Not many people would have the courage to face down an angry mob committing treason…all ALONE!
Eugene Goodman, my 2021 HERO! 🎖🎖🎖#PersonOfTheYear https://t.co/psm8RPBVOn
— Wednesday's Child🇺🇸 (@Wednsdayschild) December 14, 2021
- Green Eagle reports on the latest from Mike Pence. Seems that testifying about Jan 6 is not a sure thing. Green Eagle may know why. Has to do with an underreported aspect of the Constitution.
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MAGA rioter: Trump supporters were 'entitled' to attack the Capitol because the president gave permission https://t.co/tq5VlCdd1c
— Lily Santo (@santo_aol) December 16, 2021
- Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged hears Liz Cheney read emails from the Republican Fab Four, plays the game one of these is not like the others, and looks forward to actual hearings.
- News Corpse covers Fox Network confusion about how to cover their mis-cover of the Jan 6 failed coup. Liz Cheney makes text messages public that Fox personalities had sent on January 6 urging that Donald Trump stop his followers as they trashed the Capitol Building, killing a few police officers, sending dozens more to the hospital, and attempting to assassinate legislators. As FoxFolk were sending messages urging that Trump tell the mob to stop, Foxxers went on air to say that the carnage was completely independent of Trump. As other networks showed Rep. Cheney reading the messages to the cameras, Fox refused to say a word about the hearings for more than 24 hours.
The excuses they eventually offered for the difference between public coverage and private panic are pathetic, but they are the best pathetic excuses they had then, or have now.
- In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson notes that CNN reporters think they know who the Jan 6 Committee think they know wrote a subversion memo suggesting Republicans overthrow the 2020 election. The initials turn out to be May I have the envelope please? Rick Perry, one-time Energy Secretary for President Trump. The investigative momentum, she says, seems to be picking up.
-
In retrospect, Watergate was adorable,
— Jim Stewartson, Antifascist, #RIPQ 🇺🇸🏴☠️ (@jimstewartson) December 12, 2021
- The Palmer Report is paying attention to who says what in and out of the Jan 6 Committee. The individual who may be putting himself into an ocean of legal pain is Rick Perry.
I haven’t liked Rick Perry since he was Governor Perry of Texas. An obviously innocent man was put to death for killing his family because Governor Perry was too damn busy read too damn lazy to read an urgent authoritative report proving the man could not have done it. Perry later tried to cover up the man’s innocence.
There’s something about executing innocent people that flat-out ticks me off.
- Jim Jordan reveals that he also wrote texts to Mark Meadows advocating the overthrow of the election. Andy Borowitz covers the stunned reaction as the nation is shocked that Jim Jordan is capable of writing a text.
- Dave Dubya talks about the Big Lie that is disproven in an endless series of Groundhog Days, remarking,
But a cult is a cult. And a cult isn’t a cult to a cult,
asking if Trumpists are fascists, and whether we should compare them to Nazis, then proposing an answer.
- On the other hand, Scottie has definite proof of voter fraud in the 2020 election.
- CalicoJack in The Psy of Life finds reason for pessimism about our national future:
And the sun sets on democracy https://t.co/u0p9eEqBqN
— The Psy of Life (@ThePsyOfLife) December 13, 2021
- driftglass is frustrated as columnist Jennifer Rubin insists Biden must defend democracy by publicly identifying its foes. driftglass asks: identify what to whom?
- MadMikesAmerica explores in cartoon format why President Biden’s poll numbers have been going down.
- Frances Langum has the documentation showing exactly where Republicans stand on Biden’s American Rescue Plan.
It’s becoming a pattern. Representative Paul A. Gosar (R-AZ):
While bill is being debated:
The American Rescue Plan is a Trojan horse for socialism!
After bill passes:
I am pleased to announce that the City of Kingman will receive this critical funding…
Yup. Oppose it all the way until Republican opposition is defeated and relief for beleaguered Americans passes.
Then Republicans claim credit for it.
- M. Bouffant at Web of Evil gathers the documentation and the reaction as Donald Trump, bitter at his massive election defeat, accuses the American Jews collectively of inadequate loyalty to Israel.
New quotes from Trump to @BarakRavid: Most US Jews don't love Israel. Exclusive for Unholy podcast
@Freedland pic.twitter.com/Hv4joYkbCN— Yonit Levi (@LeviYonit) December 17, 2021
This rather jumps out:
It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress and today I think it’s the exact opposite.
- Infidel753 suggests that Democrats lose elections, elections they don’t need to lose, by focusing on issues most Americans think irrelevant or oppose altogether.
And there is a matter of attitude, summarized beautifully:
… there is the oddity that the left has almost entirely taken over the role of the scowling, disapproving, uptight prig, never a popular character.
I suppose the essential truth is that social equity involves policy, policy involves politics, and honorable politics involves persuasion and truth.
For example:
We do not persuade hard working folks, people who have struggled and striven for what they have, by telling them that they have achieved their place, not by earning it through hard work, but rather through undeserved privilege. Many are not only offended, they are rightfully offended, because they know from personal experience that what we say is not, and has not ever been, true in their lives.
In this time of technology and visual history, people can be persuaded by pointing to what we all can see on screen. Large groups of people who work just as hard, who struggle just as honorably, are too often pushed down and forced out.
That is not only more effective in appealing to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature, it has the additional virtue of being recognizable truth.
- Iron Knee at Political Irony is amused as SNL has Anthony Fauci dispelling COVID conspiracy theories.
-
In retrospect, Watergate was adorable,
— Jim Stewartson, Antifascist, #RIPQ 🇺🇸🏴☠️ (@jimstewartson) December 12, 2021
- At jobsanger, we find that those who say children are unaffected by the virus are leaving out something important.
- As COVID-19 keeps extending itself, outwaiting the patience of state governors, Julian Sanchez joins other CATO scholars in examining privacy concerns in electronic networking for work, socializing, learning, and just about everything.
- PZ Myers relates how, around the corner from us in Illinois, Amazon drivers were given amazing instructions during recent multiple hurricanes. He has wonderful advice for drivers if he ever happens to order just before catastrophic weather hits.
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I must have missed the: “Thank You, Mr. President, for providing federal assistance we so desperately need in Kentucky!” from Rand Paul & Mitch McConnell .🙄
— FEISTY😈 (@crzyfkinworld) December 12, 2021
- A local contest in South Dakota invites teachers to compete in a mad scramble, crawling on ice for dollar bills to buy classroom supplies for their students.
Sarah Cooper has a modest proposal:
Or we could just… give them the money? https://t.co/CYsXvYYJaU
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) December 13, 2021
- It is sometimes fun to see an ideologue become uncomfortable with the ideology. Stretching facts irritates me. But, for some reason, I find attempts to twist definitions more amusing. Some pretzels are both salty and fun.
Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara is an avid follower of of the late Ayn Rand.
That would be the Ayn Rand who expressed the core of her philosophy in a book, The Virtue of Selfishness. People, she insists, must act solely in their own self-interest. Period.
Michael seems a bit uncomfortable with this. So he explains what selfishness really means.
To be rationally selfish likewise impells you to consciously place your values in a hierarchy of importance to your life, and to act accordingly.
So selfishness includes actions that are …well… unselfish. Because selfishness makes your values more important than your selfish interests.
And a housefly is a flying house.
- Tommy Christopher listens as Jen Psaki defends those who believed Jussie Smollet at first, including one time President Donald Trump.
I was skeptical of what turned out to be a phony hate crime. I admit it was mostly because I’m old enough to remember a superficially parallel incident.
- Nojo really, truly doesn’t like the late Nancy Reagan. A tall. Not even slightly.
- North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has respected the positions of those with whom he disagrees. But he has finally had it. He explains why he has lost respect for his Republican friends.
- tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has the receipts, okay non-receipts, as an obscure law in Texas extends the traditional church tax exemption, allowing some mega-rich religious leaders to live in extravagant mansions while paying no property taxes at all.
- In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, atheist Bruce takes a look at Pascal’s Wager, the argument that believing in God has no consequence if you are wrong, but not believing has eternal consequence if you are wrong. Bruce has a couple of good responses.
I am a Christian and I have to stand with Bruce Gerencser on this.
It seems to me the best argument for the stand he takes is that we have self-evident moral responsibilities as thinking, feeling creatures. One is a fidelity to what we can see as the Truth.
The Pascal calculation strikes me as a bit dishonest.
From Upton Sinclair:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
Substitute immortal soul for salary, and you have the core of my objection.
It is hard for me to imagine that God favors anyone for forcing themselves into a belief in the hope of eventual great reward.
- Nan’s Notebook reports that the fastest growing denomination in the United States is not a religious denomination.
- At The Moderate Voice, retired U.S. Air Force officer Dorian de Wind gives us more information on the heroism of Three new recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, two awarded posthumously.
- John Scalzi at Whatever first connected with his wife through stories by Anne Rice of vampire fame and now mourns her passing.
- SilverAppleQueen has a wonderful memory she associates with Mike Nesmith, The Monkees, and the Last Train to Clarksville.
- Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson ends up in a snark debate:
He first offers an opinion on a fellow conservative from Wisconsin:So what @SenRonJohnson is saying is that he contracted Covid because he practices poor dental hygiene. It's not just what he says that is foul, his breath is, too.
— James Wigderson (@jwigderson) December 12, 2021
Responds reasonably:No. Not sure where you got that idea, but I think (and someone might correct me) the last campaign I did any work for was 1998.
— James Wigderson (@jwigderson) December 12, 2021
Then outsnarks a snarker:“Who's the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?” – Obi-Wan Kenobi.
— James Wigderson (@jwigderson) December 12, 2021
- @momwino98 watches what possibly is the worst answer ever witnessed by a Jeopardy audience:
@momwino98 ##duet with @mckenton WTH!! ##puberty ##sweetjesus ##tiktokmom ##fyp ##cashapp13plus ##MyBrawlSuper #
- Ever wonder what daily living was like in days gone by? What it would be like to see random goings on through a time portal?
Hackwhackers has a couple of colorized and sound-added videos originally filmed over a hundred years ago. Fascinating realism that comes from …well… reality.
And, one video from a few years before I came into the world.
Damn, I’m old!
- Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit links to, and reviews the review of, what has to be the most hilariously horrible restaurant experience ever captured in print.
Do follow the link.
- The Onion brings holiday cheer with ways you can detect that you are your child’s least favorite parent.
- The Journal of Improbable Research highlights successful efforts by students at the University of Michigan, overcoming technological obstacles and constructing a robot that can pick dandelions.
- I can relate as Reductress explains that one individual’s specialty recipe is also the only recipe she knows how to make.
Tweets I thought worthy:
Very true. Here in NY after Sandy Hit, it was Senators like @tedcruz and @RandPaul who voted against relief because “hurricanes didn’t happen where they live. That’s a Blue State Problem”. They didn’t care about people. Now they want to look good to keep their power.
— Stevie T (@carguysteviet) December 13, 2021
Natural immunity seems to be working just fine. A patient in 60s – 1st covid 4 months ago, treated in ICU, survived, now 2nd covid, again in ICU, heading towards intubation.
— Dr. Natalia 💉😷 (@SolNataMD) December 12, 2021
Today's Dad's 80th bday so waiting for to get up so I can wish him when I heard him cursing and shouting "This is despicable!!" and "I WILL KILL THE BASTARD" so ran to see what the hell was happening & found him…… playing Dark Souls.
He has never played a video game before
— Shiv Ramdas Traing To Rite Buk (@nameshiv) December 12, 2021
COVID patient, dying in the ICU. Two ICU nurses holding his hands and sitting with him as he passed. How many more times can they keep doing this?
— dr jiggly nubbins (@jigglynubbins) December 12, 2021
Hey look, I meme’d. Did I do it right? pic.twitter.com/ieoZc0UOVQ
— Jesus Fucking Christ 🌈 (@SHEsus__Christ) December 14, 2021
Yesterday I told my husband I thought I saw a cockroach in the kitchen. He sprayed down the whole kitchen and wiped it thoroughly. Tomorrow, I'm putting it in the bathroom….😅🤣😂😅🤣😂❤
— Diane (@Resister4u) December 14, 2021
— Cher47🇺🇸🌊 (@Cher47) December 11, 2021
🇬🇧 Hey folks, don't forget to put your clocks back to 1985 this weekend 😏
— I❤️80s (@IL0VEthe80s) October 29, 2021
Here's the truth pic.twitter.com/tSZ7wF1Ivt
— Dave (@Dave07778029) December 15, 2021
And I’m allowed a few of my own:
I'm considered elderly, so please help me out.
You think the idea that billionaires, like yourself, should pay taxes is outrageous?
That the idea is the equivalent of some racist rant while filing a false police report?
Rather than a rant about the unfairness of US tax law?
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) December 15, 2021
Ha ha ha
Quite a satire
Carter lowering himself into a nuclear reactor leading a team that had practiced for a day in a replica.
Tee hee.Except I looked it up and it's a true story.
Can you imagine young Trump performing heroically?— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) December 16, 2021
Fits me.
Hard to accept that whole forgiveness thing.
Feels like cheating.Friend: You're a good man, Burr.
Me: Nope, just a tired old sinner.
Friend: Hell, we're all tired old sinners.Helps, I think.
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) December 16, 2021
It can feel like you're alone on one side of a great divide and the world of the worthy is on the other.
Might help to know lots of people are there with you.We do keep owing apologies, knowing others have every right to anger.
But maybe we can lay some inward burden down.— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) December 16, 2021
– Podcasts –
>From Upton Sinclair:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
Substitute immortal soul for salary, and you have the core of my objection.
It is hard for me to imagine that God favors anyone for forcing themselves into a belief in the hope of eventual great reward.<
Yes! Thank you.
Burr,
MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and yours.
And to you and yours, my valued friend.