Ukraine Strikes Back, Hitler Worship, Jan 6, Slavery History, Immigration

  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit points to largely unnoticed, subtle, evidence that Putin’s flagship in the Black Sea was sunk by Ukrainian missiles, not by some Russian accident, as Putinites would have us believe.
     
  • What goes on in the bully-boy mind of Vlad?
    He sends his military to an easy takeover of Ukraine. They get bloodied in one battle after another.
    He sends threats to keep NATO countries from supplying Ukraine. Their transfer of weapons accelerates.
    He sends his flagship, the pride and joy of the Russian navy, to shell Ukraine. Ukraine sinks the ship.
     
    In Hackwhackers, Vlad uses intimidation to keep Finland and Sweden out of NATO. Guess what happens!
     
  • Must seem like this:

  • Nojo finds what is possible to find on what ordinary Russians are discovering about Putin’s Ukraine invasion, what they believe, and why.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil has the links as yet another Russian who dares to speak up gets harassed, poisoned, and finally arrested in Moscow.
     
  • Infidel753 has refrained from extrapolating Putin’s genocidal ways into any characterizations about rightists in other countries. Putin has seemed fairly close to uniquely evil. But Marine Le Pen in France and a few public figures in the US force a course correction.
     
  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson acknowledges the anniversary of the death of Abraham Lincoln and reviews the similarities in threats to the Republic, then and now, the foremost of which was and is fear of democracy.
     
  • There are receipts, then there is proof, and then there is this. tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has more than documentation of what we pretty much already know. But this seems to seal the deal:
    Audio tapes of instructions issued to January 6 insurrectionists.
     
  • The Palmer Report contains a bit of well founded speculation about a new DOJ indictment and a prominent public figure who may be in legal jeopardy.
     
  • Grung_e_Gene takes a glance at an open push along a pathway to removing any democratic parts from democratic republic and tries to put a laptop into perspective.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged decides that, yes, you can sometimes take an incident involving an incidental public official and, from it, characterize the non-incidental nature of a political party. For example someone who lectures homeless people that they should model their lives after Adolf Hitler.
     
    One excerpt:
    When someone takes a look at the life story of Adolf Hitler, the takeaway should not actually be that, say what you will about the man, he was a real go‑getter.
     
  • Frances Langum takes notes as Jimmy Kimmel scores against Trump and Greene but completely stomps Mr. Gaetz into the ground.
     
    My thought:

  • Occasionally, during a business discussion, I’ll ask: Will it help if I panic?
     
    Folks sometimes give a sympathy laugh (or maybe a pity chuckle), but even a lame joke can help focus a discussion toward solutions.
     
    The Moderate Voice looks through Biden polls among young people, and suggests maybe it’s about that time for Democrats to panic.
     
  • What news coverage is the American public getting? Green Eagle compares and contrasts just a few issues as a case study.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life brings us a clinical study producing compelling evidence of the effect Fox coverage has on viewers.
     
  • A noted historian speaks about the basic cause of medical and fuel inflation and Dave Dubya discusses power and provides a warning.
     
  • The Propaganda Professor attacks the attacks on transgender athletes as dishonest assault resulting from simple bigotry.
     
    I dunno.
     
    The concern that transgender females have an unfair advantage is genuine, I think. In sports, there is a difference in the emphasis on body strength that accounts for separate gendered competition. Of course people will be concerned.
     
    The Propaganda Professor is most convincing in attacking that idea, rather than people that hold it – pointing to the affect on body strength by hormone replacement therapy, while acknowledging there are still some differences.
     
  • PZ Myers seems skeptical as author and filmmaker David Mamet goes on Fox to explain how we know so many teachers are inclined toward pedophilia.
     
  • John Scalzi at Whatever reviews current attacks on basic rights of sex, sexual orientation, and abortion -> and Supreme Court decisions based on flimsy excuses for legal reasoning as the source of those attacks.
     
  • Legal expert Imani Gandy reviews Supreme Court case Garza v. Hargan, the ridiculous facts behind the case, and the dangerous blueprint anti-choice ideologues envision for pregnant minors.
     
  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara argues that the 1619 project on the role of slavery in the American republic is actually a pro-slavery document.
     
    Michael’s argument is a little convoluted but is coherent if properly translated from libertarian-speak.
     
    The Declaration contained the words “All men are created equal”, therefore the United States was a free nation from the beginning.
     
    Slavery was, admittedly, a stumbling block, but was obliterated in a mere 86 years – 91 if you go by Constitutional Amendment. So no more stumbling.
     
    Libertarian free markets are the definition of freedom and any deviation represents a form of slavery. Regulation, taxation, legal limitations, etc.
     
    That liberty is disturbed by federal interference in about anything. That includes any thought that 1619, the date slavery was brought to the colonies, had anything at all to do with America, which only began in 1776 and was not influenced by anything happening in 1619.
     
    So acknowledgement of slavery in America’s founding is really just a subterfuge to depart from true freedom.
     
    Which makes any result of academic study into early slavery a pro-slavery document.
     
    Got that?
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger contrasts tax systems, one in which most of us declare income and pay taxes on it, the other a parallel system in which the ultra-wealthy postpone, delay, and defer, and often pay less than their secretaries. Gosh, what shall we do? Ted has an obvious suggestion.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson gets many issues simply wrong. He is, after all, a conservative. He does teach us that some conservatives decline to subscribe to the “cultural” side of immigration arguments:

  • Julian Sanchez of Cato Institute knows what Governor Abbott and others are up to on immigration:


    In fairness to the right-ruthless-wing, this was somewhat similar to the objective of some leftist supporters of Ralph Nader in 2000. Electing Bush would inflict horrible harm on the country, after which the nation would turn its lonely eyes to Nader or a Nader-clone in 2004 and the nation would rise like Phoenix from the ashes out of Bush darkness into enlightened Nader rule.

  • Some immigrant contributions are easy for the closed-minded to ignore. But a few are immediate and in-your-face:

  • Some Republicans are becoming less popular with Republicans:

  • News Corpse has an explanation from Jen Psaki on why it is not really his own fault that Peter Doocy of Fox News so often sounds so stupid.
     
  • Tommy Christopher reveals Jen Psaki’s answer when the White House Press Secretary is asked for the weirdest question she’s been asked. Semi-spoiler: That one wasn’t from Peter Doocy.
     
  • Some folks are nice enough to make it easy to respond.

  • driftglass finds a political model from the past with lessons that could have made Obama a more effective President.
     
  • In The Onion, despite persistent whispers that she is no longer able to handle her job, Dianne Feinstein insists she is still mentally fit to continue captaining a submarine.
     
  • Scotties Playtime casts a critical eye on one of this year’s Florida candidates for Congress. Something about getting rich producing tear gas and rubber bullets for use on BLM demonstrators.
     
  • In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce draws a lesson from a small, almost overlooked, act of kindness.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has become discouraged about religion.
     
  • Nan’s Notebook has found a message floating through social media warning about how satellite debris is blocking God from hearing our prayers.
     
    I’ve come across the same thing and dismissed it as satire. But I may be wrong, and it is instructive that we even have to wonder.
     
  • SilverAppleQueen apologizes for a reduction in posts this week. She’s been under the weather and suggests she is getting old, but does not seem to have contracted COVID.
     
    Well, we take good news where we can get it.
     
    On becoming older, I still go out in front, weather permitting, and yell at folks her age to get off my lawn. In fairness, they are usually on the sidewalk and seem a bit startled. But still…
     
    …damn kids!
     
  • YellowDog Granny has a new take on claustrophobia.
     
  • In MadMikesAmerica, Glenn Geist chronicles what he sees as a deterioration of the English language, with a few examples.
     
    I dunno. I am still influenced by my speech professor half a century ago telling me that words have no meaning. Only people have meaning. Language evolves over time.
     
    On the other hand, I still get irritated by who used in place of whom. So maybe I qualify as grammar-intolerant after all.
     
  • Reductress sees Queen Elizabeth get a little high, with an unanticipated result.
     
A few tweets I thought worthy:

And I’m allowed a few of my own:


– Podcasts –
 

One thought on “Ukraine Strikes Back, Hitler Worship, Jan 6, Slavery History, Immigration”

  1. Re: the satellite meme I posted (Nan’s Notebook) — I would hate to think that anyone saw it as NOT satire! Good grief!

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