August, 2018 archive
Both Sides Don’t, How the Spin Is Spun Dept. 0
A Pod of Peas 0
Jay Bookman, at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, expands on the theme. An excerpt:
Second, and more important: Every single thing that you can say about the idiocy of Trump’s decision to hire Omarosa as a senior White House adviser — the terrible judgment it reflects, the lack of seriousness, the utter shamelessness of putting a reality-TV personality at the heart of American government — is also true of the decision by the American people to put Trump in the Oval Office.
A Taylor-Made Tantrum 0
My Congress critter is affronted that local media had the unmitigated gall to talk about real stuff that actually happened, so he’s taking his football and going home.
All the News that Fits, Foxy Lady Dept. 0
Thom muses on the current increase in hate crimes against the background America’s heritage of racism, as illuminated by Laura Ingraham’s recent rant.
Twits on Twitter 0
Shortly before Twitter was launched a decade or so ago, I heard an interview of its founders on NPR, probably on Terry Gross’s show. They predicted great things would come of their creation, great things of openness, communication, community-building, and the like.
Boy, were they wrong.
Stray Thought 0
I can’t say I’m a Sasha Baron Cohen fan. I may have seen one of his clips back in the Borat days, and I don’t subscribe to any “premium” television channels. Indeed, I think “premium television” is ipso facto an oxymoron.
Nevertheless, I’m somewhat awed by the deep vein of white-wing stupid he has managed to tap into.
For the Record . . . . 0
Field draws on his personal experience to try to understand why Omarosa (and, he suspects, many others may be making dodgy, if not outright illegal recordings of events in the Trump White House. A snippet:
In short, there are a small number of reasons someone might record a conversation:
1. Profit
2. Blackmail
3. Ass Covering in an environment where illegal things are happening
Follow the link for the remainder of his analysis.
Breathe Deeply . . . While You Can 0
David discusses the Trump administration’s moves to allow greater use of asbestos while limiting the ability to study its dangers.
Russian Impulses 0
See Shaun Mullen suggests that Trump’s-Putin bromance isn’t working out as expected, for either party.
Telling It Like It Isn’t 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., looks back at the white-wing violence in Charlottesville a year ago. He has tired of mealy-mouthed equivocations masquerading as “civility” and suggests that facts should not be subject to debate.
A snippet:
They turn intolerance into a sterile intellectual exercise, the fears and experiences of its victims reduced to irrelevant footnotes. We debate the meaning of “alt-right,” debate whether Twitter should give David Duke’s account the same credibility it gives Jim Acosta’s, debate whether Holocaust deniers should be on Facebook and never seem to get that in the very act of making hatred a “debate,” we legitimize it, give it a seat at the table.
(I would further argue that “civility’ refers to how you present an argument, not to the argument itself. Denying the holocaust, just to pick an example, is inherently uncivil, regardless how sweet the words or dulcet the tone; doing so denies not only a well-documented event–not only were there witnesses, but the Nazis kept records–but also the humanity of those who suffered it, as well as denying the inhumanity of those who perpetrated it.)
