Trump Trumped, DeSantis Diced, Feeding Hungry Fined, Ban Abortion

Wow!
Practice really does make perfect:

  • Did we really think a $3 million award to E. Jean Carroll would stop mr Trump from his attack-dog mode?
     
    He showed us a thing or two with a hundred more defamations.
    See? $3 million is chump change.
     
    tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors notes an irony as another jury ups that $3 million by another $83.3 Million. The new jury considers a helpful Trump boast from another trial.
     
  • On the criminal charge side, the Palmer Report has Jack Smith ready to present evidence that can break open the Trump document case: data from cell towers.
     
  • A non-revelation:
     
    Donald Trump suggested he has his pick for vice president and hinted people will not “be that surprised” by his choice of running mate, The Hill reports.
     
    Wisconsin conservatives have a question:


    Fellow Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson narrows the choices:

  • Max’s Dad takes whatever is left of Ron DeSantis, slices, dices, and cooks the pieces.
     
    Key personality:
    Like most bullies he got punched by an even bigger bully and crawled away, hat in hand, and expressed his admiration for the other bully. A Profile in Courage.
     
  • It’s becoming a familiar pattern. A Murdoch employee generates a rumor that another Murdoch employee reports as a real news story. The report is believed without question by a credulous audience.
     
    News Corpse takes the arc into full circle as a gossip columnist for the Murdoch owned NY Post reports that Michelle Obama is about to become a candidate for President, which Fox personality Steve Doocy repeats on the Murdoch owned network as a terrifying report.
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony contrasts Iowa’s electoral significance through history with media fascination at the local diner.
     
  • Hackwhackers ventures into TwitterLand (rebranded as X) to watch mr Trump lose talking points, lose his tongue, and simply lose track as Republicans frantically look for ways to defend his mental state.
     
  • PZ Myers has some fun with mr Trump passing a bare minimum cognitive test, then getting retelling wrong.
     
    Key observation:
    No one would celebrate passing it — it’s like expecting to be applauded when an examining doctor finds a heartbeat.
     
    Random internet reaction:

  • Of course, this had to float around the internet:

  • @whiskeywhistle98 has the best version of a cognitive test, to determine if she is sane:
     

  • As Trump comes out ahead in New Hampshire, Green Eagle looks at the percentages and finds something surprising.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged sees the New Hampshire primary results come in closer than expected: and listens to Trump go all catty on Nikki Haley.
     
    Key meow report:
    I think it’s funny that Trump had to trash, of all things, Nikki Haley’s clothes.
     
  • Dave Dubya contrasts Nikki Haley’s self-congratulatory description of her party (Democrats use fear and Republicans use judgment) with commonly used GOP slogans and messages.
     
  • Dave Columbo has some thoughts about Nikki Haley’s thoughts about racism:
     
  • Sarah Cooper remembers how, as a child, she discovered she was black.
     
    Sometimes humor can express pain.
    Innocence suddenly lost can make us angry.
     
  • The Texas city of Houston has a law against feeding a homeless person without asking for, and getting, permission from the city.
     
    If you offer a hungry person food, and do it without filling out the requisite paperwork, filing your request, and getting permission from the municipal bureaucracy you can be arrested and fined $500.
     
    Might make for a long wait in order to provide a few morsels at lunch to someone in hunger.
     
    Generous people have been detained and charged. But the city of Houston has run into an unexpected snag.
     


    Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez summarizes the problem:

  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil links to the Republican proposal in Kentucky to allow property owners to kill homeless people if they sleep on the wrong sign of the sidewalk.
     
  • Disaffected and it Feels So Good reports as President Biden overcomes Republican obstruction to end some of the remaining military injustices against gay people.
     
  • The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals says Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming care is okay.
     
    In podcast land, Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group take a look inside the ruling and discover a few flaws.
     
    A complete transcript in pdf form is available.
     
  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson reviews the weird Supreme Court ruling abolishing the right to private abortion decisions, and the popular anger that followed. She finds a political parallel with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, allowing for unlimited expansion of slavery into new western states. The resulting tsunami of northern fury resulted in the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln.
     
    Key history:
    But when the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed, northerners of all parties came together to stand against those trying to destroy American democracy. As Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln put it: “We rose each fighting, grasping whatever he could first reach—a scythe—a pitchfork—a chopping axe, or a butcher’s cleaver,” to fight against the minority trying to impose its will on the majority.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger brings the well founded warning: the Republican Party is not done on abortion.
     
    The intent is to remove it as a state issue by outlawing it everywhere by federal law.
     
  • Following up on public comments by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, The Onion asks Republicans why they don’t need women voters.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life has the research data on why office holders reflect policy choices that are directly opposite of what voters want.
     
  • In Scotties Playtime, Republicans are at it on another familiar front. Finding sneaky ways to attack Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit explains how Republican screwing around with aid to Ukraine makes war more likely in the Pacific.
     
  • UPDATE:
    The always interesting Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes brings us the immortal ee cummings, writing in sorrow about the brutal crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against the pre-Putin version of the Russian empire. That struggle for freedom didn’t last.
     
  • It is hard not to have seen coverage of the stunning police lapses during the Uvalde shooting. It is difficult to understand trained officers waiting over an hour while listening to shots killing kids.
     
    Tommy Christopher brings us CNN video of a further revelation: local police officers, offended by that coverage, now harassing affected families.
     
    Key account:
    They just pull us over for no reason telling us to leave Uvalde, telling us all sorts of stuff. because they know that the truth was going to come out, and they didn’t want us here.
     
  • Nan’s Notebook recounts a story from here in Missouri about a convicted murderer on death row. Corrections officers are petitioning Governor Parsons to save the man because he has been a model prisoner.
     
    Nan has a question:
    Does the fact this man is a “model prisoner” make a difference?
     
    She invites your answer.
     
  • We are told by countless pundits that a leading resentment held MAGA folk is aimed at liberal scolds.
     
    driftglass rolls his eyes and scolds the New York Times as the Editorial Board scolds MAGA folk for irresponsible voting.
     
    Key eye roll:
    Yes, this is going to be a Stern Lecture, thundered down from high atop the pinnacle of Serious Murrican Journalism, aimed at people who not only couldn’t care less what The Times has to say about anything, but firmly believe The Times plays a major part in an active Deep State communist conspiracy to something something.
     
  • Frances Langum counts the days as Trump aide and confidant Peter Navarro is sentenced to 4 months in jail.
     
    Key judgment:
    Not nearly enough.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has a warning for Christians. We have already seen what happens when we worship a golden idol. (Guess to whom Rev. Pavlovitz refers, and why it might be mr Trump)
     
    Key Old Testament story:
    …supposedly faithful people fashioning an idol made of gold and cravenly bowing before it, in complete contempt for the God they claimed to believe in because they had lost their collective minds.
     
    Key modern mourning:
    It was a lot easier to view the tragic story in the distant rear-view mirror of history in a land thousands of miles away—and not in the windshield of the present here in the country I call home, with the sycophantic cultists so close and prevalent.
     
  • In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce takes a look at preachers who resign in disgrace, then eventually return to the pulpit elsewhere, and suggests that a sort of ministry addiction is at play.
     
  • YellowDog Granny in MemeLand goes to wonderful introspection and very short prayer.
     
  • Mark Waulberg (No, not Mark Wahlberg, the other Mark) gets an offer he can’t refuse: Let’s pretend we’re husband and wife, just for tonight:
     
  • Neither snow nor rain nor heat, nor gloom of night…
     
    At The Moderate Voice retired U.S. Air Force Major Dorian de Wind reminds us who needs to be there, who is always there, no matter what.
     
  • The Savanna Bananas have a different style of fielding:
     
  • Infidel753 brings fascinating video as an artist reimagines a darker version of Frozen.
     
  • In Happiness Between Tails da-AL hosts science writer Marie Zhuikov, equipped with data and personal experience to talk about suicide myths.
     

3 thoughts on “Trump Trumped, DeSantis Diced, Feeding Hungry Fined, Ban Abortion”

    1. Thank you, Vincent.

      We are updated.
      Your important contribution is in.

      Six and a half decades later, we can still grieve.
      We hope to overcome pro-Putin Republicans and prevent a repeat.

      We can help keep Ukraine freedom going.

  2. thanks for another great a-to-z roundup, Burr, & for including my site here. wishing you a pleasant week ahead – da-AL

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