FairAndUNbalanced.com

 
From Infidel753:

The Trumpanzees are angry people. Depending on the individual, they’re angry about blacks and women who no longer “know their place”; at education and expertise, which they themselves do not have; at social changes like secularism and the growing acceptance of gay equality; at any manifestation of foreign culture or language or ideas, which remind them that the world out there is much bigger and more complicated than they can mentally process; at technological change which renders old ways of making a living irrelevant while the internet turns younger people away from old prejudices and certainties. Despite the power held by Trump and other Republicans in their name, they feel put-upon and disrespected. And because so many of them have guns, their anger often stirs fear.

Indeed, fantasies of some future explosion of violence in which they will emerge triumphant are very common on wingnut blogs and discussion sites. From decades-old dreams of a “day of the rope” when enemies (such as Jews, government officials, and “race-mixers”) would be hanged en masse, to present-day rumblings of a second civil war which their overwhelming superiority in guns would turn into an easy slaughter of “libtards” and other broad categories of people they loathe, they picture themselves as the massively stronger side of America’s national divide, awaiting only one more provocation to burst their restraints and annihilate us in a hailstorm of cleansing ammo. Such fantasies are actively encouraged by the worst of the Republican leadership, including you-know-who.

Don’t be fooled. And don’t be scared.

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From Elizabeth Bear at Whatever:

John Scalzi: Sometimes you think a book is going to go one way, and then it goes another, and that turns out — perfectly fine, actually! Elizabeth Bear had a bit of that experience with her new novel Ancestral Night. Here she is to explain the zigs and zags.

Ancestral Night had a hard time getting born.

It’s not the book’s fault. It’s possibly the author’s fault—or possibly the fault lies in the stars. The world kept changing radically on me while I was writing it, you see—personally, politically, and profoundly. And as I and everything around me underwent those changes, the book wound up changing too.

I had originally envisioned something much more along the lines of an epic space opera with multiple points of view and a lot of focus on the politics. The politics were the big idea around which the world was built, after all. The idea of a massive, multi-species, basically benevolent but imperfect post-scarcity bureaucracy devoted to maintaining peace and the well-being of its citizens, however imperfect it could sometimes be in implementation, was appealing in 2014. I feel like it’s even more appealing now, frankly: it would be nice to believe in functional governments again.

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

Yes, there is a pattern. White nationalists, white supremacists, KKK members, and other racists and bigots love Donald Trump. They love him because he won’t criticize them.

Why? There are a couple of reasons. First, he couldn’t afford to do that. His approval numbers have been upside-down since he was sworn into office. He can’t afford to anger any of his base — and a large portion of his base are the racists.

But perhaps the most important reason he won’t criticize them is because he is a racist and white nationalist himself. He has a long history of this. It started back in the 1970’s, when the federal government admonished him repeatedly for refusing to rent to Blacks. And it has continued to this day as he tried to ban muslims from entering this country, and wants to build a wall to keep Hispanics from entering. His only reliable policy is his racism and xenophobia.

And he’s not going to change.

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From PZ Myers:

A teenaged boy — I’d say he even looked “angelic” — slapped the back of the despicable Fraser Anning’s rotten head with an egg. He was a brave young man. Not only did he give Anning a small taste of what he deserves, but he stood his ground as the Australian senator punched him twice, and as his crack team of thugs wrestled the unresisting assailant to the ground and put him in a chokehold. You never know, he might have a second egg somewhere, or a high capacity egg magazine, or an assault egg. You can’t be too careful.

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From The Borowitz Report:

Betsy DeVos Suggests That Bribing Colleges Helps Students Learn Math

The Secretary of Education suggested that, rather than keeping children in the dark about the bribes that enable their college acceptances, “Parents should sit around the kitchen table with their kids and work on some fun math problems together.”

“Let’s say it’ll cost Amber seventy-five thousand dollars to get into Stanford, and it’ll cost her twin brother Dylan seventy-five thousand to get into Georgetown,” she said. “How much money total will their parents have to wire?”

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From Frances Langum:

It’s a no brainer, as technology allows for faster counting and reporting of votes, and the existence of “swing states” means everyone else gets ignored in a general presidential election.

There should be plenty of Republicans who like this idea, as well, particularly the nanosecond Texas turns blue. At that point, it will be nearly impossible for any Republican to win the Electoral vote.

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From Neil Bamforth at MadMikesAmerica:

It was so clearly only a matter of time. The only surprise is that it happened in New Zealand. I suppose, possibly, that shouldn’t entirely be a surprise, as New Zealand are renowned for their diversity. New Zealand is extraordinarily accepting of other cultures and so forth. They are, quite conceivably, considered about the safest haven refugees can find anywhere on the planet—until now.

In fairness to New Zealand, the maniac responsible is actually Australian although it appears, there will be other maniacs involved who may possibly be New Zealanders. We must await events to discover this.

Forty-nine Muslims were slaughtered at Friday prayers. Another forty-something is in hospital in various conditions.

There are, frankly, no words to describe the horror.

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From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

Many people were upset over Trump signing his name on Bibles. “Is he the author of the Bible?” one man rhetorically asked. Of course not, but neither are the men this man thinks ARE the authors. Most of the books of the Bible are written by unknown authors. Of course, this fact is not preached from Evangelical pulpits. Preachers mustn’t ever say or do anything that would cause parishioners to doubt that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God.

Those upset over Trump “defacing” the Word of God are ignorant of Evangelical Baptist church culture. It is not uncommon for Bible owners to write inside their Bibles: the date/time/place they were saved, the date/place they were baptized, and their life verse.

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From nojo at Stinque:

The world should be reacting in horror.

It is not.

Not all of it.

And that’s the problem.

Let’s call them White Nationalists. There are many other expressions we could use — Violent Racists comes to mind — and really, call them what you will. The problem isn’t what we call them, but that they exist, and a significant number of people, including many who hold power in the United States, and many more who empower them, fundamentally agree.

The problem is that we are afraid, as a nation, to call them out.

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From Joe Gandelman, Editor-In-Chief of The Moderate Voice:

Apparently, to some people real, timeless, eternal friendship is like incest: relative.

One of them seems to be South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, who for years was considered the political best bud, a best friend, and near political twin of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain. But then a strange thing began to happen. Once McCain came down with cancer and started to weaken, Graham, who had been intensely critical of Donald Trump both as politician and someone not qualified to serve in the Oval Office, started to grow closer to Trump. And when Graham went golfing with him, he soon emerged as a nearly male version of Trump spinner Kellyanne Conway and even in some ways a Devin Nunes lite. To the extent that Grahman now is the living anthesis of McCain — and the old Graham.

Now, in recent days, with McCain not around to defend himself, Trump has renewed his attacks on the dead Senator who was once McCain’s political best bud, a best friend, and near political twin. McCain’s daughter Meghan has called Trump out.

And Graham? There was silence, until he got blasted on Twitter. After all the social media heat, Graham finally did defend McCain — but carefully avoided mentioning Graham’s name in the criticism. Was that because he’s up for re-election? Or are the conspiracy theorists right in their unproven suggestions that someone has some dirt on Graham? Most likely, his political cowardice is about a)his wanting to regain re-election at any cost b)his finger in the wind tells him if he wants power and a role in the GOP he has to be seen as not just a Trump supporter but Trump’s biggest defender.

But his stale nothing burger defense of McCain coming after all of Trump’s fierce attacks will do little to undo more adding to his image as a political jellyfish.

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