Yep, it is none other than Gym Jordan who tweeted the following complete nonsense on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“First, they came for your guns. Then your gas stoves. Then your gas cars. What next?”

This phrasing is channeling the timeless lament by Martin Niemöller :

“First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

As a reminder, this clueless, sex-crime-ignoring jackass is now one of the most powerful members of the Republican Party.

The body cam video of the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi has now been released. It makes very, very clear how far out of line “conservative” shitheads such as Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, Sean Hannity, and several members of Congress were with their smears, jokes, and speculation. If memory serves, some of the “conservatives” on this forum joined in the merry-making and giggling.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/01/paul-pelosi-attack-footage

Tonga eruption

Initially, because of the large amount of water vapor injected into the atmosphere, the Tonga eruption was seen as a warming event, but now it appears because of the aerosols in the stratosphere, there will be net cooling.

This happened in the Southern Hemosphere so it will take time for the effects to reach here.

I don’t know how this will shake out, and I doubt anyone else does either. It will depend on which lasts longer, the water vapor or the aerosols. In the long run, oceans are cooled or warmed by changes in radiation, not air temperature, so in the long run I suspect this will reset us downward, dwarfing CO2 effects, for decades.

But the effects on clouds are the real wild card.

Click me.

Source: Rand Corporation.

The Rand Corporation has published an analysis that recommends a shift in U.S. policy on the war in Ukraine. Specifically, Rand asserts that avoiding a protracted continuation of the conflict should be America’s highest priority. More significantly, Rand acknowledges that the restoration of Ukrainian territory to the pre-war borders is not a goal the U.S. can or should pursue.

Continue reading “Avoiding a Long War” →

A few weeks back the MAGA-Republicans around here could hardly contain their glee when it was reported – on right wing media – that Hunter Biden had been paying $49,910 a month to his father for rent on the family home. To these giant MAGA minds it was obvious that this was money being funneled from China – or was it Ukraine – to pay off the “Big Guy.” More proof of the “Biden Crime family” conspiracy theory they love so much. Tucker Carlson spent a whole show telling his marks that President Biden had massively cheated on his tax returns by not showing all this rent and that mysteriously the tax returns had disappeared. (They hadn’t.)

And, my oh my did they complain that MSM did not run with the story. More cover-up and conspiracy was the explanation.

Well, guess what? Hunter Biden did not fill out the rent application in question. An assistant did. And the rent referred to on the “smoking gun” application form was the rent Hunter was paying for a posh office in a DC office building -a fact confirmed by his DC landlord.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/jan/19/facebook-posts/hunter-biden-paid-50000-rent-office-space-dc-not-h/

It is worth noting that the New York Post’s Miranda Devine was the main spreader of the false interpretation of the form. She tried to walk it back a few days later but the millions who gobbled up her wrong story ignored her correction. If “Miranda Devine” sounds familiar it is because she is the Murdoch reporter whose “analysis” “proves” that Hunter Biden could not have written his email to a colleague about Ukraine without access to classified materials because – well – just because.

“Third Way hopes to combat the media and political narrative that crime is a Democratic problem, occurring mostly in big blue cities and fueled by lax policies,”

https://www.axios.com/2023/01/27/murder-rate-high-trump-republican-states

Personally, I believe murder rates have little or nothing to do with law enforcement. The law is just the last thing to get involved.

Violence is a weak mind trying to express itself forcefully. Places with high rates of violence are also places with low rates of education. Kids aren’t given the basic skills to mediate disagreements. Whoever can hit the hardest wins the playground arguments. That is the only skill they take into adulthood.

The United States has earned a somewhat shameful reputation:

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has been by far the world’s most dangerous nation. Although Russia is now a contender for that title after last year’s invasion of Ukraine, America has attacked more countries, created more chaos, and caused more civilian casualties than has Moscow even now. For China, one would have to go back a half century to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to find its government causing comparable human harm, and that was to its own population.

I do not think the peoples of the world are unaware of our record or haven’t begun to fear us. Nor do I think that “we the people” of the U.S. ever told our leaders to cause the harm they have caused.

But here we are.

This is a long piece going into the dishonesty and dysfunction of the Barr/Durham efforts to “weaponize” the DOJ to protect Trump and prosecute the “deep state.” If MAGA-Republicans are seriously concerned about the DOJ being misused for political purposes, this Durham fiasco should be a focus of their inquiries.

If you do not have access to the NYT, the picture is clear. Durham is now wrapping up after four years and has found nothing in spite of tactics and sources that were questionable at best. This link may give access if NYT is paywalled.

How Barr’s Quest to Find Flaws in the Russia Inquiry Unraveled

One particularly telling episode was when it was revealed to reporters that the inquiry had morphed into a criminal investigation. Oh My! But, it turns out that the criminal investigation was into financial crimes committed by Donald Trump which the Italian government made known to Durham. What became of that part of the investigation remains undisclosed.

Biden nominee ignorant of Constitution

Of Biden’s 97 judicial appointments, only 5 have been white men.

Perhaps knowing enough about the Constitution to pass a citizenship test would be a better basis for choosing judges than race and gender.