Category: Politics

If Jesus Christ Denounced Trump I Imagine All Hell Would Break Loose

Unbreakable ties that bind.

The New York Times ran a piece bundling up a list of former Trumpers, world leaders, and family members who’ve come out against the decaying orange convicted felon/child rapist. I’m certain you’ve heard most of the comments before. I’m sure we’ll hear more of them, and probably for some not yet on the list.

Yet there are a still too many out there remaining silent, and by doing so still riding the Trump train over an America helplessly tied to the tracks. I only highlight this list as it made me wonder what would happen if we actually had a second coming from Jesus Christ and he intervened in the election to tell folks not to vote for the guy.

I hate to call this MAGAt nonsense a cult, because that removes some of the personal culpability from some caught up in and/or profiting from this twisted nonsense, but I’m guessing there would be a cult-like reaction.

Too many have twisted themselves and scripture into such knots continuing to support Trump that my hunch is that after a brief lurch while everyone took a breath, far too many would quickly move on to disproving and then denouncing Jesus.

I’m not anti-religion and I don’t wish ill on anyone who finds something in their faith that helps them through the night. That said, the folks who’d like to keep us in the dark need some comeuppance from somewhere.

On some imagined plane of existence I can’t say I would be afraid to see this happen. In fact, I’d relish it.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. 

Sam Elliott Gets Down and Dirty with Lincoln Project Ad for Kamala Harris

Let’s just make Sam Elliott the official voice of the Harris/Walz campaign.

There are voices and there are voices. If you’ve ever been in the business of casting an actor for a character or finding a voice for a message you know what that means. You also know when you hit pay dirt. The Lincoln Project did just that with Sam Elliott and his well known and well loved gravely voice over for its latest ad called Choose Change. 

Be warned though, this might not be your grandma’s ad. Call it NSFW, depending on where you work, but you need to call it perfect for the moment.

The ad makers decided to let Elliott say just what those of us who liberally sprinkle the F-word in our descriptions think and say about what’s happening in this country. If you ask me it’s glorious. I’m sure others will think it’s out of line. But then what line are we talking about given what we’re living through? The one for deportations?

The ad also ends with what I think is a great line: “It’s time to be a man, and vote for a woman.” I imagine that’ll piss off more folks than the F-word. If you ask me further, I’d say the Harris/Walz campaign should just sign Elliott up as the voice of the campaign going forward.

Well worth a watch and well worth sharing. Hell, even send it to your grandma. She may not like the language, but for many I’ll be she’ll tell them to suck it up and be a man.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. 

Sunday Morning Reading

There’s no crying in baseball or politics, but there’s always reading on a Sunday Morning.

Time for a little Sunday Morning Reading from a week that was wacky. Politics continues to resemble anything other than politics, new iPhones and Apple software were released, the Chicago Cubs finally quit teasing their fans and dropped out of contention for the playoffs, and everything we associate with this weird world just seems to keep getting weirder.

Things may be weird, and it may feel like It’s enough to make you wish for winter and to curl into a cocoon and isolate yourself. Instead check out Jessica Stillman’s piece This Is What 8 Hours of Social Isolation Does to Your Brain and Body (It’s Not Pretty.)

While we’re talking health, Dave Winer penned this piece, Health Is Nothing To Screw With. Damn straight.

David Todd McCarty looks at how the insignificant details of life can add up to big answers in All Things Great And Small.

Turning the page, (oh, how I want to turn so many pages) to politics check out Jay Willis on how Political Betting Could Soon Be Legal — and It’s the Last Thing This Election Needs. Bet on it.

If you’re like me you might believe that the only thing more troubling than our politics is how our media covers it, check out Jeff Jarvis on How They Have Failed Us.

One of this week’s horror stories in politics was the Mark Robinson story. No one should be surprised by his actions or the  rush to resuscitate what should be a dead campaign. David French says MAGA Wants Transgression. Mark Robinson Is The Result.

95% of what this political moment is all about is race and racism. We’re never going to learn the right lessons in my lifetime. Dustin Arand in Ellemeno learned one. Read What Two Racist Jokes Taught Me About The Nature of Bigotry.

Bots are everywhere. Some are taking your reservation for dinner. As Dwight Silverman asks (he gets the h/t for this piece) what happens when a bot working for you gets a bot on the other end of the line? Check out When You Call A Restaurant, You Might Be Chatting with an AI Host by Flora Tsapovsky.

As has become predictable one of the best places to read about Apple’s new software each year is MacStories. Their reviews are excellent. Check out Federico Viticci’s iOS and iPadOS 18: The MacStories Review. Check out their other reviews as well.

Closing out with baseball, Paul Sullivan looks at the fitting end to the Chicago Cubs season. Why fitting? Because the Cubs started their hero of yesteryear who turned into essentially a guaranteed loss each time he took the mound this season. There’s no crying in baseball. There shouldn’t be this much sentimentality either. Check out A Day In The Life of Wrigley Field At The End Of A Lost Summer for the Chicago Cubs.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

The Project 2025 Song by Jason Kravits

A fun and devastating take down of Project 2025

Jason Kravits has delivered, in the spirit of Schoolhouse Rock, The Project 2025 Song. It’s a devastatingly funny take on this devastatingly dangerous document the Heritage Foundation has compiled to be the centerpiece of the next Trump administration’s agenda. 

It’s done so well, that I’m actually hesitant to link to it here, because it could be viewed as disarming in its charm, making light of something that shouldn’t see the light of day in a sane and rational world. But any way of getting the word out about what the plans actually are is worth the risk. 

Hat tip to good friend and like mind, Mickeleh for pointing to this on Threads.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. 

Sunday Morning Reading

Fall is creeping in and things are creeping me out.

The world continues its whirl, the vultures continue circling, and down here on the ground we keep working hard to turn the tide on the ignorant before it’s too late. Still, it’s time to sit down, breathe and enjoy if you can some Sunday Morning Reading.

Perhaps you aren’t aware of the Second Circuit of Appeals decision rejecting the Internet Archive’s fair use defense. You can check out info on the decision here. Reading beyond that check out Matthew Ingram’s post The Second Circuit’s Decision in the Internet Archive Case is Bad. It is bad news for all of us. As a side note, Matthew has recently struck out on his own and you might want to check out his writing on The Torment Nexus. It promises to be a great place to read about issues in the intersection of technology, media, and, well…life.

Politics, or what passes for it these days, continues to dominate much of our attention even as it gets darker and more stupid with each passing day. Springfield, Ohio found itself the unwelcome center of the political world with all of the talk about eating pets and immigration. Isabel Fattal has a very good piece in The Atlantic titled The Springfield Effect. FWIW I don’t think Springfield is going to catch a break anytime soon, but then neither are the rest of us.

Voting is just around the corner, but the discussions and machinations around it now dominate our lives all the time. Check out Eli Saslow’s 3 Georgia Women Caught Up in a Flood of Suspicion About Voting. 

Sanewashing is just a new name in a long line of new names for ignoring the crazy, idiotic, and dangerous ways of the decaying orange convicted felon/child rapist and his followers. Parker Malloy tells us Why The Atlantic’s Critique of Sanewashing Doesn’t Hold Up. There’s a link to the Atlantic piece in Malloy’s article. When a thing becomes a thing to criticize it becomes just another excuse for ignoring the truth.

There’s sadly a chance of some sort of carnage, physical or psychic, post-election. Certainly there will be political casualties. Perhaps that’s why we should read Ian Rose’s piece The Hidden Value of Vultures. Let’s hope the vultures doing the cleanup are only feasting on those who caused the mess.

Karen Hao takes a look at Microsoft’s Hypocrisy on AI when it comes to Microsoft working with fossil-fuel companies while purporting to fight climate change.

In a world full of what feels like willful ignorance, Daniel R. DeNicola takes a look at Plato’s Cave and the Stubborn Persistence of Ignorance.

Elizabeth Laura Nelson has a very poignant piece called Friends for 16 Years. Lovers for One Night. Don’t let moments and opportunities pass you by.

Before you clear your palette and move on to whatever you move on to, take a brief trip along with NatashaMH to Bangkok City in When The World’s Your Oyster.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

WSJ Seems Shocked That Nutballs are Looming on the Right

Looming Loomer Tunes

For some reason the Wall Street Journal Editorial Pooh-Bahs have just recently discovered that there is a “growing segment of the American Right” that’s gone off the deep end.

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Well, there is a reason. Apparently Trump is hanging out and flying around with right-wing nutball Laura Loomer who is apparently toxic enough to taint part of the great unwashed and possibly influence the thoughts of the decaying orange convicted felon/child rapist. The old guard of crackpot fascists are apparently just fine, but this is a racist crackpot too far.

In an editorial titled Donald Trump and Loomer Tunes the Editorial Board seems to have decided enough might just be enough to quit spinning its own conspiracies in favor of ditching a 9/11 truther like Loomer.

Another favorite quote from the editorial is “Ms. Loomer is usually described in the press as ‘far right,’ but that’s unfair to the fever swamps.”

For goodness sakes, let’s protect the fever swamps from any association with Trump’s rumored new squeeze. Fever swamp dwellers vote too, you know.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. 

The Real Kamala Harris Debate Story

The Kamala Harris debate victory puts all the rest of Trump’s previous opponents to shame.

Kamala Harris wiped the floor with Donald Trump’s comb-over in the debate last night. There’s no disputing her victory. As wonderful as it was watching it, it doesn’t mean there isn’t work to still be done in what continues to be a close election, and perhaps a closer post-election slew of legal fights. But the real story, from a 30,000 foot view is a bigger one.

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) shakes hands with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)

Kamala Harris is the first political candidate to take on Donald Trump in a debate and knock him off kilter, while winning walking away since he emerged as a candidate in 2015. Joe Biden, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Hilary Clinton, and others never bested the bully. They may have scored on points, may have technically been declared the winner, but not one of them knocked him off his stride.  

From the moment she strode across the stage and forced the coward to shake her hand while introducing herself she had him in her grasp. It was a spectacle to behold in these typically less than spectacular events.

Yes, I posted previously that we didn’t need a debate. I won’t say I was wrong then. I will say instead that we needed this moment, whether it was in a debate or not.

Kamala Harris wants to turn the page on this terrible Trump tale. Perhaps she’s also turning the tide. But we still have a ways to go.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. 

Fact of Life

The shooter will always win even if he misses his mark.

J.D. Vance, the moronic MAGAt candidate for Vice President of the United States, in the wake of another school house slaughter says that school shootings are a “fact of life.” Slightly different and thoroughly indifferent to the issue, his comments are in the same vein as previous ones from the decaying convicted felon/child rapist Donald Trump, when he says that we just have to “get over it” when it comes to gun violence.

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Here’s a fact. We’ve allowed this to become a fact of life. We’ve put targets on the backs of our kids each time we let the politicians cave to the gun lobby in the supposed service of the second amendment to the constitution. Vance, in his weird way of pretending to appear honest, can’t say the words that your kid’s life is worthless and worth less when it compares to the rights of gun owners, but that’s what he’s saying.

I’ve discussed this in a thousand ways in thousands of words. Others have too. But talk is cheap when compared to money. And there is always too much talk and always more money. The talk of hardening schools and giving teachers guns, etc… is not only a mythical excuse borne out of stupidity, but it is bullshit blanket meant to hide your head under when you don’t want to solve an obvious problem. If you ignore the leak in your roof long enough, you’ll pay for it down the road.

Here’s a fact. The shooter always wins. Even if the shot doesn’t hit home. Even if the shooter is taken down. The shooter always wins. That’s a fact. Of life and death. I’m surprised we haven’t seen a rise of businesses offering suits of armor for school children. It’s probably the next step. That would be as foolish as the bullet proof backpacks some parents have protected the books their kids can no longer read.

A shot may not kill, but it will scar in ways you can’t imagine if you haven’t been shot at.

Fact: unless you have a gun trained on a potential shooter and are faster to the trigger, any method of stopping a shot is going to fail. You could be packing. You could have an arsenal in your house. You could surround a former president with secret service and other law enforcement protection, competent or incompetent as they may be. A determined shooter will always get off the shot. Unless you don’t allow any guns anywhere close to the event.

In the space between this word and the next, a shooter will win even if he/she doesn’t kill.

The myths have been thoroughly shot through but they won’t die. They linger like old wounds because of a fear greater than that of a parent sending their child to school. The fear that we’ve brought this curse on our children ourselves and we can see no way to solve the problem beyond taking away the guns.

That’s a fact of life.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. 

I Don’t Think We Need A Debate

Why have a debate when we already know what’s going to happen?

The hype machines are running full tilt for next week, whipping up a frenzy of sound and fury that will eventually signify something, but in the end nothing. I’m not talking about the annual run up to Apple’s announcements of new iPhones or the kickoff to the NFL season, both of which generate enough hype to overwhelm their respectve events. I’m talking about the debate between Kamala Harris and the decaying orange convicted felon/child rapist Donald Trump. I just don’t think we need to have a debate.

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Sure debates have been a part of political campaigns since time immemorial. It’s been accepted canon that we need to see how candidates stack up side by side and face to face. But we’ve long since wrung any substance out of these beauty contests in American politics. And this one promises to continue that trend and deepen the trench our politics has fallen into.

Let’s get real. We already know the candidates positions or lack thereof. Nothing new of substance will be announced during a debate. We also already know what the candidates will say of each other. The only suspsense is how Harris will choose to respond to the bullshit Trump will spew all over the stage. We also already know the debate moderators won’t bring up the high stakes that this election is really about. They’ll dance around January 6th and Trump’s stealing of classified material. They’ll also piroutette away from asking directly if Trump wants to dismantle the constitution and serve as a dictator.

It will be left up to the candidates to “fact check” each other, a task that offers no real benefit since Trump gish-gallopped out of Reality TV into this surreal reality we all deal with now. Perhaps, and more importantly, no matter how the debate goes we already know the spin that’s going to be spun in the hours and days after the debate. God could moderate this debate and declare a winner and it wouldn’t matter to most.

What I think also doesn’t matter and I’m guessing I’m not alone. Sure, there might be a relative handful of undecided voters who tune in to see what’s what, but call me cynical, I don’t think I want those folks deciding the future of the country given what we face and what we’re living through.

The debate will happen. Apple will also announce new iPhones and the NFL will kick off another season. It will be a week. And then we’ll move on to the next big thing to over hype, over ripen, wishing it would just be over.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. 

They Shoot Horse Race Journalism, Don’t They?

Close but no cigar, James Risen almost provides and answer.

James Risen, an excellent journalist, dances right up to the point of winning, but then quits dancing instead of leaving it all on the floor in an terrific piece, Why The Media Won’t Report the Truth About Trump.

Decrying the “horse race journalism” of political campaigns, he hits his marks early on saying the deplorable coverage of the twice impeached, four time indicted, once already convicted conmen fronting the GOP party feels like the press has amnesia. He wonders why the crimes and behavior everyone is aware of get such short shrift.

But then he falls back into discussing the history of political coverage from the 1960’s onward through our digital age and media business model pressures. You know that argument, the system is at fault. All of what he lays out so very well is true, especially the part about how the candidates and the campaign professionals take advantage of a the news media’s continued failings.

What he leaves out is a simple truth. The media likes it this way. Regardless of why and how the traditional news media remains stuck in a rut of its own making, it is a choice. An exhausting one surely, but a devastatingly addictive one.

All choices have consequences. As Risen points out there are and will be consequences on the media dance floor when the music stops, especially when you think you’re the one making the music. But there are also deadly dangerous ones for those of us who once thought we could rely on them.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.