- This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from The Daily Beast as Kellyanne Conway insists that it’s a slur to accuse Donald Trump of lying.
- M. Bouffant at Web of Evil seems skeptical about a couple of presidential claims.
- Mark at News Corpse thinks the newest Trump shutdown has less to do with the anti-immigrant wall than we think.
- Dave Dubya watches along with the rest of us as our President, in a phone call, chides a little girl for believing in Santa. At age 7, says Mr. Trump, that sort of belief is “marginal.” Dave comes up with what strikes me as a perfect response.
- PZ Myers has a couple of sensible observations about the second migrant child, at least the second we’ve been told about, who died in US custody. The initial official explanation has a couple of gaps.
- Max’s Dad, the True Ruler of Rant, uses the holiday season to take stock of the State of the Union under the tender care of this administration.
- It is a rare honor: Andy Borowitz reports as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, on behalf of ISIS, names our own President as Man of the Year. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s satire, Aunt Tildy.
- Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit has mixed feelings about the latest details on my president’s bone spur deferment back when we were young.
- Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post details how the penchant for financial corruption flows from our national leader to the family, friends, and subordinates who surround him.
- There has been a lot of ink, or internet traffic, or whatever fits our technological age, as conservatives in some states, like Wisconsin, lose governorships to Democrats. Still, Republicans manage to gerrymander themselves back into legislatures. Then they pass laws restricting the ability of those new, non-conservative, governors. Seems a little unfair – almost an attack on the democratic process.
Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson has some fun with those who complain of a violation of the “peaceful transfer of power” that is intrinsic to Democracy. Seems the complaint has no merit because James has seen no tanks in the streets.
Get it? No unpeaceful violation? No actual military coup? Tee-hee. I had completely forgotten that James is hilarious.
- driftglass gets irritated enough to perform vivsection on leftist Glenn Greenwald. Driftwood has an unfair advantage since Greenwald is burdened by a loathsome personality.
- Every two months or so, he rises again as if to renew our hope in the resurrection. Batocchio writes again! Yay!
Batocchio at Vagabond Scholar doesn’t write enough, by which I mean Batocchio doesn’t write often enough. The latest two posts are, as always, wonderful. The first is the annual Jon Swift Roundup list of best blog posts from all over the net, as chosen by bloggers. By some oversight, FairAndUNbalanced was missed, but nobody is perfect. It’s a great gathering of great thought expressed in great writing.
The second is even better. A little, just a little, maybe more than a little, okay a lot long, long, very a lot long. Reading it is a little like binge watching your favorite show, interrupted occasionally by the need to eat, sleep, shovel snow, mow grass, and earn a living. It’s a remarkable compilation of pithy wisdom about conservatives, journalism, politics, Trump, outreach and subtopics that entertain, inform, and provoke. Might even have been better if it started with “Call me Ishmael.” A great way to spend a season. Or two. When I eventually finish reading it, I’ll have to find another hobby. Won’t be as much fun, though.
- Iron Knee at Political Irony seems to have an observation about readers, possibly including us, by which I mean you, certainly not me.
- Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass doesn’t much care for religion. Lots of decent folks agree. Some of those decent folks serve as ethical models I hope to emulate. But then this: “The Golden Rule has nothing to do with Jesus. It’s not in the bible.”
Okay, that made me go back to Matthew and Luke. It’s still there.
Treating others as you want to be treated is an ethical truism that is not restricted to any religion. It is a firm principle in pretty much every belief system, and in ethical systems that have nothing to do with belief. It’s the Goose and Gander stuff your mom taught when she demanded to know how YOU would have felt if someone had mistreated you. True enough, it does not depend on Biblical scripture.
Maybe that’s what Yellow Dog means. Or … it could just be an alternative fact.
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“CNN would have had to overwhelm my Walt Disney ride-wait app on my phone to inform me that the tanks were rolling through Madison…”
“Evers can continue to sell tickets to his inauguration without fear that a military coup will take place…”
So nothing short of war activities constitutes a nonpeaceful transfer of power? Ridiculous. Idiotic.
Wigderson seems to think that bringing up instances of anti-democratic behavior on the part of Democrats justifies any anti-democratic behavior on the part of Republicans. Of course, even if that were true, it’s hard to speak of democracy in a state where Republicans can have an extreme advantage in the legislature despite receiving 200k fewer votes than Democrats.
So here we have (1) Republicans, who get power despite a minority of votes, rushing to (2) limit the power of an incoming governor from another party and (3) instantly approve dozens of Walker appointees regardless of merit and without public hearings in many cases, even though (4) they had years to do this before an election that did not favor them. Is there nothing wrong with this picture to Wigderson? Someone who can shrug that off is much worse than a simple partisan.
He also writes:
“The dumbest threat to democracy comes from Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) who proposes a two-thirds vote requirement for votes taken after an election. We presume Carpenter regrets his colleagues’ votes in December 2010. Given Carpenter’s anti-democratic effort to limit his legislative colleagues’ ability to exercise their constitutional authority through the end of their terms…”
Is this really such a terrible idea? It would apply to Democrats as well, though Wigderson ignores that and merely brings up a time when he thinks Democrats did the same as what Republicans are doing now. (Indeed, this is a pattern among Republicans: Democrats propose something that would improve the system and affect both parties; Republicans respond by criticizing time when Democrats did the thing they propose to stop. The result of focusing on scoring political points by crying hypocrisy: nothing changes.) He doesn’t bother to make his case at all; he simply states that such a requirement is anti-democratic. But if he cares so much about the will of the people, why does he not care about what an unpopular government can do on its way out, including protecting the policies it implemented and people it appointed that made it unpopular in the first place?
I would never guess that this guy didn’t support Trump.