Author: Raymond

 
From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

Evangelicals believe the words printed in red in the New Testament were uttered by Jesus himself. Thus, in John 14:13, Jesus says to his followers: whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Jesus’ unambiguous statement makes it clear that whatsoever Christians prayerfully ask in his name, he will do. Awesome, right? Mark 11:24 records Jesus saying: Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Jesus’ statement in Mark 11:24 is even more extreme. Whatsoever Christians desire and pray for, if they will really, really, really believe that God will give it to them, Jesus will affirmatively and fully answer their prayers. If only this were true, why I might become a Christian again.

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From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

2020 Goat Rodeo contender Beto O’Rourke dropped a policy proposal today to care for veterans, and it includes something called a “war tax.” And as you can guess from the name, it proposes some sort of market-based means to pay for (future) wars.

It isn’t a bad idea, per se, a war tax that makes people pay for a war upfront (through a tax hike) might make them not want to go to war, which might make Possum Hollar vote for peaceniks! It’s possible!

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From Jonathan Bernstein:

Automatic registration is effective, democratic and long overdue. Why is only one party supporting it?

For years, Democrats dealt with this issue by going into a defensive crouch: They tried to challenge voter-ID laws and other restrictions in legislatures, state courts and federal courts. Now they’ve gone on the offensive, with significant results.

Automatic registration is one of many provisions included in the first major bill passed by House Democrats this year, a sprawling combination of measures intended to make voting easier and otherwise reform the U.S. electoral system. It’s not going anywhere with a Republican majority in the Senate, but it will likely be a high priority the next time Democrats have unified control of the government. Whether they could pass it over a filibuster is an open question, but it’s not hard to imagine them at least thinking about removing the filibuster to pass such a measure.

And Republicans? Their standard rhetoric on this issue focuses on fraud. That’s never been a good fit with voter-ID laws (since voter impersonation at polling sites is extremely rare). But it makes even less sense for fighting laws that shift the burden of registration to the states. Unfortunately, some partisans have even started treating difficulty in voting as a virtue; the electorate is improved, they say, if it’s restricted to those who are willing and able to jump through hoops to get to the polls.

For those of us who think voting should be easy, the good news is that a few Republican states (Alaska, Georgia, West Virginia) have started adopting variations of automatic registration. Perhaps it’ll become a trend that eventually goes national. It should.

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

No one likes the job Congress is doing.

What are they unhappy with? Is it the Democratic House that seems most concerned with investigating Trump, or the Republican Senate which won’t even vote on the bills sent to it by the House?

I could be wrong, but I think it’s the Senate. The House has passed over a hundred bills, but the Senate has not even voted on any of them. McConnell is determined that bills passed by the House will not get a debate or vote.

This is rather ridiculous. He could bring the bills up for debate, let his GOP majority amend them, and then pass them. The House and Senate could them come to a compromise that both could pass. In other words, they could compromise. But compromise seems to be a dirty word in the current Congress, even though it would benefit the nation.

The public doesn’t like the refusal to compromise. Poll after poll has shown they want the parties to compromise, and they are right.

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From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

One of Trump’s “quirks”, to call it something a bit milder than “pathology”, is to claim that anything negative about himself is fake news. It works for his supporters, obviously. It works for Trump because, even if one was inclined to believe rather a lot of negative information, he has thrown out that seed of doubt. Are all negative stories true? Aren’t some stories lies? Couldn’t this one be a lie, too? So when presented with another credible accuser, he claims it’s fake news. Women say horrible things about him because they get paid.

The problem with claiming fake news all the time though, is that the reverse is also true–is it likely that all these stories are actually fake? Can he produce receipts regarding the payment of these women? Does he want that investigated, or has he never considered putting that theory to the test? And doesn’t it seem a little odd in light of his apparently paying women not to talk about consensual relations he had with them?

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From Tommy Christopher:

Mike Pence Snickers As Jake Tapper Repeatedly Asks Why They Won’t Give Kids Soap and Toothpaste

“The conditions the lawyers were found were shocking,” Tapper read. “Flu and lice outbreaks were going untreated. Children were filthy, sleeping on cold floors, taking care of each other because of the lack of attention from guards.”

“I know you. You’re a father. You’re a man of faith. You can’t approve of that,” Tapper said.

“Well, I — I — no — no American — no American should approve of this mass influx of people coming across our border,” Pence stammered. It is overwhelming our system at the southern border.

“But how about how we’re treating these children?” Tapper asked, again, and Pence deflected, again.

“I was at the detention center in Nogales just a few short months ago. It is a heartbreaking scene,” Pence said, but then added These are people who are being exploited by human traffickers, who charge them $5,000 a person to entice them to take their vulnerable children…”

“But now these kids are in our custody,” Tapper said.

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From our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit:

Right, buff guy with a neck the diameter of a fire hydrant sneers at those who have guns.

“Might makes right” is a very old concept. When a buff young punk takes it in his mind to have his way sexually with a 5-foot-nothing girl, what are her options for fighting him off? When a couple of thugs break into the house of an old man to steal his money and prescription drugs, what’s that old guy’s option for defending himself?

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From Stephen Groening, University of Washington, at The Moderate Voice:

Seventy years ago, Eric Blair, writing under a pseudonym George Orwell, published “1984,” now generally considered a classic of dystopian fiction.

The novel tells the story of Winston Smith, a hapless middle-aged bureaucrat who lives in Oceania, where he is governed by constant surveillance. Even though there are no laws, there is a police force, the “Thought Police,” and the constant reminders, on posters, that “Big Brother Is Watching You.”

Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, and his job is to rewrite the reports in newspapers of the past to conform with the present reality. Smith lives in a constant state of uncertainty; he is not sure the year is in fact 1984.

Although the official account is that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, Smith is quite sure he remembers that just a few years ago they had been at war with Eastasia, who has now been proclaimed their constant and loyal ally. The society portrayed in “1984” is one in which social control is exercised through disinformation and surveillance.

As a scholar of television and screen culture, I argue that the techniques and technologies described in the novel are very much present in today’s world.

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From Frances Langum:

We need to re-take the Senate, too.

Samantha Bee didn’t sugarcoat it on Wednesday night.

“Run for Senate, goddamnit!”

“Winning the presidency would be great, but real change is impossible unless the Senate changes hands too,” the host added.

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From Courthouse News Service:

“You’re really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn’t a question of safe and sanitary conditions?’” U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon asked the Justice Department’s Sarah Fabian Tuesday.

U.S. Circuit Judge William Fletcher also questioned the government’s interpretation of the settlement agreement.

“Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you’ve got an aluminum foil blanket?” Fletcher asked Fabian. “I find that inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary.”

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