Seldom Balanced – Usually Fair
From our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit:
I haven’t seen much from the Parkland Children’s Brigade about the recent school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas. My guess is because that shooting doesn’t fit their narrative.
The gun-banners want a ban on “assault rifles” and large capacity magazines. Their claims, all along, have been that such bans would make them safer.
The Asswipe of Santa Fe has shown that their claims are false.
From M. Bouffant at Web of Evil:
Remember Republicans having fit after free-market fit when that Obama guy bailed out the Chrysler Corporation? An American corporation that hadn’t violated sanctions, lied to Federal investigators, yada yada? Now where’s the outrage?
President Trump said late Friday he had allowed embattled Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE Corp. to remain open despite fierce bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill, defying lawmakers who have warned that the huge technology company should be severely punished for breaking U.S. law.
From John Scalzi at Whatever:
Solo is a film you can watch without having seen any of the others, because it takes place before all of them. So if you’ve never seen Star Wars but think this one looks kind of good, go ahead and see it, you won’t be lost.
This movie is seriously jam-packed with action. Chase scenes, battle scenes, more chase scenes, gun fights, high stakes heists, etc. It is like 90% action and 10% talking scenes. This is not a bad thing, in my opinion. In regard to the fights, I think everything was choreographed amazingly; the camera work was really on point. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a fight scene where I can’t even tell what’s going on because the camera is shaking around wildly.
From Jonathan Bernstein:
During the Watergate investigation, the Justice Department made sure that the White House was updated on every development, which White House Counsel John Dean then used to prepare the false testimony of the campaign and White House staffers involved, and otherwise keep Justice from learning the truth. It was the revelation of this situation that eventually produced the first Watergate special prosecutor, and the universal demand that he be replaced by another independent prosecutor after Nixon had him removed.
The outcome of all of this was a set of rules and norms about the independence of Department of Justice prosecutions from presidential and White House involvement. A lot of Watergate-era reforms have been either useless or counterproductive, but everyone up through the Barack Obama presidency agreed to abide by them, and they became an important component of how the U.S. system produces the rule of law.
It’s those rules and norms that President Donald Trump is bulldozing when he demands prosecution of his political opponents – a demand he’s making when there is, remember, already an inspector general investigation.
That’s not even counting the recklessness involved in outing intelligence informants.
From Infidel753:
“…you don’t have to look too hard to find voices on social media urging you to abandon the Democratic Party for various perceived heresies. Telling you to stay home, or to throw your vote away on a useless wad of cud like Jill Stein. These voices elected Trump once, and they’re hellbent on doing it again. I know y’all know that already, I just don’t want you to be shy in calling ’em out. There’s too much at stake.” — Shower Cap’s Blog
Look, I get it. Especially at times like this, when several Senate Democrats just broke ranks to help confirm Gina “Ve haff vays of making you tock” Haspel. Being up for re-election in a red state is no excuse; appeasing Trumpanzees doesn’t work, and you can’t out-Republican the real Republican in the race.
But as bad as some Democrats are, would you rather have Republicans in those seats?
From Helen Philpot, writing for Margaret and Helen:
Margaret, I grew up on a farm in Georgia. We had more guns than silverware. To this day, I still have a gun in my house. By all means, if it helps to keep children from being murdered, come and take it. Unlike that Dana Loesch, I don’t need it that badly. Bless her heart, when you spew that much hate, I guess you go through life thinking everyone wants to do you harm. She really should try adding a little color to her wardrobe. And maybe smile more… or at least once.
We’ve talked about it long enough. We need to do something about America’s gun problem. But if we leave it up to those asshats at the Capitol, we’ll be building schools with one door where students are allowed to wear only a leotard while carrying their books in a clear ziplock baggie.
Making it all about a mental health crisis sounds reasonable… until you realize that mental health isn’t exclusive to the United States and statistically speaking doesn’t correspond with our proportionally higher rate of gun violence nor does it specifically apply on a case by case basis. Ouch. That hurt my head a little bit to think through. Maybe that’s why NRA Neanderthals settle for low hanging fruit like too many doors and trench coats.
From Dave Dubya:
The polluter-friendly fascists are not satisfied censoring climate data. They are not satisfied having polluters dictate environmental policy.
They are going full “Lügenpresse” on our First Amendment, having a thug physically evict an AP reporter from a public meeting on water contaminants.
From Glenn R. Geist at MadMikesAmerica:
“Mad World, Mad Kings…”
Thus begins Shakespeare’s King John, about the king of England, forced to grant a bit of access to justice, amongst other things, to the Barons he controlled. The Church opposed it of course, which lends more of the appearance of similarity to our times when our three branches of government seem to be three branches of Donald Trump and the Evangelical Churches and our institutions seem impotent.
Witch hunt. It’s the meme he wears like some hollow crown.
The term has always been used negatively in modern times as though the conclusion will always be that there are no witches, but of course, it’s a metaphor. If what you’re hunting for is something that’s being revealed everywhere in large quantity in your own words and the hunt is prompted by a large body of evidence and attested to by witnesses, the only reason for trying to make it seem a hunt for something imaginary is the guilt of the perpetrator.
From Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson:
Choose Life Wisconsin announced this week that eight of Wisconsin’s Pregnancy Resource Centers will benefit from grants from the proceeds of Wisconsinites purchasing the “Choose Life” license plates when they register their vehicles.
“This is what we started dreaming about ten years ago when we began working to make a Choose Life license plate a reality in Wisconsin,” said Julaine Appling, president of Choose Life Wisconsin. “Our only goal from the very beginning was being able to get money to Wisconsin’s awesome pregnancy resource centers for their life-saving, woman-helping work. This week that part of the dream becomes reality.”
From driftglass:
You know, call me crazy, but it’s almost like “independent” is nothing but a hollow, meaningless political slogan and that the people who suit up under those colors are mostly whiners, grifters, or frantic to avoid being held responsible for their shitty behavior.
And I would write a long post examining this all in greater detail…
…if I hadn’t already written a long post examining this all in greater detail nine years ago.