Racist Candidate, Indignant Party, Biden Kissing Scandal, Giuliani Tucked

  • I’m afraid this sort of thing will become more common with time:
     
    tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors highlights an attack by a Republican candidate for Congress. Seems a critic has gone to work for US Senator Cory Booker. So candidate Madison Cawthorn attacks critic Tom Fiedler, whose name he can’t quite spell, for going to work for non-white males, like Cory Booker, who aims to ruin white males running for office.
     
    To be fair, Republican Madison Cawthorn later explained that his unclear syntax carried the implication that he was critical of Cory Booker for being a black male and working to ruin white males. But Cawthorn is actually not a racist. After all, he once quoted Martin Luther King.
     
    So he clarifies. He is not criticizing Cory Booker for being Black or Male or for working to ruin white male candidates. He is only attacking Fiedler … for going to work for Cory Booker, a Black male working to ruin White male candidates.
     
    Also, he once quoted Martin Luther King.
     
    Of interest to me is the Boston Globe headline, which reads in part:
    GOP House candidate under fire for racist dog whistle attack.
    Really? Dog whistle?
     
  • If an over-the-backyard-fence neighbor told you that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC for us elderly folk with bad memories) had just written up a law called the Green New Deal or that Ted Cruz just introduced a new law to eliminate voting rights, would you walk home thinking both measures had passed the House and the Senate and had been signed into law by Mr. Trump?
     
    Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson is indignant at claims made by a Democratic State Representative. Seems she uses words like law and act to describe bills, and uses bill to describe what can’t be submitted until the Wisconsin legislature reconvenes. It may sound petty but, from what James writes, Republicans in Wisconsin regard it as a bit of an election scandal. False advertising, you know.
     
    Just for giggles, I went to my usual thesaurus to find what synonyms exist for bill. And I found under legislative document that the words bill, act, law, clause, code, statute, measure, enactment, and resolution are all used interchangeably, presumably by normal folk like you and me.
     
    It does remind me of a lawsuit I heard about on the radio decades ago. A small savings & loan in a little community was making a bit of a dent in business conducted by a few large banks in the area. When the little S&L advertised with a modest suggestion, Do your banking with us, the big banks sued. It was not a bank, so people putting their money in the S&L were not really banking. It was false advertising and must be stopped.
     
    The savings & loan countersued. Fair was fair. If the S&L could not advertise using the word banking because it wasn’t a bank, the big shots at the huge banks should not be permitted in their banking business ever to use the word savings or the word loan.
     
    An out-of-court settlement was very simple. All suits and accusations of false advertising were dropped.
     
    I also remember an old story that has an elderly gentleman testifying in favor of some proposal being considered by whatever state in which he lived. A hostile legislator makes fun of the old man’s use of Colonel in front of his name. The title had been awarded by the state as a honor for some bit of past philanthropy. The interrogation is short:

    Are you a combat hero?
    Were you ever in a war?
    Were you ever in the military at all?
    Just what does that “Colonel” in front of your name mean?

    The old man answers evenly:
    It’s like the word “Honorable” in front of your name. Doesn’t mean a thing.
     
    I don’t recall whether the old man and the state legislator were from Wisconsin, or whether the gentleman was testifying in favor of a bill, an act, or a law. Or whether that affects the punchline.

  • Tommy Christopher reports on reports from conservatives on the latest scandal: actual photographs of Joe Biden kissing his son Hunter. Hey, nothing else has worked so what the hell!
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged draws a lesson from the lower half of why Giuliani was in the news this week. Aside from the headline (read it), the best half-sentence was this:

    … it is a damn shame when people are set up to have revealing moments pulled wildly out of context, or to have people use their prior assumptions to create vicious, untrue images that could very well ruin a reputation, don’t you think?

  • Sarah Cooper has a special election message for lawyers.

Continue reading “Racist Candidate, Indignant Party, Biden Kissing Scandal, Giuliani Tucked”

Debate Surfing

found on Twitter by Burr

 
 
Noted while watching debate and net surfing last night

As the debate ends:

I can help with that:

Franklin Graham Condemns Pope For “Normalizing Homosexuality”

found online by Raymond

 

Pope Francis endorses same-sex civil unions     [Image from WUSA9-CBS Washington, DC]

From Scotties Toy Box:

Franklin Graham: “God Says Gays Face ‘Eternal Death'”

The fact is the current Pope understands the church is dying, losing members due to two things. The molestation scandal while claiming moral superiority, and the fact the majority of the public has moved on from their stance on moral issues and are leaving the church. He knows if he wants to rebuild the church they need to keep the younger people, they need to rebuild the brand. The diehards don’t want the brand to change. They are willing to accept death of their religion thinking such a thing can never happen, their money and their god wont allow it. The more realist people in the church realize their god is spiritual and the world is realistic. So this Pope has for years been trying to bridge the two, the fanatical dogmatic dictatorial side of the church and the more open less dogmatic more modern accepting side of the church.

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Doctor Informs Patient Lump On Neck Nothing He Can Afford To Worry About

found online by Raymond

 

Doctor Explains     [Image from The Onion]

From The Onion:

“Some patients with similar growths do opt for surgery, but in their case, it’s mostly if they have a preexisting capacity to absorb the costs or a family history of great wealth. However, a thorough examination of your insurance plan, your bank accounts, and your employment history found absolutely no evidence that you should consider removing this lesion. For the time being, just put it out of your mind and try to keep comfortable, if not financially so.”

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Trump Can’t Stop Whining About Imaginary Bias By Debate Moderator

found online by Raymond

 
From News Corpse:

In advance of the final debate before the election, Trump is ramping up his griping about how unfair everyone and everything is to him. He has been complaining for several days that the debate, like the election itself, is “rigged” against him. And on Tuesday morning he took that complaint to Fox News so he could get some sympathy from the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends.

During the discussion, co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked Trump about the new rule for muting the mic. Trump replied by calling the Commission “ridiculous” and then segued to accusing them of purposely muting his mic in the 2016 debates with Hillary Clinton (which never happened). He said they are “not good people” and that “a lot of funny things go on with them.” Then he shifted to maligning the moderator of Thursday’s debate, Kristen Welker of NBC News, in a rambling word salad with an overflowing jug of whine:

“I just went through Savannah Guthrie. I knew what I was getting into and it worked out fine. But she was out of line. She was totally out of line. And so was Chris Wallace. I know you’ll defend him, but so was Chris Wallace. He was terrible. It was like two on one, and that was just fine with me. But at least they should admit that it was two on one.” […]

“Kristen Welker is terrible, I mean she is totally partisan. Her father and mother are big supporters of Joe Biden for a long time. They’re supporters of the Democrat Party. And she deleted her entire account. […] “Kristen Welker is far worse than [CSPAN’S Steve] Scully, but I do it anyway, I do it anyway, But this is the way it is. It’s so set up.”

For the so-called “Leader of the Free World,” Trump sure behaves like a petulant toddler who doesn’t get his way. And needless to say, he is lying about Welker. She is a straight-down-the-middle journalist who doesn’t exhibit any political bias in her reporting. The party affiliations of her parents, even if true, are irrelevant. And she did not delete her Twitter account.

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Pixie Dust, Denial And Smears — Trump’s Closing COVID-19 Message

found online by Raymond

 

Trump and COVID     [Image from MSNBC]

From Hackwhackers:

Here’s what a real expert — Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy — has to say about Atlas’ “herd immunity” strategy, which assumes that only 20-25% of the population needs to be infected in order for the rest of the population to be protected:

“First of all, that 20% number is the most amazing combination of pixie dust and pseudoscience I’ve ever seen… It is 50%–70% at minimum. And remember when we talk about getting to 50%–70% protection, we’re talking you can get there with disease — but if that happens, there will be lots of deaths, a lot of serious illnesses — or we can try to get there with vaccination, and postponing the number of people who get sick until we have the vaccines available… 50%–70% just slows down transmission, it doesn’t stop it. So this virus is going to keep looking for wood to burn for as long as it can … so, our goal is to get as many people protected with vaccines.”

Boiled down, “herd immunity” is an almost perfect example of Republican/ neo- fascist social Darwinism — culling the weak, the elderly, the people of color from the population, in order to get on with the business of lining the pockets of the 1 percent. With his daily superspreader events, COVID Donnie seems intent on proving he can infect as many of his cultists as he can to jump start this bogus, dangerous “pseudoscience.” He’s made it clear he’s given up on a pandemic response:

He argued Monday that the American people were no longer interested in taking precautions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“They’re getting tired of the pandemic — aren’t they?” Trump said at a rally in Arizona. “You turn on CNN. That’s all they cover. Covid, covid, pandemic. Covid, covid, covid. . . . They’re trying to talk people out of voting. People aren’t buying it, CNN, you dumb bastards.”

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Stupidity is Never a Handicap in Politics

found online by Raymond

 
From PZ Myers:

Here’s a Fargo city commissioner dismissing the importance of masks in slowing the rate of infection.

The thing is, no one claims that the virus itself is blocked by a mask — what the mask stops are fluid droplets that are spewed out of our mouths and nose when we talk or sneeze or just plain breathe. There is also empirical evidence that states that mandate the use of masks have lower infection rates than our more laissez-faire neighbors. But that twit, Deputy Mayor Dave Piepkorn, thinks the science supports his claim that masks are useless. Great. Fargo, the city only 2 hours north of me, is going to be doing its part to kill me.

I shouldn’t just pick on North Dakota, though.

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No, I Won’t Agree To Disagree About This President. You’re Just Wrong.

found online by Raymond

 

Asked to condemn white supremacy – Can’t quite form the words     [Image from NBC News]

From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:

At this point, with the past four years as a resume, your alignment with this president means that we are fundamentally disconnected on what is morally acceptable—and I’ve simply seen too much to explain that away or rationalize your intentions or give you the benefit of the doubt any longer.

I know what your reaffirmation of him is telling me about your disregard for the lives of people of color, about your opinion of women, about your attitude toward Science, about the faith you so loudly profess, and about your elemental disrespect for bedrock truth. I now can see how pliable your morality is, the kinds of compromises you’re willing to make, the ever-descending bottom you’re following into, in order to feel victorious in a war you don’t even know why you’re fighting.

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Twenty-Five Questions for Christians who say Abortion is Murder

found online by Raymond

 

Pat Robertson demands abortion be outlawed     [Image from The 700 Club]

From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

I have some questions for those who believe that abortion is murder.

  1. Does life begin at conception? How do you know it does? Is your view based on science or is it based on a religious belief?
     
  2. If life begins at conception, why are you supporting an Ohio bill that makes it illegal to have an abortion once a heartbeat is detected? Does life begin at conception or at first heartbeat?
     
  3. Do you support the use of emergency contraception (morning after) drugs? Why or why not?
     
  4. Should a pro-life pharmacist have the right to not dispense emergency contraception drugs? Should I be allowed to opt out of anything that goes against my moral or ethical beliefs, regardless of their foundation?
     
  5. Is abortion murder?
     
  6. Do you believe murderers should be prosecuted?
     
  7. Do you believe that driving the get-away car makes a person just as guilty as the person who robbed the bank?
     
  8. Do you believe a woman who has an abortion should be prosecuted for murder? How about the doctor who performs the procedure? How about the nurse that assisted in the procedure? How about the person who drove the woman to the clinic? If you believe in the death penalty, do you support the execution of murderers?
     
  9. Do you use birth control pills?
     
  10. Should you be prosecuted for murder since birth control pills can, and do, cause spontaneous abortion?
     

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