Seldom Balanced – Usually Fair
From Infidel753:
Some more revised word definitions, based on what the words visibly should mean…..
Adverse: A poetic advertisement
Bellowing: You’re in debt in the amount of one clanging instrument
Brokerage: Anger at running out of money
Cobalt: A fellow resident of Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania
Collusion: The illusion of a collision
From News Corpse:
Big Baby Trump Resorts to Whining and Lying When Fellow Republican Says He’s Impeachable
The pattern of Trump’s attack is typified by first maligning his foe as an inferior with ulterior motives. Thus, Amash is a “lightweight” who is just looking for attention. But then Trump made the laughable charge that Amash had not read the Mueller report, which Trump absolutely didn’t read. At best he had one of his nannies summarize it with a few charts and pictures that made him look like a superhero.
In what might ordinarily be considered a hysterical satire, Trump dismissed the Mueller report as the “biased” product of “18 Angry Dems who hated Trump.” (For the record, there are more like 65 million angry Democrats who hate Trump). However, he also said that it found “NO COLLUSION and, ultimately, NO OBSTRUCTION.” But if the report that allegedly exonerated him was biased, doesn’t that mean that it DID find collusion and obstruction?
From Scotties Toy Box:
I admire the selfless action of Mr. Keanon Lowe especially since just recently a young man who did the same thing to a gunman in a college class lost his life saving the others. However I think Mr. Lowe did not get the recognition he richly deserves. The shooters name was mentioned more than the one who stopped him, held him for police, and possibly saved lives.
From PZ Myers:
Holy shit, that was bad. As I mentioned before, several local church groups booked the Morris Theater to show the Pure Flix piece of crap, Unplanned, so I attended today to have an informed perspective on the movie. It was worse than I expected. It’s pure nonstop defamation of Planned Parenthood from beginning to end, and doesn’t really address any of the issues behind abortion at all — the whole goal is to demonize abortion and family planning.
Unfortunately, the theater was packed. They had clearly brought in several churchloads of people to see this thing, and it was intensely religious. They had 4 pastors and the director of Options for Women, one of those bogus nothingburger outfits that claims to provide alternatives for women who find themselves pregnant, but really, as the director announced, only provides a “passion and love for Jesus”. There was an opening prayer, of course, and they announced that there were offering baskets in the lobby for donations on the way out.
I did not make a donation.
Then the movie began.
From Dave Dubya:
On May 1st I wrote: “The entire Republican Party is guilty of covering up for criminals, violating their oaths of office, and betraying our Constitution.”
Our friend TB3 questioned the accuracy of my broad statement: “Surely not the entire Republican Party. Just the corrupt ones afraid of Trump airing their dirty laundry. It just seems to be a large number of them.”
I responded, “TB3, Perhaps I am exaggerating a bit by including the entire Republican Party. Elected or appointed individuals who stand with Dems for impeachment, and charges of obstruction of justice, and charges of violating campaign finance laws can be excused. I would include any Republican who challenges his fitness for office and renounces support for his presidency and his administration. Shall we start a list when they appear?”
Until this weekend there were zero names of elected Republicans to begin that list.
At last we have one name for the list.
From Jonathan Bernstein:
History indicates that attacking Iran wouldn’t help the president politically, regardless of how the war goes.
If Donald Trump is currently wondering about the potential domestic political effects of a U.S. war in Iran, the answer is pretty clear: Don’t do it.
It’s certainly possible that Trump could benefit from a “rally around the flag” effect if war breaks out. But it’s by no means a sure thing. Political scientists have found that, as Richard Skinner put it: “Usually the rally-round-the-flag effect requires opposite-party elites to embrace the war (or at least not criticize it).” What’s important about that finding is what it doesn’t include.
From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:
It’s a pretty well-known fact that Republicans will accept money from anyone (small, unmarked bills in non-sequential numbers preferred). And even though sometimes the money is from an unsavory source (like, say, another Republican!) they will still take it.
Anyway, I’m old enough to remember when in 2018 the entire GOP was shocked and outraged that RNC Finance Chairman billionaire Steve Wynn of casino fame, one of their biggest donors, was caught sexually abusing and harassing his employees! No, no, a step to far for the Family Values team! and they returned his Ameros and You’re Fired’ed him.
Crisis over, amirite?
“The national Republican Party has accepted nearly $400,000 in donations from disgraced ex-casino mogul Steve Wynn — a move that comes just over a year after he was accused of sexually harassing or assaulting employees over a decade-long period.
From Jon Perr at PERRspectives:
But among the most disgusting frauds committed by Team Trump to sell his bogus claim that “our focus is on helping the folks who work in the mailrooms and the machine shops of America” was a particularly foul turd of a talking point lovingly polished by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. This tale concerned the massive reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, a single cut responsible for $1.38 trillion in new red ink over its first decade. Trump’s “plumbers, the carpenters, the cops, the teachers, the truck drivers, the pipe fitters … the people that like me best” would win big, Mnuchin guaranteed in September 2017, because most of the benefits from a corporate tax cut flow to workers:
On Fox News, Mnuchin claimed that “most economists believe that over 70 percent of corporate taxes are paid for by the workers.” At an event in Kentucky, he declared that “over 80 percent of business taxes is borne by the worker.”
As it has turned out, the best estimate we have for how corporate America spent its $150 billion year 1 windfall from the GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act shows that it didn’t plow 70-80% of the proceeds into higher wages and bonuses for its workers. According to Peter Cary and Allan Holmes of the Center for Public Integrity, the actual answer is 6%.
From Dave Dubya:
“Total exoneration! No collusion!” The Trump Cult has been repeating these two lies about the Mueller Report.
The lies are being tolerated and even embraced by the ignorant masses, of course.
Unfortunately the ignorant masses are not only in the cult. Moderates are duped as well. And so are many liberals who have not actually read the Mueller Report.
From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:
The basic feature of capitalism, which is integral to Americanism, is individual autonomy and self-governance, within the confines established by the same rights of others. Consequently, the individual needs the freedom of action, as defined by the principle of individual rights, to live by the judgement of his own mind without coercive interference from others, including others as government officials. For capitalism to function, one’s rights should never be at risk in any election.
Democracy is unlimited rule by electoral majority (or its elected representatives). The basic premise of democracy is that the elected government can do whatever it chooses to do to whomever it chooses based solely on the premise that it represents the “will of the people” as expressed by victorious factions in elections. There are no constitutional limits to government power except as determined by government officials, and thus no way to protect individual rights. When majority rule is the standard, there are no limiting principles to that rule. Democracy is the rule of mob might, not objective law. “Freedom” is basically government permission, and individual “rights” can be restricted or discarded any time the government can claim it is acting on the “will of the people: that is, there are no inalienable rights-which means, no rights at all. Democracy, properly understood, is a manifestation of totalitarian collectivism.