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The Colorado Secretary of State’s office has updated its voter turnout (er, uh, ballot turn-in) numbers for the June 28th Primary. Here’s the latest as of Monday morning:

Democrats

Ballots sent: 986,252;
Ballots returned: 119,614;
Percent: 12.12%

Republicans

Ballots sent: 994,450;
Ballots returned: 121,183;
Percent: 12.18%

Note that the SOS has made a slight change to how it is reporting turnout numbers compared to last week’s announcement:

The county-by-county chart included in this release reflects a change in how the Colorado Secretary of State reports ballot returns. Last week’s release showed only ballots that already had gone through signature verification; today’s report and all subsequent ones will reflect the number of ballots received by the county, even if they are waiting to be reviewed by election judges.

For more information on turnout based on a county-by-county basis, click here (PDF).

As both games are taking place at the same time, we’ll have one open thread for both. Albania is playing Romania and France is playing Switzerland.

Also, I just want to make some comments about Cristiano Ronaldo.  Yes, he dives a lot and is petulant. It is worth noting this,  however:

 

Lewis Geyer, Times-Call

Beginning Thursday, all property owners in Boulder — both commercial and residential — must offer their tenants compost collection containers.

The mandate goes into effect one day after the city began requiring that all properties west of Broadway and south of Sumac Avenue have bear-proof trash containers, and the city vowed to enforce that rule strictly and with no warnings — only fines that graduate from $250 to $500 to $1,000.

Related Articles

• January 26, 2016 Denver to expand its composting program in 2016
• October 4, 2015 Denver lags other cities with its recycling, composting policies
• May 12, 2010 Compost is the “heartbeat” of organic growing

Boulder will not fine anyone for the first year of the compost policy, however, in large part because there are so few properties up to speed on that front. An Eco-Cycle survey of 174 out of the roughly 900 multi-family dwellings in Boulder found that only 15 percent currently have compost programs.

The rollout of the new compost policy is staggered. Individual businesses that don’t own their properties or are tenants of larger commercial facilities aren’t required to begin composting until September.

Read the full story at dailycamera.com

You should go read "Two Linguists Explain Pseudo Old English in The Wake", The Toast 6/14/2016. Gretchen McCulloch interviews Kate Wiles about the imitation-Old-English that Paul Kingsnorth uses in The Wake, a novel about resistance to the Norman invasion of England in 1066.

I'm facing a paper deadline and don't have time to do justice to this great conversation, but here's a short excerpt to whet your appetite:

Gretchen: The Wake uses fuck quite a bit, with the spelling fucc or fuccan because it’s avoiding k. Here’s an example sentence from page 99: “go fucc thyself i saes and let thy frenc freonds do the same”. It’s set in 1066, so is fuck old enough? Should Kingsnorth have been using swive or something else instead?  

Kate: HAHAHAHA YES LET’S TALK ABOUT THAT.  

He’s fallen into the most basic of heffalump traps. Everyone calls it an Anglo-Saxon four-letter word but it’s really not. In fact, none of the Anglo-Saxon four-letter swear words were Anglo-Saxon four-letter swear words. Most of them aren’t even Anglo-Saxon. There’s no denying they had a filthy sense of humour so there’s plenty of smut. But they were a pragmatic bunch and their taboo words, certainly as we have them recorded, were pretty literal: shit had all the scandalous effect of ‘defecation’; words for sex were no ruder than ‘intercourse’ in the contexts that we find them used and ‘bastard’ just meant illegitimate.

 

The book ultimately became a series that today contains over 100 titles. And now its heroes are headed to the big screen. Shout! Factory and Legacy Classics recently announced their plans to adapt the books into at least four animated movies. While the first film won’t enter wide release until 2017, a trailer is already floating around online, giving us an early look at what is only the latest of the many, many adaptations this franchise has seen. And with every adaptation, its original premise gets more and more diluted.

PARIS  — Football hooliganism has been making a comeback at the European Championship and is challenging French authorities who have struggled to deal with the sudden surge in violence.

England and Russia were threatened with expulsion from Euro 2016 by UEFA on Sunday if there is further violence from their fans during the tournament. Clashes between English and Russian hooligans escalated over three days in the center of Marseille before vicious fighting spread to the stadium on Saturday.

Hooliganism that tarnished English soccer in the 1970s, 80s and 90s has been largely eradicated from domestic matches. Arrest figures at English matches have dramatically declined through the 21st century. There were few problems from England fans at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the 2010 tournament in South Africa or Euro 2012, which was hosted by Poland and Ukraine.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that 116 people had been arrested since Friday in incidents connected to the tournament, with 63 of them still being held in prison and the rest released. Three people had been expelled from France and five others barred from entering France, the ministry said.

UEFA acknowledged there were “segregation issues” at the Stade Velodrome where Russia and England drew 1-1 and said it “will implement corrective measures to strengthen the deployment of security personnel at stadiums, in close collaboration with local authorities.”

Russia, which hosts the World Cup in two years, is already facing UEFA sanctions after its fans were deemed to have orchestrated disorder inside the stadium. English fans behind one of the goals were attacked after the game as stewards failed to keep the rivals apart.

UEFA expressed its “utter disgust” about the running battles involving the English, Russians and locals that started Thursday in the center of the Mediterranean port city. Russia has been charged by UEFA over crowd disturbances, racist behavior by fans and the setting off of fireworks at the game. UEFA’s disciplinary body will judge the case on Tuesday.

Further rampages by Russian and English fans when they move to northern France for their next games could see one or both teams thrown out of the tournament.

After an emergency meeting on Sunday, the UEFA executive committee “warned both football associations that — irrespective of any decisions taken by the independent disciplinary bodies relating to incidents inside the stadium — it will not hesitate to impose additional sanctions on the Football Association and the Russian Football Union, including the potential disqualification of their respective teams from the tournament, should such violence occur again.”

Euro 2016 disturbances haven’t been restricted to Marseille, with clashes also erupting along the Mediterranean coast in Nice after trouble involving fans from Poland and Northern Ireland. At least 44 people were wounded in the clashes in Marseille and Nice, authorities said,

The location of Russia’s next fixture poses another challenge for authorities as Lille is 30 kilometers (20 miles) from tiny Lens, where England plays Wales on Thursday.

Lille also has a direct rail link to London so there could be a large number of fans from all four Group B nations converging on the city.

“We suppose that we will have a lot of agitation in Lille” on Wednesday and Thursday, said local official Philippe Malizard.

Lille will initially be reinforced with an extra company of 80 riot police officers, Malizard said, on top of the 480 police officers and eight companies of riot police already planned for match days.

“The difficulty now is that everywhere England goes in France there will be expectations of violence and that will feed into a hostile environment around England fans which exacerbates the violence,” said Prof. Clifford Stott, an expert in hooliganism who said he advises British police.

Stott, of England’s Keele University, said tactics deployed by Marseille authorities were “escalatory,” claiming that early intervention on Thursday could have quickly quelled the disorder. Tear gas was fired at the first sight of mass disorder and water cannon were later deployed.

Exacerbating the problems for UEFA is the fact the locations for matches in each group are selected before the random draw to pick out the four teams. That means the 35,000-capacity Lens stadium hosts the British derby rather than, for example, the Lyon stadium with 59,000 seats.

A person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that UEFA will look to implement changes to allow them to select venues after the championship draw or switch locations based on team size or safety considerations. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because UEFA is yet to change its regulations.

Had such flexibility been permitted for Euro 2016, UEFA could have ensured England did not return to Marseille 18 years after its fans were involved in street battles there at the 1998 World Cup.

___

Rob Harris can be followed at www.twitter.com/RobHarris and www.facebook.com/RobHarrisReports

The Calvinball revolution:

The Democratic party and its Chicago convention were torn apart in 1968 over a fundamental cleavage over the Vietnam War. The Sanders camp is going to blow up the convention to push debate schedule reform? That’s amazing. Reform of the primary process is a much more substantive matter. But remember, as I’ve argued before, the parts of the process most in need of reform (Caucuses and post-election day shenanigans) are the ones helping Sanders the most! Now his whole campaign is based on getting the superdelegates – which for most of the campaign he has said constitute the core anti-democratic aspect of the process – to hand him the nomination. Consistency is an overrated commodity in much of life, especially in politics. But you can’t make the logic of your arguments so structurally unsound that they collapse under the weight of their own ridiculousness.

***

From what I can tell, the current Sanders campaign is riven between people who are increasingly upset or bewildered by what we might call the resurgent “burn it down” turn of Sanders outlook and others who are fully immersed in the feedback loop of grievance and paranoia that sees all the political events of the last year as a series of large and small scale conspiracies to deny the rectitude and destiny of Bernie Sanders. I’ve seen many, many campaigns. People put everything into it and losing is brutal and punishing. Folks on the losing side frequently go a little nuts, sometimes a lot nuts. The 2008 denouement really was pretty crazy. But it’s not clear that this time we have any countervailing force – adulthood, institutional buy-in, future careers, over-riding pragmatism to rein things in.

Only nihilists, college students who are living off their parents, and white employed men with nothing to fear from the Trump administration have the luxury of thinking like this. In other words, the Bernie coalition. Since Jane is on his payroll and also got a nice 200k golden parachute for destroying Burlington College, Sanders will be fine, too.

In case I’m not clear, fuck these guys.

A Gunbarrel man accused of shooting his neighbor over a dispute about squirrel feeding last month has been ordered to stand trial on attempted murder and assault charges.

Jon Barbour appeared in Boulder District Court on Thursday for a preliminary hearing, and county Judge David Archuleta found probable cause for him to stand trial on the charges. Barbour, 59, is charged with attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault and two violent crime sentencing enhancements.

Boulder County sheriff’s deputies arrested Barbour on May 12 after he called police to say he had shot his 46-year-old neighbor, Jeffrey Browning, in the buttocks. Police said the two had been feuding because Barbour had been feeding squirrels and pasted fliers explaining why on a mailbox, signed by “The Squirrel Guy” Jon Marc Barbour.

Sheriff’s office Detective Mark Spurgeon testified Thursday that Barbour told police he and Browning briefly exchanged words, and Browning was shot as the two struggled over the gun after Browning attacked him.

Read the full story on TimesCall.com.

I don’t understand why it’s vital that Bernie get out of the race and endorse Hillary immediately. I do understand why he needs to do this before the convention. But I don’t understand why it has to happen soon.

It sounds like Hillary can expect about a 5 point, give or take, bounce from bringing the Bernie voters home, and I’m confident she’ll get this sooner or later. In the meantime, isn’t it just as well that she has only a 4-6 point lead in polls instead of a 9-11 point lead, given that a double digit lead might convince Republicans to do the smart thing and find a way to dump Trump?

Every day that Republicans think Trump is in it to win it and go around idiotically tying their fates to his is a good day for Democrats. If Trump were way down in the polls, this wouldn’t be happening the way that it is right now.

And eventually Bernie will do the right thing. In the meantime, we need to just chill them liberals out and wait for the cavalry, which should be coming directly.

A young female bear has been euthanized after it was found trudging through Jefferson County on Tuesday evening.

The bear was initially tranquilized and relocated before state wildlife officials determined she had no fear of humans and needed to be put down, Mark Techmeyer, a spokesman for the county sheriff’s office, said Thursday.

The bear was discovered after she sought out a  bird feeder and rummaged through trash. Authorities also say residents were trying to take pictures with her.

Techmeyer said the bear made her way though several backyards before she was tranquilized in Arvada.

“The concern was (residents) getting too close to wildlife,” Techmeyer said. “The bear was in people’s backyards. It’s just a dangerous situation and we want people to give animals their distance.”

The bear was first spotted in an unincorporated part of Jefferson County near Golden before making her way into Arvada.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has euthanized several bears already this year. Officials encourage the public to take preventative measures to keep bruins away, like not leaving out trash or refraining from feeding wildlife.

Doing so can level a death sentence on bears, the agency says, which wildlife officers ultimately have to carry out.

 

There’s something about cabbage with shredded carrots that would make these vegetables equally at home in a display case as on a plate. They aren’t known for their taste, but they can be used in a decorative way to give your dish a timeless sense of distinction. I made a turkey veggie burger and put it into a taco, with cabbage and carrots and mustard greens.

(Photo: Malcolm X Park, Washington, D.C.)

>> June 3

<< June 1

From Lane Greene:

Got all that?
Godawful information design. pic.twitter.com/A5M8GfMSFW

— Robert Lane Greene (@lanegreene) June 6, 2016

I've never seen an LSAT exam, but I can imagine this as the premise for a question:

Non-folding bicycles may be taken, but not on trains arriving at Stratford or Liverpool Street between 0745 and 0945, or leaving these stations between 1630 and 1830 on weekdays (except public holidays).

"Given circumstances X, Y, Z, are you potentially in violation of this regulation?"

Of course, you'd need to give testees a route map and schedule, so they could estimate which trains arrive at the cited stations when.

But the real interpretive crux of the matter is whether "on weekdays (except public holidays)" modifies only the immediately previous clause "leaving these stations between 1630 and 1830", or both sides of the previous disjunction "arriving at Stratford or Liverpool Street between 0745 and 0945, or leaving these stations between 1630 and 1830".

Common sense says "yes", but many a court case has hinged on similar questions.

In any case, whoever drafted this sign needs to find a new profession.

Update — Joan Maling points out that on Terry Langendoen's website, there's this picture of a "Sign in 200 block of E Uhler Av, Alexandria VA":

Extra points on your pseudo-LSAT for a cogent explanation of what "EXCEPT SUNDAY" means in this context…
 

The earliest known anti-Jewish caricature is a sketch—actually, an elaborate doodle—in the upper margin of an English royal tax record from 1233. It shows three bizarre-looking Jews standing inside a schematic castle, which is being attacked by a host of cartoonish horned, beak-nosed demons. But there is reason to reconsider the traditional reading of the cartoon, which has been overly influenced by the long afterlife of the anti-Jewish imagery pioneered here.

Here’s centrist-curious Matt Yglesias, apparently hoping to get “typical liberals” to puke up their locally-sourced, gluten-free, vegan granola into their hemp totebags:

[The argument that Trump is too dangerous to be President] is the best argument to use if Clinton wants to persuade right-of-center voters to cross the aisle and vote for her, stay home, or take a look at Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party.

But it’s not an argument that’s going to warm the hearts of liberals. Pursuing the argument that Trump is simply too risky to serve as president requires Clinton to try to denude the campaign of as much ideological content as possible. Any talk from her side about the big issues and ideas in politics necessarily reminds people that for any given set of big issues and ideas, not everyone is going to agree. By contrast, pretty much anyone can be open to the basic idea that Trump is a loose cannon who doesn’t know much about foreign policy.

Some progressives fear that this kind of campaign means Clinton won’t build a mandate for progressive policy if she wins the election.

Some progressives?  Citation needed, motherfucker.

You know what will give this progressive a whole lot of joy?  The Democratic-controlled Congress that will come from the 70-30 landslide that Yglesias imagines in that piece.  I can’t think of too many of us who would have a sad because Clinton won by pointing out the obvious truth that the “serious” Republican party nominated an unstable, petty narcissist who might be capable of starting World War III over a minor insult.

The thing that makes me wonder about the Vox boys is why they try so fucking hard to run away from what is apparently the awful truth:  despite their feeble protestations to the contrary, the rest of the world calls them liberals.  Citation provided.

He said he would, and on Thursday, Gov. John Hickenlooper vetoed for a second year in a row legislation to ban red-light cameras statewide.

“Last year, we wrote to the General Assembly on several occasions in agreement that use of traffic photo-enforcement tools should be limited and used only in a manner that instills trust in government and confidence that public safety is paramount,” Hickenlooper said in a statement Thursday afternoon.

Related Articles

• June 2, 2016 Guest Commentary: Traffic cameras save lives of pedestrians and bicyclists
• June 1, 2016 Sheridan’s latest headache in anti-photo radar, red-light camera ballot push
• May 31, 2016 An empty gesture on red-light cameras from Colorado legislature

“House Bill 16-1231 implements no such reasonable limitations. Rather, the bill enacts a State-imposed blanket ban on red-light cameras for all municipalities, denying communities the right to decide for themselves based on their own traffic safety needs.”

Hickenlooper’s veto letter reminded the General Assembly he said he would support limiting the cameras to school zones, road and construction work areas and those intersections that have high traffic volume and a disproportionate number of accidents, including those involving pedestrians.

The governor also favored restricting the use of revenue from fines to road-safety improvements and law enforcement rather than allowing municipalities to steer the windfall into their general operating budgets.

In a letter last month, about 20 Colorado mayors, chiefs of police and medical officials urged Hickenlooper to veto the ban.

“Unfortunately, legislators are once again trying to put our innocent children, families, friends and neighbors in harm’s way. As such, we ask you to again stand with us in support of traffic safety and veto HB 1231,” the letter stated.  “Just like HB 1098 and SB 276 from last year, this bill will make our roads less safe by effectively banning the use of life-saving traffic cameras to catch illegal speeders and red light runners and hold them accountable — including in high-risk areas, such as school, construction and work zones.”

Those signing the letter included Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan, Denver Police Chief Robert C. White, Boulder Police Chief Greg Testa, Pueblo Police Chief Louis Velez, Aurora Police Chief Nicholas Metz and Evans Police Chief Rick D. Brandt, who is president of the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police.

Republicans and Democrats in the legislature have debated for two years about whether the cameras raise safety or simply raises millions of dollars from fines for the cities that deploy them.

The Copa is upon us. Is the United States ready?

Well, we're here. We've gone from existential dread to the utmost heights of optimism in about 180 minutes of soccer. I'm actually not sure if American Soccer Twitter has been watching the USMNT or if they all streamed Up at the same time, but the mood swings are real right now.

But those were friendlies. We've moved on to games that actually count right now. Jurgen is on record as saying "We start the tournament with a final," and by all accounts it looks that way from the American side. Colombia has stars. Like, real stars. Even if James Rodríguez or Juan Cuadrado may have seen their fair share of ups and downs over the last 12 months, the fact remains that they play for Real Madrid and Juventus, respectively. The only player the United States has with club experience at nearly the same level as those two is 17 and won't be starting in this tournament (and no, Tottenham just isn't on the same level as the three afore-referenced clubs. Sorry, Clint Dempsey). This is a tournament in the United States, at a point where the USMNT feel like they've hit a turning point from an absolutely abysmal year and a half or so of play. And if there's one thing the U.S. has been good at over the past several years, it's playing with a chip on its shoulder in tournaments it has no business doing well in.

For Colombia's part, this tournament will be an interesting one. Many of their star players that broke out at the World Cup in 2014 saw big-money transfers fizzled and playing time falter at the club level, and the team was very disappointing in Chile last summer, barely squeaking out of the group stage with the last qualification spot after losing to Venezuela and drawing Peru and bowing out in the quarterfinal round, losing in penalties to Argentina. Will Los Cafeteros see this tournament as a chance at redemption? Or just an opportunity to pick up an easy paycheck? The attitude of the team will go a long way towards determining how this game will play out.

Recent Form:

United States

W (4-0) - Bolivia - Friendly

W (1-0) - Ecuador - Friendly

W (3-1) - Puerto Rico - Friendly

W (4-0) - Guatemala - WCQ

L (0-2) - Guatemala - WCQ

Colombia

W (3-1) - Haiti - Friendly

W (3-1) - Ecuador - WCQ

W (3-2) - Bolivia - WCQ

L (0-1) - Argentina - WCQ

D (1-1) - Chile - WCQ

What to Watch For:

The XI - Who is the best first XI for the USMNT? Who is Jurgen Klinsmann's first XI? And are those two lineups the same thing? It could be possible, but probably not. Jurgen Klinsmann will most likely be fairly pragmatic from the start and introduce a lineup heavy with defensive cover, and then introduce some greater attacking flair the longer the game goes on. Long story short: neutralize James, Cuadrado, Carlos Bacca and any other threat Colombia sets forward for as long as possible, and then try to hit them for a goal or two in the last twenty minutes, hoping the Colombian defense will get lazy after dominating possession for the majority of the game and take a smash-and-grab result. At least, that seems to be the most likely thing to happen. Jurgen always finds a way to surprise us, though, doesn't he?

Is This Defense Good Enough? - For a long, long time, the answer to that question for the U.S. has been "no." The outside back positions have been especially in flux over the last couple of years, and the lack of reliability in the back has directly contributed to the United States' continued inability to consistently control games. More and more defensive players have seen the field, and the U.S. has failed to break out of the "Last-Ditch Defense and Pray for Counter-Attacks" tactics that Klinsmann promised he would do away with. But there's reason to be cautiously optimistic about the defense and it's ability to take care of itself while more offensive players leave their stamp on the game. DeAndre Yedlin seems to finally have locked down the right back spot. Fabian Johnson's best position is in the midfield, but he's also probably the most reliable left back on this team, and one of the few U.S. players truly comfortable in possession. Brooks and Cameron seem to be the likely starting pair in the center, and if the two can get their communication ticks sorted out, that line seems reasonably strong enough to allow the U.S. to assert itself more than usual.

Litmus Test - Look, as much as I hate to say it, Darlington Nagbe and Christian Pulisic aren't going to start this match. But they almost certainly will see some significant minutes, and that is cause for excitement, because we might actually get to see just how good these two really are. Are they good? Yes. Are they good against top international talent? We don't really know yet. If they put their stamp on Friday's game (along with Bobby Wood, who hasn't cut his teeth in real international competition as of yet), the hype train might just jump off the tracks.

Lineup Prediction:

Like so many others have said already, it stands to reason that the team that started the second half against Bolivia will start against Colombia as well.

The main attacking feature of this lineup is Dempsey's tendency to drop back into midfield, combine with Jones and Bedoya, and have one of them release Zardes and Wood in on goal. Both Wood and Zardes are naturally strikers, so their first inclination already takes them diagonally in towards goal. Letting Dempsey pull Colombia's centerbacks out of position by dropping deeper to receive passes and lay them off quickly gives Wood and Zardes the space to use their speed cutting inside from the wing. Michael Bradley is a 6 (praise Him, praise Him, thank you Lord). Look for the Nagbe for Bedoya or Zardes and Pulisic for Dempsey subs to come around the 70th minute, with Wood moving to the top of the triangle and Pulisic moving out to the wing.

Here's a picture of the dashboard on my Mazda 3:

Answer: it points to the side of the car with the gas tank. This has become a standard feature of cars in the past few years, but apparently it's still unknown to about 90 percent of the population. Not to readers of this blog, though. Now you know!

This may not seem very useful since you probably remember which side of the car your gas tank is on. But back in the day I used to drive a lot of rental cars, and this would have been pretty handy. I never paid attention to the gas tank, and you can't see them from the side mirror, so about half the time I'd guess wrong and drive into gas stations on the wrong side. Mostly, of course, this was when I was headed back to the airport to turn in the car, and therefore in a little bit of a hurry, which made it all the more annoying.

But no more. No matter what car you're driving now, you can instantly tell which side the gas tank is on. Progress marches on.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United marches like a zombie precedent, destroying all in its path. First the case turned the law of campaign finance into a useless corpse. Now it appears the law of political bribery is the next victim. Citizens United let rich people buy candidates; now they may be able to purchase office-holders, too.

Our Founders were scarcely cock-eyed optimists about whether the American republic would necessarily sustain itself.  It took not only good institutional design--and I, of course, think that the institutions designed for 1787 are grievously dysfunctional in 2016--but also suitably virtuous dispositions on the part of both the citizenry and the leadership class.  I have discovered that few seem to share my own faith in the possibility of an American public capable of exercising "reflection and choice" as spelled out in Federalist 1, with regard to a new constitutional convention.  And if that's the case, why should we trust the public to exercise relevant reflection and choice when choosing a president?  And no one can seriously argue that Donald Trump is a Publican leader; I think that Hillary Clinton does qualify, but the very point of this posting is that most Republicans apparently disagree vehemently with that perception.

Two huge cases challenging new voting restrictions will soon be heard by the federal courts of appeal.  On May 24, the entire Fifth Circuit—the most conservative federal appeals court in the nation—will hear Veasey v. Abbott, Texas’s appeal from a district court ruling that struck down the state’s draconian voter identification law—which allows use of a gun permit, but not a government-issued employee or student photo identification card—as a violation of the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution.  Last August, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit issued a unanimous ruling, written by G.W. Bush appointee Catharina Haynes, partially upholding the district court’s decision, and Texas asked the full court to hear the case. In its defense of the law, Texas is urging the court of appeals to create a “voter identification” exception to the Voting Rights Act, insisting that, if the Voting Rights Act is not read narrowly, the Act’s nationwide prohibition on voting discrimination is unconstitutional.  On June 21, the Fourth Circuit will hear North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. McCrory, an expedited appeal from a recent 485-page district court ruling upholding an omnibus voter suppression law enacted by the North Carolina legislature in 2013, which imposed a restrictive voter identification requirement, while eliminating a host of voting reforms designed to increase political participation by racial minorities and others.  

From the social media fails file–Colorado Republican U.S. Senate candidate Robert Blaha’s campaign came up this week with a too-clever-by-half “meme” series they’re calling “That Blaha! Moment,” like those “a-ha moments” you’ve had at important points in your life but…you know, with “Bla-ha” instead of “a-ha.”

Shut up, it’s clever. Check out the example above where he says “free college is just longer high school.”

Wait, what the hell does that even mean? Don’t think about it too much or you might have a different response than “a-ha.”

At any rate, Colorado Democratic Party spox Chris Meagher has his own list of “Blaha moments,” but not the ones Team Blaha wants you to remember! From a release today:

Since there have been plenty of #thatBlahamoments since the beginning of his campaign, here are several moments to remember –

1.    He has vigorously endorsed Trump, even calling him a “man of vision and courage.”

2.    He has said he would’ve voted to shut down the government.

3.    He said he wants to be a Senator much like Ted Cruz.

4.    He didn’t originally get on the ballot, then sued to get on, then demanded the Secretary of State resign, then was ruled off, then a judge put him back on.

5.    He invoked a painful rectal exam in a television ad.

6.    He posted a Facebook meme that “seems to compare Blaha and pro-gun politicians to Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, and Blaha’s opponents who are gun control advocates to Hitler.”

7.    He received donations that exceeded the legal campaign contribution limit.

“Robert Blaha has endorsed Donald Trump, and he has shown he is eager to keep up with Trump’s outrageous behavior and rhetoric,” said Chris Meagher, spokesman for the Colorado Democratic Party.

And with that, it’s back to the drawing board for a real “a-ha moment.” Or maybe just a “blah moment?” Either way, it’s better to focus group these kinds of things before you unleash them on a heartless, ridiculing world.

If we were running his campaign, we’d tell Bla-ha (we can’t imagine it without the hyphen anymore) to downplay the unfortunate surname. For every Jeff Flake exception, there’s a Jeff Crank who proves the rule. But it’s too late now for Robert Blaha.

Oh, sorry. Blah-ha!

I want to make this simple. Here's what Donald Trump did recently:

• He pledged $1 million to help veterans.
• He tried to weasel out of it for months and hoped no one would notice.
• When he finally got caught, he ponied up grudgingly and insulted the reporter who caught him.

Even among sleazebags, this is not normal behavior. This is pathological sleaziness. It's literally beyond belief. Do not let Trump distract you with his latest barrage of insults. Do not turn your attention to the latest polls. Do not let this be normalized away as "just another Trump thing."

Maybe we need to put this in simpler terms. $1 million is one ten-thousandth of Trump's claimed wealth. The average American household has a net worth of about $50,000. One ten-thousandth of that is $5. In terms of its effect on his personal finances, what Trump did was the equivalent of promising five bucks to a homeless vet and then trying to weasel out of it. What kind of person would do that?

This deserves far more attention than it's gotten. If character is supposed to be important in our presidents, this is evidence of the most contemptible kind of character imaginable. He tried to cheat a bunch of veterans! Can we please not shrug our shoulders and let this fade away?

And here I think we get to the sexist double standards that really do explain why Clinton is likely somewhat less popular than one might expect a similarly situated politician to be. For a would-be woman president to let her decisions be driven by "feelings" and emotion could be deadly, as would the impression that she's a dilettante. She needs to be all-professional and extravagantly qualified for the job. And yet having done all that, she's now this dreary, uncool workaholic who should play more golf.

David Brooks tries to explain why Hillary Clinton is generally disliked:

I would begin my explanation with this question: Can you tell me what Hillary Clinton does for fun? We know what Obama does for fun — golf, basketball, etc. We know, unfortunately, what Trump does for fun.

But when people talk about Clinton, they tend to talk of her exclusively in professional terms....Clinton’s career appears, from the outside, to be all consuming. Her husband is her co-politician. Her daughter works at the Clinton Foundation. Her friendships appear to have been formed at networking gatherings reserved for the extremely successful.

Brooks has been mocked extensively for this, but that's unfair. He has a point here.

Before I get to that, though, let's insert the obvious caveat: one of the main reasons Hillary is disliked is because Republicans have spent a quarter of a century attacking her character relentlessly. Benghazi is just the latest of a long string. This has done plenty of damage on its own, but it's also caused Hillary to build a very thick shell between herself and the press. This naturally makes her seem distant and calculating.

Now let's get back to Brooks. Here's the thing: like it or not, from cherry trees to log cabins to men from Hope, presidents have always been as much about image as reality. In the modern era, that means presidents have a carefully constructed TV persona. JFK played touch football on the White House lawn. LBJ lassoed calves on his ranch. Nixon bowled.¹ Carter went fishing. Reagan rode horses on his ranch. Bush the Elder went sailing off Kennebunkport. Bill Clinton practically focus grouped his vacations. Bush the Younger cleared brush. Obama does hits on ESPN talking about his March Madness bracket.

Apparently Hillary's hobbies are Scrabble, gardening, and crossword puzzles. That's not a lot to work with, but it's something. For example, here's a picture of Hillary and Bill in a Scrabble death match against the Bidens. Here's another of Hillary relaxing after a long day with the New York Times crossword puzzle. And here's one of her planting some new spring bulbs in her—

Wait. What's that? You don't see any pictures? Sorry about that. I couldn't find any. Maybe I didn't look hard enough.

Bottom line: Brooks has a point. It doesn't matter if you think it's fair or not. Modern presidents all know perfectly well that TV has brought the American public into their lives, and the public wants to know what they do for fun. They want to feel like their president is someone who relaxes at the end of the day and lets off a little steam. But Hillary Clinton won't let them see that.

Sure, a lot of this is artifice. So what? It still matters.

¹For all the good this did him. But at least he tried. Not for nothing did Nixon turn to media guru Roger Ailes for advice on how to appear less like the devious prick he was.

Creep is perhaps Radiohead's best known song, especially in the US. But the band is a bit ashamed of it, so they don't play it all that often. They played it last night at a show in Paris for the first time since 2009. When I saw them in 2001, they played it for the first time since 1998 (and it was awesome).

There's a certain point in everyone's life when they're unable to appreciate their younger selves. Between this and putting True Love Waits on their latest album, perhaps Radiohead has become more accepting of the band they used to be. The genie's out of the bottle, mates, you might as well use the wishes.

Tags: music   Radiohead   video

David Brooks wonders why people don’t like Hillary, spends a bunch of words blaming it on her being a workaholic, and never once broaches the subject that he, the Republicans, and the New York fucking Times have been lying about her for three decades.

I think that might have something to do with it, personally. The fact that her negatives aren’t higher despite the multi-decade attack should be consider a testament to the woman.

This post was just completely wrong. Men generally outnumber women in every generation until mortality rates turn things around after middle age. I'm not really sure what I was thinking here.

Anyway, I've deleted the whole thing. If you already read it, try to forget it.

As readers of my previous posts are well aware, I am extremely critical of Senator Sanders for his abject refusal even to suggest that anyone defining him/herself as a "political revolutionary" might do what, say, Hamilton Madiaon, and Jay did when they denounced the existing constitutional order (of the Articles of Confederation) as "imbecilic" and suggested its replacement by something they saw as far better.  His notion of a "political revolution" is remarkably undeveloped, to put it mildly.

His unwillingness to engage in any such analysis is especially noticeable given his ever increasing propensity to whine about the particular rules of the Democratic Party--to which his own loyalty is minimal, incidentally--and the ostensible ways they have hindered his candidacy.  As Mark Graber notes in his own excellent post, Sen. Sanders seems to believe that non-Democrats should play a key role in selecting the nominee of the party.  There is something to be said for "open primaries," but there is also surely something to be said against them.  There is a genuine debate to be had about the extent to which parties should be viewed as membership organizations entitled to make their own choices as to whom they wish to represent them as candidates, subject to limitations on, say, racial discrimination.  But Mark is surely correct that there would be something odd if non-Catholics demanded a right to participate in electing the next Pope, and so on.  But, obviously, Sanders is not leading a genuinely serious debate, which might require at least a modicum of disinterestedness.

Sanders, alas, has revealed himself as incapable of leading a serious discussion about truly necessary structural reform in this country.  I genuinely regret this, as I have admired (and contributed to) Senator Sanders and believed that his candidacy was in fact very good for the country.

Even if Sen. Sanders is from Brooklyn, he is behaving exactly like the Vermont Senator he is, inasmuch as he seems almost totally oblivious to the actual number of voters supporting Secretary Clinton as against himself and prefers to treat all states as equal, so that we are asked to treat his triumph in Wyoming as the equal of her win in Ohio.  Only someone unconcerned by the indefensible allocation of voting power in the Senate could possibly believe any such thing.

To answer my own question, I do not believe that the University of Chicago-educated Senator is stupid.  Perhaps, though, it's too easy to denounce him simply as a coward.  Maybe he remains enough of a classic Marxist so that he views political institutions as merely epiphenomenal relative to what's really important, which is class struggle.  But he seems to believe that rules and institutions matter with regard to the Democratic Party.  If that's the case, then why can't he accept the fact that the same is even more true at the national level?

If he in fact refuses to get solidly behind Secretary Clinton and help her defeat the fascist and incompetent Donald Trump, then he should roast in hell.  But, frankly, I will be only somewhat mollified if he does the right thing re Clinton and Trump, given that he still will have blown the opportunity of a lifetime to initiate a long-overdue discussion of the degree to which our present constitutional order, as designed in 1787, is indeed imbecilic and very much in need of examination and change.

Werner Herzog has made more than 70 films during his career of 50+ years. This summer, Herzog will be teaching an online filmmaking class at Masterclass. The fee for the course is $90 and includes 5 hours of video lessons about documentary and feature filmmaking, a class workbook, and the chance to get your student work critiqued by the man himself. The trailer above offers a little taste of what you'll be getting.

For example, I do not use a storyboard. I think it's an instrument of the cowards.

See also 24 pieces of life advice from Werner Herzog, including "carry bolt cutters everywhere" and "take revenge if need be".

Tags: education   movies   video   Werner Herzog