From Pine View Farm

May, 2017 archive

GOP Health Care: Don’t Get Sick.
If You Do Get Sick, Die Quickly.
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Dis Coarse Discourse 0

Title:  Poltical Reporter.  Image:  Man carrying notepad dressed in SWAT-like garb.

Via Job’s Anger.

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Mean Girls 0

Honest to Betsy (and I can attest that Betsy was appalled), you can’t make this stuff up.

Rex Stout was right.

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Extra-Special Bonus QOTD, Little Did He Know Dept. 0

Rex Stout:

Avery Ballou: “Is this room bugged?”

Nero Wolfe: “Confound it, it will soon be impossible to converse anywhere about anything.”

Stout, Rex, Death of a Doxy (New York: Viking Press, 1966), p. 60
(verbatim, but slightly rearranged from the original to omit exposition)

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The Unmasking 0

In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Ahmed Tharwat reviews Donald Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia. His view of the trip and of Trump are harsh and unflattering. They are certainly worth a read. Here’s a bit (emphasis added on one bit with which I unhesitatingly agree):

Never mind Trump’s dancing or hand gestures. What is “rude” about the U.S. to most Arabs and Muslims is the bombing, invasions and destruction of their countries. Supporting Arab dictators and oppressive regimes. Banning Muslims from traveling to America. Demonizing them in media and movies. Addressing them as if they are one monolithic population.

America mistreats Muslims, spies on them, arrests them at home and bombs and bans them abroad. America has an affinity for Arab dictators.

Trump is just the real America — America without a mask. Landing billions of dollars in arms deals from the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates, that’s all that matters. The oppression of women and denial of people’s freedom and dignity never drove U.S. foreign policy in this part of the world — it only comes up when it’s needed as a pretext to invade and destroy.

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Playing Catch 0

Title:  Trump Budget.  Image:  Donald Trump and two fireman hold teeny-tiny firemen's net labeled


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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Get a load of all the politeness.

Police were called at about 1:10 this morning to 310 W. Bigelow Ave. for a report of an accidental shooting. They found Brittany Lowd, no age or address provided, with a gunshot wound to her side, according to a Findlay Police media release.

They believe her boyfriend, Matthew Felder, no age or address provided, was sitting in the passenger seat of a truck unloading his pistol when it fired, striking Ms. Lowd in the side while she was in the driver’s seat, the release shows.

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QOTD 0

Mike Honda:

The Constitution is never tested during times of tranquility; it is during times of tension, turmoil, tragedy, trauma, and terrorism that it is sorely tested.

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Palate Cleanser 0

Group of lily blossoms

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The Unregulated 0

A letter to the editor at my local rag nails it.

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Republican Health (Don’t Call It) Care 0

Title:  The Pre-Existing Condition.  Image: Doctor with Republican elephant patient explaining the patient's X-Ray as patient holds copy of the


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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Thus passeth another day in NRA Paradise.

The incident occurred about 11:45 a.m. at a residence in Yukon, Oklahoma, an Oklahoma City suburb. Police received a call from child welfare officials saying a child had shot himself with a gun.

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American Taliban 0

Farron explains how the Trump circus is providing cover for bigotry at the state level.

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Phoning It In 0

Goat:  Why do we all take so many selfies on our phones?  Rat:  Because we don't have any friends around to take photos.  Goat:  Why don't we have any friends around?  Rat: Because we spend all of our time on our phones.  Goat:  It makes sense.  Rat (looking at his phone):  What'd you say?


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Not Buying It 0

Noah Feldman, who, in addition to being a Bloomberg columnist, is also a Harvard Law profession, parses the recent 10-3 decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the freeze on the Trump administration’s Muslim ban. Feldman analyzes three aspects of the opinion, but this is the crucial bit:

That led Gregory to the heart of his opinion — and the condemnation of Trump as a liar.

(snip)

Here’s where the opinion got personal. Gregory acknowledged that the executive order was “facially legitimate.” But, he said, “bona fide” literally means “in good faith.”

And here, he reasoned, the plaintiffs had provided “ample evidence that national security is not the true reason” for the order. That evidence, the court said, came mostly from Trump himself, in the form of his “numerous campaign statements expressing animus towards the Islamic faith.”

Follow the link for Feldman’s explanation of his reasoning.

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Do the Math 0

Mr. Mulvaney at chalkboard titled

The Portland Press Herald carries a Washington Post story that does the math and the answer to the equation ain’t pretty. A snippet:

. . . President Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget serves a valuable, if unintentional, purpose: to demonstrate how utterly irrelevant his brand of Republican ideology is to solving the problem. With Medicare and Social Security retirement benefits immune to cuts, defense guaranteed an increase and taxes slated for trillions of dollars’ worth of reductions over the next decade, Trump’s plan achieves a balanced budget in 2018 only by invoking an improbable level of economic growth – and by imposing lower levels of spending for all other purposes that would be harsh and shortsighted, in the politically unrealistic event they were ever enacted. Nondefense discretionary spending, already at a post-1962 low of 3.3 percent of economic output, would dwindle to a mere 1.4 percent of output by 2027. This is not a formula for downsizing government; it’s a formula for destroying it.

Image via Job’s Anger.

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QOTD 0

Warren Spahn:

A pitcher needs two pitches, one they’re looking for and one to cross them up.

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A Fly in the Ointment 0

Take a sip of your Scotch, feel something, fish it out of your mouth, and realize it was that fly that has been buzzing around you all night. Even worse, realize that the damned fly died happy.

There’s an old joke dating from the days when the mob ruled Cuba (America has forgotten that, before Castro’s revolution, Cuba was pretty much ruled by La Cosa Nostra and Batista was their toady) about a bar that sold a drink so good that, the first time you ordered it, if there was a fly in it, you sent it back.

The second time you ordered it, if there was a fly in it, you fished the fly out and downed the drink.

The third time you ordered it, if there was a fly in it, you drank it fly and all.

I’m a common sewer of cheap Scotch. McCollough’s Scotch is okay (any Scotch is better than every anything else), but it’s not that good.

I poured a new drink.

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Tunes for the Times 0

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Suffer the Children 0

It’s not scripture. It’s Republican policy.

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