Month: May 2023

Nazis & Gays, DeSantis Misfire, Default, Trump Charges, Manhood, Tina Gone

Amazing what makes me happy:

  • YellowDog Granny has what should be the final word on drag queens, banned books, and gun regulation.
     
  • Scotties Playtime has a few uncomfortable facts about 1930s Germany and what Nazis did to gay people.
     
  • CalicoJack, in The Psy of Life, has a notable lack of sympathy for a Florida teacher who made and published a video saying the South should have won the Civil War. He seems to have gotten an unfriendly reaction from students, fellow teachers, and occasional parents.
     
    The teacher has filed a complaint against …well… everyone.
     
  • Although this satire by the Borowitz Report predates the actual Twitter disaster, it does wear well. Ron DeSantis hoped to use contrast to seem like a human person by appearing next to Elon Musk.
     
    Key alternatives:
    According to an aide, the campaign considered a shortlist of other foils, including Mickey Rourke, Dennis Rodman, and Ginni Thomas.
     
  • A long-time conservative notable went on the Fox Network and got righteously indignant at political criticism directed at Casey DeSantis, spouse of Ron. After all, Republicans have never gone after the spouses of Democrats. driftglass covers the shocked reaction as the host reminds him about Michelle Obama.
     
  • News Corpse watches as the Fox Network finally recognizes that the greatest problem faced by mr Trump is not Ron DeSantis.
     
  • The Palmer Report says the news is becoming so obvious that mainstream news media, however reluctantly, is finally reporting it: Donald Trump is going to prison.
     
    Key increasingly obvious fact:
    Donald Trump does not have magic powers. He can’t magically delay his criminal trials, just as he couldn’t delay his E. Jean Carroll civil trial. Nor can he just “decide” not to go to prison after he’s been sentenced to prison.
     
    Key cautious adjustment:
    It looks like we may finally be turning that corner – sort of. A news publication called The Messenger, which is run by former journalists from Politico, just ran this headline: “Could Trump Go to Prison? It’s Not Out of the Question.”
     
  • Couple of Jan. 6 Oath Keeper leaders are guilty of seditious conspiracy, and Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged goes to work on the Trump version of patriotism.
     
    Key insight:
    The “tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots” types never seem to note that in a representative government, sometimes your particular flavor of “patriot” isn’t winning elections and violence isn’t so much a revolutionary action as a pity party gone badly wrong.
     
  • In Letters from an American, noted historian Heather Cox Richardson reviews this week’s warning issued by the Department of Homeland Security about a persistent and lethal threat from domestic extremists and foreign terrorists.
     
    Key factor:
    The announcement warned that a key factor in potential violence is “perceptions of the 2024 general election cycle,” a reference to disinformation suggesting that U.S. elections are rigged. This false allegation is a staple of former president Trump’s political messaging.
     
  • PZ Myers has a thought about ex-General Michael Flynn’s new dating and reproductive website especially for anti-vax folk. The selling point is that you too can preserve your blood purity.
     
    Professor Myers is reminded of POE: Purity of Essence.

Continue reading “Nazis & Gays, DeSantis Misfire, Default, Trump Charges, Manhood, Tina Gone”

Trump Trials, Cable, Post Truth, GOP, Hauling Hawley, White Supremacy

  • From Mark Waulberg not the American star
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony really, truly, hopes mr Trump appeals the E. Jean Carroll verdict.
     
  • In the Palmer Report, former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb provides an insider’s prediction on mr Trump’s legal future.
     
    Key direct quote:
    …yes I do think he’ll go to jail.
     
  • Tommy Christopher has the transcript. Bill Barr says mr Trump was legally exposed, very exposed, by his CNN Town rally. He predicts indictments in August or September.
     
  • CalicoJack, in The Psy of Life, performs a big-picture analysis, examines alternative future events, and explains what it will take to derail the Trump train.
     
    Key danger:
    The closer we get to trial and conviction, though, the more shrill and bombastic Trump will become and more violent MAGA will become. His one weapon is stochastic terrorism.
     
  • driftglass suggests that cable news is not in the business of presenting facts.
     
    Key motivation:
    Because the only thing media corporations care about is this strictly, cold-blooded profit-and-loss calculation: how they can most efficiently hook the marks, and how they can keep ’em coming back for more.
     
  • News Corpse is justified in slamming the Fox Network on this one. Fox aired reports on veterans being booted out of hotels to make room for migrants. Turns out that the entire story was a scam set up and paid for by the CEO of an advocacy group. A couple of local reporters did a little checking and uncovered the whole thing.
    That little bit of checking could just as easily been done by Fox.
     
  • Elon (Twitter) Musk has a name-calling response to what seems to be reasonable criticism:


    And gets a harsh reply from Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez

  • Infidel753 objects to terms like “post-truth world” and “death of truth”.
     
    Key challenge:
    Talk like “my truth” vs “your truth”, “alternative facts”, and suchlike must be forcefully denounced as the bullshit it is. Claims about reality are either true or false. A statement like “the 2020 election was stolen from Trump” is either true or not true — it cannot be true for some people and false for others. The Earth is not flat for members of the Flat Earth Society and spherical for everyone else.
     
    Key example:
    If you design an airplane based on some idiosyncratic “your truth” about mathematics and the laws of physics instead of based on the single, solid objective truth of those things that science has established, it will crash, if it even gets off the ground at all.
     
    Key exception:
    It’s important to distinguish between this and ordinary differences of opinion, even stark ones. A person who believes Trump was the best president ever, or that different races should be kept segregated, or that Hitler was justified, is manifesting the kind of differences of viewpoint people have always had, even if extreme ones.
     
  • Dave Columbo leaves comedy long enough to ask a few non-gotcha questions:
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil notices a new, most accurate yet, description of US Senator Josh Hawley, whom we here in Missouri sent to Washington.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged is not sympathetic as she watches nationally known conservatives twist themselves into knots trying to claim that even self-proclaimed white supremacists are not really white supremacists.
     
  • The Onion helpfully brings us another lesson in basic etiquette with things never to say to a Proud Boy.

Continue reading “Trump Trials, Cable, Post Truth, GOP, Hauling Hawley, White Supremacy”

SuperBowl Ad, Trump Assaults, CNN, Drag, Shootings, Thoughts & Prayers

The best SuperBowl ad I can recall came at us in 2008.

(Note: Apologies to whomever. I do not recall from where I stole this.)

Continue reading “SuperBowl Ad, Trump Assaults, CNN, Drag, Shootings, Thoughts & Prayers”

Friends of Justice, Biden Memory, Kremlin Drones, Debt Ceiling, Mouse

11 seconds of an example I’d like to follow:

  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged reads the main defense of Clarence Thomas, that he should not be criticized for hanging out with friends who are willing to share a ride. He happens to be blessed with the best friends anyone could have.
     
    Key question:
    Who in the world has such generous friends?
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil has the links, and a suggestion that a lawyer who happened to be on those expensive vacations with Justice Clarence Thomas may not be the best choice to loudly defend him.
     
  • At The Onion, the Supreme Court is once again interrupted as Justice Thomas receives a live cheetah as a donor gift.
     
  • The Propaganda Professor dives into the current state of contemporary conservatism: What makes “conservatives” tick?
     
    Key thesis:
    “Conservatism” isn’t built on values. It’s built on attitude.
     
  • Hackwhackers expresses skepticism bordering on cynicism as Putin minions claim a child’s-toy-sized drone that tried to kill Putin by attacking the roof of the wrong building was sent by Ukraine. PutinFolk then claimed it was sent by the US.
     
    My thought: Reichstag fire.
     
  • Green Eagle has a couple of scenarios that seem more likely.
     
  • Nikki Haley wants President Biden tested for cognitive decline.
     
    At The Moderate Voice, retired U.S. Air Force Major and former aerospace/defense executive Dorian de Wind suggests we should be concerned about all candidates and a more basic test of competency: a test at which Biden happens to excel.
     
  • Author John Scalzi does not actually mention Nikki Haley, but he does have notes about his own memory.
     
  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson has the facts on what is misleadingly called the Debt Ceiling. It is not a ceiling on debt. It is only authorization to pay existing bills so the national credit, and our economy, don’t get wrecked. Seems all sorts of bad stuff will happen in the next month or so.
     
    Republicans say they will cause the calamity unless they get all manner of slashes to popular programs.
     
    Key summary:
    Senator Chuck Schumer warned that Republicans are including…
    “… steep cuts to law enforcement, veterans, families, teachers, and kids And will gut Medicaid for over 20 million Americans, rip away SNAP benefits for over a million recipients and eliminate Pell grants for tens of thousands of American students every year.
     
    But Republicans are mostly angry at the Department of Veterans Affairs for pointing to what will become a 22% cut in veteran health, disability, and food benefits.
     
    This crop of Republican legislators are an odd but destructive bunch.
     
  • Supply-chain bottlenecks are vanishing. The Russian oil cut off has been mostly overcome with domestic production. Good news, right?
     
    tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors reads the Wall Street Journal so you don’t have to. Economists now see more evidence that inflation persists because corporations are still price gouging as much as they can, for as long as they can.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger shows us Willie Nelson, who has what some seem to regard as a radical view regarding unfairness. He’s against it. Interesting that this is now considered a controversial value.

Continue reading “Friends of Justice, Biden Memory, Kremlin Drones, Debt Ceiling, Mouse”