Month: March 2017

 
From Tommy Christopher:

The investigation into Donald Trump and his associates’ possible collusion with Russia continues to heat up.

This week, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) raised eyebrows when he told reporters that it was “very possible” Donald Trump had been directly swept up in intelligence community surveillance. Shortly thereafter, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee emerged from their own classified briefing with FBI Director James Comey looking visibly shaken.

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From John Scalzi:

As a writer of liberalish tendencies, and one with an active — meaning, loud — political and social presence online, I am often accused (particularly on Twitter, the Wild West of social media) of being a “coastal elite.” Which is to say, one of those latte-drinking multiculturalists loitering in one of the big cities with an ocean nearby — but not the Gulf of Mexico, which totally does not count — who doesn’t know what it’s like for the honest, hard-working real Americans in the “flyover country,” a place someone like me would never visit.

Well. To those who accuse me thus, I invite you to visit my current hometown of Bradford, Ohio, population 1,850.

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Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.

• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, former pastor Bruce makes the case that evangelism, and by extension most of traditional Christianity, promotes self-harm.
   
• From a different perspective, pastor John Pavlovitz points out that today’s conservative attack on programs to help the least-of-these is an attack on Jesus.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors delivers to us a war-on-the-poor quote that has been making the rounds, and concludes unassailably that Paul Ryan is a sociopath. I suppose it still depends on whether the quote is accurate and in context.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara at Principled Perspectives seems to believe that poverty is caused by anti-poverty programs. Let-them-eat-incentives worked through most of human history when, as we all know, starvation did not exist.
   
• Republicans are sometimes accused of attacking the health of the seriously ill. Sometimes it’s true. Tommy Christopher documents a singular judicial decision by Trump Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch that he knew would result in the death of a cancer victim. The case did not involve medical treatment, only in the right briefly to work from home during a contagious influenza epidemic.
   
• Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes walks us from the pages of a satire about a pre-Trump Trump-type to a medically intrusive procedure to see what ails him. Vincent is a bright and polished gem. Of course, we wish him the best.
   
• The Journal of Improbable Research finds a compelling study on the link between coffee and cancer. The firm conclusion: There is no there there. None.
   
• (O)CT(O)PUS at The Swash Zone has done an informal study of sorts and concluded that Trump supporters suffer from a form of delayed pain reflex syndrome.
   
• I didn’t believe it at first, but yeah. Green Eagle looks at the Congressional Record and tells us the official legislative name of the Republican repeal and replace bill.
   
• If repeal-and-replace doesn’t pass, our president believes Republicans can force Obamacare to fail and people will blame Democrats. Won’t work. Jonathan Bernstein points out that Donald Trump now owns Obamacare.
   
• Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass offers a thought experiment to demonstrate whether a fetus is a human being.
   
• Glenn Geist at MadMikesAmerica suggests that the Justice Department get off the dime and investigate presidential lies.
   
• Last Of The Millenniums can finally tell us where our President gets his facts.
   
• driftglass searches his memory and finds a tenuous connection from nearly a decade ago between himself and a discredited blogger. The blogger now poses as an intelligence expert to help defend Russia’s Putin.
   
• David Graham delves into the Trump administration’s expansion of “alternative facts” into an all out attack on the concept of analysis.
   
• Kathy Gill at The Moderate Voice tells us that the loss of a Secret Service laptop is more troubling and more mysterious, going beyond even the physical protection of President Trump.
   
• John Scalzi at Whatever wonders why we love fictional thieves but not real thieves.
   
• Infidel753 educates us on a strange movement to force English into a subset of the German language, stripping out all words that can be traced to non-German origins. Infidel suggests a possible useful outcome involving Donald Trump and his executive orders. I dunno. Maybe. An alternative might simply be to re-read our president’s philosophy in its original German. Still, Infidel is on to something interesting.
   
• The Onion carries the satiric story of a convicted criminal facing further penalties for generating profits going to a private prison.
   
• nojo at Stinque reacts seven times to that cute episode of a BBC interview interrupted by the expert’s children. Can’t tell for sure whether nojo is scolding his readers or recoiling from his own quick responses. Insightful in any case. I usually get bored by any analyses of humor. Seems like going to a fine restaurant and eating the menu. But this brief piece is really very good.
   

 

 
Inspired by a story of unavailable love from 7th Century Islam, Layla and Majnun and by Eric Clapton’s unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, who was married to Clapton’s friend, George Harrison.

 
From Frances Langum:

Those of us who know, watch, and love Rachel Maddow knew this would happen. She announced via Twitter that she had Trump tax returns.

I turned to Driftglass and said, “Oh God. It’s going to take her half an hour to let viewers know what she’s got.”

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

The American people are starting to accept the truth about Global Climate Change (i.e., global warming). About 68% currently believe that global warming is caused by human activity (the overuse & misuse of fossil fuels), 62% believe it is already happening, 45% now worry about it a great deal, and 42% believe it will be a threat to their way of life in their lifetime. Those numbers are all record highs since Gallup has been polling on the issue.

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From Iron Knee at Political Irony:

Even before the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) came out with their analysis of the repeal of Obamacare, Trump and the Republicans started attacking the CBO. Congressman David Brat (R-VA) even said “CBO has scored everything wrong forever so they’re a minor concern.”

So even though the CBO is non-partisan and its director is a conservative economist appointed by Republicans, the Republicans said that they would prefer the numbers that would come out of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is totally partisan.

Ironically, the report from the OMB is out, and it is even worse than the report from the CBO.

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From the Borowitz Report:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Notching the first major achievement of his Presidency, Donald Trump has broken the world record for unconstitutional travel bans, the White House confirmed on Wednesday.

In an official statement announcing the new world record, the White House called Trump’s second unconstitutional ban “especially impressive” because it came only thirty-eight days after his first.

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Wondering why a few conservative friends see our former President as “an arrogant buffoon”.