Category: Uncategorized

 
From The Propaganda Professor:

Another popular traditional misconception is that Columbus encountered a lot of resistance to his proposed explorations because most folks at the time believed the earth was flat, and he would just sail off the edge of it. (Into what?). Not true; the rotundity of the planet had been common knowledge since at least the ancient Greeks. There may have been a few people who believed it to be a big platter floating in space, but probably no more than there are today.

The myth of widespread flat eartherism didn’t even gain traction until about two centuries after Columbus, when Protestants made such an accusation against Catholics. In the Nineteenth Century, the myth was advanced further by a handful of scientists in not particularly scientific books aimed at making creationists appear even more backward than they really were.

But for the myth relating specifically to Columbus, we can thank Washington Irving of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle fame. His 1828 book A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus was the literary equivalent of a 1950’s Hollywood biopic, giving Columbus the Parson Weems treatment. Weems, you may recall, was the “biographer” of George Washington who took great liberties with the facts in order to exalt his subject, and may have invented the cherry tree episode . Similarly, Irving inserted an account of a meeting between Columbus and a Spanish commission to consider his proposed voyages, in which the commission objected that the silly navigator believed the earth was (snicker, snicker) spherical, and they couldn’t possibly get behind such a notion. The meeting was apparently real. The objection was not.

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From Scotties Toy Box:

This is What Motivates Republicans

Republicans want retribution for Obama. They want to hunt down Hillary. They want a lawless white man to show the world that Republicans are party of white nationalism and misogyny.

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From Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson:

Matt Walker, the president of Platform Digital and the son of former Governor Scott Walker, announced on social media that he is not running for Congress in Wisconsin’s fifth congressional district.

Walker said that after much prayer he has decided to focus on his business instead. (Disclosure: RightWisconsin is a client of Platform Digital.) However, he added that the Republican Party needs more young people to run for public office.

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From News Corpse:

The spectacle of an American president whining so helplessly is an unending embarrassment to this nation. But even worse is the malevolent tone that he is lately exhibiting. Trump has taken to calling his political foes “spies” and implying that they should be executed. And in Saturday’s tweets Trump channeled the ghost of Hitler to vilify the whole of the Democratic Party as “savages.”

It’s notable that the only named victims of this abuse are members of Congress who are either Jewish or women of color. It seems like a stretch to consider that a coincidence.

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Headline from The Federalist:

Intel Community Secretly Gutted Requirement Of First‑Hand Whistleblower Knowledge

Answered on Twitter by Cato’s Julian Sanchez:

 

 

From Evan Sarzin at The Moderate Voice:

Donald Trump has given Congress the road to his own perdition, not that he believes in it. He last year regarding the notes kept by his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, that good lawyers don’t keep notes. In essence, if you don’t write it down, there’s no evidence.

So, Trump, sly devil, doesn’t take notes; doesn’t put anything in writing; and prefers to conduct “personal diplomacy,” one to one calls or conferences in which no notes are taken or records kept. We recall he directed the translators at his meeting with Putin in Helsinki to destroy his notes.

There’s one thing he had to work around: when the president has a conversation with another head of state, many people are listening, in the Oval Office and in the Situation Room.

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From Mark Bear in MadMikesAmerica:

Geez, “Rev” Graham, I never heard you cry out one single time when Republicans, who created the most elaborate obstructionist scheme in modern day politics, attacked former President Barack Obama. Oh, I fully understand what your real issue was, because you see, no matter how you slice it or dice it, you said on national television—on the state propaganda network—how “you did not think Barack Obama was really a Christian.”

See folks like me have a great memory of the previous administration, and we have a pretty good memory when somebody is trying to “fleece the flock,” too. And let’s be honest with one another here: You have been doing this for a pretty long time if you were to be completely honest with us. Not that I have any semblance of hope that you will come clean.

About that “fleecing the flock” thingy, since you supposedly preach out of the same Bible I try with all of my heart to live by, you do recall when the Word itself says this in I Peter 5:2, don’t you?

“Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God.”

Now perhaps it is just me, but I have observed you for several years now, and you know what I found, Sir?

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The world sometimes seems to have too few heroes. America has one. He is a minor official in Ukraine.

Between the infamous telephone conversation between two presidents, and the congressional investigation into that conversation, Ukraine had two months to get dirt on Joe Biden. Why did they not even begin?

I know there are more polite ways to put this, but speaking plainly, my president called the head of another country and, while talking about maybe, perhaps, who knows, helping them to survive attacks by Russia, pressured them to manufacture dirt on his main political opponent.

I would like you to do us a favor though.

Congress had authorized $400 million in aid to Ukraine to help them in their struggle to maintain independence from Russia. Putin’s puppet ruler of Ukraine had been overthrown in a popular revolt just a few years ago, and Putin had annexed part of Ukraine shortly after.

Trump ordered those funds held up until he could talk with the newly elected leader of Ukraine. Ukrainian officials were made to understand why the vital assistance was being held up. Donald Trump wanted an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Years back, Hunter had worked for a company doing business in Ukraine.

So why was there no investigation into Biden?
Continue reading “Why No Investigation into Biden? Thank a Hero in Ukraine”

• News Corpse reviews the lies and misrepresentations by my president, and those speaking on his behalf, about the Ukraine call: falsehoods followed by Mr. Trump’s eventual confession.
   
• Iron Knee at Political Irony runs a comic strip, then explains in a few paragraphs why every part applies to the Ukraine story.
   
• At The Moderate Voice, Joe Gandelman begins with fears by the whistleblower that Trump devotees in the White House were trying to lock down records to hide them. Turns out that fear was well-founded. Also turns out that cover up backfired.
   
• Green Eagle brings up an almost unnoticed aspect of the attempt to strong-arm Ukraine into manufacturing dirt on Biden. Trump wanted dirt on Ukraine itself. Green Eagle speculates about one bank shot financial reason.
   
• Tommy Christopher has us counting on our fingers as a Fox News personality insists that mainstream media lied about the Ukraine telephone summary. Reports told of multiple references to Joe Biden, but, says Catherine Herridge, there were not multiple references: only a handful, perhaps just three. Let’s see. I used to have multiple fingers. Now I have just a couple of handsful. Or handfuls, depending on whether you use the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
   
• Frances Langum watches Fox and walks us through the carefully nuanced reaction of Chris Wallace to the whistle.
   
• Now that Republicans accidentally sent their talking points to Democrats, now that we know in advance what conservatives are supposed to say, Jonathan Bernstein wonders why so many aren’t following the script. Is it the sound of Trump’s spell over Republicans breaking?
   
• Scotties Toy Box has a question for those of us who wonder about the reaction of Trump voters to possible impeachment.
   
• At The Onion, The New York Times offers to disclose the whistleblower identity to readers who subscribe in the next 24 hours.
   
• While briefly covering how the recently revealed Russian financial connection has endangered NRA IRS exemptions, tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors reveals a talent for exactitude in phraseology, as the NRA Tax Status Commits Suicide.
   
• Okay, Greta Thunberg provides the United Nations her angry denunciation of inadequate action on climate change, citing science and logic on what future generations will face. Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara carefully analyzes the evidence and offers his own scientific view that the 16-year-old is anti-human, ungrateful, and speaks with a voice of a monstrous evil. Not bad for a high school kid.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz watches Greta Thunberg stand alone before the gathering of nations. He sees proof of the power of One and suggests that each one of us has it.
   
• Jon Perr at PERRspectives notes the long, long lasting Obama economic boom after the Bush crash, and watches as, at long last, Trump is finally killing that recovery.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post discovers a reality show host, a business expert, who would be a much better president than our current occupant.
   
• In MadMikesAmerica Erin Nanasi explains why she believes in God.

 

First, From Art:

First, we have to avoid references to ‘the law’ as if it the same thing here as we think of in every day life. Normally, if you violate the law a cop arrests you or issues a ticket and you talk to what we hope is an impartial judge. You might get a jury of disinterested ‘peers’ and a decision is made and sentence carried out. In this case ‘the law’ is very different. Nobody gets hauled off in cuffs, not even a ticket. And there is no judge. Only a jury of, in this case, 100 senators of whom the majority are both not disinterested and profoundly disinclined to see anything wrong with what Trump has done. And Pence.

And no, the GOP cannot be shamed into voting for America and against their party. There is literally no violation that can’t be rationalized. It really doesn’t matter what the law says. Either he/they didn’t do it, or they did it but it is religiously justified (God allows sin to be used to accomplish a greater good), or ethnically justified (remember that Russia and the GOP are all Christian white guys), or the violation of law is just part of the game where the real payoff is making liberals cry and impeachment is just another failed attempt to smear the GOP by a feckless and ineffectual Democratic party.

Second, there is the timing. Start impeachment now and it will be all over before it has much effect of the 2020 election.

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