Month: November 2017

 
From Earth-Bound Misfit:

“It’s unbelievable to see children, men and women, laying there. Defenseless people,” he said.

Sadly, Sheriff Tackitt, it is not “unbelievable” any more. This sort of slaughter, where a white gunman shoots lots of people for no apparent reason, is becoming a common event. It’s been about five weeks since the Asswipe of Las Vegas killed nearly sixty people, now we have another Asswipe killing two dozen-plus people.

Apparently, this particular Asswipe had a bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force for domestic violence.

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From Frances Langum:

Here’s a clear instance of a double standard in the workplace.

Juli Briskman works for a government contractor called Akima LLC. She is the cyclist who flipped off the Presidential Motorcade recently. The photo went viral, and Juli went to her HR department to admit that she is the woman in the photograph.

That afternoon she was fired for violating the company’s social media policy.

On the one hand, I have to side with the company because Juli put the photo on her Twitter header and used it on social media to identify herself.

On the other hand, another (male) employee posted “a f-king Libtard a-hole” and got a reprimand after removing the post.

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Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

 
From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

You know, when the Trump Campaign decided to get their almighty shit together and develop a foreign policy team, they did a brilliant job. Somewhere between Sam Clovis and Jeff Sessions, they managed to form a team that included George Papadopoulos, who I mentioned earlier this week as having pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI and who was actively cooperating with the investigation, and Carter Page, who just now admitted he really did fly to Russia and met with Russian government operatives, and at least Jeff Sessions and probably other folks in the Trump campaign knew about it. Now, these were some incredibly great choices for Trump’s foreign policy team! Papadopoulos, in particular, represented the Trump campaign quite ably in a variety of situations, it turns out. And Carter Page…

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From The Onion:

WASHINGTON—Armed with all the special tools they’d need for the mission, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday were reportedly attempting to build a tunnel from the White House South Lawn to FBI Headquarters in order to free Paul Manafort from custody.

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From Jordan Thomas Cooper at The Moderate Voice:

Our sports are made for family fun for our time off. Our sports are made for collaborative insights into our group of citizens. Our sports are made to show the best fitness of America to the world in terms of our whole physicality and mentality. The highest paid number of African-Americans working in a business play a sport. The NFL players protest against police brutality go against the original objectives of the game of football which is sanctioned violent contact between 22 players on the football field.

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From Andy Borowitz:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The White House called an unscheduled press briefing on Sunday to clarify Michael T. Flynn’s role in the Trump campaign, claiming that his job consisted entirely of making coffee when George Papadopoulos was busy with other matters.

“Sometimes, we would ask for coffee and George was otherwise occupied,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said. “At that point, Michael Flynn would step in and make that coffee.”

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Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

• Via Nancy LeTourneau, Christopher Dickey reminds us that the Diversity Visa program provided us with Abdel Rahman Mosabbah, a Muslim from Egypt, who discovered and stopped a terrorist attack in NYC that would have been much worse than the recent bike path murders.
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit has an idea of who in government is doing the bidding of terrorists.
   
• Patrick Bjork at Bjork Report brings us a powerful ad that targets ethnic hate and a campaign for Governor.
   
• The Moderate Voice carries a piece by David Robertson suggesting that Democrats are afraid to admit that the Trump idea of building a wall along the southern border is a benign idea to enforce a worthy law. Why challenge intent, after all? I dunno. Could be how it fits into a larger context of bigotry.
   
• Dave Dubya takes a claw hammer to the last few public pronouncements of Presidential gatekeeper John Kelly, the supposed administration grown up.
   
• Will these made up counter-accusations never cease? Andy Borowitz reports as President Trump accuses Hillary Clinton of deliberately losing the election so he could be impeached. Oh wait. It’s satire? Well how could anyone tell?
   
• At Frances Langum takes note as the Fox network violates a contract and cancels an ad run as soon as Donald Trump tweets an objection. Fox reports, Trump decides.
   
• At The Onion, the White House announces that Obamacare Exchanges will now only be accessible from a single kiosk in a remote Iowa cornfield.
   
• Max’s Dad watches indictments of Trump associates, thinks about the first couple of stones and how rockslides begin.
   
• At Margaret and Helen, Helen Philpot writes to her friend about Halloween, wondering if the scariest sight might have been the Jack O’Lantern and white sheets in the Oval Office.
   
• Before he became President, Jack Kennedy was famous in part for his book Profiles in Courage, about political figures in American history who took brave stands at a political cost. During the Cuban missile crisis, he noted ruefully a sign he saw: “Less Profile, More Courage”. Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post has a harsher judgment about today’s Republican officeholders who know the dangers represented by President Trump, but cringe in fear and go along.
   
• Capt. Fogg at Human Voices gets impatient with a sexual assault accusation that turns out to be about George H. W. Bush, while confined to a wheel chair.
   
• driftglass goes Biblical, bringing us the book of Ecclesiastes as it would be written by Grover Norquist.
   
• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce takes occasion of Hollywood and other scandals to consider his previous life as a pastor and the common practice of hugging in church.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz was invited to host a series of discussions about faith and politics. Pastor Pavlovitz does defy the growing stereotype of devout Christians being hate-filled Trumpsters. His blog has attracted what he calls a disparate following. So did attendence at his discussions. He urged his audiences to consider trying church again.
   
• The Journal of Improbable Research has discovered a precise video by Ford illustrating a detailed robotic study simulating how human butts interact with car seats.
   
• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, explaining how they threaten our environment.
   
• I never knew the Mueller investigation has its own website with links to court documents.

Oh, by the way,

Hello. The current administration is trying really hard to make sure you don't know you have access to good, affordable health insurance. pic.twitter.com/VU10FkD2Xy

— John Scalzi (@scalzi) November 1, 2017

Have a safe week. Let’s be careful out there.