Seldom Balanced – Usually Fair
via The Moderate Voice:
To avoid any ambiguity, President Trump will be releasing a price guide of what crimes other countries can get away with and for what cost. Sneak preview: your tenth murder of a journalist is free!
— MAD Magazine (@MADmagazine) November 21, 2018
From nojo:
Many long national nightmares later, we have yet to escape this one, probably won’t for a couple years. But the days of utter hopelessness, the days of one elected branch of our government colluding with another to divest our republic of its sovereignty and our citizens of their liberty are coming to an end.
Nixon faced a House and Senate run by Democrats. Trump hasn’t had the pleasure of either.
We’re not there yet, and we’ve been worrying about what shenanigans might be pulled in the waning days of the 115th Congress, but the lame-duck session has yet to bear casualties. Meanwhile, Democrats are already squabbling over their incoming leadership, and—
Well, it’s refreshing, really. Familiar. Nice and messy, the way it was before the storm hit.
Politics as usual.
The problems laid bare over the past two years remain, of course — not just the traitors holding high offices, but the illegitimacy of those offices themselves, the very structure of our national government as a perversion of the consent of the governed. The ferocity of those who hold power to deny their own citizens the right to veto that power.
And, well, the citizens themselves, some 40 percent of them, more or less, the White Tribe that is the only tribe that matters in America.
From Dave Dubya:
Our First Amendment right to free speech is being reduced to the right of corporations and the wealthy to unlimited speech and influence. We the people need to speak out. Voting is our most important political speech.
Let us be thankful for what representation we have remaining, but we should also know this may not last either. We use it or lose it.
Our founding document, the Declaration of Independence tells us:
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”
How’s that been working out? More Americans voted for Democratic senators, yet the Republicans hold the Senate. Only an amendment to the Constitution can remedy this inequality.
Democracy is being suppressed across the states as well.
In the state houses of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina Democrats got more votes than Republicans. Republicans still control them. Voters in Michigan have had enough, and passed a ballot proposal to end partisan gerrymandering. The sooner the rest of the country follows this example the better.
The time has come to draw the line and speak the clear truth that few dare to utter.
From Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass:
Even their lies are pathetically obvious. They’re not even trying to hide that their goal is to eliminate everyone who is not white, male, straight, rich and republican.
The Trump administration has again approved new rules for some of Kentucky’s Medicaid population, requiring them to either get a job, volunteer in the community or go to school to keep their government-funded health coverage.
The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services announced the approval on Tuesday, nearly five months after a federal judge blocked the state’s first attempt. State officials say the new rules can begin as soon as April 1 and will be phased in regionally over several months. They will require adults ages 19 to 64, with some exceptions, to complete at least 80 hours per month of “community engagement” to keep their health benefits. That includes getting a job, looking for a job, going to school, volunteering for community service or taking a job training course.
What’s the catch? Working people on Medicaid will have to verify their working hours every month. So, you’re struggling with three jobs and taking care of your kids but you have to drop everything and drive to the nearest Medicaid office – oh, you don’t have a car? Well you can call the Medicaid office – oh, you aren’t allowed to make personal calls at work so you can’t call during business hours? Well, you can go online … oh, you live in the 95 percent of Kentucky that has no reliable wi-fi? Well, guess you’re shit out of luck. And the Bevin-Trump plan is working like a charm.
From Margaret and Helen:
No jello-salad. I’m serious about this. The only thing that jiggles at my house this Thanksgiving will be your Aunt Trudy after a few glasses of wine.
I’ve lived a long life and along the way, I’ve collected a few nice things. I don’t put them away for company and I don’t put them away for family. Eventually your child needs to learn the meaning of the word No. Let’s make that happen today. We watch football in the family room on TV. We throw footballs outside on the lawn. And when you do go outside, shut the door behind you. I don’t need to air condition the whole neighborhood. And if Mr. Briggers next door tells you to stay off his lawn, tell him to stay off my last nerve. I swear, that man is the one bad bulb that ruins the whole string of lights.
If you want to talk politics sit next to me, but if you own a MAGA hat be warned. Your President is an asshat and I’m old enough to speak my mind regardless of your precious feelings. If I were you, I’d practice don’t ask, don’t tell because even when I mind my Ps and Qs, I can still spell bullshit.
No jello-salad.
From The Journal of Improbable Research:
If students are placed in a situation where they are required to choose between either being deprived of food, or being deprived of their smartphone, which option will they be most likely to go for? A recent study from the Department of Pediatrics, University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, New York, has attempted, by experiment, to find out…
From driftglass:
Back in the Year of Our Lord 2006, as the Bush Administration was beginning to collapse under the pulverizing weight of its own criminal incompetence, corruption and hubris, the loud and proud Bush Regime supporters were making great sport of begin mocking us lefties as alarmist idiots and reveling in our Liberal tears.
But because Republicans — the former Party of Personal Responsibility — are fundamentally weak and cowardly and incapable of taking personal responsibility for their shitty decisions, as the collapse of the Bush regime accelerated past the point where reality-denial-in-force could keep it at bay any longer, your humble scrivener predicted that Crazy Uncle Liberty would, in very short order, begin denying Bush faster and harder than Peter denied Christ. From me in 2006:
In five years, having voted for Bush will have become the parachute pants of this decade.
[…]
But I was wrong.
From The Onion:
“We’re excited to show off one of the strongest rookie classes in years, as all sorts of up-and-coming boyfriends have burst suddenly onto the scene this year, and we’re really excited to spring them on you at Thanksgiving dinner,” said Milwaukee-area aunt and league chairwoman Joanne Keyes, who hinted that the release of several prominent boyfriends from prison might provide a welcome shake-up during this year’s festivities.
From Iron Knee at Political Irony:
Donald Trump continues to lead his devoted followers in chants of “Lock her up!” at his rallies, because Hillary Clinton famously used private email for government business while she was secretary of state. So of course, we now find out that Ivanka Trump has been using a personal email account for government business. Ivanka used a Microsoft email account to communicate with Cabinet officials, White House aides, and others.
And it isn’t just Ivanka of course.
From Ted McLaughlin:
An infrastructure bill is needed, and a bill to fix Obamacare. Both would make the public happy, and if done right, might even have enough support to get through the Senate also. But neither is going to be easy to do, and it will take some time to hold hearings and write a bill.
There is something else that would make a better start. It could be done very quickly, and has the support of a substantial majority of Americans. It is to raise the minimum wage significantly.