Navalny Murder, Tucker Taken, Putin’s Congress, Selling Soles, In Vitro Ban

  • At The Moderate Voice, Robert Levine explains why the conspicuous heroism of Alexi Navalny makes his murder by Putin a conspicuous evil.
     
  • Vixen Strangely, at Strangely Blogged, listens over the weekend for the reaction of mr Trump to the murder of Putin opponent Alexei Navalny, and hears nothing. She suggests, wisely, that the killing of someone who dares to defy non‑freedom of speech teaches us the natural result of Trump’s proposed presidential immunity.
     
    Key consequence:
    It would be the power of the thin-skinned and weak man to no longer have to argue his case, but to end the argument with one fatal command.
     
  • After a silent weekend, mr Trump finally reacts, somehow neglecting to mention his mentor Vlad Putin. The sudden death of Navalny makes mr Trump aware of …well… all the things wrong with the United States, which turn out to mostly be injustices to Donald Trump – his own self:
     
  • Dave Dubya‘s exchange with a conservative on social media provides insight on Tucker Carlson and Vlad Putin.
     
  • Hackwhackers chalks one up for the good guys as global law enforcement hacks the hackers.
     
    Key criminal:
    It would be utterly naive for anyone to believe that these cyber criminals operating out of Russia are doing so without the knowledge and involvement of the Russian state and its chief criminal/ thug Putin.
     
  • Iron Knee at Political Irony explains who, aside from mr Trump, cheers as Congress seizes up.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson carefully considers the Trump Declaration on NATO and Putin, and comes up with a logical extension:
     

  • Julian Sanchez, on Threads, reflects a common take on mr Trump – the human expectation that the future usually resembles the past:

    Post by @normative
    View on Threads

  • Eric Trump is especially upset by the ingratitude:

    And I couldn’t help it:
     

  • I really didn’t think we’d find anything much better than what we were given from Boebert’s brain.
     
    The left interfering in this political witch hunt:

    Until Marjorie Taylor Greene asked for her chance:

  • News Corpse watches Trump attorney Alina Habba on Fox as she offers her most compelling argument against the massive Trump corruption ruling: Prosecutor Letitia James went barefoot as Trump was fined.
     
    Key prosecutorial misconduct:
    Ms. James had her shoes off in court. Let’s not forget that.

  • Master of Rant Max’s Dad watches mr Trump, flat broke and begging for change.
     
    Key lesson unlearned:
    This guy is getting his ass kicked by so many women you’d think he’d just stop.
     
  • In the Palmer Report, the news that mr Trump is resorting to selling shoes to keep solvent would be a bit more comical if not for the serious crimes that led to it.
     
    Key summary:
    There’s new meaning to the phrase, “I wouldn’t want to be in Donald Trump’s shoes right now.”
     
    My thought:
     
  • From the irrepressible Andy Borowitz:
     
  • Although he is disenchanted with the year’s choices, Dave Columbo clears the air on why he favors one candidate.
     
    He also has a valid perspective on ranked choice voting.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger urges Democrats to adopt a change of tone. People already know the economy is good. They also know it’s unfair.
     
  • Tommy Christopher catches a more disturbing aspect of the Republican evidence that just blew up in Republican faces. The “informant” on Biden corruption who was arrested for manufacturing evidence and lying to the FBI about it, just turned out to be even worse. One of his co-conspirators also controlled one of Putin’s assassination squads
     
  • At the peak of the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce frenzy (a romance set up by Joe Biden as part of a complex election plot to get votes), Green Eagle collected some of the right-wing memes, and … Wow! some are really weird!
     
  • There are still more conspiracies to fear. Frances Langum watches Fox as Ainsley Earhardt urges viewers to panic.
     
    Key alert:
    The government is looking at how you shop, MAGA!
     
  • Sometimes crank theories have deadly real-world consequences.
     
    Disaffected and it Feels So Good calls out Florida’s Surgeon General for endangering that state’s population, especially children, as he refers to the current measles outbreak as nothing more than a liberal psyop.
     
    Key policy change:
    As a Measles outbreak spread through Broward County, Florida instead of adhering to the long established medical understanding of a 21 day quarantine period, Ladapo left the decision to stay at home to the parents.
     
  • The Propaganda Professor examines several rhetorical ploys used by book banning activists in Florida, one tactic being redefining words to deny what they are doing.
     
    They are not engaged in book banning, you see. Rather they are removing books from shelves in order to conduct book reviews.
     
  • The political correctness of MAGA folk is not always confined to books.
     
    Imani Gandy points to an ironic result of racist assumptions in legal forums:

    She gets called out by those twitter White folks who let us know that they don’t see color, but Black people do:

    One MAGA real estate agent in Texas tries to get Imani disbarred in Colorado. And is quickly joined by others who object to pointing out racism.
     

     
    Imani is amused:

    Just spitballing here:
    Perhaps it’s poor strategy to commit 91 felonies, then underestimate prosecutors because they are Black women.

  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit considers financial wrong-doers and decides to support mercy (after a fashion).
     
  • Scotties Playtime reviews an Alabama court ruling on in vitro. The decision declares fertilized eggs to be actual children, a ruling based largely on Bible verses.
     
    Anti-abortion groups in other parts of the country plan to use the ruling to keep abortion rights off state ballots and away from voters, on the basis that you can’t argue with God and Alabama.
     
  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara gets this one right, taking apart the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on in vitro fertilization – that embryos are kids, the Bible tells us so.
     
    Key value:
    But no value can ever be put above the value of an actual, individual, living human being—not the state, not society, not the race, not future generations, not God . . . and not the unborn, including embryos. That is the very definition of evil.
     
  • At The Onion, the Alabama Supreme Court rules that frozen burritos are children.
     
  • The actual ruling, in its reliance on Biblical passages, does find a certain resonance in the current condition of contemporary conservative thought. More on the right are publicly explicit about their aim at ending democracy.
     
    Consider the enthusiasm at this year’s CPAC convention.

  • In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, atheist Bruce suggests ten reasons Christians are becoming former Christians.
     
    His message is aimed specifically at conservative churches, but just might apply to the rest of us.
     
    Key disaffection:
    …if you want to really know why people in your church are deconstructing, may I kindly suggest that you stop making excuses and justifications and look in the mirror.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz wants us to stop using faith as an excuse for political inaction.
     
    Key headline:
    Stop Saying Love Wins.
     
  • SilverAppleQueen goes back to Edna St. Vincent Millay on death and the strangeness of permanent loss.
     
  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson celebrates this past week’s Presidents Day recounting the darkest days in office of the President most of us count as the greatest.
     
    She especially celebrates his determination to hold the election of 1864, during the war, which election he expected to lose.
     
    Key quote (from Lincoln)
    We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.
     
  • In the 1950s, children in upstate rural New York were taught about the Iroquois Confederacy, as we called it. It was included in school life, perhaps because we resided in the Finger Lakes region, in which it had been based.
     
    We weren’t told much beyond that the confederation spanned a large geography involving six major native American groups and a host of clans. We were told that it inspired, in undefined ways, US representative democracy.
     
    CalicoJack in The Psy of Life, provides some missing details of the Haudenosaunee and how the organizing principles may save our democracy and climate.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil provides another reason not to like Amazon.
     
  • In Happiness Between Tails da-AL guest hosts writer K E Garland who relates her experience as a sex addict and explains that the addiction is real and decidedly unfunny.
     
  • The Journal of Improbable Research finds a video that will doubtlessly interest you as the building in which you live or work collapses around you. The presentation explains whether you are about to die because of story drift or story displacement. Good final thought.
     
  • Nan’s Notebook gets wonderfully nerdy (Yay! She’s one of us!) after this week’s first moon landing in over 50 years. She wonders how, if accounts are completely accurate, the original crew in 1969 ever got back off the moon.
     
    Fortunately, our best spacey guy, Bruce Desertrat rescues us with the science answer.
     
  • YellowDog Granny is still with us (Yay!!) with memed thoughts on money, demons, and cowboys.
     
  • This week’s question about Infidel753: Where does he get these phenomenal images?
     
  • Biologist PZ Myers loves his spider research, and shows it in a few arachnophilic cartoons.
     
  • Through @whiskeywhistle98, we know when we are officially old:
     
  • Clickbait satirist Reductress brings us a satiric study that shows the best satiric time to do satiric dishes. Has to do with satiric anger.
     
  • Mark Waulberg (No, not Mark Wahlberg, the other Mark) has amazing optical illusions:
     
  • In Mock Paper Scissors, Weird Al Yankovic, in his new role as a classical musical leader, really throws himself into conducting a concussive conduction of the Jr. Philharmonic Orchestra.
     
    Come on! This is worth the click!
     
  • The Savanna Bananas do bring a question to professional baseball: Is three‑card monte a legal pitching tactic?
     

5 thoughts on “Navalny Murder, Tucker Taken, Putin’s Congress, Selling Soles, In Vitro Ban”

  1. I feel seen! Writing that answer brought up a lot of memories of being the typical astronaut-besotted kid of the 60’s.

    One of my earliest memories is sitting with my mom watching Alan Shepard’s first Mercury flight. (I was all of 3½ at the time)

  3. interesting how generations are being sliced finer & finer – used to be 30 years per, now it’s about 15 years per, I think – tx for including me here

  4. Burr, my friend, I don’t know why I am always amazed how two people can look at a single set of facts and then come up with diametrically opposed interpretations of those facts. Many of the posts you have here only help to remind me of this though. Hope you are well, my friend. 😉

    1. Darrell is correct.

      Set of facts on the 2020 election:

      By all counts, recounts, certifications, courts, and audits Biden won and Trump LOST. Then Trump LIED about massive fraud and a “stollen” election.
      BIDEN 51.3%
      81,283,361 Popular votes
      306 Electoral votes

      TRUMP 46.8%
      74,222,960 Popular votes
      232 Electoral votes

      And I would add, that even with a single set of facts, a single person can come up with diametrically opposed interpretations of those facts. Orwell called it “doublethink” in “1984”.

      This is what Darrell wrote at my blog on Jan 8, 2021: “Dave, Trump was wrong to give encouragement and a wink and a nod to the protestors and delaying any attempt to rein them back. He was complicit. Sadly this ego maniacal narcissist tarnished the myriad of good things he has done for our country with this latest escapade.”

      This is what Darrell wrote on May 15, 2021: “Trump instigates a riot according to the left and the media, but then I repeat myself. (He didn’t.)”

      Darrell on Trump’s 1/6 attempt to overturn/steal our election and my relevant explanations:

      “I support them marching to the capitol.” (To overturn/steal the election.)

      “Damn right he wanted a crowd that came to his rally and even marched to the capitol.” (To overturn/steal the election.)

      “I do not know for certain what were his thoughts or in his heart though.” (To overturn/steal the election. What else could his projection “STOP THE STEAL” mean?)

      “I don’t think it was his intention to incite the riot that occurred after that.” (Trump REFUSED to order them to leave for HOURS clearly indicating it was his intention to overturn/steal the election.)

      “If so, he was wrong.”
      (Then let the facts be stated. He made it quite clear that he wanted to overturn/steal the election by mob intimidation and force. This was in addition to demanding the DOJ interfere and say the election was “corrupt”, bullying state officials to “find votes”, and orchestrating fake electors with fraudulent electoral documents.)

      He chose that January day for a reason. To overturn/steal the election. He tried to CANCEL over 81 MILLION votes and SILENCE the voices of over 81 MILLION Americans.

      That was the stated purpose. He invited his thugs with a promise, “It will be wild”.

      He lied to them saying he’d march with them. He did nothing to stop them. And at the end of the day he PRAISED THEM!

      “You’re special. We love you.”

      And those are the facts.

      I like Darrell, but I just don’t understand why he thinks Trump is an honest or even decent man. I can only guess that emotion dominates reason in his judgement. He FEELS Trump is truthful and a patriot, but I suspect deep down he knows that Trump is a liar.

      I DO know it is nearly impossible for people to admit they were duped by a liar and con man.

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