FairAndUNbalanced.com

 

From News Corpse:

Indeed, Giuliani may have been the acorn that grew into the mighty oak of Trump’s criminality. At the very least, Giuliani was watering the seedling every time he appeared on Fox News making statements that further incriminated Trump. The Daily Beast interviewed several Senate sources from both parties who indicated an aversion to dealing with Giuliani, whose credibility they said was suspect. Even White House sources were reticent to deal with Giuliani for fear of being caught up in his crackpot schemes. But surprisingly, one of Trump’s most devoted fluffers, Lindsey Graham, is also putting distance between himself and Trump’s lawyer:

“My advice to Giuliani would be to share what he got from Ukraine with the IC [intelligence community] to make sure it’s not Russia propaganda. I’m very suspicious of what the Russians are up to all over the world.”

That’s right. Trump’s sentinel in the Senate can’t be sure whether Trump’s attorney is a Russian asset.

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From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

I don’t know if Bloomberg has a chance of winning the primaries (I kinda doubt it), but I suspect that he’s playing something similar to chess, where you don’t wound the king, you kill the king (and in this analogy, the king is Prznint Stupid). Even if Bloomberg doesn’t get any delegates, his relentless saturation bombing, er, advertisements against Trump are hogging the commercial airwaves. I don’t even watch teevee but I’ve seen his ads every where I go.

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

Did you get a 25% raise this year? If you make minimum wage, that would be a raise of $3770. If you make about the median wage in this country, that would be in the neighborhood of about $15,000.

I doubt any in the middle or working classes got a 25% raise in 2019. In fact, I’ll bet that most American workers didn’t even get the $3770 raise to give a minimum wage earner that 25%.

Most Americans, especially the bottom 90%, are just struggling to keep up with inflation. A 25% raise would be a dream come true, but it’s really a dream with no chance of coming true with the Republicans in power.

But the super-rich, the people who didn’t need to make more than they already do, got a 25% raise in 2019.

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From Infidel753:

One of the disadvantages of a blog becoming more widely read is that it starts attracting the attention of various kinds of nutcases and obsessives. These include ideological purists who feel obligated and entitled to post tendentious screeds in the comments to “correct” me whenever I deviate from the mandatory orthodox position on something or other (Brexit and Israel come to mind). They practically never address the specifics I raise, but just regurgitate their own canned talking points. Such incursions remain rare, however, probably because I don’t post about those topics very often.

Recently, though, I’ve been targeted by much more intensive trolling focused on one particular issue — transgender ideology. This is odd because I’ve only ever written one post on that topic, which says pretty much everything I have to say about it. However, almost every time one of the link round-ups includes a link related to transgender ideology, one of these trolls (I’m not sure whether it’s multiple people or one person using multiple names) shows up and tries to hijack the comment thread into a squabble about that issue. The degree of obsessiveness displayed is disturbing.

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From Joe Gandelman, Editor-In-Chief, The Moderate Voice:

The emergency lights are now flashing in many Jewish synagogues, homes and among many Jews in America.

At a time when antisemitism is rising in the world and in the United States, the most recent horrific event, a string of stabbings during a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi’s Monsey, New York, is part of a larger pattern of attacks on Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jews are more easily recognizable by the way they dress. But as anyone who is Jewish will note: an antisemitic attack or action against any Jew is an alarm bell for all Jews. Particularly if it becomes part of a pattern.

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From The Journal of Improbable Research :

If you’re earnestly chasing something that can’t tun as fast as you do, a cursory mathematical analysis of the situation can give a reassuring result – you’ll probably catch up with it. (Despite what the Ancient Greek philosopher Zeno might have said about it). But what if the entity being chased knows that it’s being chased – and takes unorthodox avoidance measures. Such as running straight towards you, or deliberately trying to lead you towards a trap of some kind? The math(s) becomes considerably more complex.

Professor Andrew Gard of the mathematics and computer science department at Lake Forest College, Illinois, US, has extensively explored such situations.

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From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

I’m kind of rubbish anymore when you get right down to it–I recall so much of pop culture that I sometimes feel like I am swimming in a miasma of whatever went before. I guess that’s why I think it’s a bit weird Trump very notoriously pardoned another Sgt. Calley. in the form of Eddie Gallagher. It seems like Trump is so obviously trying to signify that he does not care what soldiers do for the greater good of the state (of Trumpworld). And he also doesn’t care about law and order if it is his own version thereof.

He makes law and order. They don’t exist in and of themselves, He decides Gallagher acted within his rights and now, this man is one of TrumpWorld’s saints. Having performed the miracle of wasting someone.

This reminds me the least bit of the 1990’s movie “Wag the Dog” and the story of Ol’ Shoe where the figure manufactured to be heroic turned out to not actually be sane or great at all.

Anyway, Gallagher is not so great.

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From PZ Myers:

No? A nebbish in glasses and a suit, especially a white nebbish, doesn’t fit your picture of a terrorist? Adjust your search image. That’s Matt Shea, an elected Republican representative from Washington state whose activities have been investigated in a report with this alarming conclusion.

Based on evidence obtained in this investigation, it is more probable than not that Representative Shea is likely to plan, direct and engage in additional future conflicts that could carry with them significant risk of bloodshed and loss of life. It is the professional opinion of the Investigators, that on a more probable than not basis, Representative Shea presents a present and growing threat of risk to others through political violence.

That conclusion was reached not by criticizing his badthink, but by looking at what he has actually done. We’re talking about more than just openly despising the federal government (I’m guilty of that one), but also actively conspiring with violent organizations, such as various militia groups.

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From Tommy Christopher:

Biden was asked about Sanders’ remark in Iowa on Friday by CBS News correspondent Bo Erickson.

“Senator Sanders said that with your vote on the Iraq War and trade, President Trump will eat your lunch in the general election,” Erickson said, and asked “Will he eat your lunch?”

“Tell him to come and I’ll give him some dessert at the White House,” Biden replied with a smile.

“Who, President Trump?” Erickson asked.

“Sanders,” Biden said.

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From The Propaganda Professor:

It all started with a single article published on HuffPost called “The Environmental Impact Of Your Thanksgiving Dinner”. The purpose of this article was to suggest some steps to lessen that impact. The purpose was not to discourage anyone from celebrating Thanksgiving at all. How do we know this? Well, maybe because the author said so:

No one should be discouraged from enjoying the holiday or celebrating with family and friends…

No one possibly could misconstrue an unequivocal utterance like that, right? Ah, never underestimate the extraordinary skill of Fox “News”, which repeatedly hammered away at the utterly false narrative that “liberals” or “the left” or “college students” want to “cancel Thanksgiving”.

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