Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

As the Maggie Haberman tweet in the post below notes, the John Bolton draft manuscript outlining and confirming crime family boss Donald "The Dumb Don" Trump's shakedown of Ukraine for personal political advantage was sent to someone in the White (Supremacist) House a month ago, but no one gave Senate Republicans a heads- up of the bombshell(s) it contained:

As of Monday morning, Republican senators have made no direct comments yet about the bombshell New York Times report revealing former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s allegation that President Donald Trump directly told him he had tied military aid for Ukraine to a public announcement of an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.

However, according to Times reporter Maggie Haberman, some Republicans are privately angry with the White House for boxing them into a political corner, with some demanding to know what they knew and when about the manuscript Bolton was going to release...

"Demanding!"  What bold spines of steel these anonymous Republicans have!  Who could possibly have predicted, after years of experience, that the serial liar and narcissist would only be looking out for Number 1?  Of course, in the end this won't matter because they'll find some excuse, some faux outrage to avoid calling witnesses and shut down the trial, as Steve M argues.  But we hope this will further cement the reality in voters' minds that these are the most cowardly, corrupt, worthless people ever to hold office in this country.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., has been looking at his email and would like us to know (again) what really motivates Trump supporters:

It’s still an article of faith for many that the Trump phenomenon was born out of fiscal insecurity, the primal scream of working people left behind by a changing economy. But I don’t think I’ve ever, not once, seen an email from a Trump supporter who explained himself in terms of the factory or the coal mine shutting down.

I have, however, heard from hundreds like “Matthew,” who worries about “immigrants” and “Gerald,” who thinks people of color have an “alliance” against him. Such people validate the verdict of a growing body of scholarship that says, in the words of a new study by University of Kansas professors David N. Smith and Eric Hanley, “The decisive reason that white, male, older and less educated voters were disproportionately pro-Trump is that they shared his prejudices and wanted domineering, aggressive leaders …”

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article211963789.html#storylink=cpy

Pitts sees no point in trying to reason with Trump supporters.  Neither do we.

We wrote last Friday about prosperity gospel grifter Paula White, "spiritual advisor to President Trump" (a title that should occasion eye rolls and hearty laughter), who apparently can pray away crime.  Well, the crackpot's in the news for some incendiary garbage she babbled out in a "sermon" earlier this month:

A Florida pastor and longtime spiritual adviser to President Trump says she was speaking in metaphor when she recently prayed in a sermon for all “satanic pregnancies” to end in miscarriage.

In video of the Jan. 5 sermon, posted by the liberal advocacy group Right Wing Watch, televangelist pastor Paula White breathlessly calls on Jesus Christ to “command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now.”

“We declare that anything that’s been conceived in satanic wombs, that it will miscarry, it will not be able to carry forth any plan of destruction, any plan of harm,” White said before an auditorium of congregants.

As of Sunday morning, the clip, which was just under two minutes long, had been viewed more than 2.5 million times.

Too late!  Mother Trump gave birth 73 years ago.

Jerry Brewer offers his thoughts about the untimely death yesterday of basketball legend Kobe Bryant, his 13- year- old daughter Gianna and seven others in a helicopter crash in California, and the story that will be left unfinished:

On Sunday, as the shocking news of his death turned a hopeful new year somber, the tragedy made his rush understandable, sadly. He couldn't have known he would get only 41 years as Kobe Bryant, the mesmerizing basketball superstar and enigmatic cultural icon. But he seemed to understand the fleeting nature of his fame — of his life — and he managed to accomplish more than almost anyone could.

Yet his story still feels disturbingly incomplete, and that’s why so many are taking his death so hard. Greater celebrities have left this world even younger, but there’s something especially jarring about losing Bryant. It’s the combination of three things: his exceptional and unforgettable body of work, the feeling that we were still just getting to know him and the hope that, without all the basketball superpowers and ego, he was about to become much greater in retirement than he was on the court.

If you want a definitive profile of Bryant, Brewer links to a November 2018 WaPo feature article by Kent Babb, "The Revisionist," which chillingly begins with an account of his use of his helicopter.

We close by directing you to this week's link round- up by Infidel 753, which is the most comprehensive collection of links to posts of interest around the Internet.  (The link to the post about asking follow- up questions is amusing and revealing, especially in light of the Pitts article linked to above.)  Check it out.