Immunizing Trump, Umm Cone, IVF, Unpeach, Biden DNA, Mitch, Ukraine

  • Julian Sanchez, on Threads, had chided those whose view of the Supreme Court had turned to jaded cynicism.
     

    Now he confesses he had been insufficiently skeptical about the integrity of SCOTUS justices:
     

  • Dave Columbo explains how so many Trump shocks get quickly forgotten because of subsequently more shocking Trump shocks.
     
    With a shocking example of shock:
     
  • Green Eagle, always willing to help, has a way for an increasingly forgetful, absent minded, easily distracted, deteriorating Donald Trump to remember an important fact.
     
  • At The Onion, a new poll of likely voters finds only 19% believe the country is ready for a competent president.
     
  • So mr Trump thinks he, his own self, is the reason for the soaring Biden stock market. See, it’s actually caused by the anticipated Trump victory in November. (Uh huh…)
     
    Frances Langum thinks it significant that, of all people on the Fox Network, Neil Cavuto is having none of it.
     
  • At The Moderate Voice, Joe Gandelman suggests that big wins by Biden and Trump in the Michigan primary still represent warnings to both candidates, but perhaps a bigger warning to one than the other.
     
  • The Palmer Report says this past week’s voting in Michigan told us what we need to know about where things stand. Biden got 81% of Democrats, while Trump got 68% of Republicans.
     
    The media, however, keep ginning up stories about bad news for Biden.
     
    In reality:
     
    Protest voting on the Dem side kind of fizzled. Uncommitted got 13%, way fewer than the Biden-gloom many televised analysts projected.
     
    Still, the nobody vote was way more than that of Marianne Williamson. She was ecstatic, though, having edged Dean Phillips by almost a third of a percent (Yay you, moon child!).
     
    My overactive imagination gave me competing preemptive headlines for drama addicted media.
     
    Nobody is more popular among Democrats than Williamson!
    AND
    At least Biden is better than nobody…
     
    Come on! I’m trying, okay?
     
  • Scotties Playtime goes Twittering (or is it Xing) for the intersection of Republicans, Christian nationalists, and November elections.
     
  • As The Psy of Life puts it, Election 2024 should be a shoe‑in for the Democrats. So why the uncertainty?
     
    CalicoJack suggests a neurological reason, combined with such human tendencies as carryover mode, ageism, hindsight bias, fig‑leaf rhetoric, and follow‑the‑leader.
     
    Key complicity:
    The press is doing its level best to make it a politics‑as‑usual horserace election because profits are people too, my friend.
     
  • driftglass restates the case against unexamined, reflexive both sides do it arguments.
     
    Key question:
    What’s more addictive than meth, more profitable than iPhones. more indestructible than Kevlar and easier to make than Top Ramen?
    Come on, folks. Let’s not always see the same hands!

  • In News Corpse, Late Night with Seth Meyers hosts a surprise appearance by President Biden.
     
    Also included: the video, which I now shamelessly steal:

  • Vixen Strangely has fun with Fox and MAGA desperation as they try to revive Obama’s Tan Suit, substituting Biden and unmanly ice cream.
     
  • Tommy Christopher transcribes, documents, and reports as CNN personalities point out that impeachment‑worthy charges against President Biden turned out to false, having been made up by Russian operatives, but speculate that the political damage has already been done.
     
  • In Disaffected and it Feels So Good, it turns out that the Joe‑Biden-must-be-a-criminal-because-Hunter-made-a-lot-of-money-and-didn’t-file-his-taxes‑on‑time impeachment effort has pretty much fallen apart. It turns out the sins of the son are not inherited by the father.
     
    So Fox personality Jonathan Turley goes in the opposite direction. Joe Biden inherited criminal tendencies.
     
    Not exactly from either of his parents. Jonathan found nothing there.
    There were four grandparents, but Jonathan found no record of criminality among them, either.
    Same with eight great-grandparents. Too clean for comment.
    Joe Biden had 16 great-great-grandparents. And for one of the sixteen, Jonathan finally came up with an incident.
     
    Seems during the Civil War, Moses Robinette worked for the Union army. He was attacked by an aggressive someone with a grudge. He pulled a pocketknife while defending himself.
     
    He pleaded self-defense, but a military court sentenced him for attempted murder. President Lincoln himself heard about it and pardoned poor Moses.
     
    Later in life, Moses got married and begat someone.
    That someone got married and begat someone.
    That someone’s someone also fell in love, got married, and well, you know.
     
    Somewhere along the line, someone married into the growing Biden family.
     
    With me so far?
     
    Eventually, Joseph Biden, Sr. and Jean Finnegan met and married in 1941.
    Thus Joe Biden came into being the next year.
     
    Which, as Disaffected relates, proves to Jonathan and his readers that Joe Biden, Jr., who grew up to become President Biden, was born in 1942 with a criminal background.
    Kind of like Original Sin.
     
    Key ideological pattern:
    This kind of “Inherited Criminality” is the entire crux of the Rightwing Migrant Crisis propaganda. Immigrants are criminals and they pass their criminality down to their ancestors who also always Vote Democrat!
     
  • Dave Dubya offers helpful advice to conservatives he might encounter on how to refute libtards like himself. (Or me, I suppose – Thanks, Dave).
     
  • Mitch McConnell announces his days as the Senate’s Republican Leader will be over after this year.
     
    Andy Borowitz bids a fond farewell:
     

  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has some of the successor competitive action as Mitch prepares to step out.
     
    I don’t much care for John Cornyn, TX. But he and ultra corrupt Texas AG Ken Paxton are in a perpetual cage match and, you know, the enemy of my enemy.
     
    Shamelessly, I steal from tengrain, although he retains the rest:

  • PZ Myers considers the guilty verdict in the corruption trial of the ex‑CEO of the NRA. Wayne LaPierre’s strange defense was that he what he stole wasn’t really stealing. He needed to look good for the cameras when representing NRA arguments.
     
    Meyers suggests the investment didn’t work
     
    It does remind me of my adventures back in my long-ago single days. I stopped by a candy booth exhibiting free samples. As I took one, I used the same lame joke I often tried back then.
     
    Is this guaranteed to make me good looking?
     
    The young lady behind the counter, studied me carefully, and answered, You’d better take two.
     
    Okay, so if I was hanged for being physically irresistible, I would die an innocent man.
     
    On the other hand, I was not busted for massive corruption.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has the polling data on who disagrees with the Alabama ruling that embryos preserved for in vitro fertilization are actually children (Spoiler: The disagreement prevails among pretty much every age, party, and demographic), and why some folks are grateful to the state court.
     
  • Infidel753 disagrees with the gratitude, suggesting a problem that goes beyond Alabama: the entire US court system, led by a partisan Supreme Court, is self‑destructing, and that this is not good news for America.
     
    Key imperative for imposing restraint:
    The judicial branch is too important to let the current Supreme Court go on trashing its authority.
     
  • In its ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court stomps all over in vitro fertilization based largely on Bible verses.
    Life begins at conception. The Bible tells me so.
     
    It is a predictable, and quite logical, application of the anti‑abortion premise.
     
    But in vitro is popular, the public is outraged, and Republicans tremble as they back away.
     
    Master of rant Max’s Dad has a withering analysis, headlined: Life Begins At Conception!! No Wait!!
     
    Key common automotive analogy:
    Republicans have caught the car and now have no idea what to do with it.
     
  • In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce documents the reasoning of the Alabama decision, quoting the actual author of the ruling. Seems fair, right? He points out that Tom Parker accurately presents what Christian nationalists intend for the entire nation.
     
    So: Watch out, folks.
     
  • Legal expert Imani Gandy reminds us of what she reminded us of before anti‑abortion activists won in the Supreme Court:

  • Republican Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, Pennsylvania, is pushing his reluctant colleagues to let vital aid get to Ukraine.

    He receives his share of appreciation:

    But, a couple of years ago, Mike Pompeo joined a few others in praise for Vlad Putin.

    Some in my corner of the ideological arc are in no mood to let these guys off the hook.

    Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson poses a pointed question:

  • In Hackwhackers, Republicans have been holding up military aid to Ukraine’s fight against Putin aggression. With that GOP advantage, Putin seems ready to expand his efforts beyond Ukraine. He is looking next to invade the neighboring country of Moldova.
     
  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson recounts the Republican strategy, such as it is, of refusing to pass vital military aid to Ukraine and Israel until border security is handled, then refusing to handle border security. The entire Republican obstruction seems to be falling apart as votes apparently could soon be forced by a union of convenience as Democrats and moderate Republicans join.
     
    The same analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson goes to podcast.
     
    Key Biden public message to Trump:
    Let’s remember who the heck we work for. We work for the American people, not the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. We work for the American people.
     
  • The Strategic Studies Book Club takes a look at historian Alessandro Barbero’s look at the decline of the Roman Empire, beginning with the Battle of Adrianople in 378. This, he says, resulted in increasing hostility by Roman elites toward migrants.
     
    In prior centuries, the empire grew stronger by assimilating barbarians into the army, which then served as a conduit into Roman society.
     
    But defeat by the Goths in this singular battle provoked a change in attitude.
     
    Resentment toward foreigners slowed the process of assimilation, migrants became socially isolated, divisions became apparent, and the empire slowly deteriorated over the next couple of centuries.
     
  • Wendy’s is looking to test a new sales method: letting their prices dance around during the day according to minute‑to‑minute demand.
    So our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit puts a highly creative curse on their CEO.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz respectfully disagrees with a common theology held by many among my conservative Christian brethren:

    My view:

  • Our ever pessimistic, always cynical, friend M. Bouffant at Web of Evil doesn’t much care for Christian nationalists.
     
  • Nan’s Notebook takes on the question: why do believers feel the need for a God?
     
    Key speculation about folks like me:
    Are their lives so deficient that they cannot exist without a crutch?
     
    Well thanks, Nan. I’ll get back to you on that.
     
  • Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes goes mental transit, traveling from crossword to naked ladies to the last few Conservative Prime Ministers. He has pretty much always voted for Tory candidates. He finally concludes that, if current tactics get more votes for the Tory party, then Tory voters are contemptable.
     
  • Author John Scalzi points out the obvious, that we live in a contentious year of a contentious time, then offers non‑obvious advice on how much you should engage with contentious issues.
     
  • YellowDog Granny is still with us (Yay!) with memed thoughts on the human condition.
     
  • SilverAppleQueen is plagued by migraines and blessed with cats.
     
  • @whiskeywhistle98 reminds us about the importance of communication in marriage:
     
  • Clickbait satirist Reductress discovers a satiric discovery by researchers that siblings communicate primarily through missed call notifications.
     
  • Mark Waulberg (No, not Mark Wahlberg, the other Mark) explains the value of pi so even I can understand it:
     
  • In Georgia baseball, The Savanna Bananas go all Chubby Checker on an opposing batter, with a group limbo and who’s got the ball?
     
    One lesson: sometimes creative baseball doesn’t work. See how well the batter does.