From Pine View Farm

“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

A well-adjusted “responsible gun owner” discharges his responsibility.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office said there is no major threat at the Florida Mall after reports of a shooting spread quickly on social media Sunday afternoon. A young man mistakenly shot himself while adjusting a gun, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.

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

In a letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about today’s Republican Party’s war on DEI, Suzanne Moynihan decodes de code.

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The Game Plan 0

In The Minnesota Star-Tribune, in a longer article by ten health professionals about the right-wing’s jihad against trans youth (who, remember, are minuscule portion of the population), the authors sum up the strategy of today’s Republican Party as succinctly as can be done:

Manufacturing a good enemy is the best way to stay in power.

follow the link for their evidence.

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The Crypto Con 0

Froma Harrop explains how it works. A snippet:

Bitcoin’s price is fueled by the Greater Fool Theory — that the fool who buys it needs only find a bigger fool to pay more for it than he did. That’s how Beanie Baby mania worked.

Follow the link for details.

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QOTD 0

Barry Goldwater:

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.

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And Now for a Musical Interlude 0

And lots of people think the drum solo is a rock and roll thing . . . .

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The Rule of Lawless 0

Steve M. finds a straw at which to grasp.

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The Privatization Scam 0

Maddy Wheelock details the duplicity. A snippet;

School choice increases the divide between students who have access and those who don’t. State funding for education and other critical spending priorities all comes from the same pot. So more money for private schools and charters means less for rural and low-income schools. School choice doesn’t create more options if it only does so by divesting from neighborhood public schools. The math doesn’t add up.

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Suffer the Children 0

Farron debunks de bunk and details the misdirection play. (Warning: mild language.)

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Promoting Trumpling the General Welfare 0

Smokey the Bear says,

Via PoliticalProf.

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Republican Family Values 0

Yet more evidence that leads one to consider the possibility that mean for the sake of mean is a Republican family value . . . .

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Still Rising Again after All These Years 0

At the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Robert Hill reminds us that there’s nothing new about current white supremacist backlash against DEI.

It’s but the latest in a long line of attempts to keep the downtrodden trodden down.

Follow the link for a list.

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QOTD 0

Tom Baker:

Of course, for a lot of people, death was a welcome change. Grinding poverty takes the edge off most things, including life.

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Recommended Reading 0

The Razor’s Edge, by W. Somerset Maugham.

I read it many years ago and was inspired to reread it after watching a movie adaptation on TCM. (My DL friend Spencer, who used to work in the movie industry, said of that adaptation, “Oh, that’s the good one.”)

I had almost forgotten what a fine writer Maugham was. I’m now working my way through another of his novels, Theatre, one I’ve not read before, which is in a collection of Maugham novels that my friend surprised me with because I said I wanted to reread The Razor’s Edge.

By heavens, the man could write!

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The Cultural Devolution 0

Mangy announces the upcoming bill of events for the newly Trumpled Kennedy Center.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Without precedent? Just ask these lawyers.

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The Neglected Neighborhood on the Back Streets of the Disinformation Superhighway 0

Picture of a street with a sign bearing a glowering Donald Trump and reading

Click to view the original image.

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It Can Happen Here 0

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, argues that it is, indeed, already happening here.

He notes that

If one were to design a path to authoritarian rule, it would be what we have seen in the first weeks of the Trump administration. For my book “No Democracy Lasts Forever,” I studied how democracies die and are replaced by authoritarian regimes. Almost always the rulers are elected rather than coming to power through a coup, and then they consolidate authority and silence their critics.

He goes on to list several specific indicators that we are seeing this process right here right now right before our eyes.

Follow the link for his reasoning.

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Indoctrination Nation 0

David parses the implications of some of Linda McMahon’s testimony in her confirmation hearings. (Warning: Short commercial at the end.)

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“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0

Trudy Rubin hears a rhyme.

It must be free verse, as somehow “Donald Trump” manages to rhyme with “Neville Chamberlain.”

_________________

*Mark Twain.

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