A few years ago, a pro-choice science fiction author named Patrick S. Tomlinson challenged anti-choicers about their priorities when it came to protecting human life. He set up a straightforward thought experiment in which one is asked to make a snap value judgment about the competing needs of a 5-year-old...
Voter rights legislation is winding its way through Congress with the foregone conclusion that Senate Republicans will scuttle it. Equitable voting rights legislation for blacks in America has been a 400-year exercise in hypocrisy. One man, one vote has been turned on its head so often, Ringling Bros. should have...
Meet Michigan House member Matt Maddock. He’s a Republican who bought into the fiction that a gurgling bucket of Twinkie filling and circus peanut goo couldn’t have possibly lost to that nice man with the infectious smile and conspicuous lack of boat parades. He also thinks fact checkers need to...
The Boom is underway The global energy watchdog revealed that the delivery of renewable energy projects, including windfarms and solar power projects, grew by 45% last year in a step change for the global industry. Wind power capacity doubled over the last year, while solar power grew by almost 50%...
“A GIANT PULSATING MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE” Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden,...
I was raised Lutheran i.e. by the doctrine of Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, and Sola Scriptura. The only part of which spoke to me was that my neighbour needed more of my “good” deeds than god, being omnipotent that made sense, the rest not so much. I was aware of...
A new book suggests now the necessity of reexamining the historical materialist project of Walter Benjamin recognizing those moments of historical contact as acts of recognizing the constructed historical object. “Historicism tends to be hermeneutic because it values cautious, rigorous, and contextualized interpretation of information; or relativist, because it rejects notions of universal, fundamental...
Apparently John (no relation) Kennedy (R-LA) may endorse those sober drivers who run over demonstrators in Oklahoma, because a guy who “went to Oxford” should know something about logical fallacies. x Hours after America's second mass shooting in a week, Sen. John Kennedy downplays the gun problem by noting that...
We remain weary about the callow stupidity of the GOP/GQP but we must not patronize or condescend about how superfluous their grievances have been and continue to be. Now that we know more about Trump’s sexual practices, fascist fantasizing seems altogether rote and boring, but certainly redolent of a banality...
Truly a tool, as the Inspector General reports are coming and Previous Guy’s going to be in the barrel. Donald Trump was a tool in a long-running Russian campaign to weaken the United States. That’s been documented in Republican-led investigative reports, and now it has been updated with new evidence, thanks to the U.S....
The GOP hunt for unicorns continues as only the southern border seems to leak Middle Eastern terrorists (not). This fiction was floated during the “caravan” scare pimped during the midterm election and is a continuation of the “Muslim Ban” from the first month of the Trump regime. “Sir Lanka” (whoever...
There’s really only one Ted that’s applicable to an unconfirmed source trying to connect Greta Thunberg with the Unabomber and that’s Ted “Zodiac Killer” Cruz. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has mocked Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) after he criticized President Joe Biden‘s decision to rejoin the Paris climate agreement. “So happy that USA has finally...
Because “something bad happened”, the Wall Street Journal has the criminal solicitation tapes: The anti-Slenderman wants you to overturn an election because who would believe that he’d suborn racketeering, or election fraud, or bribery. Cocaine Bear is getting worried the wolf is at the door with that indictment, because Merrick Garland is...
Recovering memory and historical revisionism in sex work might be the sad product of many repressive regimes. What becomes worse is the complicity of academic institutions in white-washing crimes against humanity. Harvard is no stranger to items like Alan (buddy of Jeff Epstein) Dershowitz’s attempt to move the statutory rape...
This is why they lie. Because they get away with it—and it works. GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, who earlier this week questioned Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s personal account of the Capitol insurrection, is now soliciting funds based on her lies. Now, the coup attempt that we all saw with our own...
The losing continues with a 35% decline in revenues for 47 entities as Ahab returns to his white whale. Banks are bailing out on Trump as loans will be coming due. “Trump’s dealings with Seven Springs are the focus of two state-level investigations, by the Manhattan district attorney and the...
M-i-c-k-e-y, Why because we like it. M-M-MMT. “We collectively decide just what counts as a resource, economic base, or productive work.” OTOH, it could all be trippin’ on bong hits. The superlative science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel, The Ministry For The Future, is essentially about using MMT to...
Can enraging Georgia voters about a lost election actually spur GOP turnout in Georgia. The Trumpist cognitive dissonance is strong with them, much like Trump’s claim that he couldn’t possibly have lost because he got more votes than in 2016. x I think a lot of people are overestimating the...
Barr Is Said to Be Weighing Whether to Leave Before Trump’s Term Ends Attorney General William P. Barr is considering stepping down before President Trump’s term ends next month, according to three people familiar with this thinking. One said Mr. Barr could announce his departure before the end of the...
The name of the anonymous author of op-eds criticizing the operation of the White House, is Former DHS chief of staff @MilesTaylorUSA ), but in the scheme of October Surprises this is a footnote. More important matters are whether one of five swing states can be won by Biden/Harris. x Thread....
As usual GOP/Trumpian evidence makes no sense and given the Impeachment, will not make a difference. Some of us have held out hope for Tara Reade to make an appearance. x Trump aides have been telling people that the big surprise in store for tonight's debate is he's bringing Tony...
In place of a nationwide policy of social distancing measures, it might be a tough sell to put in place “a risk-based ‘alternative public health approach’ to the COVID-19 pandemic that involves “focused protection” of those most at risk and seeks to avoid or minimize the “social harm” of lockdown”. That’s the goal...
Stuart Spittle, the incredible shrinking candidate, was spinning the hits last night in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Lies that have long since been debunked were pulled out of the couch cushions, denuded of dustballs and cat hair, and fed to the only people dumb enough to accept candy from a creepy old...
Industry concentration and monopolization have become boring and technical so the exploitation of labor now gets a meme-term from Zephyr Teachout that sounds more like a QAnon conspiracy: chickenization. COVID-19 does have something to do with it considering the acceleration of the pandemic in meat production centers. It involves something more akin...
Governor Steve Bullock (D. MT) has been kicking Trump’s ass lately. First, there was this: A federal judge ruled Friday that the Trump administration's leading steward of public lands has been serving unlawfully and has blocked him from continuing in the position. U.S. District Judge Brian Morris said U.S. Bureau...
Trump won in 2016 by running an insurgency campaign. Hillary was the epitome of the liberal elite who had taken over government and were using it to make us pay reparations to Blacks, to make every woman get an abortion, to …. well, insert your own QAnon screed. Trump was...
“Let's understand what this is: Donald Trump has confessed, on tape, to the greatest and most deadly lie in all the long history of the United States bar none.” — Steve Schmidt #TrumpLied200KDied Trump creates a new term, the opposite of downplaying — “up-playing”, because BS is too smelly. Trump doubled down...
I don’t tell many lies. Sometimes I fudge my responses a bit when talking to my psychiatrist. Like, I’ll tell her I’m exercising regularly to improve my mood, when by “exercising” I actually mean “eating Corn Nuts.” So it’s not that tough to keep track of my little white lies....
The RNC has become GOP meta, political fantasies laid upon an unintended sequence of failed actions in reality. What if Trump could ignore history, science, and rationality and yet remain IMPOTUS. Tonight’s event consisted of stunts: a pardon, a naturalization ceremony, and a Secretary of State who wants not only the Rapture,...
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy answered the leading question by Republican Congressman Paul Gosar in a manner that flattened his accusation against Democrats. Postmaster General embarrassed Congressman x x YouTube Video Watch the full episode here. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is at Congress testifying before the House Oversight and Reform Committee,...
An excellent speech pairing small details like “muzzle” with “mask”, carrying throughout the imagery of light and dark, and tight in length. It was well crafted and well-delivered. The peroration built on a poem and was a perfect match in tone and cadence to Biden’s regular speeches, complete with reproducible soundbites...
HuffPost senior White House correspondent S.V. Date boldly asked Trump if he regretted all the lies he's told Americans for 3+ years. Trump asked about his lies. x x YouTube Video Watch the full episode here. The question is why did it take so long before a reporter got the...
Full disclosure: I actually interviewed Ted Nugent once, years ago, when I was working for — ironically — an entertainment publication. I asked him about the time he told an interviewer that former U.S. attorney general Janet Reno was “worse than Hitler.” He defended that, somehow. He quickly ended the...
Legendary NY newspaperman and writer Pete Hamill passed away today, at the age of 85. He had health issues in recent years, and had complications from recent medical treatment. Pete was someone I knew, albeit not well. In the period of the end of the 60s into 1971 I would...
Recently, Joy-Ann Reid, host of the new show The ReidOut. appeared on The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell. She explained how we got out failed, president. Joy-Ann Reid prescient statement on Trump. x x YouTube Video Watch the full episode here. Joy-Ann Reid said it was complicity across the board that gave Donald...
In his latest screed, Trump made the usual nonsense claims, hoping to gain support from independents who might be afraid of PoC and poor people. Because no one’s heard of the FHA, Trump wants people in McMansions to vote for him, even if his claims about higher home prices is more about...
Donald Trump and his Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have been threatening schools to coerce them into fully opening. New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza's response ridiculed Trump. NYC Schools Chancellor ridicules Trump x x YouTube Video Watch complete episodes here. This is how one deals with an incompetent...
Paul Krugman has done it again. His latest column combines the erudition of a Nobel laureate with the plain speaking of an excellent writer: A Plague of Willful Ignorance. A hundred years ago, he writes, there was a plague of pellagra disease in the South. A doctor working for the...
Trump got stuck dealing with his approval of Uighar concentration camps while also signing their condemnation in the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act. Another screw up like Bunker Boy’s street-clearing stunt, and Trump as usual attacks to divert attention. An angry Trump has spent a number of tweets attacking John Bolton. x...
Trump’s revanchism now manifests itself in the second attempt by Trump to recycle old grievances, mainly from ”Obamagate” first proposed in 2017. Because Trump’s history has always been all about trying to seize land for his domain or at least dominionists, he’s incapable of understanding historical consequences. For Trump, he has yet...
Desperate times bring desperate versions of “-gate” memes. Yesterday Trump refused to articulate what he thought Obamagate might be, because he knew it was stupid. Obstruction of justice continues in the Trump regime. Anything to distract from the financial records cases before SCOTUS. x I’ll explain today in the 4p ET...
Toasters, haircuts, and tattoos are what everyone wants now. Todd thinks sanitizer will mess-up his mani-pedi, maybe only at Costco. Likely Starnes would like that toaster thrown in Grover Norquist’s bathtub. At least 78,000 Americans are dead from Covid-19 and there is no end in sight. Many who have recovered...
Received this e-mail today from presidential candidate, Joe Biden, on behalf of the Wisconsin Democratic Party: We’re fighting for the soul of America. If we give Donald Trump another four years in the White House, he will fundamentally alter who we are as a nation. The road to the White...
Below is a collection of things that I’ve been saving up — including the problems of CV-19, MMT, neoliberalism, and other things relating pandemics to the economy. If there’s a point to this selection it is to remind ourselves what will happen in 2021 with Larry Summers now advising the Biden...
Anyone who has spent even a few minutes watching Trump at one of his daily Coronavirus press briefing campaign rallies has undoubtedly heard Trump crow about his singular supposed achievement: courageously imposing a travel ban on passengers traveling from China. It is his all-purpose answer to a question on any...
2020 will again be about margins in marginal areas. x Here is Trump's approval rating in each of the 50 states converted into Electoral College format, via @Civiqs. https://t.co/I9N8fmN4KT pic.twitter.com/VvtJjC8NzT— Matt Rogers (@Politidope) April 7, 2020 One would be optimistic but we know how that optimism failed in 2016. x...
Matthew Yglesias from Vox has a great piece out covering Joe Biden’s recent interview on Meet The Press with Chuck Todd. It was a sobering reminder of what a real leader looks like in a time of crisis. This particular part really sticks out: x As president, I will always...
UPDATE press holding for daily COVID taskforce briefing following CARES act signing ceremony. x YouTube Video 5pm ET will supposedly feature the daily WH COVID-19 briefing, featuring a Trump stand-up warm-up. Trump's “jack-(w)hole of government”approach means he’ll be doing the relief act signing because he wants to pretend he’s in...
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that...
This is the sort of story that, if someone tried to sell it as fiction, they would be laughed out of every agent’s office as simply not believable. After stopping at the CDC on his way to Mar-a-Lago, Trump heads to the golf course two days in a row President...
