Trump on the Bounty, Trump Taxed, Trump Triumph, Jesus Jammed

Street in front of Trump Tower, NYC

  • At The Moderate Voice, Joe Gandelman goes to legal experts, pundits, and reporters after the Supreme Court decision on Trump taxes, and finds that there is a significance that goes beyond Trump.
     
  • John Scalzi at Whatever scours summaries, reviews, and excerpts from advance copies of Mary Trump’s new family book, and concludes that Donald Trump is a father-damaged sociopath.
     
  • So my president boasts about the amazement of doctors that he had done so well on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a triumph of low expectation. Tommy Christopher looks up the questions on MoCA – they are available – and has some fun with them.
     
    Come on, folks. You laugh, but be honest. Could you score well on drawing a clock or recognizing the difference between a camel and a kangaroo? As Trump points out, previous Presidents never took that test. Evidently, Obama was afraid to put himself under that sort of rigorous examination.
     
  • Many of my fellow Christians believe Trump was sent by the Almighty to lead us. A friend wonders if that’s because He ran out of locusts. We have a pandemic. We have economic chaos. The world pities us. Just when we think it can’t get any worse, MadMikesAmerica wakes us all up with the news: it already has.
     
  • Max’s Dad looks at Mr. Trump and remembers a nightmarish political figure from half a century ago.
     
  • driftglass observes as David Brooks blames us all for Donald Trump. Red America for getting into office, the rest of us for denigrating red America. So, naturally, driftglass goes all martial arts on him.
     
  • nojo looks at the polls, the declining media coverage, the boredom with worn down Trumpism and sees a commonality. We’re all doing the same constructive thing.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz is disheartened by what he keeps reading and hearing: that Joe Biden is ahead. That’s how humanity lost last time. “We’ve already seen this movie four years ago and it doesn’t end well.
     
  • California Governor Newsom decides to send a mail-in ballot to every voter. The RNC files a lawsuit screaming “You CAN’T do that!” because there isn’t a law saying he can. So the California goes ahead and passes a yes-he-can law. Now Republicans have to ask the judge to dismiss the suit.
     
    tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors is a bit amused. Seems the chair of the Republican party is gloating because she thinks Republicans won the case. tengrain wonders how Republicans maintain any part of biological pre-peristalsis. “It’s a wonder that Republicans can chew their own food.”
     
  • At The Onion, Fox News is subjected to withering criticism after they deliberately crop a photo of Jeffrey Epstein at a party, in order to edit out a killer buffet spread. Partial quote: “This is typical of the lax journalistic standards of Fox News to mislead the public by suggesting Epstein was holding some sort of rinky-dink get-together…”
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony finds a bit of good news in the impressive rise of solar power. Reasons: It’s suddenly cheaper and battery technology is making it dramatically easier to store.
     
  • PZ Myers explores the methods of one of the truly depraved early geneticists, Theophilus Painter, who experimented on humans like a sort of proof-of-concept-Mengele, and still got it wrong. His errors live on in published articles. Didn’t stop his continuous career advancement, though. There ain’t no justice.
     
  • The Journal of Improbable Research pores through the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and finds a study seeking to determine once and for all the age old question of whether there is a link in Italy between the risk of death and eating chili peppers. Interesting conclusion that leaves an unanswered question: Why a study focused on chili pepper consumption specifically in Italy?
     
  • Vagabond Scholar mourns the loss of Ennio Morricone. Ennio who? Well the guy who composed, among others, musical scores for Sergio Leone films Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. We also get to hear a few dramatic renditions, one conducted by Morricone himself, all courtesy of the blogger.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil expresses a bit of a harsh judgment on my Lord and Savior. Interesting theological propsition: should Jesus be judged by the actions of his followers?
     
  • My friend Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post is recovering from a mild stroke. Send him a good thought. He hopes to return to blogging soon.

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