From Pine View Farm

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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DOGE Ball, Reprise 0

Above the Law’s Joe Patrice is less than impressed with Elon Musk’s coup takeover of the government. A snippet:

Musk and his band of merry tweebs live in a video game world and it shows.

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QOTD 0

Jesse Jackson:

I hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven’t melted.

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A Tune for the Times 0

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Once again, an oxymoronic “responsible gun owner” feels compelled to expose his portable (in this case, pseudo-)phallus to a fellow motorist.

We are clearly a nation of Real Big Men with real tiny brains.

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Season’s Greetings, Reprise 0

Title:  Trump's Valentine to America.  Image:  Donald Trump writing a Valentine's Day card:  MAGA is red, losers are blue, Democracy's dead and I'm king over you.

Click to view the original image.

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White Coffee 0

Words fail me.

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From Pine View Farm
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