Open Thread - That Explains It!

Ian Brodie, Cape Breton University and Moira Marsh, Indiana University “Dad, I’m hungry.” “Hi, hungry. I’m Dad.” If you haven’t been asleep for the past 20 years, you’ll probably recognize this exchange as a dad joke. The term dad joke is credited to a June 20, 1987, editorial in the Gettysburg Times. Writer Jim Kalbaugh praised fathers’ telling of groan-inducing jokes to their children – or, importantly, to others in front of their children. The practice, Kalbaugh wrote, was “one of the great traditions of fatherhood worth preserving.” The term stayed remarkably dormant until the internet age: The first entry in Urban Dictionary was in 2004 by a contributor named Bunny; it debuted on Twitter in 2007; joke compilation books were published under the theme starting in 2013 in the U.

Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian, gives us a lesson on how history is just like shampoo, in that the last step is always repeat. This seems to be especially true to Republicans running for president. She points out how Tricky Dicky Nixon made a deal with the South Vietnamese to keep the war going until after the election. She fast forwarded to Ronny Ray Gun, who cut a deal with Iran to hold on to their American hostages until after the election.

Republicans have created a disaster on abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. They have no message to justify their extreme forced birth positions. Their candidates are afraid to talk about it. And their standard bearer—convicted felon Donald Trump—can’t give a coherent statement about where he stands. Meanwhile, Democrats are on offense, knowing public opinion is on their side. New Gallup polling shows just how much the GOP needs to worry about abortion.

The Trump veepstakes has been in full force now for a few months, and as we have covered, a common tactic for several contenders has been going on television to question the results of the 2020 election. But as we get closer to the Republican National Convention—set to begin in less than a month, on July 15—new strategies are coming into focus.

Biden’s weekend donor cash splash hit like a tidal wave, according to the president’s campaign on Sunday morning. Attracted by celebrities like Jimmy Kimmel, Julia Roberts, and George Clooney for a glamorous Hollywood event, party-goers coughed up $30 million, breaking records for the Democratic Party’s largest single fundraiser ever, according to the campaign. Pre-event commitments were already at a record-smashing $28 million before any of the celebs turned up.

Despite Trump’s alleged draft-dodging in his youth, the former president’s acolytes are reportedly flirting with a return to requiring mandatory military service if he’s re-elected. Christopher Miller, former acting defense secretary during the last two months of Trump’s term—and, possibly, the next leader of the Pentagon—told the Washington Post this week that it should be “strongly considered,” calling it a “rite of passage” that would create a sense of “shared sacrifice” among young people. “It reinforces the bonds of civility,” Miller reportedly said, adding, “why wouldn’t we give that a try?” This is not the first time Miller has floated these plans: He also wrote about them for Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump 2.0, concocted by dozens of conservative groups and led by the Heritage Foundation.