Was There Another Reason Trump Vetoed National Defense?

found online by Raymond

 

Money Laundering: making dirty money appear clean     [Image from Bloomberg Quicktake]

Besides saving statues of slave holders
 
From Heather Cox Richardson in Letters from an American:

It includes a measure known as the Corporate Transparency Act, which undercuts shell companies and money laundering in America. The act requires the owners of any company that is not otherwise overseen by the federal government (by filing taxes, for example, or through close regulation) to file a report that identifies each person associated with the company who either owns 25% or more of it or exercises substantial control over it. That report, including name, birthdate, address, and an identifying number, goes to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The measure also increases penalties for money laundering and streamlines cooperation between banks and foreign law enforcement authorities.

America is currently the easiest place in the world for criminals to form an anonymous shell company which enables them to launder money, evade taxes, and engage in illegal payoff schemes. The measure will pull the rug out from both domestic and international criminals that take advantage of shell companies to hide from investigators.

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Sarah Cooper Retires Trump

found on Twitter by Burr

 
5 brief samples
 

Hilarious

Worth clicking on through.

(May not hold true for committed Republicans:
Partisan Discretion Advised)

Three Hiccups and Trump is Out

found online by Raymond

 

Congress Counts the Electoral Votes for President     [Image from C-SPAN]

From CalicoJack in The Psy of Life:

THE FIRST HICCUP can come from opening the Certificates of the Vote. Some genius Arizona Repubes made fake ones from the meeting of the some Repubes who voted for the Ol’ Pussy Grabber and sent it to the archivist of nation. I doubt the archivist will send it on to Congress since the Repubes admitted on national media that they were counterfeit. I don’t think Mother will have to chose which votes from Arizona to read. At any event, Arizona doesn’t have enough electoral votes to deny #BidenHarris the presidency.

THE SECOND HICCUP will happen when the House idiot caucus will make objections with or without a Senate co-signer. They are going to stink up the joint, delay the final verdict as long as possible, and, otherwise, humiliate the country on behalf of the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s ego. They might could find some sympathetic senator, like maybe, Ron Johnson (R – Putin’s Rubles), Tommy Tuberville (R – Post-Concussion Syndrome), or Ron Paul (R – Vanity), to co-sign for them.

AND THE THIRD HICCUP will occur if they can get a senator to sign off on their conspiracy theories and baseless accusations, then both houses of Congress retire to their separate chambers to debate on them and vote on the veracity of the accusations. The objections will lose no matter what since the House will vote them down and a tie goes to the Electoral College vote read to the Joint Session.

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I Really Detest Theistic Evolution

found online by Raymond

 

From PZ Myers:

You know that movie, God’s Not Dead? One of the ridiculous aspects of that movie was a professor who demanded that his students sign a statement of disbelief in gods. We don’t do that. It’s the antithesis of good teaching, actually, and also, chattering about metaphysics and theology is a waste of time in a science class. There is simply no debate here.

But in this essay, the author annoyed me from the very beginning. She points out that many of our students think they do have to be an atheist to accept evolution. She writes

Does someone have to be an atheist to accept evolution? According to the philosophy of science and many science educators the answer is no. However, my recent study has revealed that over half of college biology students in the United States think that in order to accept evolution fully, they would have to be an atheist. This is a challenge if we want to increase acceptance of evolution in a country were almost half of the residents do not think humans evolved.

Fine, although I think these students are equating “atheism” with the rejection of certain narrow tenets of a particular religious dogma. Unfortunately, her solution to this misperception by students is…to bring more religion into the science classroom. We are supposed to accommodate the believers, and reassure them that their superstition is just fine.

No. This is going too far.

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America’s Oppressed Christians Huddle Underground

found online by Raymond

 

The gathered Christians listen to Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Carol Of The Bells” at low volume for fear that someone on the surface might hear.     [Image from The Onion]

From The Onion:

Nation’s Oppressed Christians Huddle Underground To Light Single Shriveled Christmas Shrub

At great personal risk, the Christians were said to have smuggled in a few strings of colored mini lights, tinsel, popcorn garlands, Hallmark Keepsake ornaments, and other contraband in order to trim the shrub inside the subterranean chamber, the last place in America where they were safe to celebrate Christmas.

“We have come together today to observe a Christian holiday that has been all but stamped out on the surface,” said a man who wished to be identified only as “Greg,” after hanging a figurine of Mickey Mouse dressed as Santa Claus from one of the shrub’s boughs. “I can’t say this humble bush is much of a Christmas tree, but it was the largest we could manage to get here, given the circumstances. Let us remember, though, that to merely celebrate Christmas—to exchange gifts and eat our candy canes in peace—without the government or the powerful secular elite coming in and destroying it is a blessing in itself.”

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Propaganda Prop: Emotionalizing

found online by Raymond

 

     [Image from WUSA9 – Washington, DC]

From The Propaganda Professor:

In the episode called “Patterns Of Force” on the original Star Trek series, the Enterprise crew beams down to a planet that is modeled after Nazi Germany, complete with swastikas and “heil Hitler” type salutes. When they hear the supposed charismatic leader (who actually is being controlled by others) deliver an oration to rouse the rabble, Spock comments that the speech really makes no sense; it’s just a string of ideological soundbites — which nonetheless have the effect of stirring their hearers to carry out the ideology’s nefarious agenda. This aptly epitomizes the nature and the effect of emotionalizing, the next in our series of propaganda props.

If Spock was surprised to discover the vacuity of the Fuhrer’s rhetoric, then he was unduly naive. Ideologically charged rhetoric seldom if ever sounds rational. It’s not supposed to. Indeed, the less sense it makes, the more likely it is that the audience will take the bait — provided it’s delivered in an emotionally charged style.

It makes no sense, for instance, to characterize a campaign against gay marriage as a “defense of marriage” because it’s trying to do just the opposite — i.e., make marriage inaccessible for certain individuals. But that’s exactly how the crusaders frame it, and their supporters buy it.

Likewise, Republican efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election were branded as an attempt to protect “election integrity” by eliminating “fraud”. They actually did exactly the opposite. But the frenzied MAGA cultists who howled to “Stop the steal”, while in fact supporting an attempted heist, didn’t bother with getting the facts or rationally analyzing the cockamamie conspiracy theories they were swallowing. They didn’t need to — they had powerful feelings about the topic, so they just “knew” they were in the right.

The gist of the matter is simple, obvious, and unsurprising: emotionalizing bypasses reason, and tempts the brain like a drug to join in the chorus.

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Florida Governor Mouthpiece Deletes Disturbing, Callous Tweet

found online by Raymond

 

From Michael John Scott in MadMikesAmerica:

It’s a sad fact that more than 20,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Florida, but a spokesman for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is downplaying it in a shocking fashion and traditional Republican style.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Fred Piccolo responded to a photo gallery about the pandemic on Twitter with this callous comment:

“I’m wondering since 99% [of] Covid patients survive shouldn’t you have 99 photos of survivors for every one fatality? Otherwise, you’re just trying to create a narrative that is not reality.”

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Hand Munch, Max’s Dad’s Dad, Carols, Bethlehem, Trump, COVID, McConnell

  • Finger sandwiches, I think. @momwino98 enjoys Christmas dinner:
     


    • Max’s Dad misses his dad, loves a Beatles tune his father shared, and mourns a bit of religious bigotry that kept the song out of the funeral.
       
    • Damn, I’m old. nojo remembers carols that are way out of my memory. See how many you recall.
       
    • The Moderate Voice applies Trump standards to a transformative event in my own religion.
       
    • In MadMikesAmerica, Michael J. Scott explores the myth of Bethlehem. The star, the wise men, Bethlehem itself. Could be none of it is true.
       
      Michael has been my friend for years. He would have no mission concerning my faith. Indeed, such details probably bounce harmlessly from the beliefs of most Christians. Still, my brothers and sisters in Christ do share with me a vulnerability. It is that ours is an historically based belief.
       
      This comes from what I have written in the past.

      I do love the idea that God would come to earth as human, experiencing more temptation, pain, and struggle than most of humanity. So my faith would be shattered if it was proven to me that Jesus died running in panic from Gethsemane with a Roman spear in his back.

    • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz vividly describes the fight-against-death struggles and the constant care, naming health care workers as bruised angels struggling to lift victims out of nightmarish hell.
       
    • Nan’s Notebook illustrates, with stories from those she knows, how we tend to regard the pandemic as a sort of theoretical, perhaps good citizenship, thing. That is until a friend or family member gets hit with COVID. It was real for me from the start. Got more real when family, those I admire, got hit.
       
      This thing is deadly dangerous, folks.
       
    • Not to worry. Reductress proves that COVID is not real. Three spirits have not visited to provide important life lessons. Okay, that beats other COVID-denialist arguments I’ve heard.

    Continue reading “Hand Munch, Max’s Dad’s Dad, Carols, Bethlehem, Trump, COVID, McConnell”

    Summary of 2020 – Pretty Much Says It

    found on Twitter by Burr