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"Pro-life" crusaders claim to want to stop abortion, yet eliminate access to birth control -- which, as we know, increases the number of abortions

More on this

And more

TYWKIWDBI shares a nice 5-minute informational video on what the USA is doing wrong with the minimum wage

I was posting awhile back about how atrocity stories are used to inflame populations -- buried in this story is such an atrocity story, used to justify stealing infants from the Chinese. I remember many such stories from that era.

What's wrong with sharing these stories?

About those rallies

Long, but worth watching (true of most of Philosophy Guy's work)

Written by my colleagues (in one case, now a former colleague)

Here's a pretty good reading list

Despite the lies Trump keeps screeching at us

The kids are okay; old white Americans? Not so much. (Frankly, this video is just really sad.)

Does everything look alright you dumb fucker? I want that Truck off my lawn. Thor's retirement is not going well. 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/RDBNJ9drs7

— Eugene W (@NOW1SOLAR) August 19, 2019

are you telling me that the guy who ran a scam university and a scam charity and a scam magazine and a scam airline and sold scam mortgages and scam steaks and scam vodka and scam fucking water for fuck's sake, has been running a scam economy? fuck me, I did not see that coming

— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) August 18, 2019

My father is a die hard Fox News watching Trump voter. Let me tell you: it is not a good use of time to try to flip Trump voters. No amount of logic or humanizing or anything else works. Just move on and mobilize and stop voter suppression.

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) August 18, 2019

Heh:

quillette, the other white nationalism

— ᴀsᴄʜ 'demonic ink' ᴄᴏɴꜰᴏʀᴍɪᴛʏ 🍈🍮🥀⚗️🦠 (@AschConformity_) February 27, 2019

Eventually, you know, you gotta ask yourself if we're the baddies:

Oh My God, Tear This Guy Apart

So, you might have heard -- yesterday Obama issued a directive ordering US public schools to allow students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

The Far-Right Conservatives promptly lost their nut.

On my FB page, students I respect, who are intelligent and well-read, good-hearted, but who are conservative Christians, are likewise losing it over this.  Apparently respecting the rights of trans children, well, it's just a step too far.

Too Early?

It's probably way too early to start obsessing over the election.

And yet I am.

Here's the two sites everyone needs if they want to obsess with me!

Real Clear Politics.

Nate Silver.

Y'all have any other suggestions?

Hmmmm....

Teach the Controversy: Obama: a Cactus?

I have to say, Mitch makes an excellent point for once.

"If the president says he is a human being, I'll take him at his word," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday on Meet the Press. "Though I've never heard him complain about being thirsty. Not once. That could be a coincidence, I suppose, but it's really not my place to say."

My President

Well, yeah.

I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure.

In April When The Showers Are Sweet...

...I spend one weekend doing taxes and cleaning house and boxing up excess toys, books, and clothing to give to the poor.  The weather at this point in Arkansas is usually sunny and cool, so the work can be done with windows open, and when I am done, everything is so dustless and spare and with the doom of how much we will have to send the Feds and the State coffers no longer hanging like a axe over my head (we never have a nickel to spare, ever, so that is always a giant axe) confirmed, a clean house is immensely helpful.

Not to mention the sunshine and clear breeze.

This year with all the pollen it is not such a clear breeze -- BUT!

President Obama's tax cuts came through for us!

Well, probably our poverty helped some.  We made two thousand (actual, not adjusted) dollars and change less this year than we did last year; that and the tax cuts meant we got a sizable refund this year, rather than (as was true every single year under Mr. Bush) having to make a  sizable (and I am talking in the 2000/dollar range, when you add state and federal payments together) payment -- and yes, that was a sizable payment in addition to what had already been always deducted from our paychecks.

So!  Good news!

I have to say the relief is enormous, as we have utterly no savings left, and have been, for the past several months, doing the balancing act to get through the last ten days of each month.  (You know that act:  which bill can we put off paying?  Which utility company won't cut us off if we don't pay the full amount and which will?  Is there anything in the cupboard we can eat so that we don't have to go to the store for another two days?  Ooo, look, what's this?  Grits from two years ago?  Do you think those are still good?  What if we cook them up and mix them with an egg, will that count as dinner?)  I've already raided the kid's piggy bank, back when the washing machine broke down, and both of the emergency credit cards are topped off.  What we were going to do if we owed money on our taxes, we had no idea.

Now?  Money coming in the mail!  Hot damn!

We can buy shoes!

Oh, Wow

They passed the bill.

(Re Stupak, btw.)

Herbert Obama

Michael Berube amuses me, as much as anyone can amuse me about what has been happening to what used to be my president, who is rapidly turning into, as Herr Doctor Delagar has started calling him, Herbert Obama (short for Herbert Hoover Obama):

Look, people, the proposed “budget freeze” is not a “freeze.” It’s more of a “chilly wind” or a simple “breeze,” like a “fudget breeze.” It’s not as if Obama gave us all a pony, and then there came a killing frost. The “fudget breeze” will not affect most of your favorite federal programs, such as defense, Medicare, foreign aid, Homeland Security, weapons development, Medicaid, the Pentagon, fruitbat subsidies, Social Security, stuff having to do with veterans’ services, and the Department of Blowing Shit Up.

They's more.

But...But...Why Does Norway Hate America?

Over here, Steve at Washington Post (read the comments, too, which are excellent) gives us a post on the conservative reaction to Obama's winning the Nobel Peace Prize, which, among other odd reactions, has been to insist that Reagan should have won it, or that George W. Bush should have won it (oh hell yeah, see because invading that country that was no threat to us and hadn't done a fucken thing see that counts as liberatin them ignorant savage Iraqis see and as for all that collateral damage which it weren't anywheres near 100,000 no matter what that fucken liberal media over there in England claims and them people still gettin shot and blown up over there and the women still gettin raped and all just shut up why do you hate America always talking about the bad things ain't you hear about the schools we painted and George W. LIBERaTED that country!!1!YEAH! course he should get the Nobel Peace Prize ahead a some appeasen N- uh Barry HUSSEIN Obama.)

Reagan of course should get it because he ended the cold war.  And reduced the size of the government.  And Star Wars.  And entered the world into decades of prosperity.

The really bizarre bit is these tools actually believe all of that.  But, as I have said before, they have been raised, all of them, in a culture that trains them to deny reality, to live in a false world, one their preachers and daddies tell them exists, not the one that is actually all around them, so it's not really all that bizarre, I suppose.

I keep having to struggle with it, just the same.

(While you're over at WP, see also this, which has been cracking me up all week.  Conservapedia Christians get funnier and funnier -- though, as Livia in comments notes, it's an uneasy kind of funny, considering how dangerous some of them also are, with their habit of shooting doctors and blowing up federal buildings and so forth.)

(Here's Fred on the Conservapedia Christian's translation project.  I love Slavktivist so much, mainly & especially for posts like this one, though his snark on the Left Behind books is also delicious.)

(Title of post corrected b/c, having been educated in Louisiana, I am an idiot.)

Obama!

Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize...

And the Right total loses its grip.

Okay, that's not fair. It's not like they've even had a grip for months & months & months.

But my stars, has this sent them over the edge!

The Way That Guy Talks...

Good post over at EoTW on what maybe bothers the Right re Obama's discourse levels.

Cap & Trade

Here's why I like Nate Silver's Blog FiveThirtyEight: ( though this post is actually written by Robert Frank): one of the best and clearest explanations of Cap & Trade and why it's a good plan I have seen yet.

They Ain't Racist!

And besides, feminists are ugly.

That's what's getting said on the Winger Blogs over those specious charges that the Teabag -- oh, excuse me -- the tea-parties -- are an entirely white folks, and an oddly motived event.

What, we wonder, are these whacks protesting? I mean, the bail-outs? Bushco passed those. And the debt? Bushco. And the fucked economy? Your team. So....what's Obama done, again, precisely, that you don't like?

Stimulus package? Most of that was Bush. Ooo, he passed ANOTHER?

Oooo, you mean you just think HE should stop spending money we don't have? On things you don't like? But you were fine with Bush spending money we didn't have?

Or is it PWB you don't like?

Charming!

This link to EotW, I mean, where you can see the Obamas new puppy.

But you must read the comments: the posters have boldly braved the wingnut blogs for us, and come back with what the Right had to say about the puppy.  Have yourself a gigglefest.  It's nearly as cute as the whole Teabag issue.

Jeez, Me Too

Poor Obama.  I know just how he feels.

"Lately, though, it seems like he'd rather talk about the resurgence of Taliban warlords...than the show."

Really, Really Tough

I've been taking a holiday from political blogging, since, you know, we won (yay us!) and it's been eight years, after all, and I'm just worn out.  I thought I'd take a month or two and blog about other things.

But, but, but:

Obama's stimulus package and these Republicans.

The more we hear about this package, the better it sounds -- it's something that could work, it doesn't just feed the rich, it helps those who need help -- look at this: it works to fund education, and that, as anyone with an eye on history can tell you, pays not just now but later.

The contraception hubbub would have been a good deal, as well, since it would have also paid both now and later-- helped poor folks with money issues now, since while rich and middle class people can usually pay for their own contraception, poor people -- those here in Pork Smith, for instance, often, in fact, have trouble finding the cash -- and the whole country with money issues later--

(Fewer poor sick people later to deal with on the public dime -- what's the problem with that plan, can someone tell me?  And this is not even abortion: this is contraception!  Good shit!  Now the Right is against contraception too?)--

But no, the Right would rather make political noise than get the country working.  Fine.

You remember the debates?  You remember McCain with his witty line about how it would be hard for Obama to reach across the aisle from that far to the left?

Who's not reaching across the aisle now?  And why?

Rush is right: they want Obama to fail so badly they don't care if they take the country with him.

Update: Also, what Scott says here, at LGM.

On the Anniversary of Roe V. Wade

See? This is our President!

On this anniversary, we must also recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons: the chance to attain a world-class education; to have fulfilling careers in any industry; to be treated fairly and paid equally for their work; and to have no limits on their dreams. That is what I want for women everywhere

Yay Us!

This one, I must admit, is partly for my brother who used to send me snide emails about how Democrats were no different from Republicans -- our party being funded by really rich tools, just like his, etc:

Barack Obama raised $150 million in September, the largest monthly total any candidate has ever raised for any office in the history of the United States. The previous record was Obama's haul of $66 million in August. The money came from small donors averaging less than $100 each. This approach--many small donors--represents a revolution in fundraising, where previously the goal was to tap a small number of rich donors with many rich friends who could be hit up for money.

It's not just for him, of course. It's also for us -- America. Fifteen days out. Can it be that we might actually pull it off this time?

Obama Again

Sarah Vowell, who wrote Assassination Vacation, which cracked mr. delagar and I up all across the midwest one spring, as we were driving back from the CEA, has a column in the NYTimes today about Obama.

Much like my students, Vowell is from rural America -- Oklahoma, in fact -- and got to the university, apparently, as many of my students do, just barely: she went to the the University of Montana, using a combination of scholarships, loans, Pell Grants, and jobs (so do most of my students): her column talks about the difference the Pell grants made.

Here's my favorite -- well, my nearly favorite -- paragraph:

Every now and then when I have time to kill in Midtown, I duck into the Museum of Modern Art to stare at Van Gogh's "Starry Night." I love looking at the picture, but I also love looking back on when and where and how I first saw it -- on a slide in a first-year art history course[....]a course I paid for, in part with a Pell Grant, a program always and as ever championed by "my senator," Ted Kennedy, a program so dear to Barack Obama's heart that increasing the maximum amount of Pell Grants for needy students was the first bill he introduced upon arrival in the United States Senate.

Without the scholarships and the loans and the grants, where would Vowell be?

For those who don't want government to aid its citizens, in other words, what about people like Vowell?  Go read her book (or listen to it, even better, because it's great to hear her read): tell me we'd be better off telling people like Vowell to find their own boots and yank on those bootstraps.

Bah.  When our society works together, we're all better.