Arraigned, Rallied, Threats, Tennessee, Drag Dragged, Murder Votes, Censored

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz finally accepts a hug, and gets surprised.

  • Nojo projects a marketing shortage and encourages us to stock up.
     
  • Green Eagle is sickened by media and blogs (uh oh) and a District Attorney who devote themselves to the 34 most petty selections from the long, long list of Trump crimes.
     
    Key additional point:
    Let me make a point here: “innocent until proven guilty,” the phrase we hear over and over again, is not true. The real phrase is “presumed innocent in the eyes of the law until proven guilty.” If you are guilty, you are guilty, regardless of whether you manage to escape legal consequences.
     
    Kind of like OJ.
     
  • Here’s hoping such power doesn’t fall into the wrong hands! Iron Knee at Political Irony publishes cartoons about mr Trump that come true the next day. Yikes.
     
  • So mr Trump is finally charged by a grand jury and arraigned. News Corpse covers the coverage as the Fox Network accuses those Radical Left, Soros-sponsored communists who pulled the strings to bring the charges. They, which is to say we, are endangering mr Trump’s life.
     
    Key Fox logic:
    You’re putting Donald Trump’s life in danger. You’re setting him up and advertising [to] the entire world, [that] the former president of the United States, the Republican nominee for the presidency, is going to be at this location, at this time, on this date. And you’ve got towers, and you’ve got windows.
     
    I confess that had never occurred to me. Imagine doxing a former President by taking him to court for his crimes. I suppose it does force mr Trump out of his well known very private, reclusive, avoid-all-notice, Howard Hughes type of existence.
     
  • Republicans who once shouted Lock Her Up at Trump rallies now explain to us that charging mr Trump with …well… anything damages our image with other countries. At The Moderate Voice, foreign affairs expert Brij Khindaria makes the case that the opposite is true.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life ignores cooler heads and celebrates the arraignment, but warns that it ain’t over until it’s over (It being the fight for democracy).
     
    Key argument for joyful noise:
    You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t happy that the smug narcissistic jerk is finally get a smidgeon of the comeuppance he so richly deserves.
     
  • It’s true that some prominent folks, among those who should know, say that mr Trump is innocent. Some folks who should know say he is guilty. Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has a shortcut for those too busy to look at evidentiary details: the main difference between the two groups.
     
  • Andy Borowitz reports on millions of Americans who have paid off porn stars and now feel under attack.
     
  • Dave Columbo watches the Trump arrest and wonders about the kind of a world in which we’re living:

     
  • It is no longer just powder and anonymous notes sent to the office of the Manhattan District Attorney. Tommy Christopher reports as the indictment prompts an escalation. Stormy Daniels is now receiving many more threats from Trump supporters including I’m going to murder you.

  • From Frances Langum, Rachel Maddow explains why MSNBC did not carry mr Trump’s speech soon after courtroom processing.
     
    Key spoiler quote:
    We’re not taking it.
     
  • At The Onion, another scandal hits with mr Trump having paid hush money to conceal children he has in wedlock.
     
  • YellowDog Granny has a few illustrated thoughts about age, aging, Trump, Trump, Republicans, and Trump.
     
  • driftglass brings us anti-Trump conservative Charlie Sykes, who wonders how the Republican party got so messed up. Fortunately driftglass is willing to help out.
     
    Key offer:
    Oh! Oh! I know! Call on me!
     
  • Two Black lawmakers who joined demonstrators for minimal gun safety laws have been expelled from the Tennessee legislature, with unwanted mercy shown to a third, a White woman.
     
    The Palmer Report suggests Tennessee Republicans learned well from Donald Trump and that the cost they are paying for that lesson has greatly exceeded most expectations.
     
  • Hackwhackers approaches the Tennessee expel spell with sadly entertaining cartoons and Tweets.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson thinks fellow conservatives are in the wrong classroom:


    and that the rest of us are learning the wrong lessons about those wrong lessons:

  • PZ Myers notices as conservatives in Kansas protest against woke culture by boycotting Bud and drinking Coors. Professor Myers brings them bad news from the Coors folks.
     
  • Disaffected and it Feels So Good lists the accelerating outrages by Republican officeholders around the country: boldly attack Social Security, enthusiastically starve children, vigorously degrade healthcare, resolutely continue homelessness, and more. And, says our blogger, they have much greater ambitions.
     
  • Republicans want to keep power, but they are having an ever tougher time getting votes. So the party is increasingly devoted to preventing citizens from voting. Imani Gandy sees at least one destination conservatives are aiming to take us. Alabama and Mississippi want to keep those convicted of murder from ever voting.
     
    Seems fair, doesn’t it?
     
    Those who assist in murder should also be kept from ever voting, right?
     
    And they want to define abortion as murder.
     
    See where we’re going?
     
    Key direction:
    Among these states, however, are some that are right up there with Alabama and Mississippi in terms of abortion rights hostility, and I would expect Republicans in those states to amend their criminal code to make sure that people convicted of violent crimes are permanently disenfranchised.
     
  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson makes clear the profound corruption and deep deception performed by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
     
  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors demonstrates the many ways Kevin McCarthy is exceptionally bad at what he does and presents the evidence. It is not only what he does and doesn’t do. tengrain has a partial count of the number of people Kevin blames for his failures.
     
  • Julian Sanchez does not have a high regard for attacks by Ron DeSantis on the Mickey Mouse Club:

  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged considers the new RFK Jr. (vaccines are the cause of autism) candidacy for President. The backers of the new candidate make the purpose so obvious, it’s likely nobody will be fooled into taking the trip to the polls to vote for him.
     
    Weary resigned acquiescence:
    Sigh. You can see what’s up with this. I can see what’s up with this. But they are trying it.
     
  • Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes deals with osteoarthritis, and increasing difficulties of getting around. His experience with a humane country and that country’s National Health Service gives us an idea of how we could operate in this country.
     
  • Pretty much everyone is against censorship. Infidel753 points out what it is easy for us to forget. Freedom of speech has to apply to those we despise or it is something other than.
     
  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara makes largely the same point about ideas we find abhorrent.
     
    Key:
    Ideas never die. They go underground. They hibernate. They metastasize. They are camouflaged. They are always a risk to freedom and civilization. Books like Mein Kampf and other like writings are not just interesting historically. They are important because they serve to alert you to the re-emergence of these ideas in the current culture…
     
  • The Propaganda Professor explains with simple charts and pretty pictures the flaw of both-sides-the-same assumptions.
     
    Key Twitter example from The Propaganda Professor:

  • In Scotties Playtime, partner Randy considers one of the most popular, generally accepted, drag show performers from the semi-recent past.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil is there as Mississippi officials proudly keep us from forgetting a valiant history of critical hatred commemorated through Confederate Heritage Month.
     
  • It’s rare, I think. But extreme incidents have more than exaggerated media coverage, particularly on the right.
     
    If you want an example of conduct that is often used to give woke a snowflake rep, our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit takes us to irritation at their irritation.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has a thought about this special weekend:

  • In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, a Christian explains that Bruce is Judas and that Satan whispers in his ear. It is hard to see how that very common approach, heavily seasoned with condescending vitriol, will ever result in anyone’s unwilling conversion to some reluctant faith.
     
  • Nan’s Notebook brings us cellphone developer Martin Cooper, his speculation about implanted mobile devices, and a fair guess about how religious crazies will react.
     
  • As she often does, SilverAppleQueen goes briefly poetic about pain, endurance, courage, and cats.
     
  • In Happiness Between Tails da-AL has photographic evidence that Indian wedding celebrations are the best.
     
  • John Scalzi at Whatever has put together a pretty good sample of spacey electronica music.
     
  • We occasionally hear about the bright shiny side of past bad experiences. They help make us the whole person we have become.
     
    @whiskeywhistle98 objects:
     
  • Clickbait satirist Reductress brings a sad story as friendship turns into disappointment, when a real estate friend fails to provide a new house for free.
     

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