Category: Uncategorized

 
From PERRspectives:

By “Plumber,” I’m not referring to Mario or even Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher. Instead, think of Charles Colson, G. Gordon Liddy, Howard Hunt, and the other henchmen who ran a political dirty tricks operation out of the basement of the Nixon White House. For the architects and felons behind the Watergate break-in and the ransacking of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office, the ends justified the means. As Colson famously put it, “I’d walk over my own grandmother to re-elect Richard Nixon.”

Simply put, Judge Kavanaugh owes his career on the federal bench to his many years of faithful service as a partisan Republican hatchet man.

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From Mock Paper Scissors:

Over the past decade, Jared Kushner’s family company has spent billions of dollars buying real estate. His personal stock investments have soared. His net worth has quintupled to almost $324 million.

And yet, for several years running, Mr. Kushner — President Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser — appears to have paid almost no federal income taxes, according to confidential financial documents reviewed by The New York Times.

His low tax bills are the result of a common tax-minimizing maneuver that, year after year, generated millions of dollars in losses for Mr. Kushner, according to the documents. But the losses were only on paper — Mr. Kushner and his company did not appear to actually lose any money.

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From nojo at Stinque:

The pretense of government legitimacy in America rests, ultimately, on our right to vote — that as citizens of our republic, we collectively determine who governs us. An election lost can be deeply disheartening — our first presidential ballot was cast in 1980 — but if the loss is fair and square, so be it. Don’t blame us, we voted for the lesser scoundrel.

In many ways, the efficacy of voting, its guarantee of the consent of the governed, is an illusion: A President can achieve office while losing the popular vote. Half the American population is represented by only eighteen senators. House districts can be gerrymandered beyond recognition. The pretense of legitimacy is maintained — people voted! — but the results are engineered to thwart the popular will.

And even voting isn’t left to chance.

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Burr has the day off. These thoughts, published just after the last national election, are a reminder of what we must do.

Continue reading “What We Must Do in 3 Weeks and 2 Days”

• This week’s note in Trumpian Alternative Facts comes from Senator Elizabeth Warren – really! The Trump admin lie she bumps into is minor, petty. And that’s what makes it worth considering: the petty pointlessness of it. Seems to come so naturally to these people, falsehood has become a default position.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post goes after Mr. Trump’s self-description as a self-made individual. He begins with New York Times research revealing the Trump financial history of failure and fraud. It is a story that is largely under-reported by other mainstream outlets.
   
• Master ranter Max’s Dad goes to a Trump rally, gives a blow-by-blow along with his own reactions. The adventure is worth the click-n-read.
   
• Tommy Christopher reports as a Senator who is an actual war hero blasts my President for saying Devin Nunes deserves the Medal of Honor. The Medal of Honor is our nation’s highest and most prestigious personal military decoration.
   
• M. Bouffant at Web of Evil points out the irony in a democratic republic of a major decision made anti-democratically.
   
• The Onion is entertained as Kanye West jumps on massage table to deliver speech about relaxation.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein looks at what have to be considered campaign activities and tells us who, among Democrats, is now running for President: everybody.
   
• Let’s see. For decades in Waller County, Texas, officials have illegally tried to prevent students, mostly black students, from voting. At the Waller County courthouse, a campaign staffer drops off a letter supporting voting rights for those students. Frances Langum covers his sudden arrest as a couple of police officers discover that he is a Democrat. No charges. “Investigative detention.”
   
  I was just a kid way back when this was routine in the South. Saw it on my parents’ black and white TV.
   
• Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson gets mad. After protests by parents and children, use of the n-word in the script prompts a high school to cancel a play based on To Kill a Mockingbird. We all should get mad about that. Harper Lee’s novel was largely based on the false conviction of an innocent man because of racism. Use of racial epithets would seem obvious for a play against racism to be faithful to the novel.
   
• At MadMikesAmerica, Glenn Geist compiles a list of how conservatives are giving ordinary words increasingly weird definitions.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors brings us the story of a guy who saves a gosling. Gosling grows into a goose who then adopts the guy, then passes him down to the next generation. Neat video of the guy in his boat walking the goose.
   

 
From Iron Knee at Political Irony:

Yesterday, the Dow Jones average dropped 832 points. This has Wall Street rattled, and further drops are expected. On top of that, stock in Ford Motor Co. is down 29% and the company has announced that they are laying off 12% of its workforce. Interestingly, the company is blaming Donald Trump’s tariffs.

So, how will the election go if the economy goes south. Despite the fact that Trump has done little to improve the economy, he has been repeatedly taking credit for the (formerly) high stock market and low unemployment. Will he still feel the same way, or will he find a way to blame an economic slump on Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or even kneeling football players?

But that isn’t the worst news for Trump.

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From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

Over the years, Evangelical zealots have impressed upon me the importance of accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior. In their minds, everything else in life pales in comparison to knowing Jesus as your personal Savior. I spent almost fifty years in churches that preached the same message, and my sermons over the course of twenty-five years in the ministry frequently reminded people that Heaven was real, Hell was hot, and death was certain; that the most important decision any of us can make is to repent of our sins and put of faith and trust in Jesus.

I am a decade removed from Christianity, and now the question I ask of Evangelicals is this: why should I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior? I know that my former profession of faith was predicated on facts such as growing up in an Evangelical home, attending Evangelical churches during my formative years, attending an Evangelical college, and being thoroughly immersed in the Evangelical culture, both as a pastor and as a church member, for most of my adult life. If I had not grown up as I did and had all the experiences I had, would I have still embraced the Christian gospel? I don’t know. Maybe. Certainly, a small percentage of Evangelicals are adults when they get saved, so it possible for people not already conditioned by Evangelical belief and practice to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. However, it remains true that most Evangelical adults were either raised in Evangelicalism or transferred from mainline/liberal churches they believed no longer preached the “truth.” The current megachurch craze is fueled, not by lost people getting saved, but by transfer growth. Megachurches are notorious for pillaging the memberships of smaller, more traditional congregations. Much like the Wall Street’s corporate merger frenzy, people from smaller churches or congregations they perceive as “dead,” are joining up with large churches that meet the felt needs of everyone; that have professional musicians and staff; that have cool, hip, relevant pastors. The churches they have left behind slowly die, reaching a place financially — it is always about the money — where they can no longer keep the doors open.

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From PZ Myers:

She sounds awesome. Her existence prompted Michael Kalny, a two-bit racist precinct committeeman, to write to the head of the county Democratic Women chapter with this little rant.

Little Ms. Pritchett- you and your comrades stealth attack on Yoder is going to blow up in your leftist face. The REAL REPUBLICANS will remember what the scum DEMONRATS tried to do to Kavanaugh in November. Your radical socialist kick boxing lesbian will be sent back packing to the reservation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To quote Terry Pratchett, “And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head.” I’m not sure what he’d make of someone who used fifty exclamation marks.

Never forget. This is what Republicans are all about: racism, homophobia, misogyny, and oppression.

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From President Donald J. Trump:

Throughout the year, we have seen Democrats across the country uniting around a new legislative proposal that would end Medicare as we know it and take away benefits that seniors have paid for their entire lives.

Dishonestly called “Medicare for All,” the Democratic proposal would establish a government-run, single-payer health care system that eliminates all private and employer-based health care plans and would cost an astonishing $32.6 trillion during its first 10 years.

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Note: Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post fact checks the President and finds “almost every sentence contained a misleading statement or a falsehood.”