Juneteenth, Slavery, Const Poison, March, Gun Play, Jan 6, Equal Time

  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara has occasionally seemed reticent about slavery and the birth of our country. I thought his latest, a celebration of Monday’s celebration of Juneteenth was more of the same. You may be familiar with the routine:
     
    Slavery was an evil institution that we inherited, but abolished because it violated our deeply held national principles that we held dear from the very beginning.
     
    And this piece does begin just that way.
     
    He regrets, as all humanity should, that it took so long for freedom to become universal and our ideals to be firmly established.
     
    Then he ends with this pure revealed truth:
     
    But it did, finally erasing America’s most glaring birth defect.
     
    erasing? Really?
     
    Well… Perhaps close enough to provide some hope for those of us who pray for redemption for us all.
     

  • Dave Dubya documents 5 poison pills, all hidden in the US Constitution, that together threaten the better angels of our national character.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has a very brief, very sad summary of human history from Victor Hugo.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz explains the significance of marches, their limits, and what will most probably be the most important march of our lives.
     
  • At The Moderate Voice Robert Levine covers the ongoing gun safety debate between politics and common sense.
     
  • At times, we are all astonishingly inept, some of us more than others, when confronted by tragedy. Sometimes it is because of an agenda that excuses or minimizes horror. Sometimes it is because we caught emotionally flatfooted.


    The Propaganda Professor compiles some of the worst responses to mass killings.

  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil is unimpressed with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his words of comfort to the parents of murdered children.
     
  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has been keeping up on the Jan 6 hearings. In case you missed Thursday’s session, here’s a good rundown, including a critique of the pointlessly boring part.
     
  • In Hackwhackers, Matthew Dowd defines the clear and present danger to our democracy, and Paul Waldman points out why it is the Republican Party.
     
  • The Palmer Report explains the most important lesson from the January 6 investigation: that a detailed plot to seize power could well have succeeded, except unexpected Republicans, unexpectedly, did what was not expected.
     
  • Green Eagle is amazed that a lifelong Republican, a judge who always worked hard to subvert our legal system, would in retirement forcefully articulate the cold hard truth.
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony listens to an excerpt from Liz Cheney and finds irony in Trump as an isolationist President who simply became isolated.
     
  • Max’s Dad is back yay! with grudging respect for Rep. Liz Cheney, especially in contrast with other congressional Republicans.
     
    Best couple of lines:
    Its very difficult for me to separate the atrocious voting record from the person but what do they say about the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Well for now she’s my BFF.
     
  • Tommy Christopher watches as CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin recalls Jan 6 and compares Mike Pence with an action hero.
     
  • Frances Langum contemplates briefly, very briefly, whether Mike Pence is a hero, and answers no, nope, nuh-uh, not even.
     
  • The Onion goes point/counterpoint on Jan 6:
    Trump Went Too Far vs Mike Pence Was Wrong To Say Trump Went Too Far
    with Mike Pence taking both sides.
     
  • Satirist Andy Borowitz reports that Trump legal advisor John Eastman, who pushed hard for overturning the election may apply to law school.
     
    Best line:
    As I was taking the Fifth Amendment a hundred times, I realized there must be at least four other amendments.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson seems skeptical about the latest sketchy conspiracy theory:

  • News Corpse reads once-upon-a-president Trump’s complaint that the Jan 6 committee has not interviewed anyone on a list he presents of pro-Trump witnesses, all of which, News Corpse points out, have refused to testify.
     
    Mr. Trump demands equal time.
     
    I modestly propose a modest endorsement:

  • In Letters from an American, noted historian Heather Cox Richardson marks this week’s 50th anniversary of the first glimmer of Watergate as a security guard discovered a taped open latch on a door. Then it all began to unravel and the Republic was saved.
     
    For a time.
     
  • Nojo watches desperate wishes from Watergate times come true with unexpected non-consequences today.
     
  • When it became evident that the USSR was developing nuclear capability comparable to that of the United States, foreign policy became less an art form and more a deadly game of multi-dimensional chess. How to keep the peace and confront Soviet expansionism? George Kennan became the chief architect of Truman’s containment policy, and its defender during the Eisenhower years.
     
    He eventually summarized his analysis of the diplomatic history of Soviet Russia and how the US might counter aggression and still avoid outright war.
     
    The Strategic Studies Book Club analyzes the analysis and reviews Russia and the West in brief written form that will give you enough to decide whether to invest an hour in video discussion.
     
    If that turns you on, you can buy the book and let the rest of us know how it went.
     
  • Infidel753 habitually applies intelligent insight to international conflict. He takes a look at the reckless buffoonery of a minor Russian politician, explaining why his foolishness is not of any consequence, but official Russian silence may be.
     
  • After the Supremes put Roe v Wade on the back shelf to gather dust, will miscarriages become prospective crime scenes?
     
    Legal expert Imani Gandy reviews the indignant response of anti-abortion activists, that proposed laws outlawing abortion contain hold harmless clauses exempting women from liability – and-d-d-d how that’s already working out in practice.
     
  • Worried about who reads to kids in a library? PZ Myers has devised a useful parental judgment test.
     
  • Scotties Playtime brings the story as an Arkansas leader in an anti-LGBTQ group is caught contemplating the assassination of local librarians.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged takes a look at drag queens, fear, grifting, and the sort of Christians for whom it’s okay to lie in the name of the Lord.
     
  • In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, a Christian Evangelical counselor offers to help Bruce recover from atheism.
     
    Gaahhhh!
     
  • Nan’s Notebook speculates on why so many Christian congregants are senior people. Although most would deny it, she believes the greatest motivator among those who converted late in life may be fear of death.
     
    Not true of me, of course.
     
  • Winston Churchill described his reaction to what could plausibly be described as a near-death experience:
     
    Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.
     
    His documented experience was a little more complex. A large piece of shrapnel exploded between him and his cousin during their service in what was then called The Great War. That was before we learned to number them.
     
    The Churchill experience was more a post near-death.
     
    If it involved exhilaration, it was dissimilar to mine.
     
    That experience was fairly mundane, not at all exhilarating: exciting mostly to onlookers. The near-death lasted a second or two as my car overturned and skidded along the expressway for a couple hundred feet. I was pulled from the wreckage, aware of what had happened and grateful in an abstract sort of way at the survival.
     
    Real near-death experiences, it seems to me, involve more than a moment of awareness that death is on its way. A parachute failure, for example, involves knowledge of approaching death.
     
    Some anecdotal accounts range from peace, security, and detachment to anguish and grief.
     
    Humorist YellowDog Granny may have just gone through the real deal.
     
    Makes me wonder if this first is a reflection of personal wisdom.
     
  • Alan Turing was a mathematician who was instrumental in winning World War II. He was a winner at cracking German codes and extracting wartime secrets.
     
    In spite of that, he was later prosecuted for his homosexuality. He eventually committed suicide.
     
    Before this grotesque injustice, he invented a test to measure the degree to which Artificial Intelligence could successfully mimic human conversation. The idea was to determine whether a computer possessed intelligence.
     
    Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez has a thought on the reluctance of many of us to accept artificially produced self-awareness:

  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit goes back to the Civil War to discover in the production of gunpowder trolling and counter trolling before internet was even a thought.
     
  • In Happiness Between Tails da-AL speculates about sensuality, passion and older women.
     
  • @whiskeywhistle98 teaches us something completely new about intimate wear:
    @whiskeywhistle98 #duet with @pinkypatelofficial I was this old today when I learned this..🤦🏼‍♀️ #panties #tampons #tiktokmom #learnedsomethingnew #AmazonMusicProudHeroes #MakeNightsEpic #mindblown ♬ original sound – Pinky Patel

  • Reductress has the best clickbait, like this quiz on how to tell whether you really like to roller skate or you are just a bored bisexual.
     
  • The Journal of Improbable Research examines a statistical analysis that provokes a question: is a statistic always worth the analysis?
     
  • SilverAppleQueen has cats, cats that like to cuddle.
     
A few tweets I thought worthy:

And I’m allowed a few of my own:

– Podcasts –
 

2 thoughts on “Juneteenth, Slavery, Const Poison, March, Gun Play, Jan 6, Equal Time”

Comments are closed.