Trump Trials, Cable, Post Truth, GOP, Hauling Hawley, White Supremacy

  • From Mark Waulberg not the American star
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony really, truly, hopes mr Trump appeals the E. Jean Carroll verdict.
     
  • In the Palmer Report, former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb provides an insider’s prediction on mr Trump’s legal future.
     
    Key direct quote:
    …yes I do think he’ll go to jail.
     
  • Tommy Christopher has the transcript. Bill Barr says mr Trump was legally exposed, very exposed, by his CNN Town rally. He predicts indictments in August or September.
     
  • CalicoJack, in The Psy of Life, performs a big-picture analysis, examines alternative future events, and explains what it will take to derail the Trump train.
     
    Key danger:
    The closer we get to trial and conviction, though, the more shrill and bombastic Trump will become and more violent MAGA will become. His one weapon is stochastic terrorism.
     
  • driftglass suggests that cable news is not in the business of presenting facts.
     
    Key motivation:
    Because the only thing media corporations care about is this strictly, cold-blooded profit-and-loss calculation: how they can most efficiently hook the marks, and how they can keep ’em coming back for more.
     
  • News Corpse is justified in slamming the Fox Network on this one. Fox aired reports on veterans being booted out of hotels to make room for migrants. Turns out that the entire story was a scam set up and paid for by the CEO of an advocacy group. A couple of local reporters did a little checking and uncovered the whole thing.
    That little bit of checking could just as easily been done by Fox.
     
  • Elon (Twitter) Musk has a name-calling response to what seems to be reasonable criticism:


    And gets a harsh reply from Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez

  • Infidel753 objects to terms like “post-truth world” and “death of truth”.
     
    Key challenge:
    Talk like “my truth” vs “your truth”, “alternative facts”, and suchlike must be forcefully denounced as the bullshit it is. Claims about reality are either true or false. A statement like “the 2020 election was stolen from Trump” is either true or not true — it cannot be true for some people and false for others. The Earth is not flat for members of the Flat Earth Society and spherical for everyone else.
     
    Key example:
    If you design an airplane based on some idiosyncratic “your truth” about mathematics and the laws of physics instead of based on the single, solid objective truth of those things that science has established, it will crash, if it even gets off the ground at all.
     
    Key exception:
    It’s important to distinguish between this and ordinary differences of opinion, even stark ones. A person who believes Trump was the best president ever, or that different races should be kept segregated, or that Hitler was justified, is manifesting the kind of differences of viewpoint people have always had, even if extreme ones.
     
  • Dave Columbo leaves comedy long enough to ask a few non-gotcha questions:
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil notices a new, most accurate yet, description of US Senator Josh Hawley, whom we here in Missouri sent to Washington.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged is not sympathetic as she watches nationally known conservatives twist themselves into knots trying to claim that even self-proclaimed white supremacists are not really white supremacists.
     
  • The Onion helpfully brings us another lesson in basic etiquette with things never to say to a Proud Boy.

  • Frances Langum considers the logic of an actual (not kidding here) United States Senator in accusing Hillary of having colluded with Putin:
     
    Key Marsha Blackburn logic:

    1. The Durham Report criticized the FBI investigation that discovered the Trump/Putin collusion. It seems the FBI should have conducted a preliminary investigation before conducting their full investigation.
       
    2. Since the FBI should have conducted the preliminary investigation, the full investigation should never have been conducted
       
    3. Since the full investigation should not have been conducted, the finding of a Putin/Trump collusion was invalid
       
    4. Since that finding was invalid, but collusion happened, someone else had to have colluded with Putin
       
    5. Since someone must have, Hillary was the one who conspired with Putin
       
    6. Because (pay attention here)…… she wanted to lose the election
      and…blame…Trump.
       

  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson seems skeptical about weird conspiracy theories, even coming from members of Congress:


    Skeptical and a bit concerned:

  • In Hackwhackers, Republicans somehow manage to lose misplace all their evidence against President Biden. But the rank and file are enraged that an American President condemned white supremacy.
     
  • Here is what President Biden said:

  • At The Moderate Voice, foreign affairs expert Brij Khindaria looks at President Biden, as Biden looks at India. Biden sees India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the key to countering China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin.
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit detects a reason so many court decisions have overturned corruption convictions of public officials.
     
    Perhaps it isn’t just Clarence Thomas.
     
  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson covers Governor Ron DeSantis’ Mickey Mouse war. Disney has canceled plans to build an office complex in Florida.
     
    Key cost:
    The construction was estimated to cost about $1 billion, and the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity projected it would bring to Florida more than 2,000 jobs with an average salary of $120,000.
     
    Key uh oh from the Disney person in charge:
    He noted that Disney has planned more than $17 billion of construction in Florida, bringing about 13,000 jobs, over the next ten years but suggested that, too, was being reexamined.
     
    Key reason described by Disney:
    changing business conditions
     
  • Ant Farmer’s Almanac is only partly satiric with this week’s headline:
     
    Childrens’ Book About Harvey Milk and U.S. Constitution
    Banned From Florida Public Schools    .
     
    The US Constitution is actually allowed in Florida, and the quotes in the text are satire. Sadly, the book about Harvey Milk really has been removed from at least some classrooms.
     
  • In the Borowitz Report, a Florida teacher has been arrested for showing a Disney movie featuring a boy character with a girl’s name.
     
    Key satire:
    The teacher claimed that she thought it was “O.K.” to show the incendiary film because the character in question was a deer.
     
  • At jobsanger, Ted McLaughlin has the numbers. The Republican Party is out of touch on abortion. Way, way, way out!
     
  • Scotties Playtime reads an open letter to men that begins,
    You have no uterus. You have no ovaries.,
    and ends with
    You have no right – none, zero – to dictate what any woman can do with her body. Mind your own business, not mine.
     
    Fair enough, but Scottie extends that wisdom to women.
     
  • Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group explain how North Carolina lawmakers are legislating a disastrous abortion ban from the shadows.
     
    Key point:
    And the even bigger issue? The First Amendment violations.
     

     
    You may prefer a complete transcript or podcast form.
     
  • The Covenant School shooting last march in Tennessee took the lives of six people, including three 9-year olds. tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has the story as Tennessee finally takes action. The governor signs a new law to protect gun manufacturers from all families of slaughtered kids.
     
  • Tired of hearing the tired old excuses from tired old libs like me about root causes of crime?
     
    Disaffected and it Feels So Good takes apart the inadequate fight against some parts of the crime surge, with a look at who is financing the theft of catalytic converters.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has a suggestion for those of us who share the faith. Jesus is not the blond Aryan figure we so often see pictured. We must kiss White Jesus goodbye.
     
    Key reason:
    …not because we’re ashamed of our whiteness but because we don’t want to make an idol of it the way too many Republicans and Evangelicals have.
     
  • MadMikesAmerica sees a division among Christians: those of us who worship good Jesus and those who idolize bad Jesus. In recent years, mr Trump has found himself directly in the path.
     
    Key paragraph:
    The ‘Bad Jesus’ concept is not widely recognized or endorsed within mainstream Christianity. Instead, it is a version of Jesus that justifies or overlooks certain negative behaviors or attitudes, such as racism, xenophobia, and exclusion. It is this version of ‘Bad Jesus’ that critics argue some evangelical supporters of Trump are endorsing.
     
  • Nan’s Notebook reports on declining church attendance, and projects the possible disappearance of Christianity. Nan is not exactly gleeful, but does seem encouraged.
     
    A relative, an admired friend, discovered that I am a Christian. He asked what I thought about the decline of Christianity.
     
    I think we pretty much have it coming. Too many of us have been led by the hatred and intolerance that Jesus warns us about.
     
    In fact, we should sympathize with those who stay away because they reject cruelty and bigotry.
     
    If our houses of worship fade to nothing, we can still have faith in the faith. As long as there remain two or three who can gather in worship, we will continue with the separation of church and hate.
     
  • PZ Myers used to debate occasional creationists. For those who may be entertained by the humiliation of Christian advocates of Biblical inerrancy (and who can resist that temptation?), he has managed to rescue a recording of one debate.
     
  • In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser Bruce, as a young religious student, receives an important part of informal sex education.
     
  • John Scalzi at Whatever has authored a great new book, Starter Villain, and launches a contest that you, too, can enter. One lucky person will win a free copy of the book.
     
    Okay, so he’s not giving away a house, but there is no cost for entering. So there is that.
     
  • SilverAppleQueen doesn’t much care for paywalls on some of her her favorite blogs.
     
  • Hear @whiskeywhistle98 as she is liberated from caring at all:
     
  • Clickbait satirist Reductress presents an example of how to avoid awkward party exits.
     
  • YellowDog Granny explains of what we must beware.
     
  • The Journal of Improbable Research brings us that great day in June, 1947, the date when the then current state of medical treatment overcame Winston Churchill’s hernia.
     
    It is now a mystery that will no longer cost me so many sleepless afternoons.
     
  • Some health notifications warning of recent exposures to viruses have been discontinued. Nojo proposes replacement exposure notifications you may find even more useful.
     

– Podcasts –
 

One thought on “Trump Trials, Cable, Post Truth, GOP, Hauling Hawley, White Supremacy”

  1. much appreciate breaths of fresh air here, including Dave Colombo & WhiskeyWhistle98 🙂

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