Week of Trump’s Big Whopping Bill
OH Noem!!!, Student Deports, South Africa, Biden Cancer

Trump then lies by omission about what is in the bill.

Key Trump boast:
…the Bill includes MASSIVE Tax CUTS.

Key lies by omission:
What he neglects to mention is that they are all for his wealthy pals and corporations. Meanwhile, his bill cuts benefits and services to the needy and middle class, including Medicaid and Medicare.

At The Onion, FEMA will now issue a Twister warning, notifying the public whenever the 1996 film is airing.

Key political truism:
In the United States, racism has always gone hand in hand with the concentration of wealth among the very richest people.

The same analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.

If your opponent ignores your negotiation game, just play both positions. Negotiate with yourself. You’re sure to be on the winning side.

Key clinical definition:
Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves.

Julian Sanchez reacts with an interesting question

Brian Beutler makes three important points (generously revealing important parts of what is behind his paywalled article).

JD Vance proposes a national discussion of
whether the former president was capable of doing the job.
Josh Marshal of Talking Points Memo is justifiably puzzled:

Brian has an astute answer:

One example:

Key free press preoccupation:
Not the “free” part but the protection of profits and their own multi-million-dollar gigs.

Key media condition:
Journalism is dead, not the horse, but the profession.

Key blur:
Meanwhile, the current President of the United States, a rambling thin-skinned felon, posts rants in the dead of the night demanding investigations of Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen, insults Taylor Swifts looks, insults Bruce’s skin (?) and seems to be having some sort of mental crisis.

Dave Dubya responds, pointing out that Free expression is a core value of democracy and vital to freedom..

Key complaint:
Not saying an artist, can’t have their opinions, but please I don’t need to hear it at your shows.

Key contrast (Dave):
Mercifully, every country isn’t like Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and other dictatorships.

James Comey, the Director of the FBI during election 2000, goes against every DOJ and FBI rule and issues an official scolding of candidate Hillary Clinton. This provides just enough nudge to give us President Trump.

But Comey FBI Director involuntarily becomes Citizen Comey after refusing illegal Trump orders, then becomes Enemy of America Comey for openly regretting throwing the election to Trump.

Now Comey the Threat is investigated by the Feds for finding, and posting pictures of, a group of seashells arranged as 8647. It turns out 86 doesn’t really mean what we all thought since we were kids. It doesn’t mean discard or throw away.

It now means assassinate.

Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit is watching Trump’s choice for FBI Director.

Kash Patel goes screw seashells. He posts images of himself going after Trump’s targets with a chainsaw.

No seashell threat there, though.

The difference is that this case of lazy thinking has a profound impact on real lives. Trump is seizing control of never before exploited aspects of government.

She includes Trump’s stern instructions to investigators.

Key rage:
He’s investigating everyone. ABC, CBS, Springsteen, Oprah, the Tooth Fairy…

But Vixen begins with this:

PZ Myers devises an easy test to see if you are more qualified than Kristi Noem to be Secretary of Homeland Security.

One clue for those who missed the news item:
Most 7^th grade kids would pass where Sec. Noem failed so miserably.

Key definition (by the (Dear god!) Sec. of Homeland Security):
Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.

It would be more humorous if an individual’s freedom was not at stake.

Key defense of instant refuge status for white Afrikaners (Nick Fuentes):
This is a white country. It was established by white people, founded by white people, built by white people … and up until recently, almost exclusively white people lived here.

Nice!

Key additional quote (Newsmax host):
I think that the end of apartheid in South Africa is going to end up being a liability.

OH!
And this week’s Bubblegum Crucifix Award

goes to JD Vance, who has a restricted ethic regarding religious love.

He notes that now, even without a time machine, they are accomplishing much the same thing.

In a meeting with the President of South Africa, Trump becomes surly. In one of several hostile moments, he flashes a photo of 2000 graves that prove White people in South Africa are the targets of genocide.

Tommy Christopher reflects the overwhelmingly skeptical mass media coverage.

Key accusation (quoting Trump):
I don’t say that is good or bad, but the farmers are not black. And the people that are being killed in large numbers, and you saw all those grave sites, and those are people that loved ones going, I guess on a Sunday morning, they told me to pay respect to their loved ones that were killed. Their heads chopped off. They died violently.

In this case, the creator of the scene depicted in the Trump photo says the image was staged by him as a protest. 2000 crosses over mounds of earth were not actual graves. They were erected as a protest by the neighbor of a slain White farming couple in 2010. That would be 15 years ago. The two perpetrators were caught and convicted.

Key explanation (quoting neighbor Rob Hoatson)
It’s not a burial site, but it was a memorial. It was not a permanent memorial that was erected. It was a temporary memorial.

A Fox Network special report refers to the video as political propaganda.

Key danger:
No, there is no “white genocide” happening, but the writing is pretty clearly on the wall for the future. Murder, torture, and other atrocities against white farmers have been ongoing for years, although South Africa’s overall murder rate is so staggeringly high that such killings don’t stand out as much as they would in most countries; in any case, the use of torture in many of these attacks belies the claim that robbery and not hatred is the main motive.

Key morality regarding potential White South African refugees:
There is certainly no valid reason to judge them uniquely unworthy of coming here, and those who help other refugees but refuse to help them purely because of their race and national origin are the true bigots of the story.

My thought:
My friend Infidel has a well deserved reputation for well targeted research.

tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors reminds us of the importance of standing against antisemitism

Key threat:
It doesn’t matter that this happened in DC or in any other place on the globe. This is what happens when someone takes to heart that demand to “globalize the intifada” —kill any Jews anywhere just because they are Jews.

Key imperative:
If we see a marginalized group being bullied, targeted, assaulted, we all have to stand up and say Not Today, Nazi.

While the right is devouring America, the left is eating its own.

Key distraction:
…the Left has a purity problem, and if we don’t get over it, it’s going to destroy us.

Key self-destruction:
We immediately disqualify potential allies in the name of our personal values or religious beliefs, allowing no gray space for compromise, no personal evolution for people, and no possibility of future alignment with them. We passionately partner in the work of our adversaries.
 
Worse, we easily find ourselves violently fighting with one another over matters that are, in fact, trivial when compared with all that hangs in the balance.

It does bring to mind a long ago visit to my home by the late Joe Crews a radio evangelist a couple of generations ago.

I asked Joe how to reconcile his insistence that the universe was created 6,000 years or so ago with ancient fossils, the resulting oil, and star light from millions of lightyears distance.

He answered simply that God created the earth with the appearance of age, an idea I have since learned originated in the mid‑19^th century.

I responded with what seemed to me an obvious objection. If God had gone through that much trouble to create everything with the appearance of age, it seemed rather unsporting of us not to go along with His divine deceit.

To his credit, Joe was not insulted. In fact he laughed, enjoying my jibe. I liked him.

I dunno about the test Bruce proposes as applied to authors of the Bible. I see much of scripture as a set of entertaining insights told around early campfires by those inspired by wisdom but limited by available knowledge of the times in which they lived.

Seems unfair to judge them according to science not knowable to them.

Still, the quick test suggested by Bruce may still be revealing when applied to current flat earth creationists, especially those who insist that dinosaurs and humans were contemporaries. Does our faith really depend on The Flintstones being a documentary?

Our friend Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes is hosptalized, currently in a bad way.

Key outlook:
There can only be two ways out of here. They say the will to live is the strongest thing in any creature. Here at the front line, I’m not so sure.

Encouragement from friends and readers can’t hurt.

There is an update.

Key determination:
We find weak evidence that more generous insurance coverage increases body mass index. We find stronger evidence that being insured increases body mass index and obesity.

There turns out to be an alternate explanation that the analysis somehow managed to miss. Seems those in 2009 who were wealthy were also more like to be obese. Those same wealthy people were more likely to have insurance coverage in 2009.

Duh!

It all didn’t end that badly for the author of the bogus analysis, though. Trump recently installed him as Director of the National Institutes of Health.