From Pine View Farm

Constitutional Sawyers 0

Sam discusses Pete Hegseth’s purge of top military lawyers and leaders.

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Russian Impulses 0

PoliticalProf.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Once again, politeness becomes child’s play.

Once again, we are rminded that “responsible gun owner” is an oxymoron.

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The Name Gamers 0

    The stupid, it’s metastasized!
    Now it’s gone all Texas-sized.
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The Rule of Lawless 0

At the Portland Press Herald, Roger Smith thinks he may have caught a tell.

Whether or not he’s right about that (I just can’t bring myself to check it out for reasons that should be obvious), methinks he still makes a valid point

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QOTD 0

Ivan Illich:

In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.

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Geeking Out 0

Debian v. 12 “Bookworm” with the Plasma desktop on a Thinkpenguin laptop. The wallpaper is from my collection.

Screenshot

Click for a larger image.

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A Notion of Immigrants 0

At AZcentral, Erika Andiola makes a convincing case that those who stir up anti-immigrant fears are deliberately pursuing a strategy of divide and conquer.

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All the News that Fits 0

Jeff Bezos as a newspaper boy holding up a copy of the

Click to view the original image.

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The Fifth Columnist, Reprise 0

Mary Trump, niece of Donald Trump and holder of a doctorate in clinical psychology, minces no words in discussing how Donald Trump and his Trumpettes treated President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine.

My government has done many things that I have not agreed with during my lifetime–and many things that I have agreed with–but never before have I felt so ashamed of my country and the direction it has taken, thanks to Donald Trump and to those who thought him competent to lead.

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The Fifth Columnist 0

In World War II, my father was in the Ardennes during the winter of 1944-45. He almost never spoke of his experiences there, but I am confident that he would agree with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Adriana E. Ramírez, who writes

I never thought I would ever have to imagine a world in which the United States advocated for Russian interests.

Go read the rest.

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Fly the Fiendly Skies . . . 0

. . . and get a complimentary bag of fiendliness.

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Numbers Gaming 0

Congressional Republicans are designing a poke for their pig.

Republicans in Congress are signaling they want to change how the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculates the cost of extending President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which mainly benefit the ultra-wealthy, by utilizing a budgeting trick that would wrongly suggest that such cuts don’t cost a single penny.

Much more at the link.

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QOTD 0

James A. Garfield:

If any theories or opinions of mine can be damaged by facts, so much the worse for my theories.

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A Tune for the Times 0

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Vaccine Nation 0

In an article at the Washington Monthly, Bill Scher admits that he is less than sanguine about the Republican Party’s decision to abandon medical science. Here’s a tiny bit of his article (emphasis added):

Trump’s ability to escape lasting blame for his disastrous pandemic response has led Republicans to make quackery a pillar of the party. Support for childhood vaccination among Republicans has plummeted, which helps explain why a measles outbreak in rural Texas has already killed one child. Across the country, GOP lawmakers have enacted a raft of legislation weakening vaccine mandates. And, of course, Trump and nearly every Senate Republican placed the nation’s most significant source of public health misinformation at the head of the Department of Health and Human Services: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Fears that the Kennedy appointment will lead to dire public health consequences ratcheted up this week with the abrupt cancellation of an annual Food and Drug Administration meeting necessary to select strains for the next flu season vaccine.

Sabotaging the flu vaccine will kill people.

(Broken link fixed.)

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The Agent of Chaos 0

At the Idaho State Journal, Kim Shinkoskey asks a question, then he answers it:

Have you ever heard of the phrase “domestic tranquility” in the writings of our nation’s founders? Today, Trump is aiming for domestic chaos . . . .

Follow the reasons for his answer.

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DOGE Bull 0

David lists the lies. (Warning: Short commercial at the end.)

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Establishmentarians 0

In a letter to the editor of the Portland Press Herald, the Rev. Dr. Douglas Nielsen suggests that America’s far-right evangelical they-call-themselves Christians may have mistaken an identity.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Party with politeness.

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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