- Jonathan Bernstein goes into impeachment, explaining why Republicans should fear the unknown. Has something to do with a scary non-sound in the dark of the night: the shoe that hasn’t dropped.
- Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged looks through the Trumpy Ukraine‑gate claim of attorney confidentiality during the commission of a crime. She discovers that three-way-privilege is not always legal, even when it does not describe extra-marital fantasies. Nice touch, that.
I confess to a little more skepticism since Robert Kardashian became one of O.J. Simpson’s lawyers a generation ago. He was hired specifically not to do a damn thing. Well… except to claim attorney‑client privilege about the garment bag full of evidence with which he had walked away as the murder was being investigated. What a friend!
Bastard!
- News Corpse watches Sean Hannity become enraged on Fox News that evidence dares to emerge implicating him – Hannity his own self – in the force-Ukraine-to-smear-Biden conspiracy.
- Well, here’s something I didn’t know before. In MadMikesAmerica, Mark Bear talks about one possible reason Iran shot down a passenger jet, thinking it was part of a US attack force. An American newscaster told Iran, and anyone else listening to his broadcast, that six American long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bombers were on the way to bomb specific sites in Iran:
Powerful US military forces, they are in position tonight.
We can report six B-52 bombers are on the way to the region.The newscaster went on to describe the targets: oil refineries, nuclear power generators, as well as political and religious leaders.
Mark has the video of Sean Hannity providing that strategic information. I thought that sort of thing, if true, would be a military secret. If it was a lie, it was a dangerous lie, as the loss of an airliner proved.
- Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit reports that Iranian authorities reacted to the shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner. They arrested – – – wait, who? They didn’t nab those responsible. They got the guy who proved they were responsible.
- Frances Langum posits that Kellyanne Conway is trending on twitter for an unusual reason. She has become comically awful at lying.
- The state Republican party in Wisconsin has blocked access in the Republican primary to challengers to Donald Trump. Conservative James Wigderson carefully considers the issue and calls Wisconsin GOP leaders cowards. Seems about right.
- Ted McLaughlin has returned from surgery alive and healthy at jobsanger with a situationally appropriate explanation of the conservative approach to patriotism.
- driftglass briefly envisions the future of balanced reporting with a series of actual headlines. Seems the future is now.
- Speaking of balanced coverage, The Onion carries CNN’s bombshell report that Bernie Sanders is running for President of a country with a history of sexism.
- PZ Myers has, with the help of writer Alex Pareene, figured out why he gets itchy every time he reads anything by Jonathan Chait.
- Scotties Toy Box brings us word that here in Missouri a bill winding its way through the General Assembly will establish a series of parental library review boards. Any librarian that allows a juvenile reader to check out a book not on an approved list will be sent to prison.
- Infidel753 joins Chris Kratzer in analyzing a Christian evangelical approach to the afterlife. Has to do with an unpalatable choice of living in eternal fiery pain or living in the eternal company of unpleasant, very smug, people. Actually, there are other fundamentalist interpretations of the lake of fire that plays a prominent role in the Book of Revelations. For example, that we the godless will perish quickly rather than suffer forever. As might be expected, I have an alternate reading of the writings of John at Patmos.
- In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce is bemused by the unshakable belief in some religious circles that Christianity in America is on the verge of being persecuted to extinction. Sheesh.
- Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara does surprise at times. So how does the anti-regulation proponent of keep-your-damn-regulations-to-yourself deal with anti-vaxers? He explains the reasons mandatory vaccinations should not be imposed, then comes up with a reason to impose them. He argues that breathing an infectious disease into the air violates the rights of others. He is right, of course. Now, if he could just apply the same valid reasoning to climate change…
- The Journal of Improbable Research discovers research in New Zealand on facial recognition of sheep. Wow. Every home should have it.
- The always insightful and entertaining nojo breaks down #Mexit for us as a totally meaningless, completely absorbing, government sponsored melodrama, complete with exaggerated characters, racism, and a plethora of loathsome press folks. nojo then tells us why we’re watching, and why we so can’t not watch.
The Journal of Improbable Research discovers research in New Zealand on facial recognition of sheep.
I would argue that all those who would willingly allow facial recognition software to be imposed on their lives by government or corporations should, in fact, be described as sheep.
I knew there had to be an appropriate response to that bit of research.