Hur Hurled, Senile Mastermind, We’re Losing! uh Winning!, Katie Klobbered

  • Green Eagle watches the Hur hearings with the miserable failure of Republicans to find evidence of any wrongdoing by President Biden, and the miserable effort of Mr. Hur to smear Biden anyway, and contrasts that reality with the miserable press coverage of the miserable Hur travesty.
     
  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara presents an angry screed about inflation being sky high (sic) and Biden’s policies fueling that inflation (sic). He sees Biden’s attacks on reduced competition that makes possible price gouging and deceptive retail practices as attacks on capitalism itself(sic). (Sick)
     
    My view:
    The ideal world of competitive free market capitalism would have businesses keeping prices low in order to maximize profits in a competition for customers.
     
    In the real world, documented by actual history, that competition gets wrinkled by continuous corporate mergers when the market becomes dominated by a few super-sized businesses.
     
    Informal collusion, deceptive practices, and hidden fees are legitimate political targets. Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting remains a worthwhile government goal.
     
  • My extreme conservative longtime friend Darrell Michaels takes a high dive into the deep end with a lengthy catalogue of Republican talking points on how the decrepit, senile, incapable Joe Biden is also a criminal mastermind who outsmarts Republicans.
     
    One problem many of us have in dealing with extremists in casual conversation is the unresearched brevity and sheer massive avalanche of discredited accusations. Fifty baseless charges hurled in a minute or two can take half an hour to refute.
     
    So let’s just take the first three of my friend’s long litany:

    1. Illegal Immigration
      This image has been floating about the internet for a while, replicated in Congress many times – One typical vote of many:
       

      Hey Darrell, how about we give the guy the resources he’s been demanding from day one?
       
    2. Weaponizing Federal Law Enforcement
      Says my friend: “Biden continues to use the government to persecute and prosecute political adversaries.”
       
      The most frequently used examples by MAGA folk are prosecutions of mr Trump and the January 6 insurrectionists – the violent lynch mob who were on the hunt for legislators to assassinate.
       
      Facts:
      mr Trump has, so far, been defeated in court by multiple juries and judges. No Biden participation can be found.
       
      The January 6 violations have been dealt with by law enforcement in ordinary judicial proceedings.

       
      Darrell has other vague generalities as well, without any specific cases.
       
    3. Retreat from Afghanistan
      Darrell might consider the Trump negotiated agreement to reduce US presence from over 30,000 personnel to 8500 troops (Trump then unilaterally cut that down to 2500), promising that even those, and all other coalition forces, would be withdrawn in 2021.
      mr Trump also forced the immediate release of 5,000 hardened Taliban prisoners.
       
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz explains why the next election is vitally important. It’s a brief listen:
     

  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson brings us a BBC broadcast about Wisconsin voters and Donald Trump, with the briefest and best interview with the best concise opinion from the best conservative in the state:
     

    James has many reasons for his opinion, here is another:

  • At The Moderate Voice, editor Joe Gandelman suggests that, if we think Trump is not winning, we are deluding ourselves
    OR
    maybe not.
     
    Now THAT’S fair and balanced.

Continue reading “Hur Hurled, Senile Mastermind, We’re Losing! uh Winning!, Katie Klobbered”

Biden, SOTU, Trump Temp Immune, 14th Waits, GOP 2025 Plans, Bye Mitch

  • Disaffected and it Feels So Good reviews this week’s SOTU and sees President Biden demonstrating health, vigor, and wit as he provokes Republicans into heckling him, then incorporates their televised boorishness into his own presentation.
     
  • Tommy Christopher has the President delivering a sharp and energetic SOTU that was well received by everyone except partisan Republicans, then “accidentally” slamming Bibi Netanyahu on a hot mic.
    (That would be accidentally, right?)
     
    Key Oops:
    I’m on a hot mic here! That was good!
     
  • Dave Columbo analyzes, as only he can, Biden’s SOTU, weird reaction from Congressional Republicans, and the weirder official Republican response:
     
  • Andy Borowitz brings us Trump’s dismay:
     

    Also from Borowitz:
    Amazing command of English for a guy who grew up in Kenya!
     
  • Max’s Dad reacts. Joe Biden won the night even before taking the podium, won it during the SOTU, then won it again at the very end.
     
    Key fighting style:
    Sleepy Joe became the Scranton Slugger last night.
     
  • My old friend Darrell Michaels is back (Welcome, Darrell) with his distaste for the prospective candidates from both parties. Darrell’s primary concerns (I did that on purpose) have to do with the malignant infection of progressivism in our schools, culture, businesses media, and even in many of our houses of worship AND the current senile and thoroughly corrupt head of the Biden Crime family.
     
    So he’ll vote for Trump in November to save America.
     
    Note: In fairness, my friend wrote this before the demented, old, incapable Uncle Joe went all SOTU, suddenly got energized, and cast his evil spell on the nation.
    However, I can’t find an excuse for his embrace of the Biden Crime Family tall tale.
     
  • Frequent Fox fantasist John Solomon has long joined Steve Bannon and Matt Gaetz in pushing the Biden Crime Family narrative. Sadly, evidence has been lacking.
     
    Republican attempts in Congressional hearings to prove Joe Biden is involved in something shady comically exploded as their main witness turned out to be an agent of Russia, paid to spread disinformation. Then Hunter Biden was forced into a transcribed hearing and managed to embarrass his Republican interrogators.
     
    Frances Langum has conspiracist John Solomon admitting that things are falling apart for the anti-Biden accusations.
     
    And she generously provides video of poor downtrodden Solomon conceding the obvious. He makes feeble excuses for a fallen narrative.

  • This past week included Super Tuesday. PZ Myers lives in Minnesota and voted Uncommitted.
     
    FWIW, Missouri goes to ballot in a couple weeks. I’ll mark mine for Biden.
     
  • News Corpse looks at the tabs in Super Tuesday results and finds good news for Joe Biden and Democrats.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life argues that we are stuck in a mental health issue. Nobody likes to be forced to do something. And Republicans are forcing us to vote for Biden.
    Again.
     
    I like President Biden. A lot.
    But Jack’s reaction reminds me of a comment by the late Foster Brooks about a fantasy election from decades back.
     
    Barry Goldwater lost in 1964 to Lyndon Johnson in a landslide election.
    Eight years later, George McGovern lost to Dick Nixon, getting a majority in only one state and one district.
    (One wit capped it: As Massachusetts goes, so goes the District of Columbia)
     
    Foster Brooks:
    What if McGovern ran against Goldwater and nobody won?

Continue reading “Biden, SOTU, Trump Temp Immune, 14th Waits, GOP 2025 Plans, Bye Mitch”

Immunizing Trump, Umm Cone, IVF, Unpeach, Biden DNA, Mitch, Ukraine

  • Julian Sanchez, on Threads, had chided those whose view of the Supreme Court had turned to jaded cynicism.
     

    Now he confesses he had been insufficiently skeptical about the integrity of SCOTUS justices:
     

  • Dave Columbo explains how so many Trump shocks get quickly forgotten because of subsequently more shocking Trump shocks.
     
    With a shocking example of shock:
     
  • Green Eagle, always willing to help, has a way for an increasingly forgetful, absent minded, easily distracted, deteriorating Donald Trump to remember an important fact.
     
  • At The Onion, a new poll of likely voters finds only 19% believe the country is ready for a competent president.
     
  • So mr Trump thinks he, his own self, is the reason for the soaring Biden stock market. See, it’s actually caused by the anticipated Trump victory in November. (Uh huh…)
     
    Frances Langum thinks it significant that, of all people on the Fox Network, Neil Cavuto is having none of it.
     
  • At The Moderate Voice, Joe Gandelman suggests that big wins by Biden and Trump in the Michigan primary still represent warnings to both candidates, but perhaps a bigger warning to one than the other.
     
  • The Palmer Report says this past week’s voting in Michigan told us what we need to know about where things stand. Biden got 81% of Democrats, while Trump got 68% of Republicans.
     
    The media, however, keep ginning up stories about bad news for Biden.
     
    In reality:
     
    Protest voting on the Dem side kind of fizzled. Uncommitted got 13%, way fewer than the Biden-gloom many televised analysts projected.
     
    Still, the nobody vote was way more than that of Marianne Williamson. She was ecstatic, though, having edged Dean Phillips by almost a third of a percent (Yay you, moon child!).
     
    My overactive imagination gave me competing preemptive headlines for drama addicted media.
     
    Nobody is more popular among Democrats than Williamson!
    AND
    At least Biden is better than nobody…
     
    Come on! I’m trying, okay?
     
  • Scotties Playtime goes Twittering (or is it Xing) for the intersection of Republicans, Christian nationalists, and November elections.
     
  • As The Psy of Life puts it, Election 2024 should be a shoe‑in for the Democrats. So why the uncertainty?
     
    CalicoJack suggests a neurological reason, combined with such human tendencies as carryover mode, ageism, hindsight bias, fig‑leaf rhetoric, and follow‑the‑leader.
     
    Key complicity:
    The press is doing its level best to make it a politics‑as‑usual horserace election because profits are people too, my friend.
     
  • driftglass restates the case against unexamined, reflexive both sides do it arguments.
     
    Key question:
    What’s more addictive than meth, more profitable than iPhones. more indestructible than Kevlar and easier to make than Top Ramen?
    Come on, folks. Let’s not always see the same hands!

Continue reading “Immunizing Trump, Umm Cone, IVF, Unpeach, Biden DNA, Mitch, Ukraine”

Navalny Murder, Tucker Taken, Putin’s Congress, Selling Soles, In Vitro Ban

  • At The Moderate Voice, Robert Levine explains why the conspicuous heroism of Alexi Navalny makes his murder by Putin a conspicuous evil.
     
  • Vixen Strangely, at Strangely Blogged, listens over the weekend for the reaction of mr Trump to the murder of Putin opponent Alexei Navalny, and hears nothing. She suggests, wisely, that the killing of someone who dares to defy non‑freedom of speech teaches us the natural result of Trump’s proposed presidential immunity.
     
    Key consequence:
    It would be the power of the thin-skinned and weak man to no longer have to argue his case, but to end the argument with one fatal command.
     
  • After a silent weekend, mr Trump finally reacts, somehow neglecting to mention his mentor Vlad Putin. The sudden death of Navalny makes mr Trump aware of …well… all the things wrong with the United States, which turn out to mostly be injustices to Donald Trump – his own self:
     
  • Dave Dubya‘s exchange with a conservative on social media provides insight on Tucker Carlson and Vlad Putin.
     
  • Hackwhackers chalks one up for the good guys as global law enforcement hacks the hackers.
     
    Key criminal:
    It would be utterly naive for anyone to believe that these cyber criminals operating out of Russia are doing so without the knowledge and involvement of the Russian state and its chief criminal/ thug Putin.
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony explains who, aside from mr Trump, cheers as Congress seizes up.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson carefully considers the Trump Declaration on NATO and Putin, and comes up with a logical extension:
     

  • Julian Sanchez, on Threads, reflects a common take on mr Trump – the human expectation that the future usually resembles the past:

    Post by @normative
    View on Threads

  • Eric Trump is especially upset by the ingratitude:

    And I couldn’t help it:
     

  • I really didn’t think we’d find anything much better than what we were given from Boebert’s brain.
     
    The left interfering in this political witch hunt:

    Until Marjorie Taylor Greene asked for her chance:

  • News Corpse watches Trump attorney Alina Habba on Fox as she offers her most compelling argument against the massive Trump corruption ruling: Prosecutor Letitia James went barefoot as Trump was fined.
     
    Key prosecutorial misconduct:
    Ms. James had her shoes off in court. Let’s not forget that.

Continue reading “Navalny Murder, Tucker Taken, Putin’s Congress, Selling Soles, In Vitro Ban”

Trump Tromped, 14th, Super Bowled, Hur Smear, NATO, Navalny Murdered

Wisdom and generous love are where you find them.

  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has a solid summary of the massive judgment against Trump & sons, and mr Trump’s initial reaction in social media.
     
    Key spoiler (mine):

  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit goes to the text of the $355 million dollar decision to show that Trump’s conduct in court contributed to the amount.
     
    Key personal blunder:
    By being an asshole and by having a witness who admitted perjury, he made it really easy for the judge to whack him with the Ruler of Justice.
     
  • Dave Columbo considers both sides of Trump legal troubles:
     
  • Interesting Thursday in Trumpville. Trump claims he is immune for whatever he did to anyone (that he says he definitely didn’t do to anyone) while he was President.
     
    An appeals panel goes unanimous against, while they avoid laughing. They say that mr Trump can appeal, but just directly to the Supreme Court. Saves time.
     
    Trump lawyers file a request to the Supreme Court to delay whatever they were going to do on his immunity claims. Then mr Trump decides to drop the whole appeal, delay and all, and go to trial.
    But Trump lawfolk say they will keep claiming immunity.
     
    The Palmer Report takes a look at the filing that Trump lawyers dropped, and finds only Trump style gibberish.
     
    So maybe the entire lawyer filing was not intended to win in the Supreme Court. But it might have satisfied the unraveling mind of their client.
     
    Bill Palmer speculates with reason: Senility may have become a major factor in mr Trump’s criminal trials
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson manages to slam Trump on Presidential immunity, Trump on border mendacity, and Trump general ignorance all in one brief passage:
     

  • I admit to my own bias on the 14th Amendment case against mr Trump:

    Which leads us to New York Times columnist David French:
     

    Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez, writing as @normative, has some initial empathy with the judicial predicament:

    …then burns to a cinder all logical bridges that might have led SCOTUS to safety:
    Ouch!

  • Nan’s Notebook considers the actual wording of the 14th Amendment and sees a mostly unexamined, but better, reason Trump should be declared ineligible.

Continue reading “Trump Tromped, 14th, Super Bowled, Hur Smear, NATO, Navalny Murdered”

Economy Twist, 14th, Immunity, FBI Oops, Taylor, Razor Wired Kids, Gaza

  • Frances Langum watches Fox hosts perform twist dancing to avoid talking about the Biden economy.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life looks at polling crosstabs and figures out which subset of voters are most likely to throw the election to Trump by abandoning Biden for Kennedy.
     
  • The Palmer Report nominates Tuesday, February 6 as the day that destroyed Donald Trump.
     
  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors sees the coming Colorado decision as SCOTUS trying to rise the South again.
     
    My thought:
  • From the great Andy Borowitz:
     
  • So the Trump immunity appeal gets a decision.
     
    mr Trump’s basic point is that future Presidents will be inhibited by the fear that any renegade local prosecutor can bring charges for any old thing after a term ends.
     
    The Appeals panel says nope.
     
    At The Moderate Voice Joe Gandleman takes a close look at the reasoning in the immunity decision, and online reactions
     
    Key reaction/quote:

  • A-a-a-a-nd Trump immunity goes to SCOTUS.
     
    Dave Dubya also looks at the logic of the appeals panel ruling on Trump immunity, and hazards an informed guess on how the Supreme Court will handle it.
     
  • Cato’s Julian Sanchez, posting on Threads, is hopeful about a Supreme Court ruling:
     

  • Tommy Christopher brings us part of an interview with a former Trump attorney. The immunity Appeals panel verdict has to irritate mr Trump, but he will especially take personal offense that they referred to him as a citizen.
     
    Key quote from attorney Tim Parlatore
    I mean, I think that he’s probably taking it more personally, particularly the parts about citizen Trump. I think that he’s probably more concentrating on that.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged looks into the overarching Trump claim of presidential immunity for what laws he broke, his claims that he broke no laws, his claims that he was not responsible for the insurrection, his claim that there was no insurrection, and Republican squirms and wiggles as they struggle to make it all true.
     
  • Green Eagle is hopeful that mr Trump’s crimes will catch up with him at the ballot box, but is dismayed that a near majority of voters are unaware he has even been indicted.
     
    Key fault line:
    As I have said for years, Democrats could crush the Republican party into oblivion without hardly trying; what they cannot do is crush the Republicans and the press working together.
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit finds it hard to believe a MAGA conspiracy theory involving an FBI plot against mr Trump, considering stunning FBI ineptitude during the search for stolen documents at Mar‑A‑Lago.

Continue reading “Economy Twist, 14th, Immunity, FBI Oops, Taylor, Razor Wired Kids, Gaza”

Iran Proxies, Trump Trashed, 83 Million, Border Block, Razor Wire, Taylor Swift

  • After the drone attack by Iran backed Houthi rebels that took American lives, News Corpse is decidedly unsurprised as a Fox personality reacts by blaming the US military for enlisting too many Black people.
     
  • One problem shared by many on the fringes is an inability to make ideological distinctions. Everything is binary.
     
    Followers of Ayn Rand often see anyone who favors any degree of government regulation as a stalking horse for a proto-Soviet style dictatorship.
     
    Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara takes the binary approach a bit farther, seeing the Biden administration as responding to deadly attacks on US soldiers with appeasement. Seems Biden is neglecting to make Iran glow in the dark.
     
    Key binary view:
    The idea that “war with them is not the answer” is a dangerous evasion that leads to a PRO-WAR POLICY OF CONTINUING APPEASEMENT.
     
  • Meanwhile, in the world of reality, the US has begun retaliating with major airstrikes on 85 targets across seven locations where Iranian-backed militants are holed up, with more US retaliation to come.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil hears Joe Biden’s private description of Donald Trump and seems decidedly unstunned.
     
  • At The Moderate Voice Don Hermann points out the lesson Donald Trump is being taught by the American system of justice. Loser does not mean those who died to defend our freedoms. In fact, it means what he sees in the mirror as he brushes his teeth.
     
  • In theory, free speech doesn’t cover defamation. You can’t just lie about a private person.
    Reality doesn’t always follow legal theory.
     
    It’s a familiar pattern for some blessed with extreme wealth.
    I’m bigger than you, stronger, with resources you don’t have.
    If you go against me, I’ll make your life miserable.

     
    E. Jean Carroll gets assaulted by Donald Trump.
    Trump denies it happened and attacks her in very personal terms.
    And keeps attacking.
     
    She sues for defamation and wins. The award is $5 million.
    $5 million? Ha, ha, ha. Chump change for someone of his wealth. So he keeps attacking.
    And attacking and attacking.
     
    She sues again, and he attacks again. He keeps attacking even during the trial. Over and over, he attacks.
    Her lawyers ask the jury to consider how large an award it will take to get him to stop his attacks.
    Jury’s answer: $83.3 million.
    Wow!
     
    In television interviews, she is asked what she will do if he keeps attacking.
    Her answer is simple. She’ll sue a third time, then she’ll sue again as often as he attacks.
     
    Tommy Christopher reports as Trump is angry as all hell about verdict and the financial hit.
    He attacks the trial. In fact he attacks both trials.
    He attacks the verdicts.
    He attacks the judge.
    Somehow, he neglects to attack E. Jean Carroll herself.
    Some sort of memory lapse?
     
  • Green Eagle goes to wingnut world to watch MAGA folk get twisted out of shape about the $83 million verdict.
     
  • Julian Sanchez suggests that a massive defamation verdict just might not be an attack on free speech:
     

  • The Palmer Report brings us Rudy Giuliani and the weirdest defense ever of Donald Trump.
     
  • From Andy Borowitz:
     
  • So mr Trump sabotages border security because passing a bi-partisan bill would give President Biden a win.
     
    Iron Knee at Political Irony sees a replay of a Richard Nixon move in 1968, except Nixon was smarter about it.
     
  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson sees Republican dizzying opposition to the same bipartisan border security proposal they have been supporting as yet another demonstration of the growing extremism of the Republican party.

Continue reading “Iran Proxies, Trump Trashed, 83 Million, Border Block, Razor Wire, Taylor Swift”

Trump Trumped, DeSantis Diced, Feeding Hungry Fined, Ban Abortion

Wow!
Practice really does make perfect:

  • Did we really think a $3 million award to E. Jean Carroll would stop mr Trump from his attack-dog mode?
     
    He showed us a thing or two with a hundred more defamations.
    See? $3 million is chump change.
     
    tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors notes an irony as another jury ups that $3 million by another $83.3 Million. The new jury considers a helpful Trump boast from another trial.
     
  • On the criminal charge side, the Palmer Report has Jack Smith ready to present evidence that can break open the Trump document case: data from cell towers.
     
  • A non-revelation:
     
    Donald Trump suggested he has his pick for vice president and hinted people will not “be that surprised” by his choice of running mate, The Hill reports.
     
    Wisconsin conservatives have a question:


    Fellow Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson narrows the choices:

  • Max’s Dad takes whatever is left of Ron DeSantis, slices, dices, and cooks the pieces.
     
    Key personality:
    Like most bullies he got punched by an even bigger bully and crawled away, hat in hand, and expressed his admiration for the other bully. A Profile in Courage.
     
  • It’s becoming a familiar pattern. A Murdoch employee generates a rumor that another Murdoch employee reports as a real news story. The report is believed without question by a credulous audience.
     
    News Corpse takes the arc into full circle as a gossip columnist for the Murdoch owned NY Post reports that Michelle Obama is about to become a candidate for President, which Fox personality Steve Doocy repeats on the Murdoch owned network as a terrifying report.
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony contrasts Iowa’s electoral significance through history with media fascination at the local diner.
     
  • Hackwhackers ventures into TwitterLand (rebranded as X) to watch mr Trump lose talking points, lose his tongue, and simply lose track as Republicans frantically look for ways to defend his mental state.
     
  • PZ Myers has some fun with mr Trump passing a bare minimum cognitive test, then getting retelling wrong.
     
    Key observation:
    No one would celebrate passing it — it’s like expecting to be applauded when an examining doctor finds a heartbeat.
     
    Random internet reaction:

  • Of course, this had to float around the internet:

  • @whiskeywhistle98 has the best version of a cognitive test, to determine if she is sane:
     

Continue reading “Trump Trumped, DeSantis Diced, Feeding Hungry Fined, Ban Abortion”

Impeach Crime Search, 14th, Trump Threats, Censor, Drowning Refugees

Ordinary strangers will sometimes take risks to help:

  • The Propaganda Professor provides a ten item guide, dead giveaways that the Biden impeachment is a blatant scam.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has the numbers. A plurality of voters supports Trump being banned from ballots.
     
  • At the Palmer Report mr Trump can’t just wait for his Supreme Court to rule in his favor on eligibility, he has to threaten what will happen if they don’t.
     
  • Sammy The Bull Gravano, one-time hitman for the Gambino crime family, endorses mr Trump, and Trump proudly makes sure everyone knows.
     
    Media outlets, pundits, the internet explode with derision at the obtuseness. What sort of character witness does Trump think he’s discovered?
     
    Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged points to a darker motive.
     
    Key dark view:
    He’s just letting people know he’s got friends in all kinds of places. Loyal ones. Maybe dangerous ones.
     
  • Master of rant, snark, and thoughtful review, Max’s Dad examines the performance of Donald Trump during his defamation trial.
     
    Key claim:
    But there he is claiming how grief stricken he is over his mother in laws death though odds are 11,780 to one he could even remember her name.
     
  • News Corpse notes the standard that mr Trump says he will impose on major networks. If they haven’t been broadcasting his speeches, government must put them out of business.
     
    Key promise:
    Our so-called ‘government’ should come down hard on them and make them pay for their illegal political activity.
     

  • mr Trump isn’t the only one. Tommy Christopher has Trump ex-employee, current Fox host, Kayleigh McEnany furious that CNN cut away from a Trump rant.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson is not convinced:

Continue reading “Impeach Crime Search, 14th, Trump Threats, Censor, Drowning Refugees”

Biden Tough, Fox Frustration, Trump Secrets, Immunity, Political Prisoners

Continue reading “Biden Tough, Fox Frustration, Trump Secrets, Immunity, Political Prisoners”