Author: Burr Deming

• At our favorite Wisconsin conservative site, RightWisconsin, State Senator Patrick Testin rails against discriminatory abortion. He points to Iceland as eradicating Down’s Syndrome by forcing potential parents toward abortion. A number of sites do indeed carry the story.
   
  Only one problem. It isn’t true. It took me under a minute to research it. I wonder why neither a state legislator, nor his staff, nor the staff at my favorite Wisconsin conservative site, none of these folks, could find time in their busy schedules to verify the tale before printing the story or, in the case of the good Senator, sponsoring actual legislation.
   
• Pennsylvania State Representative Brian Sims gets between anti-abortion protestors and the pregnant women they are trying to bully. Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged has mixed feelings. She loves his courage and caring, and has serious reservations about some of his tactics. This strikes me as Vixen wisdom, not reflexive bothsiderism.
   
• Tommy Christopher brings us an interview with a 12 year old on the recent school shooting in Colorado. He heard the distant shots seeming to come closer and prepared himself to go down fighting.
   
• Green Eagle runs through published arguments about the word shall in the law that mandates the Treasury Department to hand over Trump tax returns to Congress. Green Eagle has a novel suggestion about applying administration definitions to re-define NRA arguments about strict gun control. On the other hand, we all COULD maybe respect plain language after all.
   
• This is for those of us who have not read all 448 pages of the redacted Mueller Report, and who keep hearing my President proclaiming his exoneration. Dr. Mark Bear, at MadMikesAmerica, quotes a few passages to demonstrate compellingly that exoneration does not mean what Mr. Trump thinks it means.
   
• Frances Langum documents the ever so incremental move of my President from claims of no obstruction to essentially no obstruction.
   
• Andy Borowitz reports that Attorney General William Barr was unable to get his food order filled at Arby’s when he could not give any direct answers to a bewildered employee at the drive-thru window.
   
• Jon Perr at PERRspectives runs through, in some detail, how dangerous conservative lawlessness, and dishonest testimony about it, is not confined to Mr. Barr or this administration.
   
• nojo puts together a series of quotes, mostly by conservatives about the need for democracy elsewhere, to demonstrate the fall of democracy in America.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger takes a quick look at the only two Presidents in the past 40 years who have reduced the deficit.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors walks us through the clumsy Trump attempts at negotiations as he trips over his shoelaces into a trade war.
   
• This week’s note in Trumpian “Alternative Facts” comes in a video hosted by the Dallas Observer as a teacher encounters controversy in grading a math quiz.
   

---

– Podcasts –
 

• Green Eagle points out how difficult it is to keep track of the horrors created by this administration but gives a few highlights a good try.
   
• Max’s Dad produces the most passionate, creative rants I can find these days. This time he performs dull blade surgery on William Barr, Republicans, and limp Democrats with a snide aside at Senator Bernie. Don’t EVER get on the dark side of Max’s Dad.
   
• News Corpse follows the money as contributions to the Trump campaign are diverted to Trump family legal bills.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post comments on the unique talent Mike Pence has developed: swallowing any individual personality he owns in order to avoid threatening Mr. Trump’s ego. in. any. way.
   
• At The Moderate Voice, Dorian Estuaro de Wind describes what may be at stake in the next election if Trump is not defeated. He spells the obvious best hope as Biden with a Joe.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein is skeptical about how much weight we ought to assign to Joe Biden’s surge in Democratic polls.
   
• PZ Myers reviews the sad tale of an alt-right devotee who realized too late how her life was being ruined. She does present some insights into what made these lost souls what they have become.
   
• So noted Christian apologist, Franklin Graham, excoriates gay Christian Pete Buttigeig for existing, and supports the Trump family. In MadMikesAmerica, Dr. Mark Bear thanks Dr. Graham for exposing to the world his own hypocrisy and that of those who follow in his path.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz carefully explains to Dr. Graham why LGBTQ Christians don’t need his permission.
   
• Infidel753 quotes British philosopher, educator, and prolific author A. C. Grayling to rebut religious apologists who complain about aggressive hostility from atheists and secularists. It’s a fair quote, one which I and my fellow believers ought to read and take to heart.
   
• nojo records reflections on getting older by the minute. I’m walking alongside you, nojo.
   

• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit provides a possible reason our President is in love with Vladimir Putin.
   
• Frances Langum explains to my President that the Charlottesville neo-nazis were not just historians. Perhaps very fine historians?
   
• Donald Trump insists he is the most transparent President ever. Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged suggests that he lives up to that boast.
   
• Green Eagle considers the sad case of Mr. Barr and marvels at the strange ability of Mr. Trump to get reputable folks to sacrifice their good names at his bidding.
   
• nojo lays out the case in favor of … well … not exactly impeachment. But at least considering and debating impeachment.
   
• At The Moderate Voice weighs the arguments for and against impeachment and reaches a conclusion.
   
• PZ Myers pretty much gags when he contemplates the condition of today’s political landscape. He does outline the two highest objectives for the next 18 and a half months or so.
   
• Andy Borowitz reports as Sarah Huckabee Sanders accuses mainstream media of blatant anti-liar bias.
   
• So Elizabeth Warren wants to do something about the all too often staggering level of student debt. Philip Klein, Managing Editor of the Washington Examiner, says the idea is a slap in the face of all those who labored to pay off their loans. driftglass performs surgery with no anesthetic on that bit of conservative logic.
   
• This takes about 3 seconds to click, read, and understand. Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger goes country by country and compares the pay ratio of CEO’s to the workers they employ.
   
• Scotties Toy Box brings us reports of yet another assault by the Trump administration on transgender people. This time they want to deny health care.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara argues against Earth Day because it is anti-human life. No kidding, that’s what he says.
   

– More –
 

• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post draws obvious conclusions as a member of the Trump family finds a novel way of shutting down an investigation.
   
• Infidel753 explains why protest votes in 2020 will be cast by the hopelessly confused.
   
• Julian Sanchez is interviewed on WTOP radio in DC about the Mueller report and some of the points of contrast with the Barr introduction. The CATO Institute has the soundtrack.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein quotes chapter and verse on how the Attorney General’s strategy of spin then redaction embarrassed himself and the Justice department.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors reveals the logic of Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Since lying to the Special Counsel and the FBI can be prosecuted, she admits to them that she made stuff up for reporters. Then she explains to assembled reporters that she is none-the-less an honest source because she stands by her emotional sentiment.
   
• The Onion reports as the defiant Press Secretary denies she has ever lied and insists the voice coming out of her mouth is not her own.
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit hears a change in narrative. Old: No obstruction. New: Trump tried to obstruct but his aides disobeyed. So NOW: no obstruction. Result: More outrages to come.
   
• Max’s Dad is a master of rant, with the rare ability to combine this ability with clarity of presentation. This time he devotes his wit and wisdom to the report and the impeachment that ought to result.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz gives an unusual Easter weekend sermon based on a redacted version of the Bible.
   
• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce explains what he gained and what he lost as he left Christianity. Among the losses seems to be any modicum of understanding from those still in the faith. A weakness of most true believers, I suppose. We find it difficult to respect different beliefs, or those who hold them, or those who hold to no particular beliefs at all.
   
• In MadMikesAmerica, Glenn R. Geist explores the obstacles to bringing wealthy human traffickers to justice, and what it says about how justice works in America.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara uses the college admissions bribery scandal as a jumping off point to an attack on affirmative action. Merit should rule.
   
  His argument partly depends, I suppose, on whether academic triumph in the face of bias should be regarded as a test of character, and whether character is an element of merit.
   

How the Attorney General defines what the Mueller report defines as law:

Special Counsel defined “coordination” as an “agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference.”

– Letter from Attorney General
to House and Senate Judiciary Committees
footnote, p.2

What the law actually says,
(Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002):

The regulations shall not require agreement or formal collaboration to establish coordination.

– Page 1105, House Congressional Record
February 12, 2002

Now then –
What Attorney General William Barr says the report says:

The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. “l

– Attorney General’s letter
to House and Senate Judiciary Committees, March 24, 2019

Any questions?

• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from The Baltimore Sun with the lie of the week. The Trump policy of putting little kids in cages was begun by Obama. Trump is the hero trying to end the Obama practice.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post puts the focus on my President’s behavioral and policy oddities.
   
• News Corpse compares the active love fest between WikiLeaks and then candidate Donald Trump in 2016, then contrasts that with the very new Trump after the arrest of Julian Assange: I know nothing about WikiLeaks, it’s not my thing.
   
• Frances Langum asks why the Trump inaugural ticket guy gets no jail time, and concludes it’s not good news for Trump.
   
• At the beginning, “Department of Homeland Security” sounded kind of Teutonic to me. At least it wasn’t called the Department of Fatherland Protection.
   
  Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged observes that the Department of Homeland Security seems to have changed direction. The unit tasked with tracking domestic threats of terrorism is being disbanded – tracking known as “Homeland Security.” Resources are instead flowing to locking little kids in desert cages to keep them away from their parents.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger brings us a five second glimpse at the agony of departing DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
   
• At The Moderate Voice, scholar Anthony W. Fontes spends time on the ground with migrants and reports on why they flee to the US.
   
• Tommy Christopher watches as Republican Congressional Representative Thomas Massie (KY) attacks John Kerry for possessing a fake science degree. Apparently the Congressman was shocked to discover the little known fact that Political Science is not really science. Tommy quotes an incredulous Kerry: “Are you serious? I mean, is this really a serious happening here?”
   
  Actually, the word “Science” in the name of Kerry’s degree is like “Honorable” in front of Thomas Massie’s name.
   
  Doesn’t mean a thing.
   
• PZ Myers explains a little of the wonder of an actual image of a black hole. Lot of excitement centers on a primary team leader of the imaging project, Katie Bouman. And, of course, there are attacks by what Myers justifiably calls internet trolls. Some on the right are upset at accounts that, that, that a woman is associated with an important development in science. There turns out to be a great answer to those attacks.
   

• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from CNN where the leader of the free world is upping his game, reaching 22 lies a day.
   
• driftglass takes a stroll down hypocrisy lane when Obama was President to contrast Mitch McConnell’s standards then with now.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger shows and contrasts two Presidents and how they inspired young Americans.
   
• Max’s Dad always comes up with the best rants. This time he lets his mind wander along with a road trip through Indiana. He doesn’t much like Notre Dame or anyone who attends, or an irate customer at a Steak N Shake, but does like Presidential candidate Pete Butigieg, going so far as to teach us how to pronounce his name – – sort of. He winds up not much caring for Democratic circular firing squads. Can superior, entertaining writing really be that easy for him?
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit doesn’t much care for on-and-off-and-on independent Presidential candidate Howard Schultz and his blame-both-sides approach to everything. But wow she conducts vivisection on the poor guy. If she ever gets mad at me, I plan to give her a friendly smile, abjectly apologize, then throw myself on the ground and beg for mercy.
   
• Dave Dubya takes on the Barr non-summary of the Mueller report. Partly through he says my President was exonerated in the same sense O.J. was exonerated. Fair enough.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post runs down 6 controversial members of the Trump cabinet. I did say run down.
   
• Green Eagle watches unbelievable governmental plans proposed by the executive branch.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz finds many reasons for hope in the age of Trump, and begins with Anne Frank. I had somewhat similar thoughts as my President was about to take office.
   
• Author Caitlin Starling was nine years old when her mother died. At Whatever, she explains how the intensity of that early grief influenced her writing.
   
• Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson recounts state election returns and kinda sorta credits the website he runs for the conservative victory for state Supreme Court.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara exposes the environmental conspiracy that is aimed at depriving NJ Residents of reliable energy with dubious tales of climate effects. I remain unenlightened about our sinister motives.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors reminds us that this week was the anniversity of one human’s murder and a great national loss along the arc of the moral universe.
   
• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce asks, since Jesus paid our debt for sin, why we still owe God. That strikes me as an interesting technical question that might lead to a worthy discussion of whether we believe and worship because of what we owe. More troubling, it seems to me, would be evil and suffering in the world. Harder still for many Christians would be evil in ourselves. I posted my thoughts on my own belief a couple of years ago.
   
• The Journal of Improbable Research finds a study that seems to show that the famed placebo effect, in this case relieving pain with a cream that contains no active ingredients, works on subjects who do not use the placebo.
   
• Infidel753 has a list of comments that range from pithy wit to genuine pearls of wisdom, all entertaining.
   

• Tommy Christopher watches FoxNews so you don’t have to, tuning in just in time to hear a guest shut down the spin on the Mueller Report: “You saying it on Fox doesn’t make it so’.
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit also watches Fox News and notices a remarkable change in opinion about Mueller.
   
• At the Borowitz Report William Barr has finished Moby-Dick and summarizes for us. There is no evidence of whales.
   
• Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged seems to feel the partisan summary of an unreleased summary of an unreleased report has met her low expectations. Her phrase was “seething with anticipatory disappointment.” Her reasoning is excellent, as usual.
   
• Charles Tiefer is a Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore. At The Moderate Voice, he explains the quasi-legal strategies Attorney General Barr and President Trump are likely to use, keeping the actual Mueller report hidden from view, so they can have a monopoly on telling us what is in it.
   
• Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass takes a look at the summary’s summary and suggests a new chant.
   
• News Corpse reports on Trump attempts to bar critics from television appearances. Turns out the case is inadvertently made that Trump surrogates should be banned.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein says that, even in victory, Donald Trump is showing weakness.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post takes a look at the current cast in political influence and runs down the top Dirty Dozen.
   
• Frances Langum covers the Pennsylvania House where the first Muslim Representative was to be sworn in. One of my Sisters-In-Christ embarrassed the family by pointedly turning the prayer into a Christian tribal event. The Republican House Leader finally guided her off the stage.
   
• So legendary musician Scott Walker of Walker Brothers fame has died. Not the former governor. Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson is outraged to find lame mournful jokes from fans on Twitter about the wrong Scott having died. Forget the Mueller Report and Obamacare and pre-conditions. This is the sort of issue that keeps me up at night.
   
• driftglass can rightfully boast of not liking Glenn Greenwald when disliking Greenwald still wasn’t cool. On the other hand, I can make a similar boast. Just sayin’
   
• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce explores the occasional evangelical claim that Jesus was ultra-masculine. I do recall hearing about a preacher arguing against the existance of a “namby-pamby Jesus.” It is an entertaining piece.
   
• PZ Myers observes reports of yet another public personality characterizing atheism as an undeclared article of faith, this time with the added charge that atheism is inherently unscientific. Naturally, Professor Myers rips the poor devil apart.
   
• Max’s Dad goes to the theatre. The musical Come From Away is set on 9/11, the day of the attacks, as an unrelated flight is diverted to a small airport in Canada. Max’s Dad loves it.
   
• John Scalzi at Whatever got started late one day, so he came up with a terrific video from three and a half decades ago, Belly of the Whale by Burning Sensations.