Month: August 2017

 
From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

…why does the press always give The First Shady and Trump’s Fratsputin Jared a get-out-of-jail-free card every time Preznint Stupid shoots hisself in his gnarly cloven hooofie? We always told that they are the reasonable, moderating influences, but there is never any supporting evidence to go with those assertions.

I don’t believe in attacking the minor children of politicians (hands-off Barron please, just like hands-off the Obama kids, and what should have been hands off minor Chelsea during the 1990s), but Jared and Ivanka are not just adults, they are parents. And they hold the exalted title of special advisors to the president, they have actual offices in the west wing. There should not be special rules for them.

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From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

“Have you heard about the Clinton death count?”

“Vince Foster and who else?” I snapped back, as if to show I was aware of all internet memes, in an era when internet memes were not yet really a thing.

“So you heard–but” and then took me through a thing I to this day don’t understand about little boys in Louisiana walking along a railroad track. But as I got Bartles and Jaymes and Zima-assed drunker, I also learned from this fascinating creature that his favorite people were Andrew Golota (because he was a proud Polish-American) and Pat Buchanan, because he really told it like it was regarding… “mud-people”. This fellow’s I shit-you-not actual words. Because immigrants are the worst.

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that 76% of Americans view the white nationalists (supremacists) negatively, 83% view the neo-nazis negatively, and 85% view the ku klux klan negatively. An overwhelming number of Americans dislike these groups and what that represent.

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Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.

 
From Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post:

This mean-spirited and arrogant wacko is but one of a long and growing line of Chump administration officials to resign or be fired over the past 7 months, and is another example of how unstable and wholly unqualified the hapless Donald Chump is to supposedly be presiding over the affairs of this country.

Good riddance to that really misguided reactionary son-of-a-bitch, who had no business whatsoever in EVER being that close to absolute power.

Bannon, full of hate and against many commonly-accepted American political public figures and traditions, viewed himself incorrectly as a sort of major authority figure within this corrupt administration. We can thank the influence of the also sorely-misguided billionaire Rebekah Mercer for having brought Bannon into the White House in the first place.

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From Scott Crass at The Moderate Voice:

Mo Udall once quipped, “Everything that needs to be said has been said – but not everyone’s said it.”

The comments about President Trump’s response to the crisis in Charlottesville have inspired reaction from everyone, and virtually none have been in the president’s defense. There’s a reason for that. His handling on multiple occasions during the past week have ranged from inept to heinous to dangerous to even offering countenance to the white-supremacist movement. But by repeatedly suggesting that both sides are to blame, Mr. Trump has signaled once again that he is not only tone deaf but far removed from a presidential level.

It started hours after the car plowed into a group of counter-protesters when the president called the incident the result of, “many sides.” He then paused for emphasis and again repeated the term, “many sides.” Let’s examine that. Protests are freedom of speech and freedom of expression – that is a Constitutionally given right to both sides. Backing a car into protesters is not. The President of the United States did not get on television to condemn the violence because thee were protests and counter-protests – he did so presumably because a car intentionally struck 19 people, killing one. That is not the fault of, “many sides, many sides.”

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Here's a high res copy which I'm allowing for personal use (signs, shirts, buttons). Spread it far and wide: https://t.co/k0GqGslx6W 🚫45 pic.twitter.com/1bWM00CHtj

— Mike Mitchell (@sirmitchell) August 15, 2017

 
From The Onion:

NEW YORK—Solemnly ringing a bell 30 times for each of the teams that lost potential runs this season, Major League Baseball officials unveiled Tuesday a memorial outside league headquarters to commemorate all of the runners who have ever been stranded on base. “Today we honor the countless, brave ballplayers who got on base but never made it to home,” said commissioner Rob Manfred, who was joined by the tearful wives and children of the stranded baserunners during a somber ceremony that concluded with the reveal of the bronze statue of a player holding his hips on second base.

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Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.

• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from the Sierra Club, in a suit filed to force the Department of Energy to release a suppressed expert study on fossil fuels and our electric grid. The suspicion is that Secretary Rick Perry wants to rewrite the report to resurrect discredited theories about energy stability.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post points out the Pledge of Allegience was authored by a leftist and suggests that patriotism has been hijacked and distorted by the right.
   
• @bjork55 at Bjork Report reports on why leaders of the Navy, Army, Marine Corps and Air Force were duty bound to contradict endorsements of racism.
   
• MyCue23, at Random Thoughts, suggests that the killing during the rightwing Charlottesville riot, like the murders in a Charleston church, like the selection of Donald Trump by a significant minority of voters, ought to combine to excise the myth of a new age of enlightenment that was supposed to have accompanied the election of Barack Obama. The battle will continue forever.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara at Principled Perspectives argues that gun control is a cover for abrogating gun rights. He calls out one gun control advocate for wanting to regulate free speech. Of special interest to me are these words: “Just as the Southern racists once used onerous voter ID laws to effectively prevent black Americans from voting…” Why the use of past tense?
   
• One by one, President Trump’s advisory councils have disbanded in revulsion at his racist utterings. Kathy Gill, Technology Policy Analyst at The Moderate Voice, calls for members of the Election Commission, the assignment of which is to suppress minority votes, to follow suit.
   
• Iron Knee at Political Irony has figured out when terrorism is not terrorism.
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit deconstructs more moral equivalence. She looks for a unified alt-left, finds only cloudy air, and concludes that the group is a creative conservative fiction.
   
• Several decades ago, when my dad was still alive, he told me he found one Jerry Falwell speech especially compelling. He had been sort of on the fence about homosexuality, he said, but after listening to the good reverend he wanted to become gay. North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has listened to his President speak out against the alt-left and decided that fictional group is where he belongs.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein recommends a book from 1960 that predicted why Trump would become a failure.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors reviews the growing list of rock-hard conservatives reacting against Trump and the likely price to be paid by those who don’t, and suggests the walls are closing in.
   
• Manifesto Joe at Texas Blues tells us why John Kelly, recently named chief of staff at the White House, cannot succeed in bringing discipline to the place.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger warns us not to expect any change in the Trump White House with the departure of Steve Bannon. The main culprit for the expressions of racism and hatred is at a higher level.
   
• The Onion carries a behind the scenes report of the resignation, as Steve Bannon proclaims his work is done, then bursts into millions of spores and drifts away.
   
• The Journal of Improbable Research finds a study spanning three nations on how to use high voltage pulsing electricity to preserve rice pudding.
   
• Engaging and cute. Frances Langum brings us a song that is vastly, unexpectedly, improved by a four year old. Gotye augmented.