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Rov_Scam


				

				

				
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Rov_Scam


				
				
				

				
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User ID: 554

The best example I can think of off the top of my head of money winning election is in the Democratic primary for the Pennsylvania 2014 gubernatorial election. Tom Wolf was a businessman from York who had briefly served as state treasurer several years prior, not exactly a guy with strong name recognition. But he declared early and bombarded the state with TV ads before most of the field even had their campaign apparatus together. He had such a commanding lead, with the remainder split among several candidates, that he was able to start attacking Corbett directly weeks before the election. Granted, that was his own money and not PAC money, and the field was relatively weak, but it shouldn't have been that much of a cakewalk for a guy who had virtually no public profile before that.

Since it apparently wasn't obvious, the content of these criticisms only seldom aligns with my actual opinions on these films. I love several of these, at least like most of them, and a few more at least get grudging respect. Some of these I actually haven't seen, and others I've only seen bits and pieces of, or watched on a bus trip, or saw in 30 minute increments in school, or saw so long ago I don't remember anything about them. This is just me finding nitpicks for the sake of some Friday shitposting. My criticism of the graduate has nothing to do with the film so much as the bullshit on the back of the DVD cover.

I'm glad I could lure you into the ninth circle of pedantry. A comma after "i.e." is preferable but not required; it's a matter of style, not grammar. But if we're talking style, the bigger blunder here is that I used "i.e" in text where I could have just as easily written "in other words". "i.e." and "e.g." are best confined to lists, parentheticals, and other situations where economy of space trumps flow and readability.

In case it wasn't obvious, this is a joke. I love most of these movies.

Yes. But I'm also the kind of person who gets mildly annoyed at people on here who use hyphens instead of en dashes or em dashes (as the case may be); i.e. I'm an insufferable pedant.

The AFI 100

Given the tendency of people to post lists this week, it seems like quite the coincidence that after 20 years of making a half-assed attempt at seeing all of the movies on the AFI 100, my journey is finally complete. I’m sharing my thoughts on every film on the list in the hopes that nobody else here will subject themselves to such a pointless exercise. Without further ado:

  1. Citizen Kane (1941)The Great Gatsby has famously never been made into a good film, and this one is no exception. Yes, it’s the same story, trying to figure out who some rich guy really is. Skip this one.

  2. Casablanca (1942) It may be the ultimate date movie of all time, but that’s not saying much. Everyone knows all the famous lines from this movie, including the ones that weren’t actually in it. No one remembers what the plot is actually about, and it wasn’t marketed as a romance until everyone who saw it realized that the international intrigue elements fall flat. Skip this one.

  3. The Godfather (1972) The American Dream given a cynical twist with the realization that the crime business is a business like any other. But never mind that the two “heroes” of the tale—Vito and Michael—are mass murderous gangsters, the rendering of the story on screen is ponderous. The amber lighting, the shadows, the pace, the score, and the entire tone are so serious and pretentious that they verge on parody. This film would be just as good as a comedy if you added a laugh track. They say there is a fine line between comedy and tragedy, but it’s not quite this fine. Skip this one.

  4. Gone with the Wind (1939) A sentimental epic that whitewashes history. It’s not as offensive as Birth of a Nation, but the insensitivity to the real suffering caused by slavery is there and has to be dealt with. I’m not trying to be a politically correct nitpicker; slavery isn’t nitpicking. And anyone who has the slightest bit of false nostalgia for the Old South should remind themselves that the landed, slave-owning aristocracy represented by Rhett and Scarlet was only between 1% and 2% of the population. Everyone else, black and white, endured miserable poverty working in the fields. At least that’s the normal criticism, which is fair enough, but that only describes minor plot points in the first half. The rest of it is just another old tearjerker where a spoiled bitch manages to alienate three(!) husbands because she’s still hung up on a teenage crush. Skip this one.

  5. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) A four hour epic that only exists to impart the sensation of how vast and endless the desert is. This would have been better as a 20 minute IMAX documentary. Skip this one.

  6. The Wizard of Oz (1939) One for the kiddies. But if you’re all grown up you can skip this one.

  7. The Graduate (1967) The back cover of the DVD described this as “love and idealism triumphing over the forces of corruption and conformity”. Nope. Benjamin Braddock is a whiny asshole with no ideals and is himself a force for corruption. If he does indeed represent a rebellion against the conformity of middle-class life—as he breaks up two marriages and a business partnership—he only serves to make us appreciate squareness. Skip this one.

  8. On the Waterfront (1954) This movie does more to reinforce the negative stereotype of unions than any Republican ever could. Skip this one.

  9. Schindler’s List (1993) Speaking of Republicans, Tom Coburn raised a huge stink when NBC aired this film unedited and uninterrupted in prime time in 1999. If you were among the 65 million people watching then you don’t need to see it again. If you weren’t then you’re probably a hopeless Zoomer without the attention span to sit through this. Skip this one.

  10. Singin’ in the Rain (1952) Tapdancing is as much an “art” as throwing a basketball through a hoop, and this crap is very dated. No one born after 1945 has any reason to watch this movie today, unless you’re one of those schlocky lounge/cocktail/swinger ‘40s revivalists who are into this type of thing so you can wear cool clothes. Skip this one.

  11. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Frank Capra was an overly sentimental cornball, but beyond that, this movie raises significant concerns about the criminal justice system, making one think it should be routine for a policeman to use deadly force to prevent the escape of someone wanted for disorderly conduct. Skip this one.

  12. Sunset Boulevard (1950) Jack Webb is Joe Friday and Joe Friday only, not “one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet”. Skip this one.

  13. Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) This movie sends too many mixed messages with regard to its historical inaccuracies. On the one hand, the Japanese are portrayed as incompetent at engineering and construction, which they most certainly were not in real life, giving this somewhat racist undertones. One the other hand, prison camps building the Burma-Siam Railway were much more brutal than this film suggests, given that the real bridge was built using forced labor in conditions that are too appalling for me to describe here. Without either of these inaccuracies, however, there would be no movie. Skip this one.

  14. Some Like It Hot (1959) Neither Tony Curtis not Jack Lemmon pass as women. Skip this one.

  15. Star Wars (1977) This was the first of the big-budget special effects movies in which plot and characterization take a back seat, ushering in the reign of big-budget special effects movies in which plot and characterization take a back seat, to the point that these days every movie is a big-budget special effects movie in which plot and characterization take a back seat. Skip this one.

  16. All About Eve (1950) There’s a good line in this movie about a piano thinking it had composed a concerto—actors ought to keep their egos in check and realize they wouldn’t even have lines to mouth if it wasn’t for writer. Hell, Shakespeare is still read, but does anyone remember the famous thespians of the 16th century? Unfortunately, that one line is the only good thing the writers came up with in this otherwise dull movie. Skip this one.

  17. African Queen (1951) This is a fine romance if you’re one of those crotchety old-timers who think it’s actually sexier when couples don’t take their clothes off and let innuendo and tension do the job for you. The rest of us can skip this one.

  18. Psycho (1960) This isn’t very scary, and there isn’t much suspense. This is better than your average horror film, but that isn’t saying much. Skip this one.

  19. Chinatown (1974) The plot of this is so convoluted it makes Raymond Chandler look like Anton Chekov by comparison. Skip this one.

  20. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) Jack Nicholson is at his craziest and hammiest, along with a bunch of other actors who wound up on Taxi. The beginning of his self-parody period (which has yet to end). Skip this one.

  21. The Grapes of Wrath (1940) If you’re a tankie who needs to go back to the Depression so you can find a fictional example to showcase the horrors of capitalism, this is required viewing. Otherwise, skip this one.

  22. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) This movie looked like it would be good after watching the first few scenes with the apes, which mistakenly give the impression of a masterful epic. Instead we’re given 20 minute sequences of spaceships docking and no plot. When the most interesting character is a computer, you know you’re in trouble. Skip this one.

  23. The Maltese Falcon (1941) Dashiell Hammett was a trash writer whom critics adore because he absorbed all of Hemingway and furthered along the development of a distinct American style. Unfortunately, that distinct American toughness is really just nothing more than a high body count. And the book is better than the movie. Skip this one.

  24. Raging Bull (1980) Jake LaMotta just isn’t an interesting character, and two hours with him is pretty wearying. Skip this one. If you really want to watch a Scorsese movie, even Boxcar Bertha is better.

  25. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982) Chalk another one up for the kids. Skip this one.

  26. Dr. Strangelove (1964) “Black Humor” is nothing more than excuse film buffs give themselves to justify watching comedies that aren’t funny. Skip this one.

  27. Bonnie & Clyde (1967) The real Bonnie & Clyde were considerably less sexy than Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Skip this one.

  28. Apocalypse Now (1979) A very loose adaptation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness that bears about the same relation to the reality of Vietnam as Star Wars did to the Roman Empire. Skip this one.

  29. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) With our awareness of the rampant corruption and venality within the Beltway in the post-Watergate era, this film seems hopelessly naïve. Skip this one.

  30. Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) Ah yes, it is not gold that makes men act like animals; filthy lucre is merely one more thing to fight over. This is the kind of dime-store philosophy that practically defines “middlebrow”. Skip this one.

  31. Annie Hall (1977) There are two kinds of Woody Allen movies: The funny ones, and the serious ones. This movie is a transitional work that attempts to fuse the two sides. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell what’s a joke and what isn’t. His paranoia about anti-Semitism? That lobster scene—he’s not that much of a wimp, is he? Skip this one.

  32. The Godfather Part II (1974) Was responsible for The Godfather Part III. Skip this one.

  33. High Noon (1952) The only notable part is the structure. The action begins at 10:40 a.m. and unfolds in real time until noon, paralleling the length of the film. Other than that, it’s a rather standard Western. Skip this one.

  34. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) Hollywood changed the plot of the book too much to make it more palatable to moviegoers. Skip this one.

  35. It Happened One Night (1934) Film buffs toss around “pre-Code” like the era was full of racy and disgusting content. It’s really no more shocking than anything in a modern Pixar film. Skip this one.

  36. Midnight Cowboy (1969) Film buffs like to point out that this is the only X-Rated movie to ever win an academy award. They don’t point out that this is only R-Rated by today’s standards and was given an X due to the subject matter more than anything actually pornographic. Skip this one.

  37. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) This isn’t a movie, it’s a piece of propaganda designed to make returning WWII veterans adjust to home life. It’s alright for a public awareness video, but after serving its admirable purpose, it became obsolete. Heck, nobody’s going to nominate all those “Just Say No” anti-drug movies, are they? So why this? Skip this one.

  38. Double Indemnity (1944) There’s nothing here you won’t find done better on old Perry Mason reruns not to mention your average post-Hill Street Blues cop show. Skip this one.

  39. Doctor Zhivago (1965) Length doesn’t equal quality. Skip this one.

  40. North by Northwest (1959) This movie has all the sophistication of a Timothy Dalton-era James Bond movie. Skip this one.

  41. West Side Story (1961) Theoretically, the marriage of music and narrative ought to take both to new heights, but in practice the narrative suffers because it has to find corny ways to incorporate the songs and the music suffers because individually inspired songs are outnumbered by makeshift hack pieces designed to move the plot along. The world would be a much better place if no one ever penned an opera or musical ever again. Skip this one.

  42. Rear Window (1954) Jimmy Stewart as a Peeping Tom? Skip this one.

  43. King Kong (1933) There’s no need to delve into pre-Civil Rights America’s warped racial/sexual fantasies. Skip this one.

  44. The Birth of a Nation (1915) Ignoring the fact that it completely distorts history and glorifies the KKK, this is just boring. Skip this one.

  45. Streetcar Named Desire (1951) What I said earlier about musicals notwithstanding, Streetcar! was better. Skip this one.

  46. A Clockwork Orange (1971) A great book would have been better if anyone other than Kubrick, the most boring great director of our time, directed this movie. Skip this one.

  47. Taxi Driver (1976) John Hinckley Jr. watched this film over and over. Skip this one.

  48. Jaws (1975) With Sammy Fableman being an overt self-portrait it’s now understandable why all of Spielberg’s characters range from annoying to evil. Suffice it to say, I was rooting for the shark. Skip this one.

  49. Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Too bad Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner never made a feature film, or I’d want it here instead. Skip this one.

  50. Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (1969) A buddy film without homosexual undertones seems a bit quaint in the 21st century. Skip this one.

  51. Philadelphia Story (1940) Katherine Hepburn’s annoying fake British accent (oh, sorry “Mid Atlantic”) just plain grates. Skip this one.

  52. From Here to Eternity (1953) This snoozefest was created entirely so that Frank Sinatra could revive his failing career. Inadvertently, the producers seem to have pioneered the irritating “Oscar bait” genre that clogs up our theaters every winter. Skip this one.

  53. Amadeus (1984) First, it rewrites history. Second, it doesn’t try to give you any insight into one of music’s greatest geniuses and just portrays Mozart as a party animal. Finally, the soundtrack inexplicably left off “Rock Me Amadeus”. Skip this one.

  54. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Certain nations gearing up for war have banned this film, which should tell you something about how powerful an anti-war piece this is even today. Unfortunately, some wars are necessary, so see this if you’d like, but don’t go showing it in high schools or anything lest we have a repeat of Vietnam.

  55. The Sound of Music (1965) Speaking of schools, completely against my will my helpless fellow classmates and I were forced to watch this in elementary school. The only time I’ve ever cheered for the Nazis. Skip this one.

  56. MAS*H (1970) Possibly the only time in recorded history that the TV show was actually better than the movie it spun off from. Skip this one.

  57. The Third Man (1949) There are only two good things about this film: The first shot we see of Orson Welles, and the fact that the main character keeps calling Calloway Callahan just to piss him off. Other than that it’s a movie that tries to convince you that the cobblestones and zither of postwar Vienna are enough to make a film about counterfeit penicillin interesting. Skip this one.

  58. Fantasia (1940) A revolutionary film that let Disney animators stretch the boundaries of what could be done with animation. Unfortunately, no one actually watches this, unless they like shadows of people playing musical instruments. Skip this one.

  59. Rebel Without a Cause (1955) James Dean’s legend overshadows his achievement, which actually wasn’t much: Three films, all of which display some talent, but not enough to warrant his current status. If he hadn’t died young, he’d be remembered as a decent but unremarkable ‘50s actor/teen idol. The movie itself is dated and you’d have to be a retro ‘50s obsessed revivalist to get worked up over it. Skip this one.

  60. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Okay, maybe that wasn't the only time I rooted for the Nazis. Skip this one.

  61. Vertigo (1958) Lonely, unattractive Alfred Hitchcock had a lifelong crush on Grace Kelly, and his psychosexual obsessions are nowhere as obvious as in this twisted film about a man who just can’t get an icy blonde out of his head. Skip this one.

  62. Tootsie (1982) If conservatives want to make a film about how DEI has made it hard for white men to get jobs, then they probably shouldn’t load it up with an obvious trans angle. Unless, of course, they’re trying to tell us something they’re afraid to admit… Skip this one.

  63. Stagecoach (1939) I guess this was good for 1939, but it made a star of John Wayne, who became an American icon by playing an insufferable asshole in every movie he was ever in and acting like even more of an asshole in his public life. Skip this one.

  64. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) If they want to include sci-fi, and they want to include kitschy noir like Double Indemnity, then why not include kitschy sci-fi, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Day the Earth Stood Still, or The Fly? Skip this one.

  65. Silence of the Lambs (1991) If you need to pick out scary trash with lots of sex and murder from the ‘90s, then you get a pretty big playing field. Why not Basic Instinct, or, better yet, Scream? Skip this one.

  66. Network (1976) It’s supposed to tell painful truths about how media manipulates society. Instead, it convinces you that the Tea Part Republican turned MAGA Republican rambling on in a bar is on to something. Skip this one.

  67. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) This movie dates horribly considering what we now know about brainwashing, and if any Republican sees it in the next 6 months it’s going to lead to endless 4Chan conspiracy theories about how Thomas Crooks was compromised in a Democrat-controlled nursing home to give the libs plausible deniability. Skip this one.

  68. An American In Paris (1951) One Gene Kelly tap dancing special was more than enough. Replace with The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years and give the old fogies who voted for this tinnitus. Skip this one.

  69. Shane (1953) The charming tale of a family who thinks it’s a good idea to take in a drifter with a mysterious past and no last name (or first?) and let him babysit their son. I just realized that for all the movies about men who like other men a whole bunch there aren’t any cute animal movies on this list! Where’s Homeward Bound? Or Milo and Otis? Skip this one.

  70. The French Connection (1971) When Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso made the French Connection bust in 1962, it was the largest narcotics seizure in the country’s history. Strange, then, why they’d participate in this hack job that completely tarnishes their legacy. The real Eddie Egan must have been given a lot of money to berate the fake Eddie Egan relentlessly for being a bad cop. And the image of the detective as a slovenly womanizer doesn’t do his image any favors either. Skip this one.

  71. Forrest Gump (1994) The moral of this apparently is that if you’re living through an era of monumental societal change, it’s best to be the smiling idiot on the sidelines. Skip this one.

  72. Ben-Hur (1959) I understand the desire to include the type of over-the-top production that Hollywood was making in the 1950s to counter the popularity of television, but this is nothing more than a Charlton Heston movie without guns or apes. Skip this one.

  73. Wuthering Heights (1939) This is a movie for housewives who read trashy romance novels, which, in fact, the book it’s based on was (it's only considered a "classic" because it was written in the 19th century, not the vulgar 20th). Emily Bronte was the Danielle Steele of her time. Sure, Laurence Olivier can act, but will Americans please get over their misguided prejudice that English accents somehow automatically denote sophistication and intelligence? Skip this one.

  74. The Gold Rush (1925) The silent era ended for a reason. I don’t want to read a movie. Skip this one.

  75. Dances with Wolves (1990) Kevin Costner takes himself far, far too seriously, and turns every film he stars in into a boring, turgid dirge. He winds up making a far greater fool of himself than Jim Carrey and Pee Wee Herman combined with his grim-faced schtick. Hollywood’s portrayal of Indians as great noble savages is one of those deep-seated traditions that is long overdue to go. How about a movie that takes place in an Indian casino? Skip this one.

  76. City Lights (1931) We definitely don’t need silent films made 4 years into the sound era. Skip this one.

  77. American Graffiti (1973) This movie did for 50s nostalgia what “The Big Chill” did for 60s nostalgia and “Dazed and Confused” did for 70s nostalgia — make films better known for their soundtracks. Skip this one.

  78. Rocky (1978) "My old man told me that I'd have to use my body 'cuz I didn't have much of a brain." Thus, Sylvester Stallone neatly sums up his entire movie career in one line. Skip this one.

  79. The Deer Hunter (1978) As a Pittsburgh native, I feel deeply offended that the only actual deer hunting in this movie was shot in the Cascades and not Tionesta or some other place where people actually have camps. And there’s no reason why they had to shoot the mill town scenes in Steubenville rather than Clairton. This kind of inaccuracy is easy to overlook if you’re more focused on the completely unrelatable plot, but to someone like me it’s like portraying New Yorkers as having southern accents to fit foreign stereotypes of Americans. Skip this one.

  80. The Wild Bunch (1969) When the amount of violence in a movie is the only thing it has going for it, it’s not a good sign. Skip this one.

  81. Modern Times (1934) And we certainly don’t need silent films that were made 7 years into the sound era and a year after the Hayes Code. Skip this one.

  82. Giant (1956) Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean. If they wanted to include a teen movie how about Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon in Beach Blanket bingo, or better yet, Ski Party?

  83. Platoon (1986) All Oliver Stone films are just his incoherent political ramblings translated to the screen. Unless you plan on voting for RFK Jr., skip this one.

  84. Fargo (1996) I get it, people in the Upper Midwest have funny accents. And it doesn’t even take place in Fargo. And it inspired an absolutely dreadful television series that featured a scenery-chewing Kirsten Dunst and an unexplained flying saucer. Skip this one.

  85. Duck Soup (1933) Snappy one-liners are not dialogue. Skip this one.

  86. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) “Battleship Potemkin” was better, but it was made by Soviet commies, so it’s ineligible for this list. A half-assed substitute doesn’t cut it, even at 86. Skip this one.

  87. Frankenstein (1931) See above about lamentably substituting an American snore because the better foreign films are ineligible — the monster movie was always one thing the Japs did better. If you need a stand-in then at least use “Young Frankenstein”, which scared the hell out of me. Skip this one.

  88. Easy Rider (1968) I know they were different times, but the hippie rhetoric is laughable today. Not to mention that there isn’t much of a plot and the ending is hard to believe (sure, the roads are filled with rednecks going around shooting unarmed strangers). Skip this one.

  89. Patton (1970) The movie starts with an incredibly boring monologue where Patton marched in front of an American flag and starts delivering a harangue about warfare. There are better things to do with three hours than spend them stuck with a warmongering lunatic. Skip this one.

  90. The Jazz Singer (1927) The fact that Al Jolson sings for about two minutes doesn’t make up for the fact that you have to read this film. They could have at least included the Neil Diamond version with what should be America’s national anthem. Skip this one.

  91. My Fair Lady (1964) Yeah, whatever. Shouldn't they disqualify this since it was written by Brits, has a British subject, and British actors? George Bernard Shaw is that rare playwright who is great on the page but talky and long-winded on stage or screen. Skip this one.

  92. A Place in the Sun (1951) Theodore Dreiser was one of the clumsiest writers to ever hold a pen, and when he starts expounding on turn-of-the-century ideas about chemicals and glands, he's laughably dated. I guess it’s good that this film is better than spending 800 pages with him, but unless you’re trying to get out of a school assignment, you can skip this one.

  93. The Apartment (1960) A philandering executive bribes an employee with a promotion so he can use his apartment to sexually harass a member of the Psychic Friends Network. Skip this one.

  94. Goodfellas (1990) Martin Scorsese tries to whitewash the fact that Henry Hill was a total fucking moron who hung around with women who were even dumber than he was. And he was a snitch, too. Skip this one.

  95. Pulp Fiction (1994) About ten years ago I was at a casino with a friend of mine who lost his wallet. When he had to tell the kindly old woman at customer service that it said “Bad Ass Motherfucker” on it, well, let’s just say he was no Samuel L. Jackson. Having a slightly out of order plot is not impressive. And, as with “Duck Soup”, zingers aren’t a substitute for dialogue. Skip this one.

  96. The Searchers (1956) John Wayne in full-blown asshole mode, to the point that he wants to murder the girl they’ve spent years looking for. Skip this one.

  97. Bringing Up Baby (1938) For some reason critics love to fellate 30’s screwball comedies (if you're not familiar with that term, it means a movie in which the hero and heroine start off hating each other and wind up falling in love), but don’t take their modern equivalents seriously. If they were going to include this on the 1998 list then they should have added “American Pie” when they updated it ten years later. Skip this one.

  98. Unforgiven (1992) Another western featuring an asshole extraordinaire, but at least the John Wayne movies on this list didn’t subject the audience to the star’s right-wing political views. Skip this one.

  99. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) If the “Oscars So White” people wanted to pick a more worthy target, this list would be as good of one as any. The exclusion of blacks somewhat understandable since they weren’t really able to make films until the 70s, but making this piece of dated claptrap their sole representative (and No. 99, at that) is simply inexcusable. No Spike Lee Joints? No Sweet Sweetback’s Badass Song? Skip this one.

  100. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) If you feel the need to see a James Cagney movie, at least make it a James Cagney gangster movie. Skip this one.

Eh, I was never as impressed by Mayweather as others were. He was a one trick pony in an era of one trick ponies, his trick just happened to be better than everyone else's. He wasn't technically perfect. He had blazing speed but he couldn't, or at least wouldn't, do anything else. This was most prominent in his fight against Zab Judah, whom he shouldn't have let go the distance. All Floyd could do was dance around and throw combinations when the other guy made a mistake. What he couldn't do was take control of a fight and force the other guy to fight it his way.

While "take what the other guy gives you" may be good strategy in certain contexts, it has its limitations. To use an analogy from football, if a team is facing an opponent with good pass coverage the offense will try to run the ball as much as possible, give them looks that they think will create favorable matchups, and try to exploit weaknesses whenever they can. What Mayweather did was the equivalent of going out in shotgun on every down and hoping that the cornerback blew his assignment.

Experts in individual sports were asked to vote to rank the top athletes in their sport since Jan. 1, 2000 (no accomplishments before this date were to be considered). Those votes pared down pools in each sport to lists of 10 to 25 athletes each, which constituted the overall candidate pool for the top athletes of the 21st century so far. Each voter was presented two randomly selected names and asked to pick which one has had the better career in the 21st century. Across repeated, randomized head-to-head matchups, more than 70,000 votes were cast at this stage, and using an Elo rating system, the list was pared down from 262 to 100. That list was then evaluated by a panel of experts for any inconsistencies or oversights, resulting in the top 100 ranking seen here.

Unprecedented? It's July, not October. Polls in August 2016 had Clinton up by double digit margins in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and we all know how that turned out.

It's not admitting that he's not mentally sharp, just that he doesn't think he has another 4 years where he'll be as on top of things as he is now.

The problem is that Sharon Steel never closed and neither did the Armco Mill in Middletown, OH. They quit pouring steel at Sharon in the 90s and the ownership changed, but the rolling mill at Farrell and the galvanize line at Sharon are still open. Armco is owned by Cliffs now but the integrated mill is still in operation. Incidentally, jobs in the mills are easier to get now then they were in the 60s and 70s, when you probably had to know somebody. The problem with Sharon Steel is that they were disposing mill sludge by dumping it over embankments decades after they should have known that it was no longer an acceptable practice, and when they finally got dinged (in the middle of a recession nonetheless) by the EPA the damage was so bad that the fines forced them into bankruptcy. There was no broader economic reason for them to go under since they made specialty steel that wasn't affected as much by cheap imports. Other specialist companies like Allegheny Ludlum that at least pretended to follow the rules didn't have the same problems.

What language does Vance speak that Trump doesn't? He may have a better backstory but he doesn't really bring in the kind of voters that aren't already considered Trump's base. It's not like he's going to have some special in with minorities, or suburban women, or professionals, or any other constituency that could give Trump any real advantage he doesn't already have. I'd also add that I while I think a bad VP choice could potentially cost you votes (see Sarah Palin), that a good VP pick gets you any votes is less clear. Pence may have helped Trump among Evangelicals, but in the states that decided the election in 2016 the Evangelical vote isn't particularly important.

If he can get 50-75k more votes in Western PA that could be the difference between winning or losing.

He's not getting that many votes by running up the total in places like New Castle. In 2020 Trump got 4,310 votes in New Castle and Biden got 4,491, making it close to a 50/50 split. If Trump somehow manages to get 75% there (which isn't likely) that's still only about 2,000 more votes. There aren't 25 places like New Castle in Western PA. Being this generous lets him squeeze a few thousand more votes out of Sharon and Farrell, but after that it's slim pickings. Maybe some in the Beaver and Upper Ohio valleys. After that most of these areas are tapped. The mid-Mon Valley, where I'm originally from, is pretty tapped; white working class areas are already going for Trump by wide margins, and the blue areas are either heavily black or have high student populations. The Lower Mon Valley is pretty much a no-go zone for Republicans.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Trump isn't going to win PA by leaning harder into his base; he actually needs to get back voters from 2016 he lost in 2020. And those aren't in places like Lawrence and Mercer counties that actually increased their share of the Trump vote in the last election. Looking at an area that already has 65% Trump support and making the election ride on getting that up to 70% doesn't seem like a winning strategy, especially when these areas don't have particularly high populations. He'd be counting on a 5–10% increase in each one of these areas just to get him to the 50–75 thousand you mention, which, by the way, still doesn't win the state for him. He needs votes in suburban Pittsburgh, which Vance isn't going to get him. He needs votes in NEPA, which I don't know enough about to know whether Vance can get him. And while they'd be welcome, he doesn't need more votes in places like Lawrence and Mercer Counties.

A couple years ago I collected what I think are the best hundred songs of all time. A friend's python visualization of my Spotify playlist illuminated that, despite all the deep cuts, I didn't have a single entry from before I was born. My musical blind spots are enormous, and I think most old music just fucking sucks. At least I can admit it's because I'm susceptible to the level of manufacturing that modern music goes through, along with a huge obsession with sick beats. My list is "wrong" for most people.

I was at a bar over the weekend and a woman who was probably in her early 40s was complaining about the music her husband was playing on the jukebox — classic country like Waylon Jennings and Ronnie Milsap. She said it was "old people's music". I sided with the husband and told her that she's not so much complaining about the music itself as she is the cultural connotation. For example when I listen to music I focus on the melody, the harmony, the rhythm, the arrangement, the competence of the performers, the emotional impact, etc. Year of release doesn't really factor into it much. I might dock a song a few points from a critical perspective if it's merely a lazy retread of what's already been done, but that's ultimately a minor consideration. As I'm in the process of very occasionally updating my own list for this site, I'd be curious to see yours.

And it has Finnegan's Wake later in the list as well.

You may have had an argument for that yesterday, but I think the choice of Vance as VP pretty much cements him as the heir apparent.

Well, no. What it means is that Vance is at best useless and at worst a liability when it comes to convincing lawmakers to back Trump's policies.

As someone who lives in Western PA, I have never heard anyone around here mention his name. Trump supporters may like him, but, at this point, he looks just like a Trump clone to anyone who's not a Trump supporter. There's no latent admiration for Vance here or anything.

I'm not sure it changes things that much on that front. The GOP convention was set to begin tomorrow anyway, which would have sucked all the media coverage away from Biden.

There's no way career politicians with actual experience running campaigns would allow it to go to Don Jr. without a fight. Haley has pledged delegates who would see there chance. Whoever the VP pick was would argue that he gets Trump's delegates. Desantis would see his chance and argue he was more popular than either of them. On the other hand, if the RNC pushes one of the above three it will be harder for the other two to argue against them. There still might be a power struggle, but it wouldn't be as public.

It depends on how he carries himself afterwards. If he limits public appearances or speaks behind bullet proof glass it doesn't exactly demonstrate strength. If he over politicizes it and tries to blame Biden, it won't sit well with some people.

The most immediate problem with this is that I imagine most such charges would be barred by the statute of limitations at this point. Trump's situation was unique because the prohibitions on indicting a sitting president meant that the SOL was tolled for 4 years while Trump was in office, so they had extra time.

The more important problem, however, is that it isn't going to work. Bragg can bring as many scalps as he wants, but the scalps that he brings are too inconsequential to convince any Trump defender that he's prosecuting in good faith. No one cares about some campaign staffer they've never heard of getting indicted based on records destruction from 8 years ago. If Bragg announced tomorrow that he was indicting 34 former Clinton campaign workers for these violations it would make a headline somewhere outside of the front page and get mentioned toward the end of the nightly news. Except for conservative outlets, who would view it as a vain attempt at convincing them that the prosecution of Trump was okay. If the judge sentences Trump to jail time then his supporters aren't going to shrug and say "well, he did commit the crime" just because a bunch of staffers are under indictment. Even throwing the book at Hillary herself wouldn't do it for them.

Well, if you check those boxes, there isn't really going to be sufficient unique identifiers to be crosschecked with a database to verify citizenship.

And if you don't check the boxes, there probably aren't going to be, either. Maybe some states have citizenship information in their DL databases. I think Pennsylvania might. But I know that California doesn't, and I imagine other states don't as well. You aren't required to be a US citizen to have a driver's license. Some states require a birth certificate or immigration documents as proof of identity, but that doesn't mean that they note citizenship status in the database. The Social Security Administration, on the other hand, does keep this information. But if you think it's just sitting in a database any random county office can query, think again. I used to have a job at a state agency where we had access to the SSA master database. It's a mainframe that looks like it hasn't been updated since the 1980s (though this was in 2011 so it may have been updated since then, but based on printouts I get for my current job I doubt it). Despite its age it's also incredibly secure. I mean secure in the sense that if an authorized user logs in and makes a query he can expect a call from Philadelphia to verify that the office did indeed make the query and had a good reason for it. And, of course, they'd need more than the last four digits for this to work. The ID requirements are meant to verify residence, not citizenship.

What's way more annoying is the drumbeat of people that say this is already illegal and doesn't happen.

If it were really that much of a problem, though, then we should be taking way more proactive measures than the SAVE Act, which basically admits that there isn't an existing problem in the way it is structured. It only applies to new registrations. Why are we waiting for every illegal noncitizen voter to die or move or switch parties before we kick them off the voter rolls? If this is really a problem we should just cancel all existing registrations and make everyone re-register. This would have the added bonus of getting rid of all the dead people who are also supposedly voting. I'm lucky enough to have my birth certificate sitting on my desk in front of me right now (long story), but how many people can really find theirs right now without looking too hard? Maybe most of the people on this board can, but I doubt the average West Virginian can. Of course, for a large part of the native-born population that won't be enough, because if you ever changed your name due to marriage then you're going to need a copy of the marriage certificate, too. And no, I don't mean the souvenir certificate they give you that you may actually have. A real marriage certificate sufficient for Real ID purposes has to be a certified copy from the Register of Wills in the county where the marriage was performed. So God help you if you had a destination wedding or moved a significant distance. And God help you even more if you were married multiple times or were married in a foreign country that isn't Canada.

How do drop boxes make ballot harvesting more likely than mailboxes?

My uncle mentioned the fundraising issue yesterday, but upon further research it isn't as big of a sticking point as it may seem. Campaigns are allowed to make unlimited donations to the national committee, so the money won't be wasted. That and that I doubt lack of funds will be a deciding factor in this election.

Well, Texas rep Lloyd Doggett just became the first Democratic politician to call for Biden to step down. Call me crazy, but I honestly have a sneaking suspicion that this was all planned out ahead of time. Biden looked awful during the debate. But at the after party he seemed fine, and he was beck to his old self the next day in North Carolina. I think Biden always intended to be a one-term president but that's not the kind of thing you can pull off these days barring death or permanent disability. He would have had to announce he wasn't seeking the nomination some time around last summer, at which point he would have immediately become a lame duck where he lost whatever pull he had with congress and saw half of his administration overshadowed by the other Democrats jockeying for position. There was also the traditional incumbent's advantage to consider. And there was no guarantee that whoever the Democrats ended up nominating would be better than Biden. He had to run again.

At this point, the entire Republican apparatus has had a year to prepare a campaign against Joe Biden. The attacks are pretty standard at this point — he's old, he's demented, he caused inflation, he fucked up the Afghanistan pullout, the "Biden Crime Family", etc. What happens if, at the eleventh hour, Joe Biden is no longer the candidate? Suddenly, a year's worth of planning is down the toilet. Now they'll find themselves likely up against some "Generic Democrat" on whom they will have no opposition research, no idea who his base is, no idea what his policy positions are. Meanwhile, the Democrats could have been planning this for months and have ready solutions to all the problems out there. Plus they can run on the idea "that he knew when to step aside", unlike somebody else. This is a person who didn't have to spend primary season pretending to be further left than they really were and didn't have the misfortune of months of oppo research from members of their own party. A candidate who's optimized for winning a general election.

Then there's the matter of the debates. Trump was eager to debate Biden. Maybe a little too eager. He agreed to an unusually early first debate and to a format that stripped him of the ability to interrupt his opponent and to draw on a supportive studio audience. If a new guy comes in soon, there's the possibility that he pushes for two more debates with the same rules. Trump really isn't in a position to refuse given how adamant he's been about debating. If he wants his mike permanently unmuted then he'll get criticized for being afraid to let the public hear what his opponent has to say — "He agreed to the rules for Biden because he thought he could win against Biden; if he wants to change the rules it must because he doesn't think he can win." Maybe give him his audience back as a token of goodwill. Now he's got to go up against someone who's much younger and more adept at pushing his buttons than Sleepy Joe.

The major downside is that the country collectively goes "Who?" and votes for someone they're familiar with. But this is overrated, both because Joe Biden is massively disliked in some circles and because most of the people who will ultimately decide the election aren't really paying attention until after Labor Day. Trump can and should run his "Who is Lou Lipschitz" routine for a couple months, but after that it starts to wear thin and make people think "Is that all you've got?" I don't actually think this is what will happen but I hope it will. It would make this fall much more interesting than another slow descent into a Trump presidency.