Month: January 2020

• What is the point of a fixed trial in which the outcome is predetermined? The hope of a different outcome? A mark in history? nojo suggests there is a point. It isn’t hope and it isn’t history.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein has a diverging view. The trial is a sham, but the cynics are wrong. The quality of impeachment oratory is important to history because it will affect the future of democracy.
   
• Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged reacts to the coarse and explicit threat allegedly communicated by the White House to potentially wavering Senators. Why no denial from Trump Team?
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger does his homework and illustrates in circular graphs public reaction to impeachment and trial.
   
• Green Eagle has his own criticism of high military leadership as he gets thoughtful and eloquent in response to my President’s dopes and babies tantrum.
   
• At Biased Unbalanced and Politically Incorrect, JoAnn Williams’ cat writes about the strange overweight human specimen appearing on the television.
   
• Tommy Christopher watches as Joe Biden gets visibly emotional, discussing who should be running for president instead of him.
   
• Infidel753 is a bit impatient with she who really ought to be President as Hillary contributes to the possible shattering of Democratic unity, attacking Bernie for shattering Democratic unity four years ago.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors reports on the honorable former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, spotted in an American Airlines lounge, doing … huh?

Continue reading “Why Impeach, WH Threats, Polls, Military Tantrum, Trump and Cool Cats”

 

From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. For His Moral Ideals Rather Than His Politics

Yet, King’s Dream was to be corrupted by an inner contradiction. In his later years, King questioned the legitimacy of capitalism and turned to what he termed “democratic socialism,” a hybrid of two evil systems (democracy and socialism) that repudiates the very ideals he espoused in his speech. Therein lies one of the great American paradoxes—the clash between King the moral force and King the political revolutionary.

When the Founders drafted the Declaration of Independence, they laid down the radical principles that would give birth to capitalism. These 55 brilliant words—the opening lines of the second paragraph of the Declaration—sum up the essence of capitalism:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . .

When King reaffirmed those ideals—that all men are created equal, possessing inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness protected equally and at all times under a government of objective law rather than of men—he was really, though apparently unwittingly, affirming the foundational principles of capitalism.

– More –
 

 

From Scotties Toy Box:

Any Democrat that wins in November will have to roll out a de-Trumpification plan. Some sort of Marshall Plan for post-Trump America.

We must cleanse the Justice Dept, our government and our souls. We can’t pretend we’re the same as we were before this corrupt man took over.

– More –
 

 

From PZ Myers:

Now I’m physically incapable of seeing Richard Jewell, because of all the projectile vomiting

American Patriot has put up a review of the movie. Given AmPat’s reputation, you might expect it to be jingoistic and stupid, and you’d be right.

Don’t rush to click on the link, though. There’s one more detail that you need to brace yourself for.

The review is written by…George Zimmerman. You know, the guy who murdered Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black kid who went to the store to buy candy and was then tracked and shot by vigilante Zimmerman.

You will not be surprised to learn that Zimmerman loved Richard Jewell, because he identifies with Jewell.

– More –
 

 

From Max’s Dad:

A small piece of advice to future lawyers from a guy who plays one in my living room. To defend your client by attacking the prosecution is not a defense. Its a diversion. That diversion may work with a certain segment of the population. It doesnt work with the rest of us. And it wouldn’t work in ANY court of law. The Judge wold put an end to it, the jury would take about 5 minutes to convict and the appeal based on shitty counsel would begin.

Except now. The cowards on the jury are already in line. Most of them are already sitting there punching the NO button.

I swear if there is ONE Republican left in this disgraceful Senate in 6 years this country deserves to fall into the abyss.

– More –
 

 

From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

Key to Evangelical soteriology is the belief that all humans are inherently broken — evil, vile, sinful, enemies of God. The only way that people can gain salvation and inherit eternal life is to admit that they are broken and in need of fixing. It is through Jesus alone — the great fixer – that sinners can be saved. Older readers might remember the days when every community had a one-stop fix-it shop. GE toaster stop working? Black and Decker drill power switch broken? Motorola radio tuner on the fritz? Take it to the local shop, and Bob will make it good as new. So it is with Jesus. Is your life broken? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. The Bible SAYS your life is broken, end of discussion. You might be the kindest, most loving person in the world, you are still broken. According to Evangelicals, deep in your black heart of hearts lies sin and corruption. You might not be a drug addict, alcoholic, prostitute, homosexual, adulterer, fornicator, or New York Yankees fan, but you are still a sinner who is headed for eternal hellfire and damnation unless you admit your brokenness and let Jesus “fix” you.

– More –
 

 

From Michael John Scott at MadMikesAmerica:

Ask most any Christian and they will tell you that America is a Christian nation, governed not by a sensible, secular body of individuals duly elected, but by God himself. Former senator Rick Santorum went so far as to passionately dispute the existence of the separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution, dismissing it as a Communist idea that has no place in America.

The Christian takeover, particularly under the uncertain hand of Donald Trump, said to be a ‘god on earth’ by the wacko wing of the Bible Bangers, the Evangelicals, is an insidious invasion of common sense, and the planned dismantling and destruction of all things science, as science is said to be antithetical to the God myth. In addition, the puritanical stream of consciousness prohibits all language that reflects science, or, in the extreme, language that might refer to the human body and that most awful of evil: sex.

Leading the charge against secular learning is the Lone Star State. There are certain words that apparently insult God and his gang of mythological creatures and, in Texas, ‘rape’ is one of them.

– More –
 

 

From Andy Borowitz:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump pulled an all-nighter on Wednesday, using a Sharpie to cross out Lev Parnas from photos taken with him at hundreds of events.

Trump, his hands blackened by ink, started working his way through a mountainous stack of photos of him and Parnas at approximately 10 p.m., a White House source confirmed.

– More –
 

 

From Frances Langum:

The Trumps are garbage

Lara Trump is a fully formed Trump, didja hear?

At a recent campaign event she joked about Joe Biden’s stutter. Such a classy look for her, doncha think?

“I feel kind of sad for Biden … I’m supposed to want him to fail at every turn, but every time they turn to him I’m like, ‘Joe can you get it out? Let’s get the words out Joe.’” she told the giggling MAGA assembly.

Money can’t buy class, Lara.

– More –
 

 

From The Onion:

Republican Senators Maintain They’ll Weigh All Evidence Before Carrying Trump Out On Shoulders

“Look, as senators, we swore a solemn oath to deliver justice, and I intend to abide by that precisely as we use this trial to scrutinize the facts and then determine exactly how—and indeed, if—we will storm into the Oval Office, hoist the delighted president aloft, and regale him with spirited rounds of ‘Hip, hip, hurray,’” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, noting that his awesome responsibility as the chamber’s majority leader required him to tamp down on any partisan speculation on whether Senate Republicans would rush to raise the president up onto their shoulders while singing “He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” or if Senate Republicans would opt for a more stately procession in which they conveyed the recently acquitted Trump past each and every Democratic congressperson’s office.

– More –