FairAndUNbalanced.com

 

From PZ Myers:

The news has been full of this nonsense about how Kamala Harris may not be a US citizen, prompted by a terrible op-ed in Newsweek. It’s a shitty argument made with absurd confidence/arrogance by a guy installed in a sinecure in a right-wing think tank.

Eastman’s Newsweek article rehashes an argument he has made for years: that American-born children of immigrants only acquire birthright citizenship if their parents were lawful permanent residents at the time of birth. According to Eastman, the children of immigrants who entered the U.S. without authorization, or on a temporary permit, are not American citizens. Rather, they constitute an underclass of (mostly stateless) aliens subject to deportation and denied the rights and privileges of American citizenship. His article is titled “Some Questions for Kamala Harris About Eligibility”—he’s just asking questions!—because he believes her citizenship turns on the immigration status of her parents when she was born. If her parents were “temporary visitors, perhaps on student visas,” Eastman wrote, then Harris lacks American citizenship. Eastman has never fully explained how he intends to strip millions of Americans of their citizenship, though he does suggest that, at a minimum, Harris might need to be expelled from her Senate seat.

That’s garbage, but mission accomplished: the author has successfully made a ludicrous idea a topic of conversation, and it really doesn’t matter that most of the conversation is about how stupid and wrong it is, as long as everyone is talking about it. Like this post.

The real question is how the media willingly swallow this poison in the first place.

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• Julian Sanchez, senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, does not care much for the Trump legal attack on TikTok and WeChat, international Chinese-owned internet media companies. Julian regards the national security rationale as pathetically thin, and the attack itself as self-destructive for the United States.
   
• James Dobson, my brother-in-Christ is a perpetual family embarrassment. He is firmly anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-same-sex-marriage, anti-liberal. I’m familiar with the pattern. I have family members with whom I have relationships that are mercifully distant and friends who believe that God loves them, accepts them, and shares their hatred of gays, Muslims, and Obama.
   
  Dobson goes a little further, adopting the apparent ethic that false witness in the service of the Lord is a duty on the battlefield of culture war. In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce explains how Dobson valiantly makes the case for my president. Good Christians have a sacred duty to vote for Trump.
   
• Vixen Strangely, at Strangely Blogged, sees the weird flailings of a desperate candidate. So Trump now accuses of Biden of being against God? Well, nothing else has worked.
   
• Hackwhackers gets clarity, as a Trump advisor reveals how the administration views democracy. Larry Kudlow says that “voting rights” are a “liberal left wish list.”. The quotes are accurate and in context.
   
• John Scalzi at Whatever reacts with profane determination at post office sabotage as a form of voter repression. He’ll vote no matter what.

Continue reading “TikTok, Lie for the Lord, Defend God, Voting Rights, Going Postal, Kamala”

 

From Green Eagle:

The Lowest Covid Delusion Yet

“Dr.” Betty Martini is not a medical doctor of any kind; she has an honorary doctorate from an unaccredited bible college. Nevertheless, she has a quarter century long history of pushing anti-vaccine, anti-fluoride, and a variety of other conspiracy theories. Now she has jumped with all four feet into the Covid conspiracy theory, not content to let a chance to make money off the suckers go to waste.

But Dr. Betty has gone one step farther, and is publishing what she alleges to be a recipe for Hydroxychloroquine which you can make at home from lemon and grapefruit skins. So, she wants you not only to take a useless and dangerous medicine, but she wants you to make your own.

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From Billboard:

In 2018, she renamed “Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede” to “Dolly Parton’s Stampede”

As soon as you realize that [something] is a problem, you should fix it. Don’t be a dumbass. That’s where my heart is. I would never dream of hurting anybody on purpose.”

The change came two years before the police killings of unarmed Black Americans like George Floyd sparked a reckoning with systemic racism in the United States — one that led country acts such as the Dixie Chicks and Lady Antebellum to change their names to similarly avoid glorifying dark chapters of history. Parton hasn’t attended any recent marches, but she is unequivocal in her support of protestors and the Black Lives Matter movement. “I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen,” she says. “And of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”

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From Andy Borowitz:

Blasting her penchant for hewing to the rules of grammar, Trump said, “A lot of people are saying, mean, nasty, disrespectful. To a new level, like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Sad,” he said. “Sick and sad.”

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From our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit:

The MA Bail Fund is taking heat for bailing out criminals accused of violent felonies. They bailed out an accused rapist who went on to rape another victim. In their statement, the MA Bail Fund veers from trying to take the high road to calling those who oppose freeing everyone as white supremacists.

The reality of things is not as clear as the Bail Fund would have it.

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From Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson:

It is tempting to dismiss this as a childish prank that proves there are no adults left running the GOP. We certainly have to question the wisdom of everyone who thought this was a good idea.

However, underneath the veneer of the comedy is a dark, do‑anything‑to‑win, democracy‑be‑damned mentality of the modern GOP. There are no ethical limits anymore, because the only question is the pursuit of temporary power.

This is not conservative, nor is it pursuing conservative ends. The first principle of a supposedly conservative party is to defend the democratic order. Undermining the support of the citizenry for a fair election process is as damaging as anything Trump’s supporters would accuse Democrats of doing. Using race as the weapon for the tactic just makes what the Republicans are doing worse.

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From Max’s Dad:

And as usual, with the Republican mindset in this state, reality is still being denied. We’re gonna play anyway is the mantra coming out of the University, the Governors office, the Regents office, the coaches office and the locker room. Who they gonna play? Uhhhh The University of Mars? The Omaha Balloon School? Nobody knows. But dammit they gonna play somebody cuz what the hell else is there to do around here?

They will defy the $51 million they get from the Big 10 conference they just joined a few years back to be the cannon fodder for the Ohio States and the Michigans and the Wisconsins of the football world. They will play anyone at anytime, no matter how outclassed they or the opponent might be. They will let fans into the 90,000 seat covid dish called Memorial Stadium and take their money. They will play football and aint nobody gonna tell them what to do. Nebraska, the mask deniers of college football.

But of course, NONE of this will happen. $51 million is a lot of money to risk over a game thats been cancelled by your boss who has forbidden you from playing. Nebraska will throw a tantrum and guffaw and huff and puff and their 2020 football record will still end up at 0-0. Because in the world of college athletics, risking money is wayyyyy more important than risking lives. The lives are unimportant. You can always recruit more lives willing to risk their health and future well being for instant gratification.

I will miss Nebraska football. I really will. But its not worth it. I gave up my tickets this year before they cancelled the season because I had no intention of going to a game due to oh I dont know, common sense.

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From JoAnn Williams at Biased Unbalanced and Politically Incorrect:

Pious hypocrisy and flag-waving indignation obscure the intent behind athletes taking a knee during the national anthem or pledge of allegiance.

Taking a knee is a peaceful demonstration against a government that claims liberty and justice for all. Demanding fair treatment is not unpatriotic.

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

On Saturday, Trump signed an executive order that would delay payroll taxes for the rest of the year, and promised that if he was re-elected that he would permanently do away with payroll taxes.

He thinks voters will be happy that he’s “cutting taxes”, but he’s wrong. Those payroll taxes are the only funding that Social Security gets, and eliminating them would completely defund the Social Security program. It’s not a tax cut — it’s a backdoor attempt to destroy the Social Security program (and Medicare also).

Republicans have always opposed Social Security, and have tried many times to destroy the program. This is nothing more than Trump’s sneaky way to accomplish that.

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