Month: February 2018

 
From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

February is Black History Month. It’s an interesting time, because two diametrically opposed views come to the fore. One view sees the history of Blacks in America as a failure of the American experiment. The opposite view sees the history of Blacks as an American success story—black liberation.

In “honor” of Black History Month, The Washington Post ran an op-ed by a historian and college professor titled Black history is U.S. history — but some of my students don’t want to hear it. It is written by Donald Earl Collins, associate professor of history at the University of Maryland University College. The article’s subtitle is “History class should be the last place where we stop talking about race.”

I agree: We should be talking about race—how America makes race irrelevant in life. That, however, is not Collins’s message, which is why I put the word honor in scare quotes.

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From Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post:

The Second Amendment to our Constitution guarantees the right of all citizens to bear firearms. However, it does NOT guarantee anyone’s right to own military-style weaponry, nor does it guarantee the right to indiscriminately murder innocent civilians! Those who claim that any attempt to regulate or restrict gun ownership of any kind are rabble-rousing LIARS who are needlessly paranoid and who are aiding and abetting future mass killings – PERIOD!

These people need to realize that the mere prohibition of owning such weapons does NOT mean the government is trying to “take away our guns!”

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Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

 
From Max’s Dad:

Yeah its all you kids fault for not being meddling enough. Trump the moral leper took time off from watching Fox News and its moral creeps to tweet out a blame game tweet blaming the kids for not ratting out a troubled teen. For chrissakes, if every troubled teen was turned in to the cops, well there’d still be full high schools cuz the cops wouldnt do a damn thing once they found out the troubled teen was white.

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From Green Eagle:

A couple of brief excerpts from the Washington Post today. First, this remark from Paul Waldman:

“Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, and the Russia scandal in general, are driving this president around the bend, to the point where he is setting himself against not just the government he leads but also the interests of the United States of America. And everything we’ve seen up to now suggests that it will only get worse.”

You see, the President “setting himself against …the interests of the United States of America” is about nothing but him being “around the bend,” whatever that is supposed to mean. Waldman doesn’t dare mention the real reason for this behavior: The Russians put him in office, and destroying the security of the United States is the price he agreed to pay for that favor. I do not believe for a second that Waldman doesn’t know this perfectly well, but he gets paid to slide our attention away from this fact by any means possible.

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From The Journal of Improbable Research:

“An earprint is an impression of the external ear. House breakers may leave their earprints inadvertently when they listen at doors and windows to check if there is anyone inside before breaking and entering a premises. Owing to uniqueness and individualistic characteristics of the human ear, earprints can be used as evidence to link a criminal with the crime. In the recent past, many suspected thieves have been convicted and several burglaries linked due to the presence of similar earprints.”

So writes Professor Kewal Krishan of Panjab University, India, in ‘Identification: Prints – Ear (Earprints)’, in the Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine (Second Edition) 2016.

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From Frances Langum:

I have three questions:

What is Don Jr. doing in India?

What the hell?

And why is Saturday Night Live on hiatus for the Olympics? Because this is gold medal comedy right here.

According to reports, Donald Trump Jr. is in India to promote Trump Tower Delhi, a condo development featuring 254 apartments ranging from $850,000 to $1.7 million, along with three other similar condo projects across India. Individuals who make a commitment to buy a a Trump ™ condo (this week only!) can dine with Don Jr. Don Jr. has secret service protection for the trip and is also meeting with Prime Minister Modi during his visit, so no appearance of corruption there, amirite?

Wrong it’s totally the appearance of corruption.

He also took time out to appear on a panel on Indian TV, where he praised the poor in India for smiling.

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A pattern over years of tough negotiating:
 
Obama trying not to look down on Putin,
Putin trying desperately not to look up to Obama.
 
Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

 
From Jon Perr at PERRspectives:

As prepared for delivery by the president (provided the president is not named Donald Trump), February 19, 2018.

My fellow Americans, I have requested this time tonight to speak to you regarding a matter of the greatest national urgency. As your commander in chief, I have no greater responsibility and no more solemn obligation than the preservation of the security of the United States of America, the safety of our people, and the vibrancy of our democracy.

Tonight, it is my duty to report to you that our institutions of self-government, our way of life, and even our freedom itself are under threat by ongoing acts of cyber aggression carried out by the Russian Federation.

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From the Borowitz Report:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Millions of Americans on Wednesday demanded that Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, issue them checks in the amount of $130,000 for not having sex with Trump.

After Cohen revealed that he had issued such a check to Stormy Daniels, a porn star who he claims never had intimate relations with his client, there was widespread outrage among other Americans who had also not had sex with Trump but had not been paid for not doing so.

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