2023 archive
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
The “Green Book” returns:
According to the NAACP national headquarters, the advisory is a “direct response to Governor Ron DeSantis’ aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.”
Details at the link.
“Let’s Do the Time Warp Again” 0
Farron points out that Republicans can’t tell time.
A Fearsome Foursome 0
Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously catalogued “the four freedoms” in a speech in 1941 (follow the link for the complete text):
The first is freedom of speech and expression . . . .
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way . . . .
The third is freedom from want . . . .
The fourth is freedom from fear . . . .
Now comes Jamelle Bouie to catalog Republicans’ “four freedoms,” as betrayed by their deeds.
Here’s Bouie’s list; follow the link for his reasoning:
There are, I think, four freedoms we can glean from the Republican program.There is the freedom to control — to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and repress the existence of anyone who does not conform to traditional gender roles.
There is the freedom to exploit — to allow the owners of business and capital to weaken labor and take advantage of workers as they see fit.
There is the freedom to censor — to suppress ideas that challenge and threaten the ideologies of the ruling class.
And there is the freedom to menace — to carry weapons wherever you please, to brandish them in public, to turn the right of self-defense into a right to threaten other people.
Roosevelt’s four freedoms were the building blocks of a humane society — a social democratic aspiration for egalitarians then and now. These Republican freedoms are also building blocks not of a humane society but of a rigid and hierarchical one in which you can either dominate or be dominated.
H/T to Balloon Juice.
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
At The Seattle Times, John Humnicky hears an echo from the past.
If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0
Joel Mathis takes a withering look at the hypocrisy of Josh Hawley’s response to Durham’s bull. Here’s a tiny bit from his article:
“You can’t interfere in a presidential election,” he said, “without consequences.”
Josh Hawley said that.
Josh Hawley. The same Josh Hawley who on Jan. 6, 2021, led Senate Republican efforts to block the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory, based on little more than Trump’s empty and baseless lies about the election.
The Radical Reactionary Court 0
Thom follows the money.
This New Gilded Age 0
Teenaged workers at a Popeye’s allege that Popeye’s is overworking Swee Pee.
The Lake Effect 0
The Arizona Republic’s Laurie Roberts looks at failed Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s latest attempt steal invalidate the election she lost. Here’s a tiny bit of her article:
Funny, it was just six months ago that she was lambasting the county for working too slowly to finish the count and announce a winner. But I digress.
(Broken link fixed.)
Still Rising Again after All These Years . . . 0
. . . and still spreading America’s first Big Lie.
Aside:
The next time someone tells you that the Civil War was about “state’s rights,” ask, “The state’s right to do just what, exactly?”
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
A pile-up of politeness populates our parkways . . .
. . . as we politely progress the pathway to a pathetic polity.
While on the topic, the writer of a letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Sun has a question.