Re: Dumbfounded

1

This is my favorite thing. Is it fake? Fancy Onion CGI?


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 3:19 PM
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Noun, verb, 9/11


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 3:45 PM
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Also CNN had a Trump surrogate claiming Obama started the war in Afghanistan.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 3:47 PM
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But this isn't a Trump surrogate. This is...I mean, what!


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 3:52 PM
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It's not fair to count that one! Everything changed that day. We're only talking about afterwards. Seven and a third years is basically eight.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 4:05 PM
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He is talking about the period post 9/11.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 4:11 PM
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"8 years" just really makes people think of 4 + 4.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 4:20 PM
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7: most people aren't math professors, heebie.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 4:28 PM
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I just lost my math professor neighbor. I should go meet the new one, but I'm shy and also don't want to talk to people hauling stuff out of a U-Haul in case I look useful.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 4:41 PM
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10

Plus the new one might be a tougher grader.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 4:49 PM
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11

Wait, he's clearly talking post Patriot Act. Were there Islamist attacks under Bush post 9-11?


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 4:58 PM
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The first one wasn't big enough?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:02 PM
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But he was talking about the effectiveness of the Patriot Act. He's actually wrong, because there was the El Al LAX shootings, but on the whole, I score this one for Rudy.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:07 PM
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Usually when people talk about the lack of terrorist attacks after 9/11 I think about the the anthrax attacks which went strangely completely down the memory hole.


Posted by: roger the cabin boy | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:08 PM
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But I suppose that only pretended to be a radical Islamic terrorist attack.


Posted by: roger the cabin boy | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:13 PM
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The US Army was counting hunger strikes by Muslim prisoners as asymmetric warfare and terrorism during this period, but I guess that was happening in Cuba.

Yeah I guess we have to give this one to Rudy.


Posted by: roger the cabin boy | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:19 PM
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Daily Kos excerpt linking to source that turns out to be a tweet with embedded video. We didn't have that kind of thing until after Obama.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:20 PM
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There was that dude that shot up the military base, he was Muslim. I'm not sure if he was radical, just kind of regular shooty I think.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:41 PM
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I agree that the quote was taken out of context and is therefore being used unfairly. I don't care. That's less hilarious than if it were really what he meant, I guess, but it's still pretty great that he said that sentence. And that everyone is reporting on it with headlines that also ignore the context. At this point I'm pretty pleased whenever anything super dumb comes out of the Trump camp, because the press hates him so much that they all just run wild with it.


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:42 PM
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I want to be shot by a Christian terrorist, or at least an agnostic.


Posted by: Opinionated Grandma | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:43 PM
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Can we just enjoy the sound byte for the deliciously misleading mess it sounds like?


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:43 PM
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Also, because fuck him.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:53 PM
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I think the Fort Hood shooting was during Obama's presidency.

"under those eight years" is much more closely linked to "before Obama" than "under the patriot act". Even listening to the full thing it sounds like exactly what he means" those eight years, before Obama."

And even if he did mean "the not actually eight year period before Obama but after the Patriot Act was signed or whatever", fuck him for eliding the massive letdown that is an order of magnitude bigger than all the attacks under Obama. The one he's been milking ever since. Anyway, did he not notice that the world has changed? I mean, could you imagine what the hell Bush would have done with the Arab Spring?


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 5:57 PM
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Would we have even seen the Arab Spring if it hadn't been for the Bush-engendered economic downturn?


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 6:08 PM
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Bush had us fight them over there so we didn't have to fight them over here. We should do that again.

escalate escalate. Escalate. ESCALATE. ESCALATE! ESCALATE!!!!


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 6:17 PM
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What is "what Daleks leaving a tube station say?"


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 6:25 PM
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Haha the NY Daily News really has it in for Trump. Great cover, Rudy looks like a crazy old man.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 8:34 PM
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28

||

In somewhat alarming news, the Arrakis ISP authorities have decided to block a particular Unfogged post. Not even anything I would think would warrant being blocked. I was going through really old tabs to close from the blog because I surf the web like Opinionated Grandma with a dozen windows open with anywhere from 10 to 60 tabs each. It was a meetup tab from July. Fortunately nothing else has been blocked - yet - but I may have to finally get around to getting that VPN set up.

|>


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 8:40 PM
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I don't think that's how Opinionated Grandma surfs the web.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 9:13 PM
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Right, I'd forgotten Netscape Navigator 4 was before tabbed browsing.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 9:27 PM
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28 surprises me. Our lewdness is so subtle and tasteful.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 10:10 PM
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They use this ridiculous cartoonish page to inform you too. I should take a screenshot.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 10:20 PM
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Please do!


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 10:22 PM
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31 Perhaps that post exceeded the quota allotted for cock jokes.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 10:23 PM
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30: Browse like the OG.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 10:27 PM
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Saying his claim is about the patriot act doesn't make sense either. The one signed by Bush was in force until 2011. Typically bills run 5 years and it was renewed by Bush in 2006 so talking about 8 years makes no sense since it was 10. If he meant enforcement of the act under Bush that's also not 8 years. He was trying to connect it to presidential terms so I don't think it's unfair to mock him for how it sounds.
Atrios often calls 9/11 "The great mulligan" whenever some Republican defends Bush by saying, "At least he kept us safe!"


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 10:49 PM
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Oops, Charlie Pierce not Atrios.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 08-15-16 10:54 PM
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Relevant.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 2:12 AM
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But you fuck one goat...
Rudy said something similar in 2010- "We had no domestic attacks under Bush" so this isn't a one time slip up taken out of context.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 2:31 AM
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That thing in 35 is amazing, although it made me sad when I went to the NYT, and the closest archived date is 2 days after the 2000 election, mid-recount. That made me think of OG TPM, and the oldest link is from March of 2002, with that famous picture of him looking so thoughtful at his laptop.

Ah, nostalgia!


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 7:34 AM
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This sort of doublethink has to be a symptom of the authoritarian mindset, right? Tell a brazen, exculpatory lie, then, if called on it, admit the notable exception. The outrageousness of the lie helps it live on. ("Well obviously he meant since then; you'd have to be crazy to think otherwise.")


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 7:38 AM
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Fuck Rudy. I don't see why we have to cooperate with his "9/11 doesn't count because reasons" bullshit.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 7:39 AM
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43

You either die a hero, or live long enough to become a Republican.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 7:41 AM
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Would we have even seen the Arab Spring if it hadn't been for the Bush-engendered economic downturn?

This argues pretty convincingly that you wouldn't have had Arab Spring without the Iraq invasion.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 7:42 AM
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45

9/11 wasn't a domestic attack: the Pentagon and WTC were office buildings. A domestic attack would have had to involve someone's house.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 8:08 AM
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"Radical islamist plate smashing"


Posted by: R Tigre | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 8:09 AM
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Also Al Qaeda are moderate Islamic terrorists.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 8:09 AM
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48

They were radical in 2001.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 8:12 AM
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They were radical in 2001.

That was 15 years ago. Whatever happened to the dreams of youth?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 8:15 AM
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Turns out retirement is expensive. House prices in Abbotobad? Don't get me started.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 8:17 AM
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Fuck Rudy. I don't see why we have to cooperate with his "9/11 doesn't count because reasons" bullshit.

Or his "the half-dozen or so terrorist attacks between October 2001 and January 2009 don't count because reasons" bullshit, for that matter.


Posted by: Duvall | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 8:32 AM
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Do you know how much it costs to send 25 children to madrassahs? Not to mention if they go on to militant training camps...


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 8:52 AM
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52: Don't they have merit scholarships?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 8:53 AM
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Merit, maybe. But need scholarships? Build one little cave complex and everyone thinks you're made of money.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 9:06 AM
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Borrowed from Crooked Timber, here's Scott Adams being, in a literal sense, correct that Trump doesn't really think Obama founded ISIS.

Yes, if you carefully parse Trump's full comments, in context, it turns out that he wasn't saying Obama literally founded ISIS.

Except the whole point is that Trump didn't want his words carefully parsed, and went to a great deal of trouble to make sure that didn't happen.

Similarly, we might say that Giuliani words, in context, were entirely consistent with the truth: "Because of our response to 9-11, we lost thousands of soldiers to terrorist attacks, destabilized the Middle East and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people with the obvious effect of promoting terrorism, and none of the resulting fatalities was on US soil until Obama took office."

Fuck that. Giuliani was trying to convey the impression that GW Bush made US people safer. That's ridiculous, and deserves every bit of mockery it is getting.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 9:58 AM
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The logic at the Scott Adams link in 55 is astounding.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 10:01 AM
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If there's one thing everyone agrees with, its that Trump's statements really lend themselves to deep reading.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 11:17 AM
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Never has there been a man more undeserving of the platform he was given than Scott Adams.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 11:41 AM
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58- The Dunning-Kruger discussion is in the other thread.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 12:21 PM
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56: I was reminded of the famous Powerline post on the genius of George W. Bush and the pathetic failure of the media to grasp his brilliance and wisdom.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 12:59 PM
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Is the link in 55 really saying that liberals shouldn't be mocking trump for blatantly false claims because he a genius for coming up with the "when did you stop beating your wife" question?

"And...they...fact-check his claim."


Posted by: yoyo | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 1:47 PM
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A domestic attack would have had to involve someone's house maid.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 08-16-16 1:52 PM
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56: I was reminded of the famous Powerline post on the genius of George W. Bush and the pathetic failure of the media to grasp his brilliance and wisdom.

On a related note, Trump's campaign is now literally being run by Breitbart.com.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 5:40 AM
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Literally literally, or figuratlively literally?


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 6:02 AM
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Literally literally as far as I can make out.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 6:10 AM
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