TikTok’s @momwino98 watches Mr. Trump with us.
- The Propaganda Professor explores Cult 45 and why, despite the repulsiveness, such a large minority of people love Trump. It’s insightful and lacks the sort of syrupy attempt at empathy that seems endemic to so much similar analysis.
- Iron Knee at Political Irony provides aid and comfort to those who have the most to lose if Biden wins: Trump addicts of America, via SNL video. It’s funny and insightful. The 2½ minute investment is worth it.
- Georgia Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler insists there is no issue on which she has ever disagreed with Donald Trump. So‑o‑o‑o, someone asks about the famous Access Hollywood tape, the one where he brags about kissing unwilling women and boasts that he can “grab them by the p‑‑‑y.” Gosh, says the innocent Senator, she is unfamiliar with any of that. So, naturally, Ant Farmer’s Almanac comes up with the perfect headline.
- Sarah Cooper reenacts the Hollywood Access tape with Helen Mirren. She shows us how to Billy Bush.
- In Nan’s Notebook, she captures a terrific bumper sticker composed of 9 numerical digits. I wonder if anyone has that Social Security number.
- As we approach Tuesday, Max’s Dad observes the increasingly strange, frenetic gyrations of those whose surname is Trump, and concludes that desperation is a helluva drug.
- The Hunter Biden scandal has been discredited. It turns out to have been made up by a blogger working at the Fulbright College Vietnam along with a fake intelligence firm. Still, News Corpse reports that Donald Trump is complaining bitterly that Twitter is not allowing the smear by its most prominent twit.
- In two sentences, Scotties Toy Box explains that at least one difference between the Republican party after Nixon and after Trump will likely be a matter of degree.
- Mark Meadows was caught telling reporters the truth, off the record, about Trump’s medical condition, among other things. Now Andy Borowitz reports on the condition of Meadows himself. The White House has quarantined the White House chief of staff after he tests positive for honesty.
- Hackwhackers displays a pro-Biden line of tweets that won’t appeal to everyone: Only those Americans who still possess a soul.
- North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz remembers with sad gratitude the last time he saw, and kissed, his father. Neither knew it was their last embrace. So he is a bit angered at the homophobic slurs, as conservatives laugh and mock a photo of Joe Biden embracing and kissing his own son. What the hell is wrong with some people?
- A couple of Republican politicians have fun pretending inability to pronounce the name of Kamala Harris. Frances Langum watches the Daily Show as Senator Harris comes up with an excellent response.
- Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit is truly motivated. She has heard Jared Kushner’s motivational speech to Black people. Seems African Americans just need to get themselves more motivated to succeed. The newly motivated misfit’s response is a bit acerbic.
- What does it take to get Republicans to join in concerns about election security from cyber attack? Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson reports sudden bipartisanship after the Wisconsin Republican Party gets ripped off by cyber-scammers. But old habits don’t vanish overnight. The state chairman thinks it’s very suspicious that vendors and funds of the Trump campaign are raided, rather than the normal Democratic targets of cyber attacks (that last is mine). Here are his words: “…it is very intriguing that they would focus on those vendors. It makes you wonder.”
So we can rule out Russians?
- M. Bouffant at Web of Evil finds a politician in Tennessee who prescribes opioids. To relatives. One of whom is in a sexual relationship. With him. And was his employee. Double power relationship, there, buddy. With your cousin. Can you guess the politician’s positions? Come on, I mean policy positions. He fits more than one stereotype of a sleaze. Still, he’s got my vote – – if he’s running for jerk of the year. Okay, maybe he’d have some national competition.
- Jonathan Bernstein knows that data is not the plural of anecdote, but explains that on‑the‑ground coverage is essential to understanding American democracy.
- You hate to wish this on anyone, anyone at all, but… tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors tells us that when the Fair and Balanced folk got exposed to someone with the virus, Fox News management told the Fox News President and several top news personalities to quarantine. Now let’s hope nobody catches it, and that any who do catch it recover quickly, and that any who don’t recover quickly nonetheless survive. And let’s remember that poetic justice is no justice at all.
- PZ Myers finds a letter to the editor that explains how the former nutty fringe, current nutty mainstream, conservative movement gets it’s communal wisdom. I know it’s true because I heard it on a phone call from a friend. Well, that settles it.
- Conservative Darrell Michaels, at Unabashedly American, takes a break from politics to offer wonderful prayers for the future of his grandchildren. I smiled as I read one wish by my longtime friend that I suspect encapsulates the beauty of the conservative side of the political difference between us.
I pray that you know America’s history and the goodness of her while learning from her shortcomings along the way.
As I read him, my friend sees American history as almost uniformly beautiful with a few unfortunate bumps along an otherwise level road of continuous ideals.
I see an America born into a brutal and unjust world, sharing much of that brutal injustice. Slavery was one important birth defect.
But America was also born from the seed of an ideal, dedicated to a proposition, on a dangerous journey along an uneven and precarious upward path.
We are blessed with an astonishingly steep upward historical trajectory. Martin Luther King described it as an arc of history that bends toward justice.
I suggest that arc has jagged edges. As I apply the words of my religious faith, our country travels a twisted road in a harsh desert.
Those of us who hear a distant idealistic voice, that of humanity crying in the wilderness, maintain the struggle to make that road a straightened path.
- When the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy, whom do I back? driftglass is unimpressed with one time Republican consultant Steve Schmidt now that he is against Trump. And driftglass was blocked for criticizing David Sirota on the left for stooging on behalf of Glenn Greenwald. Now, Sirota is on the warpath against Schmidt and driftglass is quite interested but declines to choose sides.
- The Journal of Improbable Research finds an academic study of Pagan healing spells spoken at a distance, a study that finds an unanticipated positive effect. Oh my. The problem as I see it? Non-expert academics spend their professional lives dealing with good faith subjects. Subterfuge is not part of their world. The late James Randi specialized in debunking such studies. Where are you, James, when we need you most?
- In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, atheist Bruce wakes up one night and finds himself face-to-face with a large, ugly, frightening demon. Kind of menacing. Reminds me of my president. But an especially interesting experience for an atheist.
- John Scalzi at Whatever is a pretty good sci-fi writer, by which I mean everybody who reads sci-fi says he’s hyper-terrific and he has a lot of plaques and honors on his wall. Plus he occasionally comes up with pithy and wise political comments. He also is a bit of a technophile. So he upgraded to a Pixel 5 and offers a fairly detailed review. He calls it a first impression, but he’s a detail sort of writer, so …well… it’s detailed.
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