interview with Sports Illustrated.

Kerry’s affinity for the sport, which has deep ties to socialism, is no secret. He has been photographed on numerous occasions looking awkward while kicking a soccer ball in jeans:

[MarkO]

"There are ties in American football"

DOOM

What of Australian Rules Football?

[daddy]

Stephanie,

Weirdest thing for my lately was that I had over a month off for vacation, and got on a regular body clock schedule. How odd to fall asleep every night at the same time (02:00 AM) and wake up naturally every day at the same time (@09:00 AM), and to do such a thing for like 30 days in a row---Madness!

No alarm clocks at all, and plus I did not have a single drop of alcohol the entire vacation since I had to go thru an EKG for a mandatory physical, and I got used to being sober.

How odd it felt to not be exhausted and not be unstuck in time like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse 5. Happily, tho' that bit of craziness is over and I'm off now for a quick pint or 2 in Indy, in hopes it'll knock me out.

[anonamom]

Re: comments on the other thread about pictures (and thumb prints, my GOI doc) being required by "doctors."
NOOOO--it's the insurers, to prevent fraud. Doctors are their sheeple.

And centralcal's noting that her clients (IIRC) are being told if they don't take the ACA patients, the insurers won't pay them for the "private' patients--makes TOTAL sense--the insurers have become the government's agents, in that ALL their losses will be met, per the ACA.
Not the doctors' losses though! The insurers are trying to strong arm the doctors, it seems to me.

Hope the CA docs have the cajones to simply go to cash only--which will be INFINITELY cheaper, as all those women in the office can be let go if they don't have to deal with insurance any more.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

I love watching World Football, but I'm not WSJish about it. Now that the USA is is what I believe FIFA calls the 'knockout phase' of 16 teams, you all are going to learn about FIFA 'extra periods' and 'kicks from the mark, in the event 'normal' time ends in a tie. Bottomline 5 penalty kicks each can decide a knockout game. That is IMO, the worst way to end a World Cup match..... except for every other way. I'll explain if people are interested.

[jimmyk]

(Since it's behind the paywall) Taranto quotes the JEF doing a Jimmy Carter:

[Obama] said young people largely support acting on climate change--citing his own daughters as an example.

"You talk to Malia, you talk to Sasha, you talk to your kids or your grandkids--this is something they get," he said. "They don't need a lot of persuading."

But how do they feel about nuclear disarmament?

[MarkO]

My oldest daughter played college soccer at BU. My favorite game saw her rolling in the mud with a Harvard girl, punching each other.

In my halcyon days I was an owner of a professional soccer team. The players were the most well-conditioned and fit athletes in all of sport. The game is hard.

My problem is that I am accustomed to US sports in which there is prelude music to the action. In baseball, the windup. In football, the huddle, In basketball, the first 3 quarters.
I can't possibly give anything on TV my full attention for 45 minutes.

[Extraneus]

I'm not sure these guys understand.

Did the IRS really try to retrieve those lost Lerner emails?

Computer experts and Republican lawmakers are poking holes in IRS claims that the agency did all it could to retrieve embattled ex-official Lois Lerner's allegedly "lost" emails, which the agency blames on a 2011 hard-drive crash.

The email revelation already has prompted three congressional hearings -- with more likely to come -- as lawmakers grow more skeptical of the explanation and look for inconsistencies in the story. Among them, they point to a flurry of emails from mid-2011 between Lerner and the agency's information technology team about the alleged computer failure which was attached to the agency's mea culpa delivered to Congress earlier this month.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, in testimony on Capitol Hill this week, cited those emails as proof of the hard drive crash.

But Lerner's communications with the agency's IT team referred to her desire to retrieve "lost personal files" -- not lost emails.

And that detail is "very suspicious," according to David Kennedy, chief executive of information security firm TrustedSec. Kennedy said that when government computers crash, email recovery should be a priority. But in Lerner's communication with the IT team, "There is no talk about the recovery of the emails," Kennedy said, adding, "It didn't seem like they really wanted to recover the data."

Therefore, there's no evidence that emails were on her hard drive.

"She doesn't even say I'm missing emails," the aide said, describing that detail as one of the "things that don't ... quite add up." Also in that category, for some on the committee, is the matter of what happened with the IRS's backup system, which is supposed to back up data for six months. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, pressed Koskinen at the Oversight hearing, asking why IT professionals didn't go to the back-up tapes after her crash.

Koskinen said it's "very costly and difficult" to extract individual emails from that system, but acknowledged he hadn't seen messages explaining why that step wasn't taken.

"I don't know why," Koskinen said.

Why would anyone go to backup tapes after a computer crash? All you have to do is get a new computer, install Microsoft Outlook, and point it to the live server. The emails there are the same ones that were there before the "crash."

This has nothing to do with backup tapes. The only reason to go to any backup tapes is to recover DELETED emails. If I used to have an email, but deleted it at some point, I could recover it from a backup. If there are only six months of backups, I could recover something I deleted six months ago, but not something I deleted seven months ago.

It makes no sense to ask why the backup tapes weren't used to recover her emails after the "crash." The problem is the six month backup strategy. All she had to do was delete all questionable emails, wait six months, and poof. Unrecoverable.

[jimmyk]

I did not have a single drop of alcohol the entire vacation

Yikes, too bad, daddy, not my idea of a vacation! Hope the EKG went well.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

MarkO-- had no idea you were such a soccer dude.

[Jeff Dobbs]

wiki: Draws in Australian rules football occur at an average of twice every season. If a draw occurs during a regular season match, the result stands as a draw, and both teams earn premiership points equivalent to half of a win.

[James D.]

What of Australian Rules Football?

There are ties there in the regular season.

And in the Grand Final, if there's a tie, they don't do overtime. They replay the whole match again the next week. It happened 3 or 4 years ago.

[Porchlight]

Those are great, hit.

[James D.]

Hit beat me to it...

It was the 2010 Grand Final, by the way. Collingwood and St. Kilda tied, and had to play a rematch the following week, which Collingwood won.

[lyle]

the Great Unwashed could couldn't care less

Pendant pat on the back!

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Just checked FIFA's website, the round of 16 teams is called 'The Second Round', so TomM's 'elimination round' is just as wrong or correct as 'knockout phase'. According to ESPNFC, zer are no 'draws' or 'ties' in Jermen Foosball, they are 'Not Decided' matches. Figures.

[anonamom]

It's been a while since I've sought counsel of a teen ager.
Maybe that explains his foreign policy though.

[lyle]

Carp. Pedant

[Eric in Boise]

Lyle caught himself before I could get my pat on the back for pointing that out. :)

Which reminds me: I worked at a job once where the supervisor wasn't exactly effusive in praising subordinates. Someone photocopied their hand and taped the picture to the wall with the notation "For a pat on the back, stand here."

[MarkO]

NK, there's no sport in which I cannot lose money.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Mark-- but think of the satisfaction of being a sportsman. I salute you.

[MarkO]

NK, I return the salute in the manner of Billy Murray in "Stripes."

I admit that my sporting adventures were great fun.

[GMax]

Single-elimination. Lose, you're done. You can't get lucky based on what the other teams are doing.

Yes and now the World Cup is to the single elimination round. After Overtime, they go to penalty kicks and continue until one team prevails, even goalies must take a penalty kick if it goes deep enough in the rotation.

[Stephanie tortoise not the hare]

Bummer on the booze daddy but you can make up for lost "weight training" now.

I'm convinced it's the changes to habits that are so debilitating.

[anonamom]

cross post

This is as creepy as hell---and will keep me from using my VIP cards (except for really great discounts)--the HOSPITAL here is spying on me!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-26/hospitals-soon-see-donuts-to-cigarette-charges-for-health.html

[Stephanie tortoise not the hare]

One reason I don't watch nba is the playoffs take about 2 months. Best of three people best of three.

[matt]

With the damage the Left has done to this country along with their constant drone of victimhood, perceived offenses, and vindictiveness, the Left has diminished the country.

Living in NYC at the time we got to see Pele' cheap, which was nice.

But it wasn't until a friend took me to Old Trafford for my first Man U match that I was hooked. The crowd was amazing and dangerous and more raucous than I'd ever seen. It was electric and I was hooked.

I lived in Frankfurt and my roommate regularly got tickets for Eintracht. Later when traveling I would go out of my way for a good match. I once stood outside Stamford Bridge for 2 hours trying to buy a ticket for Chelsea - Man U. No luck. No one was selling and the few offers were astronomical. This was before the big money era.

But I burned out on the top level of sports when I saw the hypocrisy and sausage making process. It's all about the money now.

I got a lot of mojo back coaching my kids for 12 years, though. Watching young kids develop and helping them do so is one of the most satisfying feelings on earth. I will still occasionally see one of "my kids" around town and we will laugh about how hard I made them run.

Now that the meatpacker outfits on the goal judges are gone, I have lost my love of Australian Rules football. I have yet to read the rules but they are confusing.

I believe there is something called a "nobby" by which if a player can turn the ball end over end three times in succession, the defense has to line up and do their best impression of a chorus line singing Waltzing Matilda.

[GMax]

Softball tournaments in the US have nearly always been set up on the double elimination rule. So there was always a losers bracket where theoretically a team could lose one match, win the losers bracket, and face their tormenter in the Finals for revenge.

I don't see why the best two in points out of a round robin of 4 teams in a bracket is distressing.

Of course I have stood on a sidelines for years watch 3 of my brood go from herd ball, to club soccer to Div 1 NCAA soccer, so maybe I have just internalized the game.

[rse]

Red got her dad to meet her at a pub to watch the soccer game and she said it was packed. If you do not have a bar, apparently other retail was quite dead.

I guess Tuesday's work blowout will simply not consume the entire afternoon.

[Porchlight]

Yes and now the World Cup is to the single elimination round.

But why does it take so long? Why not do single-elimination for the whole thing like the NFL post-season?

[Rick B]

"the HOSPITAL here is spying on me!"

anonamom,

It's just collecting a little information for the Death Panel folks. Think of it as earning points towards your very own DNR toe tag.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Group H has suddenly become fascinating. Belgium still holds top spot, with now Russia second, but 2d halfs to play. Compelling stuff.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

BTW-- TomM's soccer thread has yielded spectacular comments. who knew?

[Threadkiller]

NK, there's no sport in which I cannot lose money.

Not sure why but this came to mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klr1BKO1MKM

[Threadkiller]

Can a sitting President be subpoenad to testify in front of Congress? Is that what happened with Clinton?

It seems the "not a smidgen of corruption" statement by Obama needs sourcing.

[Stephanie tortoise not the hare]

I like the winners bracket losers bracket format. They use that in the college world series, too. BTW congrats Vandy for your second national championship in any sport. Their first was in bowling :eyeroll: Vandy now has more national championships in the last five years than UT has bowl wins. :)

[GMax]

Now Porch, you know as well as I do that the answer is ticket sales, and commercial sales.

I will point out that American Football makes you buy 4 games where virtually none of the names on the team you root for, even bother to play for more than a series or two.

That is a hell of lot more infuriating to me. I think you should think of the brackets as like the regular season. Instead of 16 games ( plus 4 practice games ) soccer has but 3 games in a bracket.

So actually its a lot faster than American Football to get to the single elimination part!

[Threadkiller]

Ok, my memory returns. Clinton was subpoenad to a grand jury.

[Jane]

I can't possibly give anything on TV my full attention for 45 minutes.

That's why you have JOM, and twitter, and facebook, and cooking dinner, and doing real work, silly.

[lyle]

Sorry, EiB. I robbed you of the very rare chance to be a pedant about pedantics; to pull off being meta-pedant, as it were...

[Stephanie tortoise not the hare]

Awesome prioritizing, Jane!

Hong - S Korea practicing for A Chorus Line?

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Can a sitting President be subpoenad to testify in front of Congress? NO-- separation of powers;

Is that what happened with Clinton? NO-- he was was the subject of Impeachment hearings at the Judiciary Committee, which after hearing evidence, including from Clinton's attorneys, voted out Articles of Impeachment which were adopted by majority vote in the House.

Senate trial resulted in a failed vote to remove from office.

[Rick B]

Lyle,

Technically, a meta-pedant would be critically examining at least two diverse examples of pedantic error. Critique of a single error doesn't qualify.

Not to be pedantic, of course.

[Stephanie tortoise not the hare]

Korea just can't finish anything. Nice ball movement then fizzle.

Preference for next round - Belgium or Algeria?

[jimmyk]

And more on modern medicine, file this one under "First World Problems":

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/06/26/infant_gender_assignment_unnecessary_and_potentially_harmful.html

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Steph-- Russia is 2d in Group -- as it stands now-- H by virtue of leading 1-0 over Algeria. So next round of 16, AS IT STANDS is USA - Russia. Tasty!

[Janet - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

I enjoy soccer. Both my kids did travel soccer & school teams. My husband was the team manager. Also regularly went to DC United games. It was easy to meet the team players then too (not sure if that's still so).

Naomi's coach, from Spain, has stayed our good family friend. He's my staunch conservative buddy!

[lyle]

Rick,

I think you're describing an ur-pedant...

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Typo alert-- at the moment 2nd Round is GERMANY - Russia. Tasty. Gazprom may have something to say about that match.

[Porchlight]

But I like watching NFL playoffs even if I don't care about the teams playing. Rarely is my team even in the picture anyway.

Plus, NFL post season is very short in comparison, just a handful of games plus the Super Bowl. Each game has so much more riding on it, which IMHO makes it significantly more exciting. One of those two teams is going home no matter what.

If I thought of the brackets like the NFL regular season, then that makes the soccer season even more endless. Which is I guess good for soccer fans, but it doesn't change my mind about the game. ;)

[Stephanie tortoise not the hare]

The announcer said Algeria were the only ones who could knock Belgium out of first.

Confused now.

[Stephanie tortoise not the hare]

Aren't we playing whoever comes in first in group h?

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Group H-- correct. Belgium Still 1st, BUT NOW Algeria 2d by tying Russia. If 10 man Belgium LOSES to S Korea and Algeria beats Russia, Algeria wins Group H and Belgium 2d.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Correct again: USA plays WINNER of GroupH (either Belgium or Algeria.)

[narciso]

Pixy is all wonky,otherwise I'd link the Ewok about Zaphod missing the point of Mad Men, and Snuffalufugus removing all doubt,

[narciso]

Maybe this will work;

http://minx.cc/?post=339755

[rich@gmu]

>>>Can a sitting President be subpoenad to testify in front of Congress? Is that what happened with Clinton?<<<

No. Separation of Powers and Executive Privilege (for starts, maybe I should wait for the lawyers to show up).

Clinton was subpoenaed by Starr to testify to the grand jury (about a half dozen times actually) before he went to a judge to compel him to.

IIRC both Ford and Carter went to congress to testify on an issue voluntarily.

Not sure who else might have done so.

[Stephanie tortoise not the hare]

This dumb blonde finds a nut at least once a week. ;)

Korea reminds of the 90s USA teams - good stuff coming into the box then poot. Either poor field awareness or poor shot choice.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

South Korea-- we talk about 'white man's disease' in the NBA, the East Asian teams have that problem in World Cup.

[narciso]

Maybe some wishfull thinking;

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/06/breaking-enough-invalidated-votes-to-overturn-cochran-victory/

[Extraneus]

Credit card companies can give individuals' purchasing data to doctors and hospitals?

From anonamom:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-26/hospitals-soon-see-donuts-to-cigarette-charges-for-health.html

[rich@gmu]

seems I'm late too. dang it.

[Stephanie tortoise not the hare]

Goal Belgium - shorthanded. That's always embarrassing. Not quite as embarrassing as the Ghanaian own goal earlier today but still

[rich@gmu]

health insurance companies can go to data brokers and get the records from those discount saver cards too (which i thought they already did).

guess i should go read the article.

[GMax]

Did Belgium get a straight red card or 2nd yellow? It might make a difference on the availability of that player for the next match.

[Stephanie]

straight red.

:-)

[rich@gmu]

“What we are looking to find are people before they end up in trouble,” said Dulin, who is also a practicing physician. “The idea is to use big data and predictive models to think about population health and drill down to the individual levels to find someone running into trouble that we can reach out to and try to help out.”

***

“The data is already used to market to people to get them to do things that might not always be in the best interest of the consumer, we are looking to apply this for something good,” Dulin said.

Thanks for looking out for me Dr. Dulin.

[Stephanie]

Bummer on that story anonamom. Walgreens discount cards, Kroger cards etc all have my sordid purchase history on them. The Kroger discount card gets ya gas discounts, plus, one of my kids works there part time, so I get an extra 10% off Kroger brands. Double bummer.

Someone needs to introduce a bill for opt out of data sharing on your discount cards - GOPe I'm looking at you. Data folks are probably on their donor lists and we'd get a hearty one finger salute on that suggestion. :(

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

so the USA schedule will have been Ghana, Portugal, Germany, Belgium-- BY FAR the hardest schedule of any team in the Tourney. Not even close. Sepp Blatter sneers.

[Happy, happy, joy, joy Ignatz]

--Pixy is all wonky,otherwise I'd link the Ewok about Zaphod missing the point of Mad Men, and Snuffalufugus removing all doubt--

Does that set some kind of record for nicknames and codewords in one sentence?

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Stephanie-- my wife, the Big Data Tsarina for all of those companies', disagrees with your proposal.

PS: do you want to know when you'll need to buy bathroom tissue next? My wife could probably help you out with that. It's that bad.

[narciso]

Pixy, Ace's operating software, see Ewok, Zaphod; Obama, Snuffalugus, Sawyer's heir apparent

[rich@gmu]

oddly that doc's thinking isn't really new either ...

>>>The change in the concept of crime and criminals determines the new and terrible methods of the totalitarian secret police. Criminals are punished, undesirables disappear from the face of the earth; the only trace which they leave behind is the memory of those who knew and loved them, and one of the most difficult tasks of the secret police is to make sure that even such traces will disappear together with the condemned man.

The Okhrana, the Czarist predecessor of the GPU, is reported to have invented a filing system in which every suspect was noted on a large card in the center of which his name was surrounded by a red circle; his political friends were designated by smaller red circles and his nonpolitical acquaintances by green ones; brown circles indicated persons in contact with friends of the suspect but not known to him personally; cross-relationships between the suspect's friends, political and nonpolitical, and the friends of his friends were indicated by lines between the respective circles.[See Laporte, op. Cit., p. 39.] Obviously the limitations of this method are set only by the size of the filing cards, and, theoretically, a gigantic single sheet could show the relations and cross-relationships of the entire population. And this is the utopian goal of the totalitarian secret police: a look at the gigantic map on the office wall should suffice at any given moment to establish, not who is who or who thinks what, but who is related to whom and in what degree or kind of intimacy. The totalitarian ruler knows that it is dangerous to send a person to a concentration camp and leave his family and particular milieu untouched; [It is a common practice in Soviet Russia to arrest whole families; Hitler's "Health Bill" also foresaw the elimination of all families in which one member was found to be afflicted with a disease.] the map on the wall would enable him to eradicate people without leaving any traces of them-or almost none. Total abolition of legality is safe only under the condition of perfect information, or at least a degree of knowledge of private and intimate details which evokes the illusion of perfection.<<<

[pagar]

O/t or Not soccer.

http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/06/26/unbelievable-us-military-personnel-forced-submit-sharia-ramadan/

" No alcohol or smoking is permitted and if all this wasn’t pathetic enough, soldiers are instructed to say “Ramadan Kareem.”"

IMO those words translate to BS,

[rich@gmu]

>>>Consumer spending in May was disappointingly weak

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumers boosted their spending only modestly in May, a disappointment to economists who said the weaker-than-expected gain will likely mean a lesser economic rebound in the April-June quarter than many had envisioned.<<<

weren't the predictions for a booming second quarter?

[Extraneus]

HuffPo:

NAACP Wants Thad Cochran To 'Show Some Reciprocity'

[rich@gmu]

Thad is old school ... when he is bought, he stays bought.

great job GOPe

[Extraneus]

Black voters played a huge role in helping Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) fend off tea party challenger Chris McDaniel in a runoff election Tuesday, and now the state NAACP is asking the six-term senator to return the favor.

In an interview with HuffPost Live, Derrick Johnson, president of the Mississippi NAACP, said that Cochran could thank black voters by supporting efforts to re-establish protections in the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court struck down last year.

"Our advocacy towards his office is to support amending the Voting Rights Act, free of any conditions such as voter ID," Johnson said. "I think this is an opportunity for him to show some reciprocity for African-Americans providing a strong level of support for him."

Johnson said that there are currently no Republicans who support re-establishing the formula eliminated by the Supreme Court last year, though Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and a handful of other Republicans have expressed support for restoring protections. Under the formula, states like Mississippi needed to receive federal clearance before making changes to the way that elections were held. Johnson added that other priorities for the Mississippi NAACP included getting more support for the state's black colleges and universities as well as getting more federal allocations for communities represented by black elected officials.

Black voters were essential in helping Cochran win a runoff election against McDaniel, who beat Cochran in a June 3 primary but failed to get 50 percent of the vote. In Jefferson County, the county with the largest percentage of eligible black voters in the United States, turnout increased by 92 percent from June 3, The New York Times reported. In Hinds County, which is 70 percent African-American, Cochran beat McDaniel by fewer than 6,000 votes on June 3, but won by a margin of more than 11,000 votes, NBC News reported.

Johnson said that Cochran owed his entire career in the Senate to African-Americans.

[rich@gmu]

all 36 years of it ...

the party of stupid strikes again.

[GMax]

African Americans are used to be taken for granted, Democrats do that all the time. They will get nothing of any value from voting for Thad. And since once the primary is over, Thad has six more years before he must face the voter again, I am quite comfortable that is the case. Childers is just a sacrificial lamb, no one else would do it.

[Extraneus]

Tea party groups are apoplectic over how Cochran won in Mississippi

“What happened yesterday in Mississippi will resonate for years to come. It will become the battle cry, just like the Alamo,” one activist said.

“The establishment crossed the line last night,” Craig Shirley, a conservative political consultant and biographer of Ronald Reagan told Yahoo News in an interview Wednesday. “This is a win for the establishment, but it’s a win with an asterisk, because it’s so tainted that it might be one of those things where they’re going to be sorry they ever won the runoff in Mississippi.”

As we all know: This wasn't Delaware. They did this for a safe seat that McDaniels would likely have won.

[Extraneus]

Outside groups spent $23 million to crush the tea party in GOP primaries this year