Month: December 2019

 

From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

I’m kind of rubbish anymore when you get right down to it–I recall so much of pop culture that I sometimes feel like I am swimming in a miasma of whatever went before. I guess that’s why I think it’s a bit weird Trump very notoriously pardoned another Sgt. Calley. in the form of Eddie Gallagher. It seems like Trump is so obviously trying to signify that he does not care what soldiers do for the greater good of the state (of Trumpworld). And he also doesn’t care about law and order if it is his own version thereof.

He makes law and order. They don’t exist in and of themselves, He decides Gallagher acted within his rights and now, this man is one of TrumpWorld’s saints. Having performed the miracle of wasting someone.

This reminds me the least bit of the 1990’s movie “Wag the Dog” and the story of Ol’ Shoe where the figure manufactured to be heroic turned out to not actually be sane or great at all.

Anyway, Gallagher is not so great.

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From PZ Myers:

No? A nebbish in glasses and a suit, especially a white nebbish, doesn’t fit your picture of a terrorist? Adjust your search image. That’s Matt Shea, an elected Republican representative from Washington state whose activities have been investigated in a report with this alarming conclusion.

Based on evidence obtained in this investigation, it is more probable than not that Representative Shea is likely to plan, direct and engage in additional future conflicts that could carry with them significant risk of bloodshed and loss of life. It is the professional opinion of the Investigators, that on a more probable than not basis, Representative Shea presents a present and growing threat of risk to others through political violence.

That conclusion was reached not by criticizing his badthink, but by looking at what he has actually done. We’re talking about more than just openly despising the federal government (I’m guilty of that one), but also actively conspiring with violent organizations, such as various militia groups.

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From Tommy Christopher:

Biden was asked about Sanders’ remark in Iowa on Friday by CBS News correspondent Bo Erickson.

“Senator Sanders said that with your vote on the Iraq War and trade, President Trump will eat your lunch in the general election,” Erickson said, and asked “Will he eat your lunch?”

“Tell him to come and I’ll give him some dessert at the White House,” Biden replied with a smile.

“Who, President Trump?” Erickson asked.

“Sanders,” Biden said.

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From The Propaganda Professor:

It all started with a single article published on HuffPost called “The Environmental Impact Of Your Thanksgiving Dinner”. The purpose of this article was to suggest some steps to lessen that impact. The purpose was not to discourage anyone from celebrating Thanksgiving at all. How do we know this? Well, maybe because the author said so:

No one should be discouraged from enjoying the holiday or celebrating with family and friends…

No one possibly could misconstrue an unequivocal utterance like that, right? Ah, never underestimate the extraordinary skill of Fox “News”, which repeatedly hammered away at the utterly false narrative that “liberals” or “the left” or “college students” want to “cancel Thanksgiving”.

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• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post presents his annual bad list, this time named Santa’s Donald of the Year.
   
• At Vagabond Scholar, Batacchio presents his annual Jon Swift Roundup list of best blog posts from all over the net, as chosen by bloggers. By some oversight, FairAndUNbalanced was missed, but nobody is perfect. It’s a great gathering of great thought expressed in great writing.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz writes with powerful empathy about enduring the Christmas absence of a lost loved one. He suggests one ray in the terrible darkness.
   
• Max’s Dad expresses his own wonderfully caustic holiday cheer and acerbic best wishes for the coming year.
   
• The Propaganda Professor brings combat news from the holiday front as the War on Christmas is briefly interrupted by a ruthless attack on Thanksgiving.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors finds a safe sanctuary in the midst of the annual fundamentalist War to Enforce Holidays.
   
• Scotties Toy Box includes in his collection of cartoons and memes a brief, accurate, tick-tock of the Ukraine-related impeachable offense.
   
• Lots of impeachment talk about who is playing chess and who is playing checkers. Frances Langum looks over strategy and decides my president is not playing chess, and is not playing checkers.
   
• It took some doing. Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit reports as a Democratic governor manages to give Donald Trump competition for this year’s low in pettiness. Has to do with weddings.
   
• Green Eagle finds multiple stories repeated on multiple right-wing sites about multiple indictments of multiple leftward lawbreakers who funneled multiple foreign contributions to multiple top Democrats. Problem is the multiplied story does not exist outside the rightwing bubble. Green Eagle traces the fiction to one creative site. Such is the current state of contemporary conservatism.
   
• Biden somewhat gently forced Trump ex-presser Sarah Huckabee Sanders to apologize after she ridiculed his childhood struggle against stuttering. Tommy Christopher has the video of an earlier, little known encounter as Biden counsels a youngster facing the same struggle.
   
• John Scalzi at Whatever watches and really likes The Rise of Skywalker promising no spoilers in his review.
   

 

From Infidel753:

The church of Trump

Our country’s conservative Christians have not only sold their souls, but sold them extraordinarily cheaply. Trump is to theocracy as Gilderoy Lockhart was to sorcery. Yes, he’s packed the courts with anti-abortion wingnuts and done what he can to undermine gay equality and the separation of church and state, but he’s never made much pretense of being a Christian and has never lived his life in conformity with the Christian taboo system, while his general blundering and incompetence limit his effectiveness as an autocrat. Granted, fundies have a long history of excuse-making and closing ranks around money-grubbing, sexually-abusive church leaders, but their hypocrisy is no less blatant just because it’s an old habit. Making idiotic analogies with Cyrus the Great doesn’t help. It’s no wonder young people are running away from religion faster than ever.

But our country’s conservative Christians have chosen their side, and have made it clear that dissent within their ranks will be ruthlessly denounced. They are with Trump all the way.

They are the church of migrant family separation and “very fine people”.

They are the church of systematic scapegoating of Latinos and Muslims.

They are the church of “pussy grabbing”, mockery of the disabled, cruelty to the families of the honorable dead, and potty-mouthed toddler-level name-calling.

They are the church of Leviticus 20:13 which has utterly forgotten Leviticus 19:33-34.

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From Dorian de Wind, Associate Editor, The Moderate Voice:

Part of Trump “having a good time” at a Michigan rally — while Congress was impeaching him –- was an attack he launched on the widow of David Dingell Jr., the longest-ever serving member of Congress in our Republic’s history. That is, in addition to desecrating the memory of Dingell himself, a World War II veteran now resting at Arlington National Cemetery.

A vicious attack to which Mrs. Dingell, now a Michigan U.S. Representative, dignifiedly responded:

My husband earned all his accolades after a lifetime of service. I’m preparing for the first holiday season without the man I love. You brought me down in a way you can never imagine and your hurtful words just made my healing much harder.

(A tone-deaf, inured White House reflexively defended Trump’s suggestion that Dingell may be in hell as just a Trump counter-punch.)

So, let’s review the recent history of these “badass women” who would dare to help impeach a president.

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From News Corpse:

The impeachment controversy has sparked as epic battle between Pelosi and the Senate’s GOP majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who has already announced that he has no intention of conducting a fair hearing and will be “taking his cues” from White House lawyers. In the meantime, new evidence has already emerged that appears to be profoundly damaging to Trump:

That’s right. Less than two hours after Trump got off the phone with President Zelensky of Ukraine, he ordered the Defense Department to withhold military aid to a country that was being invaded at the time by Russia. The order included a directive to keep it quiet due to it’s “sensitive nature.”

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From PZ Myers:

Welcome to Trump’s America, where bigots can run over kids on the sidewalk.

The girl was walking to Indian Hills Junior High when a vehicle drove onto the sidewalk, ran over her and left the scene, the release said. Officials say the girl was able to return to school one week after the incident, according to CNN affiliate WOI-TV.

During her interview with detectives, Poole Franklin, a Des Moines resident, said she was the driver and intentionally struck the girl because she “was a Mexican,” police said. Poole Franklin then “made a series of derogatory statements about Latinos,” police said.

I’m glad the girl is physically OK now, but you have to wonder how safe she’s going to feel about using public sidewalks from now on.

There’s still one thorny question to resolve…

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From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

Can non-Christians celebrate Christmas? Many do, and why not? I’m an atheist and I have no problem celebrating Christmas, even though it has no religious significance for me.

What’s great about Christmas is that it is both a religious holiday, being based upon the birth of the Christian icon Jesus, and a secular holiday as well. That makes it a holiday for everyone.

How can I say that? I am indebted to philosopher Ayn Rand for resolving that seemingly contradictory proposition.

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