Seldom Balanced – Usually Fair
From Andy Borowitz:
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump said on Monday that he is “a-hundred-per-cent positive” that an F.B.I. informant infiltrated his 2016 campaign
but that he has “absolutely no idea” who that mole might be.
“I’ve been trying to figure out who would have the opportunity and the motive to do something like this,” he said. “But I keep coming up empty.”
From Anything Political:
“I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!” Trump wrote.
Trump was known for his regular tweets, many of them being controversial. It was evident that Trump was possibly searching for a way to avoid an interview with Robert Mueller and bring the probe to a close.
Trump tweeted “Things are really getting ridiculous. The Failing and Crooked (but not as Crooked as Hillary Clinton) @nytimes has done a long & boring story indicating that the World’s most expensive Witch Hunt has found nothing on Russia & me so now they are looking at the rest of the World!”
Analysts indicated that Trump made false accusation in many of his tweets. It was clear there were persons on his side and others against him.
From PZ Myers:
How can you blame both sides when one side is being gunned down by snipers, and the other is armed, at best, with rocks? When one side is killing children?
But Bari Weiss managed to top it. How horrible that the Palestinian people planned their protest strategically? Why didn’t they schedule it for a day when it wouldn’t make Ivanka Trump look bad?
Talk about missing the whole point…it reminds me of the furious complaints when Black Lives Matter protests inconvenience people. How dare they march where people would notice! Couldn’t they just march down streets in the middle of nowhere that weren’t full of busy white people trying to get to a football game?
From nojo at Stinque:
What’s it like knowing that more people have died this year in school shootings than serving in the military?
In 1974, at age fifteen, we were already plenty cynical — by nature, and because of the times. But we were lucky: Nothing new about crooked politicians, nothing personal about diminishing resources. Nobody was trying to kill us, and nobody would have complained if action was contemplated to prevent it. The NRA as we know it today had yet to corrupt our leaders and our values.
We didn’t grow up with a target on our back. Today’s kids do. And they know it. And they know nothing will be done to stop it.
From Green Eagle:
On October 1 of last year, as most people will sadly remember, a man in Las Vegas barricaded himself in a hotel room and began shooting at a concert below his windows, killing 51 people and injuring over 800. The man seemed to be a prosperous middle class man with no known connection to terror groups, and his motives for this monstrous act seemed doomed to remain forever a mystery.
Now, however, it seems that the mystery has been dispelled.
From Frederic Lemieux of Georgetown University at The Moderate Voice:
At least 10 students were killed at a Santa Fe, Texas high school on May 18 after a classmate opened fire with a shotgun and a .38 revolver.
The shooting came just three months after another teen shooter killed 17 in Parkland, Florida, sparking nationwide youth-led protests over gun violence – and a familiar debate over what changes could really make a difference.
As a criminologist, I often hear misconceptions creeping into the debate that springs up whenever a mass shooting occurs.
Here’s what the research actually shows.
From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:
A socialist government program is not about the general welfare. It is about the welfare of some at the expense of others, and the power of the few over the lives of the many. The only thing “general” about socialist welfare state programs is the chains that bind all together and leave none with their rights. After all, rights can be boiled down to this: the freedom to say no, and go one’s separate way if one chooses. This freedom doesn’t protect the rich and powerful. It primarily protects the weakest among us—each of us as individuals. Under the American system, the rich have no power to coerce even the poorest individual, until and unless the government hands them that power by failing to protect the individual’s inalienable rights. In Rothman’s reactionary conception, no one has the right to say “no” to his neighbor or his government.
The American system embodied in the principles of the Declaration of Independence, which has come to be known as laissez-faire, or “let us alone”, capitalism, is designed to protect the life and liberty of the common person from mob and government alike. Rothman responds “Wrong! The American System is not about individualism. It is about collectivism, in which all are chained and enslaved to all, and dependent on all, via omnipotent government.” The fact that most of us are already partially chained via one government program or another shows how far the social statists—who disingenuously label themselves “Progressives”—have repudiated everything America stands for.
To wrap the rise of socialist tyranny in the American Flag: What can be more disingenuous than that!
From Max’s Dad:
I dont that much about Arturo Sandoval. I know he’s a legend. I know he has a Presidential Medal of Freedom which because Obama presented it may be rescinded by the current Traitor In Chief. I know he’s from Cuba. I know he plays my favorite instrument. Thats about it.
Arturo Sandoval and his band graced us with his presence last night here in the heartland. Sandoval, at 69 years old, idolized Dizzy Gillespie, and his latest tour makes sure we all know that. Called the Dear Diz tour, Sandoval plays Dizzy tunes with a love only he can know. That love entered me as soon as I heard Sandoval blow that trumpet. Oh my god, what a talent.
Backed by a band of talented musicians, Sandoval wore so many hats I couldnt believe what i was seeing half the time.
From Infidel753:
Trump is restructuring the democratic world, though in ways not congruent with his intentions, and the changes will go deeper the longer he remains in office. He evidently believes that the power of the US enables it (well, him) to simply make demands on other countries and compel them to obey. Combined with his ignorance about the world, this belief produces a pattern of erratic and alarming behavior which is eroding the leadership role the US has held since the end of World War II.
His early comments calling into question the US defense commitments to the democracies of Europe and East Asia must have set off alarm bells for the governments of those countries, and no doubt quite a few very sober high-level meetings took place in Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, etc. around that time. The “axis of adults” in Washington eventually persuaded Trump to back down from some of his stupidest remarks, but his true attitude had been revealed, and other governments knew that they couldn’t count on the “adults” to remain in place (indeed, all are now gone except Mattis).
Since then Trump has further damaged the US leadership role with such moves as withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, after which other countries (and even some US states and cities) simply went on following the accord without him. His threats of trade war prompted Europe, not to submit, but to announce plans for retaliation. No other major country has emulated his pointless and inflammatory gesture of moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. His abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal reeked of arrogance, with his new ambassador to Germany imperiously ordering the world’s fourth-largest economic power to slavishly fall into line.
From Dave Dubya:
In a nutshell.
FOX(R) v. Journalism: Exhibit A.
Sean Hannity asked Ted Koppel, “You think I’m bad for America?”
After being rudely interrupted three times by “Sad” Hannity, Koppel responded, “Yep. You have attracted people who are determined that ideology is more important than facts.”