Glenn Kirschner – DOJ files compelling brief with Supreme Court in Trump stolen classified documents case
Meidas Touch – MAGA Candidate for Arizona Governor VACUUMS TINY RED RUG for Trump at Rally
The Lincoln Project – Flaunting Their Racism
MSNBC – The Trumpiest Time In American History Before Trump’
It Took Years To Get This Feral Dog Inside A House
Beau – Let’s talk about Haiti and the world’s EMT…. (Could State do this? Wasn’t the Peace Corps under State?
Glenn Kirschner – Trump Lawyer Christina Bobb questioned by FBI, points finger at another Trump Lawyer Evan Corcoran
Meidas Touch – Fulton County DA SECURES COOPERATION of Former Top White House Aide in CRIMINAL PROBE
The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party – October 11, 2022
More Perfect Union – Republican Corruption EXPOSED In the Closest U.S. Senate Race
Brent Terhune on Twitter (I checked, and it’s on Youtube, but only as one of their new “shorts” which can’t be embedded)
Leave Ron Desantis pic.twitter.com/Xuxx53riEq
— Brent Terhune in Ann Arbor 10.14-15 (@BrentTerhune) October 4, 2022
Beau – Let’s talk about a new parenting approach….
Yesterday, my radio station started its fall fund drive, so I started audio streaming, beginning with “The Score” – a one-hour program about music in film which I listen to weekly, generally during that one hour every weekday when there’s a program I don’t care for. This week’s theme was “mad scientists.” Timely for me, both because I had used that hour just the day before to watch a short biography of Thomas Midgley, Jr., called “The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History.” I thought of him when the host remarked that “mad scientists” in film seem to share a total disregard for the dangers of their creations. But throughout the program, I was also wondering if the whole mad scientist thing hd become so pervasive that the concept became part of the inspiration for QAnon, and other creations of the Alt-Right, with their disdain for actual science and facts. If so, it took long enough. In literature, it traces back to the 16th Century (Christopher Marlowe) and, considering actual science developed out of alchemy, almost certainly goes back to the dawn of humanity. Has anyone besides me ever wondered how humans, with all our crazy tendencies that are hard wired into us managed to survive this long at all?
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
The Daily Beast – Kremlin TV Exposes the Real Goal of Putin’s ‘Revenge-Bombs’
Quote – [State Duma Defense Committee’s head Andrey] Kartapolov urged Russians to unite behind Putin, and his desperate plea spotlighted the true reason behind Moscow’s barrage of missiles: to curb waning public support for Putin’s mindless war…. Konstantin Dolgov, the former Russian commissioner for human rights,… yearned for pained reactions from Ukrainians affected by the strikes, asking: “Are they whining yet? Are they howling yet?”
Click through for the story. My visceral response is, “Republicans, everywhere, by any name, are all the same – the cruelty is the point.” However, Republicans everywhere, by any name, also lie. A lot. So who knows.
CPR News – Republicans hope to take back the House. Here’s what it could mean for Colorado’s representatives
Quote – While he’s not measuring any drapes, GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn said he would seek the chairmanship of the Strategic Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services committee. He was named the ranking member of that committee in January. The delegation’s longest serving Republican, Lamborn… also currently sits on the House Natural Resources committee[.]
Click through for full article – or, even better, check out your own state’s representatives – not just yours, but all of them. Every state almost certainly has one or more reps whose presence, or chairmanship, on this committee or that committee could turn the House into even more of a horrorscape than their mere presence in the House suggests.
Food For Thought
Yesterday, the radio opera was “A Village Teacher” in Mandarin. While it is an opers, it is in Chinese, and was written by Chinese people, it is not a “Chinese Opera” – it is a “Chinese contemporary classical opera.” Traditional Chinese opera, which goes back thousands of years, had its golden age in the 13th century under the Song dynasty (It’s pure coincidence that the dynastic name sounds musical to us.) The art form’s name – well, one of its Chinese name – is Xipu. There are regional variations, including the name of the form. Tan Dun (who scored the film “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” has written several western operas, including one for Placido Domingo, called “The First Emperor,” in which he inlcuded a traditional Chinese opera character and trraditional style – I saw that one on TV so long ago I think I have a VHS of it. But I digress. “A Village teacher,” just as it sounds, is about a teacher and her efforts to teach and help her students be their best selves. It premiered in 2009.
I also learned (I am now listening on the internet – my local station decided not to finish carrying the full season) that Chicago is already calling the holiday of October 10 “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” And I got confirmation to see Virgil tomorrow.
Cartoon – 09 Manhattan Project RTL
Short Takes –
Steve Schmidt – The Warning – Christian nationalism
Quote – Christian nationalism is evil and dangerous. It is antithetical to Christianity. It is profoundly dangerous. It is on the ballot all across America. Christian nationalism is incompatible with American democracy and pluralism. When political extremists take power in the name of God there is always death…. The separation of church and state and religious freedom are profoundly important foundational achievements of the American republic. The extremists who seek power in God’s name are not benign men and women. I hope this will be a warning.
Click through for the article and a video, which will also appear in today’s Video Thread (It has CC but you may need to enable it.) To share it with others, this is the link to use: https://youtu.be/XzKc748F34g
The Daily Beast – Russians Terrified by Putin’s Bunker Mentality as He Turns 70 With His Finger on the Nuclear Button
Quote – Russians are growing increasingly worried about their leader’s state of mind. In his most recent public appearance, Putin’s eyes looked sunk and foggy. He spoke to a group of teachers from a small office over Zoom. The idea was to celebrate Wednesday’s “Teachers’ Day”—but Putin couldn’t resist ranting about the so-called “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine. “That part looked really insane,” 17-year-old student Vitaly Shatrov from St. Petersburg, whose last name has been changed for privacy reasons, told The Daily Beast. “Putin, who many compare to Hitler for the violence against Ukrainian people, speaks with teachers from some bunker about Nazis.”
Click through for story. I’m 7 years older than he is, and my doctor says I look around that much younger than he is (I think I’ve already shared this.) A different source says he has mobilized about 200,000 – and also that 335,000 have fled to avoid the draft. And he’s well aware what the repercussions would be of even a “small” (“tactical”) strike. I cannot get into the mindset well enough to predict what he might do. But I might point out that for four years we were all terrified that Trump** would press that button.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s dangerous post about Mitch McConnell & his wife, and what it says about the Republican party
The Lincoln Project – Last Week In the Republican Party – October 4, 2022
MSNBC – Sore Loser Syndrome’: What Lowered Confidence In Elections Means For Midterms
Robert Reich – This One Thing Made Alex Jones Stop Lying [temporarily – jd]
Armageddon Update – Losers Gonna Lose
Beau – Let’s talk about Psychology and Alameda, California…
Glenn Kirschner – Trump asks his lawyer to lie about documents AND Trump asks Supreme Court/Clarence Thomas for help (I do think the ongoing Oath Keepers trial may be key as to what charges can be brought against whom.)
Meidas Touch – Right Wing Radio Host CONFESSES Abortion Arguments are a TOTAL LIE and Texas Paul REACTS
[“There’s a term for a sentient being which has no control over its own body. That term is livestock.”]
The Lincoln Project – Comrade Carlson
MSNBC – Mary Trump: Everything Donald Has Done Is A ‘Prelude To Worse Things To Come’
Brent Terhune – Student Loan Forgiveness
Beau – Let’s talk about ignorance vs racism….
Yesterday, I received an email from Adam Schiff which was … unbelievable. Or at least would have been unbelievable eight years ago. Nowadays – I didn’t look for the story in the news, but I wouldn’t be sirprised if it didn’t make the news. Readers Digest version – over last weekend a MAGA cultist ran an event for children featuiing a castle, a catapult [or trebuchet], and watermelons decorated with photos of Adam. The guests were allowed to launch the watermelons toward the castle … just like in the Dark Ages. I have no words. The event was a promotion for Kash Patel’s book for children, about which the less said the better.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
Rolling Stone – Michael Fanone Is Not Your Fucking Hero [NSFW]
Quote – “So little of my life has been spent in that building, and — fuck that place,” he tells me later, after we have spent two days together very much not visiting the U.S. Capitol. “And fuck the people inside it too.” Like, fuck, for instance, the 21 House Republicans who voted against awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6. Well, when Fanone got a load of that shit, he called up his friend Harry Dunn — a Capitol Police officer who had testified with Fanone during the congressional hearings in July 2021 — and the two decided to pay a little visit to every one of those House Republicans (“I was like, ‘I’ve got nothing better to do today. I’m going to go annoy some people on Capitol Hill’”).
Click through for story. I admit it’s long. It’s also colorful (much of Rolling Stone is) and kind of tragic. Having survived January 6 is probably better then having been killed there. But maybe not as much better as one would think.
Washington Post [gift link] – VP was in car accident; Secret Service first called it ‘mechanical failure’
Quote – A motorcade taking Vice President Harris to work was in a one-car accident on a closed roadway in D.C. on Monday morning, an incident that concerned both the Secret Service director and the vice president and revived worries about the agency’s history of concealing its mistakes, according to two people familiar with the incident…. By Monday afternoon, Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle received information from other agents that the alert did not accurately convey what happened, one of the people said. In fact, many other Secret Service agents on Harris’s detail and at the White House, as well as Harris, knew her driver had actually hit the side pavement of a tunnel…. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the driver overcorrected when steering, leading to the accident. He said Harris was unharmed and delivered safely to the White House.
Click through for details. Maybe. After some other things which have happened with the Secret Service in recent memory … anything is pollible.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Day 1 of Oath Keepers Trial: prosecutors lay out a strong case for seditious conspiracy
The Lincoln Project – MTG Trump Rally
No Dem Left Behind – Richard Ojeda lays out the blueprint for how Democrats keep the House and expand the Senate!
MSNBC – Rep. Raskin: ‘The Whole Country Should Be Alarmed About Where The GOP Is Today’
Parody Project – SPECIAL MASTER
Beau – Let’s talk about teachers, Russians, and supplies….