My Kid Does Art

A self-portrait for Inktober:

I'm Told...

....that it's my duty to share this tweet, and far be it from me to shirk my duty to free speech, God, and country:

Is it really ok to punch nazis? pic.twitter.com/8w4YYmA81h

— Aamer Rahman (@aamer_rahman) November 6, 2017

The Propaganda Machine Works

An October 3 USA Today/Ipsos poll found that while non-Fox viewers support impeachment by a margin of 51% to 31%, Fox viewers oppose it 71% to 17%. As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz wrote last month, this is why Fox News exists

More here

What's Impeachable about the Phone Call?

In case you're still confused, Vox Media put out a simple and clear explanation. It even gives background on the Biden/Burisma issue. All in less than seven minutes!

More Inktober Art from the Kid

This might be my favorite:

Warren's Rise in the Polls

538 has an interesting post on why Warren is shooting up in the polls. Read it here.

This chart interested me especially:

Her support is rising among moderates and Conservatives as well. I suppose that might be "moderate Conservatives," by which 538 means "not MAGA Americans." So not people watching Fox News; or not people who have lost the ability to differentiate between facts and propaganda.

But still!

(To be perfectly clear, I will vote for a yellow dog if that's what the Democratic ticket runs. Anything but the GOP. We have to votes these liars and thieves out of power. Still, I have to say, I like Warren.)

Yeah

Increasingly sympathetic to the Romans, who were simply resigned to the insanity of a horse in the Senate by this point in their timeline.

— K.B. Spangler (@KBSpangler) October 7, 2019

When You Get Your Information from People

...who are paid to lie to you, well, don't be surprised when they tell you lies:

I no longer hate Hillary Clinton. In the beginning of my journey when I realized I was lied to by conservative media, I researched everything again which included Hillary. She was not the person Hannity made her out to be. I admire her a great deal now. https://t.co/O7Hkjy2E1P

— David Weissman (@davidmweissman) October 5, 2019

Mr. Flyover Guy

You may have seen the post David Brooks wrote, a purported dialogue between "Urban Man" and "Flyover Man." For those of us who actually live in what Brooks considers flyover country, the middle of the country, and for those of us who know white men who support Trump, reading this editorial was an odd experience.

In this lazy piece of writing, Brooks selects one parodic talking point after the next: Democrats want open borders; Trump supporters are hard men who work with their hands while East Coast Liberals are Softies who sit in offices all day; Democrats are Radicals;Trump supporters are just worried about making a living and protecting their Way of Life.

It is clear, from reading this editorial, that Brooks didn't bother to speak to someone from the "Flyover Country" he pretends to have such sympathy with.

But fortunately, in this article, "In the Land of Self-Defeat," we have someone writing about "flyover country" who not only does speak to actual people from the middle of the country, but who is from these parts. Monica Potts is from Arkansas, about 150 west of where I live. I don't know her, but the struggle she talks about, to get more money for the local library, is one we recently went through here in the Fort. (We lost, for the exact reasons she and her town lost.)

...many here seem determined to get rid of the last institutions trying to help them, to keep people with educations out, and to retreat from community life and concentrate on taking care of themselves and their own families. It’s an attitude that is against taxes, immigrants and government, but also against helping your neighbor.

This is an article you should read if you want to understand Trump voters: their determined ignorance, their short-sightedness, their xenophobia, their meanness (in both senses of the word). This is what motivates them. The key line is the one where the woman says they don't need a librarian with a four-year degree, because how hard is it to learn the Dewey Decimal system?

When we were trying to get a quarter-cent increase on property taxes here in Fort Smith so that we could get more funding for the library, the talking point our MAGA Americans put about was why did the library need more funding? The shelves were already full of books.

When we first moved here, I wondered why none of the streets had sidewalks. I wondered why the local parks were so terrible. They've only gotten worse. And recently, of course, the local animal shelter has shut down for lack of funding. Stray animals wander around, sick and starving. Liberals start GoFundMe campaigns to rescue sick kittens, while MAGA Americans rage about how terrible it is that "those people" dump their animals by the highway.

And my students work 30 hours a week while taking care of their little brothers and sisters, or their kids, and carrying a full-time load. But don't worry! If MAGA Americans have their way, soon these students won't be getting a university degree at all. They'll all be working service jobs, for minimum wage, with no health care, and being mocked for living in their parents' basements.

Read the article. See the real MAGA American. See the USA the GOP wants us to live in.

My Kid Does Art

This is today's Inktober Art:

Heh

Elizabeth Warren responds to Jacob Wohl's bizarre claim that she's a cougar:

It's always a good day to be reminded that I got where I am because a great education was available for $50 a semester at the University of Houston (go Cougars!). We need to cancel student debt and make college free for everyone who wants it. pic.twitter.com/fHasLm0j9P

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 3, 2019

No wonder she's shooting up in the polls.

My Big Question...

...is how are these people getting such cheap health insurance?

Ours costs nearly $7000/year with dental and vision, and that's subsidized by the UA system. That's for the family plan. And that is with a serious yearly deductible (nearly $6000 a year) and co-pays on almost everything. As I've noted before, that deductible means, in practice, that we can't really use the health insurance, since we can't afford the co-pays for anything at all.

Apparently we've got really crappy health insurance.

ETA: Or apparently those numbers are bullshit

Donald Trump Tweets

Imagine thinking this will impress anyone.

Now imagine being someone who is impressed by this.

pic.twitter.com/2TfEyp1dHX

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2019

My Kid Does Art

An inkwash for Inktober

Poem

This poem: Link to a more readable version