Nov 242022
 

Yesterday, I had already picked out short takes for today – being a holiday, and specifically a holiday for gratitutde, I didn’t want to be gloom and doom, and i haven’t changed them. But I was – you migt say sucked in – by the title of Steve Schmidt’s newsletter for the day: “It’s time to pick up JFK’s unfinished business.” An an unpaid subscriber, I didn’t reveive the full article, but he opens discussing oratory. JFK was no mean speaker, but Schmidt transitions to MLK’s Promised Land speech and Bobby’s extemporaneous speech on MLK’s death – “one of the greatest pieces of oratory in American history” and “the greatest extemporaneous speech in American history” respectively – and links to videos of them. Truly, all three men deserve our gratitude, and if yours is up to the associated grief at their loss, you can read (part of) the article here and link from it to videos of those two speeches. I don’t know whether they have CC; I couldn’t. Also, Virgil called, and Pat emailed to let me know that, between Thanksgiving and multiple famiy birthdays, we may not see her for a couple of days.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Crooks & Liars – Russian POW Offers Himself In Exchange For Stolen Raccoon
Quote – A Russian prisoner of war (POW) has offered to exchange him for a raccoon stolen by Russians from the Kherson zoo. The relevant statement was made by Kherson Regional Council First Deputy Head Yurii Sobolevskyi on Facebook, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. The video shows the Russian military saying: “I, Oleg Mokashov, a private, born in 1975, from Novosibirsk, am asking the government of Russia to swap me for the Kherson raccoon.”
Click through for story, meme, and video. This seems to be a new level of trolling (which apparently is not always a bad thing.)

Open Culture – Jim Henson’s Commercials for Wilkins Coffee: 15 Twisted Minutes of Muppet Coffee Ads (1957-1961)
Quote – Drink our coffee. Or else. That’s the message of these curiously sadistic TV commercials produced by Jim Henson between 1957 and 1961. Henson made 179 ten-second spots for Wilkins Coffee, a regional company with distribution in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. market, according to the Muppets Wiki: “The local stations only had ten seconds for station identification, so the Muppet commercials had to be lightning-fast–essentially, eight seconds for the commercial pitch and a two-second shot of the product.”
Click through for video collection. Yes, I could have put this in the video thread, but I already have Mrs. Betty Bowers there, and this is pretty unusual – typical Henson, and quite amusing.

The Warning – “0ur faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings”
Quote – There is an accompanying arrogance that rides comfortably with obliviousness and ignorance. It gives license to people in the present who know nothing of the past to indict the totality of the struggle for justice and progress against a present standard that is as deluded as it is preening. It is also not cost-free. There is a cost for fighting over the past, which cannot be changed, and it is a terrible one. The fight costs the future and strangles the imagination needed to create it…. Apache, Black Hawk, Kiowa, Comanche, Chinook, Lakota are the names of the great tribes, which the US Army has named their helicopters. They are named in honor of the warrior spirit and fierceness of those tribes’ warriors. Yet, the greatest attribute of a warrior in Lakota culture was not fierceness, deadliness or success. It was humility. Strength will be required to forge reconciliation. Weakness will be required to sustain more fighting. Humility will be required to listen. Listening will be required to hear, and hearing will be required to obtain wisdom. There is great wisdom in the culture of America’s native peoples who have forged this nation from its first hours. Harmony is at the center of much of American Indian belief. The white man has much to learn from this. There was a Lakota word for “white man” that roughly translated as “fat taker.”
Click through for full article (you may have to click “Let me read it first.”) The faith in the title is the faith of Native Americans. I don’t always agree with Steve … but he certainly knows a thing or two about what we as Americans need to do, and he’s not shy about saying it.

Food For Thought

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Oct 252022
 

Yes, humor has pretty much taken over today here also.

Glenn Kirschner – DOJ has many to chose from, but which crime will be the first on which Trump is indicted? [It would truly be ironic if Trump** were to go down in history as a catalyst for – I’ll uuse Glenn’s word – paradigm reform.)

Shirley Serban – The Cat Butts Song!

Puppet Regime – What Putin Loves About Fall

John Fugelsang – America’s Next President, Ron DeSantis

Mrs. Betty Bowers – “The Biggest Hypocrite in Congress” Award

Beau – Let’s talk about Trump, O’Dea, and Colorado….

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Oct 252022
 

Yesterday I received the email that my ballot has been received. Good news. There was other news also, consequential and inconsequential, but today I am just focusing on humor, because that also came in multiple emails, and I think we all could use some. That’s also why the FFT is just a wordplay, only marginally related to news.  If you really want some har news, Letters from an American touches on the presser held by DOJ and also the letter to Biden from Congressional Progressives which weems to have been overinterpreted.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The New Yorker (Borowitz) – Americans Seething with Envy of U.K. After Malignant Narcissist Opts Not to Run Again
Quote – From coast to coast, Americans expressed bitter jealousy of the British for having an incompetent former leader who, though maniacally self-absorbed and attention-craving, nevertheless possessed enough realism to depart the public stage after only twenty-four hours of hogging headlines…. “If you have to have a malignant narcissist, that’s the kind you want.”
Click through if you like. Boy, did this ever hit home.

Psyche – Just when in history did men decide that women are not funny?
Quote – Allow me, an historian, to offer evidence about the modern origins of this myth, instead of theories about the supposed evolutionary advantage of bro jokes…. Perhaps the answer will come as no surprise: it was when men began to value humour highly that they decided women didn’t have it.
Click through for story. Just offhand, my mind jumped first to “Much Ado About Nothing” (1598), specifically to Beatrice and Benedict, who are supposed to be a subplot, but whom audeiences have always considered the stars, and who “never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them.”

Food For Thought

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Oct 132022
 

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)

Beau – Let’s talk about a new parenting approach….

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Oct 112022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Trumps tries to swap stolen documents for info he wants; FBI investigates Trump Tower and Bedminster

The Lincoln Project – Ukraine

MSNBC – DeSantis Auditions For Role Of Green M&M In White Boots

Robert Reich – Organizing a Key Battleground State with @New Georgia Project Action Fund

Brent Terhune – black little mermaid

Beau – Let’s talk about Georgia and the Herschel Walker situation….

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Oct 082022
 

Yesterday, I decided not to use a story about The Onion as a short take, but instead to direct y’all to it here. Readers Digest versin, a man posted a parody Facebook page on his own page, mocking his local police department, and got arrested and locked up. The Onion filed an amicus brief on his behalf. Here’s the story, and here’s the actual brief.

Cartoon – 08 1008Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

Brennan Center for Justice – Voting Laws Roundup: October 2022
Quote – Voters in some states are facing new barriers as they cast ballots in the midterms. Other new state laws are increasing the risk of election interference this fall and in future elections…. Between January 1, 2022, and September 12, 2022, state lawmakers have enacted the following voting laws: At least seven states enacted 10 laws that make voting more difficult — of these, 5 laws in five states are in place for the midterms…. At least seven states have enacted 12 election interference laws, of which 11 are in place for the midterms…. At least 12 states have enacted 19 laws that expand access to the vote.
Click through for full details – they break it all down, with receipts. No changes in my state – but that’s not true for everyone here.

Grid – The Supreme Court is hearing a lawsuit over Section 230, the law the internet loves to hate
Quote – The Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear a case this term examining the scope of tech companies’ immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The law, passed in 1996, has for decades protected internet companies from lawsuits related to content users share on their platforms. If the court breaks with the long-running legal interpretation of Section 230, it could fundamentally change how the internet — and particularly social media sites — functions.
Click through for story.  No one is happy now with how the internet – and particularly social media on the internet – work now, and I suspect no one is going to be happy with the way it will work when this case is over – no matter how it’s decided.  Because there just isn’t a simple, easy solution.

Food For Thought

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Oct 032022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Ginni Thomas lies to the Jan.6 committee, claiming the 2020 presidential election was stolen

Meidas Touch – BREAKING: DOJ Files DEVASTATING Motion Against Former Top Trump Aide For PRIVATE SERVER emails

The Lincoln Project – Blake Masters

Christo Aivalis – Merrick Garland Jսst Foսnd ΝЕW BATCH of Trumр STOLЕN FІLЕS

Liberal Redneck – Biden’s Gaffes

Beau – Let’s talk about students in Virginia….

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Sep 102022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Bannon indicted again; DOJ appeals “special master” ruling; former US Attorney exposes Trump & Barr (the sound is so poor on this that everyone will need the CC. Not only is thevolume about half or less of usual, bu ther’s a slight echo. I realize they are tweaking the studio … andhave invited comments on that … so if anyone is a YouTube member, you might just comment on the sound.

Meidas Touch – Texas Paul RESPONDS to legend Dan Rather’s question about the GOP with the PERFECT answer

The Lincoln Project – Sucker

Robert Reich | How We Can Make Manchin and Sinema Irrelevant

If Mattress Commercials Were Honest | Honest Ads

Beau – Let’s talk about the other Las Vegas…. {It’s a sweet little town, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but not that far from Santa Fe by western standards.}

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