Month: April 2019

 
From CATO Institute’s Julian Sanchez:

Barr testifies before Congress on May 1 and 2. And, with Barr having said publicly that he has “no objection to Bob Mueller personally testifying,” Mueller’s own appearance on the Hill likely won’t lag far behind.
 
We are recommending key questions that each should be asked about their work on the investigations of Trump-Russia links, their anticipations and recommendations for what comes next, and—perhaps most intriguingly—their interactions with, and expectations of, each other in the context of the Russia investigation.

1. Do you hereby testify that everything you said in your March 24, 2019 summary letter and everything you said in your press conference on the morning of the public release of the Mueller Report is true and accurate?

2. With whom exactly, outside of the Department of Justice, did you share a copy of the Mueller Report before releasing it to Congress? Did those copies of the report include the exact same redactions as the version you sent to Congress?

3. At the press conference on the morning of the public release of the Mueller Report, you said, “the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation.” How can you make such a claim when the report itself documents such conduct as the President (1) trying to fire the Special Counsel and (2) refusing the Special Counsel’s request for an interview?

4. The Mueller Report’s description of obstruction raises many questions about what exactly took place and how the Special Counsel’s Office interpreted some individuals’ actions and intentions. As one example, it is not clear why the Special Counsel concluded that the President was not asking KT McFarland to lie, given that the President asked her to make a written record of something she did not believe to be true. Between the time you received the Special Counsel’s report and issued your summary two days later, did you have any questions about the report that you discussed with Director Mueller? How many hours would you estimate you spent discussing your questions with him? What questions were foremost on your mind?

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From The Borowitz Report:

“Clients will come in and say, ‘Make me as young and vibrant as Donald Trump,’ ” Klugian said. “I have to warn them that that’s setting the bar very, very high.”

Having analyzed Trump’s fitness habits, Klugian has theorized that his startling youthfulness and off-the-charts vibrance might be the result of eight hours that he devotes each day to “executive time.”

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From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

I am sickened and appalled that six months to the day of the Squirrel Hill tragedy, another synagogue in the US has been struck by a self radicalized, armed human horror show. First and foremost, I grieve with this community and lift you up in my admiration for your humanity and wish you strength, peace, and healing.

I wish I could separate this shooting from the bigger picture of intolerance and hate in this country, and even around the world, but I can’t. I am not unaware that addressing the specter of anti-Semitism in this moment is politicized, but who is it that drags this into their politics, and doesn’t know that events like this might follow?

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From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

I’ve been wondering about how it is that we are reportedly near full employment and yet no one seems to be making more money, no one is getting raises. It doesn’t make sense to me that employers are not increasing salaries hoping to retain employees. Everything about the economics of right now seems off script to me.

Further down the dictionary’s definition of gig is this one: a harpoon-like device used for catching fish or frogs. So I was thinking about the verb To Gig as I read the economy deep-dive email thingie from Axios, which is in many separate parts and altogether tells a story.

“More Americans are working than ever before, but a growing number of them aren’t 9-to-5 employees, nor skilled freelancers who negotiate their compensation, Dan and Kia write.

Instead they are your Uber driver, your DoorDash food deliverer or your Rover dog-walker.”

The remarkable unemployment numbers coming from our Vichy gubmint might be hiding that a large part could be to these gig employees…

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

Before he announced as a candidate for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination, I heard a lot of pundits on cable news talking about how Joe Biden was making a mistake by not entering the presidential race as early as others. They said the supporters and donors would already be attached to other candidates if he waited.

It seems those pundits were wrong (which they often are). The Biden campaign has revealed that they raised about $6.3 million in his first 24 hours as a candidate.

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From Frances Langum:

We don’t have to go ageist to acknowledge facts. You’d think Donald Trump would brag about being the “oldest president ever in the history of our country,” because he actually is.

There’s no call to be ageist in this race. We’ve got multiple septuagenarians running for president on the Democratic side.

But the illegitimate so-called president insisting that he’s a “young vibrant man”? Well that takes the Egyptian river to new depths, doesn’t it?

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• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit provides a possible reason our President is in love with Vladimir Putin.
   
• Frances Langum explains to my President that the Charlottesville neo-nazis were not just historians. Perhaps very fine historians?
   
• Donald Trump insists he is the most transparent President ever. Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged suggests that he lives up to that boast.
   
• Green Eagle considers the sad case of Mr. Barr and marvels at the strange ability of Mr. Trump to get reputable folks to sacrifice their good names at his bidding.
   
• nojo lays out the case in favor of … well … not exactly impeachment. But at least considering and debating impeachment.
   
• At The Moderate Voice weighs the arguments for and against impeachment and reaches a conclusion.
   
• PZ Myers pretty much gags when he contemplates the condition of today’s political landscape. He does outline the two highest objectives for the next 18 and a half months or so.
   
• Andy Borowitz reports as Sarah Huckabee Sanders accuses mainstream media of blatant anti-liar bias.
   
• So Elizabeth Warren wants to do something about the all too often staggering level of student debt. Philip Klein, Managing Editor of the Washington Examiner, says the idea is a slap in the face of all those who labored to pay off their loans. driftglass performs surgery with no anesthetic on that bit of conservative logic.
   
• This takes about 3 seconds to click, read, and understand. Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger goes country by country and compares the pay ratio of CEO’s to the workers they employ.
   
• Scotties Toy Box brings us reports of yet another assault by the Trump administration on transgender people. This time they want to deny health care.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara argues against Earth Day because it is anti-human life. No kidding, that’s what he says.
   

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From The Journal of Improbable Research:

‘Necro Advertising’ – the pros and cons [new study]

They are known, in advertising circles as ‘Delebs’ (deceased celebrities) . . .

“Unbeknown to them, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Steve McQueen and Gene Kelly, among others, recently presented products in ads for high- and low-equity brands.”

A new paper in the Journal of Business Ethics describes experiments which have, for the first time, examined whether deleb ads might be a good idea or not.

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From Glenn R. Geist at MadMikesAmerica:

I read this morning about a local case of the measles, something that was eliminated about 20 years ago, but is returning thanks to the Man-bun Morons with their ignorant and proudly snarky opinions fed by trolls reveling in their power to do harm. I’m sure it feels good to be part of a group that’s “in the know.” Will Polio or Smallpox or any of the plagues that have plagued us for thousands of years be far behind?

Of course vaccines work and have been a cause of our great, unprecedented increase in longevity, but as we pass into a post truth era, I’m not really sure that a new generation of know nothing snark lizards won’t make America Paleolithic again.

I won’t be around to see it of course, but some future generation will surely be writing books and getting their degrees in the history of the Great Failure.

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From The Saturday Afternoon Post:

I recently had pizza with an old friend I had not seen for a long time who is a fanatic Trump supporter. Recently retired, he had spent the majority of his adult life working in, and benefiting from, union jobs. He has unfortunately fallen prey to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and far-right Christian evangelicals. By allowing these groups to influence his thinking, he has become a low-information voter who believes myths and old, untrue stereotypes – a perfect foil for ignoramuses like Trump to exploit as they do. This poor guy says he likes Trump because he gives him credit for our strong economy – completely ignoring the fact that our current economic prosperity was begun in Barack Obama’s presidency. Because he hates Obama, he refuses to concede that it has been largely Obama’s doing and that Trump is coasting along taking undue credit for it. He also says that Trump has reached out to foreign dictators like Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, and cites that as good, conveniently misunderstanding how Trump has been manipulated by them. He also supports Trump’s anti-immigrant overtones, and fully believes Trump’s nonsense about a massive foreign invasion from below our borders.

Another woman I know who is a strong Trump supporter says she supports him due to his pro-life positions. As a one-issue voter, she overlooks the fact that, for many years, Trump was strongly pro-choice, until it dawned on him that he would get tons of support from conservative voters if he would abandon the pro-choice people, so he did. Both of these examples are good people, but both are sorely mistaken when it comes to their support for Trump. Both believe what they want to believe and ignore the negative facts about him. They both believe in the Trumpian concept of “fake news”, even though Trump and his crew have manipulated the media to such an extent that it is they, and NOT the media, who have actively been engaged in spreading “fake news”

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