Month: February 2019

 
From nojo:

• Trump shows up: Drink
• Trump opens his mouth: Drink
• A stream of bats issue from Trump’s open mouth: Drink
• Members of Congress, invited guests, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and attending Justices are covered in bat guano: Drink

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From Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson:

Only a moron would not understand global warming causes huge temperature swings – including really cold temperatures. Only a moron…

— Mark Pocan (@MarkPocan) January 29, 2019

However, even most supporters of Climate Change theory will point out that a single weather event is not evidence for or against that the Earth is going through a period of Global Warming caused by human activity. And, as the Wisconsin State Journal reported on Tuesday about the atmospheric changes causing our current weather pattern, “Some scientists — but by no means most — see a connection between human-caused climate change and difference in atmospheric pressure that causes slower moving waves in the air.”

WISC-TV in Madison, reporting on Pocan’s response to Trump, even quoted a climate scientist contradicting the congressman’s Twitter post. “Northern Illinois University climate scientist Victor Gensini said the cold snap is ‘simply an extreme weather event’ and doesn’t represent the global trend toward a warming Earth,” the television station reported.

However, WISC-TV failed to note the contradiction and failed to ask if the congressman is a moron, too.

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From The Onion:

‘When You Hear Me On TV Saying You Need To Be Reined In, What I’m Really Saying Is I Love You,’ Says Candidate

WASHINGTON—Sighing with resignation as he spoke to those surrounding him, Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker reportedly apologized to a coterie of Wall Street bankers Friday for all the mean things he is going to have to say about them in the upcoming months.

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

When asked about his agenda, he simply said it was to unite the country — but he could not explain how he would accomplish that task.

While we don’t know what Schultz is in favor of, we do know what he is opposes — covering all Americans with health insurance, raising the minimum wage, and raising taxes on the super-rich (like himself). He has also called the Democratic Party extremist (even though they are much closer to the political center than the Republican Party). How is he going to make his candidacy credible with those beliefs?

With his low public opinion and his lack of a political agenda to helpAmericans, I feel it is fair to ask just what he hopes to accomplish with his Independent candidacy. Is he just trying to help Donald Trump get re-elected? That’s a definite possibility. And it could happen.

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From Jonathan Bernstein:

A bizarre candidate for the Federal Reserve Board shows the president has learned nothing on the job.

Let’s just pause for a moment to consider all the ways that President Donald Trump’s plan to nominate pizza magnate Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve Board is evidence that he has no idea how to do his job.

To begin with: There are two open seats on the Fed board because Trump’s nominees during the last Congress, Nellie Liang and Marvin Goodfriend, went nowhere. Trump apparently couldn’t come up with candidates who could both advance his preferences on monetary policy and regulation and also get confirmed by the Senate. So the spots remain vacant. Trump’s not the only president to leave Fed seats open way too long; Barack Obama made the same mistake repeatedly. But these are important positions, and leaving them unfilled substantially reduces the president’s policy influence.

Next, Herman Cain is, to put it as nicely as possible, an unconventional choice.

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• M. Bouffant at Web of Evil observes Howard Schultz toying with a presidential run and is … um … unimpressed.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors finds one little item that Democratic candidates so far have that Howard Schultz does not.
   
• As Schultz attacks a proposed return to progressive taxation, Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger illustrates how we are told trickle-down works and what actually happens.
   
• So intelligence chiefs pretty much demonstrate Trump is dangerously wrong in many ways on national security. Vixen Strangely watches as our President draws the obvious conclusion. They are all either stupid or misquoted. Trump rejects intelligence is entendre squared.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein looks forward to my President’s State of the Union speech as a probable wasted opportunity.
   
• At The Moderate Voice, Eleanor Paynter takes a lesson from Europe’s refugee crisis on why the Trump wall can’t work.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz diagnoses the toxic tribalism of the American right as a symptom of simple emotional laziness. It is easiest to hate.
   
• Anti-immigrant bigotry affects US national security in many ways. Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit notes the unintentional lesson for those in war-torn countries who would help US troops stay alive: We will not protect you and you and your families will pay with your lives.
   
• nojo explains Roger Stone and the criminal lies by simply quoting email contents as revealed in the indictment. nojo is that rare writer who is capable of eloquence with no words of his own.
   
• The Onion is there as Foxconn’s first assembly line robot is activated and immediately attempts suicide. Aunt Tildy and I will again discuss the meaning of satire.
   
• driftglass explains why he did not crush a MAGA conservative with telling information about Peggy Noonan.
   
• Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes is not interested in Sojourner Truth as an historical figure as much as in her development as a human being.
   

 
From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

The state motto for Ohio is “With God, All Things Are Possible.” Is this theological statement really true? First, “God” in this statement is not just any old deity, it’s the Christian God. And as far as Evangelicals are concerned, this God is theirs alone. Evangelical orthodoxy states that Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, liberal Christians, and other sects deemed heretical worship false Gods. For Evangelicals, the God of all things possible is the God of the inspired, inerrant, infallible Bible. It is through the Bible (and conscience and nature) that God reveals himself to us, thus God is who and what the Bible says it is.

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From Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

No one is suggesting that displays can’t be built and funded on private property by private funds, and displayed to the public. But using public property, which is theoretically owned by everyone, and taxpayer funds effectively forces people to sanction and pay for religious ideas they may not agree with.

And if a Christian display is allowed, shouldn’t Muslim displays also be allowed? Or atheist displays? Or anyone with conscientious beliefs of any kind? We’d all be fighting for our own piece of government property, and access to our neighbors’ wallets. We’d have a free-for-all, effectively politicizing private beliefs. Isn’t this precisely what the First Amendment’s implied “Wall of Separation between Church and State” is intended to protect us against?

We can only guess what Jefferson would think about the Bladensburg cross. But it is hard to believe he would sanction taking money from private citizens to pay for it.

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From Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post:

Recently, Donald Trump was bemoaning the scenario where one of his opponents could label him as a Herbert Hoover-type. He may have had a point in expressing that fear. There are many differences between the two men: Hoover was a far more affable man, and he did show leadership ability we have yet to see the likes of in Trump. He believed that government had a role to play in people’s lives (albeit on a limited basis), and he never dreamed of trying to profit from it. Yet there are a number of similarities. Trump’s inaction during his bogus government shutdown has led to 800,000 federal employees being shut out of work, plus over 1 million more who were government contractors have also been permanently deprived of a paycheck. Though Trump finally relented and agreed to end his grandstanding shutdown, relief could only be temporary, and that idiot could impose another one after February 15…

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