2020 Redeux, Reichstag Moment, COVID Karma, Ayn Angst, Mad Moms

  • @momwino98 considers what she would do if faced with a home break-in
    @momwino98

    ##stitch with @ryankayaks ##comedy ##foryourpage ##tiktokmom ##stains ##wtff

    ♬ original sound – @Momwino98


     

  • Scotties Toy Box looks at the strange and dangerous things happening around Trump on and after election night 2020. Starts with drunken Giulliani and goes to declaration of martial whatever.
     
  • In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson notes what should be seen as historic news: A Biden initiative that moves us closer to eliminating child poverty. But that report is overshadowed by new revelations about the Jan 6 insurrection and how those in the know saw outgoing President Trump closing in on ending representative government in America. The phrase used behind the scenes by military command at the time was Reichstag moment.
     
  • News Corpse makes a compelling case that the deadly Jan 6 insurrection should not be regarded as a singular event, but as an opening salvo in an ongoing agenda currently aimed at the overthrow of American representative democracy.
     
  • The Attorney General of Texas wants to demonstrate that elections are being stolen by fraudulent voters. So he finds someone who stood in line for 4 hours to vote, who by law was supposed to be allowed to vote, who thought he was registered but wasn’t, and who cast a provisional ballot. So that voter is now facing years in prison. Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez reacts.

  • In case we get overwhelmed by news of America’s possible dissolution, CalicoJack in The Psy of Life suggests we accept inspiration from a much more desperate national time, and the Gettysburg Address.
     
  • I lived through one Presidential assassination. I never want to see another. So I have no qualms about the Secret Service spiriting the Chief Executive, any Commander-in-Chief, to safety at any hint of prospective danger.
     
    tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors takes a look at reports on Donald Trump’s panicked retreat to an underground bunker. News of that flight seems to have violated what Mr. Trump thinks of as his tough guy image. The only thing that frightened him more than the distant crowd of protesters was that anyone would find out that he was afraid of the distant crowd of protesters. So he tried to use the power of the federal government to identify whoever leaked the story and to have that person executed.
     
    Which, I suppose, makes him a tough guy after all?
     
  • On the other hand, Andy Borowitz reports that, although he instigated, Donald Trump did not actually lead the attempted coup to keep himself in office. He had a podiatrist’s note exempting him.
     
  • driftglass thinks he knows why Megyn Kelly now says the Jan 6 Capitol lynch mob wasn’t so bad after all.
     
  • Frances Langum admits to a bad case of superficiality watching one-time Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in horrible television lighting as he is not asked about millions in hijacked funds directed to himself, his family, and his friends. Mnuchin does insist he has no idea who won the 2020 Presidential election because he was too busy working on COVID to notice.
     
  • At The Moderate Voice, editor Joe Gandelman watches House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s pilgrimage, catching up with our once-upon-a-time president on a New Jersey golf course, then kneeling to kiss the ring of Donald Trump.
     
    A conservative friend once chided me for thinking of McCarthy as some sort of satanic figure. I was grateful for the opportunity, at long last, to use a line from an old television show. Don’t be silly. He’s not Satan, said I, He’s just someone who runs into the 7-11 to buy Satan his cigarettes.
     
    Folks my age don’t really need a keen wit. Just a dim, distant memory of better times and decent movies.
     
  • Eeeggg. The Palmer Report brings news of the new Donald Trump-Bill O’Reilly tour! The triumphant rallies are not exactly sell outs. Vast sections of seats are vacant.
     
    Just a thought: maybe they should go all Adam Smith and follow market theory. Lower ticket prices to increase demand.
     
    Or just give tickets away.
     
    Or maybe pay people to show up.
     
  • A conservative media personality suggests that vaccines go against nature. Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged speculates on just which groups of people are on his list of those he and nature want wiped out.
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony sees the against nature suggestion as a form of unfortunate evolution in action. Those who believe vaccines are against nature are most likely to experience the raw power of nature without vaccination.
     
    Kind of like tornadoes being nature’s way of telling you to get your ass down to any anthropogenic cellar you can find.

Continue reading “2020 Redeux, Reichstag Moment, COVID Karma, Ayn Angst, Mad Moms”

Democracy, SCOTUS, Constitution,
Education, Racism, Education, Jan 6

For no particular reason, except that I like this:

@ashleykeiko

Up by @iamcardib 🎶 A classical pianist and a jazz saxophonist walk into a Cardi B concert 😂 ##up ##cardib ##saxbae ##splitscreen ##nottwins ##ashleykeiko

♬ original sound – ashleykeiko

  • Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group speak about SCOTUS news as the Supreme Court ends its term, and possibly democracy. Your choice of a podcast or a transcript.
     
  • Nan’s Notebook ponders the degree to which, in our Constitutional Republic, we actually follow the Constitution.
     
  • NOJO presents to us the holy words of the US Constitution from the halls of the William Shatner School of Dramatic Overacting.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life says the war on history is war on democracy.
     
  • A noted journalist works hard, joins a prestigious university as an untenured professor, finds her tenure held up because of research she did on the history of racism in America, but finally gets that tenure and the academic recognition she deserves. Congratulations all around!
     
    Hackwhackers applauds as Nikole Hannah-Jones goes all Johnny Paycheck and tells the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to take that tenure and shove it!.
     
  • At The Onion, Congressional Democrats put on an elaborate 4th Of July pageant to teach Republicans the importance of democracy.
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit notes the secret weapon that the FBI is using to bring Jan 6 insurrectionists to justice: the inability of so many to think things through.
     
  • Well, it’s lawsuit time yet again in TrumpLand as our once president files against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for censoring him. Seems they banned election and COVID falsehoods. Andy Borowitz reports on the latest as Mr. Trump sues eighty-one million voters for banning him from the White House.
     
  • In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson listens as President Joe Biden honors Independence Day and uses the administration’s response to COVID to defend democracy.
     
    Two signs, I suppose, that we live in strange times:
     
    – Vaccination against a deadly virus is seen as controversial.
    – Democracy is now something that, in America,
        needs explaining and defending.
     
  • Want to get more people vaccinated? Save some lives? The Biden administration plans to use tried and true personal outreach.
     
    Works for the Census.
    Works for political campaigns.
    Works for Jehovah’s Witnesses.
     
    News Corpse reads up on conservatives outraged at the conspiracy. Because it’s actually a secret plot to confiscate bibles and guns.
     
  • Dave Dubya reads comments published by Congressional Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Republican from Georgia. Taylor-Greene reminds us
    that No one cares about the Delta Variant or any other variant,
    that No one likes Kamala, and
    that racism is gone from American because We don’t care about color, we care about character. MLK’s dream came true, thank God!
     
    As we might expect, Dave Dubya has a few words for the Honorable Member of Congress.
     
  • At Unabashedly American, my long time friend Darrell Michaels goes all Ted Cruz on us, arguing that Russia’s military is stronger than ours because, I guess, theirs is made up of manly men, and ours is composed of girly girls. Damn woke liberals!
     
    Oh Darrell, Darrell, Darrell. Where did your mother and I go wrong?

Continue reading “Democracy, SCOTUS, Constitution,
Education, Racism, Education, Jan 6″

Why Conservatives Get a Free Ride on Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory definitions invite conservative distortion.

I have tried finding a path through academic obscurity. I got stuck in quicksand composed of phrases like:

  • We reject evidence and reason
     
  • We reject concepts of truth and merit
     
  • We are captives of complex, changing, subtle social and institutional dynamic
     
  • The key Critical Race Theory concept is intersectionality
     
  • White supremacy is an intersectional social construction

Huh?

Anyone trying to get an honest grasp gets turned away by a sort of sneering academic mishmash of jargon that might as well be written in Sanscrit.

Conservative translations lack truth but do possess the virtue of clarity.

As soon as conservative activists learn to read and develop the patience to dive into the tall weeds, they will discover that, through the argle bargle, some golden phrases stand out.

Like, for example: “reject evidence and reason” and “reject concepts of truth and merit”

All of which will pretty much take the wind out of the sails of those of us who, quite correctly, point at the rejection of truth and reason on the the part of conservative critics.

Conservative Race Theory, Bi-Parted, Execute Dems, GOP Defund Police, CRT

  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors watches establishment Democrats get slapped around by an angry impatient young Turk until Whoopi Goldberg steps in and knocks him out. tengrain patiently explains why Whoopie is right.
     
  • If only Democrats would surrender a little faster to these nice, cooperative Republicans. driftglass does not seem surprised that the same guy who astonishingly accused Obama of excessive partisanship now catalogues Joe Biden’s missed opportunities. Said loss seems to be caused by a lack of empathy with poor beleaguered Republicans, who are so eager to help him.
     
  • Frances Langum watches MSNBC news anchor Brian Williams take conservatives at OAN to the woodshed as they advocate the execution of those who voted against Trump.
     
    Brian! You mean we can’t kill the hundreds of thousands of traitors who stole the election by voting for the wrong guy?
     
  • News Corpse sees the conservative call for mass executions of Democratic traitors cautiously disowned on the Fox Network. Howard Kurtz seems disturbed by the execution talk because due process. The rigged election has not been conclusively proven and the Traitors have not yet been identified and charged.
     
    Apparently, wiser conservative heads will prevail and the executions will be delayed until after the conservative overthrow!
     
  • In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson sees Republican politicians unifying behind a few issues in the coming campaign. COVID decline and the economic upswing are no longer to be discussed in polite company. Statues to those who fought and killed to defend slavery are now themselves to be defended. The 2020 election is to be relitigated with vote “audits” by private groups. All abortions are to be outlawed. Teaching in public schools about racism must be limited to how it no longer exists in America. And, of course, immigrants are to be attacked. So elections in 2022 are to be about saving confederate statues, performing election audits, banning abortion, forbidding teaching about racism, and attacking immigrants.
     
    Some of those positions are unpopular with anyone but rabid Republicans. But conservative lawmakers plan to insulate themselves from the popular will through voter suppression and hyper-aggressive gerrymander.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger dives into the data. Most Americans want a more fair economy as long as it isn’t called socialism.
     
    Reminds me of my socialist friend who began nodding as I suggested that most people do not realize that the technical meaning of Socialism is getting your ass kicked in the next national election. To his credit, he laughed.
     
  • Republicans have supported police by trying hard to tie Democrats to the absurd Defund the Police slogan adopted by some leftists, and rejected pretty much uniformly by national Democrats. Meanwhile, Democrats have worked to increase police funding, while Republicans have insisted on defunding the police they maintained they were supporting. When he graced the Oval Office, Mr. Trump proposed slashing police funding in every budget he submitted. And, this year, Republicans voted against Biden proposals to send funds to local police departments to support police.
     
    Tommy Christopher watches one of the more entertaining White House press conferences as Fox network personality Peter Doocy tries hard to dominate White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki over the crime issue. After all, Democrats are all about Defund the Police! Jen Psaki responds with a smile. Democrats supported funding and Republicans fought it. Poor Doocy flounders, arguing that nobody told Republicans that money for police could fight crime.
     
    Jen Psaki simply reminds Doocy that actions speak louder than words, then pretty much lets the poor soul tangle himself in his own barbed wire.

Continue reading “Conservative Race Theory, Bi-Parted, Execute Dems, GOP Defund Police, CRT”

Popular Biden, Vaccines, Rudy Dissed, Secret Infected Service, Crush SNL, CRT

Continue reading “Popular Biden, Vaccines, Rudy Dissed, Secret Infected Service, Crush SNL, CRT”

Vaccine Goes Magnetic, Passports,
Insurrect Handshake, Pants, Manchin

  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged watches as a legislative witness, testifying in Pennsylvania, tries to demonstrate that vaccines magnetize the human body.
     
    There has been some mirth on the internet over this.

  • CATO Institute’s Julian Sanchez analyzes the newest preferred target of anti-VAXers to decide whether vaccine passports are Orwellian infringements, or simply a combination of good business, good health, free association, and common sense. Okay, so we can guess where he goes on this.
     
  • Then it gets serious. North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz hears from a woman who lost her mother to COVID but has had no opportunity to truly mourn. He contemplates the impossibility, until postponed grief has been fulfilled and suspended loss acknowledged, of going back to normality.
     
  • Pretty much everyone has seen video of a Republican Congressional Representative denying that any insurrection even happened. Just a bunch of tourists says he. Then a photo of that same Repub Rep emerges showing him screaming in panic and hiding behind a police officer as the Jan 6 mob approaches.
     
    At The Moderate Voice, Dorian de Wind notes a remarkable chance encounter between that same Rep Rep insurrection denier and one of those officers who was injured saving sorry posterior of said Rep Rep and other deniers. If you haven’t seen the story already, you are allowed to guess who refused a friendly handshake.
     
  • Republican representative Andrew Clyde notwithstanding, Frances Langum produces new bodycam footage showing a clear Jan 6 deficit of harmless tourists. Who would have thought?
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit finds yet another reason the FBI is able to identify so many Jan. 6 insurrectionists for arrest. Has to do with very poor internet reception in the Capitol Building.
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony illustrates the four groups who most apparently participated in the Jan 6 mob attack.
     
  • Ever wish insurrection supporting office holders would just go away? Me too. But we have to support their right to holler fire in a crowded theatre, right? Scotties Toy Box says that there is that little bit in the Constitution contained in the 14th Amendment. Hmmmm.
     
  • Nojo goes poetic with the best set of verses I’ve seen this week: an ode to Joe Manchin.
     
  • You gonna believe mere videos when the Lord speaks something else? News Corpse observes as Kayleigh McKEnany proves that she never ever lied while serving as Trump Press Sec. Proof of truth is simple. She couldn’t possibly have told a falsehood because she is a person of faith. So close your eyes and check no further, folks. The issue is settled.

Continue reading “Vaccine Goes Magnetic, Passports,
Insurrect Handshake, Pants, Manchin”