I got eight right; got #3 and #9 wrong.
What is the place where "To the left and right of the hallway there are two very small closets. In the first, one may sleep standing up; in the other, satisfy one's fecal necessities. Also through here passes a spiral stairway, which sinks abysmally and soars upwards to remote distances. In the hallway there is a mirror which faithfully duplicates all appearances. . . ."
(It's not down on a map; true places never are.)
That was my thought also. If Trump were to get 95% of the A-A vote, he would presumably get at least 96% of the Asian vote, 97% of non-white Hispanics, and 99% of whites. I think his only competition in "greatest electoral landslide ever" would be Saddam Hussein.
I don't think it's character assassination so much as it is Groucho Marxism. In "A Day at the Races," Groucho is pretending to be a doctor and giving out nonsensical diagnoses; when an actual doctor says "that's insane!", Groucho responds, "That's what they said about Pasteur!" Or about Alger Hiss, as the case may be.
In a way, Astaire is comparable to Michael Jordan: performers with one-in-a-million natural ability who somehow ended up being overachievers because of their fanatical dedication to improving and perfecting their skill sets.
I was wondering whether, if "the debate schedule is rigged!" is a pre-emptive excuse for skipping the debates, "the electoral system is rigged!" might be a preemptive excuse for effectively withdrawing from the race.
Or maybe it's just a way of doing his best to ensure that a Hillary Clinton presidency gets tagged as 'illegitimate' from Inauguration Day on; if he can't rule, at least he can ruin.
If you think that using the hyperbolic word "damage" to describe what might be done by the opposition is "over the top," and that it constitutes a dangerous attempt to pre-emptively delegitimize the opposition, then I'd say your trigger settings have to be so sensitive it's a miracle you've survived the last few days of political speech, let alone a lifetime of it.
I know it's a better story if Welch's response was born of "spontaneous anger," but according to David Oshinsky (A Conspiracy So Vast), Welch had actually rehearsed this response, because he strongly suspected that at some point McCarthy would bring up Fisher's former membership in the Lawyer's Guild. Oshinsky says (and Roy Cohn confirmed) that there was actually an agreement between Welch and McCarthy that McCarthy wouldn't bring up Fisher and Welch wouldn't bring up Roy Cohn's draft exemption.
ETA: the name of the book by Oshinsky is actually A Conspiracy So Immense; sorry.
What it signifies is very, very obvious if you have read the first paragraph of Mark's post: that some on the left -- Sanders supporters, essentially -- seem not to realize what the consequences would be of this particular non-Democrat taking office. Mark is declaring, explicitly, that he is trying to refute the idea that "Donald Trump’s election wouldn’t be such a bad thing because the diffusion of power in the American political system would prevent him from carrying out the worst of his lunatic schemes" by listing, and asking others to list, some of the bad things -- bad from the point of view of a Sanders supporter -- which would happen in the case that "the Democrat loses." Because if the Sanders supporter sees this, he or she may as a result cease believing that "Donald Trump's election wouldn't be such a bad thing" and so -- instead of staying home, or voting for Jill Stein -- may instead vote for and work for the election of the Democrat.
Which is something that people who want the Democrat to be elected -- people like Mark and myself -- would see as a good result.
None of this is at all difficult to grasp.
I took it that the point of this exercise was not to debate whether the agreements about climate and Iran were good things, or what the difference was between a treaty and an agreement, but to point out -- to leftists who were optimistic that Trump couldn't do much damage -- how many things Trump could do (or undo) which they would regard as damaging.
What about "abrogate the Paris Accords on climate, and the anti-nuclear agreement with Iran?"
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Brainchild