Month: September 2022

DeSantis Doused, Putin Pummeled, Iran Rumble, Trump Specially Mastered

Too Cute for Words:

  • Martha’s Vineyard seemed like a good place to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the limousine liberal crowd. The right wing crowd could not imagine those leftist scolds being anything but horrified when actually confronted by all these Latin folk claiming to be refugees.
     
    And conservatives did scramble and shuffle to pretend that it didn’t backfire.


    Max’s Dad pulleth no punches, explaining with the sort of clarity that comes with laser focused fury, what went wrong for DeSantis in Martha’s Vineyeard and what the debacle revealed about cynicism and compassion.
     

  • Dave Columbo does Tucker doing Martha’s Vineyard:
    @davecolumbo Do you like the new haircut? #tuckerimpression #politics #political #politicaltiktok #politicalsatire #democrat #democrats #democratsoftiktok #fy #fyp ♬ Manke, honobo, everyday, funny, loop – arachang

  • Nojo has a suggestion.
    Since we’re now kidnapping human beings for sport, let’s just go for it…:
    More pranks to own the libs!
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony has suggested Ron DeSantis is like a Trump clone, but with intelligence. After the migrant stunt backfires and a previous voter fraud stunt backfires, maybe the intelligence factor had been exaggerated.
     
  • DeSantis explains he could not have been tricking or exploiting Venezuelan refugees because, he explains, he got them to sign a consent form.
     
    Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez explains how an explanation becomes evidence of guilt.

  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors reports as Jared Kushner, loyal Trump family member, is disturbed at the way DeSantis is using migrants as political pawns, ignoring that they are human beings.
     
    Jared speaks without intended irony, while falling into a kids-in-cages ironic ocean.
     
  • News Corpse brings us the latest Trump complaint about the search warrant that the FBI executed to find a ton of classified documents he had lied about. It seems they wore shoes during the search.
    Ruthless!
     
  • The Special Master mr Trump demanded to screen documents tells Trump attorneys they must explain which documents were declassified and how they were declassified so he can determine classification. In Hackwhackers lawyers respond with a sort of convoluted version of the fifth.
     
    Hackwhackers sees the dilemma. If they explain, then they admit he stole any documents their explanation doesn’t cover.
     
    And there is even more complication for them, poor saps.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged takes on one of the stranger defenses by Trump and company. The Mar-a-Lago stash of classified documents actually contained absolute proof that all accusations against Trump were false, just part of a global plot – or something.
     
  • The Hannity interview and mr Trump’s paranormal mental declassification techniques have inspired internet humor, and a serious side:


    Tommy Christopher has the text as Maggie Haberman points out the key admission. Trump eviscerated most of the defenses attempted by his own attorneys.
     
    The right to remain silent apparently has its limits in the Trump mind.

  • Ant Farmer’s Almanac surveys the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago and notices one previously unreported item.

Continue reading “DeSantis Doused, Putin Pummeled, Iran Rumble, Trump Specially Mastered”

Jefferson, Migrant Hijack, Abortion Rights, Lindsey Goes Loud, SCOTUS

  • Let us begin with a common rightist shibboleth:
     
    The anti-democratic tilt of today’s conservatism occasionally finds a home in the simple observation that our government is a republic, not a “pure democracy.”
     
    Conservative reverence for the founders has often centered on distortions of the views of poor James Madison.
     
    The term “pure democracy” did exist in the 1700s, referring to the then zombie vision that government would be better without bothersome structures like legislatures, executives, courts, and representation. Proponents argued instead for a periodic mass meeting of everyone to make mass decisions in a series of, you know, mass votes. Madison and others argued against that form of “pure democracy”.
     
    So conservatives sometimes trot out the tired, discredited argument that the founders hated democratic elections, wanting instead to shield rulers from unruly voters through buffers like the electoral college.
     
    Madison hated the concept. In fact, he didn’t even like a non-proportional Senate. He and others went along with both in order to keep southern slaveholders on board in establishing an independent country.
     
    Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara argues that the founders were against democracy and that we should honor their wishes. He wants to abolish direct election of Senators and go back to having state legislatures choose them for us.
     
    Mercifully, he does not pick on James Madison this time, choosing instead to twist Thomas Jefferson into a pretzel.
     
    As Jefferson said, “the majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.” The Founders were not primarily concerned with giving the people the right to vote. They intended to liberate the people from predatory government, whether monarchistic, theocratic, socialist, or democratic.
     
    Actually, Jefferson and his contemporaries were concerned with both. That is why we have a Bill of Rights.
     
    Mr. LaFerrara was quoting from a letter Jefferson wrote to Pierre du Pont. It is an interesting choice. Du Pont had been a supporter of the French Revolution, and became a survivor of what became known as the Reign of Terror. He barely escaped the guillotine and came to America.
     
    You may suspect he might have been receptive to warnings against mob rule.
     
    Michael neglects to mention that, in that same letter, Jefferson begins with a strong endorsement of democratic elections. That would be direct democratic elections
     
    We of the United States, you know, are constitutionally and conscientiously democrats.
     
    Jefferson goes on to describe the benefits of direct elections. Citizens are able to reserve to themselves personally the exercise of all rightful powers to which they are competent, and to delegate those to which they are not competent to deputies named, and removable for unfaithful conduct, by themselves immediately.
     
    You don’t do what we want? We’ll vote you out.
     
    Jefferson even argued separately for the abolition of the electoral college: to have no electors, but let the people vote directly.
     
    Jefferson was a contradictory mess. Loved democracy, hated slavery, owned slaves, and wrote about why Black people were inferior in most every way.
     
    How about we don’t saddle him with the additional moral crime of conflating democracy with mob rule.
     
    Leave that to the current state of contemporary conservatism.
     
  • Most of us have heard how Florida Governor Ron DeSantis pulled some shady stuff in Texas to get charter planes filled with migrants. The operation was intended to show how liberals in Massachusetts can’t handle things when confronted by those damn illegals.
     
    Problem with the whole operation is, although the recipient communities were indeed surprised and unprepared, they quickly rallied at what could have been the humanitarian disaster intended by DeSantis and managed to find enough beds, food, and medical care.
     
    In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson delves into the story behind the story. Turns out the history of immigration from the south is richer and more complex than is generally reported.
     
    Part of the current story is statistical, but one reason Heather Cox Richardson is popular is clear narrative. She manages to explain numbers briefly and well without pulling readers into the high weeds.
     
    In fact, the border is not “open.” Fences, surveillance technology, and about 20,000 Border Patrol agents make the border more secure than it has ever been.
     
  • Tommy Christopher learns from CNN that the DeSantis/Abbott repopulating of “undesirables” was borrowed from 1960s segregationists.
     
    Meanwhile, Tommy bring us us this comment from Joe Scarborough:
     
    You don’t own the libs with human lives
     
  • Imani Gandy observes the political point made with refuge pawns.

  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged contrasts the coarse cynicism of DeSantis, using human desperation to own the libs, with the humanity of those in and around Martha’s Vineyard pitching in to help those in need.
     
  • Hackwhackers has several cartoon-type reactions to the DeSantis hijack of migrants.

Continue reading “Jefferson, Migrant Hijack, Abortion Rights, Lindsey Goes Loud, SCOTUS”

9/11: Remembering Victims of Collective Hatred

He was the office hothead. He often took it to laughable lengths. One incident in particular produced a permanent image in my mind.

It was a small, struggling company, and it was hard to start an advancement program. It was a technological company with no formal training and development. So I proposed to management a series of lunchtime training sessions organized by employees. We would bring our lunches to a conference room once a week and take turns teaching each other from books we bought together.

Eventually, management began showing some enthusiasm. They offered to buy our next set of books. They began buying lunch for those participating. That’s where my hotheaded friend came in. “Pizza!” he said in disgust. “Every damn week, Pizza! If they don’t give us something different, I’m not coming anymore.”

It was emblematic of his always-on-edge personality. Glass half shattered.

So when I showed up for work that day and was greeted by an especially sour welcome, it made me laugh. “You watch television this morning?” he asked. Nope. Then, shouting: “What the HELL is wrong with you?”

Then my smile was replaced by horror. Someone had rescued a training television from some training room. A tall building was burning. People were dying as we watched.

Future generations who watch replays of television coverage of September 11 destruction will never know how it really was to experience it for the first time.
Continue reading “9/11: Remembering Victims of Collective Hatred”

Queen Elizabeth, Biden Semi-Tough, Docs Nuked, DOJ Politicized

  • Hackwhackers bids a fond farewell to Queen Elizabeth.
     
  • Professor PZ Myers has little regard for the British monarchy, but little resentment against the Queen herself. He seems to hope all the mourning and exaggerated analysis will just go away.
     
    Good summary:
    The Queen is dead. My regrets to those who cared about her. Call me when the monarchy is dead, OK?
     
  • Apparently, as the Queen got older, she asked that her hobby of dog breeding stop. Seems she didn’t want to leave a large number of dogs behind to be cared for.
     
    So, of course, Tommy Christopher is left to cover actual live television interviews on whether existing puppies are scheduled to be buried alive.
     
  • Reductress may have been the satiric source of the entire rampant buried-royal-puppies uproar.
     
  • President Biden made a speech and talked, in part, about an extreme MAGA philosophy and characterized it as like semi-fascism. Well, anti-democratic, prone to political violence in place of elections, authoritarian seem to fit the definition.
     
    Max’s Dad liked Joe Biden’s speech because he went against his own grain and stood clean-tough against the party of always-fight-dirty bullies.
     
  • Nan’s Notebook reads one notable opinion about President Biden’s most dangerous, divisive, demagogic speech.
     
    She wonders how anyone can be so certain and decides politics is akin to religious discussion.
     
    I dunno. It seems the temptation may be to stray toward a both-sides premise. That is the human tendency, often practiced by journalists, of presuming without evidence that two sides of any question are equally valid.
     
    I think of one hypothetical example: one side insists it is raining while the other maintains it is dry outside.
     
    Many modern reporters quote both sides equally and accurately and call it a day. Fair and balanced.
     
    Responsible journalism dictates we actually look outside to see what the weather is doing.
     
    President Biden defined with some precision to whom who he was referring when he talked of semi-fascist MAGA folk. He was talking about those who would use or endorse political violence in order to overturn democracy.
     
    He specifically exempted the majority of the Republican party.
     
    The writer to whom Nan rightly objects defines MAGA types as traditionalists who want what I recognize as a Bill Buckley variety of conservatism.
     
    And so the writer is outraged that the President would target him personally.
     
    It is a tactic that has been with us since language began: setting up a strawman in order to knock him down.
     
    My response to similar contrived anger:

  • My longtime conservative friend Darrell Michaels, at Unabashedly American, speculates on what he would do if he was a fascist or even a semi-fascist who wanted to destroy America.
     
    Oddly enough, what follows is mostly the familiar conservative caricature of what some on the right imagine that non-conservatives believe. A sample:
     
    Well, I would first want to take over our education system in order to indoctrinate our kids into believing that they live in an unjust and racist nation that brings nothing but ruin to others throughout the world. I would ignore teaching them of the United States history where we overcame so many great sins, like slavery and women’s inequality in rights. I would bury the truth of how the United States fought and buried hundreds of thousands of men in defense against the true fascism of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Mussolini’s Italy.
     
    None of which is advocated by anyone I have heard of.
     
    It may not have occurred to my friend that those who wanted to destroy our democratic republic and eradicate the freedoms that our constitution was formed in order to protect might instead form a lynch mob, storm the Capitol Building, assault police officers, and hunt for legislators to assassinate.
     
    Darrell is a kindly, peaceful soul for whom such a possibility would not occur.
     
    I suppose it is worth pointing out that most of America has a somewhat different view of MAGAfolk than does my old friend:


    Nice to have you back, Darrell.
     

  • Iron Knee at Political Irony sees a bit of political gamesmanship in President Biden’s speech. In his view, the President gave precisely the sort of speech that would goad a furious, and ugly, Trump response: a response that will make the election all about Mr Trump himself.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life speculates on professional Republicans, staffers to politicians, who must find ways to keep voters motivated. What motivates the motivators?

Continue reading “Queen Elizabeth, Biden Semi-Tough, Docs Nuked, DOJ Politicized”

Putin’s Push, Go Biden, Marines, Unity, Semi-Fascists, Trump Docs

  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit sees a pattern in Vladimir Putin’s art of persuasion. He gets pushy around windows.
     
  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors responds to the Republican hand flutters as President Biden makes a speech with 2 Marines in the distant background: tengrain provides an accurate translation.
     
  • It isn’t only Republicans. A few other pundits scold Biden for having a couple of Marines in the distance. Unprecedented!
     
    Margaret Philpot has a good memory

  • And we do have this:

  • Attorney Imani Gandy is skepical of the skepticism:

  • Republicans who popularized the Let’s Go Brandon euphemism for the nudge, nudge, wink, wink obscenity aimed at the President are horrified that he urges unity while criticizing fascism.
     
    North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz responds sensibly:

  • Frances Langum points to a Biden critic complaining because the President has blatantly urged people to vote. That makes it political.
     
  • It gets even worse!


    In the Borowitz Report Lindsay Graham warns that Biden’s pro-democracy rhetoric could lead to voting in the streets.
     

  • President Biden’s speech is about unity but he says MAGA folk are fascist-lite. Republicans are mad as hell about that! He just smeared half the country!
     
    Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged looks at the speech again and says Just a darn minute, citizens!.
     
    Best part for me was near the beginning:
    He did not smear all Republicans, and in fact went out of his way to say he didn’t even think the violence-inclined MAGAs were the majority of their party–
     
    And I perused the response on Twitter and elsewhere and heard the sound of a million or so hurt dogs being very, very hit. NO! They want to believe he just demonized HALF THE WHOLE COUNTRY. And this means WAR!!!!!

Continue reading “Putin’s Push, Go Biden, Marines, Unity, Semi-Fascists, Trump Docs”