Ordinary strangers will sometimes take risks to help:
Humanity ❤️ pic.twitter.com/QmJpxU3WfS
— GARRY (@singhhh47) January 15, 2024
- The Propaganda Professor provides a ten item guide, dead giveaways that the Biden impeachment is a blatant scam.
- Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has the numbers. A plurality of voters supports Trump being banned from ballots.
- At the Palmer Report mr Trump can’t just wait for his Supreme Court to rule in his favor on eligibility, he has to threaten what will happen if they don’t.
- Sammy The Bull Gravano, one-time hitman for the Gambino crime family, endorses mr Trump, and Trump proudly makes sure everyone knows.
Media outlets, pundits, the internet explode with derision at the obtuseness. What sort of character witness does Trump think he’s discovered?
Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged points to a darker motive.
Key dark view:
He’s just letting people know he’s got friends in all kinds of places. Loyal ones. Maybe dangerous ones.
- Master of rant, snark, and thoughtful review, Max’s Dad examines the performance of Donald Trump during his defamation trial.
Key claim:
But there he is claiming how grief stricken he is over his mother in laws death though odds are 11,780 to one he could even remember her name.
- News Corpse notes the standard that mr Trump says he will impose on major networks. If they haven’t been broadcasting his speeches, government must put them out of business.
Key promise:
Our so-called ‘government’ should come down hard on them and make them pay for their illegal political activity.
Trump calls for censoring media outlets for not covering him the way he wants: NBC and CNN refused to air my victory speech. They should have their licenses, or whatever they have, taken away pic.twitter.com/JyYHyz604Y
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 17, 2024
- mr Trump isn’t the only one. Tommy Christopher has Trump ex-employee, current Fox host, Kayleigh McEnany furious that CNN cut away from a Trump rant.
- Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson is not convinced:
Let me answer Trump supporters crying "censorship" because the media didn't carry his whole speech, but somehow it's not censorship when you want books banned from schools. I'm happy to tell you Trump's speech is also available on Amazon in the original German.
— James Wigderson (@jwigderson) January 17, 2024
- Ron DeSantis has a political deathbed point about mr Trump and conservative news media:
He’s got basically a Praetorian Guard of the conservative media — Fox News, the websites, all this stuff. They just don’t hold him accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers and they don’t want to have their ratings go down, and that’s just the reality. That’s just the truth.
Josh Marshall has a point about that point:Every dying non-Trump candidacy has a moment of clarity about Trump and the right wing media ecosystem as they approach the white light https://t.co/lNHDfiHKL8
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) January 12, 2024
Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez makes a point about those points. Similar insights seem to occur to other Republicans who share similar Foxy type coverage:Dan Crenshaw had a similar epiphany when Fox turned its guns on him recently. Funny how that happens. https://t.co/so73Wauxr7
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) January 12, 2024
- The Onion offers a fun quiz: Who said it, Donald Trump or Hitler?
- driftglass is reminded of the existence of former Reagan speechwriter and current WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan, as she speaks on behalf of middle America in wishing for a better choice than Biden-Trump.
driftglass has a good laugh.
- In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson takes a look at the twists and turns of the Republican pretzel approach to immigration.
Key hairpin twisted turn (one of several):
After insisting in November that immigration was in such a crisis that there could be no more aid to Ukraine, Israel, or Taiwan without it, Republicans in December rejected the idea of new legislation and said Biden must handle the issue himself.
- Taking children from parents, locking them in cages, giving them away, not even tracking them. Could Republican treatment of refugees ever get worse than those of our former president?
Well yes, actually.
Hackwhackers documents the death by drowning of a woman and two kids, as armed Texas authorities forcibly block US agents from saving them.
Those naive days when I thought this was as bad as it would ever get:
Maybe it's my own peculiar upbringing. I don't think barbed wire and little kids should be wrapped together.
It seems a sentiment not shared by some of my more conservative brothers and sisters in Christ.
— Burr Deming – @BurrLand01@mastodon.world (@BurrLand01) July 24, 2023
- Disaffected and it Feels So Good takes a look at how Texas Governor Greg Abbott defends his bloody vigilantism toward immigrants.
Key inhibition as described by the Governor:
The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border, because of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.
- Frances Langum provides video as Fox host Jeanne Pirro surprises us with the news: the Statue of Liberty is not for immigrants.
- M. Bouffant at Web of Evil finds the telegram inviting Dr. King to the signing of the voting rights legislation he fought for.
- Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr. Well, kinda sorta.
Michael doesn’t understand how a moral leader could oppose unregulated capitalism since, as is obvious, capitalism is based on freedom, individual liberation, and international peace.
Key benefit:
Capitalism is the only social system that banishes exploitation and war, because individual rights banishes aggressive or initiatory force from human relationships—particularly aggressive force by government against the people.
Key King ignorance:
It’s obvious that King didn’t understand capitalism or fully grasp the moral implications of the Declaration of Independence that he so eloquently honored.
My thought:
If only Michael A. LaFerrara had been there to educate Dr. King on the principles of basic freedom, human rights, and the arc of the moral universe.
- PZ Myers explains, with examples, his lack of patience with Libertarians. Exhibit 1 is a series of small subdivisions in Arizona set up to avoid regulations requiring available community water.
Totally unexpected problem: It turns out even unregulated humans require water.
- We all remember January 6, right?
At The Moderate Voice Kathy Gill says we should also associate that date with Boeing, door blowouts, and fatal crashes.
On January 6, 2021, the lame duck insurrectionist Trump administration made a last minute deal slapwristing Boeing on criminal charges.
Key charge:
Boeing admitted that it had “deceived” the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regarding development of the 737 MAX 8.
- Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit observes Boeing’s vigorous corporate reaction to the unstable door problem, putting tons of effort into improving moral. Not so much in correcting QA issues.
Key safety approach:
At this point, Boeing is operating like a Russian corporation: Make shitty products and bribe the right people.
- tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors brings us Matt Gaetz on camera explaining why Republicans have no need of women voters.
- Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group are back in podcast form, this time with two new abortion rights Supreme Court cases.
A complete transcript is also available in pdf form
Key questions:
But what about pregnant people who might need life-saving care in states with abortion bans?
Will the justices save state abortion bans or pregnant women?
- Scotties Playtime opens up about what it is like to be an adult
having grown up as a continually abused child,
the meaning of support during intrusive memories as an adult,
and
the importance of even small symbols of strength.
- North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has a point. Maybe we should try to combine our churches with what Jesus teaches:
The Christianity of Jesus left people with more dignity and greater care; with healed wounds and fuller bellies, with calmed fears and quieted worries. It left a wake of compassion.
No, this isn't Christianity.
To hell with what this is.https://t.co/VAfX65iGGu
— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) January 16, 2024
- Infidel753 responds to a common conservative proposition:
But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticize the Government. Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God.
Infidel makes the opposite case, that religion contributes to a mindset that makes authoritarian government possible.
- Green Eagle points to hypocrisy, as it appears those we would never suspect having assisted Hamas.
- In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce examines the occasional argument that the Bible is always right: scriptures say so.
Key rebuttal:
Bible verses are not evidence, they are claims.
- @whiskeywhistle98 teaches children the virtue of obedience
- YellowDog Granny has meme thoughts on support, forgiveness, and Cheerios.
- Still struggling with New Year resolutions?
In Happiness Between Tails da-AL hosts author Lori Pohlman, who has it together when setting goals.
- The great Sarah Cooper is kinda sorta Blackish and just out of an interracial marriage:
- Dave Columbo objects to how romance is portrayed in romantic movies:
- Clickbait satirist Reductress has helpful ways to tell if this hookup is worth skipping the wearing of your retainer.
- Okay, so it’s a golden oldie.
Mark Waulberg (No, not Mark Wahlberg, the other Mark) has a story about changing a tire (or tyre):
- Professor Mike is old enough to remember the 1977 alien Wow! signal from outer space. Scientists still can’t explain it to the satisfaction of other scientists.
- John Scalzi at Whatever has a song in his head: Jim Croce singing Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues.
- SilverAppleQueen has painfully damaged her knee, but is comforted by her cats.
I keep hearing chilling news stories about Trump how actually has a chance — eeeeek!!! thank goodness for the balm of laughter among your links. tx, too, for including my site here