From Pine View Farm

July, 2024 archive

Misdirection Play, Dis Coarse Discourse Dept. 0

Scene in restaurant:  Donald trump throwing a massive tantrum, breaking and throwing things, as headwaiter, labeled

Michael-in-Norfolk has more.

Image via Job’s Anger.

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A Notion of Immigrants 0

Robert Reich points out that immigrants have long been “America’s secret sauce for economic growth and prosperity,” while they long have also been targets for those who sow hate.

Or you can read the transcript.

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Fly the Fiendly Skies 0

They get fiendlier every day.

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“A Republic, If You Can Keep It” 0

Title:  The Constitutional Convention of 1787:  A historical reenactment from your friends at the Federalist Society.  Ben Franklin:  Gentlemen, given our mutual feelings regarding the King of England--our clear priority is to create a document which places the president entirely above the law.  Jefferson:  Indeed.  There should be no prosecution of an executive for any action he might perform in an official capacity, which, of course, encompasses anything he might do while in office.  Another Founder:  That seems sensible.  But if everything a president does is legal, what's the point of delineating procedures for impeachment?  Fourth Founder:  Just a little harmless ambiguity--so that our descendants may someday infer our true intent for themselves.  Jefferson:  Won't this lead t many decades of misinterpretation by simple-minded folk who mistakenly believe we did not intend for the president to have the absolute powers of monarchy?  Franklin:  Perhaps, but how sweeter the reward when wiser minds at last prevail?  Also, we need to leave some room in there for a future court to restrict bodily autonomy, voting rights, and intrusive regulations on well-intentioned men of commerce.  And gifts from grateful wealthy citizens should totally be legal.  Fourth Founder:  These are strange words you speak, good sir--but I do not doube the wisdom that underlies them.  Third Founder:  Our fledgling nation is great--and if we have done our work well, perhaps someone will someday make America great again.  Epilogue:  And that's the way it was in 1787, and don't let the lying liberal media tell you any different.

Click to view the original image.

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Market Farces 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Douglas Van Praet explores how marketeers manipulate persons into paying why some folks are willing to pay $25,000 for a hoodie.

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QOTD 0

Jamelle Hill:

No problem in the history of humankind has ever gotten solved by evading it.

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Still Rising Again after All These Years, Reprise 0

And they’re not even trying to hide it any longer.

Read more »

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Devolution 0

Creature emerges from a pool.  In a walk around the pool the creature gradually evolves into apes, then eventually, into a human pouring garbage into the pool.

Via Job’s Anger.

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How Do You Put the “Anti-” in “Anti-Social”? 0

Why, with “social” media, of course!

For example.

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Facts vs. Fanaticism 0

Cliff delights in Pete Buttigieg’s use of facts to counter Republicans’ fictions about electric vehicles. (Not, of course, that facts matter the least bit to said Republicans.)

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Show politeness to your fellow party-goers.

Musical NotesGuns and stupid, guns and stupid.
They go together like love and Cupid.
Let me tell you brother,
You can’t have one without the other.

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Still Rising Again after All These Years 0

Thom Hartman looks at the series of opinions by the Supreme Supremacist Court and concludes that

It’s almost impossible to overstate the significance of this (series of decisions–ed.), or its consequences. We no longer live in America 1.0; this is a new America, one more closely resembling the old Confederacy, where wealthy families and giant companies make the rules, enforce the rules, and punish those who irritate or try to obstruct them.

In America 2.0, there is no right to vote; governors and secretaries of state can take away your vote without even telling you (although they still must go to court to take away your gun). .

Follow the link for the context of his conclusion.

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It’s Bubblelicious 0

Michael-in-Norfolk has a memory:

During my years as a Republican City Committee member and activist . . . I was exposed to a number of what I now call Christofascist. Two things were striking about these individuals: (i) they were far right religious fanatics who wanted to inflict their beliefs on all Americans, and (ii) they lived in a bubble and did not grasp that a majority of Americans did not want to embrace their extreme religious beliefs.

More memories and a straw at which to grasp at the link.

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QOTD 0

Camillo di Cavour:

Lotteries, a tax upon imbeciles.

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Tunes for the (New) Times 0

Mangy test drives some songs.

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Republican Thought Police, Reprise 0

At the Charlotte Observer, Kate Murphy, pastor at The Grove Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, pushes back at the current wave of they-call-themselves Christians and their push for establishmentarianism. A snippet:

I am a pastor and a practicing Christian, but all this blasphemous foolishness has me declaring this Festivus in July because, in the words of the fictional Frank Costanza on Seinfeld, “I got a lot of problems with you people.”

If the governor of Florida can, by the power not vested in him, unilaterally declare that the church of Satan isn’t a religion, then he can also wake up one morning and decide that Islam isn’t a religion, or Hinduism, or Catholicism or any faith that allows women to preach or doesn’t handle snakes.

The point of the separation of church and state, as any fourth grader with a reasonably competent history teacher can tell you, isn’t to limit a citizen’s ability to practice their faith, but to protect it.

(Broken link fixed.)

____________________

*Methinks in this context, “Christian” is New Speak for “Secesh.”

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Republican Thought Police 0

Denial is not just a river in Egypt. It’s how Republicans teach history.

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Republican Family Values 0

“Mean for the sake of mean” is a Republican Family Value.

Frames One to Three:  Woman with small child says,

Via Job’s Anger.

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American Taliban 0

Rebecca Watson discusses the establishmentarians’ efforts to (en)force their creed on the polity.

Or you can read the transcript.

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A Choice, Not an Echo 0

Yard sign reading

Via PoliticalProf.

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