Merry Holidays, Pelosi, DeSantis Jawed, Never Forget Hanukkah 1942, Jan 6

Shamelessly stolen from HackWhackers.
Watch what happens on the evening news when the sports guy is drafted into reporting the weather:
 

Continue reading “Merry Holidays, Pelosi, DeSantis Jawed, Never Forget Hanukkah 1942, Jan 6”

Ukraine, Trump Card, Donald Melt, Rudy Dump, Brittney, Saturn Moon

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Election Returns, Sinema Drama, DeSantis Scolded, Marriage Protected

  • YellowDog Granny begins a list of people she will invite to kiss her nether regions and, a while later, shares her fond, visionary, hopes for a future election.
     
  • Green Eagle suggests that, despite his flaws, Herschel Walker did not deserve what happened to him.
     
  • My long-time conservative friend Darrel Michaels is despondent to below ground level at election results this year.
     
    He can be forgiven, I think, for his near incoherent rage against the victors:
    leftist hate-America-first,
    senile and corrupt,
    flying monkeys,
    socialist/leftist candidates,
    dangerous ideas,
    demonstrably proven to fail,
    profligate spending,
    extra/un-constitutional,
    despise America,
    leftist propaganda
    ,
    and on and on.
     
    I am reminded of the late Illinois Everett Dirksen who, while entertaining a crowd of constituents pulled out of his pocket an extravagantly scathing attack and began reading it aloud. Partway through, he stopped, looked up wide eyed at his audience and, in a shocked voice, said:
     
    Why, they’re talking about ME!
     
    Key passage from my distraught friend:
    There are ways to make sure elections always tilt to blue rather than red if the outcome is in doubt. Just ask Kari Lake in Arizona.
     
    Ah! So that’s how we overcame.
     
  • In Hackwhackers, Senator Kyrsten Sinema has left the Democratic Party (or, in Republican SnideTalk, “Democrat Party”). If your first reaction is that this will pretty much screw up Senate committee composition, Hackwhackers says not to worry (too much). The Senator says she will still caucus with Democrats.
     
    Key Passage linked to Steve Benen:
    In other words, as of 24 hours ago, Democrats looked forward to having what was effectively a 51-seat majority in the chamber. As of this morning, that remains largely unchanged.
     
  • Disaffected and it Feels So Good speculates on why Kyrsten Sinema has left the Democratic Party, and suggests it may have been a shrewd move.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life finds a study contrasting democracies that have successfully quelled violence with those who have not. Jack examines the conditions that accompany violence and identifies those actively working to creating those conditions.
     
  • driftglass suggests that it is way too late for the Republican party to reform its way out of decline.
     
  • Frances Langum walks us through the Republican plan to use the debt ceiling to threaten the economy. We will destroy the economy unless we are allowed to cut Medicare and Social Security.
     
  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors explains the success of a program that lifted 19 million American children from the grip of poverty, how Republican opposition caused it to lapse, how those children are once more in desperate straits, and how Republicans are blocking a revival.
     
    Key passage:
    …the GOP would arm wrestle each other to see who gets to kick-away Tiny Tim’s crutch…

Continue reading “Election Returns, Sinema Drama, DeSantis Scolded, Marriage Protected”

Hear Ye, Führer’s Highway, Railroads, My Dinner with Fuentes, Brain Musk

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Twit, Thanks, JFK, Heroes, Victims, Climate, Trump Trumped, God Speaks

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Veterans Day, Election Red to Pink, Trump Trumped, Twitter Twit, Ukraine


Personal note: Our young Marine is still on the mend. Last week was discouraging. This week a lot better.
 
We are getting to appointments pretty much on time.
 
This will last a few more weeks.
 
AND yesterday was Veterans Day, celebrating the
11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918,
the end of the Great War: before we knew we had to number them.

  • Vagabond Scholar salutes veterans and continues to repeat a suggestion from 63 years ago.
     
  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara thanks veterans for their service, but urges us to remember the real heroes: the truly productive, which is to say the very wealthy, who are compelled to pay for the military.
     
    Yeah, he really thinks that.
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit compares Ukraine related expert predictions with actual events. Vlad is a screwup, but not the only one.
     
  • Which brings us to the other expert debacle.
     
    In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson examines some of the aftermath of the non-tsunami-non-ripple balloting.
     
    Now that that election, during which Republicans attacked Biden for global inflation, is over: US inflation turns out to be cooling faster than expected.
     
    The stock market is jumping upward as soon as the red scare subsides.
     
    President Biden is soaring.
     
    The Republican Party devolves into warring camps. Which is to say warring.
     
    Key Passage:
    White nationalist Nick Fuentes told his audience that the solution to the fact Republicans are in a minority and keep losing elections is to establish “a dictatorship.” “We need to take control of the media or take control of the government and force the people to believe what we believe or force them to play by our rules.”
     
  • Vixen Strangely takes a close look at the Red Wave that wasn’t, and narrows it down to what pollsters may have missed.
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony explains how Democrats tried something really dangerous, which turned out to be very smart.
     
  • At The Onion, John Fetterman smiles as he asks Mehmet Oz to very slowly repeat his concession a few times.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life suggests that White voters did not support Republicans in spite of racist and fascist messaging, but rather because of racist and fascist messaging.
     
  • Disaffected and it Feels So Good covers the group that pressed to make illegal any interstate travel by women suspected of pregnancy. They prepare, if asked, to take any possible legal action to throw out election results unfavorable to Republicans.
     
    Key quote from one of the lawyers involved:
    If there is a close election, it’s going to be up to us to fix it.
     
  • I truly love the entire range, from analysis to rant, of wisdom from Max’s Dad. He is moderately encouraged by the national election result, disheartened by local results in Nebraska and neighboring Iowa, and enthusiastic about the musical Annie.
     
    Annie has the depression, FDR, a plucky orphan, fraudulent villainous parent impersonators, Daddy Warbucks, and a happy ending.

Continue reading “Veterans Day, Election Red to Pink, Trump Trumped, Twitter Twit, Ukraine”

Not So Good Family News

Our young combat hero is hospitalized.
The Marine Corps is transporting us to be with him.

There will be no posting this week.
Return is possible, not likely, next week.

Prayers from those who, in good conscience, can give them are appreciated.
Good wishes from my closely held, non-believing, friends are valued.

Thank you for staying with me.
I hope to return with good news.

Truss Tossed, VP Harris Distorted, GOP Violence, Fascism Considered

This is worth a few seconds:

  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson explains how Prime Minister Liz Truss applied conservative supply-side policies to British economic problems and achieved a new, spectacular record in rapidly forced retirement.
     
  • Green Eagle has a few unexpected words in defense of Liz Truss.
     
  • Reductress says the sudden resignation of Prime Minister Truss leaves her unsure about what new direction to take.
    Note: the headline is the whole point.
     
  • Vice President Kamala Harris gave an interview, talking at length about aid efforts to Florida during and after Hurricane Ian. Late in the interview, she mentioned that natural disasters often hit hardest those struggling with poverty including, disproportionally, Black people.
     
    Conservatives, being who they are, immediately fit those innocuous comments into something sinister. Hurricane aid, they charged, would target people based on skin color. White folks would be denied help.
     
    Unabashedly American is worth a review only to satisfy some interest in right wing caricatures of liberal beliefs.
     
    Darrell Michaels leads with a crude cartoon of Harris and Biden denying aid to Floridians based on a pigment chart.
     
    Just in case you have trouble getting the point, the Harris speech bubble is HA HA HA (CACKLE) (CACKLE) HA HA, while Biden peeps around the chart with SORRY, YOU AIN’T BLACK!
     
    Sadly, my old friend Darrell accurately represents the current state of contemporary conservatism. Among his many gifts, subtlety is notably absent.
     
  • So much for we report you decide. Fox News covers their reporter asking Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre what they see as an embarrassing question. Fox interrupts her response with
    We wanted to show you the rest of her answer but she didn’t make any sense.
     
    Scotties Playtime has a better explanation and links to what Fox would not show. Turns out her didn’t make any sense answer was factual, completely sensible, and pretty much shut the Fox interrogator down – as in to‑the‑ground.
     
  • Max’s Dad explains why he’s not contributing to Democratic campaigns. At least not until they toughen up.
     
    Republicans are all accusation, way past the point of absurdity. Defund police, release violent criminals, kill your family, tax you to oblivion, give it to illegals, take your house, and on and on.
     
    Yet here we continue with the Democratic ads about how they are lying about me and can’t we all get along?
     
  • Ant Farmer’s Almanac has a brief summary of the official campaign strategy for all GOP candidates. It’s mandatory.
     
  • Dave Columbo knows everything that matters about the midterms and GOP positioning.
    @davecolumbo Reposted now with fewer triggering jokes!!! #democrat #democrats #democratsoftiktok #midterms #midterms2022 #politicaltiktok #politicalsatire #politics #news #breaking #fy #fyp ♬ original sound – Dave Columbo

  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson does not seem especially intimidated by the turn of the Republican party toward an institutional fascination with political violence.
     
    This is what we end with:
    Such a civil war would more likely resemble Beirut or Baghdad than Gettysburg and Antietam.
     
    If we’re going to avoid such a fate because we’re all a bit too heavy around the middle, and I would obviously include myself in that description, then I have some simple advice for Gableman.
     
    Have another Twinkie. War is not the answer.

     
    Everything that leads in to that is worth the read.
     
    I hate that an occasional conservative writer is that good.
     
  • Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez has little sympathy for today’s conservative nostalgia for 1930s and 40s fascism.

  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged, reacts to a Republican reaction from a minor candidate to German history before and during World War II: All Nazis weren’t bad.
     
    One key passage:
    …Dr. Matt Keefer has a different take: wouldn’t you just do a little genocide, because everyone else was into it? It’s not like it makes you a bad person if basically everyone else was into it.
     
    Sure. Myself, I get that peer pressure makes people smoke, do crack, sleep with everyone they know and vote third party, but I tell you what, I draw the line at genocide.
     
    A lot of conservatives these days seem genocide-curious.

Continue reading “Truss Tossed, VP Harris Distorted, GOP Violence, Fascism Considered”

Alex Jones Verdicted, Nov Election, Walker Badged, Trump Trumped

  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged goes all out eloquent about Alex Jones, the verdict, the followers, and the enablers. And she does it with genuine style.
     
  • In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson has more on the not quite billion dollar judgement against Alex Jones.
     
    After losing their little kids to a gunman who walked into a school and murdered the children as they sat in a classroom, the parents were subjected to a decade of harassment by followers of Jones.
     
    Parents answering their phones got late night death threats. Mothers were told they would be targeted with rape.
    The children’s burial sites were desecrated, including midnight urination activities.
    One grief stricken father eventually committed suicide.
     
    Experts determined that Jones had made over $100 million broadcasting his conspiracy theories:

    • The shootings were fake. Nobody died.
    • Nobody was shot. The children did not exist.
    • The parents were actors.
    • It was all a plot to promote gun confiscation.

    At trial, Alex admitted he had been somewhat incorrect. However, he shouldn’t be penalized.

    • How was he to know anyone would take his theories seriously enough to actually act on them?
      Why hold him responsible just because a few maniacs reacted to his broadcasts with a bit too much enthusiasm?
    • Besides, the so-called suffering of parents was not all that serious:
      What I think of as the can’t-they-take-a-joke defense.
      No harm, no foul.

    As the trial wound down, he went on brat-casting, making fun of the proceedings.
     
    The jury apparently forgot that Alex Jones is hilarious.
     
    $965 million.

  • No matter what you think of Alex Jones all he did was speak words..
     
    And with that, tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors highlights a Republican Congressional representative with an unusual understanding of the 1st Amendment.
     
  • Andy Borowitz reports as Tucker Carlson warns us that the billion dollar judgement against Alex Jones will have a chilling effect on lying.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson writes in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel why he simply cannot bring himself to vote Republican this year, and gets a an important endorsement himself:

  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has a quick and reliable guide on how to look inside and decide how to vote in a couple weeks.

Continue reading “Alex Jones Verdicted, Nov Election, Walker Badged, Trump Trumped”