From Pine View Farm

February, 2020 archive

QOTD 0

George Orwell:

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

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Judging Amy 0

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has had enough of Roger Stone’s guff.

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Blind-er Justice 0

Donald Trump stands next to Lady Justice after replacing her blindfold with a MAGA hat.  Trump says,

Via The Bob Cesca Show Blog.

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Reboot(strap) 0

Nicholas Kristoff marvels at how a metaphor for futility became a prescription for policy. Here’s a bit; the full piece is at the link.

An 1834 publication ridiculed a claim to have built a perpetual-motion machine by saying that the inventor might next heave himself over a river “by the straps of his boots.” An 1840 citation scoffs that something is “as gross an absurdity as he who attempts to raise himself over a fence by the straps of his boots.”

Yet this phrase has become part of America’s mythology and the centerpiece of our approach to help those left behind: We harangue them to lift themselves up by the bootstraps.

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Poll Tax Redux 0

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A Question of Identity 0

Does the individual described in this article remind you of anyone?

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SLAPP-Happy 0

In The Sacramento Bee, Eric Swalwell examines Devin Nunes’s practice of suing everyone who hurts his tender wittle fee-fees, while consistently voting to deny others the same privilege.

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Epidemic 0

Man in hazmat suit with American flag on the back pointing sensor at Uncle Sam, Madam Liberty, and a small child, each of which is pierced with a bullet, one of which is  labeled

Click for the original image.

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QOTD 0

Havelock Ellis:

There has never been any country at every moment so virtuous and so wise that it has not sometimes needed to be saved from itself.

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The Bullies’ Pulpit 0

Thom reports on a Washington Post article about the proliferation of bullying in Donald Trump’s image.

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The Rule of Lawless, Newspeak Dept. 0

A former Federal prosecutor comments on the pardon of Rob Blagojevich. A snippet:

Get out of Jail free card

We have stepped through the looking glass, or entered George Orwell’s dystopia. Criminals are victims. Public servants are criminals. Truth is a lie, and lies told loudly and persistently carry the day. We are at a tipping point where the bedrocks of our society are under attack.

Elsewhere, Leonard Pitts, Jr., has a somewhat different interpretation, arguing that we are not, indeed, living in “post-fact America,” but rather in “post-integrity America.”

Experiments fail, even noble ones.

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The Rule of Lawless 0

Two cops reading suspect his rights:  You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law.  But if you know the President you are free to go.

Via Job’s Anger.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

As any “responsible gun owner” (sic) knows, politeness takes practice.

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Dis Coarse Discourse 0

Three men and Santa sitting at a bar.  One man says,

Click for the original image.

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Accredit Where No Accredit Is Due 0

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The Artfulness of the Con 0

Barry M. Mitnick explores why even persons who don’t consider themselves gullible get gulled.

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QOTD 0

Robertson Davies:

Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.

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Twits on Twitter 0

The twits are in bloom(berg).

Remember, if you see it on “social” media, distrust but verify.

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Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0

A clinical Trumpling.

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Lowering the Barr Boom 0

At the Idaho State Journal, retired professor Leonard Hitchcock fears that the rule of law is endangered. Here’s a bit from his conclusion; follow the link for his reasoning.

In all of this mess, we mustn’t lose sight of the overriding issue. As the petition of ex-DOJ employees reminds us, “Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies.”

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