US Grant, Trump Riot Arrests, Lies,
Vaccine Dating, Israel, Faith Schools, AZ

• Some of us born before the Eisenhower administration may remember O. Henry’s short story The Ransom of Red Chief, wherein a youngster is kidnapped for ransom, but drives the kidnappers crazy. They eventually pay the parents to take him back.
   
  Here is a story of young heroism that is hilarious but could, at any moment along the way, have easily become deadly tragic.
   
  It starts with the hijacking of a school bus, kids and driver taken hostage.
  Heroism goes to work.
   
  
  Bus driver keeps hijacker calm, kids safe.
  Kindergarten kids drive hijacker crazy with questions:
  • Is he a soldier?
  • Why is he doing this?
  • Is he going to hurt them?
  • Is he going to hurt their bus driver?
     

  Hijacker tries to answer, gets frustrated.
  Within 6 minutes, hijacker demands the kids and driver all get off the bus safely.

• I looked it up. There is documentation. Scotties Toy Box is right. Ulysses S. Grant did predict the current state of contemporary American conservatism.
   
• Author, executive, conservative public figure J. D. Vance warns that we, you and I, will be hunted down. He explains that when anyone attacks the inherently conservative values of the great American nation state, conservatives can and should and will attack and destroy. Yikes.
   
  Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez only takes a few words to destroy the underlying idea:
   

  I suppose he’ll be on the must destroy list, along with the rest of us.

• So how do you expose the insulting lie that the January 6 Trump riot was just an innocent tour group exploring the Capitol Building? Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged suggests showing photos of the liar himself screaming in terror while building an impromptu barricade to keep away from the deadly innocent tourists.
   
• Hackwhackers reviews two of the latest Trump-riot arrests. One Son-of-a-Bircher told people on social media that pushing a female officer down a flight of stairs was the coolest thing he had ever done. The other was caught after bragging to his dentist. As in it-was-just-the-ether-talking.
   
  Kind of glad they don’t video the actual arrests. The fun might never end. Patriots could run out of popcorn, ignore the hunger, and die laughing while binge watching.

• Max’s Dad is unimpressed by GOP gaslighting, Not only about the January 6 insurrection, although mostly about January 6 riot, but about everything they are gaslighting about, including the January 6 pro-Trump lynch mob, but mostly the Capitol Hill mob who killed a few police, maimed several more, and tried to assassinate legislators. By the way, that happened January 6.
   
• In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson takes a look at the behind-the-scenes tactics concerning a commission to investigate the January 6 Trump-riot. Having a lynch mob injure and kill police officers while hunting for legislators might seem off the scale normally occupied by typical crime-in-the-streets events, but Republican leader Kevin McCarthy decided to kill the idea by insisting on conditions that would be unacceptable.
   
  Then Nancy Pelosi and her band of ruthless Democrats thuggishly accepted his terms. In the face of this cut-throated Democratic tactic of being completely reasonable, Republicans have been forced to come up with ever lamer excuses to decline anyway. That makes it really look to anyone looking as if Republicans have something to hide from anyone looking. A lot of somethings.
   
• Tommy Christopher goes to the 2024 election polls and discovers two important items: That Joe Biden crushes Donald Trump, and that they are already polling for 2024.
   
  I may have gotten old, but this never will. Quite independently, I notice that, if the 2024 election was held today, the overwhelming majority of voters would be very surprised. They think it will be held in 2024.
   
  Oddly, my friends, co-workers, family and fellow worshippers keep forgetting that I am hilarious.
   
• There are new vaccine-based lotteries in a growing number of states – get the jab and play to win. And there is that thing about, you know, avoiding death. Frances Langum reports on news of another unanticipated benefit. Data from dating sites.
   
  I thought I was joking when I asked if my vaccination would make me good looking. (It didn’t)
   
• Reductress points out that, even when COVID is over and dead and buried, things will not really be back to normal. BUT you can get by. Just play dress up and pretend. Kind of like Halloween. Costume up and go out as your pre-pandemic self.
   
• John Scalzi at Whatever considers the CDC ruling on vaccinations and masks and decides on a personal ethic. It is mostly based on the principle of don’t be a total ass.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz tells us what everyone should know about Israel and Palestine.
   
• At The Moderate Voice, Donald Harrison sees the fighting between Israeli Jews and Palestinian and Israeli Arabs; a conflagration complete with persecutions, indiscriminate retaliatory bombings, and defensive response bombings; as a tragic, witless, deadly family fight.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger questions whether Israel is, or really can be, a Jewish and democratic country.
   
• Two facts of life will trouble thoughtful people of faith. One is the discovery of evil in ourselves. I’m trying to recall a film character who speaks of his astonishment at discovering that he is completely corrupt.
   
  Infidel753 is eloquent, covering the second: that a benevolent God can be silent, refusing to interfere, as innocents suffer and evil reigns.
   
• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce reminds us of a biblical passage not to harm prophets of God. Evangelicals insists that the verse means God forbids any criticism of any evangelical preacher.
   
• Here in conservative, Republican-run Missouri, a law from way-back says faith-based boarding schools can’t be regulated. Well, of course.
   
  But social media eventually was invented, and former inmates, children, began publicizing amazing abuse: kids raped, sodomized, or simply neglected.
   
  Earth-Bound Misfit covers multiple reports to authorities, reports that were ignored until investigated by news media.
   
  Republican legislators are angry that regulators had not told them there were abuses not being investigated because of state law.
   
• News Corpse watches the Fox network struggle to find anything about which to attack Joe Biden. So they attack his mask where it might not be legally required. Except for one little detail they forget to check.
   
• Conservatives on the hunt do find one big Biden scandal. President Biden orders flags flown at half staff on May 15 to honor Peace Officers. Then he recinds the order. Dave Dubya reads the conservative attacks. Biden finally demonstrates his hatred of cops.
   
  Dave does the research – consisting of looking it up – and discovers the actual reason. On that one single day of the year, May 15, putting the flag at half-staff turns out to be against the law. A law with an important purpose.
   
• M. Bouffant at Web of Evil reacts quite appropriately as a conservative breathlessly documents a major leftist scandal, catching Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a possible parking violation.
   
  Seriously. This is the current condition of contemporary conservatism.
   
• Looking for a new battlefield in culture wars at The Onion, conservatives have discovered and loudly taken on another liberal conspiracy. Seems pre-school teachers, while reading story books to toddlers, have silenced right-wing barnyard animal sounds.
   
• Enough humiliation? Even diehard Republicans are calling for an end to the Cyber Ninja examination of ballots for Biden conspiracies. Ant Farmer’s Almanac reports as the Ninja respond, claiming they have found new Bambú Papers right after having to share the gymnasium with a high school graduation.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara opposes HR-1, the voting rights bill, because it also restricts dark money in elections. Because money is speech (maybe not free, exactly) and you have no right to know who is buying the microphone. Standard libertarian stuff.
   
  Then he leaves libertarianism and goes into Trump-conservative territory. Restrictive laws limiting voting rights become supposedly “restrictive” laws: with scare quotes. And objections to restricting votes become the Left’s hand-wringing.
   
• Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group join forces again to talk about whether the Supremes are ready to slash back the right of women to make hard personal decisions on abortion. The site offers us a podcast or a transcript.
   
• Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson reports on conservatives in the state legislature continuing in their fight to block federal funds intended to help insure Wisconsin citizens: you know, expanding Medicare eligibility. Democratic governor Tony Evers is convening the state legislature to reconsider.
   
  James introduces the news thusly: “In a politically motivated move to…”
   
  Because everyone knows that any move to keep ordinary people from being financially wiped out by unexpected illness must be politically motivated. How cynical of Democrats, interfering in the very pure conservative blocking of federal help.
   
• Want to know why voters in Mississippi can’t get a referendum on legalizing the medical use of marijuana? Iron Knee at Political Irony watches unsuccessful efforts to get past a law requiring signatures in more congressional districts than the state actually has.
   
• CalicoJack in The Psy of Life looks into lies against our health and our democracy, discovering that tall tales from Republicans keep getting taller.
   
• Conservative Congressional representatives are in revolt against the requirement that they wear masks while on the floor of Congress. Michael John Scott, at MadMikesAmerica, investigates a claim by Lauren Boebert that Texas has had no cases of COVID since rescinding mask requirements. That would be zero, none. Which Michael finds, by wild coincidence, to be the exact amount of truth to Boebert’s claim.
   
  As to revolting Republican lawmakers, I confess to finding that completely consistent with my view of the current crop.
   
• Green Eagle does a right-wing wrap reviewing conspiracy nut gathering over the last week and a half or so. Trump returns to power this week, Kamala Harris is unwell, Joe Biden is unwell, Hillary Clinton is dead, the vaccines are a bio-weapon, and more of the direction the arc of contemporary conservatism currently bends.
   
• In case we get worn down by the same tired descriptions of political lying: Nojo comes up with a series of creative euphemisms.
   
• Legend has Greek philosopher Diogenes carrying a lantern through the streets of Athens in search of an honest man. tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors recalls the tale as he contemplates Senate Democrat Joe Manchin insisting on protecting voting rights only if it can be done in a bipartisan way, preserving the more important right of Senators to filibuster. Effectively, that means 60 votes will be required to end talking voting rights to death. tengrain envisions Manchin prowling the halls of Congress, lantern in hand, searching for 10 honest Republicans.
   
• House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, hoping to become House Speaker, will do anything, absolutely anything, for once-upon-a-president Donald Trump. Andy Borowitz brings the newest instance as evidence of criminal violations closes in on Trump. Trump orders McCarthy to go to prison in his place.
   
• driftglass documents the historical nature of an event that has elevated the Susan Collins Threat Advisory System to the unprecedented level of Very Concerned, previously thought by scientists to be unreachable.
   
• PZ Myers writes a grimly entertaining account of childhood riding with a drunken grandfather.
   
• Nan’s Notebook wonders what it must be like to remember every detail of every moment of every day of your entire life. She links to a site with possible explanations of the phenomenon and to an individual account.
   
• @momwino98 deals with birthday trauma:
  

  @momwino98

  5 year olds ##tiktokmom##foryourpage##highceilingproblems ##balloons ##socks

  ♬ Oh No – Kreepa

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