Stormy Storm, Arrested Arrest, Threats, Captive GOP, No Pill, Erase Racist Past

  • The Palmer Report looks at the law and suggests Donald Trump’s violent new social media post about Alvin Bragg is going to come with consequences.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson has thoughts on the Stormy storm:

  • News Corpse reports as mr Trump boasts about proof that Michael Cohen is lying about hush money. He cites a letter in which Cohen admitted the payoff was not a campaign contribution. One problem: That very lie in that specific letter is what sent Cohen to prison.
     
    Key fact:
    The Justice Department explicitly referenced these claims in their charging document on August 21, 2018, and noted that “COHEN caused and made the payments described herein in order to influence the 2016 presidential election.”
     
  • Cato’s Julian Sanchez puts a common MAGA argument into perspective:
     

  • In Letters from an American, noted historian Heather Cox Richardson explains why the seemingly minor charge of a payoff to a porn star is not a minor charge. She also speculates, with compelling logic, on why Republican officials are so quick to defend mr Trump. It isn’t really because of fear of the base.
     
    Key explanation:
    It appears Republicans have gotten to the point that they don’t believe they can win a free and fair election, and in their conviction that Democrats will destroy the country, they believe cheating to win is justified. They cannot condemn Trump because he delivered what they wanted: a victory.
     
  • Conservative columnist David Brooks feels optimistic about the Republican party shaking itself loose from Trump. driftglass contrasts that with David’s views in 2016 about Trump and Republicans. Turns out there is no contrast. In fact the optimism now is remarkably similar to the optimism then. We do remember how that turned out, right? Well, Right?!!
     
  • Hackwhackers considers the not unusual view that mr. Trump led the Republican party away from its previously virtuous path, but suggests that we look to the Iran hostage crisis and sabotage by Republican operatives in 1980.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has the polling numbers. Most Americans oppose the safety net cuts Republican lawmakers are pushing:
    like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food assistance.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil is never one to soft-pedal. He contrasts French reaction to increasing the age of retirement with that of US working folk to Republican threats to Medicare and Social Security. He is unimpressed with relative US calm.
     
  • Republicans in South Carolina want the death penalty for women who get abortions. Nan’s Notebook notes that the Republican state Senate leader says it has no real chance of passing, nope – no worries. Nan explains why it is still horrifying.
     
  • Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group review the suit brought by a vengeful ex-husband for wrongful death against three friends who helped a Texas woman get an abortion.
     
    Key point:
    Not only is this alarming, but it’s also part of a bigger campaign to eradicate medication abortion by any means necessary.
     

    Transcript is here, if you prefer.
     
  • A Trump appointed judge seems about to rule that a twenty year old CDC decision to allow an abortion pill was “wrongly decided”, despite scientific evidence at the time and two decades of experience since. Green Eagle suggests the impending decision is not really about abortion.
     
    Key proposition:
    In fact, this case is about something far more dangerous than the specific womens’ rights issue involved here…
     
  • In Happiness Between Tails da-AL begins with dynamic photos of cultural sights in India but returns to the US, hosting psychologist, author, blogger Valerie Tarico and birth control options in red states.
     
  • At The Onion, Florida teachers tell us how they will teach history without mentioning race.
     
  • Years ago, Patricia Turner objected to a prevailing view of racists during Jim Crow segregation:
     
    To suggest that bad people were racist implies that good people were not.
     
    Ta-Nehisi Coates called it the
    Racist Child Molester Serial Killer theory of America:
     
    Racists–should they even exist–are not people we know, but people who existed either in some distant history or in a far off cave somewhere.
     
    CalicoJack in The Psy of Life applies their insight to how so many white people are still able to justify their own identifiably racist attitudes.
     
    The technique is substitution.
     
    Key paragraph:
    When faced with a difficult question, like, Is calling Michelle Obama a gorilla racist? many people turn to an easier but related question to find an answer, like Is racism bad? or Am I a bad person? Since (a) racism is bad and (b) I’m a good person and good people can’t do bad things, I can’t be a racist, so calling Michelle Obama can’t be racist, see? Logic.
     
  • At Scotties Playtime, a Florida legislator files proposed legislation that will ban the LGBTQ+ Pride flag but allow the Confederate flag from public buildings, classrooms, and government offices. The Confederate flag is specifically mentioned.
     
    After some blowback, he insists he filed it by accident.
     
    Seems a strained explanation. Filing a bill is somewhat complex. It requires deliberation and effort. So, accident?
     
    Perhaps we can be forgiven some skepticism on how he stumbled and bumped his nose on the legislative process.
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony suggests that, contrary to the Republican narrative, the Silicon Valley Bank failure was less the result of woke culture than Short-Attention-Span Economics. The great Iron presents Seth Meyers to make the case:
     
  • Clickbait satirist Reductress provides instructions on how to get your student loan paid off by convincing the government you’re a bank.
     
  • Frances Langum says the bombshell that a Fox producer is suing Fox, alleging they forced her to lie under oath is too repetitive to call a bombshell, even thought it is, in fact, a bombshell.
     
  • No, the following is not from the Onion.
     
    The Journal of Improbable Research briefly covers an academic scandal. Science periodicals are retracting a record number of papers based on research conducted by Professor Nicolas Guéguen of Université Bretagne Sud in France. They suspect, in carefully polite phrasing, that research may not be reliable on such topics as:

    • Bust size and hitchhiking,
    • Women’s hair color and hitchhiking
    • Whether men see women wearing red as seeking sexual adventure
    • Whether women are more attracted to men carrying guitar cases
       

    All of which raises entertaining speculation, at least for me, about the publishing universe of science research and academic sleuthing.

  • Third parties in recent US history have accomplished little beyond expanding the ego of an occasional candidate (looking at you, Ralph Nader) and then producing unhealthy results.
     
    Tommy Christopher watches as Bill Maher asks a question, notes the answer, then eviscerates Andrew Yang and his Forward Party.
     
  • Grung_e_Gene, in Disaffected and it Feels So Good, is increasingly entertained by the increasingly entertaining race for Mayor of Chicago, now that Lori Lightfoot has been bounced. It begins with why Lori’s election marked a significant milestone in electoral equality.
     
    Key beginning (Forgive me, Aunt Tildy, for I am about to sin):
     
    One of the key benchmarks for equality in the United States was not when President Barack Obama, an generational talent and highly qualified candidate, was elected President, it’s when the black or female equivalent of George W. Bush (a career fuckup and incompetent) was elected. Thus, Lori’s 2018 election showed how far we’ve come…
     
  • The Propaganda Professor agrees that we can legitimately judge what people do. It is wrong to attack people for simply existing. The Professor suggests that it is impossible to attacking transgenderism without attacking transgenders.
     
    Key quote by conservative Michael Knowles:
    …for the good of society, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely
     
    Key defense by Michael Knowles:
    Nobody’s calling to exterminate anybody because the other problem with that statement is that transgender people is not a real ontological category. It’s not a legitimate category of being.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has a bit of advice for anyone at any point on the spectrum of spiritual belief:
    don’t apologize for your faith or your lack of it.
     
    Key sentence:
    None of us needs to apologize for our road or to justify to anyone else why we believe in or don’t believe in God, or to what degree or in what fashion we do either of those.
     
  • Among Christians, those believing bible stories that involve speaking in tongues, there is a division between those who believe the spiritual gift still occurs today and those who think it was limited to a specific set of biblical times and places.
     
    In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce remembers his time as a pastor struggling with that controversy, a struggle that helped lead him to atheism.
     
  • Professor PZ Myers has a response to creationist Ken Ham’s accusation proving that science is inherently false.
     
    Ken’s proof: Evolutionists change their minds as more evidence comes in.
     
    Key question (from Professor Myers):
    Isn’t that the whole point of science?
     
  • Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes goes to an 1890 publication for the secrets to a happy marriage.
     
  • @whiskeywhistle98 cuts back on the wine:
     
  • Science fiction author John Scalzi celebrates the onset of spring with sunset at the equinox.
     
  • SilverAppleQueen finds that flowers do bloom amid the woodchips.
     

– Podcasts –
 

2 thoughts on “Stormy Storm, Arrested Arrest, Threats, Captive GOP, No Pill, Erase Racist Past”

  1. Al Capone was not convicted of ‘mere’ tax evasion; it’s the kind that would land you in the graybar hotel for an extended stay even today:

    (Forbes Magazine 10/17/2020)

    “Capone was found guilty on October 17, 1931. One week later, on October 24, 1931, Capone was sentenced to a then unheard 11 years in prison. He was fined $50,000 ($798,055 in today’s dollars), charged court costs and ordered to pay back taxes of $215,000 (now, $3,431,640).”

  2. goodness Trump’s fans are about as scary as he is – thanks for your good works of reminding people of this. thanks too for linking my post too. best to you & yours, Burr

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