Month: July 2017

The National Mall fireworks as seen from the South Lawn of the White House. July 4, 2015

Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.

 
From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

Middletown, Ohio Republican councilman Dan Picard wants to teach drug addicts a real-life lesson about drug abuse — overdose in Middletown and we are going to let you die. This story is a perfect example of what Republicans want to do when it comes to healthcare. Are you overweight? Diabetic? Do you have high blood pressure? Why should anyone pay for your medical care? Take care of it yourself – and if you can’t? Die. It is beyond me how anyone who cares about human welfare can continue to support Republicans, both at the state and federal levels.

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From PZ Myers:

The story of Bianca Roberson brings back ugly memories. Any place along the highway were you were forced to merge two lanes together was going to provoke some people to fury, needlessly. All I had to worry about generally were the obnoxious drivers who’d flip you off and pound on their horn and drive recklessly to insist that they get to merge ahead of you. Bianca Roberson met a fellow driver who pulled out a gun and shot her in the head.

This is rank madness. You do not need a gun to drive on a highway, no, not even the Schuylkill Expressway. A gun does not help in any way. It makes everything worse, to no good purpose. You do not need to be armed at all times. You do not need a gun at a movie theater. You do not need a gun at school. You do not need a gun on your daily commute.

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From Dr Mark Bear at MadMikesAmerica:

The current occupant of the White House is dispatching a federal task force to Chicago due to the violence in the city. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, states, when asked whether the issue is related to guns, indicates it is a morality problem. Now, I find this statement to be so ironic. Why?

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From Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass:

From Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who was talking about the Trump Gestapo’s demand for private data on every Bluegrass voter, but who hit on the perfect response for all repug/trumpian stupidity:

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Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.

• There does exist a tiny little island in the Indian Ocean with a higher incarceration rate than the United States. Other than that, our nation has the highest in the world. And Louisiana has the highest in the United States. The Intersection of Madness and Reality reports that Louisiana sees all that as less a solution than a problem. And they are working at reforms to reduce that rate.
   
• Neil Bamforth, residing in MadMikesAmerica, takes a look at the tribulation of a British Sikh couple who wish to adopt a child.
   
• Each June, at The Saturday Afternoon Post, Jack Jodell nominates the previous year’s heroes. Turns out, when democracy is endangered, there is no shortage of patriots.
   
• At Stinque, nojo expresses the best hope offered by this terrible, brutal period in our national history.
   
• Last Of The Millenniums acknowledges that our President suffers from an intelligence deficit, and proposes a cure. Interestingly, it is similar to a suggested cure for mysogeny.
   
• PZ Myers watches as scientists are purged and ideologues take over science. When it comes to expressing their thoughts on space exploration, they can’t find the words.
   
• MyCue23, at Random Thoughts, poses an uncomfortable suggestion: We have the national leadership we deserve.
   
• driftglass blames, at least in part, the both-sides-are-the-same philosophy for midwifing Trumpism. He explains how they did it.
   
• Dave Dubya has a different view. Trump is the product of contemporary conservative values. Here’s the often neglected insight about Trump supporters – not, as I see it, ideological conservatives. “The other primary reason the cult unites behind Trump is because he hates, or is perceived to hate, the same people con-servatives hate.”
   
• Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass agrees with a noted analysis suggesting that racial conservatives have never much liked voting rights.
   
• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from the White House. Donald Trump has established an Election Commission staffed with voter suppression enthusiasts. The first act has been to demand from states the same confidential files that Russian hackers worked to get into. Mississippi’s conservative Republican Secretary of State seems to have spoken for most of the states when he invited the group to “jump in the Gulf of Mexico” and urged other states to “protect the privacy of our citizens”. Donald Trump has suggested that, rather than protecting privacy, states have something to hide.
   
• The Journal of Improbable Research brings us a joint study from two universities about the relationship between finger length and voices of bankers. As far as I can tell, this has nothing to do with Presidential over-sensitivity about hand-size.
   
• Infidel753 points to those who first developed agriculture.
   
• Max’s Dad takes a break from national farce to enjoy the best television in years. Especially Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison in Homeland
   

The Presidential Denial that Denies Itself

While falsely accusing us, the restaurant planner accidentally proved the truth.

Maybe she should run for President.

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