January, 2018 archive
An Appropriate Standard 0
Sean Wilentz suggests that the best way to evaluate the performance if Donald Trump is not to compare it with that of the nation’s best presidents, but with that of the worst.
Aside:
He makes Warren G. Harding look good.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Discovering politeness in unexpected places.
A 4-year-old boy is in critical condition after police say he accidentally shot himself.
Authorities say the child was shot in the face around 4:30 p.m. in Warren.
According to police the child found the gun in a car.
Jim Crow 2.0 0
At Above the Law, Elie Mystal argues convincingly and disturbingly that the Republican Party is working to re-establish American apartheid. The most disturbing part of his argument is the “convincingly” bit.\
Here’s an excerpt:
(snip)
We have a word for what Republicans are trying to do: apartheid. That’s what we call it when a racially homogeneous population tries to rule a larger population through rules and laws that prevent the larger population from exercising political power. With this Census trick, Republicans are trying to make it so that many brown people are not even counted.
Do please read the rest.
A Bonanza of Bogosity 0
Thom and Congressman Pocan discuss the Nunes memo and conclude that there’s no there there, as well as the Republican schism over a budget.
Jay Bookman has more.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Frank Harris, III, bemoans the descent into debasement. A snippet:
Stormy Whether or Not 0
Dick Polman remarks on evangelical “Christians” ability to look the other way. A nugget:
Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0
A trumpled school:
Often, when Caldwell raised her hand in class to speak, the boy would say that black people are dumb, referring to her with the N-word, the complaint charges. He also used sexually derogatory language, said Makayla Madkins’s sister Chardonnay Madkins, a 2010 graduate of the IB program.
No Surprises 0
The Sunday New York Times Magazine had (yet another) article attempting to understand Donald Trump’s base. It revealed a predictable stew of willful ignorance, fabulism, racism, and selfishness, with a side of Fox News.
I would not recommend wasting your time with it; there is nothing new to see.
Instead, read Chauncey Devega’s recent article, in which he gets right to the base of the Republican debase. Here’s a bit:
However, there is one group of people who are honest about Donald Trump. White supremacists know that Donald Trump is one of their tribe. The Daily Stormer, the white supremacist website founded by neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, described Trump’s comments last week as “encouraging and refreshing,” because they suggest that “Trump is more or less on the same page as us with regards to race and immigration.”
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is a family affair.
“The father received a phone call and, while he was on the phone, the daughter, in what appeared to be unintentional (sic), shot her brother with a .22-caliber revolver,” Indiana State Police spokesman Chad Dick told The Times-Mail in Bedford.
