2018 archive
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.
Global Pariah 0
Almost a year ago, I predicted that, in the time of Trumpery, the U. S. was on its way to becoming a pariah nation.
We’re there.
Status Anxiety, Reprise 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Steve Taylor takes issue with evolutionary psychologists who suggest “racism is prevalent because it was beneficial for early human beings to deprive other groups of resources.” Looking at the behavior of hunter-gatherer communities that still exist in isolated areas, such as the upper reaches of the Amazon River, he finds little evidence to support that reasoning.
He offers an alternative view. Here’s a snippet:
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Will Bunch does the math.
Lies and Lying Liars 0
Mike comments on the willingness of Republicans, particularly white, Southern, conservative “Christians,” to lie for Trump.
Warning: Language.