I think the surname thing represents removing him from the pedestal and making him a mere mortal, like how King Louis XVI was Louis Capet at his execution. It’s satisfying for some folk 
As for the hyphen, that appears to be a grammatical issue because he has two surnames and so they would be hyphenated. Otherwise he’d have three names like Lee Harvey Oswald
Oh, I see. The fact that he has a hyphen in his name at all is further confirmation that his royal title has been lost, otherwise it wouldn’t be a thing. Ok, the penny dropped. I thought there was some further insult to be found in having the hyphenated name that I wasn’t seeing.
Mountbatten-Windsor, hyphenated, is the official surname of the late Queen’s descendants in the British Royal Family, so it was weird when Andrew name was announced as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. For example, Andrew’s nephew James has his name styled as Mountbatten-Windsor.
It’s not like a non-hyphenated double-barrelled surname is unheard of, such as David Lloyd George and Sacha Baron Cohen, but the Mountbatten-Windsor is specifically hyphenated.
Honestly, the British Royal Family is essentially a giant personality cult that just captured all of Britain’s institutions to worship them. They’re no more divine than you or I, the UK’s just keeping them around for tradition and media revenue.
Just for fun: when William was in the service he chose not to use Mountbatten-Windsor and instead used Wales since his father was Prince of Wales. He was Commander Wales. I’m not sure what Harry used.
Yes it’s English & French tradition that royals do not have surnames, they have a house.
Queen Elizabeth II was of House Windsor.
Prince Phillip was of House Mountbatten.
Their children, when not actively being royals, have the right to either surname or a compound name - but while an active royal they had no surname. Being a royal family member and having a surname means you’re officially removed from royalty.
For all the fuss about Harry, he is still Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, not Harry Windsor-Mountbatten or Harry Windsor-Spencer. He’s still part of the family, still entitled to royal privilege, etc.
Andrew having a surname is the confirmation no longer part of the royal machinery, no longer entitled to any privileges from it or the protection of King. It’s part of why tons of places are now removing his name from plaques, locations, etc.
The protection he’s counted on his whole life has been taken away.
Can we please somehow transfer this same sentence to Donald Trump?
Boom, there we go. Now only the Supreme Court can make it happen, and time is limited. Also, failure for Texas to make it happen could also mean California can’t either, so SCOTUS may not rule favorably if they take it up. However, the language of this ruling isn’t about whether it was lawful for Texas to do this at all, but why they did it and what the effect was. So, it’s entirely possible that Texas can’t do this because of what they tried to pull off with it, but California could still go ahead with theirs because they are smarter about the language used. Hoping for that latter option.
Wow, they didn’t even try to be subtle about gerrymandering this time 
Gotta admit, I didn’t see this one coming.
Congressman Clay Higgins is an agent of chaos
No. That’s The Joker, and I won’t dignify any of these assholes by comparing them to a true villain. Higgins is just the loser kid who slept in too late one field trip day and the class left him behind because he didn’t make it to the bus.
Well goddamn, unanimous in the Senate. That means it’s veto-proof if Trump tries to kick it back. I get the feeling something is going on here, but just seeing this Congress defy that fuck is something I never thought I’d see, so I’m gonna enjoy that until the other shoe drops.
Unanimous support in the Senate, and almost across all of Congress (barring one person) is unheard of in the current political climate!
My only concern with the release is that from what I’ve read, the so-called Epstein files weren’t files kept by the man himself, and are in fact a collection of case notes made when the federal government investigated Epstein. That means these files will contain the names of everyone he’s ever met, hosted, done business with or attended the same party as (which, being a New York celebrity, will be a lot of names). I worry that people will think that by having their name appear in the files will automatically imply guilt and involvement in human trafficking. Some may well be guilty, but I worry for the innocents that will be targeted by vigilantes because they attended the same charity gala as him in '98.
They are the investigation notes which do include all that plus any documents they took copies of to keep as evidence - photos, scans, etc.
So it is possible there will be some collateral damage, but generally there’s an expectation it will be easy to distinguish between person who bumped into Epstein 7 times because they were both New York socialites, and person who showed up to Epstein’s place 7 times at roughly the same time as an underage girl also visited.
Yeah, it’s the same issue as the people who went to one or maybe two of Diddy’s parties and didn’t see what was happening in the back room, and the regulars who went to every party and were actually seen going into the back room. Guilt by association is a matter of degree and circumstance.
As a follow up to this, Rebecca Watson has already found she was in the Epstein files because apparently Lawrence Krauss complained about her to him.
Going to be interesting to find out how many more weird stories like this come out.
Still ready to find out if “Bubba” was Bill Clinton or the horse.
Either way what hill of Internet mockery does Trump want to die on.
Dear Lord, please take all of the Kennedy family’s pain and transfer it all to the Trumps.
Any chance RFK Jr. could use his HHS powers to get her some Hail Mary treatments?
