Month: June 2016

 
From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

Recently, a new reader sent me several questions she would like me to answer. Her questions and my answers follow.

How do you help a loved one even if you still believe? I am okay with my husband not believing in Christianity, and I want to be supportive, even though I remain a believer. I still love him and don’t want anyone shoving religion down his throat.

This is an interesting question. I think this is the first time a believer has written me to ask how best to help his or her unbelieving spouse, Usually I get emails from unbelievers who need help as they try to live with spouses who are still believers.

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From Last Of The Millenniums:

I don’t know if the Orlando shooter/murderer will be found to be a Conservative or not.

He was Muslim and so Conservatives jump all too quickly on that and equate religion with violence.

Just a little over a year ago a California Conservative wanted a ballot measure to allow stoning of gay people.

Go to (Google) Right Wing Watch and they have a HUGE archive of Conservative so called ‘christian’ religious leaders spouting hate, including violence and death to anyone LGBT.

YouTube, as Conservatives and especially The Donald will find out this year – is not your friend.

Just 6 months ago, Republicans in the Senate killed a bill that would immediately prevent anyone on the ‘no fly list’ from purchasing a gun.

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From Green Eagle:

I want to bring your attention to this just released study from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, dealing with the treatment of the candidates by the press. Trump’s abominable behavior in the last few weeks has led to some highly visible negative coverage by the press, but do not believe that this indicates that the mainstream media intend to do their job in the upcoming Presidential contest. Here’s a sample of what they found; first about Trump:

When critics have accused journalists of fueling the Trump bandwagon, members of the media have offered two denials. One is that they were in watchdog mode, that Trump’s coverage was largely negative, that the “bad news” outpaced the “good news.” The second rebuttal is that the media’s role in Trump’s ascent was the work of the cable networks—that cable was “all Trump, all the time” whereas the traditional press held back.

Neither of these claims is supported by the evidence

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From Infidel753:

Yesterday’s speech by Bernie Sanders marks a turning point in the Presidential race. Republicans in despair over their own sociopathic narcissist of a nominee have been clinging to the hope that Bernie might run as a third candidate or at least keep on fighting Hillary into the general election, thus splitting the liberal vote. Bernie has, of course, never given any encouragement to such hopes, and yesterday he made it clear that nothing of the kind will happen.

He dedicated most of the speech to the issues he’s been fighting for during the campaign.

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From Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

Hillary Clinton delivered a substantive and somewhat bipartisan speech on Monday about the massacre in Orlando, Florida. She offered a number of specific-sounding prescriptions and recalled George W. Bush’s respect for the Muslim community.

Donald Trump? He started by bragging about himself and hinting that Barack Obama might be part of a plot against the U.S. Then he delivered a speech so full of flat-out falsehoods that the New York Times and the Washington Post adopted, as the Washington Examiner’s Byron York noted a new tone in straight-news general election reporting.

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From PZ Myers at Pharyngula:

A member of the British Parliament, Jo Cox, has been assassinated by a man inflamed by the recent Brexit chaos — he shouted “Britain first!” when he was arrested. The media is reporting on the case now. I’ll bet you’ve heard this familiar refrain before.

The man being held in connection with the death of MP Jo Cox has been named as Thomas Mair, who was described as a “loner” with a history of mental health problems…

Loner. Mentally ill. Yeah, that’s it. Explains everything.

No, it doesn’t.

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From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

As you all probably know, Senator John McCain is facing his second re-election race since Obama beat him in the 2008 race for the White House. It hasn’t been easy. And it might not get better. The fact of the matter is, the top of a national ticket matters, and if the AZ Sen race seems to be close (or has his opponent, Ann Kirkpatrick, with a slight lead) the reality is, a fairly unpopular, not to say unqualified, GOP 2016 presidential candidate like Donald Trump–the man who got something like five Vietnam deferments and had the nerve to question McCain’s own war hero status–could have a negative impact on his re-election chances.

But that doesn’t mean the long-time Senator, with an underserved record of consistency and “Straight Talk”, can’t try to capitalize on Trump-sounding rhetoric.

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From Jon Perr at PERRspectives:

This week, the GOP’s best and brightest were shocked–SHOCKED!–to discover that the man who easily captured their party’s presidential nomination is a racist.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on Trump University case judge Gonzalo Curiel, Senator Lindsey Graham proclaimed, “This is the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy” and urged fellow Republicans to un-endorse the party’s nominee. Endangered Illinois GOP Senator Mark Kirk, who previously proposed sending free contraceptives to Mexico to curb future illegal immigration from south of the border, quickly followed that advice, declaring “Donald Trump’s belief that an American-born judge of Mexican descent is incapable of fairly presiding over his case is not only dead wrong, it is un-American.” Last Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused three times to acknowledge Trump’s was a “racist statement,” only to conclude by Tuesday the remarks were “outrageous and unacceptable.” For his part, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) acknowledged that Trump’s slanders represented “the textbook definition of a racist comment” while stopping short of withdrawing his support.

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• A hundred people are gunned down in Orlando, nearly half fatally. Capt. Fogg at Human Voices responds with his usual hopeless addiction to blame-both-sides.
   
  One side blames Obama for not attacking Islam. The other blames assault weapons, thereby leaving the shooter blameless.
   
  Our fearless middle-wing writer focuses his stern glare on the gun-safety side. Seems we are wrong because so many of us inaccurately describe the assault weapon as military grade rather than merely as deadly, and because prevention of the widespread violence would not prevent, say, arson. Or something. Besides, banning all guns, which as Capt. Fogg knows is what every gun safety proponent suggests, won’t make us safe.
   
  This is the reflexive world of truth-is-always-at-the-midpoint. Jokers to the left of him, clowns to the right, Capt. Fogg laments both, being stuck as he is at the precise middle.
   
  If we want an intelligent, non-lazy argument on guns, an argument with which many of us can disagree, we can start with Infidel753. That is one way to get an alternate viewpoint, yet avoid false equivalence and stale murder-is-already-illegal propositions that offer little return for the time investment. 
   
• Confronted with preventable tragic violence in Orlando, Max’s Dad is too angry for his usual rant and defers to Samantha Bee.
   
• The Big Empty takes a illustrated look at how the NRA good-guy-with-a-gun solution would work.
   
• MyCue23 reappears after all this time at Random Thoughts to suggest that the right answer to violent tragedy may be something other than helpless inaction.
   
• Abuse of power is one thing. Abuse of power to help steal from the public is another. Doing all that to steal retirement funds? Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass calls our attention to a governor who uses police to threaten those in charge of those retirement funds into letting said governor’s allies get their hands on those funds.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors seems not to find this reassuring. Representative Paul Ryan, Republican Speaker of the House and occasional supporter of Donald Trump explains to those nervous about Mr. Trump as President why they actually have nothing at all to be scared about. Nothing at all.
   
• nojo at Stinque confesses to a guilty pleasure: contemplating the possibility of a Trump-Gingrich ticket.
   
• Conservative T. Paine is back (Yay-y-y-y), at Saving Common Sense, with a conservative point-by-conservative-point of conservative distaste for Hillary and Donald. Did I mention that my excellent friend is a conservative arguing a conservative point of view at a conservative website?
   
• driftglass examines the hilarious transformation of Michael-Gerson-speak as he uses a small change in the written word to move the Republican party away from himself.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post guides us through history with an appreciative review of the life and career of the first woman member of the U.S. cabinet Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins who worked in the Roosevelt administration to lift the nation out of the Great Depression.
   
• Vincent at A wayfarer’s notes rediscovers that human experience is surrounded by something transcendent, beyond the day-to-day, and that religion, as it is used for other purposes, sometimes diverts us from that critical knowledge.

The Superlative Candidate

Donald Trump describes himself as he sees himself. He is the most successful businessman, the smartest graduate, the toughest candidate, the best thing that ever happened to evangelicals, the most attractive to women.

He is a candidate of superlatives. He believes that makes him a superlative candidate.

Transcript

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