Easter, Trump Bible, Biden Batters GOP, Key Bridge, Abortion, GOP Hilarity

Happy Easter (King Trump Version) Weekend:

• In Hackwhackers, mr Trump has a series of inspiring Easter messages.
   
  I certainly am inspired:
  
   
• News Corpse shows mr Trump selling his very own Bible, along with a promise to make you, me, and all Americans pray.
   

  Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible. @TheLeeGreenwood https://t.co/1KK5QgVK85 pic.twitter.com/XoCIeGDpAg

  — Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) March 26, 2024

  As may be expected, I happen to have questions:
   

  Is it in comic book form?
  Does it include pictures of mr Trump?

  — Burr Deming – @BurrLand01@mastodon.world (@BurrLand01) March 27, 2024

• Tommy Christopher has irony on hand as mr Trump posts an adoring letter from a supporter comparing him to Jesus. The comparison was endorsed by Trump (ready for this?) from inside the porn star hush money hearing.
   
  Key rare (for Tommy) snark:
  Neither of the two Corinthians could be reached for comment.
   
• M. Bouffant is at Web of Evil with a pictorial counter-view to conservative Christianity. (He doesn’t much care for it)
   
• At The Onion, Donald Trump expands his efforts to meet his growing financial crisis, releasing a ‘God Bless The USA’ Quran.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz asks how Christians can bring themselves to stand up with wide-eyed, breathless adoration for someone so deliberately vicious and cruel.
   
  Key value:
  It’s a human decency thing.
   
  Key teaching:
  I’d never do these things, because as a Christian I was raised to treat people with a dignity that I was taught they deserve as solely unique human beings fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of a God who is love.
   
• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, former pastor, current atheist, Bruce argues that so many Christians believe in so many versions of Jesus, chances are each of us worships a false image.
   
  My answer is Yup, and it’s okay
  Additional apology: I know I keep posting this, but indulge me – It is a favorite:
  Respecting Pulp Religion
   
• Tamra Brown focuses on forgiveness:
   
  
• Nan’s Notebook asks us to consider what Trump is really after.
   
• At The Moderate Voice columnist Don Hermann presents to mr Trump a list of bad news and good questions.
   
• Dave Columbo has words of wisdom for those who see verdicts against Trump as weaponization by the deep state
   
  
• The Journal of Improbable Research finds a 48‑year‑old study in classic literature that could apply today. Even Shakespeare seems to have defined trumpery as a showy display of trash.

• From The Borowitz Report:
   
  A financially beleaguered Donald Trump is forced to sell his prized collection of House Republicans.
   
• Frances Langum shows us Sean Hannity at his most desperate throwing all manner of kitchen sinks at President Biden.
   
  Key accusation:
  On Wednesday evening, a desperate Sean Hannity claimed Joseph Robinette Biden Junior, President of the United States, wants to take all meat and meat products away from American households.
   
  This is wacky, even for the Fox News host.
   
  Key kitchen sink collection:
  
   
• CalicoJack in The Psy of Life suggests the ongoing massive MAGA misinformation campaign will be best defeated with mockery.
   
  Key Democratic flaw:
  They respond to the latest diarrheic fart from the Republican outrage machine with a long winded explanation about something that no one remembers or has cared about for the last two hundred news cycles.
   
• My incredibly conservative friend Darrell Michaels introduces us to conservative humor:
   
  Memes proving that
  • The Democratic [excuse me: “Democrat”] party conspired to prevent Trump from running, but was slapped down by SCOTUS
  • Joe Biden is a proven crook
  • Joe Biden has been financing Hamas
  • Biden has blood on his hands because of the border
  • Republicans just want to be left alone
  • Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton were the twin girls in The Shining

   
  and so on
   
  About 5 years ago, when we had a once-upon-a-President, I wrote about the evolution of Republican humor.
   
  Seems to apply now.

• Dave Dubya answers a question from my friend Darrell on why it’s hard to find common ground.
   
• driftglass summarizes the week‑that‑was in the world of Trump apologists.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors likes it when Biden fights back and crushes a feeble, confused, tired opponent.
   
  Key shock:
  I never thought I would see a Democrat bring a machete to a knife fight, so this is great.
   
• Infidel753 sees an omen in the startling result of the recent special election in Alabama. It is a confirmation of an already existing pattern where abortion is an issue.
   
  Key lesson:
  Freedom matters — and politicians and judges who try to take it away will face the wrath of the voting masses.
   
• Imani gets ready:
  

  *cracks knuckles*

  Ok let's do this.

  I'm live tweeting the mife arguments.

  Let's find out if the Court is going to consider "abortion makes me sad and deprives me of the opportunity to make eyes at pregnant gals" as a form of valid Art. IIII standing.

  — Imani Gandy (Orca’s Version) ⚓️ (@AngryBlackLady) March 26, 2024

  and has at it.

  Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group are cautiously optimistic about Mifepristone’s Not-So-Bad Day at the Supreme Court.
   
  You may prefer a complete transcript (pdf) of the podcast.

• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit notes a contrast as Kari Lake, after defaming an election official, legally admits to defaming an election official then publicly denies legally admitting to defaming an election official.
   
• Oh look, says Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged, we found voter fraud in Georgia, just like Republicans have been warning us. But, oops, the fraud was by a Republican official. Again.
   
• Green Eagle says Democrats are way ahead of Republicans in campaign finance,
  AND
  Democrats are really happy about it,
  AND
  Democrats are forgetting ONE little detail.
   
• The collision of a cargo vessel with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore resulted in tragic deaths and a whole lot of social media conspiracy theories.
   
  Some Republican politicians parrot the conservative line blaming Black people. After all, of the half dozen Commissioners for the Port of Baltimore, two are Black.

  This is what happens when you have Governors who prioritize diversity over the wellbeing and security of citizens. https://t.co/lSU0RDUIi7

  — Phil Lyman for Governor (@phil_lyman) March 26, 2024

  … before realizing that overt racism is 70 years or so away from mainstream opinion:

  Salt Lake Tribune:

  He [you sir] said his social media team often posts without his approval, which is what happened Tuesday morning

  "the people who handle the social media are more provocative than what I’m comfortable with"

  So why is the post still up?https://t.co/s3C1XoetI1

  — Burr Deming – @BurrLand01@mastodon.world (@BurrLand01) March 28, 2024

  And, of course, there is this:

  I understand the bridge was constructed in 1977.
  Port security is managed by the US Coast Guard.

  Experts say no bridge in the US could have survived such a massive collision.

  So I'm curious about the logic of blaming the 2 Black members out of the half dozen Port Commissioners

  — Burr Deming – @BurrLand01@mastodon.world (@BurrLand01) March 28, 2024

  Another theory is neatly crushed by CATO Institute’s Julian Sanchez:

  Post by @normative

  View on Threads

• Hey, I have no engineering expertise, know nothing about bridge construction, but have ridden on a ship a few times, therefore I’m just as qualified as the Fox News team or Victor Davis Hansen, or some guy who has appeared on Ancient Aliens, therefore I should opine.
   
  Thus begins PZ Myers, discussing the collapse of the Key bridge.
   
  He mostly reacts to knee jerk reactions by jerks who knee jerk about most everything.
   
  He winds up with an alternative to guessing:
  Or I could stand back and let competent people find solutions, which probably don’t involve impossibly strong structures or firing people with the wrong skin color, but where’s the fun in that?
   
  What is between his intro and conclusion is sharp, biting fun – a welcomed rarity after this tragedy.
   
• In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson finds new Republican hostility to rebuilding a bridge after a tragic and sudden collapse. Parallel incidents in the past were met with a markedly different Republican response.
   
  That is not the only Republican evolution. Richardson reviews the legacy of welcoming and promoting immigration, an approach that began with Lincoln and continued through Reagan.
   
  She concludes, quoting columnist Will Bunch:
  These six workers who perished were not “poisoning the blood of our country,” they were replenishing it … They may have been born all over the continent, but when these men plunged into our waters on Tuesday, they died as Americans.
   
  Her analysis is also available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.
   
• NBC decided not to put Ronna McDaniel on the air, then terminated her new contract altogether. Republicans are outraged. Seems NBC won’t tolerate ideological differences. Right?
   
  The most cogent arguments I heard against hiring her involved her previous oft repeated support for the Big Lie – that Biden was not legitimately elected – and her later insistence she had to say those untrue things because of her position with the Republican National Committee. Both the lie and the later excuse spoke to a lack of integrity. Is she to be believed whenever her employer changes, followed by her public statements?
   
  Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson puts it succinctly:

  Somebody look through NBC's history to see if they hired Tokyo Rose for a diverse view point. https://t.co/T34EFoETDd

  — James Wigderson (@jwigderson) March 27, 2024

• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger brings polling evidence that Bibi Netanyahu has accomplished what I would have thought impossible. A majority of Americans now disapprove of what Israel is doing after the October 7 Hamas attack.
   
• For a decade and a half, geologists have debated whether to declare a new geological age created by human influence.
   
  A formal proposal was just voted down by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, which is assigned by the International Union of Geological Sciences to determine such things.
   
  Still with me?
   
  Pretty much all the expert geological world agrees that human impact on Earth geology, climate, ecosystems, and pretty much everything else has been profound. That’s an understatement.
   
  But the proposal that geologists voted down specified that the new to-be-recognized geologic age began about 1950. That was based on measurements of plutonium in Crawford Lake in Canada. Go figure. Something about Trinity and the nuclear age.
   
  But others insisted the starting date should be 1780. That’s when the steam engine was invented.
   
  A number of expert geologists said the real date should be 1610 for some reason. Others said 12,000 BCE – has to do with agriculture.
   
  So the 1950 starting date and the dawning of the new age was rejected.
   
  A columnist in the NY Times wrote an off-beat opinion piece saying the whole concept of blaming humans is wrong because the culprit is a small minority, which is to say insanely wealthy industrialists who are the root of all evil.
   
  William F. Buckley once quoted someone or other about interminable religious debates and overstatements:
  The Jesuits score from the exaggerations of their opponents. Accuse them of killing three men and a dog, and they will triumphantly produce the dog alive.
   
  Which brings us to libertarian iconoclast Michael A. LaFerrara, who always (always) starts with the premise that government regulation is the evilest of evildoing evil. Since a climate crisis would require some government intervention, it can’t be true. Just can’t be.
   
  Michael rips apart the op-ed piece. Good job, Mike
   
  But then he goes on (Oh Mike!): the geological vote demonstrates that climate concerns are scientific fiction.
   
  You see, climate change is disproven, or at least unproven, or actually a good thing, or a sign of human progress, or we can’t do anything about it anyway, or we can all be inspired to plant grass, or something. But not anything requiring the evilest of evildoing evil.
   
  And anyone who disagrees, even in the slightest, is a Stalinist dictator wannabe who hates mankind.
   
  Science has now proven his point.
   
• Disaffected and it Feels So Good covers the terrorist executed tragedy in Russia.
   
  The US State Department had found out about it and had tried to warn Putin, but Putin blew them off.
   
  ISIS claims responsibility, Russia has caught the ISIS perpetrators, yet Vlad Putin tries to put the tragedy to use by implausibly blaming Ukraine, a line picked up by Putin propagandists.
   
  Key accurate social media reaction:

  PUTIN: It was Ukraine.
  ISIS: We did it.
  PUTIN: and supporters of Ukraine.
  ISIS: No really, it was us.
  PUTIN: It was planned by Zelensky!
  ISIS: Is this thing on? We said we did it.
  PUTIN: We will punish Ukraine for this attack.
  ISIS: Hello? Hello!!! WE SAID WE DID IT FFS!

  — Mr. Newberger (@jeremynewberger) March 23, 2024

• Sarah Cooper is dating again. She meets a nice young man. They have so much in common. AND he is definitely not racist:
   
  
• Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes performs a brutal review of I’m OK – You’re Okay, a book published in 1969. It was all the rage during those years when I was being introduced to young adulthood. The idea was that we are more influenced by childhood memories than we realize, and that we incorporate unconscious life’s lessons into our interactions (transactions) with others. The book was intended to serve as a primer on how to make the entire process more productive and happier.
   
  Vincent achieves his happy transaction by ripping off the polite covers and vivisecting each paragraph.
   
  Entertaining as all hell. I love this kind of stuff.
   
• In Happiness Between Tails da-AL celebrates poetry with guest host, poet Jean Colonomos, who is also a former televised dancer (kind of a Renaissance multi-talent): video included.
   
• Erica Jong is best known for her breakthrough novel, Fear of Flying.
   
  SilverAppleQueen discovers a less famous, quite telling, poem from half a century back on unwitting cooperation in self-slavery.
   
  Key first lines:
  The best slave
  does not need to be beaten.
  She beats herself.
   
• @whiskeywhistle98 learns something very new about cooking zucchini.
   
  
• Clickbait satirist Reductress is excited at the newest announcement by an auto manufacturer. They will achieve carbon neutrality, coincidentally at almost the exact moment the icecaps have completely melted.
   
• YellowDog Granny explains, with visual aids, what Trump looks for on the internet, why Republicans want to impeach Biden, and why we don’t want to screw with YellowDog Granny.
   
• Fans of The Savanna Bananas witness a surprise come-from-behind victory:
   
  
• Mark Waulberg (No, not Mark Wahlberg, the other Mark) demonstrates how long goodbyes can become awkward: