Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Tweets Of The Day

 

The most trusted names in disinformation --

 

 

 

 

 

 Even a stopped clock ...  --

 


The cruelty is the point --

 

 

Vetted/ not vetted --

 

 

Ammosexuals from Meal Team 6 training for the next insurrection --

 

 

 

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Stuart Carlson, gocomics.com)

(Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee)

(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)

(Jen Sorensen, gocomics.com)

(Joel Pett, Lexington Herald-Examiner, KY)

(John Deering, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

(Bill Bramhall, New York Daily News)

(John Buss, @repeat1968)

(Mike Smith, Las Vegas Sun)

(Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune)

(Brooke Bourgeois, The New Yorker)


Republican Crime Blotter: Case of the Mistaken Thumb



 

Recently, military gun- fondling nutjob and cheap Sarah Palin knock-off Rep. Lauren "Bobo" Boebert (Sedition-CO) was caught lying on her Federal financial disclosure forms when she failed to disclose an important financial conflict of interest. While she serves on the House Natural Resources Committee which oversees the regulation of the natural gas industry, her skeevy husband Jayson's "consultant" work in that industry for which he was compensated roughly $1 million in recent years. Nice family business: the regulator is the spouse of the regulated. We wonder what they talked about at home?

It probably isn't Jayson's 2004 arrest for exposing himself to two women at a Colorado bowling alley, as reported by Salon:

"In January 2004, when Jayson Boebert was 24, he was arrested for exposing himself to two young women at a Colorado bowling alley. His future wife Lauren Roberts (as she was then known), who was 17 at the time, was also present and was told she was no longer welcome at the bowling alley.

Jayson Boebert pled guilty to "public indecency and lewd exposure" after that incident, according to The New York Post, and was sentenced to four days in jail with a subsequent two years on probation."  (our emphasis)

He became belligerent when told to leave the bowling alley, claiming to police it was his thumb sticking through the fly of his pants not his penis (Ed. -- we'll give him credit for equating his manhood's size with his thumb). Sadly for "Bobo," that wasn't the last Jayson saw of the law, per Salon:

"Not long after that incident, Jayson Boebert found himself in trouble with the law again after a domestic violence incident (which has already been widely publicized) involving Lauren Roberts, his then-girlfriend and future wife. In February 2004, Jayson Boebert was arrested and charged with harassing and physically assaulting Lauren, and was convicted on those charges in November. He "did unlawfully strike, shove or kick ... and subjected her to physical contact," a Garfield County court clerk spokesman told The New York Post in January of 2021. Lauren Roberts had her first child later that year; it is unclear whether she was pregnant at the time of the assault." (our emphasis)

That's some low self-esteem on the part of "Bobo" to stick with a lowlife like Jayson and have his child after he harassed and assaulted her. Perhaps that's the root of her military gun fetish: low self-esteem and a need to project with weapons a strength and power that you lack in your personal life. Corruption, violence and perversion seem to be in the Boeberts' DNA.

(photo: A Boeberts selfie. Again with the, er, thumb, Jayson.)

QOTD -- The Point

 

"...For hawks in Congress, the important thing is for the US to be militarily occupying other countries and benefiting the big arms manufacturers. If US troops overseas somewhere are not being killed, they say it proves there is no need to withdraw them. If troops are being killed, they say it proves we shouldn’t withdraw. 

"Alas, for them I fear the troop deaths themselves are not the point." -- University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole, in his blog Informed Comment.  The Afghan withdrawal is prompting ludicrous and cynical calls from Republicans like the execrable Sen. Lindsey "Huckleberry" Graham (Trump's Rectum-SC) for President Biden to be impeached.  Professor Cole lists the top four times U.S. troops were killed in bombings under Republican presidents Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Trump, with no one being asked to resign or be impeached.  The total U.S. deaths from those four attacks was 288.  But, as Professor Cole says, the point is not the troop deaths, it's benefiting the arms manufacturers and, we would add, trying to "Carter-ize" Biden, with a huge assist from the Republican- wired media.


Last Onboard

 


Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, steps aboard the ramp of the last C-17 transport plane to leave Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Donahue was the last soldier to step on the flight which left shortly before midnight.

Now, time for the newly-minted keyboard commandos in the media to parachute back in to dramatically cover every story of an Afghani who wants to leave that country, and wants to blame the U.S. for not shedding more blood and propping up their Afghan military and government for just a few years longer.

(photo: U.S. Army)

Monday, August 30, 2021

Headline Of The Day

 

Washington Post (online):

 

 

The final military flight departed Kabul at 3:29 EDT (just before midnight, August 31, local Afghan time).


January 6 Rioters' Lawyer, Dying With COVID, Quits

 



John Pierce, a rabid Trumpist lawyer representing several January 6 Capitol insurrectionists, has also been a raging opponent of mask mandates and other health safety measures to curb the virus. According to a notice provided to the Court, he's now unable to represent them because he contracted COVID-19 and is unresponsive and on a ventilator (click to enlarge this excerpt from the filing):


Pierce tweeted just weeks ago that the 82nd Airborne couldn't get him to get a vaccine. Of course, fanaticism and stupidity are impervious to even force. He also represented right-wing street brownshirt Kyle Rittenhouse, before he was fired, so he's been mixed up in numerous causes on the extreme right.

The downside is that this will delay justice for the rioters that Pierce represented for a few weeks until new legal representation can be secured and brought up to speed.

(photo: Pierce, unvaxxed, unmasked, undone. Screenshot)

Tweets Of The Day

 

Frothing Covidiot weaselnuts threaten violence --

 

 

 

GET IN THE EFFING GAME!! --


 

Chickenhawk/ serial adulterer/ lying liar tries to smear VP Harris, gets nailed --


 

New York Effing Times determined to elevate DeSantis, crucify Biden --

 

 

 


Evergreen --

 

 

R.I.P. --

 

 

 

January 6 Committee Wants Telecom Records

 

In a move that's certain to eventually reveal more of the maneuverings and the conspiracy behind the January 6 seditionist Trumpist insurrection at the Capitol, the House committee investigating the event is reportedly about to formally ask several telecommunications companies to preserve the phone records of several Trumpist Members of Congress and of the former guy and his corrupt family. CNN is reporting:

"The records request is the first step in the committee's investigatory process and could signal the direction they plan to go when they call witnesses.

It is unclear what means the committee will use to compel the telecommunications companies to cooperate with their request. The committee does have subpoena power, but requesting the information -- especially from members of Congress -- could lead to a lengthy legal battle.

The committee decided against making public the names of the lawmakers whose records they are targeting, three sources told CNN. But multiple sources familiar with the committee's work have confirmed for CNN at least part of list including many of the members of Congress included in the request. [snip]

The list is said to be evolving and could be added to as the investigation steps up. As of now it includes Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Paul Gosar also of Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Jody Hice of Georgia and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania."
The reported list contains some of the very worst, most dangerous seditionists in Congress. Notably missing is pathological liar and perpetual hack Rep. Kevin "Qevin" McCarthy (Sedition-CA) who reportedly told his Dear Leader to call off the attack on the Capitol while it was in progress. January 6 committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) has indicated that the telecom records of dozens of individuals involved in the so-called "Stop The Steal" rally and its planning will be pursued (e.g., Roger Stone, Proud Boy and Oath Keeper leaders, etc.).

Several days ago, the January 6 committee asked eight Federal agencies for any records pertaining to the attack, requesting "communications within and among the White House and Executive Branch agencies during the leadup to January 6th and on that day,” including the Pentagon and FBI.

 

Today's Tomorrow Cartoon: MAGA Self-Satire

 (click to enlarge)



The abysmal recklessness, stupidity and defiance of public health when it comes to COVID-19 by the former guy's cult members is displayed every day. It's clear that many of them simply want to hand President Biden a "defeat" on that score, thinking it will damage him politically even while they refuse to fight it themselves. Meanwhile, it's cutting through their ranks like a scythe. 

Please consider supporting Tom Tomorrow's work by going here.


Monday Reading

 

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

Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times discusses a policy of having the unvaccinated pay more for their health insurance (which could require changes in law), but concludes that before going down that road, vaccination holdouts should be made keenly aware of the potential for financial ruin stemming from their bad decisions:

...Insured but unvaccinated people who end up in the hospital with COVID-19 already face high costs: They’re likely to breach their deductible and come up against their maximum out-of-pocket charges, which typically run to thousands of dollars.

Uninsured patients will leave the hospital, assuming they recover, with tens of thousands of dollars in bills.

“The community as a whole pays the price for people being unvaccinated,” says Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, the state’s ACA marketplace. “But even more than that, those unvaccinated will pay the price — through illness, and through higher healthcare costs they’ll be paying out of pocket.”

That makes the discussion about imposing costs on the unvaccinated “a good thing,” Lee says.  

“It’s a reminder that we want to educate and encourage everyone to get vaccinated,” he says. “Paying a little bit more premium pales in comparison to the incentive of recognizing that if you end up in the ICU, you’re going to walk out with a $40,000 bill.” Insurance may pay part of it, “but is that really dice you want to roll?”

The WaPo's Greg Sargent has several excellent analyses worth reading this morning.  The first regards if Republicans take back the House in 2022, among the highly problematic issues will be how they would politicize an investigation into the collapse in Afghanistan (much like they politicized the Benghazi! Benghazi! investigations for years to damage Hillary Clinton):

If Republicans take back the House, it will go a long way toward ensuring that we do not get anything close to full accountability for the Afghanistan debacle. They will deliberately circumscribe their investigations to limit them to only the culpability of the Biden administration.

This places big obligations on Democrats. While they control Congress, they should launch much broader investigations into the entire 20-year disaster. Unfortunately, the horrible news might leave them so politically fearful that they insist on a narrower accounting to show distance from Biden. [snip]

Let’s be clear: The administration’s withdrawal should be the subject of congressional inquiries. We need to know whether intelligence failed to adequately register the likelihood of a quick collapse by the Afghan government and army, or whether decisions were made in spite of what the intelligence got right. We need to know about failings in the process granting visas to Afghan refugees. And much more.

But looking only at these things would be insufficient. Surely a genuine reckoning into what we’re seeing now would take as its premise that it is the outgrowth of a much broader series of mistakes and failures.

The second Sargent piece worth a look concerns how the increasingly fascistic Republican far right is conflating the spread of disease (specifically COVID) with anti- immigrant hysteria:

...There’s a peculiarly ominous signal in the way GOP governors such as Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida are fusing their rejection of collective public health solutions with demagoguery about migrants.

Abbott and DeSantis, each in their own way, declare that covid-bearing migrants are crossing our border en masse. This has been widely debunked, but the story is what matters: covid and migrants as joint infestation. Meanwhile, they have converted their public positions into platforms to speak to the Trump Rump, the shriveled national minority who sees mask mandates as collectivism run amok.

It’s the fomenting of hysterical opposition to local officials enabling communities to collectively protect themselves, combined with the aggressive redirecting of blame toward migrants instead, that makes this mix so combustible. Why take sensible collective action for the public good when calling for higher walls to keep out the joint infestation carries so much more force?

This conflation is everywhere. Right-wing media propagandists are relentlessly combining fearmongering about vaccines with scapegoating of migrants, positioning nativist, ethnonationalist cruelty as a kind of higher answer than science and collective action.

"Nativist, ethnonationalist cruelty"... sound at all vaguely familiar?

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's editorial board wonders if the malignant former guy's "nut-case battalion" is turning on him:

Former President Donald Trump appears to have created a monster he can no longer control. He inspired violent rebellion, and now the rebels are turning against him. He inspired pandemic skepticism, and now the skeptics are rejecting his appeal to get vaccinated. He cultivated wild-eyed conspiracy theories and even gave White House press passes to the worst of those nut cases. Now the leader of the nut-case battalion is reportedly questioning whether Trump is a “dumbass.”

We’ll leave it to the experts to pronounce on the accuracy of Infowars host Alex Jones’ “dumbass” diagnosis of Trump. But Jones’ assessment is an indication of where the Trump brand might be headed. Sadly, Jones attacked Trump regarding a subject on which Trump really might know what he’s talking about: vaccines and the coronavirus.  [snip]

Recall Trump’s unbridled support of the Proud Boys white supremacist group and his stubborn refusal in a presidential debate to denounce them, responding instead: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.” They did stand by, and when Trump pointed toward Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 and urged his followers to “fight like hell” against congressional certification of his election defeat, the Proud Boys reportedly were among the first to start breaking windows to attack the Capitol.

Now that top Proud Boys leaders are in jail, some are questioning their loyalty to Trump. A convicted leader of the Capitol attack, Ethan Nordean, wrote in an online chat that The New York Times says was obtained by the FBI: “I’ve followed this guy for 4 years and given everything and lost it all. Trump, you left us on the battlefield bloody and alone.”

The editorial concludes with the hope that "moderate Republicans" in Congress would similarly abandon Trump.  That's where things break down.  There are no "moderate Republicans," and the time to have stood up for democracy was after January 6.  Beyond that, what would abandoning Trump mean in the long run?  Only that someone shrewder and even more dangerous than Trump would fill the fascist right's need for a "war leader" who wouldn't leave them "on the battlefield" next time.  The jockeying for that role is already well underway.  The battle isn't over when/ if the "dumbass" falls.

Finally, please check out Infidel 753's excellent link round- up to interesting posts from around the Internet.  There's much, much more than politics there, so if you want to browse a variety of topics, please give it a look.


Sunday, August 29, 2021

Across The Universe, Cont.

 

(click on image to enlarge)


From NASA/ESA, August 23, 2021: This Picture of the Week shows an open cluster known as NGC 2164, which was first discovered in 1826 by a Scottish astronomer named James Dunlop. NGC 2164 is located within one of the Milky Way galaxy's closest neighbours — the satellite galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Large Magellanic cloud is a relatively small galaxy that lies about 160 000 light-years from Earth. It is considered a satellite galaxy because it is gravitationally bound to the Milky Way. In fact, the Large Magellanic cloud is on a very slow collision course with the Milky Way — it’s predicted that they will collide 2.4 billion years from now.

The Large Magellanic Cloud only contains about one hundredth as much mass as the Milky Way, but it still contains billions of stars. The open cluster NGC 2164 is in good company in the Large Magellanic Cloud — the satellite galaxy is home to roughly 700 open clusters, alongside about 60 globular clusters. This image of NGC 2164 was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), which has previously imaged many other open clusters, including NGC 330 and Messier 11.

Credit:  ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Kalirai, A. Milone

 

Pic Of The Day -- Dignified Transfer

 

(click on image to enlarge)


 

President Biden and the First Lady attend the dignified transfer of the remains of a fallen service member at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Del., today.  Earlier, he spoke privately to relatives of the service members killed in the Kabul airport attack.

(photo: Saul Loeb /AFP via Getty Images)

Tweets Of The Day


Covidiots in deadly denial --

 


Four anti- vax right-wing radio hosts have "signed off" permanently --

 

 

A DeSantis COVID advisor has meme --

 


Another Republican governor has a belief --

 


Where is his Nobel Peace Prize already?? --

 

 

Wut?!? --

 

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Matt Davies, Newsday)

(Tim Williams, @timwilliamsart)

(J.D. Crowe, Alabama Media Group)

(Peter Kuper, @PKuperArt)

(Monte Wolverton, caglecartoons.com)

(Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

(Jeff Danziger, The Rutland Herald, VT)

(Kevin Necessary, The Cincinnati Enquirer)

(Asher Perlman, @asherperlman)


Sunday Reflection: Deserving Better




As category 4 Hurricane Ida makes landfall this morning along the Louisiana coast on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in 2005, those who haven't wisely evacuated (or can't afford to) are bracing for a devastating 24 hours. Hurricane Katrina exposed many flaws when it comes to our preparedness and response to a natural disaster on that scale, but as Professor Michael Eric Dyson has noted in his 2006 book "Come Hell or High Water", it exposed the deadly effects of poverty:

"Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed levees and exploded the conventional wisdom about a shared American prosperity, exposing a group of people so poor they didn't have $50 for a bus ticket out of town. If we want to learn something from this disaster, the lesson ought to be: America's poor deserve better than this."

We're hoping for the best, but expecting the worst, during the days and weeks ahead for the people that will suffer the most as a result of this monster storm because their economic condition predicts it.`

(photo: Katrina victims. News Muse / Creative Commons)

Regrets, They've Had A Few (Cont.)


 

Have regrets?  Well, maybe this "freedumb defender" didn't:

After close to a month in a hospital and grueling weeks on a ventilator, prominent Texas anti-mask “freedom” rally organizer Caleb Wallace died Saturday of COVID-19 complications. [snip]

Wallace, of San Angelo, had been at the local Shannon Medical Center since July 30. He had been unconscious, ventilated and heavily sedated in the ICU there since Aug. 8, the San Angelo Standard-Times reported. [snip]

[Wife] Jessica Wallace told the newspaper that her husband initially refused to be tested and took unproven home remedies for the virus, including high doses of Vitamin C, zinc, aspirin, and ivermectin — a deworming treatment commonly given to livestock. Poison control centers are being swamped with calls from people suffering ill effects from ivermectin, and the Food and Drug Administration has issued alerts against ingesting the drug.

“He was so hard-headed,” Jessica Wallace told the Standard-Times. “He didn’t want to see a doctor, because he didn’t want to be part of the statistics with COVID tests.”

There's no indication he expressed any regrets for his choices, which resulted in his death and his leaving his wife and three children (with a fourth on the way) to fend for themselves.  He also took up an ICU bed for nearly a month, being treated for a virus he could have avoided by getting vaccinated and following medical guidance on masking.

A quote from the late Mr. Wallace:

Show me the science that masks work,” Wallace wrote on San Angelo’s Facebook page late last year. “Show me the evidence that school closures work. Show me the evidence that lock-downs work.”

You are the evidence that believing charlatans, existing to own the libs, and failing to take simple precautions to protect yourself and others can be fatal. 

(Image: April anti- COVID restriction rally in Texas with inset of Wallace;  Sergio Flores/ Getty Images)

Saturday, August 28, 2021

Tweets Of The Day

 

Natural selection at work in red states --

 

 

 

 

 

Republican demagoguery must not be rewarded --

 

 

 

Our Republican- wired, failed media --

 

 

 

Welcome --

 

 

 

Today's Cartoons -- Pandemic Of The Unvaccinated Edition


(click on images to enlarge)

(Rob Rogers, Tinyview.com)

(Matt Wuerker, Politico)

(Nick Anderson, gocomics.com)

(Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

(Stuart Carlson, gocomics.com)

(Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press)

(Andy Marlette, Pensacola News-Journal, FL)

(Christopher Weyant, The Boston Globe)

(Ali Solomon, The New Yorker)


QOTD: The Taliban's American Fans

 

There's always been a similarity in approach and world view between the fundamentalist Christofascist crowd in America (the "American Taliban") and the actual radical Taliban in Afghanistan. Religious zealotry, nativism,viewing women as inferior to men and allowing men to dictate over them, etc., are commonalities. 

With the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan after the corrupt Afghan government and its paper military collapsed, they gained a cohort of fans among the authoritarian far-right crowd here, as the excellent Michelle Goldberg notes in her op-ed piece ($$) in the New York Times:

"As the Taliban swept through Afghanistan in August, a Gen Z alt-right group ran a Twitter account devoted to celebrating their progress. Tweets in Pashto juxtaposed two laughing Taliban fighters with pictures meant to represent American effeminacy. Another said, the words auto-translated into English, “Liberalism did not fail in Afghanistan because it was Afghanistan, it failed because it was not true. It failed America, Europe and the world see it.”

The account, now suspended, was just one example of the open admiration for the Taliban that’s developed within parts of the American right. The influential young white supremacist Nick Fuentes — an ally of the Arizona Republican congressman Paul Gosar and the anti-immigrant pundit Michelle Malkin — wrote on the encrypted app Telegram: “The Taliban is a conservative, religious force, the U.S. is godless and liberal. The defeat of the U.S. government in Afghanistan is unequivocally a positive development.” An account linked to the Proud Boys expressed respect for the way the Taliban “took back their national religion as law, and executed dissenters.'”  (our emphasis)

Goldberg's entire column is well worth a read. If anything distinguishes the far-right, it's their advocacy of armed insurrection and imposing themselves on the majority by force. Their longing for a military coup to upend elections is emblematic of the threat to our democratic republic. To applaud the Taliban, which has killed thousands of our servicemen and women as well as their own Afghan countrymen, exposes their violent, unpatriotic, nativist, authoritarian disease, which must be defeated as one would a deadly virus.

 

Wisconsin: Trump Should Pay Our Legal Costs

 

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers (D) has filed a brief in U.S. District Court to have the demagogic former guy pay for the costs the State incurred in beating back his frivolous lawsuits that sought to void Wisconsin's 2020 election results. According to the brief:

“More than eight months ago, former President Trump filed this lawsuit in an audacious attempt to overrule the will of the voters by fiat,” the governor’s attorney Jeffrey A. Mandell wrote in a 17-page legal brief. “He sought unprecedented relief, and his team pressed the case in a slapdash manner incommensurate with the gravity of the subject matter. Now, Trump recasts the litigation in a sepia tone, glossing over flaws with conclusory exculpations and dismissing criticism as ‘Monday morning quarterbacking.'” 

Every state that the unstable former guy put through audit after audit and lawsuit after lawsuit should follow Wisconsin's example, now that they have a template in the Kraken Krackup Kaper:

"Requesting attorneys’ fees, Evers pointed to the far heavier sanctions sought by the city of Detroit in a case by the so-called “Kraken” lawyers, whose efforts to overturn election results in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin were rejected by every court. On Wednesday night, a federal judge in Michigan referred each of the nine attorneys associated with the Michigan arm of that litigation to face disciplinary proceedings in their home states for 'possible suspension or disbarment.'”

Of course, the chances of the delusional con man paying out of his own pocket are vanishingly small, as he can always tap his cultists for the money. But the residents of Wisconsin, especially Dem and Independent supporters of President Biden, shouldn't have to expend public funds to answer costly suits that were only intended to soothe a malignant narcissist's wounded ego.

 

Louisiana's Two Simultaneous Disasters

 


 

Hurricane Ida is picking up strength as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico and is expected to make landfall as a category 4 hurricane (winds 140 mph) west of New Orleans, Louisiana, sometime late Sunday (the 16 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking the same area).   Residents as well as the local, state and federal governments are already bracing for the impact of the storm, which is guaranteed to cause significant damage and likely loss of life.

Unfortunately, this natural disaster is happening at the same time the human disaster of the unvaccinated is causing unnecessary strain on the health system:

At the same time hospitals are preparing for the storm, they are still dealing with a fourth surge of the coronavirus. Officials decided against evacuating New Orleans hospitals. There’s little room for their patients elsewhere, with hospitals from Texas to Florida already packed with patients, said Dr. Jennifer Avengo, the city’s health director.

At the state’s largest hospital system, Ochsner Health System, officials ordered 10 days worth of fuel, food, drugs and other supplies and have backup fuel contracts for its generators. One positive was that the number of COVID-19 patients had dropped from 988 to 836 over the past week — a 15% decline.

According to state health officials, the unvaccinated account for 91 percent of current COVID hospitalizations in Louisiana. 

The days after Ida hits will be the most fraught for the health system should casualties mount, though as the article points out, preparations have been made for backup food, fuel and drugs. A horrific situation potentially made much worse by the inaction of the unvaccinated to protect themselves, their families and their communities.  But by now you don't need us to tell you it didn't have to be this bad.

(Photo: Satellite image of Hurricane Ida in the Gulf of Mexico, taken Friday night/NOAA)


Friday, August 27, 2021

QOTD -- End Game

 

"How, exactly, did the Biden administration’s critics think U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan was ever going to end?

“'Certainly not like this' is not a valid answer, however tragic Thursday’s attacks near the Kabul airport prove to be. Please be specific. Did you envision a formal ceremony at the U.S. Embassy with the American flag being lowered and the Taliban flag raised? Did you see the Taliban waiting patiently while the U.S.-trained Afghan army escorted U.S. citizens, other NATO nationals and our Afghan collaborators to the airport for evacuation? Did you imagine that the country’s branch of the Islamic State would watch peacefully from the sidelines, or that regional warlords would renounce any hope of regaining their power, or that a nation with a centuries-old tradition of rejecting central authority would suddenly embrace it?

"This is not an apologia for the tragic and chaotic scenes that have been unfolding in Kabul. Rather, it is a reality check. If there is a graceful, orderly way to abandon involvement in a brutal, unresolved civil war on the other side of the world, please cite historical precedents. I can’t find them." -- Eugene Robinson in today's Washington Post.   We can't find them either.

 

Tweets Of The Day

 

The covidiot eternal plague --

 

 

 

 

 

The garbage didn't fall far from the garbage dumpster --


 

Trumpy Waukesha County, WI: "Are there no workhouses?" --


 

On the other end of the spectrum --

 

 

 

Wingnut Larry Elder's Confession



 

Thanks to Media Matters, we have an important admission from hate radio's extremist Larry Elder,  the current Trumpist Republican front runner in the farcical campaign to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Here's Elder on February 4 of this year momentarily being truthful:

"Most recently, somebody that you know quite well has approached me and I said I subscribe to the Walter Cronkite philosophy, I'd love to serve. I hate to have to run. I just don't believe I have the stomach, the temperament. the personality, the drive, the willingness to deal with these doofi in Sacramento for the next several years of my life. Have I exhausted all of my excuses yet? Anyway, thank you very much for that. That's very flattering. But no, I'm not going to I'm not going to run. I would miss being on the radio as well."  (our emphasis)

The "temperament" he's referring to might include his volatility and misogyny. We noted recently that Elder's former fiancee, herself a former sex worker, accused Elder of threatening her with a gun during an argument when she said that he was stoned on weed ("just say 'no' Larry!") He's currently fending off charges that he is a misogynist with a long history of public statements disparaging women. 

There's an outside -- but real -- chance that Elder may squeak by due to California's absurd recall rules. He'd be a disaster in that job, trying to eliminate all of the progressive gains in a generation. Even more ominous, if he's in the Governor's seat should Sen. Dianne Feinstein retire, or worse, he'll appoint a Republican with his same warped views and change the balance of the Senate. The recall, which would have a minority of California voters subvert the elected Dem Governor, is another example of Republicans not being able to win straight up, so they resort to arcane games with election laws when they're not actively suppressing the vote.

(photo: Sarah Weingewirtz / Los Angeles Daily News)

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Ed Hall, Artizans.com)

(Steve Breen, San Diego Union-Tribune)

(Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

(Matt Wuerker, Politico)

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune)

(David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Daily Star)

(Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee)

A belated happy National Dog Day, 2021:

(Joe Dator, @JoeDator)