January, 2018 archive
Stray Question 0
How does it feel to be a citizen of an international laughing stock?
Afterthought:
Somehow, current events are less painful when delivered by comics.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Robert Reich suggests the media practice truth in labeling as regards Donald Trump’s words and deeds. Here’s one of his points; follow the link for the other five (emphasis in the original):
3. Calling his lies “false claims” or “comments that have proved to be inaccurate.”
Baloney. They’re lies, plain and simple.
Early last year, the Wall Street Journal’s editor in chief insisted that the Journal wouldn’t label Trump’s false statements as “lies.” Lying, said the editor, requires a deliberate intention to mislead, which couldn’t be proved in Trump’s case.
Wrong. Normal presidents may exaggerate; some occasionally lie. But Trump has taken lying to an entirely new level. He lies like other people breathe. Almost nothing that comes out of his mouth can be assumed to be true.
For Trump, lying is part of his overall strategy, his M.O. and his pathology. Not to call them lies, or to not deem him a liar, is itself misleading.
The Art of the Con 0
Paul Krugman points out that you cannot make a deal with someone who cannot be trusted. A snippet:
(snip)
There are two things you need to realize about Trump’s utter unreliability. First, it has ramifications that go far beyond the recent shutdown. Second, it’s made possible, or at least much worse, by his enablers in Congress.
Carded 0
Alfed Doblin comments on the Republican Party’s reaction to Senator Cory Booker’s criticism of the (likely feigned) amnesia of DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. You will recall that, in the manner of Jeff Sessions, she had an attack of “I can’t recall” while testifying before a Senate Committee.
As background, the Republican Party sent a mailer criticizing Booker for, for lack of a better word, being uppity.
Silence is not acceptable when racism rears its ugly head. It was not acceptable when Trump promoted the “birther movement” against Obama, and in light of that, it is impossible to dismiss what Trump allegedly said as “tough language.” Racism is linear. It moves chronologically from slavery to Jim Crow to saying that there are some good people on both sides of a violent, white supremacist rally.
Some Republicans want to play the “sexism” card, but it’s the “race” card that is on the table.
(Link fixed.)
None Dare Call It Terrorism 0
Thom wonders why right-wing terrorism is being downplayed.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite to your friends.
Woodcock’s best friend, 21-year-old Richard Skillman, was at the party.
“From what I heard, they were best of friends,” Gomez said.
Woodcock and the other party-goers apparently had been drinking alcohol before he went back to his bedroom.
“He went into his bedroom, came back out, had a handgun, the handgun went off and struck Mr. Skillman in the chest,” Gomez said.
Robolies 0
2018-01-24-00:35: The original of this video seems to have vanished.
Afterthought:
I think Farron’s harping on the Hatch Act was a bit overboard, though it may (I am not a lawyer) be technically accurate. The lies of a lying liar is the primary issue.
From the Top Down 0
Dick Polman quotes someone about where problems start.
So said beauty pageant magnate Donald Trump.
He goes on to provide evidence of the validity of that statement.
It’s All Relative 0
Sweden considers a murder rate of 43 (not 43 per something, 43) to be too high.
The Indoctrinators 0
The Des Moines Register’s Rekha Basu comments on a proposal in the Iowa legislature to teach Bible studies in Iowa public schools. The studies will masquerade as “historical.”
The promoters of the bill argue that the Bible is central to American heritage, when, in fact, it is not. With the exception of the Massachusetts Puritans and the Rhode Island Baptists (who founded Rhode Island to escape the oppression of the Puritans–look it up), most of the colonists were spectacularly apathetic to religion; they were more interested in gold than in godliness. (Religion did not become a significant factor in American public life until the “Great Awakening” of the 1830s.)
Here’s a bit of her column:
(snip)
Zahn’s contention that American values “did not spring from the cornucopia of ‘world religions’ but specifically from the Judeo-Christian scriptures” hints at something else, a mindset that America is not a place for a new immigrant population of different faiths. It has disturbing echoes of Rep. Steve King’s contention that America can’t restore its civilization with “someone else’s babies.”
The Infiltrators 0
Lee interviews Ted Rall and Harmon Leon about their recent book about Leon’s infiltrating the deplorables. They offer a taxonomy of deplorability. (Warning: Language.)
Full Disclosure:
I disagree somewhat with Ted Rall’s view that Donald Trump has continued President Obama’s foreign policy for two reasons, though I share is discomfort with raining robotic death from the skies.
I think Rall has an overly simplistic view of the agency of any president in foreign policy and discounts the pressures of public opinion as it bears on a president’s power, and I think it is arguable that Donald Trump has no policy, foreign or domestic, other than self-aggrandisement and narcissism.
