Chauvin, Fox, Shootings, Asian Attacks, Passports, Gaetz Who, Pesky Voters

  • The annual celebration is upon us, but toxic attitudes among conservative Christians toward immigrants with brown skin are year-around.


    Thank God the Holy family did not encounter some of my brothers and sisters in Christ.

  • PZ Myers briefly summarizes the arguments in the trial of Officer Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck. The arguments in Chauvin’s favor so far are foolish, silly, self-defeating, bigoted, far-fetched, and a long, long distance from being a coherent defense. So it’s safe to say they just might work.
     
  • At The Onion, the Chauvin defense team praises the officer’s restraint in not killing bystanders.
     
  • News Corpse speculates on the reluctance of the Fox network to provide full coverage of the Derek Chauvin murder trial.
     
  • Nan’s Notebook reviews horrible death by gunfire and is frustrated by thoughts and prayers.
     
  • nojo contemplates the nation’s mass shootings and remembers one noticeable American incident from half a century ago that did not happen in this hemisphere. Those of us born in the Truman administration will remember the horror.
     
  • Tommy Christopher reacts as others react as Lindsey Graham reacts to the death and carnage of recent mass shootings with a video of himself shooting an assault rifle.


    So Lindsey, how are those sensitivity sessions going?

  • It does seem to be open season on those of Asian descent. Sarah Cooper wonders how baffling it must have been for those meeting her beloved grandmother:

  • Iron Knee at Political Irony posts several items that, together, comprise cautious good news about COVID.
     
  • In MadMikesAmerica, Joe Hagstrom considers how Donald Trump acted in the face of the COVID-19 crisis with all deliberate speed. Those of us born in the Truman administration and raised in segregation times, will recall that the accent is on deliberate, not speed. Joe points out that the clever strategy enabled Trump to save Social Security.
     
  • Julian Sanchez talks about a CATO consistent, kind of libertarian, free market approach to the idea of a “vaccine passport”.
     
  • You have to hand it to Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson. He tries to report accurately, even as he advocates for whatever he believes. He has little patience with blatant untruth, which pretty much sets him against Trumpism and the more dishonest of his fellow ideologues – thinking here of Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI).
     
    Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers issued mandates for masking in mass gatherings in public places. The law allows him to issue one such mandate for a limited time for each emergency. But as this set of emergencies escalated and changed with new COVID variants, Evers issued new mandates extending the mask requirement. He argued that each new development constituted a new emergency.
     
    The conservative legislature sued and the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed with them, striking down the Governor’s orders. James is delighted.
     
    BUT James also includes, without irony, a statement from the conservative court defending the decision. Justice Brian Hagedorn accuses those who support the Governor of taking into consideration the deaths that will occur in Wisconsin because of the court’s decision.
     
    Quite an accusation.
     
  • Athena Scalzi at Whatever got her first of two vaccinations and feels pretty good about it. Come on folks. Get registered and get the jab.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged, explains why Bill Barr, while still in the Trump administration, adopted a personal practice of extreme social distancing from Matt Gaetz. There are some things even Trumpsters don’t want to catch.
     
  • There is a corporate form of social distancing as well. Frances Langum watches the Fox network and counts the number of times in 48 hours that Matt Gaetz is mentioned. She doesn’t need the fingers on both hands, or even one hand. For those two days, she doesn’t need to count on even one knuckle. It’s all Gaetz-Who.
     
  • Gaetz-who has another effect. tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has bad news about career pathing for Representative Gaetz.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger observes the degree of support Matt Gaetz gets among Republican office holders.
     
  • driftglass documents the heroics as Presidential dog Major Biden saves the nation from more cringy trauma.
     
  • In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson looks at President Biden’s massive plan to revitalize infrastructure: what it will do for what connects America and makes it run, the likely economic effect – jobs, jobs, jobs – the popularity across party lines, and the inside-the-beltway obstruction that makes passage hard.
     
  • Hackwhackers weaves a pattern from bits and pieces about conservative projects (like voter suppression), Soviet style conservative forgetfulness (like Gaetz who?), and various Republican personalities. Okay, plus one non-partisan famous for taking a knee during an arrest.
     
  • Scotties Toy Box defines, from several perspectives, what the Republican Party is, wants, and stands for.
     
  • The Propaganda Professor explains how lies are created and perpetuated by politicians and culture warriors who accurately show word-for-word quotes yet leave out key context, beginning with a hypothetical video: a man viciously shoving an unsuspecting victim to the ground. Looks bad until we’re told he saved the victim from a falling object.
     
    Such manipulation is sometimes calculated, says the Propaganda Professor. Take Republican campaigns, for example.
     
  • Infidel753 suggests continuing vigilance for, continuing resistance against, continuing support for opposition to, continuing Republican efforts to keep voters from voting.
     
  • In the Borowitz Report Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia denies any attempt at voter suppression. One provision of the new Georgia law makes it illegal to provide drinking water to voters in long, long, very long lines that tend to occur in certain neighborhoods on election day. The governor points out that the legislature simply seeks to protect its citizens, since water is a well-known gateway drug that can lead to voting.
     
  • A speaker asks White people in her audience to stand up if they would want to be treated for the rest of their lives as Black people are treated. Nobody stands.
     
    Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara is indignant.
     
    He does not discriminate!
    People he knows do not discriminate!
    He guesses nobody in that audience would discriminate.
     
    He would stand!
    Of course he would.
     
  • My long-time friend Darrell Michaels at Unabashedly American redefines redefining, when it comes to racism. The left, he says, has redefined racism and provides proof.
     
    It is well known, for example that the left, which I suppose would include folks like me, say “you are a a racist if” …
     
    “You disagreed with Obama on any policy” or
    “You disagree with Biden on any policy” or
    “You disagree with acting-president Kamala Harris on policy.”
    And the list goes on.
     
    Of course, defund police gets in the mix. You’re a racist if you oppose…
     
    I don’t know anyone, I don’t know of anyone, who defines racism that way.
     
    But I suppose you can oppose anything, even liberals, if you redefine what you oppose to include every stereotype your deepest imagination can contrive. Hell, it’s a great way to win every debate. Just invent flawed reasoning for the other side that the other side has never actually articulated. Then triumphantly defeat the imaginary argument.
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit illustrates who to call once police are defunded.
     
  • Imani Gandy at Rewire News Group reacts as President Biden introduces judicial nominees that include women jurists and Black jurists and Black women jurists. So Imani Gandy explains why that is especially significant and introduces the word verklempt into my vocabulary. Imagine learning anything at my advanced age!
     
  • Batocchio, the Vagabond Scholar, is fan of the late Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa. His review of one movie is especially engaging, a character study of sorts of a doctor who provides medical advice that saves a gangster, and the gangster who complicates his life by taking that advice.
     
  • SilverAppleQueen has remaining feelings, decades later, about an abusive former love.
     
  • Reductress explains how to stop snooping on your partner’s cell phone, and still feel confident in their fidelity.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil uses a quote from one of my brothers-in-Christ to demonstrate that religion is a mental illness. Oh yeah? Well…
     
    Okay. So it is one of the better examples.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz writes a letter of encouragement to a transgender young person.
     
  • @momwino98 has an entirely new way, outside the capability of most, to give the finger:
    @momwino98

    #duet with @s0phief0ye #twinsies #fyp #tiktokmom

    ♬ Almost all of you are doing it wrong – 🍒cherry🍒

  • At The Moderate Voice, David Robertson looks into the history of April Fools Day with an origin story and a spaghetti example.
     
  • Well, ’tis the season. The Journal of Improbable Research has the latest research on protecting large hollow chocolate bunnies.
     

For Christians and secular celebrants, Happy Easter.
To everyone else, Happy Weekend!
 
OH! One last thing. You gonna bookmark us, or what?

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One thought on “Chauvin, Fox, Shootings, Asian Attacks, Passports, Gaetz Who, Pesky Voters”

  1. I think my aunt Tifa feels pretty much the same. No end to the obscenities that are hurled in her direction…

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