FairAndUNbalanced.com

 
From Lee Vinsel at The American Conservative:

Manufacturers are creating monopolies by preventing customers (or anyone else) from fixing their products. It’s time to end that.

The so-called Right-to-Repair movement, virtually unheard of a few years ago, has gained a great deal of ground recently. In March, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic presidential candidate, announced that Right-to-Repair would be part of her campaign platform. Then in April, The New York Times editorial board came out in support of the idea.

Right-to-Repair focuses on removing what are known as repair restrictions, technological and legal barriers that manufacturers use to prevent consumers and independent repairpersons from fixing their products. Repair restrictions make users dependent on producers to get things fixed.

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From Dorian de Wind at The Moderate Voice:

By God’s Grace, he was one of the very few who survived the Nazi Holocaust atrocities and, perhaps, the only one who was able to write down a detailed record of his imprisonment and the brutalities he experienced at the very same place where they had occurred — at Auschwitz.

Atrocities and brutalities that included beatings, whippings, sexual crimes, forced sterilization, the most cruel and repulsive medical experiments, the killing of newborn babies and, finally, the gassing and other forms of murder of the young and the old, and of everyone in between.

His name was Eddie (Eliazar) de Wind.

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From Jonathan Bernstein:

Don’t expect new revelations. The former special counsel merely needs to illustrate the malfeasance he’s already uncovered.

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post makes a good point about Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress today: There’s a real danger that media coverage will simply focus on whether anything new is revealed, beyond what the former special counsel has already made public about his investigation. That would be a serious mistake.

We’ve seen this tendency before – the “LOL nothing matters” cynicism of some in the media about President Donald Trump. The idea seems to be that because Trump always survives bad news, there’s little point in aggressively covering additional bad news, as would happen with any other politician. The very worst example has been Trump’s long record of alleged sexual misbehavior; after all, it was just a few weeks ago that the president was accused of rape, and the media largely shrugged it off. But really, it’s one thing after another with Trump, and the press has never quite figured out how to explain it all.

As for today’s hearings, I agree with Sargent: Mueller’s testimony is important because he’ll be explaining exactly what his investigation found, and that’s newsworthy in itself. The president has been saying that the probe exonerated him; we’ll find out now whether that’s correct, or whether – as most people who’ve read Mueller’s report have concluded – it was actually devastating for Trump.

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From Frances Langum:

Uh Oh! Question To Mueller Blows Up In Republican’s Face
Republican (!) Ken Buck gets Mueller to admit Trump could be indicted for obstruction of justice AFTER he leaves office.

Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado thought he was pushing Robert Mueller into a corner. Heh.

Why would Mueller indict a bunch of Russians but not indict the (so-called) president if he was equally guilty? Isn’t Robert Mueller just “throwing things against the wall” with Trump to see what would stick? Isn’t this just a WITCH HUNT?!?1?

REP KEN BUCK (R-CO): Russian interference. You couldn’t have indicted the president on that and you made the decision on that. But when it came to obstruction you threw a bunch of stuff up against the wall to see what would stick. That is fundamentally unfair.

ROBERT MUELLER: I would not agree to that characterization at all. What we did was provide to the Attorney General, in the form of a confidential memorandum, our understanding of the case. Those cases that were brought, those cases that were declined. And the — that one case where the president cannot be charged with a crime.

BUCK: Okay. but the — could you charge the president with a crime after he left office?

MUELLER: Yes.

BUCK: You believe that he committed — you could charge the President of the United States with obstruction of justice after he left office?

MUELLER: Yes.

BUCK: Ethically?

MUELLER: I’m not sure because I haven’t looked at the ethic standards but the OLC opinion says that the prosecutor while he cannot bring a charge against a sitting president nonetheless he can continue the investigation to see if there are other persons drawn into the conspiracy.

JERRY NADLER (off camera): Time of the gentleman is expired.

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From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:

I’m staying because my son and daughter see the world as beautiful, and they see people as good and the future as hopeful—and I’ll be damned if I have to move them thousands of miles away to give them that reality. They deserve the America they believe exists.

I’m staying to show the country that Christianity is not what they’ve been told it is by the Religious Right. It is not this Bible Belt bastardization, with a bloodthirsty, gun-toting, “Don’t tread on me” white, Republican Jesus looking to purify the country and drive out the gays and the blacks and the illegals and the Muslims.

I’m staying to stand up to the hallway bullies and the church door vandals and the drive-by catcallers and the social media terrorists, to let them know that they don’t have the run of the house just because they have a kindred spirit in the White House.

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From John Scalzi Whatever:

At 7:07 I called Hertz and asked where my car was. They said I would have to call the O’Hare Hertz location directly and ask what the deal was, and gave me the number. I called the number, only to discover that if you don’t have the extension number of the specific person you want to reach, you can’t actually call the O’Hare Hertz location directly. So I called the reservation line and pointed out the problem of not having an extension. They said I would have to call the O’Hare Hertz and talk to them about that.

The next bit of dialogue is paraphrased but essentially true to the conversation that followed.

“So, you understand the part where I said that without a specific extension, I can’t actually reach anyone at the O’Hare Hertz, correct?” I asked.

“We don’t have any extensions to give you,” the Hertz person said. “You’ll have to call the local number.”

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From Dave Dubya:

One thing is certain, our nervous and fearful eyes will be glued to our TV screens.

And perhaps even more nervous and fearful, and ANGRY, eyes will be viewing from the White House.

Trump’s personal Attorney General wants to muzzle Mueller, and instructed him to answer only “within the boundaries of your public report, because matters within the scope of your investigation were covered by executive privilege.”

This tells us Trump’s Cartel is nervous already.

I predict more Americans will finally learn what was in Mueller’s report. Too few have read any of it, and most have read none of it.

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From Max’s Dad:

After the detestable display in North Carolina I fully expected, as I have so many times before, for Republicans to FINALLY say enough is enough. But as usual I was wrong. Instead we got Republican after Republican standing with the Klansman in Chief. Backing him up. Attacking the “Squad”. The 4 uppity women of color, or as as most of the polite people at the rally would say, colored women, who dare express their beliefs out loud cannot be tolerated. It was cowardice once again at the highest level. Even those that did have the balls to express some sort of concern backed off soon after Trump claimed he didnt like the chant (which he absolutely did) and went back to attacking Omar as some sort of terrorist suicide bomber.

Look I am not old enough to remember much about the 1960’s civil rights fight. I came of age late in the 60’s when this sort of behavior was looked down upon. Archie Bunker was a dumbbell to be laughed at. Archie’s ignorance was so out there, it was funny. Well today, in the Age of Trump, its not looked down upon.

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From MadMikesAmerica:

The other day, I stopped to light a cigarette. I inadvertently drifted to the left, noticing in my peripheral vision that I had stepped in front of somebody.

I turned and said “Sorry sweetheart”.

The lady in question was of Somalian origin. She was a Muslim wearing traditional Muslim attire.

“That’s all right darlin’” she replied, smiled, and walked on.

I stood there with my mouth open, looking not unlike I had been newly lobotomized.

A Muslim woman, of Somalian origin (you can often tell by the facial appearance), wearing traditional Muslim attire – although, thankfully, not one of those awful ‘peek-a-boo’ veil things – actually smiled at me and said, “That’s all right darlin’”

That is all it took you know.

All it took to make me think differently.

After months, nay, years, of being regularly chastised by some as being somewhat Islamophobic. After years of thinking ‘I can’t handle all these alien creatures around here’. After years of genuinely believing that Islam is a very real threat to us.

I haven’t changed much I readily admit. But I have changed a bit. Just because of that one small insignificant sentence. “That’s all right darlin’”.

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From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

Mr. Mueller is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. ET, and will be televised on all the cable news networks, and I bet even Fox News will have a puppet show. Oh wait, Petunia and Pals is being pre-empted!

There are two scenarios making bank in Vegas: A) the hearing will be a total dud, because Mr. Mueller has said he won’t say anything other than his report, and 2) that the hearing will be great TV no matter what he says.

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